exploitation

2025. Vol.10. №2.

Fight against hunger in the philosophy of Russian cosmism: From Vasily Chekrygin to Vladimir Vernadsky

Jul 27 2025

Gacheva A.G. Fight against hunger in the philosophy of Russian cosmism: From Vasily Chekrygin to Vladimir Vernadsky // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2025. V.10. №2. P. 37-62.

EDN: AFTTUR

Annotation

The article continues the discussion about the ways to fight against hunger suggested in the philosophy of Russian cosmism. Thus, the idea of overcoming hunger through the common cause is presented in the works of V. N. Chekrygin and his treatise On the Council of the Resurrection Museum. The author considers practical proposals of N. F. Fedorov and his followers — A. K. Gorsky, N. A. Setnitsky, V. N. Muravyov — related to the ideas of artificial rainmaking and of turning the army into a natural-science force, focusing on their place in the “economy of regulation” developed by Russian cosmism. The article presents the approaches of Gorsky, Setnitsky and Muravyov to the issues of labor and their visions of the culture of the future, emphasizing that, unlike A. M. Gorky’s and biocosmists’ Prometheistic interpretation of regulation, Gorsky, Setnitsky and Muravyov followed Fedorov in defining regulation as a personal religious duty to fulfill the commandment of “possessing land” and cultivating world to transform it into the Kingdom of God. The author considers the ideas of the natural-science branch of cosmism presented by N. A. Umov, K. E. Tsiolkovsky, V. I. Vernadsky and A. L. Chizhevsky, who defined the human mind as a key agent in world development and the creator of the noosphere, thus, interpreting hunger as a noospheric task.

Keywords

Philosophy of cosmism, problem of hunger, exploitation, regulation, science, economy, legacy of N. F. Fedorov, cosmists’ projects of the 1920s–1930s, A. K. Gorsky, N. A. Setnitsky, V.N. Muravyov, biocosmism, V.N. Chekrygin, treatise On the Council of the Resurrection Museum.

About the author

Anastasia G. Gacheva, DSc (Philology), Leading Researcher, A. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Head of the Center for Cosmism Studies, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences; Chief Librarian, N. F. Fedorov Moscow Library No. 180. Povarskaya St., 25A, bld. 1, Moscow, 121069.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Submitted Tuesday, 27 August 2024
Reviewed Tuesday, 01 October 2024
Copyright © Auhtors, 2025
Distribution Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

2025. Vol.10. №2.

Collectivization and socialist agriculture (1917– 1992): Revised comparison of the Soviet and EastEuropean experience. Part I. Soviet collectivization under Stalin (1925–1953)

Jul 27 2025

Merl S. Collectivization and socialist agriculture (1917–1992): Revised comparison of the Soviet and East-European experience. Part I. Soviet collectivization under Stalin (1925–1953) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2025. V.10. №2. P. 6-36.

EDN: ADGDWI

Annotation

Literature on collectivization in Eastern Europe presents an outdated picture of Soviet collectivization close to Stalin’s interpretation, and literature on Soviet collectivization ignores alternative policies to promote forced industrialization in countries with predominantly small-scale peasant farms. Before discussing collectivization and socialist agricultural policy in Eastern Europe, the author examines collectivization in the Soviet Union under Stalin, combining this analysis with some methodological reflections on the approach and central terms applied. Then the author focuses on the entangled comparison of collectivization and socialist agricultural policy after the World War II in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to thoroughly reassess this policy by answering the following key questions for the assessment of socialist agricultural policy: whether enforced collectivization was necessary or harmful for industrialization; whether Stalin’s collectivization aimed at modernization of the agrarian sector at all; why socialist agricultural policy, after liquidation of private farms during collectivization under Stalin and Khrushchev, since the late 1970s in almost all socialist countries returned to supporting private small agricultural production. In addition to focusing on the decisive turning points of the agricultural policy, the author keeps the whole period in view, distinguishing the following phases with basically different political approaches: (1) collectivization under Stalin as based on class war and peasant subjugation to transfer capital from agriculture to industry; (2) collectivization under Khrushchev striving to complete it, although this policy was basically put in question (in 1953 in the Soviet Union and in 1957 in the GDR and Hungary); (3) efforts to stabilize the economically weak collective farms in the 1960s after finishing collectivization and replacing Khrushchev; (4) the final turn to modernization of agriculture expecting economies of scale through different concepts of industrialization in the 1970s; (5) the failure of these concepts causing a cost trap and enforcing the rehabilitation of small-scale private agriculture in the 1980s. The first part of the article shows how Stalin in 1929 turned collectivization away from modernization goals, which made collectivization an end in itself, enforcing the diversion of resources from agriculture to industrialization. Stalin did not trust the peasants and ignored their great capacities of increasing production, which made members of collective farms forced laborers with limited civil rights. Mechanization ensured primarily state control over agriculture and prevented an increase in yields.

Keywords

Collectivization of agriculture, Stalin, Khrushchev, socialist agriculture, mechanization, kolkhoz system, industrialization of agriculture, modernization, Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, small peasant farms, Chayanov, economies of scale, private plots, social differentiation, exploitation, myth of infallibility, Litsom k derevne.

About the author

Stephan Merl, DSc (History), Professor, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstr., 25, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Submitted Friday, 10 January 2025
Reviewed Sunday, 02 February 2025
Copyright © Auhtors, 2025
Distribution Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

2024. Vol.9. №3.

Nikolai Setnitsky and Alexander Chayanov: On ideals, exploitation, non-capitalist systems and regulation of nature

Oct 25 2024

Nikulin A. M. Nikolai Setnitsky and Alexander Chayanov: On ideals, exploitation, non-capitalist systems and regulation of nature // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2024. V.9. №3. P. 47-72.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2024-9-3-47-72

Annotation

The author conducts a comparative biographical analysis to consider the social-philosophical and political-economic views and the interdisciplinary intellectual heritage of the remarkable Russian scientists N. A. Setnitsky and A. V. Chayanov on the ideals of social development, features of capitalist and non-capitalist economic systems, issues of regulating the relationship between man and nature in the 1920s–1930s. The article identifies the fundamental worldview ideas of the “agrarian-relativist” Chayanov and the “apocalyptic cosmist” Setnitsky, which determined their theoretical-methodological approaches to the cognition and transformation of reality, focusing on the comparative analytical assessment of their utopian and futurological forecasts and projects. The author concludes about the significance of the intellectual heritage of Setnitsky and Chayanov for the study of contemporary political, economic and environmental issues in Russia and the world.

Keywords

N. A. Setnitsky, A. V. Chayanov, capitalism, non-capitalist systems, city, village, exploitation, nature, utopia, cosmism.

About the author

Alexander M. Nikulin, PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Vernadskogo Prosp., 82, Moscow, 119571, Russia.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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