Kedrov N.G. Yury Moshkov in the historiography of collectivization // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №3. P. 76-96.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-3-76-96

Annotation

Article is devoted to the analysis of works of known Russian agrarian historian Ju. A. Moshkov. The author considers its works in a context of evolution of a Russian historiography of collectivization. The author notices that Moshkov has appeared for the first time on a proscenium of a historical science during epoch of «thaw». It was the major period in formation of a problematics of history of the Soviet society. Then, Soviet historians offered the research program of studying of agrarian transformations to the USSR as objective process of formation of a socialist way of production. Moshkov’s book «The Grain problem in years of continuous collectivization of agriculture in USSR» has played the most essential role in realization of science tasks of this program. The author analyzes the ideas of Moshkov’s book in a comparative context. He compares them both with concepts a Stalin’s historiography, as with the audit of the last offered by agrarian historians of an epoch of «thaw». In particular, it is underlined, that Moshkov’s work promoted revision in a Russian science: the reasons grain crisis in 1927/28 year, a question on the top chronological border of the New Economic Policy, estimations of results of collectivization. Thanks to it, Moshkov became one of the central figures in the Soviet agrarian historiography. Also, the author considers tracks of the following perception of the Moshkov’s works in the historiography. Moshkov participated in historiographic revolution of 1990th years. However, the results of this scientific revolution retouched the previous ideas of the scientist. Owing to it, influence of its works on development of modern researches of collectivization to the full is not estimated now yet.

Keywords

Soviet historical science, agrarian historiography, Ju. A. Moshkov, collectivization, kolkhoz system

About the author

Kedrov Nikolay G., PhD (History), Research Fellow, Vologda State University; 15 Lenina St., Vologda, 160000, Russia
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Savinova T.A. The organization-production school in 1917 // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №3. P. 57-75.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-3-57-75

Annotation

The article is based on new and well-known scientific sources on the work of economists of the school in the League of Agrarian Reforms and Main Land Committee of the Provisional Government aimed at developing the agrarian reform. The author identifies the milestones in the work of these organizations from their establishment to the liquidation. In the brief historiography based on the archive data, the author considers the participation of the school in the founding congress of the League and SLC, in the work of the Executive Committee and Council of the League, and in the second congress of the League and SLC held after the July events in Petrograd. The author studied the work of economists in the key commissions of the SLC on redistribution of the land fund. The statistical and economic reports of N.P. Makarov and A.N. Chelintsev were examined to identify their roles in the reforms. The author reveals the reasons to destroy the data of the all-Russian agricultural and land census, the causes of the incompleteness of the reform, and the fates of its organizations. Based on the new archive sources the author considers the structure, work and liquidation of the Department of Agricultural Economy and Policy of the Ministry of Agriculture headed by A.N. Chelintsev.

Keywords

history of the Russian revolution, agrarian reform, League of Agrarian Reforms, Main Land Committee, agricultural census, A.N. Chelintsev, A.V. Chayanov, N.P. Makarov, A.A. Rybnikov

About the author

Savinova Tatyana A., PhD (Economics), Head of Organizational-Methodical and Personnel Work Chair, Russian State Archive of Economy; 119992, Moscow, B. Pirogovskaya St., 17.
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Shornikov E.I. Game theory: Models of conflict situations in the Volga villages of the early XX century // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №2. P.  90-100.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-2-90-100

Annotation

The article considers the applicability of game theory for the study of conflicts in peas­ant communes in the first half of the XX century. Game theory models can explain peas­ant motives and behavior and reconstruct the decision-making in the commune under the conflict. Game theory can become a part of the historical analysis for it is an inter­disciplinary approach that can reveal the logic of endogenous behavior within the com­mune and its interaction with external institutions and actors. The author provides dif­ferent definitions of game theory and considers its potential for the analysis of peasant life. The article defines principles and prerequisites for constructing a mathematical model of the peasant commune behavior under the conflict, and factors that motivate peasants to follow a certain line of actions and to choose specific strategies in differ­ent situations. The main problem of the game model is the dependence of each ‘player’ on the actions of other ‘players’. The author presents a cognitive mathematical model based on the clash of interests of a manager (willing to increase economic efficiency) and a commune (willing to ensure justice on the principles of a moral economy and ethics of survival). Thus, the author identifies transactional and information functions of peasant revolts.

Keywords

peasant community, game theory, conflict, revolution, frankpledge, mathematical model, violence, survival ethics

About the author

Shornikov Evgeny I., Postgraduate Student, School of Public Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Russia, 119571, Moscow, prosp. Vernadskogo, 82.
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Potekhina E. Everyday life of a peasant old-believer (based on the manuscript “Rite of Confession”) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №2. P. 77-89.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-2-77-89

Annotation

The article attempts to complement the image of the life of villagers who dwelled in Old Believers’ communities in Masuria, Poland which has so far been presented in the ac­ademic literature of the subject. The life of priestless (bezpopovtsy) Old Believers at the turn of the 19th and 20th century was regulated on the basis of church laws. One of such documents was “A Rite of Penance”, which a nastavnyk (a preceptor elected by the community) followed while performing the sacrament of confession. The current analysis concerns a manuscript from the former Saviour and Holy Trinity monastery in Wojnowo, Masuria. The main part of the manuscript was written as a collection of questions which allow the researcher to explicate the system of orders and permissions encompassing all spheres of life of an individual member of Old Believers’ community. The form of the text was conditioned by its character and purpose. The questions were structured with the use of a particle “li” which requires an unambiguous positive or negative answer in every question. The text analysis was performed applying the procedure of profiling. While profiling, the author did not take into consideration dogmatic questions directly re­ferring to the Christian teaching in the priestless Old Believers’ strains.

Keywords

Old Believers in Poland, book heritage of the monastery in Wojnowo, sacrament of penance, social history of village religious community, profiling of text

About the author

Potekhina Helena, Dr habil., Associate Professor, Head of Department of Slavic Linguistics at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn (Poland). ul. Michała Oczapowskiego 2; 10–719 Olsztyn.
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Merl S. The pre-1941 local administration in the Soviet countryside: How effectively it worked, and what rules of political communication followed to prevent peasant rebellions // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №2. P. 53-76.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-2-53-76

Annotation

When it comes to the local administration in the Soviet countryside, we see a surprisingly uniform picture in the historical research—the so-called “rural undergovernment”. In the article, the author questions this perception and shows how strongly it was influenced by the official discourse, i.e. of the 1930s Stalin’s interpretation. The author believes that rural administration, on the contrary, functioned as it was designed to, and that its obvious incompetence was the most important part of Stalin’s strategy of governance. To understand the functioning of rural administration on the eve of the German occupation, we have to consider the decisive changes in the local management that took place under the collectivization in the 1930s, and the real aims of the state, i.e. Stalin’s dictatorship. The local administration was not limited to purely bureaucratic tasks but had to solve specific economic and political problems to keep up political stability. To evaluate the efficiency of rural administration we have to consider first the political priorities of the regime for even economic inefficiency and the abuse of office could be inevitable by-products of a highly efficient system of keeping up the regime. After the German occupation, it became evident that rural administration was not suitable to deliver what the new rulers expected: to deliver just grain. The author starts with a chronology focusing on the significant ruptures affecting the local rural administration between the mid-1920s and the German occupation in 1941. The second part of the article discusses what the state under Stalin really wanted the local administration to achieve. The third part of the article considers the bases of the rural management in the second half of the 1930s to reveal the intersection of the Party, the state and state security apparatus interests in the countryside. In the conclusion, the author presents his general findings, pointing out as well why the German Occupational Regime failed to take as much grain as Stalin’s administration before.

Keywords

local administration, Soviet countryside, incompetence, “rural undergovernment”, German occupation, Stalin’s dictatorship, political and economic aims, efficiency

About the author

Merl Stephan, DSc (History), Professor, Bielefeld University. 25 Universitätsstr., 33615, Bielefeld, Germany.
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Kuznetsov I.A. Alexei Fedorovich Fortunatov and the development of Peasant Studies in Russia in the late XIX — early XX centuries // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №1. pp. 66-89.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-1-66-89

Annotation

The article considers the biography and works of the Russian agricultural economist  and statistician A. F. Fortunatov (1856–1925), and focuses on the paradoxical duality  of the contemporaries’ estimates of this scientist as an empirical researcher and at  the same time as a bright thinker. The author traces the influence of Fortunatov’s ideas  on the formation of the ideology and theory of “social agronomy”, his contribution to  the theory of non-capitalist economy, his new forms and methods of teaching “agricultural  economy” and statistics, which became the intellectual preconditions for the development  of the “organization-production approach”. Based on the archival data the  author claims that Fortunatov introduced the term “biological technology”; emphasizes  the unique ideological position of Fortunatov, who was an expert in the theoretical and  empirical shades of marxism, liberalism and populism in the agrarian question, and an  adherent of populism who never expressed his personal criticism or approval of the turbulent  social-political changes and reforms in Russia in the early XX century. The article  identifies the milestones in the research and teaching career of professor Fortunatov,  considers the encyclopedic diversity of his interests and publications, however sometimes  of too propaedeutic-popular character. The author believes that Fortunatov was  an outstanding teacher of the Russian higher school, and his grateful students can be  found not only among a number of famous professors of the organization-production  school, but also among hundreds and even thousands of Russian agrarians — famous  and unknown, who made a significant contribution to the modernization and development  of rural Russia in the first half of XX century. One of the key achievements of Fortunatov  is that he reconsidered the object of the Russian agrarian economics and reoriented  it from the organization of large private farms to the study of peasant economy.

Keywords

history of agrarian-economic thought, theory of peasant economy, social agronomy, organization-production school, A. F. Fortunatov, Petrovskaya Academy

About the author

Kuznetsov Igor A., PhD (History), Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, prosp. Vernadskogo, 82.
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Rodnov M.I. Large agribusiness of the Ufa Province (the second half of XIX — early XX century) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №1. pp. 51-65.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-1-51-65

Annotation

In the second half of XIX — early XX century in the Ufa Province there already was (as part of the mixed regional economy) large agribusiness, at first only in the form of nobles’ latifundia. Later merchants (urban entrepreneurs) started active investments in the agricultural production, although until the end of the empire the merchants’ agricultural enterprises had not surpassed in scale those of the nobles. At the same time, both peasant farms and large enterprises of rural entrepreneurs developed rapidly. The article considers the general statistical information on landlord, merchant and large peasant (virtually farmers) enterprises of American type, and presents some examples of the most outstanding agricultural enterprises of landlords, merchants and peasants. The author believes that after the abolition of serfdom there were two obvious tendencies in rural Russia — on the one hand, the collapsing landlord economy, on the other hand, quite successful integration of a number of large landed estates into capitalist agricultural production together with even more impressive growth of merchant and large peasant capitalist agricultural enterprises. All this indicates a significant potential for the development of large capitalist agricultural enterprises in post-reform Russia, which the author considers on the example of the Ufa Province to re-evaluate the prospects of the large agricultural production in the Russian history. 

Keywords

agriculture, large agribusiness, landlord economy, mixed economy, agricultural enterprise, the Southern Urals, the second half of XIX— early XX centuries

About the author

Rodnov Mikhail I., DSc (History), Senior Researcher, Institute of History, Language and Literature, Ufa Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 450054, Republic of Bashkortostan, Ufa, October prosp., 71.
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Savinova T.A. “…The case will be over by me preferring Saratov…” // Russian Peasant Studies. 2016. V.1. №1. P. 167-170

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2016-1-1-167-170

Annotation

This publication introduces into the scientific discourse two letters of Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov to Nikolai Pavlovich Makarov, which help to clarify one episode of his biography related to the choice of a place of teaching and scientific work in 1917.

About the author

Savinova Tatyana A., PhD (Economics), Chief Researcher at the Personal Funds Department of the Russian State Archive of Economy. 17, Bol'shaya Pirogovskaya Str., Moscow, 119435.
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Il’inykh V.A. The star and death of Siberian grassland farming // Russian Peasant Studies. 2016. V.1. №1. P. 93-121

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2016-1-1-93-121

Annotation

В статье рассматриваются попытки внедрения в Сибири травопольной системы земледелия в контексте аграрной политики советского государства и идейно-теоретической борьбы в агрономической науке. В начале ХХ века в Сибири возникла угроза перехода от парозалежной системы земледелия к трехполью, что могло привести к кризису сельского хозяйства региона. К середине 1920-х годов ведущие специалисты земельных органов, партийные и советские руководители края полагали, что предотвратить кризис можно, лишь внедрив травопольную систему земледелия. В начале 1930-х годов от травополья отказались, поскольку предполагаемое увеличение посевов трав противоречило задаче решения зерновой проблемы. Забвение агротехнологических основ земледелия в период коллективизации привело к падению плодородия почв, в связи с чем в 1937 году было принято решение о переходе к травопольной системе в большинстве регионов страны. Прерванное Великой Отечественной войной внедрение травополья возобновилось в конце 1940-х годов. После начала кампании по освоению целины травополье было объявлено малоэффективным и ведущим к сокращению посевов зерновых. В итоге произошел повсеместный отказ от травопольной системы, следствием чего стало сужение кормовой базы животноводства и снижение плодородия почв. После за- вершения целинной кампании возрождения травополья не произошло — ставка была сделана на более интенсивные технологии и химизацию земледелия.

Keywords

agricultural policy, farming systems, grassland farming, agricultural engineering, collective-state farms system, Siberia

About the author

Il’inykh Vladimir A., D. Sc (History), Head of the Department of Agrarian History of the Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences. 8 Akademika Nikolaeva Str., Novosibirsk, 630090.
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Contemporary Peasant Studies, and Agrarian History of Russia in the XX Century. Round table. // Russian Peasant Studies. 2016. V.1. №1. P. 68-92

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2016-1-1-68-92

Annotation

This publication is a transcript of the round table dedicated to the presentation of the book “Contemporary Peasant Studies, and Agrarian History of Russia in the XX Century” that took place on March 18, 2016 at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences within the XXIII International Symposium “The Paths of Russia. North–South”. The book consists of the materials of the theoretical seminars “Modern Theories of Agrarian Development” that worked in 1992–2000 under the direction of Viktor Danilov and Teodor Shanin, made a significant contribution to the development of post-Soviet agrarian historiography, and for several decades united Russian and foreign researchers of different generations. The participants of the round table discussed the development of Russian and foreign Peasant Studies in the 1960s — 1990s, their current state, problems and prospects. In particular, it was repeatedly noted that one can argue about whether or not there are real peasants in today’s Russia, however, there is no doubt about the preservation of peasant consciousness features in the Russian population. The round table participants shared their personal memories about theoretical seminars of Shanin-Danilov, their experience of the field anthropological and sociological research and scientific discussions.

Keywords

Peasant Studies, agrarian seminar, peasantry, rural sociology, agrarian history, Russian history, post-Soviet agrarian historiography

Participants

Участники круглого стола: Валерий Георгиевич Виноградский, д-р филос. наук, Институт аграрных проблем РАН (Саратов); Александр Владимирович Гордон, д-р  ист. наук, профессор, ИНИОН  РАН ; Василий Васильевич Зверев, д-р ист. наук, профессор РАНХиГС ; Николай Алексеевич Ивницкий, д-р ист. наук, профессор; Виктор Викторович Кондрашин, д-р ист. наук, профессор, член Совета Федерации (Пенза); Авенир Павлович Корелин, д-р ист. наук, профессор, ИРИ РАН ; Павел Петрович Марченя, канд. ист. наук, Московский университет МВД России; Сергей Анатольевич Никольский, д-р филос. наук, профессор, ИФ РАН ; Сергей Юрьевич Разин, Институт гуманитарного образования и информационных технологий;  Игорь Николаевич Слепнёв, канд. ист. наук, РГНФ ; Сергей Иванович Толстов, канд. ист. наук (Томск);  Теодор Шанин,  профессор,  Манчестерский  университет,  Московская  высшая школа социальных и экономических наук; Галина Александровна Ястребинская, канд.  экон.  наук,  Всероссийский  институт  аграрных  проблем  и  информатики.  Ведущий — редактор  книги  «Современное  крестьяноведение  и  аграрная  история  России  в XX веке» д-р ист. наук, профессор РАНХиГС Владимир Валентинович Бабашкин.