Kondrashin V.V., Nikulin A.M. “If you are engaged in scientific research, you must have courage!” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №3. P. 135-171.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-3-135-171
Annotation
The interview with the DSc (History), Professor V. V. Kondrashin presents the milestones of his biography in the historical context of the Russian science and politics in the 20th—21st century. This biographical reflection includes the events of childhood that awakened his interest in history, the difficulties in the academic career of a young man of the people, the historian’s survival under the social crisis of the 1990s. An important part of the interview is formed by Kondrashin’s memories of his teachers in school and university—V. V. Danilov and V. V. Kabanov, M. Levin and T. Shanin. Another significant part of the interview focuses on the most important issues of Kondrashin and his colleagues’ historical research, mainly the history of the Russian and Soviet countryside under revolutions and reforms of the 20th century (peasant wars, NEP, collectivization, World War II and the late Soviet period of agrarian history). The interview was not limited to the Russian historical context—Kondrashin mentions international scientific projects such as the study of the 1932-1933 famine in the USSR, and of the survival and development of the Soviet Union in the interaction with its close and distant neighboring countries. Kondrashin describes the cooperation of Russian scientists with their colleagues from Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Eastern Europe, France, England, USA, Japan and Australia. A special part of the interview presents his reflections on the ‘historian and power’ issue. Due to his active social position, Kondrashin was engaged in various social-political activities, including his work as a Senator of the Federation Council. The interview ends with a discussion of his scientific plans for the year of his sixtieth anniversary.
Keywords
History, peasantry, revolution, reforms, NEP, collectivization, USSR.
About the authors
Kondrashin Viktor V., DSc (History), Chief Researcher, Head of the Center for Economic History, Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences. 117292 Moscow, Dmitry Ulyanov St., 19. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Nikulin Alexander M., PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Head of the Chayanov Research Center, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp, 82.
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Gonina N.V., Pavlyukevich R.V. Collective-farm markets of Krasnoyarsk in 1955 — 1966 // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №3. P. 79-89.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-3-79-89
Annotation
The article considers the development of the collective-farm trade in Krasnoyarsk under the Khrushchev’s reforms. Collective-farm markets played an important role in the Soviet society by improving the living standards of both urban and rural population of the Krasnoyarsk Region. On the one hand, such markets provided the urban population with agricultural food products; on the other hand, they provided the rural population with industrial products. Collective-farm markets were a way of rural urbanization; therefore, local authorities supported and developed collectivefarm trade in Krasnoyarsk, while Khrushchev’s reforms in agriculture had an opposite result. Failures of the virgin campaign, mistakes in the fodder provision and new taxes led to a sharp decline in agricultural production. The main blow to the collective-farm trade was the decree of March 6, 1956 “On the Statute of Agricultural Artel and Further Development of Collective Farmers’ Initiative in the Organization of Collective-Farm Production and Management of Artels’ which was the start of the struggle against homestead farms. Thus, despite the efforts of local authorities, the collective-farm trade was decreasing: in 1955, its share in the commodity turnover was 14,9%, in 1957—9,8%, and in 1966, it decreased by half compared to 1955.
Keywords
Collective-farm markets, market trade, urban consumption, standard of living, urban and rural population, Krasnoyarsk, Krasnoyarsk Region.
About the authors
Gonina Natalia V., PhD (History), Senior Researcher, Sector of Agrarian and Demographic History, Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 630090 Novosibirsk, Nikolaeva St., 8.
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Pavlyukevich Ruslan V., PhD (History), Associate Professor, Department of History and Political Science, Krasnoyarsk State Agrarian University. 660049, Krasnoyarsk, Lenina St., 117.
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Kuznetsov I.A. Stolypin agrarian reform and agricultural productivity of European Russia in the late 19th — early 20th century // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №3. P. 42-78.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-3-42-78
Annotation
The author considers the links between measures of the Stolypin agrarian reform and indicators of the Russian agricultural development based on various statistical data: statistics of yields (Central Statistical Committee), statistics of grain prices and land management (Main Directorate of Land Management and Agriculture), data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on peasant exits from the community, data from the survey of farms and allotments conducted by the GUZiZ in 1913. The author also uses data on the income from non-grain crops and animal husbandry, and on the cost of commercial outputs per unit of agricultural land on the eve of the First World War. Based on the analysis of statistics, the author refutes the idea that agriculture had passed the peak of progressive shifts before the reform and that the growth of agricultural production slowed down under the reform. The author reveals mistakes in the 1913 survey of yields, which makes its data invalid for studying the ratio of yields by farm type; uses the moving average method to smooth out annual fluctuations in the CSC statistics of yields; compares the indicators of the best five years before the reform with the indicators of the best five years of the reform to minimize the influence of weather fluctuations on the measurement of the grain production dynamics; calculates the shifts in yields of major crops; with the correlation analysis, identifies the relationship between shifts in yields and productivity for the selected periods under the Stolypin reform in 47 provinces of European Russia; studies the links of the reform with other indicators of the agrarian development; proves the significant positive links (mainly of medium strength and weak) between the peasant activity in the individualization of land tenure (exits from the community) and land use (farms on the allotments) under the reform, and the negative links between economic indicators and the development of group land management within the communal land tenure. Thus, the author insists that the previous historiographic statements about the absence of links between the reform and yields, and about the negative links between the registration of peasant land ownership and the increase in yields on allotments were not confirmed.
Keywords
Stolypin agrarian reform, agrarian history of Russia, agricultural statistics, productivity, land management, peasant community.
About the author
Kuznetsov Igor A., PhD (History), Senior Researcher, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571 Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp., 82.
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Bululina E.V., Golovina E.L., Lysenko I.A. The sanitary-epidemic conditions of the Stalingrad Region and the work of the health authorities in 1941–1945 // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №2. P. 62-78.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-2-62-78
Annotation
The article considers the difficult epidemic situation in the Stalingrad Region during the Great Patriotic War and the work of the health authorities to combat dangerous infections. The war determined the restructuring of the entire sanitary-epidemiological service of the country. The appointment of one person in the administration of the USSR People’s Commissariat of Health and the State Defense Committee as responsible for the anti-epidemic work allowed to create a single control center for the main anti-epidemic measures and had positive results. The well-coordinated and controlled work of all medical services together with an emphasis on preventive measures to combat acute infectious diseases (mass immunization by vaccination, revaccination and phaging, strict measures to localize epidemic foci) allowed to successfully defeat epidemics in the army, local and evacuated population in the most difficult period for our country.
Keywords
World War II, history of medicine, health care, epidemics, sanitaryepidemiological service, vaccination.
About the authors
Bululina Elena V., DSc (History), Deputy Head of the Research and Development Department, Center for Documentation of the Contemporary History of the Volgograd Region; Senior Researcher, Center for the Study of the Battle of Stalingrad. 400005, Volgograd, Chuikova St., 45.
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Golovina Evgenia L., Chief Specialist, Center for Documentation of the Contemporary History of the Volgograd Region; Researcher, Center for the Study of the Battle of Stalingrad. 400005, Volgograd, Chuikova St., 45.
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Lysenko Irina A., PhD (Economics), Head of the Research and Development Department, Center for Documentation of the Contemporary History of the Volgograd Region; Deputy Head of the Center for the Study of the Battle of Stalingrad. 400005, Volgograd, Chuikova St., 45.
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Kabytov P.S. Issues of agrarian history in the scientific works of Grigory Alekseevich Gerasimenko // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №2. P. 45-61.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-2-45-61
Annotation
The article considers the scientific legacy of the outstanding Soviet and Russian historian, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, DSc (History), Head of the Department of History of the Presidential Academy of Public Administration, Grigory Alekseevich Gerasimenko who made a great contribution to the agrarian history of Russia during the Great Russian Revolution. The author provides a list of references which represent the milestones of Gerasimenko’s biography, and focuses on his research conducted and published in the Saratov (1954-1980) and Moscow (1980-2005) periods. Initially, in 1917, Gerasimenko studied the internal party struggle in the Soviets of the Saratov Region, and later his research expanded to the Lower Volga Region and the Volga Region. The author identifies factors that determined the changes in Gerasimenko’s research: when studying the history of the Soviets, he became interested in the activities of grassroot peasant organizations and in the peasant fight against farmers and fathers. In the Moscow period, Gerasimenko’s interests expanded again but were still related to his works published in the Saratov period. His monographs combine the macro- and micro-approaches and include the All-Russian, regional, provincial, district and rural levels in order to show the relationship between power and society. Gerasimenko developed new concepts and ideas about the place and role of public executive committees, the scale of the agrarian revolution of 1917 and the relations of people and power at turning points of the Russian history.
Keywords
Grigory Alekseevich Gerasimenko, Saratov State University, Great Russian Revolution, Stolypin agrarian reform, grassroot peasant organizations, public executive committees, Soviets, internal party struggle, rural land community, agrarian revolution.
About the author
Kabytov Petr S., DSc (History), Honored Worker of Science of the Russian Federation, Head of the Department of Russian History, Samara National Research University. 443086, Samara, Moskovskoe shosse, 34.
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Oral history from below. Materials for the oral history of Russian peasants in the 20th century
Apr 28 2021Nakhimovsky A.D. Oral history from below. Materials for the oral history of Russian peasants in the 20th century // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №1. P. 91-125.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-1-91-125
Annotation
The author analyzes the life stories of those Russian peasants who were old enough to remember collectivization. The large collection of such life stories recorded after 1990 is a rich source of materials for the oral history and other fields of study; however, this collection remains unsorted. Such scholars as the ethnographer Sergei Alymov, the sociologist Valery Vinogradsky, the linguist Leonid Kasatkin, and the historian Tatyana Shcheglova have done much work to collect these materials and to analyze them in different disciplinary perspectives. However, their descriptions remain completely isolated, and the author uses their publications to show the internal unity of their work and to explain that a single archive would be very useful for future research. After a brief introduction, the article turns into a chronological narrative of the Russian peasant history from 1918 to 1953, which consists of those key events/episodes in the lives of narrators that inevitably coincide with the key moments of history. In the comments to the narratives, the author describes the narrators’ psychological traits, their attitudes to the state, work and changes of fate, their connection with pre-revolutionary traditions, and their perception of the new reality.
Keywords
Civil war, NEP, collectivization, famines of 1932–1933 and 1946–1947, migration to the city, walking, court proceedings, infanticide, war, disabled veterans.
About the author
Nakhimovsky Alexander D., PhD, Associate Professor, Computer Science Department; Head of the Linguistics Program (retired), Colgate University. 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, New York, 13346 USA. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Il`inykh V.A. Siberian village during collectivization: Microhistory (Plotnikovo village in the Novosibirsk district of the Novosibirsk Region) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №1. P. 71-90.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-1-71-90
Annotation
The author reconstructs the history of the Plotnikovo village in the Novosibirsk district of the Novosibirsk Region in the late 1920s – 1930s. The research was conducted in the microhistoric format, which allows to consider the agrarian history of Russia in the everyday perspective of its direct actors – peasants united in their primary communities. The article aims at presenting the course of collectivization and its price for a certain rural settlement. In the Plotnikovo village, collectivization began at the end of 1929 with the creation of a giant commune which collapsed after the publication of Stalin’s article “Dizzy with Success”. The small collective farm “Zavety Ilyicha” was established on the basis of this commune. Collectivization resumed in 1931 and ended in the late 1930s. The author also considers anti-peasant repressions, de-kulakization, local famine in 1934-1935, state regulations of the size of the collective farmers’ smallholdings, behavioral strategies of peasants and rural officials. The author concludes that in the early 1940s the Plotnikovo village was at the same or even lower level of development than in the early 1920s. Thus, in general collectivization had a negative impact on the development of agricultural productive forces in the village under study, and the difficulties the villagers survived in the 1930s cannot be counted – only named by V.P. Danilov’s term ‘tragedy of the Soviet village’.
Keywords
Peasantry, village, agrarian policy of the Soviet state, collectivization, collective farms, smallholdings, microhistory, Siberia, Т. Shanin, V.P. Danilov.
About the author
Il’inykh Vladimir A., DSc (History), Head of the Agrarian and Demographic History Sector, Institute of History, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 630090, Novosibirsk, Ac. Nikolaev St., 8.
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Merl S. Why the Soviet Union under Khrushchev and Brezhnev failed with the complex mechanization of agriculture: Internal aspects (1953–1986) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №1. P. 26-70.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-1-26-70
Annotation
The author focuses on internal aspects to answer the question why the complex mechanization of agriculture under Khrushchev and Brezhnev failed. The author argues that the command economy did not solve the basic task of ensuring animal production by large farms, because the high-quality equipment to reduce labor input and costs was not provided. Behind the facade of impressing reforms – from the virgin-land program and liquidation of the machine-tractor stations (MTS) to Brezhnev’s 1966 promise to speed up mechanization and the Non-Black-Earth program of 1974 – nothing really changed. The basic deficiencies named in 1955 still existed in 1969 and after the establishment of the Gosagroprom in 1986: nearly all Soviet machinery was not reliable and was badly done. Thus, the increase in the production of such machinery under Brezhnev was only a waste of resources. Less than 10% of Soviet machines met the world standards. Instead of increasing labor productivity, this machinery caused the farms (and the state) enormous losses. Due to the gaps in mechanization (primarily in transportation and collecting feed) the majority of the agricultural workforce (70% in 1982) was still engaged in manual work. In the late 1960s, the Ministry of Agriculture made alarming reports on the state of the USSR’s agriculture to the CC and CM and demanded – again in vain – urgent action and investment to modernize the agricultural machinery industry in order to ensure the world-standard inputs by 1975. The article considers challenges of developing animal husbandry, consequences of such campaigns as the virgin-land program, conversion of collective farms into state farms and liquidation of the MTS, successes and failures of the mass production of highly efficient machinery, proposed alternatives of organizing agricultural work and payment, and the state of agriculture in 1955, 1969 and 1986.
Keywords
Agricultural modernization, complex mechanization, agricultural machinery industry, efficiency of agrarian production, agricultural labor productivity, socialist competition, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Khudenko.
About the author
Merl Stephan, Dsc (History), Professor, Bielefeld University. Universitätsstr., 25, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
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Zverev V.V. “Last greetings” from V.P. Astafiev and foundations of the peasant world // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2020. V.5. №4. P. 142-161.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2020-5-4-142-161
Annotation
The article considers the novel “Last Greetings” by V.P. Astafiev as a historical source of descriptions of the peasant world. The author emphasizes such basic categories of the peasant life as traditional family, kinship ties, working, parenting, attitudes to nature, concepts of shame, conscience, and duty. Based on this literary material, the author concludes that the peasant worldview is a result of close interaction with nature, which determined both respect for the environment—forest, field, river, animals—and such qualities as moderate consumption of natural resources, diligence, foresight, concern for the future. Knowledge and understanding of nature also affected labor that did not pursue enrichment but aimed at ensuring the family’s prosperity. The villager in Russia, as everywhere in the world, was not a money-grubber, and his social ideal was a hardworking and sober middle peasant. The system of upbringing and the social structure of the village (community) aimed at developing and preserving these qualities. The community structure was primarily to prevent such disasters as crop failure, famine, flood, fire, and their catastrophic consequences. The centuries-old history of life in nature and with nature has cultivated mutual assistance, mutual support, and the charity of the sick, poor, and injured. The author concludes that such a social order was the foundation of the social unity in the past, which in turn influenced the strength and power of the Russian state.
Keywords
peasant, city, phenomenon of ‘village writers’, traditional family, man and nature, kinship ties, labor, shame, conscience, duty, Russian community, childhood, village street
About the author
Zverev Vasily V., DSc (History), Leading Researcher, Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 117292, Moscow, Dmitry Ulyanov St., 19.
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Pavlyukevich R.V., Vasyutin I.A. Dynamics of the number of labor resources in the Krasnoyarsk Region agriculture under N.S. Khrushchev’s transformations // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2020. V.5. №4. P. 131-141.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2020-5-4-131-141
Annotation
The article considers the impact of Khrushchev’s reforms on the dynamics of the number of the able-bodied population in rural areas of the Krasnoyarsk Region. During the period under consideration, there were two contradictory trends in the Krasnoyarsk Region. On the one hand, under the virgin-land campaign, there was an inflow of immigrants from other regions of the Soviet Union. According to some researchers, this planned wave of immigrants significantly improved the situation in the Krasnoyarsk Region agriculture and partially solved the problem of shortage of workers, which was determined by the campaign for the introduction of virgin and fallow lands into agricultural circulation. On the other hand, urbanization continued, including the large-scale industrial development of the region, which needed an inflow of the able-bodied population to its cities. As in other regions of the country, the main donor of the able-bodied population for the industry was the village. Thus, Khrushchev’s transformations determined a paradoxical situation: the village was receiving new labor resources and at the same time was losing population that moved to the cities with the industrial facilities. The inflow of new population into the village could not compensate for the loss of labor resources in agriculture.
Keywords
labor resources, modernization, rural population, urban population, Krasnoyarsk Region, N.S. Khrushchev’s reforms
About the authors
Pavlyukevich Ruslan V., PhD (History), Associate Professor, Department of History and Political Sciences, Krasnoyarsk State Agrarian University. 660012, Krasnoyarsk, Semaphornaya St., 189a.
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Vasyutin Ivan A., Master's Student, Department of General History, Siberian Federal University. 660041, Krasnoyarsk, Svobodny Pr., 79.
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Russian Peasant Studies. Scientific journal
Center for Agrarian studies of the Russian Presidental Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)
- Publisher: Delo Publishing, RANEPA
- Editor-in-Chief: Nikulin Alexander
- ISSN 2500-1809 (Print), ISSN 2949-2564 (Online)
- Founded in 2016
- Frequency: four issues per year (March, June, September, December)
- Open Access: All volumes and articles can be downloaded for free in the PDF format by Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)..
- Author fees: free of chagre
- Indexation: Russian Science Citation Index, Russian Science Citation Index Core, List of Journals approved by Russian Hihger Attestation committee (Ministry for Sciende and Education), Scopus, UlrichWeb Global Serials Directory, European reference index for the Humanities and Social Sciences (ERIHPLUS), CNKI scholar, Sherpa Romeo , AGRIS
- Russian registration number: PI FS77-65824 27-May-2016
Hard copies of the journal can be purchased at the Delo e-store or by subscription in the "Press of Russia" Agency (subscription index - Т81017).
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