Progress or evolution of the peasant economy (Article of N.P. Makarov on L.N. Litoshenko book)
Apr 03 2018Makarov N.P. Progress or evolution of the peasant economy (Article of N.P. Makarov on L.N. Litoshenko book) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2018. V.3. №1. P. 27-33.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-1-27-33
Annotation
This article of the outstanding Russian agrarian economist and representative of the organization-production school of the 1920s Nikolai Pavlovich Makarov (1887–1980) was written in 1923 as a response to the book of Lev Nikolaevich Litoshenko criticizing the theory of peasant economy of the organization-production school from the economic liberalism perspective. The article has not been published before and is kept in the Russian State Archive of Economics. The article clarifies the position of the organization-production school on some debatable social-political aspects of the economic theory of agriculture. This publication aims at stimulating further research on the theory and history of the organization-production school and the history of the economic thought in Russia. The publication was prepared by T.A. Savinova.
Keywords
History of economic thought, organization-production school, peasant studies, agrarian capitalism, N.P. Makarov, L.N. Litoshenko.
About the author
Makarov Nikolai Pavlovich
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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Kuznetsov I.A., Savinova T.A. Unknown and little-known works of the economists of the organization-production school // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2018. V.3. №1. P. 7-12.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-1-7-12
Annotation
The journal publishes six works of the outstanding Russian economists of the organization-production school—Alexander Vasilievich Chayanov (1888–1937) and Nikolai Pavlovich Makarov (1887–1980), which have not been published before or were published in quite inaccessible foreign journals in the 1920s. This publication with the comments reconstructs the circumstances in which these scientific works were written, and aims at stimulating further research on the theory and history of the organization-production school and the history of the economic thought in Russia.
Keywords
History of economic thought, history of agricultural sciences, organization-production school, peasant studies, A.V. Chayanov, N.P. Makarov.
About the authors
Kuznetsov Igor A., PhD (History), Senior Researcher at the School of Public Policy Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, prospect Vernadskogo, 82. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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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The small civil war: The events in the Penza Province at the end of 1921–the first half of 1922
Feb 17 2018Posadsky A.V. The small civil war: The events in the Penza Province at the end of 1921–the first half of 1922 // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №4. P. 148-159.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-4-148-159
Annotation
This publication is a commented historical document from the fund of the special units’ headquarters. This document summarizes the events of several months (at the end of 1921 — the first half of 1922) in the Penza Province, which were determined by a sharp surge of banditry in a number of this province districts. The document describes in detail, with comments and notes, the stages of the struggle against banditry and its results favorable for the Soviet government. The comments assess the situation in 1921, and reconstruct the history of peasant uprisings in the Penza Province in 1918–1920 that expanded up to the half of its counties. The document reveals the motives of a relatively large group of peasants for participation in the bandit movement. The question is whether there were political motives or social hatred considerations in this movement criminal in form. The document describes the features of all types of peasant armed movements, such as the cluster of villages supporting the active core of rebels or bandits; and the ability of gangs to dissipate and restore strength for fight, etc. The author of the document shows that this active bandit movement was not described in detail in the reports of the State Political Directorate despite its dynamic development through a number of stages. The author emphasizes that the participation of some local peasants in the fight against banditry only strengthened the gangs, which indicates a significant potential for hostility within the rural society. The author of the document was a student of the Military Academy, and the document was probably his study assignment, which determines the historical value of this documentary essay on the history of special units of the Penza Province.
Keywords
history of the peasantry, Civil War, the Penza Province, banditry, special units
About the author
Posadsky Anton V., DSc (History), Professor, Povolzhsky Institute of Management — a branch of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 410012, Saratov, Moskovskaya St., 164.
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Vinogradsky V.G. Peasants and the Civil War: The discourse of short stories // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №4. P. 70-85.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-4-70-85
Annotation
The author develops a new approach to the interpretation of peasant oral stories, especially of those that somehow reconstruct the events of the Civil War of 1917–1922. The relevant short peasant stories were recorded in 1991–1993 during the first peasant expedition of Teodor Shanin. In those years in Russian villages, it was still possible to find direct witnesses of military events of 1917–1922. The fragments of peasant narratives were analyzed with a combination of philosophical, social-linguistic and folkloristic approaches to answer the following questions: what and how do old peasants reconstruct the events of the Civil War? What part of these oral stories can be considered a reliable historical source? What mise-en-scenes of military events remained in the memory of respondents? What is the dominant mode of peasant narratives? What are the discursive nuances of peasant oral stories about the Civil War? The article is intended for historians, ethnographers and sociologists interested in the peasant worlds of Russia.
Keywords
oral history, civil war in Russia, historical memory, everyday “fairy tale”, peasant life practices, peasant worlds, rural sociology, discourse of short stories and fiction
About the author
Vinogradsky Valery G., DSc (Philosophy), Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Prosp. Vernadskogo, 82.
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Vallet G. The neglected roots of Switzerland’s national economy: The key role of peasantry // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №4. P. 56-69.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-4-56-69
Annotation
The article aims to identify the role of peasantry in the Swiss national production system and in the Swiss society in general. There is an evident paradox when considering the peasantry in Switzerland: though its economic power has been decreasing over time, its political power remains. The author uses the archival data to resolve this paradox and prove the key role of the Swiss peasantry in Switzerland from the historical and institutional perspectives in creating the “Swiss model” based on money. Therefore, the Swiss peasantry has always been involved in the national decision-making and represents the cultural basis of the local scale (centripetal forces) in this small open economy (centrifugal forces). The article focuses on the Swiss case to reveal the relationship between the peasantry as a social group with specific functions and the national production system. The latter refers to the system of different sectors of the national economy, which requires a “glue” in the form of monetary policies that are consistent with economic and social structures. According to Schumpeter, “nothing demonstrates so clearly what a people is made of than how it conducts its monetary policy… everything that a people desires, does, suffers, is reflected in a people’s monetary system” (Schumpeter, 2014: xiv). The article aims to explain the extent to which peasants as a social group matter in the Swiss national production system. The author believes that this group has also participated in developing a strong economic system in Switzerland relying on the Swiss franc, therefore the term “peasantry” implies both economic and cultural features in the historical context. The first part of the article identifies current characteristics of Swiss peasants as a social group; the second part describes their role in the 1930s, i.e. in the development of the strong national production system; and the third part sums up the first two by explaining the key role of peasantry in Switzerland in a broad sense.
Keywords
Switzerland, peasantry, national history, national production system, economic and social model, social and economic institutions
About the author
Vallet Guillaume, Associate Professor in economics and sociology, Department of Economics, University of Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, BP 47, 38040.
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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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Game theory: Models of conflict situations in the Volga villages of the early XX century
Jul 06 2017Shornikov 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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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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