Makarov N. P. Russian economic thought on agricultural issues (Article of N.P. Makarov) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2022. V.7. №1. P. 6-28.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-1-6-28

Annotation

The author of this article, the remarkable Russian economist Nikolai Makarov (1886–1980), is one of the brightest representatives of Chayanov’s organization-production school, who had a long and dramatic life. After graduating from the Faculty of Economics of the Moscow University, he conducted economic-statistical studies of the Russian peasantry and cooperation, and taught a number of agrarian-economic disciplines at the universities of Moscow and Voronezh. Makarov took an active part in the preparation of agrarian reforms during the 1917 Revolution. During the Civil War, he emigrated to the United States and wrote books about American agriculture. In 1924, at the invitation of Alexander Chayanov, Makarov returned to Soviet Russia — as a wellknown professor and influential expert in the comparative studies of rural development in various regions of the world2. The fruitful scientific work of Makarov and his colleagues from the organization-production school was stopped in 1930 — when Stalin accused Chayanov and Makarov of sabotaging collectivization and preparing a counter-revolutionary coup in the USSR. Makarov spent several years in prison, and in the mid-1930s, he was sent to work as an economist at the state farms of the Black-Earth region. In the late 1940s, he was allowed to return to research and teaching, and in old age, he published a number of books on the Soviet agricultural economy.
The article presents the emigrant period of Makarov’s life, when he collaborated with the editorial board of the Peasant Russia journal published in Czechoslovakia in the 1920s. Makarov conducts a political-economic analysis of the main issues and topics in the Russian agrarian thought of the late 19th — early 20th centuries. First, he describes the features of the Narodnik and Marxist theoretical-methodological approaches to the study of the Russian rural evolution. Then, in the spirit of the Chayanov school, Makarov looks for a fruitful compromise between these two ideologies. He notes the important impact on Russian agrarians of the international, primarily German, studies of the agricultural organization and evolution. The final sections of the article explain Makarov’s original classifications and typologies of the forms and directions of the agricultural evolution. Today, a hundred years later, this Makarov’s work helps us to better understand the debatable roots of the Russian and global agrarian ideologies in the early 20th century.

Keywords

Agrarian question, Narodniks, Marxists, differentiation of peasantry, agricultural evolution.

About the authors

Makarov Nikolai P.
Trotsuk Irina V. (translator), DSc (Sociology), Professor, Sociology Chair, RUDN University; Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp, 82.
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Nikulin Alexander M. (publisher), PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp., 82.
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Makarov N.P. At the great crossroads. The comparative analysis of the evolution of agriculture in China, the United States of North America, the USSR, and Western Europe (Article of N.P. Makarov) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2019. V.4. №1. P. 6-21.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2019-4-1-6-21

Abstract

This article published in the mid-1920s in the Peasant International was written by an outstanding Russian agrarian scientist and a prominent representative of the organization-production school Nikolai Pavlovich Makarov (1887–1980). It is quite strange that this article was not listed in the bibliographies of Makarov’s works although it is absolutely important for the understanding of the evolution of world agriculture in the 20th century. Moreover, the reader will see that in the second half of the 1920s the ideas of this article were developed in the works of other representatives of the organization-production school — A.V. Chayanov, G.S. Studensky, A.A. Rybnikov. As the title and the foreword of the article show, the author seeks to provide an analytical description of the main directions of the world agrarian evolution of the 1920s and its possible alternatives on the example of four main macro-regions of world agriculture: the USA, China, Western Europe and Russia. First the author focuses on the two so-called “poles” of agrarian development — the United States and China — and argues that “old” labor-intensive agrarian China and the “young” capital-intensive agrarian United States are the exact opposites of each other. It is between these poles that the paths of the agricultural evolution of most countries of the world, including Europe and Russia, are located. Makarov concludes with a preliminary diagnosis of the approaching “great agrarian crossroads” of world agriculture. The publication with comments was prepared by A.M. Nikulin.

Keywords

agriculture, USA, China, Western Europe, Russia, agrarian evolution, peasants, farmers

About the authors

Makarov Nikolai Pavlovich

Editor: Nikulin Alexander M., PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; 119571, Moscow, Prosp. Vernadskogo, 82. 
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Makarov 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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