DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-1-11-22
The author presents two A. V. Chayanov’s reports on the methodology for disseminating agronomic knowledge among the peasantry — “Popular readings’ method” and “Characteristics and general requirements for visualization”. Chayanov’s presentations were made at the meetings of the Circle of Social Agronomy of the Moscow Agricultural Institute in 1914–1915 and became the basis of the chapter in his book Main Ideas and Methods of Social Agronomy.
A. V. Chayanov, Moscow Agricultural Institute, social agronomy, visual aids, poster.
Chayanov Alexander V.
Savinova Tatyana A., PhD (Economics), Head of the Department, Russian State Archive of Economy (RGAE). Bolshaya Pirogovskaya St., 17, Moscow, 119435.
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DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-1-23-44
The interpretation of the walking interviews, which were conducted in the rural Iset Region in the summer of 2022, allowed the author to identify “places of belonging” (Yi-Fu Tuan’s term) in the rural depopulation landscape, which are hardly noticeable to any external observer but are extremely important for local residents. The author uses the post-phenomenological optics of social sciences, which defines the cultural everyday landscape as a single process of mutual transformation that generates both personal experience and forms of sociality. The second theoretical basis of the article is the cultural geography works on the connections between everyday landscape and human memory, in particular the “ghosts geography”, and the thin line between the present and the absent in both everyday landscapes and narratives about them. The author’s method is walking interviews with local residents in open areas. The article aims at showing the possibilities of the simultaneous transcription and subsequent mapping of the walking interviews’ archives. The cases considered in the main part of the article focus on the structuring role of “places of belonging” in the standard narrative. As walking interviews show, it is the presentation of local places to a newcomer as important for the daily life of local people but hardly noticeable to outsiders that forms the basis of the typical go-along narratives. Thus, places out of active everyday use but with great emotional and vital significance for local communities acquire the status of “ghosts” — fragments of the past involved in the today’s life of the depopulating rural settlement.
“Places of belonging’, walking interviews, place, rural depopulation, everyday cultural landscape, “ghosts” geography, cultural geography, social anthropology.
Fedor S. Korandei, PhD (History), Senior Researcher, Laboratory of Historical Geography and Regional Studies, Tyumen State University. Volodarskogo St., 6, Tyumen, 625003.
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DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-1-6-10
The author presents two A. V. Chayanov’s reports on the methodology for disseminating agronomic knowledge among the peasantry — “Popular readings’ method” and “Characteristics and general requirements for visualization”. Chayanov’s presentations were made at the meetings of the Circle of Social Agronomy of the Moscow Agricultural Institute in 1914–1915 and became the basis of the chapter in his book Main Ideas and Methods of Social Agronomy.
A. V. Chayanov, Moscow Agricultural Institute, social agronomy, visual aids, poster.
Savinova Tatyana A., PhD (Economics), Head of the Department, Russian State Archive of Economy (RGAE). Bolshaya Pirogovskaya St., 17, Moscow, 119435.
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DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-4-20-32
The paper presents a new approach to the explanation of the failure of cooperative model in the post-Soviet agriculture. This approach is based on the stakeholder theory: thus, performing all functions of heterogeneous stakeholders on the regular basis may be too resource-intensive, and cooperative members may not have enough competencies for such tasks. First, the study supplements the existing research by providing a new explanation for the non-attractiveness of the cooperative business organization for Russian farmers. Second, the paper presents a link between the stakeholder theory of cooperatives and the theory of cooperative organization as developed by Ivan Emelianoff (1995) in his groundbreaking work Economic Theory of Cooperation. Third, the study proves in a new way the hybrid nature of cooperatives. The author focuses on agricultural cooperatives; however, the conclusions are valid for cooperative organizations in other industries. The paper starts with a short note on methodology — a description of stakeholder theory as applied to the study of cooperative organizations and a study of the hybrid nature of cooperatives; then follows a review of main research directions in the study of the failure of the cooperative movement in Russian agriculture, a section on the contradictions between the stakeholder theory of cooperatives and the farmers’ interests of farmers, and a section on the possible ways for resolving these contradictions. New forms of business organization should emerge as a compromise between an ideal firm and an ideal cooperative. These new forms would help farmers to benefit from cooperation instead of formal participation in it.
Cooperative, stakeholder theory, platform, heterogeneity of stakeholders.
Ivan D. Kotliarov — PhD (Economics), Associate Professor, National Research University Higher School of Economics (Saint Petersburg). Адрес. Ulitsa Kantemirovskaya, dom 3, korpus 1, liter A 194100 St. Petersburg, Russian Federation.
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DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-4-6-19
The rate of return (profitability) is the category that allows evaluation of financial, production and other costs of the enterprise. The detailed analysis of return ratios enables to regulate the enterprise financial system and has a positive effect on its financial performance. The article considers the method of the rate of return assessment and suggests the ways to increase it. The case of the medium-sized agro-industrial company was used. Based on the financial performance of the enterprise, the range of the rate of return indicators was calculated, such as fixed assets, rate of return on current assets and on equity capital, gross profit margin, operating and net profit margin. Based on the calculations, the authors show that the rate of return of the enterprise increased, and a high efficiency of operations was observed. However, at the same time, there are tasks to be solved. One of them is to introduce a payment schedule. The analysis of the financial effect of the payment schedule introduction showed that it increased the current rate of return of the enterprise by 10%.
Rate of return, enterprise, return ratios, costs, financial system, rate of return assessment.
Yury Borisovich Mindlin — PhD (Economics), Associate Professor, K. I. Scriabin Moscow State Academy of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnology. 109472, Moscow, Akademika Scriabina St., 23.
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Mikhail Vyacheslavovich Novikov — PhD (Technical Sciences), Associate Professor, K. I. Scriabin Moscow State Academy of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnology. 109472, Moscow, Akademika Scriabina St., 23.
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Olga Anatolievna Yakovleva — PhD (Agricultural Sciences), Associate Professor, K. I. Scriabin Moscow State Academy of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnology. 109472, Moscow, Akademika Scriabina St., 23.
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DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-3-21-34
This typescript was found in the fund of the Soviet party economist Lev Natanovich Kritzman (F. 528) in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ARAS), and has never been published before. The typescript consists of 16 sheets without an autograph or any handwritten corrections and marks. The typescript does not have any direct indications of the time of its creation. There are two more documents: a letter to Kritsman of December 26, 1929, and a fragment of the text written by Chayanov’s hand, which is very close to this typescript and seems to be one of its drafts. On the back of this sheet, there is an inscription — “2nd House of Soviets. Room 327. To L. N. Kritzman from A. Chayanov”.
The typescript presents the concept of the gradual ‘rooting’ of the peasant economy in socialism through the voluntary ‘cooperative collectivization’ and with the incentive mechanisms of a purely economic nature. We can see similar theoretical bases in Lenin’s ‘cooperative plan’ and Bukharin’s theory of the peaceful ingrowth of capitalist elements into socialism. In these ideological-theoretical alternatives to Stalin’s collectivization, the peasant was considered a full-fledged subject of the economic activity and socialist construction, who needed all possible assistance with the state policy measures rather than commands.
Chayanov refused to choose between the state-farm construction and the total socialization of the peasant agricultural sector. He developed an alternative program of socialist construction, which included the thorough revision of his own positions on some issues. Based on the data, Chayanov sought to show how far the Soviet village had moved from the pinnacle of the pre-war economic development, and that the Soviet peasantry had ceased to be ‘an object of the agronomic influence’. Thus, according to Chayanov, in contemporary realities, old methods and schemes of agronomic work became ineffective.
Archivists dated the documents in the file to 1930. We do not know reasons for such dating, but it raises some doubts. We can be certain about relative dating and the lower chronological frame — 1927. According to the address-reference book All Moscow, Kritzman moved to Room 327 of the 2nd House of Soviets in 1927 (All Moscow (1927) Address-Reference Book for 1927: 3rd year of publication by the Moscow Council; with the new plan for the city of Moscow, Moscow, p. 147).
There are more doubts about the upper chronological frame. If all these documents are really related to each other, the text should be dated according to the letter to Kritzman. Chayanov wrote that he had not finished an agronomic essay (in collaboration with P. Ya. Gurov and S.G. Uzhansky), because he was terribly upset by the first days of work of the First All-Union Conference of Marxist Agrarians. Moreover, Chayanov “did not get Sadyrin’s article, which made him throw away the whole ‘reality’ and end his ‘cooperation’ in the same purely theoretical terms as he had started” (ARAS. F. 528. Inv. 5. F. 137. L. 1). Chayanov could mean his articles for the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, in which Kritzman edited the section of economic sciences and the subsection of economic policy until 1931; or for one of the periodicals, in which Kritzman was a member of the editorial board (for instance, On the Agrarian Front). Chayanov could use the word ‘cooperation’ as a title for the typescript sent to Kritzman for proofreading and editing.
By the end of 1929, Chayanov was in an extremely difficult situation, and it became even worse after the First All-Union Conference of Marxist Agrarians, at which Chayanov and his colleagues were ideologically persecuted. Probably, after Stalin’s speech, Kritzman decided to postpone or abandon this publication. There is no article by Chayanov in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, and no articles by Gurov or Uzhansky in the corresponding volumes; and this typescript was not published.
If our reasoning is correct, Chayanov’s courage can hardly be overestimated: under the huge ideological and psychological pressure, he decided to publicly announce his disagreement with Stalin’s course.
Editor’s notes are marked as Ed. and given in square brackets.
Chayanov, collectivization, peasantry, state, social agronomy, socialism.
Chayanov Alexander V.
Afanasenkov Vladislav O. (publisher), Senior Researcher, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences; Junior Researcher, Research Centre for Economic and Social History, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Vernadskogo Prosp., 82, Moscow, 119571, Russia.
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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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DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-3-6-20
This typescript was found in the fund of the Soviet party economist Lev Natanovich Kritzman (F. 528) in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ARAS), and has never been published before. The typescript consists of 16 sheets without an autograph or any handwritten corrections and marks. The typescript does not have any direct indications of the time of its creation. There are two more documents: a letter to Kritsman of December 26, 1929, and a fragment of the text written by Chayanov’s hand, which is very close to this typescript and seems to be one of its drafts. On the back of this sheet, there is an inscription — “2nd House of Soviets. Room 327. To L. N. Kritzman from A. Chayanov”.
The typescript presents the concept of the gradual ‘rooting’ of the peasant economy in socialism through the voluntary ‘cooperative collectivization’ and with the incentive mechanisms of a purely economic nature. We can see similar theoretical bases in Lenin’s ‘cooperative plan’ and Bukharin’s theory of the peaceful ingrowth of capitalist elements into socialism. In these ideological-theoretical alternatives to Stalin’s collectivization, the peasant was considered a full-fledged subject of the economic activity and socialist construction, who needed all possible assistance with the state policy measures rather than commands.
Chayanov refused to choose between the state-farm construction and the total socialization of the peasant agricultural sector. He developed an alternative program of socialist construction, which included the thorough revision of his own positions on some issues. Based on the data, Chayanov sought to show how far the Soviet village had moved from the pinnacle of the pre-war economic development, and that the Soviet peasantry had ceased to be ‘an object of the agronomic influence’. Thus, according to Chayanov, in contemporary realities, old methods and schemes of agronomic work became ineffective.
Archivists dated the documents in the file to 1930. We do not know reasons for such dating, but it raises some doubts. We can be certain about relative dating and the lower chronological frame — 1927. According to the address-reference book All Moscow, Kritzman moved to Room 327 of the 2nd House of Soviets in 1927 (All Moscow (1927) Address-Reference Book for 1927: 3rd year of publication by the Moscow Council; with the new plan for the city of Moscow, Moscow, p. 147).
There are more doubts about the upper chronological frame. If all these documents are really related to each other, the text should be dated according to the letter to Kritzman. Chayanov wrote that he had not finished an agronomic essay (in collaboration with P. Ya. Gurov and S.G. Uzhansky), because he was terribly upset by the first days of work of the First All-Union Conference of Marxist Agrarians. Moreover, Chayanov “did not get Sadyrin’s article, which made him throw away the whole ‘reality’ and end his ‘cooperation’ in the same purely theoretical terms as he had started” (ARAS. F. 528. Inv. 5. F. 137. L. 1). Chayanov could mean his articles for the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, in which Kritzman edited the section of economic sciences and the subsection of economic policy until 1931; or for one of the periodicals, in which Kritzman was a member of the editorial board (for instance, On the Agrarian Front). Chayanov could use the word ‘cooperation’ as a title for the typescript sent to Kritzman for proofreading and editing.
By the end of 1929, Chayanov was in an extremely difficult situation, and it became even worse after the First All-Union Conference of Marxist Agrarians, at which Chayanov and his colleagues were ideologically persecuted. Probably, after Stalin’s speech, Kritzman decided to postpone or abandon this publication. There is no article by Chayanov in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, and no articles by Gurov or Uzhansky in the corresponding volumes; and this typescript was not published.
If our reasoning is correct, Chayanov’s courage can hardly be overestimated: under the huge ideological and psychological pressure, he decided to publicly announce his disagreement with Stalin’s course.
Editor’s notes are marked as Ed. and given in square brackets.
Chayanov, collectivization, peasantry, state, social agronomy, socialism.
Chayanov Alexander V.
Afanasenkov Vladislav O. (publisher), Senior Researcher, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences; Junior Researcher, Research Centre for Economic and Social History, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Vernadskogo Prosp., 82, Moscow, 119571, Russia.
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DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-2-6-37
Litsom k derevne (‘turning to the village’) was a short and unjustly neglected episode of the Soviet history. This program of development combined socialist construction and industrialization with the further growth of peasant agriculture. It was adopted by the Party’s CC-Plenum in April 1925 (although only for a short time), and designed by such agricultural experts as Chelintsev, Kondratiev and Makarov, i.e., it was close to Chayanov’s vision. Some peasants reacted positively to this program: following the call of the Party, a group of kulturniki started to improve and rationalize farming ‘in a cultural way’ — with the agricultural research knowledge. The article aims to question the feasibility of the Litsom k derevne program in regard to two decisive changes in 1925–1927: the nearly total stop of the state financial support for agriculture, and the Party’s return to the ‘class war’ in the countryside — against the imagined kulaks. The argument on the political alternatives mentions Chayanov’s and his colleagues’ statements to Molotov in October 1927. The author describes the state’s first attention to agriculture and its basic problems in the early 1920s; how and why the New Economic Policy led to a different program of agricultural development — Litsom k derevne — which strongly revised the Bolsheviks’ previous positions. The author identifies reasons for the failure of this program, and how changes in the industrialization strategy affected the political action in the countryside. For the feasibility of the Litsom k derevne program, the peasants active participation was decisive. The article considers the state measures for agricultural development, the desperate fight of the kulturniki against their discrimination, and the position of Chayanov and his school on this program and the chances of the ‘working peasants’. In the conclusion, the author presents his findings: 1) The agricultural program Litsom k derevne did not have any alternatives after the political decision to support primarily industrialization; only the kulturniki as rather well-to-do peasants could increase agricultural production in such conditions due to their higher profitability and lower costs. Only political discrimination and the threat of expropriation could stop their efforts to dynamically develop their farms. Thus, there was no way to combine the Party’s return to the ‘class war’ against the well-to-do peasants as ‘kulaks’ with the Litsom k derevne program. The Party’s internal fight for power had disastrous consequences not only for the kulturniki but also for the agricultural production and exports. 2) The author suggests to stop the fruitless debates on the ‘class differentiation’ of the peasantry and to focus on the real mid-1920s controversy: whether the growth of agricultural production and efficiency required agricultural expertise (by capable peasants and researchers) and the state financial support (for the needed institutions like cooperatives). Both points were the basic requests of Chayanov to Molotov in 1927. The Party leaders from Stalin to Brezhnev never understood that not only industry but also agriculture could be successful only with expertise and not just by command.
Chayanov, peasant agriculture, Soviet agriculture, agricultural experts, Soviet rule, kulturniki, Litsom k derevne.
Merl Stephan, DSc (History), Professor, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstr., 25, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
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DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-1-29-51
The translated article of the Japanese historian of social thought and Marxist Soichiro Sumida considers the understanding of the small-scale mode of production by Karl Marx. The author argues that the MEGA facilitates an objective interpretation of Marx’s works by excluding any impurities and distortions based on ideological convictions. Thus, Sumida analyzes and compares the traditional Japanese economic theories that developed under the influence of Marx and the texts of Marx to examine the concept of ‘small economy’. According to Sumida, by referring to the small peasantry in their works, previous generations of researchers erroneously studied the groups which Marx called ‘small farmers’. However, according to Marx, ‘small peasant’ and ‘small farmer’ are different categories.
Karl Marx, peasantry, small economy, original accumulation.
Sumida Soichiro, PhD (Sociology), Visiting Researcher, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Germany. D-10117 Berlin Jägerstrasse 22/23.
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Sanzheev Amgalan S. (translater), PhD Student, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. 3-11-1, Asahi-cho, Fuchu-shi, Tokyo 183-8534, Japan.
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Afanasenkov Vladislav O. (editor), Researcher, Chayanov Research Center, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences; Junior Researcher, Research Laboratory of Economic and Social History, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Vernadskogo Prosp., 82, Moscow, 119571, Russia.
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DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-1-6-28
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.
Agrarian question, Narodniks, Marxists, differentiation of peasantry, agricultural evolution.
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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