DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-3-19-47
In most literature in geography and agrarian studies, rural dispossession is neatly related to land rights or access, a trend that increased with debates about the recent wave of farmland investments worldwide. This paper critiques this focus and the assumed nexus between rural dispossession and farmland, as they prevent us from understanding widespread but more dispersed stakes, modes and temporalities of dispossession. I draw on long term fieldwork in rural Russia in which I traced the lasting effects of historical devaluation and systemic disadvantage, and the disintegration of sustaining institutions and infrastructures. I introduce the concept of dispersed dispossession which contributes to the broader conceptual debates on dispossession by bringing complex stakes, modes and temporalities of dispossession into view. For the empirical case, it allows to better understand forms of dispossession that occur rather slowly and silently, and concern social and relational goods rather than natural resources as such.
Dispossession, rural transformation, Russia, land, post-Soviet political economies.
Vorbrugg Alexander, a Postdoctoral Researcher Institute of Geography, University of Bern (Switzerland). Hallerstr. 12, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.
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Translator: Trotsuk Irina V., DSc (Sociology), Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Professor, Sociology Chair, RUDN University. Prosp. Vernadskogo, 82, Moscow, Russian Federation, 119571.
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DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-3-6-18
Alexander Chayanov wrote this analytical note to Vyacheslav Molotov in early October 1927 to discuss plans for the agricultural development of the first five-year plan in the USSR. Chayanov begins with a brief review of the history of world agriculture in the early twentieth century. He identifies two poles in this evolution: western (American — typically North America and partly South America, South Africa, and Australia) and eastern (Indian-Chinese, typically agrarian overpopulated countries). The American type of agricultural development is based on farms that use machinery and wage labor and are controlled by the vertical system of financial capitalism. The Indian-Chinese type of agricultural development is characterized by agrarian overpopulation of the peasantry under dominant pre-capitalist relations, exceptional labor intensity, and widespread bondage rent and credit. The rest of the world’s regions can be placed between these two poles. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Russia is a paradoxical, complex mixture of these two types. Chayanov believed that in the agrarian science of pre-revolutionary and prewar Russia, these polarized agrarian worlds were reflected in the agrarian-economic disputes of the so-called “southerners” and “northerners” about the strategy of agricultural development. “Southerners” insisted on turning Russia into a “hundredpercent America” by the forced development of farmers’ agriculture. The “northerners” suggested supporting the regional strata of the middle peasantry and its own vertical cooperation to prevent the seizure of the village by trade and financial capital. Chayanov considered himself a “northerner”. He argued that the post-war, post-revolutionary village has changed significantly. First, the younger generation of peasants who had experienced the world war and Russian Revolution set the tone. Second, the Soviet agronomic science and cooperation of the 1920s contributed to the real progress of peasant farms. Soviet Russia has a unique chance to find a fundamentally new path of rural development, thus avoiding the Scylla of Americanfarmers’ dependence on financial capital and the Charybdis of the Indian-Chinese stagnation of peasant overpopulation. Instead of American vertical agrarian integration through the dominance of financial capital over farmers, Soviet vertical integration was to promote the development of diverse forms of peasant cooperation with the support of the socialist state. In the final part of the note, Chayanov considers the ratio of industry and agriculture in the first five-year plan and predicts a radical socialtechnological change under agricultural industrialization. The Soviet leadership ignored the ideas of this note: Stalin rejected Chayanov’s democratic type of vertical cooperation of the peasantry and preferred a horizontal type of cooperation in the form of collectivization. The publication with comments was prepared by A.M. Nikulin.
Agrarian policy, peasants, farmers, agricultural cooperation, agrarian capitalism, socialist agriculture, ways of agricultural development.
Chayanov Alexander V.
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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Translator: Trotsuk Irina V., DSc (Sociology), Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Professor, Sociology Chair, RUDN University. Prosp. Vernadskogo, 82, Moscow, Russian Federation, 119571.
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DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-2-6-33
This text is a translation into English of the brochure “What is the ‘Agrarian Question’?” published by A.Chayanov in the summer of 1917, between the February and October Revolutions in Russia.
Young 29-year-old professor Chayanov took an active part in the revolutionary events of 1917, trying to justify the fine-drawn plan for agrarian reforms for the new Russia. Chayanov became one of the initiators of the creation of the League for Agrarian Reforms, which included many leading agrarians of various political trends in Russia with a view to discussing and developing a holistic strategy for agrarian reforms in Russia.
The popular-science version of his views on agrarian reform, summarizing the most varied ideas of the League for Agrarian Reforms, Chayanov presented in the brochure “What is the ‘Agrarian Question’”.
In the ideological basis of this work lies the realization of the revolutionary demand “Land to the working people!”, which affirmed the necessity of transferring the landlord’s land into the hands of the peasantry. Chayanov considered various options for such a transition of land in the form of agrarian programs of socialization, nationalization, municipalization of land, a single land tax, and the system of state regulation of land ownership.
In reforming Chayanov proposed to be guided by two principles: 1) the greatest productivity of peasant labor applied to the land; 2) democratization of the distribution of national income. The extensive development of peasant cooperation was to ensure the implementation of these principles. Chayanov also stressed in every possible way the importance of taking into account regional and national peculiarities in resolving the agrarian question in such a huge country as Russia.
Personally, Chayanov was inclined to the way of agrarian reforms combining state regulation of land ownership and progressive taxation. Though, the October Revolution under the leadership of the Bolsheviks and left-wing socialist revolutionaries in their “Decree on Land” declared the implementation of the most radical version of agrarian reforms — the socialization of the land, stopping the search for the best compromise agrarian solutions that Chayanov and his colleagues tried to implement in the League for Agrarian reforms.
Chayanov’s brochure “What is the ‘Agrarian Question’?” is a model of theoretical and practical search for alternatives to the fine-drawn solution of the agrarian question in the interests of the peasants on the basis of a broad political coalition of democratic forces.
Agrarian reform, peasantry, revolution, A.V. Chayanov.
Chayanov Alexander V.
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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Trotsuk Irina V., DSc (Sociology), Associate Professor, Sociology Chair, RUDN University; Senior Researcher, Center for Fundamental Sociology Higher School of Economics, Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, prosp. Vernadskogo, 82.
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DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-2-34-54
The article considers the role of the Siberian factor in the key contradictions of the Russian history, in which the logic of extensive space development prevails over the logic of a decent lifestyle, and the monopolistic nature of power and imperial consciousness are preserved. The author refers to Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “circular reinforcement” (interdependence of physical and social space) as relevant for the social space of Russia. The article considers a new wave of internal colonization and its ideocratic design as a system of power that authorizes itself as the custodian of great historical meanings and demands from its subjects to adhere to these meanings. The author believes that the resumption of the authority of the center (and new hypercentralism) is determined, first, by the confirmation by the new “central” actors of its absolute ownership on the territory of the country, and, second, by the secondary colonization (i.e. the system to hold the population), which explains the reproduction of the empire. The author accepts the key role of the Siberian factor in the search for ways to overcome the logic of extensive development (the program of V. Zubov and V. Inozemtsev) but questions the single subjectness of Siberia as a manifestation of the optics of centralism in social sciences. The Siberian identity (“Siberians”) does not lead to the subjectivity of Siberia even as a form of political reflection. One of the destructive consequences of centralism in social sciences is their inability to articulate the subjectivity of the territory, land or local community in scientific terms. The article outlines the role of some social studies and humanitarian education in promoting real federalism.
Siberia, social space, circular reinforcement, internal colonization, ideocracy, local self-government, federalism.
Rozhansky Mikhail Ya., PhD (Philosophy), Scientific Head of the Center for Independent Social Studies. Address: Bogdan Khmelnitsky St., 30A, Irkutsk-3, 664003, Russia.
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DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-1-41-53
This is the first publication in Russian of the article of the classic of the Russian agrarian-economic thought and the leader of the organization-production school Alexander Vasilievich Chayanov (1888–1937), which was written in 1928 and published in the same year in French in the journal “Revue d’Economie Politique”. The Russian original is kept in the archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The article describes the state of the agricultural science in the USSR, provides an overview of the main directions of agrarian-economic studies in the late 1920s, and summarizes Chayanov’s theory of peasant economy. The comments were prepared by I.А. Kuznetsov.
History of economic thought, history of science in Russia, organization-production school, peasant studies, A.V. Chayanov.
Chayanov Alexander V.
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.
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DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-1-27-33
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.
History of economic thought, organization-production school, peasant studies, agrarian capitalism, N.P. Makarov, L.N. Litoshenko.
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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DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-1-74-98
The round table “Organization-production school in the Russian agrarian-economic thought: History and the present state” at the Center for Agrarian Studies of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration gathered historians, sociologists, economists, and culturologists for an interdisciplinary discussion of the relevance of the scientific legacy of A.V. Chayanov and his colleagues not only for agrarian science, but also social sciences and humanities on the eve of the anniversaries of the organization-production school representatives. The participants of the round table focused on the genesis and historical prerequisites of the organization-production school, and on the ideas of the Chayanov’s school as influencing the rural development of Russia and the world in the past and present. The participants of the round table were particularly interested in the recently discovered unique archival papers, such as the responses of A.V. Chayanov and N.P. Makarov to criticism of L.N. Litoshenko and A.A. Manuylov considering the theoretical-methodological foundations of the organization-production school’s idea of peasant economy; and the Chayanov’s texts for the German, French and American journals comprehensively describing features of the Russian and Soviet agrarian-economic science development. The intellectual legacy of A.V. Chayanov and his colleagues A.A. Rybnikov, A.N. Chelintsev, B.D. Brutskus, N.P. Makarov, A.N. Minin, and G.A. Studentsky was considered from the perspective of populist, socialist and liberal traditions in the development of Russian and international peasant studies. The participants of the round table also mentioned theories of other remarkable agrarians that can be called predecessors and followers of the organization-production school.
Peasant studies, interdisciplinary studies, organization-production school, theory of peasant economy, populism; socialism, liberalism, rural development.
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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Gordon Alexander V., DSc (History), Head of the East and South-East Asia Branch, Institute of Scientific Information in Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
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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.
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Kurakin Alexander A., Senior Researcher at the Center for Agrarian Studies of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Higher School of Economics, 101100, Moscow, Myasnitskaya, 20.
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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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Ovchintseva Lyubov A., PhD (Economics), Senior Researcher, Department of Sustainable Rural Development and Rural Cooperation, Alexander Nikonov All-Russian Institute of Agrarian Issues and Informatics; 105064, Moscow, Bolshoi Kharitonievski Per., 21–1.
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Petrikov Alexander V., DSc (Economics), Academician of RAS, Head of the Alexander Nikonov All-Russian Institute of Agrarian Issues and Informatics; 105064, Moscow, Bolshoi Kharitonievski Per., 21–1. In 2007–2016 — Deputy Minister of agriculture.
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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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Shanin Teodor, Professor, President of the Moscow School of Social and Economics Sciences, chairman of the Advisory Board of the journal “Russian Peasant Studies”. 119571, Moscow, Prosp. Vernadskogo, 82.
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DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-1-63-73
This is the first publication in Russian of the article of the classic of the Russian agrarian-economic thought and the leader of the organization-production school Alexander Vasilievich Chayanov (1888–1937), which was written in 1929 and published in an abridged version in English in 1930 in the “American Journal of Agricultural Economics”. The full Russian version of the article is published according to the original kept in the archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The article considers the history of agrarian-economic science in Russia from the eighteenth century and the system of agrarian-economic education in the USSR in the late 1920s. The comments were prepared by I.А. Kuznetsov.
History of agricultural sciences, history of economic thought, organization-production school, A.V. Chayanov.
Chayanov Alexander V.
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.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-1-54-62
This is a publication of an archival document—a letter of Alexander Vasilievich Chayanov (1888–1937) written in 1928 to the administration of the Research Institute of Agricultural Economy as a response to the criticism of his theory of peasant economy by an agrarian-Marxist and employee of the Institute Ivan Vermenichev. The letter reveals the circumstances of writing and publishing Chayanov’s article “The current state of agriculture and agricultural statistics in Russia”. This publication characterizes the atmosphere of ideological discussions and persecution of the non-communist scientific thought in the USSR in the late 1920s. The comments were prepared by I.А. Kuznetsov.
History of economic thought, organization-production school, peasant studies, A.V. Chayanov, I.D. Vermenichev.
Chayanov Alexander V.
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.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-1-34-40
This article of the classic of the Russian agrarian-economic thought and the leader of the organization-production school of the 1920s Alexander Vasilievich Chayanov (1888–1937) was first published in 1922 in the journal “New Russian Book” (Berlin). The article describes the work of the scientific institution created by Chayanov, the Higher Seminary of Agricultural Economy and Policy, and the general state of economic sciences in Russia after the end of the civil war and transition to the NEP. The publication with comments was prepared by I.А. Kuznetsov and T.A. Savinova.
History of economic thought, history of science in Russia, organization-production school, peasant studies, A.V. Chayanov.
Chayanov Alexander V.
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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