Sobolev A.V., Kurakin A.A., Trotsuk I.V. Methodological approaches to the study of Russian cooperation and “Theory and practice of cooperation” as an academic discipline // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №1. pp. 31-50.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-1-31-50

Annotation

The article focuses on the theoretical and methodological problems encountered by the Russian scholars of cooperative organizations. The authors identify four basic methodological approaches to the cooperation phenomenon in the Russian academic tradition: (1) socio-reformist (or socio-ideological), (2) descriptive-monographic, and (3) economic-theoretical, with the first two being dominant. After a short discussion of the prospects and limitations of the theoretical studies of cooperatives as business organizations by Russian scholars, some of the distinguishing features of Russian cooperation thought are mentioned. Considering the features of the Russian cooperative thought, the authors found it useful to name the most prominent Russian researchers of cooperation who can be included in the ICA list of the world cooperative heritage. The authors pay special attention to the myth of the first Russian cooperative and the Decembrists as the first Russian cooperators. Unfortunately, this myth was officially recognized and determines the birthday of the cooperative movement in Russia. The article briefly discusses the contribution to cooperative thought made by Antsiferov, Bilimovich, Tugan-Baranovsky, Chayanov, and Totomianz. Special attention is paid to the scientific contribution of Emelianoff, almost unknown in modern Russia, and the fate of his ideas. Finally, the authors emphasize the particular importance of describing the transformations and the most important achievements of the Russian and foreign cooperative thought in the curriculum of the discipline “Theory and practice of cooperation”.

Keywords

Russian cooperative thought, the history of Russian cooperation, the birth of Russian cooperative movement, economic theory of cooperation, Emelianoff, cooperation as an academic discipline.

About the authors

Sobolev Alexander V., DSc (Economics), Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA). 119571, Moscow, prosp. Vernadskogo, 82; professor The Russian University of Cooperation (RUC).
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Trotsuk Irina V., DSc (Sociology), Associate Professor, Sociology Chair, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia; Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, prosp. Vernadskogo,82.
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Kurakin Alexander A., Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Higher School of Economics. 101000, Moscow, Myasnitskaya, 20.
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Nikulin A.M. Chayanovian utopian visions: Looking for the balance under the crises of optima intensification // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №1. pp. 6-30.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-1-6-30

Annotation

The article considers the features of A. V. Chayanov worldview, who in his multifaceted intellectual activities used to experiment with the genre of utopia. Based on the analysis of such utopian works of Chayanov as “Few Studies of the Isolated State” (1915– 1923), “My Brother Alexey’s Journey to the Land of Peasant Utopia” (1920), and “On the Possible Future of the Peasant Economy” (1928) the author identifies basic elements of Chayanov’s scientific and creative worldview. All three Chayanov’s utopias vary greatly in style and genre, thus indicating his amazing fantasy and plastic ingenuity. For instance, the first utopia is predominantly a marginal-mathematical treatise on the competitive coexistence of capitalist and peasant economies in agriculture. The second utopia is a kind of fantastic-political tale of the ineradicable variety of political and social-economic structures of the world. The third utopia represents the genre of typical scientific and technological utopia with atypical existential-aesthetic end. In each utopia, Chayanov creates an original model of social development that despite the social crises of the first third of the XX century seeks a compromise between town and village, industry and agriculture, peasantry and state capitalism, science and art, individual and society. The article critically considers the utopian relativistic ethics of Chayanovian agrarianism based on the idea of achieving the harmonic optima of social development. 

Keywords

autarchic state, peasant economy, capitalism in agriculture, cultural diversity, technological progress, relativistic ethics

About the author

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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Domnikov S.D. Forms of life and landscapes of culture. // Russian Peasant Studies. 2016. V.1. №1. P. 38-67.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2016-1-1-38-67

Annotation

The author considers a complex system of man-landscape relationship as a starting point of worldview formation and a primary condition for the development of cultural traditions. This basic level of social and environmental organization is presented as a space-technological and adaptiv e environmental system, which is constructed by the relations of man with the landscape and by a set of external world objects that are vitally important and culturally significant for human existence. The main function of culture is adaptive, whereas the landscape plays an active role in designing human world, i. e. in acquiring basic economic skills, technology development, and related programs and life strategies. The author believes that the historically accurate models of culture embody typologically different forms of social landscape and organize spatiotemporally the local ‘life-worlds’”; for instance, the classic landscape embraces the space of “the lack of the Other”. The author focuses on the genesis of the agrarian cultural tradition, and considers the relationship of two discourses — existential-phenomenological philosophy and philosophical anthropology. The article follows the general evolution of the classical anthropology with the distinction of dzōon (living being) and bios (life form), which led to the problematization of “symbolic forms” (E. Cassirer).

Keywords

totemism, anthropology, form of life, form of culture, symbolic form, cultural landscape

About the author

Domnikov Sergey D., PhD (History), Senior Researcher at the Department of Philosophy of Culture of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 
12/1 Goncharnaya Str., Moscow, 109240.
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Bernstein G., Trotsuk I. Policital Economy of the Agrarian Change // Russian Peasant Studies. 2016. V.1. №1. P. 8-37.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2016-1-1-8-37

Annotation

According to the author, the understanding of the agrarian transformations in the modern world requires an analysis of capitalism as a special system of social relations between capital and labor, which as historical development is changing the social nature of small farms, runs the processes of commodification and produces not a single "class" of the peasants or the heads of households and internally heterogeneous classes small agricultural capitalists, small producers and workers. The author poses a challenge - using categorical apparatus of the class theory of Marx on the capitalist mode of production, to bring order in the diverse and complex agrarian history of the modern world, designating a number of "common themes" in the world-historical career of capitalism and refusing thereby from simple and ideologically attractive moralizing stories about peasant world and its disappearance. The article indicated by the general logic of the historical relationships of colonialism and capitalism, gave rise to large-scale agricultural transformation on all continents; highlighted local and global trends in the development of agriculture and the rural economy; given the characteristics of new forms of organization of the world capitalist system that emerged under the influence of neo-liberal globalization; The role of resistance to capitalist exploitation and land reform in the development of modern agriculture. 

Keywords

political economy, agrarian change, capitalism, colonialism, class of capitalists, class of petty commodity producers, class of wage labour, Marx’s theory

About the authors

Bernstein Henry, Professor of Development Studies of the University of London at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Adjunct Professor at the College of Humanities and Development Studies of China Agricultural University, Beijing; coeditor of Journal of Agrarian Change.
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, United Kingdom.
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Trotsuk Irina, D. Sc (Sociology), Associate Professor at the Sociology Chair of Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia; Senior Researcher at the Center for Agrarian Studies of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
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