Making Peasants Backward: Agricultural Cooperatives and the Agrarian Question in Russia, 1861–1914

256 Pages·1999·29.99 MB·English

by  Yanni Kotsonis (auth.)

MAKING PEASANTS BACKWARD
MAKING PEASANTS BACKWARD

Making Peasants
Backward
Agricultural Cooperatives and the
Agrarian Question in Russia, 1861-1914
Yanni Kotsonis
New York University
ffi
First published in Great Britain I999 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG2 I 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-40583-1 ISBN 978-0-230-37630-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230376304
First published in the United States of America 1999 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division.
I75 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kotsonis, Yanni. 1962-
Making peasants backward: agricultural cooperatives and the
Agrarian question in Russia. 1861-1914/ Yanni Kotsonis.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
I. Agriculture, Cooperative-Russia-History-19th century.
2. Agriculture. Cooperative-Russia-History-20th century.
3. Peasantry- Russia- History-19th century. 4. Peasantry- Russia
-History-20th century. 5. Political culture-Russia. 6. Russia-
-Rural conditions. I. Title.
HDI491.R9K655 1999
338.7'63'0947- DC21 98-55363
CIP
©Yanni Kotsonis 1999
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1999 978-0-333-72587-0
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
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Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance
with the Copyright. Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
08 07 06 05 04 03 02 OI 00 99
Dedicated to
Dionyssios Stefanou Kotsonis
and
Helen Panopalis Kotsonis
both humanists in their different ways
V

Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction: Backwardness, Legitimacy, and Hegemony
in Russian and Comparative Perspective 1
Significance 1
Backwardness and Progress as Ideology and Legitimacy 4
Modernity and Hegemony 8
Sources and Methodology 11
1 The Door to Society: European Models and Russian
Peasants, 1861-95 13
From Delitzsch to Dorovatovo: Credit Cooperatives,
the Peasant Commune, and Property 15
Dairy Arteli and the Natural Condition 24
Collective Agriculture and Collective Poverty 27
Separateness 30
2 The 'Popular Economy': Laboring Peasants and
Markets without Capitalists, 1895-1904 36
Property and the Making of the Laboring Peasantry 40
Capitalism without Capitalists 48
Managed Chaos 53
3 Cooperatives and Caste: The Debate on Property in
the Stolypin Era, 1906-14 57
Property and the Debate on Peasant Culture 61
Professional Personnel and the Politics of Property 71
Caste Confirmed: Zemstvo Noblemen, Agrarian
Policy, and Cooperatives 76
'Old Casks, New Wine': The Agricultural Budget,
1905-14 85
vn
viii Contents
Property, Credit, and Meaning in Cooperative
Policy, 1911-14 87
Agrarian Policy from Integration to Segregation 92
4 Citizens: Backwardness and Legitimacy in Agronomy
and Economics, 1900-14 94
The Tabula Rasa Revisited: Science and Agronomy
after 1905 97
Filling the Void: Decadent Villages and Cooperative
Communities 108
Scenarios of Struggle: Kulaks, Peasants, and
Professionals 115
Peasant Property, Professional Power, and
'Capitalism' 119
Citizens in the Old Regime 125
5 Making Peasants Backward, 1900-14 135
'Live Numbers': Statistics and Social Meaning 137
Capitalism, Rationality, and Social Meaning in the
Cooperative Movement 144
The Politics of Village Legitimacy and the Boundaries
of Resistance 153
Ethnicity in Practice 166
Failed Communities 173
How Peasants Became Backward 183
Epilogue 185
Notes 189
Select Bibliography 229
Index 239
Acknowledgements
Leopold Haimson has been an intellectual mentor since the begin
ning of my academic career. I am grateful for his friendship and
efforts to carry my analysis beyond the immediate and the obvious.
Richard Wortman has encouraged me from the start with appropri
ately critical comment on the whole manuscript. Reggie Zelnik read
the manuscript, suggested a sense of alternatives, and rightly insisted
that I consider them. Bill Rosenberg and Roberta Manning were my
careful, encouraging, and once-anonymous readers. Mark von Hagen
earlier in my graduate career was a rigorous teacher.
At the History Department at New York University, Molly Nolan
and Jerry Seigel offered more detailed critique than I could reason
ably expect, and watched with relief as the manuscript lost weight and
gained meaning; at a later stage, I had the benefit of Herrick
Chapman's criticism and perspective. A talented group of graduate
students at NYU has helped me refine my thoughts. My thanks also
to the department and the university for a generous supply of leave
and travel resources. The Social Science Research Council has
supported this research since its inception with grants for study, acad
emic leave, and travel. The initial research was supported by the
International Research and Exchanges Board and by a Fulbright-
Hays grant. During the final stages of publication I was supported by
grants from the Remarque Institute at NYU and from the National
Council for Eurasian and East European Research.
Steve Smith has been a good friend and supportive colleague, and
the University of Essex was an intellectually stimulating environ
ment. With Fred Corney, I revised over the years my understanding
of the relationship between politics and method; our countless office
meetings remain dear to me. In Ken Pinnow, I found a friend and
tireless critic with whom I share productive dilemmas over the
meaning of what we write. David Hoffmann has been a supportive
and collegial friend. Peter Holquist's insistent insights never went
unappreciated. Chuck Steinwedel indulged and engaged my idees
fixes on caste and nationality.
Cathy Frierson, Randall Poole, and Christine Worobec offered
particularly detailed and challenging criticism, Laura Engelstein and
Bill Wagner concise insight. David Macey confronted me with the
agrarian historiography. Zhenia Beshenkovskii has been a willing and
IX