Peasants: Chayanov's recovered essays(12 Agrarian Change & Peasant Studies)

This book represents two great genres of world literature – a kind of propaedeutic ‘ABC of Cooperation’ and a kind of ‘Cooperative Manifesto’. In these insightful works, written and published a hundred years ago, Chayanov presents a fascinating vision of the struggle of the Russian, and international, cooperative movement for a new, just, social world. Chayanov repeatedly mentioned that peasant cooperation had to constantly overcome the element of the capitalist market and the element of state bureaucracy. He argued that the free, vertical cooperation of autonomous economies ‘from below’ was more socially and economically efficient than the horizontal, bureaucratic collectivization ‘from above’. Chayanov considered the world (national) economy not as a single whole, like in the classical, political economy, but as a conglomerate of various economic forms based on different organizational principles. However, he recognized that in the 19th and 20th centuries, capitalism played a leading role in the development of the world economy despite its serious flaws. Chayanov considered the peasant family-cooperative and socialist movements to be the two most important anti-capitalist phenomena. Chayanov's explanation of the necessity of a model of diverse and parallel economies is consistent with the contemporary desire to organize an effective and fair social life ‘from below’ (through the initiatives of individuals, families, and communities) with the solidarity of cooperatives and local, public organizations that contribute to the further expansion of the cultural diversity of large and small social worlds. The works of Chayanov, which have never been published in English before now, present many valuable answers and practical recommendations for the contemporary agricultural consulting and rural development activists.

Table of Contents:
Series Editor’s Foreword Preface: Chayanov’s worlds 1. Chayanov A.V. On the Agrarian Question Introduction Formulation of the agrarian question “Land to the working people!” What we should do with forests and special types of economy? Land question or agrarian question? Forms of land socialization Land reform Conclusion 2. Chayanov A. Main Ideas and Methods of Social Agronomy Foreword Chapter 1. The tasks of social-agronomic work Chapter 2. Methods of the social-agronomic work Chapter 3. The program of social-agronomic work Chapter 4. Developing an agronomic program Chapter 5. Agronomic organization Chapter 6. Methods of oral, social-agronomic propaganda Chapter 7. Conversations, lectures, courses, and agronomic consulting Chapter 8. Agricultural exhibitions, demonstration events, model farms, and peasant excursions Chapter 9. The agricultural warehouse, rental points, and grain-cleaning stations Chapter 10. Organizational work of the agronomist Chapter 11. Social agronomy and cooperation Chapter 12. The equipment of the agronomic station Chapter 13. Registration and evaluation of social-agronomic work 3. Chayanov A.V. A Short Course on Cooperation Chapter 1. What is cooperation? Chapter 2. A history of the cooperative movement Chapter 3. The rural consumer community Chapter 4. Agricultural and credit partnerships Chapter 5. Cooperative sales of agricultural products Chapter 6. Dairy artels and other animal husbandry cooperatives Chapter 7. Conclusion 4. Chayanov A.V. On differentiation of the peasant economy 5. Letter from A.V. Chayanov to V.M. Molotov on the current state of agriculture in the USSR compared with its pre-war state and the situation in agriculture of capitalist countries (October 6, 1927) Basic types of world economies before the war Contemporary trends in American agriculture The current state of agriculture in the USSR Challenges for the evolution of agriculture in the USSR Selected works of Chayanov and about Chayanov in English