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59
Теория
On differentiation of the peasant economy1
Chayanov A.V.
Publication: Alexander M. Nikulin, PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Head of the Chayanov Research Center, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp, 82. E-mail: [email protected]. Translation: Irina Trotsuk, DSc (Sociology), Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Researcher, Chayanov Research Center, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp, 82. E-mail: [email protected]
This article by A.V. Chayanov was first published in the journal, "Paths of Agriculture" (1927, no. 5, pp. 101-21).This is a revised version of his report presented at the beginning of 1927 in Moscow at a discussion on the social-economic differentiation of the Soviet peasantry. Many prominent scientists participated in this discussion, including representatives of the two most important, ideological trends in Soviet agricultural science: on the one hand, Marxist agrarians (L.N. Kritsman, V.S. Nemchinov, Ya.A. Anisi-mov, I.D. Vermenichev, K.N. Naumov), and on the other hand, the so-called "agrarian neo-populists" (A.V. Chayanov, N.P. Makarov, A.N. Chelintsev).
In the report, Chayanov presents a new interpretation of the social-economic differentiation of the peasantry in Soviet Russia, which differs from the differentiation of the peasantry in pre-revolutionary Russia. According to Chayanov, after the destruction of the landlord and capitalist economies by revolution, the main reasons for the differentiation of the Soviet peasantry in the 1920s were regional contradictions in the peasant population distribution. On the one hand, peasants concentrated in the central, black earth regions, and on the other hand, they moved to the markets of sea ports and large cities. Chayanov argued that in this way, four types of relatively independent, family economies emerged from the mass of semi-subsistence peasant economies: farming, credit-usurious, commercial seasonal-working, and auxiliary economies.
Moreover, unlike the famous Marxist, three-element, agrarian scheme — "kulak-middle peasant-poor peasant" — which was developed by the school of L.N. Kritsman, Chayanov developed a more complex, six-element scheme of the differentiation of peasant economies: capitalist, semi-labor, well-to-do family-labor, poor family-labor, semi-proletarian, and proletarian. Based on this scheme, Chayanov suggested a number of economic policy steps for the systematic development of agricultural cooperation, primarily in the interests of the middle strata of the Soviet peasantry.
In the discussion of peasant differentiation in 1927, the arguments of Chayanov and his colleagues from the organization-production school were more convincing and justified than those of their opponents from the Marxist agrarians. However, in 1928, the Stalinist leadership began to inflate the threat of increasing class differentiation in
1. The research was supported by the Presidential Grants Foundation. Project "The school of A.V. Chayanov and contemporary rural development: Preserving the scientists' findings through the actualization of their heritage."
the village. Thus, it initiated the struggle against the kulaks as a class, which became the prologue to forced collectivization during which Chayanov's school was destroyed.
Keywords: peasantry, agricultural regions, USSR, social-economic differentiation, Chayanov, agrarian Marxists, agricultural cooperation
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2019-4-4-6-21
Chayanov A.V. On differentiation of the peasant economy
Let me briefly explain my position. I am just starting to study differentiation, and I consider it in a completely different way than it is now interpreted as determined by the production organization of the economy of various social groups. Therefore, I believe that in two or three years, I will present some considerations based on my research. And now I want to make only a few general comments on the formulation rather than the solution of the differentiation problem. I have neither the data of N.P. Makarov nor the experience of A.N. Chelintsev. My ideas will be more deductive and methodological.
First, let us clarify the essence of differentiation. A very unpleasant incident has happened to so many words, especially in economic sciences; they are overloaded with meaning, i.e., a word is associated with many semantic concepts and images. In fact, when someone uses an economic term, he interprets it in one way, whereas another person interprets it differently. Therefore, before considering differentiation, we have to agree on what it is and what problems we face. Otherwise, we will have a whole Noah's ark of various images and terms.
If we consider the history of differentiation, we will see that in the late 19th and early 20th century it was usually defined as a process that accompanied the concentration of production in industry. In other words, it was the struggle of large, medium-sized, and small enterprises under the decisive, technical superiority of large enterprises. They gradually replaced small enterprises, proletarianized artisans, and eventually reorganized industry on the principle of horizontal concentration. The flushing out of medium-sized enterprises, the breaking up of handicraft and small enterprises, and their pro-letarization is the process implied by the classical interpretation of differentiation.
Such an interpretation provides us with a solid and clear understanding of the issue and with an accurate classification of economies by size. The middle of this scale was gradually disappearing, and large enterprises were becoming larger and steadily maintaining their position. In contrast, artisans steadily went broke and finally proletarianized and became proletariat. This scheme clearly and accurately explains the nature of the social process under study. Under industrial conditions, differentiation had and has a certain place.
From what perspective should we consider the agriculture of capitalist countries? The recently published work of P.A. Vikhlyaev quite correctly and clearly raises this question. He mentions both the leve-
_ 8 ling process and differentiation in the countries of Western Europe
and America and discusses differentiation not within the peasant теория economy but within the entire agricultural production. Vikhlyaev notes that in some countries, large, landed estates oppose the entire peasant economy. Medium-sized capitalist farms disappear in the course of history, but some farms from this middle layer integrate and merger to form beet and other landed estates.
Despite such an interesting formulation of the differentiation issue, we have to admit that in 1927 in the USSR this formulation is unacceptable, because we face a completely different problem. We have neither large, nor medium-sized, capitalist farms in agriculture; therefore, we cannot consider differentiation in such a way. The definition of differentiation that is relevant for us is of a different nature. To understand my formulation of the differentiation issue deeply, we have to first reveal the exact conditions of the national economy in which the differentiation that interests us takes place. This question is always crucial for the general understanding and further analysis of differentiation.
If we set ourselves the task of finding out the main types of demographic situations and locations of agricultural production, in most cases we will get two types of countries. One type is countries in which the demographic composition and the standard of agriculture developed under the commodity economy, for instance, America, Australia, some other countries of the New World, and some countries of Western Europe. Under such conditions, we always have a very definite type of agricultural standard that is entirely determined by the market. The characteristic zones of different systems of the economy are distributed by isoprices. These systems determine the amount of labor required by agriculture, and, respectively, the distribution of population by isoprices. It is enough to look at the line of isoprices in the United States of America to see a clear expression of the described principle. The market creates all agricultural systems, and the population is settled according to the demands of agriculture for workers and exactly according to the heights of isoprices.
There is a different situation in a subsistence economy that excludes the possibility of isoprices; if there are no isoprices, they cannot determine the standard of agriculture. Therefore, in a subsistence economy, we have other types of agricultural production and population distribution.
In most countries, the factors that determine economic systems and population distribution are natural-historical conditions. There are also historical (often strategic) considerations that determine migration flows of subsistence economies. Thus, in the countries with subsistence agriculture, if other strategic things are equal, the distribution of population and agriculture ensures maximums in the most fertile regions.
Let us assume that some countries with a subsistence economy move to a commodity economy. According to natural-historical con-
ditions, because of this transition, the density of population required by the market will not correspond to the density of the population already settled This is the current situation on our Soviet plains. If you look very carefully at the population density and its distribution, for instance, on the maps of the 19th century — its beginning, middle, and end — you will see that the central concentration of population reflects the subsistence economy. You will see that for some time the population remains concentrated in the places in which it was concentrated before the development of steam transport.
Under commodity forms of economy, the population distribution determined by a subsistence economy is covered by the isoprices system, which determines the commodity production conditions. It goes without saying that the transition to a commodity forms an objective level of intensity, an objective system of economy, and an objective density of population. The need for workers will differ from those who existed before and are now present.
I made a very schematic small map to compare the changes of our grain isoprices with the population distribution. We see on this map that the highest grain isoprices in our country are typical for the ports of the Baltic and Black Seas, the Moscow industrial region, and non-agricultural areas (Turkestan and the Far North). The zone with the lowest prices consists of the central agricultural regions and plains of Siberia.
When taking a closer look at the development of the isoprices system, we could assume that the density of population would correspond to the height of isoprices, provided its settlement was in a commodity economy. However, in fact, the distribution of the rural population and partly the standard of agriculture still reflect the conditions of the already obsolete, subsistence economy. The largest density of population is in the central, agricultural region, i.e., the region of the lowest isoprices. This disharmony is the basis of the entire history of our economy in the last century.
We see a complete discrepancy between market requirements and the real distribution of the population. This is the reason for the pressing, agrarian overpopulation in the central and southwestern regions of the USSR. It is here that we see migration processes and the development of an enslaving type of relationship between farms. The mass, peasant economy has been reorganized from a natural form into a commodity one and thus has become part of the conflict of an excess of population versus the number of workers required by market-optimal forms of economy. It certainly loses its homogeneity and experiences the most dramatic processes of differentiation and increasing exploitation.
However, these differentiation processes certainly have nothing to do with the struggle of the large capitalist economies of Europe and America with their labor and semi-labor forms, with the differentiation processes in the Volga Region and Kuban, and with the state of
Chayanov A.V. On differentiation of the peasant economy
_ 10 things that we observe in the Moscow industrial region, where the
processes of differentiation are of a completely different nature and теория are determined by other factors.
Therefore, I believe that to correctly raise the question and get relevant answers, we have to accurately and thoroughly study every single case to find out what kind of differentiation processes we are observing, how to divide them to identify exactly what we want to study in every single case, to understand how and to what extent we can capture the process of differentiation with statistical measures, and, finally, how to place it in the general system of the national economy of the country under study. When conducting this research, I believe that we can distinguish separate processes that can be included in the concept of differentiation of the economy but have completely different social-economic content.
The most important question is whether, under the transition from the semi-natural forms of our agriculture to commodity forms, there will be a transformation of our main economic form of the peasant family economy into an American farming economy with a semi-capitalist and semi-labor basis. How and with what speed does this process take place, and can we expect it to become large-scale in the near historical future under our Land Code and our economic policy in general?
The question is not the size but the social type of economy; the question is not the organization of the production techniques but rather the organization of the social structure of this production. Will we have a farming type of economy or not?
This is the main and most important question in the whole issue of differentiation. Because of how the question is formulated, everything else is somewhat less important. If we are destined to follow the path of the American economy, our way to consider all issues related to agriculture is predetermined; otherwise, our analytical approach should be completely different. That is why I believe it is necessary to give priority to the question of whether our economies' differentiation consists of the crystallization of farming-entrepreneur elements and whether these elements stand out in the total mass of family farms? In addition to this issue, under the pressure of the same basic social factors, we can follow another process. That process is the differentiation of the agricultural population by separating the commercial, seasonal workers from it. This was once brilliantly analyzed by N.N. Gimmer-Sukhanov.
For the population that depends on the lowest isoprices because of agrarian overpopulation, this is a question of the type of evolution — either a partial departure from agriculture or the adaptation of their agricultural economy to new, unfavorable market conditions. This question is no less important than the previous one. Among other things, for us it is extremely important to know from which social groups the reserve armies of industrial labor are formed. Un-
der what conditions do the processes of this separation intensify or weaken, and what is the relationship with agriculture of the population that abandons farming? In fact, the most urgent and general question is the type of our proletariat in the next decade. As a result of differentiation, will we have the professional proletariat that completely abandoned agriculture or the new workers who are our old friends — semi-peasants-semi-workers who maintain relationships with their villages. This question is of crucial economic importance.
The third point related to the issue of differentiation is of no less social interest. It is known that the process of agrarian overpopulation in a family community economy always provides the conditions for the development of enslaving forms of exploitation, such as usurious credit, provision of means of production on onerous terms, and commodity exploitation. We have to learn whether this process is taking place in our country, and, if it is, what are the conditions, what are the factors, what are the sizes, and what are the economic consequences of this form of exploitation of one group of the peasantry by the others?
It should be emphasized that this process is completely different from the development of the farming economy. It almost directly implies the absence of the farming economy and becomes the most fruitful process in the subsistence economy.
Finally, the last question about peasant economy differentiation is the differentiation of economies determined by the changes in the structure of production and by the separation of farms for special auxiliary purposes: seed, breeding, primary processing, transport, etc. Very often such separation is determined by the capitalist surplus value; however, this is not an everyday, bonded exploitation but the development of normal, capitalist enterprises.
In this case, I do not mean the local separation of some special crops or the localization of agricultural production in space, but rather the splitting of the agricultural production process within the region — a kind of 'division of labor' between farms. This process is very complex and, unfortunately, often confused with forms of bonded exploitation, which is far from being always right. I will explain my idea with a few examples.
Let us consider elementary forms of pig breeding. They include the processes of mating, growing piglets, fattening, and slaughter all taking place on one farm. In the most developed regions of pig breeding in America, these four processes constitute four types of farms — we see mating stations, pig nurseries, fattening farms, and slaughterhouses.
Furthermore, in Flanders, the process of flax production (which we integrated at one farm) often includes dressing the flax. The process is differentiated into family farms, flax-growing, flax-damping, and flax-scutching enterprises, and also farms for hackling the flax. We see the same type of organization in many branches of primary processing, in livestock breeding, threshing, tractors, etc.
Chayanov A.V. On differentiation of the peasant economy
_ 12 Undoubtedly, when these highly specialized enterprises are based
on wage labor, their development is a major step in the development теория of rural capitalism. Nevertheless, this does not allow us to lump all these farms into one pile with forms of bonded exploitation or to assume that every employed tractor driver, owner of a steam thresher or other large tool, miller, or owner of a breeding bull mating for a fee represents an enslaving form of exploitation.
These are the four processes that we should identify and analyze separately, because each of them has its own specific social-economic nature. So, the first question: is the type of economy created or not created? Is there a transformation of the peasant masses, and if it is created, then under the pressure of what factors, and what is its quantitative scale? The second question: to what extent does the differentiation of the agricultural population resemble an industrial type of seasonal work? The third question: how and under what conditions do enslaving forms of exploitation develop? And finally, the fourth question: how is the production differentiation constituted by the development of individual mono-enterprises?
Actually, these are the questions that we face and that interest us. All these four processes have already been partly described by A.N. Chelintsev, N.P. Makarov, G.I. Baskin, and others. Therefore, after insisting on their separation, I will focus on only one question that has not yet been considered and, in my opinion, is not relevant, but its absence can hinder the study of the four previous questions.
All four processes take place in the context of the usual differentiation of the demographic (family) order, which depends on the relationship inherent in the family economy — between the economy size and the family size. This is the key background of differentiation, and it is especially clearly expressed in sowing groups and family size. Actually, this is not interesting for us because it has been common for centuries and is a common feature of every mass of peasant family economies. It should be taken into account and at the same time highlighted so that it is not confused with the differentiation processes I indicated above.
Already in 1923, in my work Die Lehre von der bäuerlichen Wirtschaf, I noted that, even if there were no social or capitalist differentiation in the peasant economy except for ordinary, everyday processes of peasant family development after its separation from the father's household and until its gradual filling of mouths and workers and the final land division starting new development cycles, under community land use and short-term rent, — even if this were the case, it would be enough for a strong differentiation by the level of sowing groups and livestock.
This process takes place because of the relationship between the family and economy sizes. It is so important for understanding the social structure of the village that we consider it necessary to focus on it in great detail, especially because other speakers, as far as I know, will not touch upon it at all.
Quite long ago, after the very first cases of zemstvo statisticians' 13 _
application of sowing groups, the relationship between the size of
the sown area and family size in the economy was discovered. All re- chayanov a.v.
search findings of peasant economy studies proved the same relation- On differentiation
ship of these two variables. For instance, relying on the consolidated of the peasant
work of B.N. Knipovich, we can provide the following series of data economy about this relationship by provinces:
Table i
Groups Per economy Groups Per economy
by sown area, in desiatina Desiatina of convenient land Peasants of both sexes by sown area, in desiatina Desiatina of convenient land Peasants of both sexes
Vyatka Province Poltava Province
0 1.2 2.8 0 2.5 4.9
0-1 4-5 3.5 0-1 1.5 4.9
1-2% 8.9 4.4 1-2 2.5 5.1
2%-5 12.6 5.3 2-3 3.6 5.4
5-7% 16.6 6.2 3-6 5.2 6
7%-io 21 7.2 6-9 9.5 6.8
10-15 27,7 8.6 9-15 15.8 7.5
15-20 36.5 10.7 15-25 28 8.5
> 20 51.2 12.8 25-50 > 50 54.5 144 9.5 11.2
Vladimir Province Yaroslavl Province
0 0.2 3.2 0 1.4 2.8
0-3 4.9 5.3 0-1 4.8 4.1
3-6 9.4 6.6 1-2 7.3 5.1
6-9 14.2 8.3 2-3 10.5 6
9-12 20.1 9.8 3-4 14.4 6.9
> 12 31.1 12 > 4 21.2 8.6
Tula Province Samara Province
0 0 1 0 0 3.5
0-1 0.4 3.4 0-3 1.8 4.4
1-2 1.4 4.4 3-6 4.5 5.2
2-5 3.4 6.2 6-9 7.5 6.1
14 5-10 6,9 8,4 9-12 10-5 6-9
ТЕОРИЯ 10-15 11,0 11,0 12-15 13-5 7-5
15-25 17-7 12-6 15-20 17-4 8-2
> 25 23-9 14-4 20-30 24-1 9-4
- - - 30-40 34-2 10-9
- - - > 40 65-9 11-3
Kaluga Province Vologda Province
0 0 3-6 0 9-1 2-5
0-3 2 4-8 0-2 7-4 4-1
3-6 4-3 6 2-3 12 5-3
6-9 7-1 7-3 3-6 16-6 6-2
> 9 11-3 8-4 > 6 19-1 7-5
By tracking the changes of functions, we can prove a significant dependence of family development on the size of land used. The nature of this dependence varies by region according to the differences in the structures of economic life. Thus, in the northern Vyatka, Yaroslavl, and Vologda Provinces with high earnings from developed, seasonal work, the area of land used is directly proportional to the development of the family. In the agricultural regions — Tula, Samara and Poltava Provinces — the land use curve, as it develops, significantly accelerates its growth.
However, in both cases, the change in the dependence curves is so natural that for many provinces, it can be easily expressed by a mathematical formula. For instance, for the Samara Province: if the family size (number of persons) is x, then the area of convenient land per household in the analyzed grouping will be equal to y: y = 0.36x2 - 0.52X - 2.6; and for the Vyatka Province even simpler: y = 4.38X - 10.5. The following table shows the situation, because these formulas accurately express the changes in the curves:
Table 2
Samara Province Vyatka Province
Number of Desiatinas of sown area Number of Desiatinas of sown area
persons in per household (y) persons in per household (y)
the family (x) by formula by observation the family (x) by by formula observation
4-4 2 1-8 3-5 4.8 4.5
5-2 4-4 4-5 4-4 8.8 8.9
КРЕСТЬЯНОВЕДЕНИЕ■2019 ■ ТОМ 4 ■ № 4
6.1 7.6 7.5 5.3 12.7 12.6 15
6.9 10.7 10.5 6.2 16.7 16.6 Chayanov A.V.
7.5 14.7 13.5 7.2 21.1 21 On differentiation
8.2 17.3 17.4 8.6 27.2 17 of the peasant
9.4 24.3 24.1 10.7 36.3 36.5 economy
10.9 34.5 34.1
In other words, we can be somewhat certain that the mass observations of the relationship of these two variables in the peasant economy make them a proven fact. Our calculation of the correlation coefficient between them also proves their significance. For instance, we have:
Table 3. Correlation coefficients between the sown area and the number of mouths and workers in the peasant family
Provinces and uyezds Number of mouths Number of workers
Vologda uyezd 0.43 0.43
Smolensk Province 0.6 0.58
Belsk uyezd 0.4 0.4
Starobelsk uyezd 0.73 0.6
Novgorod Province 0.46 0.45
Kirgiz farms of Kustanay and Aktyubinsk uyezds (number of livestock) 0.59 0.56
Thus, there is an undisputed fact of relationship. After the recognition of this fact, we must study the content of this relationship. Simply stated, we must identify which of these two interrelated elements is the cause and which is the consequence — which one determines the other. It is well known, that there are two opposing points of view. On the one hand, S.N. Prokopovich and some other economists believe that the only determining variable here is the size of the sown area predefined for the family composition. These economists argue that the size of the peasant family is determined by the material living conditions; therefore, the family can increase in size only if it is provided with the proper means of production, in the form of land or in the form of cattle and other means of production in economies of other types.
Many researchers representing the organization-production school oppose this point of view and insist on the reverse relationship. Under the communal economy and rental forms of land mobilization typical for the peasant economy, the land area is much more volatile
_ 16 than the family composition. Therefore, this relationship should most
likely be understood as the demographic development of the family теория being dependent on the distribution of land. The author of this article once studied the Starobelsky uyezd and tried to prove this position by pointing out that the grouping of the sown area is, at the same time, its grouping by the family age — according to the analysis of the demographic composition of families from different sowing groups. I found that the share of families consisting of a married couple and minor semi-workers reached 76.4 in the economies with up to 3 desiatinas of sown area, but it fell to 38.5 in the economies with 3-7^ desiatinas, to 4 — with 7^-15 desiatinas and, finally, to 0 in the economies with more than 15 desiatinas of the sown area. In other words, absolutely all peasant economies with large sown areas were the families of older peasants, in which the second generation had already become full-time workers. We also noticed that the transition of some demographic elements from one sowing group to another, for example, the ratio of workers and mouths, provides the same development curves for the sowing grouping as for a direct grouping by family age. However, this decisive remark, not developed on the basis of other budget studies, was completely unnoticed in the literature about the issue. Therefore, the problem still exists with all its tough confrontation and, certainly, is awaiting an objective solution. Without taking on the task of a final solution of the problem posed in the report, we, however, consider it possible to publish one of our new works on the issue.
We believe that if the arguments of S.N. Prokopovich were true and the family size were really and entirely determined by the material living conditions, then these material conditions would affect the family composition primarily by reducing the birth rate or increasing mortality. Only through these two levers that regulate family composition could the material conditions act, because all previous studies defined the family as a composition of assigned families, including industrialists. Thus, the impact of the economic factor on the scale of seasonal activities of the economy was not considered a part of the issues under our study. Therefore, to check the arguments of S.N. Prokopovich in his last work, which aimed to criticize the organization-production school, we started to thoroughly search for the correlation between various elements that could serve as indicators of the volume of economic activities: the sown area, number of livestock, etc., on the one hand, and indicators of family demographic dynamics, on the other. Because there were no data on birth rate and mortality in the budget materials available for our calculations, we considered it possible to take the share of children under six years as an indicator of demographic dynamics. We believe this is the indicator we need, because it expresses the birth rate for six years less the mortality of children for the same period. The results are extremely interesting and presented in the table below.
Table 4. Correlation coefficients of the share of children under 6 years in peasant families with various measures of the economy power (per farm)
Provinces and Land tenure Sown area Livestock Fixed Gross Personal uyezds (desiatinas) (desiatinas) in terms capital income budget
of cattle (rubles)
Novgorod Province
Starobelsk uyezd
Kirgiz farms of Kustanay and Aktyubinsk uyezds
Belsk uyezd
Smolensk Province
0.007
0.19
0
-0.12
-0.1
0.14
0.1
-0.08
0.15
0.12 -0.12
0.11 -0.18
0
-0.16
-0.13
0.08
0.07 -0.16
0.16
0.16
-0.09
0.05 -0.17
Chayanov A.V. On differentiation of the peasant economy
After examining these extremely curious figures, we can absolutely conclude that the correlation coefficients between the elements of the demographic dynamics of peasant families and the measures of economic power of the farm can be negative and positive, but both are so insignificant in size that they can be equated to 0, especially taking into account their opposite signs. In other words, the absolute size of the economy, sown area, capital of the variables that we study has no influence on the birth rate less the mortality of children. We do not want to generalize our conclusion beyond the data that we have or to make any broad generalizations from our calculation. However, we believe that the results of our study are highly significant, especially because, as we showed at the beginning of the article, these are the budgets, which provided us with not very high but still noticeable correlation coefficients between family and economy. Thus, we can arrive at certain conclusions: within the examined relationship between the absolute size of the economy and the absolute size of the family, it should be admitted that the first depends on the second, and not vice versa. By the extremely painstaking calculation of correlation coefficients, we did not expand our study to more extensive data and will not do so, because we believe that the "obligation to provide evidence" is not ours but that of our opponents.
In any case, we have no doubt that: 1) demographic differentiation determines the differentiation of farms by sowing and other quantitative groupings in absolute terms; 2) demographic differentiation itself is not relevant. When studying the actual issues of differentiation (the four issues mentioned above), we should eliminate its influence in every possible way and use indicators that do not correlate with family size for the analysis of these issues.
_ 18 This is our interpretation of the five processes of differentiation.
It goes without saying that all five processes are inextricably linked, теория mutually determined, and show different forms of interconnection in different regions and different phases of historical development. However, to study them in synthesis, we should consider each process separately and find for each its own most effective measure and indicator.
At the present stage of the empirical analysis, the question of measures is the most important for the development of differentiation studies. Therefore, we will focus only on this question at the end of our report, especially because there is great confusion and little clarity and accuracy in it. As we have already noted, to study the four processes of social differentiation that are relevant for us, first we have to suggest such measures that would not correlate with the processes of demographic differentiation, i.e., those that would not indicate the absolute size of the family or economy. Accordingly, to measure the first process, i.e., the transformation of the family peasant economy into farming forms, as an indicator, we have to take not sowing or any similar groupings but direct measures of capitalist relations in the economy. L.N. Kritsman, V.S. Nemchinov, I.D. Vermen-ichev, Ya.A. Anisimov and K.N. Naumov developed a synthetic coefficient, or the coefficient of proletarianism/capitalism of the economy, based on the total account of the relations of wage labor and rental of horses and equipment.
The groupings by this coefficient provide very indicative results. However, we should admit that, because of their calculation, they do not distinguish the process of developing farming economies from the process of developing bonded forms of exploitation. We can say that, for example, by observing a farm that rents out equipment or livestock — we cannot conclude that this is certainly the birth of the farming economy. It is very likely that this economy will never become farming. Quite often such a process is the survival of old, bonded forms of domestic exploitation. If we study the differentiation of these methods, we will never answer the question of whether the farming elements in our peasant economy develop or not. It is quite possible that the economy of renting threshers and tractors will turn out to be the farming one.
Therefore, it seems to us much more rational to divide the coefficient of V.S. Nemchinov into two separate ones: the first is based on an accounting rental relationship, and the second expresses bonded domestic forms of exploitation and is based on accounting rental of horses and equipment, credit relations, and rent. However, even in this case, there can be complications and confusion. To eliminate them, we have to avoid confusing bonded forms of exploitation with the emergence of special, capitalist, service enterprises (our fourth type of differentiation) when accounting for the use of equipment and partly of horses. Thus, the integral Nemchinov coefficient is divided
into three measures, and each of them is adapted for a special type of social differentiation of economies.
Another favorite measure in the study of differentiation is the economies' capital security. The author of this report and other authors often used the absolute size of fixed capital per economy for groupings. Our analysis shows that it is much more efficient to use the amount of the advanced working capital with the depreciation of fixed capital or even only the annual capital reproduction costs in the economy, although this is less indicative because of the intermittent reconstruction of the fixed capital that is typical for small enterprises.
Our final type of differentiation — seasonal work outside agriculture — is best measured by the share of seasonal work earnings in the gross income and annual wages or the family labor balance.
These are my methodological observations of the study of differentiation in agriculture. As I have already mentioned, I do not have the data of the large-scale, empirical studies of N.P. Makarov, V.S. Nem-chinov, A.N. Chelintsev and others. Therefore, I refrain completely from any comments on the current state of all four types of differentiation I identified. I believe that we will need not only the work already done but also a number of special studies to consider in detail the complexity of the issue we discuss.
The only comment with which I can essentially conclude my report is that the processes of both enslaving and demographic differentiations seem to me a relic of the subsistence economy. We will inevitably take this into account for ten more years, but the development of this relic does not at all prove the development of capitalist elements. Moreover, the processes of differentiation because of seasonal work and the division of production functions do not always and do not so much indicate the development of capitalism in agricultural production in the narrow sense of the word. Rather they prove the development of the entire national economy towards higher levels of capitalist organization and industrialization. Both are possible without capitalist conditions: for instance, seasonal work can take place at the socialist state industry, and division of the organizational plan of peasant production can lead to the cooperative organization of some separated industries.
Therefore, we should focus mainly on the first type of differentiation — the direct reorganization of labor family economies based on the household form of labor balance into farming economies based on wage labor to get surplus value. It is this type of the development of differentiation that constitutes the essence of the problem. In the Soviet economy, this process, which undoubtedly increases agricultural productivity, cannot be considered progressive, because it inevitably causes severe social consequences in rural life and hinders the development of cooperative forms of agricultural concentration that are the mainstream of our economic policy in farming.
Chayanov A.V. On differentiation of the peasant economy
20 О дифференциации крестьянского хозяйства2
ТЕОРИЯ
Чаянов А.В.
Составитель: Александр Михайлович Никулин, кандидат экономических наук, директор Центра аграрных исследований РАНХиГС при Президенте Российской Федерации; директор Чаяновского исследовательского центра МВШСЭН. 119571, Москва, пр-т Вернадского, 82. E-mail: [email protected]
Перевод на английский язык: Троцук Ирина Владимировна, доктор социологических наук, профессор кафедры социологии РУДН; ведущий научный сотрудник Центра аграрных исследований РАНХиГС при Президенте Российской Федерации; сотрудник Чаяновского исследовательского центра МВШСЭН. 119571, Москва, пр-т Вернадского, 82. E-mail: [email protected]
Эта статья А.В. Чаянова была впервые опубликована в журнале «Пути сельского хозяйства» (1927. №5. С.101-121) и являет собой переработанный вариант доклада Чаянова, который был представлен в ходе дискуссии о социально-экономической дифференциации советского крестьянства, состоявшейся в начале 1927 года в Москве. В дискуссии приняли участие многие видные ученые — представители двух важнейших идеологических направлений аграрной науки СССР: с одной стороны, аграрники-марксисты (Л.Н. Крицман, В.С. Немчинов, Я.А. Анисимов, И.Д. Вер-меничев, К.Н. Наумов), с другой стороны, так называемые «аграрники-неонародники» (А.В. Чаянов, Н.П. Макаров, А.Н. Челинцев)3.
В докладе Чаянов обосновал новое понимание социально-экономической дифференциации крестьянства в Советской России, отличающейся от дифференциации крестьянства в России дореволюционной. По мнению Чаянова, после уничтожения в ходе революции помещичьих и капиталистических хозяйств основной причиной дифференциации советского крестьянства в 1920-е годы стали региональные противоречия в размещении крестьянства, с одной стороны, скопившегося в центральночерноземных регионах, с другой — тяготевшего к рынкам морских портов и крупных городов. Чаянов доказывал, что таким образом из основного массива полунатуральных крестьянских хозяйств выделились четыре вида относительно самостоятельных семейных экономик: фермерские хозяйства, кредитно-ростовщиче-ские, промысловые и вспомогательные.
Кроме того, в отличие от знаменитой марксисткой трехчленной аграрной схемы «кулак-середняк-бедняк», которую развивала школа Л.Н. Крицмана, Чаянов обосновал собственную, более сложную и комплексную шестичленную схему дифференциации крестьянских хозяйств: капиталистические, полутрудовые, зажиточные се-мейно-трудовые, бедняцкие семейно-трудовые, полупролетарские и пролетарские. На основе этой схемы Чаянов предложил ряд шагов экономической политики по дальнейшему систематическому развитию сельскохозяйственной кооперации, прежде всего, в интересах центральных страт советского крестьянства.
Несмотря на то, что в дискуссии 1927 года о крестьянской дифференциации аргументы Чаянов и его коллег по организационно-производственной школе выглядели более убедительными и обоснованными, чем у их оппонентов аграрников-марксистов, сталинское руководство с 1928 года начало раздувать угрозу нарастания классовой дифференциации в деревне, инициируя борьбу с кулачеством как клас-
2. Статья подготовлена с использованием гранта Президента Российской Федерации, предоставленного Фондом президентских грантов. Проект «Школа А.В. Чаянова и современное сельское развитие: увековечивая деяния ученых через актуализацию их наследия».
3. Solomon. S.G. (1977). The Soviet Agrarian Debate: A Controversy in Social Science, 1923-1929. Boulder: Westview Press, 309 pp.
сом, ставшую прологом к форсированной коллективизации, в ходе которой была разгромлена школа Чаянова.
Ключевые слова: крестьянство, сельскохозяйственные регионы, СССР, социально-экономическая дифференциация, Чаянов, аграрники-марксисты, сельскохозяйственная кооперация
Chayanov A.V. On differentiation of the peasant economy
