Economic doctrine of A.V. Chayanov

He spent his childhood years in the former Ogorodnaya Sloboda.

Excellent home education, knowledge of major European languages.

In the private real school of K.P. Voskresensky - on Myasnitskaya - he began to write, at least it is known that young Chayanov composed a play there. In 1906 - the Petrovsky Academy, just renamed the Moscow Agricultural Institute. Thanks to worthy teachers (Professors A.F. Fortunatov and N.N. Khudyakov, Academician D.N. Pryanishnikov), the scientific interests of A.V. Chayanov were determined early and forever - public agronomy.

His interests in art were also determined early.

“Moscow collections of paintings a hundred years ago” (1917), “History of Miyusskaya Square” (1918), “Among collectors” (1920), “Petrovsko-Razumovskoye in its past and present” (1925), “The most western engraving (1926) - these art works were carried out by A.V. Chayanov in parallel with his main activity - scientific. P. Ettinger in 1924 (in the review “On the trifles of engraving”) reported: “Professor A.V. Chayanov, who took up wood engraving for the sake of a break from scientific studies, last year sent from Heidelberg a hand-colored, original woodcut announcing the appearance of into the world of his son Nikita."

Chayanov himself never forgot these years. “To him (the hero of the utopia “The Journey of My Brother Alexei to the Land of Peasant Utopia,” G.P.), I remembered how, with a sinking heart, he, as a first-year lawyer, many years ago bought here, to the right, from the second-hand book dealer Nikolaev Flerovsky, how three years later he laid the foundation for his icon collection, having found Silin of Novgorod from Elisha Savior, and those many, long hours when, with the burning eyes of a proselyte, he rummaged through the handwritten and book treasures of Shibanovsky antiques - where now, in the dim light of a lantern, one could read the short inscription “Glavbum”.

In 1912, Chayanov published the poem “Lelina’s Book.”

« Today, dear Alvina, the Jasmine bush is blooming, For breakfast with milk, raspberries are reserved for your lips...»

Valery Bryusov spoke disparagingly about the book.

In 1918, “The History of a Hairdressing Doll, or the Last Love of the Moscow Architect M.” appeared in a small private publishing house. - “a romantic story written by the botanist X. and illustrated by the anthropologist A.”, as stated in the subtitle.

“The Moscow architect M., the builder of one of the most visited Moscow cafes, known in Moscow circles most of all for the events of his personal life in the style of Casanova’s memoirs, once, passing by a coffee shop on Tverskoy Boulevard, he felt that he was already old...”

However, such a sudden, disturbing feeling of old age did not prevent the hero from experiencing the strangest, but most real feeling, even passion - for a wax doll, shown by the managing director of the Papengut and Son company in Paris at the Cirque de Paris, and in London - in Piccadilly. Music Hall. In search of the object of his love - the magical red-haired Aphrodite (one of the two Heinrichson twin sisters joined at the hips), the architect spends a lot of time traveling, even forgetting his favorite home walls. “He didn’t want to return home, he didn’t want to see the mahogany armchairs again, the Elizabethan sofa, with which so many names and deeds of love are associated, which have now become unnecessary; tapestries, erotic drawings by the already insane Vrubel, once bought with such delight, porcelain and Novgorod icons, in a word, everything that pleased and warmed life ... "

In the end, the architect M. finds the twins.

After the revolution, A.V. Chayanov taught at the Agricultural Institute and at the Communist University. Y. M. Sverdlova, creates an independent Scientific Research Institute of Agricultural Economics, heads it, holds leading positions in Russian cooperation - in the Central Union, is a member of the board of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, and its representative in the State Planning Committee. By the way, the story “The Journey of My Brother Alexei to the Land of Peasant Utopia” (signed with a pseudonym - Iv. Kremnev) appeared in 1920 not in a private publishing house (like all other books by Chayanov), but in a state publishing house. The preface to the “peasant utopia” was written by Vaclav Vorovsky, and Lenin himself recommended the book for publication (there were rumors). In general, this could have happened: the leader of the victorious revolution more than once referred to scientific works Chayanov about the cooperative movement.

“Kremnev, - (hero of utopia, - G.P.) - walked up to a large work table, made of something like thick cork, and hopefully began to look at the books scattered on the table. These were the 5th volume of “The Practice of Socialism” by V. Sher, “The Renaissance of the Crinoline, the Experience of Studying Modern Fashion”, two volumes of Ryazanov “From Communism to Idealism”, the 38th edition of the memoirs of E. Kuskova, an excellent edition of “ Bronze Horseman”, the brochure “On the transformation of B-energy”, and finally, his hand, trembling with excitement, took the issue of the latest newspaper. Worried, Kremnev unfolded a small sheet of paper. The date on the headline was 11 pm, September 5, 1984.”

This year later became the title of Orwell's famous dystopia.

After a long day of work, after a long, tiring meeting at the Polytechnic, where slogans that were surprising, even from the point of view of that time, were heard (“By destroying the family hearth, we are delivering the final blow to the bourgeois system!” - “Our decree prohibiting home-cooked food throws us out of of our existence, the joyful poison of the bourgeois family strengthens the socialist principle until the end of time." - “Family comfort gives rise to possessive desires, the joy of the owner hides the seeds of capitalism"), Alexey Kremnev, having fallen asleep, suddenly finds himself in a completely different world - in the distant future. There, from the first seconds, he is fascinated by a certain woman - “her almost classic head, ideally set on a strong strong neck, broad shoulders and full breasts, raising the collar of her shirt with every breath.” Young Paraskeva tells the attentive hero a lot and interestingly about art - about old Bruegel, Van Gogh, about old Rybnikov, about the magnificent Ladonov. “From her words, Kremnev understood that after the painting of the era of the great revolution, marked by futurism and the extreme decay of old traditions, the period of baroque-futurism, tamed and sweet futurism began. Then, as a reaction, like a sunny day after a thunderstorm, the thirst for mastery came to the fore; Bolognese began to come into fashion, the primitivists were somehow immediately forgotten, and the museum halls with paintings by Memling, Fra Beato, Botticelli and Cranach found almost no visitors. However, obeying the circle of time and not lowering its height, the craftsmanship gradually acquired a decorative inclination and created monumental canvases and frescoes from the era of the Barbarian conspiracy, the era of still life and blue tones passed through a stormy period, then the Suzdal frescoes of the 12th century became the ruler of world thoughts and the kingdom of realism began with St. Petersburg Bruegel as an idol..."

The peasant basis of Chayanov’s utopia could not help but surprise: the leaders of the real, victorious revolution in Russia initially focused on the proletariat, considering the peasantry to be a harmful, conservative layer. According to Kremnev, holder of work book No. 37413, the peasant government future Russia liquidated all cities a long time ago. Even in the place of Moscow “... the stone masses that once covered the horizon disappeared, entire architectural groups were missing, the Nirensee house was not in its place. But everything around was surrounded by gardens. Spreading clumps of trees filled the entire space almost right up to the Kremlin, leaving lonely islands of architectural groups. Street-alleys crossed the green, already yellowing sea. Streams of pedestrians, cars, and carriages flowed along them like a living stream. Everything breathed with some distinct freshness, confident cheerfulness.” The hero points out that the national game was the game of grandmas. As for the foundations of the peasant system, they were laid through very successful negotiations between Lenin, Kerensky and Milyukov. It was their minds that built the majestic socialist peasant republic. It was they who erected a grandiose monument - a column of cannon muzzles entwined with a metal ribbon, decorated with a complex bas-relief. Among the figures in this bas-relief are Rykov, Konovalov, Prokopovich, standing at the anvil, Sereda and Maslov, busy sowing. “Listen, Nikifor Alekseevich,” Kremnev turned to his companion, “after all, these people did not form such peaceful groups in their lives!” - “Well, for us in historical perspective they are simply comrades in the same revolutionary work, and believe me, the current Muscovite does not really remember what the difference was between them!”

It turns out that in 1934 (the story, let me remind you, was published in 1920), the peasant government of a certain Mitrofanov passed a decree at the General Congress of Soviets, according to which all cities with a population of over 20,000 inhabitants had to be urgently demolished - as a breeding ground for mental laziness and social infection . The task was completed in ten years, Moscow was redeveloped into continuous gardens, and by 1944 it had finally taken shape. “Now, however, the peasant regime has become so strong that the decree, sacred to us, is no longer observed with the same puritanical strictness. The population of Moscow is growing so much that our municipalities, in order to comply with the letter of the law, consider only the territory of the ancient White City, that is, the line of boulevards of the pre-revolutionary era, to be Moscow.”

As for history, “...the world unity of the socialist system did not last long and centrifugal social forces very soon broke the prevailing harmony. The idea of ​​military revenge could not be eradicated from the German soul by any tenets of socialism, and on the trivial matter of dividing up the Sarsky basin coal, the German trade unions forced their president Radek to mobilize German metalworkers and coal miners and occupy the Sarsky basin by force until the issue was resolved by the congress of the World Economic Council. Europe again fell apart into its component parts. The building of world unity collapsed and began bloody war, during which old Herve managed to carry out a social revolution in France and establish an oligarchy of responsible Soviet workers. After six months of bloodshed, through the joint efforts of America and the Scandinavian Union, peace was restored, but at the cost of dividing the world into five closed economic systems - German, Anglo-French, American-Australian, Japanese-Chinese and Russian. Each isolated system received various pieces of territory in all climates, sufficient for the complete construction of national economic life, and later, while maintaining cultural communication, lived a very different political and economic life. In Anglo-France, the oligarchy of Soviet employees very soon degenerated into a capitalist regime; America, having returned to parliamentarism, denationalized its production to some extent, maintaining, however, at the core state economy in agriculture, Japan-China quickly returned politically to monarchism, retaining unique forms of socialism in national economy, Germany alone carried the regime of the twenties completely intact.

The history of Russia was presented in the following form. While sacredly preserving the Soviet system, she could not completely nationalize agriculture. The peasantry, which represented a huge social mass, was difficult to communize, and five or six years after the end civil war peasant groups began to gain impressive influence both in local Soviets and in the V.C.I.K. Their strength was significantly undermined by the conciliatory policy of the five Socialist Revolutionary parties, which more than once weakened the influence of purely class peasant associations. For ten years at the congresses of the Soviets, no one movement had a stable majority, and power actually belonged to two communist factions, which always knew how to come to an agreement at critical moments and throw the working masses into impressive street demonstrations. However, the conflict that arose between them over the decree on the forced introduction of “eugenics” methods created a situation in which the right-wing communists remained victorious at the cost of establishing a coalition government and modifying the constitution to equalize the power of the quota of peasants and townspeople. The re-election of the Soviets gave a new Congress of Soviets with an absolute preponderance of purely class peasant groupings, and since 1932 the peasant majority has constantly resided in the V.Ts.I.K. and congresses, and the regime, through slow evolution, becomes more and more peasant. However, the dual policy of the Socialist-Revolutionary intellectual circles and the method of street demonstrations and uprisings more than once shake the foundations of the Soviet constitution and force the peasant leaders to stick to the coalition under the organization of the Council of People's Commissars, which was facilitated by repeated attempts at a revolutionary coup on the part of some urban elements. In 1934, after an uprising aimed at establishing an intellectual oligarchy like the French one, supported for tactical reasons by metalworkers and textile workers, Mitrofanov organized for the first time a purely class peasant Council of People's Commissars and passed a decree through the Congress of Soviets on the destruction of cities. The Varvarin uprising of 1937 was the last outbreak of the political role of cities, after which they dissolved into the sea of ​​peasants..."

Much surprises the hero in the new world.

Let's say, an artificial selection of talented lives.

“Past eras did not know scientifically human life, they did not even try to formulate a doctrine about it normal development, about its pathology, we did not know the diseases in people’s biographies, we had no idea about the diagnosis and treatment of failed lives. People who had weak reserves of potential energy often burned out like candles and died under the weight of circumstances; individuals of colossal strength did not use a tenth of their energy. Now we know the morphology and dynamics of human life, we know how to develop from a person all the forces inherent in him. Special societies, populous and powerful, include millions of people in their circle of observation, and rest assured that now not a single talent can be lost, not a single human opportunity will fly into the realm of oblivion ... "

“But isn’t this terrible! – exclaims the shocked Kremnev. – This is a tyranny above all tyrannies! Your societies, resurrecting German anthroposophists and French Freemasons, are worth any state terror. Indeed, why do you need a state, since your entire system is nothing more than a sophisticated oligarchy of two dozen smartest, ambitious people!” And further: “You, who are aware of all this, you, the leaders of spiritual life and the public, who are you: augurs or fanatics of duty? what ideas stimulated your work on the creation of this peasant eden? - “You are an unfortunate man! – answers Kremnev’s interlocutor. – What motivates our work and thousands like us? Ask Scriabin what motivated him to create Prometheus, what made Rembrandt create his fabulous visions! Sparks of the Promethean fire of creativity!.. Do you want to know who we are - augurs or fanatics of duty? Neither one nor the other - we are people of art... And in general we consider the state one of the outdated methods of organizing social life, and 9/10 of our work is carried out by social methods, they are characteristic of our regime: various societies, cooperatives, congresses, leagues, newspapers, other organs of public opinion, academies and, finally, clubs - this is the social fabric from which the life of our people as such is composed ... "

Later, NKVD investigators would recall these literary disputes to A. A. Chayanov.

But before his arrest, he would publish several more books: “Venediktov, or Memorable Events of My Life” (1922), “The Venetian Mirror, or the Amazing Adventures of the Glass Man” (1923), “The Extraordinary but True Adventures of Count Fyodor Mikhailovich Buturlin” (1924 ) and, finally, the story “Julia, or Meetings at Novodevichy” (1928). All listed books are signed with a pseudonym nerd X, but they were illustrated phytopathologist U, then some Alexey Kravchenko, then the book remained “ not illustrated by anyone».

Now one can imagine with what feeling Mikhail Bulgakov, the author of “The Master and Margarita,” read the pages of A. V. Chayanov’s story “Venediktov” (a copy of the book was found in Bulgakov’s personal library). “Walking through the streets of Moscow, visiting theaters and pastry shops, I felt an undeniably eerie and significant presence in the city. This feeling either weakened or intensified unusually, causing cold sweat on my forehead and trembling in my hands - it seemed to me that someone was looking at me and was preparing to take my hand ... " - (Isn't it true, it reminds me of the atmosphere of the novel "The Master and Margarita"? – G.P.) - “How can I thank you, Bulgakov! - said Pyotr Petrovich (to one of the heroes of the story, the namesake of the famous writer, - G.P.) , handing me a glass. “Gabriel himself could not have brought me more joyful news than you!” Eh! if only you could understand something, Bulgakov! The liberated soul, having thrown off the chains, loves me!”

And even further: “I am the king! And you are a worm before me, Bulgakov! Cry, I tell you! Laugh, slave soul! And, finally, absolutely terrible: “My power is limitless, Bulgakov, and my melancholy is limitless; the more power, the more melancholy.”

In the second half of the twenties, real forceful pressure on agricultural scientists began in the USSR. The country demanded bread, but the scientists could not give it right away. Personnel were changed, pests were looked for. In 1928, A.V. Chayanov was removed from the post of director of the institute he founded. The institution itself was transformed into a Research Institute of a large socialist economy. True, the scientist remained a member of the board: he repented in time for his alleged mistakes, he recognized the main state farm forms of land use, and not the cooperative forms of land use he preached, and even prepared the manuscript “Organization of a large-scale economy in the era of socialist reconstruction of agriculture.”

But nothing could save him.

In December 1929, Stalin spoke at a conference of Marxist agrarians in Moscow. In his report “On Issues of Agrarian Policy in the USSR,” he called the theory of “sustainability” of small-peasant farming the theory of prejudices. According to Stalin, it turned out that “we do not have private ownership of land, we do not have that slavish attachment of the peasant to a piece of land that exists in the West. And this circumstance cannot but facilitate the transition of small-peasant farming to collective farms.” And further: “Why is this new argument not used sufficiently by our agrarian theorists in their struggle against all and sundry bourgeois theories?” And one more thing: “Why should the anti-scientific theories of “Soviet” economists like Chayanov be freely circulated in our press?”

A.V. Chayanov was accused of belonging to the Labor Peasant Party.

Of course, such a party has never existed in nature. While developing the case, NKVD investigators saw some connection between the labor peasant party once invented by the writer and the real Industrial Party, in the case of which A.V. Chayanov was arrested. In “The Journey of My Brother Alexei,” the TKP looked like a completely reasonable organization that defended the middle peasant, but it was precisely invented, a purely literary party. Nevertheless, A.V. Chayanov was accused of her. And Chayanov was arrested right at the presidium of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, together with professors N.D. Kondratyev, A.N. Minin, N.P. Makarov, A.A. Rybnikov.

The writer’s wife recalled: “He was taken away on July 21, 1930 at work at the moment when he was preparing Zernotrest material for the XV Party Congress. And although, due to the persecution to which he was subjected Last year, he suffered greatly, sick and in a calm state, nervous system, instead of the required rest, he continued his work with unflagging energy and devotion.

I can only tell you about what happened in prison from his words. He was charged with belonging to the “labor peasant party,” about which he had not the slightest idea. That’s what he said until Agranov (a well-known security officer in the authorities, who knew how to be friends with writers) began interrogating - G.P.). The interrogations at first were very gentle, “friendly”, Jesuitical. Agranov brought books from his library, then asked me to give him books from home, telling me that Chayanov could not live without books, allowed food transfers and visits, and then, when I left, he, taking advantage of Chayanov’s spiritual shock, immediately arranged him another interrogation.

Taking Agranov’s “disposition” toward him at face value, Chayanov friendlyly explained to him that he did not belong to any party and had not taken any counter-revolutionary actions. Then Agranov began to show him one after another thirteen testimony of his comrades against him. I don't know the details of the accusation. I only know that in addition to the accusations in the TCH, slander was repeated, which he, based on facts, refuted while still free.

The testimony conveyed to him by Agranov plunged Chayanov into complete despair - after all, he was slandered by people who knew him and whom he had known closely for many years. But still he still resisted. Then Agranov asked him: “Alexander Vasilyevich, do you have any of your comrades who, in your opinion, are not capable of lying?” Chayanov replied that there was, and pointed to prof. economy geography by A. A. Rybnikov. Then Agranov takes Rybnikov’s testimony out of the desk drawer and gives it to Chayanov to read. This was the last straw that undermined Chayanov’s resistance. He began, like everyone else, to write what Agranov composed. So he, in turn, incriminated himself.

When, in exchange for the remaining year (he was sentenced to 5 years in prison), he was exiled to Alma-Ata for 3 years, and I came to see him there, he told me all this.

As a graduate student at the Tretyakov Gallery, I did a graduate internship there, and once in its halls I met A. A. Rybnikov. He came up to me and said that he had long wanted to see me to tell me about his betrayal, but that he did not have the civil courage to do so. That he cannot explain to himself how this happened, but he lied to such an honest and pure man, like Chayanov. That the very next day he wrote to the investigator a refutation of his testimony, but, apparently, this explanation was not added to the case. (I wrote to Comrade Vyshinsky about this in 1937. My statement is apparently stored somewhere). To understand the value of Rybnikov’s testimony, we can only add that immediately after the verdict he was transferred to the Kashchenko hospital, where he was recognized as mentally ill and given into the arms of his wife.

Prof. The manufacturer, who wrote wild tales in his testimony, became mentally ill during the investigation and is still registered at a mental hospital.

During the investigation, Studensky became mentally ill and hanged himself in his cell.

A. N. Minin, who in his testimony slandered both himself and his closest friend A. V. Chayanov, conveyed through his wife from the camp comrade. Vyshinsky's explanation of how and why he gave false testimony. By the way, Minin was rehabilitated several months ago.

Prof. N.P. Makarov, in the description I attached of A.V. Chayanov, writes that he slandered Chayanov, unable to withstand the severity of the investigation ... "

In March 1931, under the chairmanship of trade union and political figure N. M. Shvernik, a trial took place in the case of the “counter-revolutionary organization of the Union Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (Mensheviks).” The prosecutor of the RSFSR N.V. Krylenko acted as the prosecutor. The investigation into the Kondratiev-Chayanov group was formally still ongoing, but the result was a foregone conclusion. In the indictment presented to the court, the tasks and activities of the “labor peasant party” were characterized as openly anti-Soviet and sabotage. The TKP was called “the kulak-SR group of Chayanov-Kondratiev”; it was reported that “the TKP took upon itself the organization of peasant uprisings and riots, using the influence of kulak elements and the hesitations of a certain part of the middle peasants in matters of attitude towards the collectivization of agriculture; work on supplying the rebels with weapons and ammunition and delivering them to the areas of alleged uprisings; work to disintegrate the units of the Red Army, especially those sent to stop the unrest in rural areas.” The uprising, supported by foreign intervention, according to materials obtained by the investigation, was supposed to begin in 1931. Before pronouncing the verdict, the prosecutor addressed the judges with a frank, undisguised appeal: “I ask you to show maximum severity towards the defendants.”

According to Professor Makarov, in prison A.V. Chayanov was engaged in literary work: he compiled cookbook, even wrote a great historical novel “Yuri Suzdalsky”. The fate of the manuscripts is unknown.

After four years of imprisonment, the writer was sent into exile in Alma-Ata.

“About his life and mood,” wrote Vl. Muravyov, - S.A.’s letter can give some idea. Klepikov dated February 13, 1936. Chayanov is trying to joke that “Alma-Ata is a waterless desert for collectors.” That his “society consists of a cat and an Almaty shepherd named Dingo,” which “the neighboring population simply calls Zinka,” but behind all these jokes one can feel fatigue and anxiety. “I ask you not to forget me with books, and I ask you to keep in mind that I have fallen into childhood (apparently from old age), from all the newspapers I read Komsomolskaya Pravda, and I really read all the publications of the Young Guard, and from books I will I am infinitely grateful to you for Dumas, Jules Verne, Walter Scott and the like. But also for everything else.” The letter ends with a painful confession: “Sorry for the frivolous message, but I’m literally swollen from 12-14 hour work every day... and by writing these lines, I’m taking my soul away.”

In the fall of 1937, the Chayanovs were arrested again.

This time he was accused of connections with Bukharin's group.

The son of A.V. Chayanov, Vasily Alexandrovich, has preserved a notebook in a simple calico binding. Its yellowed pages are covered in thin, faded purple ink. At one end of the notebook are notes on the history of Western European engraving, at the other are sketches of the article “Intra-economic transport. Materials for the five-year plan of 1933-37.” This notebook was filled out in a cell in Butyrka prison. Apparently, A.V. Chayanov was looking for at least some kind of distraction from the nightmarish realities in his work, perhaps hoping that the notes would be useful in the future.

On the same day the sentence was carried out.

Chayanov Alexander Vasilievich is an economist and theorist of family and peasant farming, the creator of agrarian economic theory in Russia in the first half of the 20th century. Born in 1888 to a merchant-philistine family who came from peasant backgrounds. After graduating from a real school, in 1906 he entered the Moscow Agricultural Institute (MSHI; later - Petrovskaya, now - Timiryazevskaya Agricultural Academy). After completing the course, he was left at the Department of Agricultural Economics and Organization Agriculture A.F. Fortunatov to prepare for teaching and research work. Since 1913 A.V. Chayanov is an associate professor, and since 1918, a professor at the Department of Organization of Agriculture at the Moscow Agricultural Institute, where he worked until 1930. At the same time, he teaches at the Moscow People's University. A.L. Shanyavsky and actively participates in the Russian cooperative movement.

During the First World War, he worked in various commissions of the Special Conference on Food, in food organizations of the All-Russian Zemstvo Union and the economic department of the All-Russian Union of Cities, participating, in particular, in the preparation of the General Plan for Providing Food to the Population (1916).

In 1915, with a group of prominent cooperators, he created the Central Partnership of Flax Growers. Chayanov was appointed Deputy Minister of Agriculture in the latest Provisional Government. In 1918, the Higher Economic Seminary on Agrarian Issues was created at the Petrovsky Academy, the head of which was A.V. Chayanov.

After the October Revolution, the scientist began to develop an independent theory of cooperation. In 1919 The fundamental work of A.V. was published. Chayanov “Basic ideas and forms of organization of peasant cooperation”, in which he received further development his analysis of the practice of the cooperative movement. One of the most important components of the cooperative theory of A.V. Chayanov is the principle of differential optima. Firstly, this is a question of the optimal size of certain specific enterprises and, secondly, the question of the optimum for various branches of agriculture. Chayanov was an outstanding economist and mathematician. In a number of works, he substantiated the rational boundaries of land management and the optimal size of agricultural holdings. Having put forward the principle of differential optima, the scientist showed that different branches of agriculture and different regions may have their own optimal sizes of agricultural holdings, but general principle is to achieve the minimum cost for each type of product produced.

In the center of scientific interests of A.V. Chayanov was also involved in the development of problems of agricultural construction. Among the latter, we note the agrarian question, public agronomy, water economics, accounting (taxation) in agriculture, the organization of state farms and agricultural complexes, the development of individual regions, in particular the Non-Black Earth Region, etc.

Since 1919, Chayanov has been very active in the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, preparing a plan for the restoration of agriculture, and heading a scientific seminary on agricultural economics and policy. In 1922, a large research institute was organized on the basis of the seminary, the leadership of which was entrusted to A.V. Chayanov.

After the discussion about the differentiation of the peasantry (1927) and in connection with the beginning of the policy of curtailing the NEP, the first unfair persecution fell on Chayanov. He is accused of seeking to perpetuate the ineffective small peasant economy; later he will be called a “neo-populist” and an ideologist of the kulaks. In 1928, the scientist was forced to resign as director of the Institute of Agricultural Economics.

On June 21, 1930, Chayanov was arrested; on January 26, 1932, the OGPU Collegium sentenced him to 5 years in a camp in a fabricated case of the Labor Peasant Party; On October 3, 1937, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to death. Rehabilitated in 1987.

Works: 1. Chayanov A.V. On the issue of the theory of non-capitalist economic systems // Chayanov A.V. Peasant farming. M.: Economics, 1989; 2. Chayanov A.V. A short course in cooperation. Barnaul: Alt. books publishing house, 1989-; 3. Chayanov A.V. Peasant farming. M.: Economics, 1989-(Series “Economic Heritage”); 4. Chayanov A.V. Basic ideas and forms of organization of peasant cooperation // Chayanov A.V. Selected works. M.: Moscow worker, 1989; 5. Chayanov A.V. Basic ideas and forms of organizing agricultural cooperation // Chayanov A.V. Selected works. M.: Kolos.

Chayanov Alexander Vasilyevich [17(29).1.1888, Moscow - 3.10.1937, Alma-Ata] - prose writer.

Born into a Moscow mixed family. Father is from the peasants of the Vladimir province. As a boy, he worked at one of the weaving factories in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, gradually became the owner’s partner, and then opened his own business. Mother came from the town of Vyatka, was in the first group of women admitted to study at the Petrovsky Agricultural and Forestry Academy, and graduated from it. She had a great influence on the formation of Chayanov’s tastes, literary and artistic preferences.

Chayanov's primary education was at home. Since childhood, he spoke the main European languages. He continued his education at one of the best Moscow real schools - the private school of K.P. Voskresensky. In 1906 he entered the Petrovsky Academy, as Muscovites traditionally called the Moscow Agricultural Institute. As one of the academy students noted, it “did not provide either an official or a financial career. The best elements in it were those who graduated high school who came here either for the sake of its revolutionary reputation, or for the study of natural history and social sciences...”

In the 2nd year, Chayanov’s scientific interests were determined. He took up earth sciences. In the circle of public agronomy (COA), of which he was one of the active members, his “views and worldview were developed, which resulted in the construction of a cooperative ideal and new theory peasant economy, organizational and production." Many experts have written about the significance of Chayanov’s ideas for our time. In his theory of the development of the peasant economy, Chayanov, as his first biographer Vl. Muravyov noted, “was based on a careful study and deep respect for the objective internal laws of the existence and activity of the peasant economy... he denied the very principle of attempts to force violence against objective laws...”.

In the pre-revolutionary years, Chayanov was the largest scientist in the field of agricultural organization. He gave courses of lectures at the Petrovsky Academy, Moscow University, and Shanyavsky University. He was involved in consultations and work with public and state organizations related to agriculture. He was nominated for the post of Comrade Minister in the Provisional Government. After the October Revolution, Chayanov created the Research Institute of Agricultural Economics, was its director, held various leadership positions in the Central Union, and traveled as an adviser to the Genoa Conference. Some of Chayanov's works were used by Lenin when he wrote the article “On Cooperation.”

In the second half of the 1920s, the views of Chayanov and his school were declared anti-Marxist. In 1929, at a conference of Marxist agrarians in Moscow, Chayanov was accused of seeking to restore capitalism in the USSR. On July 21, 1930, Chayanov was arrested at the presidium of VASKHNIL. At the same time, many of his friends were arrested - prominent economists N.D. Kondratyev, A.N. Minin and others. Chayanov was charged with belonging to the mythical “Labor Peasant Party.” The case was led by Agranov, who, using various ways psychological pressure forced Chayanov to incriminate himself. In March 1931, after a trial in the case of the “counter-revolutionary organization of the Union Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (Mensheviks)”, in which the “kulak-SR group of Kondratiev-Chayanov” was accused of intending to organize kulak uprisings, Chayanov was sentenced to 5 years in prison and sent to the Suzdal prison.

After a 4-year imprisonment, Chayanov was exiled to Alma-Ata, where he worked at the Agricultural Institute. In the fall of 1937 he was arrested again, sentenced to death and executed on the same day.

As an illegally repressed person, Chayanov was rehabilitated in 1956. The charges in the TKP case “for the absence of an event or corpus delicti” - i.e. after they were recognized as completely false, they were removed from Chayanov by a decision of the Supreme Court of the USSR on July 16, 1987.

The Chayanov's range of interests was not limited to professional and related social activities. In his youth, he became interested in collecting icons and engravings, he studied the history of art and collecting, wrote several works on this topic: “Moscow collections of paintings a hundred years ago” (1917), “Old Western engraving” (1926), etc. Chayanov himself was engaged in engraving on wood.

The history of Moscow was constantly included in his circle of interests. In the “Old Moscow” society, of which he was a member, Chayanov made a number of reports on the topography of Moscow. On the history and topography of Moscow, Chayanov lectured at Shanyavsky University and Moscow University, published the works “History of Miusskaya Square” (1918) and “Petrovsko-Razumovskoye in the Past and Present” (1925).

Literary creativity, along with other activities, was part of Chayanov’s lifestyle. He began writing early, probably while still in real school. During his years of study at the Petrovsky Academy, he was a member of one of the Moscow literary circles, but which one is unknown. In 1912, a collection of Chayanov’s poems, “Lelina’s Book,” was published. Chayanov sent the collection to V. Bryusov.

Later Chayanov wrote prose. In 1918-28, during his most intense professional and social activities, he published 5 stories under the pseudonym “nerd X”: “The History of a Hairdressing Doll, or the Last Love of the Moscow Architect M.” (1918), “Venediktov, or Memorable Events of My Life” (1922), “The Venetian Mirror, or the Amazing Adventures of the Glass Man” (1923), “The Extraordinary but True Adventures of Count Fyodor Mikhailovich Buturlin, Described According to Family Traditions” (1924) , “Julia, or Meetings near Novodevichy” (1928). All of them were published by the author, at his expense.

In 1920, Chayanov published under the name I. Kremnev the story “The Journey of My Brother Alexei to the Land of Peasant Utopia.” This book was published by Gosizdat and, according to some recollections, was published on the orders of Lenin. It was opened by a preface by V.V. Vorovsky, who noted: “... this utopia is a natural, inevitable and interesting phenomenon... It has the advantages that it was written by an educated, thoughtful person... He writes sincerely what he believes in and what he wants; this gives his utopia an undeniable interest.” “The Journey...” is not so much a utopia in the usual sense as a presentation of Chayanov’s views on the future of Russia, on the structure of a prosperous peasant country. These are the views of a person convinced that the peasant cause should be “a truly powerful social movement, and not just an enterprise!”

Chayanov himself classified the rest of his stories as romantic. Moreover, they are not simply imitation of the works of the 19th century.

They are also not pastiches, much less parodies. In Chayanov's stories, regardless of the time of their action, a characteristic romantic conflict unfolds - the hero's struggle with fate, a person's attempt to free himself from the power of unknown and alien forces, not to subject his life to their interference. In the decade when Chayanov's stories were written, this “romantic” conflict acquired a new and dangerously optimistic relevance.

O.I.Kozlova

Materials used from the book: Russian literature of the 20th century. Prose writers, poets, playwrights. Biobibliographical dictionary. Volume 3. P - Y. p. 634-636.

Chayanov Alexander Vasilievich

Russian economist, sociologist, social anthropologist, internationally recognized founder of interdisciplinary peasant studies; science fiction writer and utopian. Author of the term moral economics.

On September 28, 1987, in the conference hall of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences named after Lenin, English professor Theodor Shanin gave a lecture “A.V. Chayanov in world economic science". Many of those gathered heard the name Chayanov for the first time, having read materials in the Moscow News newspaper a month and a half earlier. round table", collected by journalist Lev Voskresensky with the participation of doctors of science N.K. Figurovskaya, V.L. Danilova and M.O. Chudakova, which talked about the rehabilitation of 15 agricultural scientists who were repressed at the very beginning of the thirties on charges of preparing anti-Soviet conspiracies and kulak revolts. Based on the names of the two main accused, the “criminal organization” then received the name “Kolak-Socialist Revolutionary group of Kondratiev - Chayanov.” More than half a century later, on July 16, 1987, at the protest of the USSR Prosecutor General A.M. Rekunova, the Supreme Court of our country dismissed the criminal case for lack of corpus delicti.

Alexander Vasilyevich Chayanov cannot be appreciated and understood without knowing everything in which he was interested and lived. One cannot talk about Chayanov only as an agricultural economist, just as one cannot talk about the chemistry professor Borodin, leaving aside Borodin the composer, or, when comprehending Leonardo da Vinci, narrow the boundless range of his talent to sculpture and painting, without touching on his studies in mechanics, optics, anatomy. Like any other person, Chayanov can be understood if you approach him as an integral personality.

He was born in Moscow on January 17 (29), 1888. His father, Vasily Ivanovich Chayanov, came from the peasants of the Vladimir province. In the post-reform era, Vasily Chayanov came to Ivanovo-Voznesensk as a boy and began working at a weaving factory. Over time, he became a shareholder, then a partner of the owner, and then started his own business.

From Ivanovo-Voznesensk V.I. Chayanov moved to Moscow. Here he married Elena Konstantinovna Klepikova, who came from the bourgeoisie of the city of Vyatka. The future scientist’s mother graduated from the Petrovsky Agricultural and Forestry Academy in the first group of women admitted there. The fact that she was an agronomist could not but play a role in the choice of her son’s life path.

In 1899, 11-year-old Sasha Chayanov entered the best real school in Moscow on Myasnitskaya Street 59. Real schools, unlike gymnasiums, provided science and mathematics education. In their senior classes, applied subjects of the mechanical-technological and chemical-technological cycles, as well as the basics of commerce, were taught. There was no Latin or Ancient Greek in the program, but there were German and French languages.

The Chayanovs then lived in Maly Kharitonyevsky Lane, where everything reminded of distant antiquity. Pushkin, Gogol, Shchepkin, Venevitinov visited the houses located nearby. According to legend, in the old Yusupov garden, in one of the wings, at the very beginning of the 19th century, Nadezhda Osipovna and Sergei Lvovich Pushkin lived. It was here that Tatyana Larina came “to Khariton’s alley” and heard the ringing of bells. Young Chayanov also hears the ringing of bells. This music captivates him, and he begins to study it.

(In 1920, Chayanov would write the book “The Journey of My Brother Alexei to the Land of Peasant Utopia.” In the fantastic Moscow of 1984, he will offer the reader “a musical program performed on the Kremlin bells in collaboration with other Moscow churches.” This is how he will describe the beginning of this concert: “ A minute later, the thick sound of the polyeleos bell began to hum and swept over Moscow. Kadashi, St. Nicholas the Great Cross, the Conception Monastery responded to it in the octave - and the Rostov chime engulfed all of Moscow. The copper sounds falling from above on the heads of the hushed crowd were like the flapping of the wings of some kind unknown bird. The element of Rostov ringing, having completed its circle, gradually ascended somewhere to the clouds, and the Kremlin bells began the strict scales of Rachmaninov's liturgy.") It was in his youth that Chayanov became fascinated with the history of Moscow for the rest of his life and eventually became one of its greatest historians .

In 1906, Chayanov graduated from college and entered the Moscow Agricultural Institute, as the former Petrovsky Agricultural and Forestry Academy, opened on November 21, 1865, would officially be called in 1894.

(In 1925, the director of the Research Institute of Agricultural Economics at the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy and its professor A.V. Chayanov will write the book “Petrovsko-Razumovskoye in its past and present” - a kind of guide to TSHA, where history and modernity are intricately intertwined.)

At the institute, science becomes his life's passion. But, a highly social person, he engages in it as a matter that transforms people's lives. This understanding of the social role of science arose in the young Chayanov from ideas gleaned primarily from the student and teaching environment.

As a twenty-year-old 3rd year student, Chayanov writes his first scientific work. He is interested in cooperation in Italian agriculture. He talks about the economic revival of Italy and connects it primarily with agricultural cooperation, when thousands of poor small farms merged into various unions and, on the basis of initiative, created a powerful economic organization of credit, procurement, and sales, organized production cooperation, and supported the cause of agronomic assistance to peasants. Chayanov called on Russian peasants to follow the example of the Italians by creating various cooperatives in their villages.

Soon, Chayanov’s second work, “Public Events on Cattle Breeding in Belgium,” appeared, written after he, a graduate student, worked in this country for two months. In it, he again raised questions closely related to domestic practice, in particular about the preservation of the best breeds of animals.

In 1910, Chayanov graduated from the institute and was left at the department as a graduate student for two years. He travels to France, Germany, England, Italy and Switzerland. Having returned, he continues to promote everything useful that he learned about, but above all he is occupied with the internal problems of domestic agriculture. The young scientist begins to study this economy as a large and complex mechanism in its diverse economic and production connections with the surrounding natural and economic environment, and also as a certain cell of the social organism.

In 1912, the first part of Chayanov’s book “Essays on the Theory of Labor Economy” was published in Moscow, which put forward a position that was subsequently developed in many of Chayanov’s works, because of which he began to be subjected to fierce criticism. He wrote then that “every labor economy has a natural limit to its production, which is determined by the proportionality of annual labor with the degree of satisfaction of the needs of the farming family.” He later made this postulate, already supported by digital and factual material, one of the main issues of his scientific and social activities. A year later, the second issue of “Essays” was published, dedicated to the basics of creating a consumer budget. Chayanov constantly deals with the problems of Russian flax, which, after rye and wheat, occupied perhaps the most important place in the country’s agriculture, and explores the economic and agricultural aspects of land reclamation.

The Academic Council of the Moscow Agricultural Institute, paying tribute to Chayanov’s extraordinary diligence and versatility, awarded him the title of associate professor in 1913. He was then 25 years old.

By 1913, three-quarters of Russia lived and worked in villages, in 20 million households.

During the First World War (1914–1918), Chayanov was involved in organizing grain procurements and food supply. The history of the food issue at this time is reflected in the lectures he gave in April 1917 at the training courses for cultural educators at the Moscow Council of Student Deputies. A number of interesting considerations and fundamental assessments are also expressed here. Thus, Chayanov notes: “We are currently facing many years of difficult and responsible creative work construction new Russia. In the field of political construction and civil construction, almost everything is in our power, the power of human laws. This is not what we see in the area of ​​economic life. Here, in addition to our human laws, we face the laws of economic life, laws that we cannot change and to which our human laws must adapt in order to adapt the resultant economic life to our ideal.”

In 1918, speaking at 3 All-Russian Congress"Leagues agrarian reforms"with the report “The Nature of the Peasant Economy and the Land Regime,” Chayanov notes: “In placing the peasant economy as the basis of the future national economic system in Russia, we must take into account that by its very nature it is different from the capitalistically organized economy within which we are usually accustomed solve economic problems. A peasant farm is, first of all, a family farm, the entire structure of which is determined by the size and composition of the farming family, the ratio of its consumer demands and its working hands.” This position, aimed at protecting the non-capitalist peasant economy, was subsequently declared the main theoretical position of the so-called “anti-Marxist neo-populist school”, which proceeded from the fact that, working on his own land and not exploiting the labor of others, the peasant finds himself in a position where wage categories , surplus value and rent relations seem to be blurred and classical political economy can no longer give traditional answers to new circumstances and situations that are not considered by it.

Chayanov was not a Bolshevik, but he was a socialist, a democrat by conviction and an analyst by mentality. The most significant work on which he worked during the Civil War (1918 - 1920) was the book “Basic ideas and forms of organization of peasant cooperation.” Here he summarized everything that he wrote and said earlier about cooperation.

Considering agriculture as a conglomerate of a wide variety of economic forms and formations, Chayanov recognized that the most common of them are two forms: capitalist and the family-labor one that opposes it. Externally, the capitalist economy is much larger, while the family-labor economy is smaller. But if the capitalist economy is built on wage labor, then the family-labor economy is on a completely different basis; it “is characterized by different motives for economic activity and even a different understanding of profitability. A logical step in the development of the latter should be the unification of these non-capitalist family labor collectives into non-capitalist cooperatives. (Chayanov understood the socialist background of cooperation to a large extent in the spirit of Russian utopian socialists. He admired one of the founders of utopian socialism, Robert Owen, about whose “sublime” teaching he wrote: “He said that people should help each other through friendly, common efforts live and, by founding special societies, jointly organize their economic life." This idea seemed to Chayanov suitable for any time and for any society, because it was universal, and he put the universal above the class.)

“Many people believe,” wrote Chayanov, “that the existing partial cooperation of farms is only a transitional phase and that over time all processes of agricultural production will be cooperated into an “integral” agricultural artel, a kind of agricultural commune. But peasant farming must cooperate and collectivize those sectors in which the large-scale form of production has its advantages, and leave in the individual family farm everything that is better organized in a small enterprise. A labor commune will always be weaker than a labor cooperative economy, since by its nature it is forced to organize in large forms not only those sectors of the economy in which it is advantageous to organize it in this way, but also those in which small-scale production is always technically more perfect.”

Since 1918, Chayanov became one of the youngest professors at the Moscow Agricultural Institute and in this capacity expressed many valuable thoughts about the tasks and methods of work of higher educational institutions.

Until 1920, Chayanov held leadership positions in cooperation, and since 1920 - in the People's Commissariat of Agriculture. In 1921 - 1923, while remaining a member of the board of the People's Commissar of Land, he was a representative of the People's Commissar of Land in the State Planning Committee. Occupying responsible positions, Chayanov became known to the highest officials of the USSR. While giving him credit as a highly qualified specialist, some political leaders considered him an honest bourgeois specialist or, at best, a sympathetic fellow traveler. A multifaceted, ambiguous person did not fit into the scheme that simplistically divided all people into friends and enemies.

In 1918 – 1921 Chayanov is also interested in literature and history. He writes “The History of Miyusskaya Square”, fantastic story“The Journey of My Brother Alexei to the Land of Peasant Utopia”, the romantic stories “The History of a Hairdresser’s Doll, or the Last Love of the Moscow Architect M.”, “Venediktov, or Memorable Events of My Life”, the tragedy “The Deceivers”, based on which a play was staged at the Theater named after . V.F. Komissarzhevskaya. He becomes an active member of the “Old Moscow” society, where he works together with V.A. Gilyarovsky, brothers A.A. and Yu.A. Bakhrushin, P.V. Sytin, as well as one of the founders of the Moscow Russian Society of Friends of Books.

By 1925, during the period of the new economic policy of the Soviet state, the group of Chayanov, then a professor at the Faculty of Economics of the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy, as the Moscow Agricultural Institute began to be called in 1923, carried out work to establish the optimal size of agricultural enterprises, determined the quantitative effect of land management, and developed methods of non-monetary accounting of the economy and non-market products, as well as taxation of all work in agriculture in general.

IN AND. Before his death (1924), Lenin wrote two articles on cooperation (it is known that his library contained Chayanov’s books). After this, the word “cooperation” became the most popular in everyday life. In this regard, Chayanov, in his republished work “A Short Course in Cooperation,” notes: “When people talk about the future of the village these days, they most often pin their hopes on cooperation... However, this does not mean that many clearly understand the essence of cooperation, its main ideas and organizational principles." Chayanov explains his idea with specific examples and says that the future of agriculture lies in cooperation. “This future forces us to see in our work... a future grandiose socio-economic revolution, transforming the scattered spontaneous peasant economy into a harmonious economic whole, into a new system of organizing agriculture, and fully agree with the idea of ​​Lenin’s dying article that the development of cooperation coincides with the development socialism."

In the summer of 1924, Chayanov completed work on the main work of his life, “Organization of Peasant Farming.” (The author considered this work to be the result of his more than ten years of research, first brought together in the book “The Teaching of Peasant Economy,” published in German in Berlin in 1923.) As soon as it appeared, Chayanov’s work immediately caused a flurry of comments and critical reviews. The theoretical provisions of this work ultimately led to the death of both the idea expressed in the book and the physical elimination of the author himself. However, at that time he did not yet expect such a turn of events and, along with his desk academic activities, spent a lot of time in the fields, on farms, in the courtyards and huts of peasants.

Chayanov discovers another path for himself. Together with the famous journalist A.G. Bargin writes a film script, based on which at the Mezhrabpomfilm film studio the young director L.L. Obolensky is directing a film with a sharp detective plot, “Albidum 0604” - this was the name of a special drought-resistant and unusually fruitful variety of wheat. Chayanov’s fictional hobbies also continue. In 1928, his last romantic story, “Julia, or meetings near Novodevichy,” was published.

The XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, held in December 1927, proclaimed a course towards collectivization of agriculture. The path of the village was predetermined - it had to become a collective farm. This attitude contradicted Chayanov’s theory. (Chayanov considered cooperation to be the basis of the socio-economic development of the village. The scale of cooperation depends on the state of the technical base and the transformation of this base. The sphere of cooperation involves, first of all, those functions that become unprofitable to perform in a separate peasant farm. These functions should not be performed “horizontally”: artels, communes, partnerships - and the “vertical" concentration of peasant farms on a cooperative basis: highlighting the functions of supply, marketing and processing of products. The participation of peasants in cooperation brings them to foreign markets and, ultimately, into the orbit of the world economy.)

Chayanov was not an armchair recluse. He knew life and understood that his theories were already leaving the category of scientific discussions and were being interpreted as subversive anti-Soviet activities. On December 12, 1929, a letter from Chayanov was published in the Agricultural Gazette, where he admitted his historical forecasts were erroneous, and the theory of class cooperation and the defense of the individual sector of agriculture was a “gross and reactionary mistake.” However, this repentance of his was not taken into account. An atmosphere of suspicion, denunciations and spy mania reigned in the country. At the conference of Marxist agrarians, which opened a week after the publication of Chayanov’s letter, much space was given to Chayanov’s “mistakes” and the malicious misconceptions of his school.

The 16th Party Congress gave instructions to “accelerate the pace of creation of the material and technical base of socialism, to eliminate all capitalist elements in the country.” On July 21, 1930, Chayanov was arrested. There was no open trial against him. First, he spent some time in prison, where he worked on two books: on intra-farm transport and on the history of engraving, and then was exiled to Kazakhstan.

Chayanov arrived in Alma-Ata in the first half of 1932, and in 1933 - 1935 he worked at the Kazakh Agricultural Institute named after. L. I. Mirzoyan. As in Moscow, he not only taught, but also introduced students to art. He staged 11 plays on the stage of the institute club and organized the publication of the Yearbook of the Agricultural Institute. In addition to his studies at the institute, Chayanov worked as a senior economist-analyst at the People's Commissariat of Agriculture in the balance group of the planning and financial department. In 1935 – 1936 worked in the exhibition committee in preparation for the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition.

By a resolution of the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR dated June 28, 1935, Chayanov’s exile was extended for another three years. At the end of 1936 he was arrested again, but was soon released. E. D. Eiginson, former student Kazakh Agricultural Institute, accidentally met Alexander Vasilyevich not far from the prison. He had a beard, was dressed in a torn padded jacket, and the soles of his shoes were wrapped in wire. On March 16, 1937, Chayanov was arrested for the last time. On October 3, 1937, a Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR sentenced him to death. He was shot on the same day.

From the book by A.V. Chayanov “Possible future of agriculture”:

“Improvements in the field of communications, radio communications and at least a tenfold increase in the human population of our planet will force us to simply transform its entire area into continuous garden cities, interrupted by vast, several tens of kilometers, meadows of flowers and plants, with the goal of being atmosphere fresheners, or orchards that produce those fruits whose aroma and taste, in all likelihood, can never be recreated chemically production. Aesthetic considerations will force us to cover the rest of our land with gardens, where the place of the present fields of cereals and flax and sunflower crops will be taken by luxurious flower beds of violets, roses and never-before-seen, but absolutely amazing flowers of the future. It can be said that of all our cultivated plants, the one with the best future and eternity is undoubtedly the red rose, with its intoxicating, fresh, sweet smell - to it, and precisely to it, all our present cultivated plants will have to give way, being replaced by the steel machine that produces from the air the bread and fabric of the future."

Even in the pre-revolutionary period, in connection with the rapid growth of peasant cooperatives, an organizational and production school arose (N.P. Makarov, A.V. Chayanov, A.N. Minin, A.A. Rybnikov, etc.). The leader of this school was a prominent Russian economist Alexander Vasilievich Chayanov(1888-1937). His main works: “Organization of Peasant Farming” (1925), “Short Course in Cooperation” (1925).

The main subject of Chayanov’s research was the family-labor peasant economy, aimed at meeting the needs of family members. Chayanov was interested in the natural-consumer features of this economy and, to a lesser extent, its commodity-market features. He believed that such research is important when studying the agrarian system not only of Russia, but also of China, India and other countries with weak development of market relations. The main concepts here are the organizational plan and the labor-consumer balance of the peasant economy.

The organizational plan, or the peasant’s subjective reflection of the system of goals and means of economic activity, included the choice of the direction of the economy, the combination of its sectors, the coordination labor resources and volumes of work, division of products consumed and sold on the market, balance of cash receipts and expenses. The concept of labor-consumer balance was based on the fact that the peasant does not strive for a maximum of net profit, but for an increase in total income, production and consumption, respectively, a balance of production and natural factors, and an even distribution of labor and income throughout the year.*

* Chayanov A.V. Peasant farming. M., 1989.

Chayanov contrasted the “kulak - middle peasant - poor” scheme, widespread in Soviet economic literature, with his own classification, including six types of farms: 1) capitalist, 2) semi-labor, 3) prosperous family-labor, 4) poor family-labor, 5) semi-proletarian, 6 ) proletarian. Chayanov put forward a plan for resolving social contradictions in the village through cooperative collectivization of various types of farms (from 2 to 5) and cooperative credit.

Chayanov saw the path to a radical increase in the efficiency of the agricultural sector in the massive spread of cooperation, its anti-capitalist and anti-bureaucratic content. He opposed the nationalization of cooperatives. The benefit of cooperation, according to Chayanov, lies in the relatively low prices for products and the additional income of its members.

Chayanov believed that cooperatives should include those types of activities whose technical optimum exceeds the capabilities of an individual peasant farm. He proceeded from the fact that individual peasant farms are capable of effective soil cultivation and livestock raising. Other types of activities are subject to gradual and voluntary cooperation.

In the summer of 1917, the scientist put forward a plan for the reconstruction of the agricultural sector: the transfer of land into the ownership of the working peasantry, the introduction of labor ownership of land (without the right to buy and sell plots), the transfer of landowners' farms and estates to the state, the introduction of a single agricultural tax for the partial withdrawal of differential rent. Chayanov opposed the equal distribution of land to peasants. He proceeded from the dual criteria of agrarian restructuring: increasing labor productivity and democratizing the distribution of national income.

Chayanov's major achievement is the theory of differential optima of agricultural enterprises. The optimum exists where “all other things being equal, the cost of the resulting products will be the lowest.”* The optimum depends on natural-climatic, geographical conditions, and biological processes. Chayanov divided all elements of cost in agriculture into three groups: 1) those that decrease with the consolidation of farms (administrative expenses, costs of using machines, buildings); 2) increasing with the consolidation of farms (transport costs, losses from deteriorating control over the quality of labor); 3) independent of the size of farms (cost of seeds, fertilizers, loading and unloading operations). The optimum comes down to finding the point at which the sum of all costs per unit of production is minimal.

* Chayanov A.V. Optimal sizes of agricultural enterprises. M., 1928.

During the years of organizing state farms (1928-1930), Chayanov proposed to evaluate their activities according to the degree of implementation of the state plan from the point of view of taking into account the interests of the region and according to the level of profitability of the enterprise itself. However, the problem of individual labor motivation, which previously occupied one of the central places in the scientist’s work, in 1928-1930. has not been studied.

See also: