Agricultural History Review, Volume 52 Part 2 (2004), p. 234

This is an important collection on the rural economy and society in the Russian transition with contributions by leading scholars, including David O’Brien and Stephen Wegren, Grigory Ioffe, Tatyana Nefedova, Maria Amelina, Ethel Dunn, Larry Dershem and Zvi Lerman. Their overall assessment – that agrarian reformhas been more successful than is widely reported – is reflected in their empirical research. They show ‘incremental institutional change’ (p.408) to quote the editors’ summary statement.

Adaptation to markets is the institutional change being studied. Rural adaptive behaviour is identified and described from a diversity of disciplinary perspectives in the three parts of the book. Introductory chapters, including some that draw on articles published elsewhere, discuss the legal framework and provide an overview of Russia’s agrarian institutions, such as the commune and the culture of production. A fine chapter on geography by Ioffe and Nefedova underscores the rapid transformation of agricultural space, with much land being removed from production and the more fertile areas experiencing a demographic revival and renewed vertical co-operation. The chapter by Valeri Patsiorkovski on household strategies covers mostly material published elsewhere, but emphasis on the legacies of the past and institutional organization in rural areas is useful. His update of the 1995–97 panel survey of three villages using 1998 data adds to our understanding of income growth. The importance of household production in the rural economy continues. He also traces the devolution of power to the local level, i.e. from regional to village-level governments, a process only beginning. Zvi Lerman’s survey of rural welfare covers general tendencies well known in the literature, including in his own impressive work. With a wide ambit, he shows the importance of weighing opportunities as well as benefits that have been gained and lost in transition. The rural population has lost the certainties and amenities enjoyed under the central planning regime, but it has gained land and property and freedoms of choice (p.63). Stephen Wegren and Vladimir Belen’kiy’s review of land rights has largely been published elsewhere, but it adds a vital contribution to this collection in its emphasis on the security of land rights.

The second part is about opposition to reform as an obstacle to adaptation. The chapter which deals with this topic most effectively is Jessica Allina-Pisano’s excellent case study of Voronezh oblast, in which the method of farm reorganization is closely tracked. Margaret Paxton’s symbolic topography of the village introduces the familiar contours of historical village culture, but too loosely associates that culture with current opposition to change. David Macey provides a close and authoritative analysis of historical continuities.

Two other key chapters in this section are Denis Donahue’s on human capital and income inequality based on Rounds V and VI of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey and Amelina’s lucid and powerful, ‘What turns the kolkhoz into a firm?’ Amelina effectively explains the preservation of Soviet-style distribution at the sub-national level, more characteristic of some oblasts than others. By examining two raiony, she provides examples of the more and less interventionist sub-national regimes, with the latter imposing a harder budget constraint, resulting in more extensive and more radical restructuring of farms. The last part adds new material in a finely textured work on rural life by Dunn and research results published elsewhere by O’Brien and Dershem.

The conclusion gives a positive evaluation of the state of the sector after the first decade of reform. This conclusion is further supported by trends after the completion of these chapters. However, Zvi Lermon’s overall estimate is more cautious:

How has reform affected the economic situation of rural families? It is practically impossible to answer this question with any certainty, as in Russia (and the rest of the former socialist countries) land reform is just one component of a complex process of transition and its effects cannot be isolated from the effects of other components (p.61). The strength of the book lies in its almost exclusive

focus on rural institutions, but the long-run outcome of reform, presumably the further shrinking of the sector, and the pace of change in rural society will depend upon many factors, including employment opportunities, the diffusion of biotechnological innovation and the impact on productivity of the newest entrants among producers, the vertically integrated large companies, including Gasprom and other energy suppliers.