Peasant Dreams & Market Politics: Labor Migration and the Russian Village, 1861-1905 (Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies)

by Jeffrey Burds

Release Date: April, 1998

Edition: Paperback

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Comparative Politics Studies (June 1999)

"Jeffrey Burds's _Peasant Dreams and Market Politics_ is an original, insightful interpretive study of the Russian peasantry confronting new challenges and opportunities during the late-19th century. The book focuses on peasant outmigration in the Central Industrial Region (encompassing the 300 kilometers around Moscow) in the period between the abolition of serfdom (1861) and the first significant rebellions against the tsar (1905). This was a period when an expanding commodity economy provided new opportunities for migrant peasant workers to gain supplemental incomes to offset the redemption taxes that their families and villages were collectively obligated to pay in exchange for taking possession of land formerly owned by the gentry. But, peasant outmigration also brought with it new threats for the traditional Russian peasant commune, which had to guard against the permanent resettlement of productive individuals or whole families who could place the remainder of the commune members under greater economic hardship as they endeavored to meet their tax obligations. The commune's efforts to contain these threats, and the manner in which the commune and individual peasants adapted to changing opportunity structures and outside influences, represent the most original and illuminating features of this book. . . . This book is an extremely interesting, informative, and well-researched ideographic work by a skilled historian. It is based on 3 years of archival research and analysis of ethnographic material, ranging from police records and peasant memoirs to written agreements among peasant households and their communes. It is written in a language accessible to specialists as well as nonspecialists. For area specialists familiar with the story of industrialization and peasant outmigration in prerevolutionary Russia, this book will offer a needed corrective for some of the more simplified, conventional characterizations of Russian peasant behavior. Valuable insights also can be gained from Burds's original treatment of the significance of reputational concerns in village life and his analysis of how commune norms and practices were influenced by, and deployed to contain, an expanding commodity economy." - Rudra Sil, University of Pennsylvania

Advance & Published Reviews

Advance Reviews

"Brilliant, subtle, and richly documented, Burds's study of how the village and urban worlds remade one another puts the study of the peasantry, of urbanization, and of industrialization in Russia on a wholly new footing. His eye for the telling details of social relations, consumption, reputation, and the principles of navigation between two worlds illuminates subject after subject." - James C. Scott, Yale University

"The book contributes in fundamental ways to the historical debate about Russian development before the revolution. . . . It is original, brilliantly researched, and fascinating reading." - Lynne Viola, University of Toronto

"This excellent book . . . makes an important contribution to the fields of peasant studies, Russian history, and historical anthropology in general. Burds' analysis is original, lucid and convincing. . . . A pleasure to read. His main argument is that the village community dealt with the threat of change by anthropomorphizing it. The village community responded to the threat of modernity by anathematizing the most vivid symbols of modernity: agents with contact with the outside world. And the peasant migrant workers embodied this contact in the eyes of villagers. . . . While most historians have long tended to focus on high politics, Burds' work presents a strikingly new view of Russia's 'grand failure' from below. . . . Burds analyzes the 'culture of denunciation' as a process of constructing the enemy other out of the new forces threatening traditional village relations." - Hiroaki Kuromiya, Indiana University

"Jeffrey Burds' excellent study of the distinctive patterns of entrepreneurial activity, market strategies, and a commodity culture among nineteenth-century Russian peasants can serve as an important 'usable past' for post-Communist Russia, as it strives to find historical precedents and native roots for today's market reforms." - Brenda Meehan, University of Rochester

Published Reviews

"The strength of [Burds'] presentation is [his] rich, well-informed description of specific cases, often with long quotations from primary sources new to the literature, together with a complete command of the modern literature in peasant Russia." - James T. Flynne, College of the Holy Cross [Choice, November 1998]

"Using archival and published sources, Jeffrey Burds examines the impact of peasant migratory labor (otkhod) on villages of the Central Industrial Region. As he notes, this study is a "needed corrective" to previous treatments of otkhod which have been focused primarily on the impact of peasant migrations on urban development. Instead, Burds offers an interpretation of how familial and communal institutions incorporated increasing contact with town life and the market into their survival strategies during the onslaught of post-emancipation socioeconomic changes. Analysis begins by examining the threat of increasing otkhod in the village. Given krugovaia poruka (collective guarantee) the departure of entire families resulted in increased fiscal burdens for others. Futhermore, sons frequently found factory work easier and more rewarding than life on a farm. This threatened the ability of fathers to control sons and posed a challenge for communal elders seeking to extract urban earnings by binding migrants to the village. Finally, migrant laborers who returned to the village with changed tastes were potential sources of "moral corruption"--another threat to traditional social structures. Chapters 3, 4, and 7 discuss strategies communes and parents used to meet these challenges. A key strategy involved the control of passports. Otkhodniki remained responsible for assessments on their allotments. The commune ensured that it got some of this money up front as a "departure fee" before issuing of a passport, and often included a contract stipulating additional payments. Occassionally, communes arranged to have employers garnish otkhodnik wages. Communal and parental pressure to marry also served to tie otkhodniki to their rural roots, as did communal involvement in rural hiring. There were also legal options: refusal to issue another passport; threatened auction of property; and forcible recall to the village under police guard. Moral transgressions were checked by a "culture of denunciation"--the practice of labeling as "heretics" those migrants who seemed too attached to urban ways. To avoid any or all of these problems otkhodniki relied on "benefactors" (the maligned kulak) and the preservation of their village reputation. Migration, Burds notes, was a two-way street. Many migrants failed, and most became sensitized to fluctuations in the business cycle. Urban earnings could be just as uncertain as harvests. This helps explain why the majority of those with no allotment sent wages home. Maintaining a place in the village was a prudent hedge against an uncertain market. At the same time, urban contact encouraged a "culture of acquisition" in the village. This discussion constitutes the most original part of the book. The culture of acquisition meant not only new consumer tastes but also the gradual development of a caf� and shopping culture. As otkhod earnings invaded the village, the increased demand for goods led to the creation of fixed shops and taverns (which, through the sale of franchises, also provided a way for the commune to siphon urban earnings). The most significant consequence of this was not the fact that peasants now had a more convenient source of drink, but that they now interacted in a new way. The saloon became the center of village life, a source of news about a variety of topics, a place to make deals, and a place to show off new acquisitions. This infusion of otkhod earnings and newly acquired tastes created higher consumer expectations--an increase in the "break-even point" peasants used to evaluate their standard of living. Burds suggests that any "rural crisis" at the end of the last century must be assessed against this more dynamic conception of peasant needs. . . . . Burds's book is essential reading for all those with interests in the peasantry and economic development." --David Darrow, University of Dayton [The Russian Review, 1999]