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Birth of Alexander Vasilyevich Chayanov, Economist, Sociologist, Writer
Alexander Vasilyevich Chayanov was born on January 17 (29), 1888 in Moscow. His father was a peasant from Vladimir Governorate, who later engaged in entrepreneurship. His mother came from the burghers of Vyatka, was in the first group of women who graduated from the Petrovsky Agricultural and Forestry Academy. Alexander Chayanov received primary education at home. He continued his studies at the private real school of K. P. Voskresensky. From 1906 to 1911, he attended the Moscow Agricultural Institute (now the Russian State Agrarian University – the Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural Academy).
In 1911-1914, Chayanov worked as a teacher at his institute, as well as at the Shanyavsky People's University. In 1912, he went on a business trip to Europe, where he studied the development of the agricultural sector and cooperation. The report on the trip was published in the book Essays on the Theory of Labor Economy (Issues 1-2, 1912-1913). In 1915, he published the work A Short Course of Cooperation, in which he outlined the history of the cooperative movement in Russia and abroad. In scientific views, Alexander Chayanov joined the “organizational and production school”, founded in 1904 by A. N. Chelintsev, subsequently actually heading it.
During World War I, Alexander Vasilyevich Chayanov worked in the Special Council on Food and in food organizations of the All-Russian Zemstvo Union. He also participated in the preparation of the General Plan for the Provision of Food to the Population (1916).
After the February Revolution, Alexander Chayanov actively promoted projects of radical transformations in agriculture. He was one of the initiators of the creation of the League of Agrarian Reforms. He advocated that “... all the lands currently in use by a large landowner economy should be handed over into the hands of a working peasant economy” (A. V. Chayanov. What is the Agrarian Issue? Moscow, 1917). At the same time, Chayanov did not propose equalizing allotment of land among peasants. The future agrarian system, in his opinion, was to become cooperative.
Since 1918, Alexander Chayanov has been a professor at the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy, the Sverdlov Communist University. In 1919-1928, he acted as Director of the Research Institute of Agricultural Economics. In 1921-1923, he worked at the Board of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the RSFSR, took part in the development of the Basic Principles of Forming Food Taxes (1921). In 1923-1927, he published 55 articles and monographs on the theory of family and labour peasant economy and cooperation, the exploration of peasant farms in various regions of the country. Alexander Chayanov's works have been published in Germany, Japan, India, and China. Chayanov denied the “communization of production” in agriculture, was critical of collective farms, suggesting instead of nationalizing the land to hand it over to labour ownership without the right of purchase and sale.
In 1918-1928, Alexander Vasilyevich Chayanov published 6 novels, including The Journey of My Brother Alexei to the Country of Peasant Utopia (1920), which shows Russia in 1984 as a predominantly peasant state.
In 1928-1929, Alexander Chayanov's views began to be sharply criticized. He was accused of “defending the interests of the kulaks”, “promoting bourgeois agrarian theories”. At the Conference of Agrarian Marxists (December 20-29, 1929) the so-called chayanovshchina was declared an “agency” of imperialism being in connection with the “right bias” in the CPSU (b). Forced to justify himself, Chayanov wrote that “since February 1918, I have devoted my life to the revolutionary reconstruction of our country <...> no one has and cannot have grounds to take away from me the title of Soviet worker without any quotation marks” (On the Fate of Neo-Populism // Agricultural Newspaper. January 29, 1930).
In 1930, Alexander Vasilyevich Chayanov was arrested in relation to the case of the Labour Peasant Party. In 1932, he was exiled to Kazakhstan, where he worked at the Mirzoyan Kazakh Agricultural Institute and the Republican People's Commissariat of Agriculture until 1935. He then was re-arrested in March 1937, shot in October 1937. He was generally rehabilitated in 1956, and in the case of the Labour Peasant Party – in 1987.
Lit.: «О судьбах неонародничества» // Сельскохозяйственная газета. 1930. 29 января; Политические деятели России 1917. Биографический словарь. М., 1993; Русская литература XX века. Прозаики, поэты, драматурги. Биобиблиографический словарь: в 3 т. / РАН, ИРЛИ (Пушкинский Дом). Т. 3. П - Я. М., 2005. С. 634–636; Симонов В. В. А. В. Чаянов // Большая Российская энциклопедия; Чаянов А. В. Очерки по теории трудового хозяйства. Вып. 1–2. М., 1912–1913; Чаянов А. В. Что такое аграрный вопрос? М., 1917; Чаянов А. В. Краткий курс кооперации. 4-е изд. М., 1925; Шикман А. П. Деятели отечественной истории. Биографический справочник. М., 1997.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:
Чаянов А. В. Что такое аграрный вопрос? М., [1917]
Чаянов А. В. Война и крестьянское хозяйство. М., 1914 (Available in the Electronic Reading Room)
Чаянов А. В. ...Льняной рынок и его состояние в 1915 и 1916 годах. М., 1916 (Available in the Electronic Reading Room)
Чаянов А. В. Материалы по вопросам организации продовольственного дела. Вып. 1. М., 1916 (обл. 1917) (Available in the Electronic Reading Room)
Материалы по вопросам организации продовольственного дела. Вып. 2: Организация продовольственного дела в Московской губернии / Под общ. ред. [и с предисл.] А. Чаянова. М., [1916] (Available in the Electronic Reading Room)
Материалы по вопросам организации продовольственного дела. Вып. 3: Организация заготовки хлебов в Тамбовской губернии Под общ. ред. [и с предисл.] А. Чаянова. М., 1916 (обл. 1917) (Available in the Electronic Reading Room)
Материалы по вопросам организации продовольственного дела. Вып. 5: Труды совещания / Под общ. ред. [и с предисл.] А. Чаянова и Н. Макарова. М., 1917 (Available in the Electronic Reading Room)
Материалы по вопросам организации продовольственного дела. Вып. 7: Земские поставки скота на нужды армии / Под общ. ред. [и с предисл.] А. Чаянова и Н. Макарова. М., 1917 (Available in the Electronic Reading Room)
Материалы по вопросам организации продовольственного дела. Вып. 8: Основные принципы хлебной разверстки / Под общ. ред. А. Чаянова и Н. Макарова; Сост. И. Воейковым, Н. Огановским, Г. Чубаковым и С. Клепиковым. М., 1917 (Available in the Electronic Reading Room)
Основные вопросы аграрной реформы на 2-м Всероссийском съезде Лиги аграрных реформ. М., 1917 (Доклады: А.В. Чаянова, Б.Д. Бруцкуса, А.Н. Челинцева, Н.П. Огановского, А.А. Рыбникова, Н.П. Макарова, Н.Я. Быховского, Н.А. Рожкова, В.И. Анисимова, С.Д. Николаева и др.) (Available in the Electronic Reading Room)
Атлас диаграмм и картограмм по аграрному вопросу / Под общ. ред. А.В. Чаянова. М., 1917 (Available in the Electronic Reading Room)
Статистический справочник по аграрному вопросу. Вып. 2: Сельское хозяйство / Сост. Аграрным отд-нием Экон. отд. Всерос. зем. союза; Под общ. ред. Я.С. Артюхова и А.В. Чаянова. Ч. 1, Сельскохозяйственная перепись 1916 г. М., [1918] (Available in the Electronic Reading Room)
Труды Научно-исследовательского института сельскохозяйственной экономии. Вып. 1. М., 1921 (Содерж.: Опыты изучения изолированного государства / А. Чаянов; Номографические элементы экономической географии / А. Чаянов) (Available in the Electronic Reading Room)
Статистический справочник по аграрному вопросу. Вып. 3: Сельское хозяйство 1918-1920 гг. / Под ред. С.А. Клепикова и А.В. Чаянова. М., 1922 (Available in the Electronic Reading Room)
Предметный указатель материалов в земско-статистических трудах с 1860-х годов по 1917 г. / В.Н. Григорьев; ЦСУ Союза ССР. Вып. 1 / [Предисл. А. Чаянова]. М., 1926 (Available in the Electronic Reading Room)
Предметный указатель материалов в земско-статистических трудах с 1860-х годов по 1917 г. / В.Н. Григорьев; ЦСУ Союза ССР. Вып. 2 / [Предисл. А. Чаянова]; Разработка материалов по губерниям Уфимской, Харьковской, Херсонской, Черниговской и Ярославской принадлежит И.С. Самохвалову. М., 1927 (Available in the Electronic Reading Room)