Russia on the Move: Railroads and the Exodus from Compulsory Collectivism, 1861–1914 (Studies in Economic Transition)

This book explores the impact of railroads on 19 th century Russian peasant collectivism. The mutual-insurance mechanism in a precarious agricultural environment, provided bya structured communal-village system predicated on the reputation and authorityof community norms,is exposed to rationalist exchange―occasioning an institutional adaptation process:the individualization of property rights in land. Spatial-mobility technology animated market integration, specialization, literacy,and human-capital acquisition among peasant wage workers who commuted from their villages . Temporarily rising transaction costs forced the Tsar to concede household property rights in land in the so-called Stolypin reform of 1906.This challenge to the imperial patrimony, powered by the railroads, steered late imperial Russia toward constitutional governance.The spatial-mobility technology gave peasants access to centers of agglomeration of knowledge, changedcognitive perceptions of distance, and reduced the uncertainty and opportunity costs of travel. The empirical findings in this monograph corroborate the conclusion that the railroads occasioned a cultural revolution in late imperial Russia and made Stalin unnecessary for the modernization of the Euro-asian giant. This book highlights the profound effect that the development of the railroads had on Russian economic and political institutions and practices. It will be of indispensable valueto students and researchers interested in transitional economics and economic history. Foreword Introduction References Preface Acknowledgments Contents List of Figures List of Tables Chapter 1: Russia on the Move: Railroads and the Exodus from Compulsory Collectivism, 1861–1914 Aims and Contents of This Monograph Theoretical Framework: The Composite NIE/AEI Model Endogenous and Exogenous Explanatory Factors The Gerschenkronian–Szternian–Gregorian Conception Structure of the Monograph Chapter 2. From Hierarchy to Egalitarianism: From Gerschenkron to Gregory—Deduction and Induction from NIE/AEI Complementarity and the Regulationist Model Chapter 3. Through the Lenses of Theory: New Institutional Economics and American Evolutionary Institutionalism—The Railroads, National Market Formation, and Democracy in Late Tsarist Russia Chapter 4. Industrialization and Tensions Between Tsardom and Nascent Civil Society Chapter 5. The Peasant and His Ties to the Land in the Tsarist Industrialization Chapter 6. The Railroad and the Metamorphosis of the Mir: Westernizer and Slavophile Conceptions Revisited Chapter 7. Secularization and Pious Subversion: To the Constitution by Rail Chapter 8. Tsarist Modernization, the Peter-to-Nicholas-Continuity, and Progress through Reform Chapter 9. Was Stalin Necessary? The Railroads and the Crumbling of the Obshchina in Tsarist Russia Chapter 10. Individualism and Collectivism: Measuring the Transition to Modernity in Tsarist Russian Peasant Society, Penza Province, 1913 Chapter 11. Measurable Power: Railroads, Literacy, and the Crafts Artel—Hierarchy in Disarray in Late Imperial Russia References Chapter 2: From Hierarchy to Egalitarianism: From Gerschenkron to Gregory—Deduction and Induction from NIE/AEI Complementarity and the Regulationist Model An Institutional Transition from Personalized to Impersonalized Rights Locus and Type of Rule in Tsarist Russia Peter I and His Notion of the Rule of Law: Militarized Absolutism Catherine II: Ambivalent Steps Toward the Impersonalization of Law Did the 1864 Judicial Reform Institute the Rule of Law? Patriarchal Authority as the Source of Law, Personalized Institutions, and Erosion of Estate Cohesion Laws in the Service of Political Goals Skill Accumulation As the Source of Corporate Demand for Legality Emancipation and Redemption in the 1861–1863 Statutes: Enforcement of the Peasant Commune as an Unintended Paradoxical Challenge to Totalitarian Atomization Industrialization as the Foremost Challenge to Personalized Institutions Until 1906 The Labor-Mobility Barrier to Industrialization Gerschenkron and the Immutable Backwardness of the Peasantry: A Critique Witte’s System and Gerschenkron’s Entrepreneurial-State Theory Gerschenkron’s Theory of Relative Backwardness Gerschenkron in a Coasian Mirror Theoretical Tools of Analysis: The New Institutional Economics (NIE)–Critical Realist (CR) Challenge and American Evolutionary Institutionalism (AEI) The Historiographical Orientation The Gerschenkronian Proposal, the Revisionist Challenge, and My Argument: The Questions I Seek to Answer The Railroads and the Metamorphoses of the Obshchina and the Tsarist Autocracy Population Increase and the Mobility Barrier Gerschenkronian State Entrepreneurship and Modernization The State, the Railroad, and the Mir: From Compliance with Authority to Rational Calculus Empirical Aspects, the Railroad, and the Landholding System Summarizing Remarks Summary and Conclusion References Chapter 3: Through the Lenses of Theory: New Institutional Economics and American Evolutionary Institutionalism—Railroads, Specialization, and Democracy in Late Tsarist Russia How Railroad Construction in Tsarist Russia Demonstrates the Complementarity of NIE and AEI The Theoretical Angle: The Legitimacy of the NIE/AEI Combination—Critical Realism Challenges NIE NIE: The Rationalist Explanation of Peasant Custom Bounded Rationality: The NIE–AEI Bridge How Far Apart Are NIE and AEI in Distributing Determination of Action between Agency and Structure? Critical Realism The Marxian Angle Is NIE Incongruent with CR in Principle, Refuting the Temporal Priority of Structure? Should a Neoclassically Shaped NIE be Conceived of As Realistic in a Sense Other Than CR? American Evolutionary Institutionalism and Darwinian Economics: Adaptation of Peasant Customs to Conditions of Life through Natural Selection My Hypothesis of NIE/AEI Complementarity Known Theory Combinations: Bridging NIE and AEI through the Economics of Cognition Rational Choice/Atomist Universalism: NIE—Indispensable But Insufficient for Understanding the Russian Peasant’s Transformation Psychological and Sociological Perspectives Neo-Institutionalism NIE and AEI Understood As Mutually Complementary Habits and Evolution Reflections on the Theory of Institutional Change Informal Institutional Change in a Path-Dependent Society Applying the Boyer and Orlean Model to Russia, 1890–1906 Precipitants of Endogenous Change Lagged Institutional Adaptation: Stolypin’s Land Reform (1906) Summarizing the Complementarity of Perspectives in This Chapter c = Methodological Collective; i = Methodological Individualism Historical Application: Linking the Railroads to Democracy The 1861–1914 Transition within Applicable Explanatory Frameworks The Reforms and Their Political Aims Property and Political Freedom: The Nexus Stolypin’s Reforms: Intentions and Consequences Railroad Construction and Its Unintended Consequences References Chapter 4: Industrialization as a Precipitant of Tensions Between Tsardom and Nascent Civil Society The Autocracy Tentatively Engages Its Citizens The Tsarist State and the Costs of Dictatorship: The Gerschenkronian Conception and Imperial Self-Perpetuation Industrialization Productivity and Income in the Russian Village Commune Industrialization and the Invasion of Modernity Tensions Between the Rigid Traditional Order and the Social Effects of Industrialization External Invasion and an Endogenous Change of Values Topple ESS References Chapter 5: Peasantry and Land in Industrializing Late Tsarist Russia Gerschenkron versus Gregory: Mobility Barriers and Transition from Extensive to Intensive Growth The Hesse-Boserup Perspective: Railroads, Population Increase, and the End of Land Reallotment Hesse and the Causes of Population Increase Introducing Discontinuity in Compulsory Collectivism Tsarist Industrialization Interpreted: Gerschenkron versus Gregory Was the Peasant Standard of Living Sacrificed on the Altar of Industrialization? Gregory Challenges Gerschenkron Elasticity of Collectivist Land Repartitioning, Population Increase, and Risk of Poverty Bideleux versus Gerschenkron—Mobility Barrier, Agrarian Property Rights, and Productivity The Ideologically Inspired Concept of Relative Poverty in Soviet Sources Wage Labor and Migration as Buffers against Impoverishment How Coercive Was the Enforcement of Collectivist Custom in the Post-Emancipation Commune? Formal Restrictions and the Head of Household’s Decision Matrix The Impact of the 1861 Emancipation Act The Rationality of the Nineteenth-Century Russian Peasant Peasant Allotment, Private Land, and Productivity Increase in Rural Russia: Indications of Innovative Investment in Agriculture Serfdom and Its Relevance Conclusions References Chapter 6: The Railroads and the Metamorphoses of the Mir: Westernizer and Slavophile Conceptions Revisited Collectivism versus Individualism Compulsory versus Voluntary Collectivism: Pre-Modern Risk Insurance Cooperation and Mutual Assistance through Peasant Collectivism Khozhdenie v Kusochki—“Crust-Seeking” Redistribution of Movable Capital The Serfdom Commune Legacy in Nineteenth-Century Rural Custom Serfdom—Cohesion versus Atomization in the Long-Term Post-Emancipation Imprint Communal Tenure and Innovation The Legacy of Serfdom and Kinship The Legitimacy of the Malthusian-Trap Assumption Changing Types of Collectivism Cooperation in the Late Post-Emancipation Era Peasant Collectivism versus Marxist Class Cohesion Intergenerational Shift of Power to the Young Diffusion of Egalitarianism and Subversion The Commune: A Vehicle of Organized Subversion after the Emancipation Unintended Consolidation Structural Preconditions—Structural Preconditioning versus Individualism in Property Relations Natural Calamities and the Origins of the Commune Serfdom as a Historical Calamity? What Brought Serfdom Down? The Village Commune, Dependence on the Landlord, and Individualism of the Emancipation Era—The Determinants of Serfdom Communalism or Individualism and Strife in the Final Phases of the Commune? Theoretical Interpretation Summarizing Remarks References Chapter 7: Secularization and Pious Subversion: To the Constitution by Rail Railroads and Pious Subversion The Railroads: A Challenge to Orthodox Enforcement of Mutual Insurance The Railroads Abet Peasant Individualism: The Rational Peasant, the Church Culture Clash—Otkhod Urban Freedom vs. Rural Safety The Railroads Abet Peasant Individualism Rejecting the Hierarchy—Herzen, Bakunin, Emancipation, and the Iron Horse Rule of Law and Industrialization—The Individuation of the Peasant Challenging the Perception of the Slavonic Collectivist (Muzhik) Mentality—The Railroads Transfer Life-Risk Insurance from the Commune to the Imperial State Landownership and Freedom The Peasantry’s Share in the Ancestral Russian Legacy The Transformation of the Orthodox Church-Railroad Technology Challenges the Pillar of Political Stability The Church as the Pillar of Tsardom Institutional Pluralism, Schisms in Orthodoxy, and the Impact of the Rails Railroads Allow Choice: Mainstream Orthodoxy or Dissent? The Advent of Peasant Rationalism The Peaceful Monarchy—Autocracy, Peasant Individualism, and Stolypin’s Reform Choice and Exodus from Compulsory Collectivism Freedom through Cooperation The Stolypin Reform: Shifting Rule from the Tsar’s Patrimony to Peasants’ Countervailing Negotiating Power References Chapter 8: From Janus to Janus: Peter I, Nicholas II, and Industrialization Institutions and Their Evolution: The Tsarist Case The Baltic Fleet Technology of Petrine times: “Progress Despite Coercion” Inventiveness Lost: The Cost of Corporal Punishment Transaction Costs, Including the Uncertainty Implications of Tsarist Government Centralization The Tsarist Motive for Industrialization to Perpetuate the Coercive Hierarchy or to Make Progress? Industrialization under Peter the Great and Nicholas II: Continuity in Numbers “Top-Down” Reform and Railroads to Progress From Collectivism to Individualism in Illustration Was Stolypin Right or Wrong in Assuming that the Peasant Mir Had Atrophied? Mironov vs. Nefedov Concluding Remarks References Chapter 9: Was Stalin Necessary? Railroads and the Crumbling of the Obshchina in Tsarist Russia Alternative and Complementary Theories of Russian Rural History Russian Landholding Modalities from Peter to Stolypin Evidence of the Socioeconomic Effects of the Railroads The Data Econometric Tests Concluding Discussion Appendix References Chapter 10: Individualism and Collectivism: Measuring the Transition to Modernity in Tsarist Russian Peasant Society, Penza Province, 1913 Enter the “Iron Horse”: The Discontinuance of Collectivist Dependency—Famine and Analphabetism Contained Rising Living Standards: The Immaterial Aspects of Degradation—Nineteenth-Century Peasant Manifestations of Improving Self-Dignity Schools, Literacy, Individual Information Access, and Perception of Dignity Manifestations of Individual and Collective Dignity: Literacy, Strikes, and Complaints in the 1890–1914 Industrial Spurt Literate Peasant Landholding and Commuting by Rail for Otkhod (Wage Labor): Regressions Conclusion: Railroads, Literacy, Individualism, and the Seed-to-Yield Ratio References Chapter 11: Measurable Power: Railroads, Literacy, and the Crafts Artel—Hierarchy in Disarray in Late Imperial Russia Introduction: The Evolution of Conventions That Forced the Autocracy into the Concessions of 1905 The Impersonalization of Law: The Villagers Association and the Artel Theoretical Proposal: The Pre-Revolution Modernization Loop The Empirical Model and Its Variables Introduction to the Empirical Analysis Materials Used: Models and Data Regression Equation and the Meaning of the Ultimate Dependent Variable: Movement Toward Individualization in Landholding as a Proxy for Modernization The Hypothesis Identification of Crucial Variables for the Analysis (Spitzer, 2018) Share of Crafts-Producing Households Among All Households Climate and Soil Quality: Peasant Budget Structure, Crafts, and Trade Versus Agriculture Before and During the Industrial Spurt of the 1890s Concluding Discussion Appendix References Chapter 12: Epilogue Rail as an Endogenous or Exogenous Factor: Future Research as an Epilogue References Index "This book explores the impact of railroads on 19th century Russian peasant collectivism. The mutual-insurance mechanism in a precarious agricultural environment, provided by a structured communal-village system predicated on the reputation and authority of community norms, is exposed to rationalist exchange occasioning an institutional adaptation process: the individualization of property rights in land. Spatial-mobility technology animated market integration, specialization, literacy,and human-capital acquisition among peasant wage workers who commuted from their villages. Temporarily rising transaction costs forced the Tsar to concede household property rights in land in the so-called Stolypin reform of 1906. This challenge to the imperial patrimony, powered by the railroads, steered late imperial Russia toward constitutional governance. The spatial-mobility technology gave peasants access to centers of agglomeration of knowledge, changed cognitive perceptions of distance, and reduced the uncertainty and opportunity costs of travel. The empirical findings in this monograph corroborate the conclusion that the railroads occasioned a cultural revolution in late imperial Russia and made Stalin unnecessary for the modernization of the Euro-asian giant. This book highlights the profound effect that the development of the railroads had on Russian economic and political institutions and practices. It will be of indispensable value to students and researchers interested in transitional economics and economic history."-- Back cover