The Post-Soviet Potemkin Village : Politics and Property Rights in the Black Earth

Why does the introduction of private property rights sometimes result in poverty, rather than development? Most analyses of institutional change emphasize the design of formal institutions, but this study of land privatization in the Russia-Ukraine borderlands shows how informal politics at the local level instead can drive outcomes. Local officials in both countries pursued strategies that produced a record of reform, even as they worked behind the scenes to maintain the status quo. The end result was a facade of private ownership: a Potemkin village for the post-Soviet era. Far from creating private property that would bring development to the post-Soviet rural heartland, privatization policy deprived former collective farm members of their few remaining rights and ushered in a new era of state control over land resources. This study draws upon the author's extensive primary research in the Black Earth region conducted over a period of nine years. Cover......Page 1 Half-title......Page 3 Title......Page 5 Copyright......Page 6 Contents......Page 7 List of Maps, Illustrations, and Tables......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 11 Note on Transliteration......Page 17 Note on Sources and Methodology......Page 19 Newspapers and Statistics......Page 20 Interviews and Ethnographic Research Techniques......Page 22 Glossary......Page 27 The Post-Soviet Potemkin Village......Page 31 Introduction......Page 33 The Paradox of Ownership......Page 34 Privatization Globally and in the Black Earth......Page 37 Alternative Explanations......Page 44 Explaining Convergence......Page 48 Local Politics and Political Theory......Page 51 The Evidence......Page 55 The Argument......Page 59 1 Things Fall Apart......Page 60 Our Heavy Cross......Page 61 “Vikings” and Hutsuls......Page 65 Fighting for Every Worker......Page 69 No Right to Remain Silent......Page 72 Our Daily Bread......Page 75 Care for People......Page 80 2 Keeping the Collectives......Page 85 Each Will Know He Is an Owner......Page 86 One Revolution Is Enough......Page 89 With Only My Stamp in My Hand......Page 95 You Can’t Invite Everyone......Page 98 The State Farm Kept All the Certificates for Itself......Page 101 Do Not Allow Dissolution......Page 104 We’re All Among Friends Here......Page 107 Whoever Doesn’t Have a Shovel, Go and Buy One......Page 110 The Land Is Quietly Being Taken from Us......Page 114 3 The Social Origins of Private Farmers......Page 117 The Chairman Was Against It......Page 118 Serious Slips Were Allowed......Page 119 Other Than a Shovel and a Pitchfork, I Have Nothing......Page 122 Impossible to Obtain Land through Normal Channels......Page 123 Familiar Last Names......Page 126 Apply Pressure Where Necessary......Page 127 They’re Inserting Sticks in the Wheels......Page 134 Conclusion......Page 142 4 A Return to Regulation......Page 145 Pressure Has Remained......Page 147 Supplicants and Justice Seekers......Page 152 Honest, Solid People......Page 155 Their Legs Cut Out from under Them......Page 159 Land Must Work for People, Not for Weeds......Page 163 Conclusion......Page 169 5 The Politics of Payment......Page 171 Only Enough to Feed the Chickens......Page 174 A “Wretched” Payment......Page 179 No Salary, No Incentive......Page 183 Everything Up Through Burial......Page 188 However They Arrange It......Page 190 Half Starved and Dressed Almost in Rags......Page 193 Conclusion......Page 196 6 The Facade......Page 198 The Same Old Collective Farm......Page 200 We’re Fated to Live Together, Inseparably......Page 206 Everything Is Being Cleaned Out......Page 209 And Where Will I Steal?......Page 213 This Was Done Deliberately......Page 217 Conclusion......Page 221 Dispossession through Privatization......Page 222 Lessons from Post-Socialism......Page 227 The Significance of the Facade......Page 229 Cows and Dispossession......Page 231 Index......Page 233 In the 1990s, as the Soviet Empire lay in ruins, the Russian and Ukrainian governments undertook a project to dismantle the collective farm system that was created under Stalin and in the process privatize an expanse of farmland larger than Australia. Ordinary people were supposed to benefit from the reform, but local government leaders quietly rebelled against it. The end result was the dispossession of millions of rural people. This is the first book to explain why and how this happened through the perspective of a firsthand observer in the Black Earth region. Jessica Allina-pisano. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.