The end of the Russian peasantry?

THE purpose of this article is to examine evidence provided by recent Soviet investigations into rural life with a view to arriving at some conclusion as to how far the agricultural population of the USSR retain features normally associated with and assumed to be characteristic of peasant societies. This poses the question: what are these characteristics, or what constitutes a peasant or peasantry? Then we examine the forces which are acting to modify or transform these characteristics and those which serve to preserve them, and their interaction. It is also necessary to examine some aspects of the social structure of the rural population, in particular their occupational, age, and sex structures. What social category do we envisage when we use the term peasantry? It seems that many students of the Soviet Union have used it rather loosely to indicate those descendants of the pre-collectivization peasantry who are still employed on the land. Some Soviet scholars too are still inclined to use the expression 'kolkhoz peasantry' and to distinguish this group sharply from agricultural workers on the state farms, with whom they have much in common. These formulations are not very helpful in appreciating the extent and significance of structural and cultural change in the Soviet countryside. If we turn instead to anthropological and sociological formulations, derived from wide-ranging studies of peasant societies at various stages of development, certain features characteristic of these societies emerge quite clearly. I think it is worth looking at these features in four main aspects: culture, economics, social structure, and political activity.' In their cultural aspect, the peasantry are seen as a social group embodying a specific type of culture-a traditional culture vested in the