Russia on the Move-The Railroads and the Exodus from Compulsory Collectivism 1861-1914
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Russia on the Move-The Railroads and the Exodus From Compulsory Collectivism 1861-1914 Sztern, Sylvia 2017 Document Version: Peer reviewed version (aka post-print) Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Sztern, S. (2017). Russia on the Move-The Railroads and the Exodus From Compulsory Collectivism 1861- 1914. (2017 ed.). Printed in Sweden by Media-Tryck, Lund University. Total number of authors: 1 Creative Commons License: Unspecified General rights Unless other specific re-use rights are stated the following general rights apply: Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal Read more about Creative commons licenses: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. LUND UNIVERSITY PO Box 117 221 00 Lund +46 46-222 00 00 Russia on the Move The Railroads and the Exodus from Compulsory Collectivism 1861–1914 Sylvia Sztern DOCTORAL DISSERTATION by due permission of the School of Economics and Management, Lund University, Sweden. To be defended at EC3:211, September 19, 2017 at 13:00. Faculty opponent Judith Pallot Organization Document name LUND UNIVERSITY DOCTORAL DISSERTATION Department of Economic History Date of issue 21 August, 2017 Author(s) Sylvia Sztern Sponsoring organization Title and subtitle Russia on the Move: The Railroads and the Exodus from Compulsory Collectivism 1861–1914 Abstract Western scholars of Tsarist Russia emphasize the continuity of collectivism on the Russian plain. Numerous endogenous factors explain the human clustering that occurred as kinship structures evolved into territorial agrarian communal patterns. In my dissertation, combining the Westernizers’ and the Slavophiles’ conceptualization of the mir—the village commune—it is argued that precarious climatic conditions, uncertain yields, and the high frequency of famines and other calamities caused peasant mutual-insurance strategies to take shape, resulting in krugovaya poruka (mutual responsibility). Tsarist rulers exploited this practice to enhance tax extraction, impose social control, and reduce surveillance costs. The ensuing degradation of labor explains Tsarist Russia’s perennial status as a technology importer and a debtor. The Imperial rulers’ territorial aspirations that entailed the strategic import of railroads, however, incentivized the peasantry to accumulate literacy and other skills that, by investing them with growing subversive and bargaining power, compelled modernizing reforms. By inducing a culturally revolutionizing reduction of temporal-cognitive distances, the railroads linked the peasants of European Russia to urban industrial economies and to customary (volost) and formal Imperial court systems, cumulatively reducing the costs of property and individual-dignity lawsuits while increasing the predictability of outcomes favorable to them. The railroads also dramatically mitigated the uncertainties and mortal perils of peasant life while introducing peasants to a plethora of institutions allowing rational choice, specialization, and, from 1903 onward, gradual delegation of property rights by the rulers. Challenging Gerschenkron, I posit that the nature of collectivism changed after the emancipation. The iron arms of the Tsarist state—the railroads that steered peasants to seasonal wage labor as well as permanent migration—paved the way to a modernizing transition from authoritarian obedience to rational utility maximization. The compulsory collectivism of the serfdom era gave way to rationalist cooperation and individualism. The delegation of household-head property rights in land, catalyzed by the railroads and codified in Stolypin’s reform, portended Russia’s transition to a constitutional monarchy. As an epilogue, the empirical and concluding chapter of the dissertation reveals a positive correlation between a commune’s distance from the nearest railroad stations and the proportion of peasant land cultivated in the traditional collectivist repartitioning manner of the obshchina, and a negative correlation between distance from the railroad and the proportion of individualistic modes of land cultivation. This empirical chapter, co-authored by my advisor, Professor Michael Keren, suggests that the modernization of Russia was occasioned by the railroads and occurred three decades before the advent of Stalinism. Key words: Institutions, technology, village commune-obshchina, insurance, famines, calamities, railroads, rationality, collectivism, individualism Classification system and/or index terms (if any) Supplementary bibliographical information Language ISSN and key title 1400-4860 ISBN 978-91-87793-36-3 Recipient’s notes Number of pages Price Security classification I, the undersigned, being the copyright owner of the abstract of the above-mentioned dissertation, hereby grant to all reference sources permission to publish and disseminate the abstract of the above-mentioned dissertation. Signature Date July 14, 2017 Russia on the Move The Railroads and the Exodus from Compulsory Collectivism 1861–1914 Sylvia Sztern Lund Studies in Economic History is a series of doctoral dissertations and edited volumes of high scholarly quality in subjects related to the Department of Economic History at the School of Economics and Management, Lund University. All volumes have been reviewed and approved prior to publication. Coverphoto by Marc Chagall Copyright Sylvia Sztern School of Economics and Management Department of Economic History ISBN 978-91-87793-36-3 ISSN 1400-4860 Printed in Sweden by Media-Tryck, Lund University, Lund 2017 To my grandparents and parents: Sarah and Leibl Sztern (“Trotsky”), Hebrew entrepreneurs who paid their taxes to the Jewish Community of Lublin for the last time in 1943 before perishing at Sobibor. Fruma and Ruvim Jakovlevich Dereczynskij My grandfather was Professor at the St: Petersburg Institute of Telecommunications, who perished in Stalin’s purges in 1937. יהי זכרם ברוך. Moshe Sztern - I will forever celebrate the joy of your music. יהי זכרו ברוך Cecylia Dereczynska - I cherish your ever-present love, sacrifice ,care, moral support, and inspiration, which allowed me to write this dissertation. All my fine teachers in Israel with boundless love and admiration—particularly Professors Michael Keren and Gur Ofer of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. מוקדש לכל מוראיי הטובים ב ישראל באהבה והערצת אין קץ - במיוחד לפרופסור מיכאל קרן, ולפרופסור גור עופר ה אוניברסיתה ה עיברית בי ירושלים. Gad Goldberg of blessed memory, who enabled me to realize the quest of my heart: Israeli identity and citizenship and studies in Israel, the country that I love, the country of my finest endeavors. מוקדש לגד גולדברג יהיה זיכרו ברוך, אשר איפשר מימוש בקשת ליבי זהותי, אזרחותי,הישראלית לימודיי בישראל -ארץ ה אהבה ו ה עבודה ה טובה Moni, Professor Moshe Goldberg, who added inspiration and moral and spiritual support to the scientific work presented herewith. מוקדש למוני, פרופסור משה גולדברג אשר הוסיף השראה, תמיכה מוסרית ורוחנית ל עבודתי המדעית זאות Content Acknowledgement ..................................................................................................15 Chapter 1 - Introduction ...........................................................................................1 Aims and Contents of the Dissertation ...........................................................1 Structure of the Dissertation ...........................................................................2 Chapter 2 - Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Tsarist Rural Structures ..2 Chapter 3 - Through the Lences of Theory ...........................................3 Chapter 4 - Industrialization as a Precipitant of Tensions between Tsardom and Nascent Civil Society ......................................................3 Chapter 5 - The Peasantry and Its Ties to the Land amid Tsarist Industrialization .....................................................................................4 Chapter 6 - The Railroad and the Metamorphosis of the Mir- Westernizer and Slavophile Conceptions Revisited ..............................4 Chapter 7 - Secularization and Pious Subversion–To the Constitution by Rail ...................................................................................................5 Chapter 8 - From Peter to Nicholas-Continuity and Progress through Reform ...................................................................................................6 Chapter 9 - Was Stalin Necessary? Railroads and the Crumbling of the Obshchina in Tsarist Russia ..................................................................6 Chapter 2 - Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Tsarist Rural Structures .....................9 The Proposed Perspective: Institutional transition from personalized to impersonalized rights .....................................................................................9 Locus and type of rule