Abstract
This article examines the use of the concept of sebestoimost’ ‐ production cost ‐on large‐scale commercial farms (former collective and state farms)in European Russia. This examination is based on ?eldwork carried out by the author and some Russian colleagues in 1996 and 1997. This concept and the accounting magnitudes it generates are of no utility now, and should be abandoned as an actual impediment to effective farm management in current market conditions. But the manipulation of sebestoimost’ magnitudes in the Soviet period served, it appears, very important functions for farm chairmen and directors. In uncovering the mystery of those functions, an important revisionist hypothesis concerning the inef ?ciencies, or alleged inef?ciencies, of Soviet agriculture emerges. The data cited in this article are too scanty to prove the hypothesis, but are certainly suf ?cient to suggest that it warrants further investigation.
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