Teodor Shanin Research Articles

Russian to modern world history: Teodor Shanin and peasant studies

AbstractThis paper is a retrospective of Teodor Shanin's work, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s, the principal period of his publications in English. It may also serve as a guide to tracing Shanin's main themes and issues, which included establishing a ‘generic’ peasant studies (‘peasantology’) and how he aimed to do so; his explorations of the development of capitalism and its impact on peasantries in Russia from the late 19th century to the contemporary Third World; similarly, his ideas of the promotion of ‘modernization’ of peasant agriculture by states; his relationship to Marxism in the historic Russian context and beyond; his views of peasant ‘classness’ and politics; and his vision of an alternative path of agricultural development based in peasant farming, which he drew largely from Chayanov.

Teodor Shanin: “Let’s stand on the Side of the Light against the Forces of Darkness”!

The conversation between Boris Doktorov and Alexander Nikulin is devoted to the discussion of the intelligent and existential heritage of the British and Russian sociologist Teodor Shanin (10.29.1930 – 02.04.2020), who passed away this year on the eve of his 90th birthday. Particular attention in the conversation is paid to the ethical basis of Shanin’s intellectual and social activities. On examples from the biography of Teodor Shanin, from childhood memories spent in Stalin’s Siberian exile, to Shanin speeches at the symposium “Where is Russia Going” of the post-Soviet period, the most important milestones of the sociopolitical development of Russia are reconstructed, connected by the theme of the people, intelligentsia and power. A kind of ethical paradox in Shanin’s worldview and actions is emphasized, on the one hand, being guided by the principles of ethical relativism, on the other hand, who always insisted on an uncompromising and activist choice of a person in favor of good in the fight against the forces of evil. In conclusion, the ways of further study and development of Teodor Shanin’s heritage are discussed.

Teodor Shanin’s scientific legacy: genres and models for understanding social worlds

ABSTRACT The authors systematize the scientific legacy of Teodor Shanin in a brief review of three groups of the key, scientific works of this outstanding Israeli-British sociologist (10.29.1930–02.04.2020). This summary emphasizes Shanin's amazing ability to create original explanatory models for social sciences. His diverse and multifaceted intellectual legacy can be divided into three main genres: monographs, anthologies/textbooks, and essays. Shanin was the head of major research projects and the author of editorial prefaces and articles on explanatory models of peasant worlds and communities, informal/expolary economies, developing countries, and Marxist theory as applied to the development of Russia.

“The Question of Ethics should be at the Core of Everything . . .”: Interview with Teodor Shanin

“The Question of Ethics should be at the Core of Everything . . .”: Interview with Teodor Shanin

Teodor Shanin in Textbooks, Monographs and Essays: Reviewing the Scholar’s Major Works

This review describes and analyzes the main scientific works of the remarkable BritishRussian sociologist Teodor Shanin (1930–2020). The suggestion is to divide Shanin’s rich intellectual heritage into three main genres: anthologies, monographs, and essays. The review begins with the genre of anthologies, understood in the broadest sense of the word: from a collection of modern scientific articles to collections of excerpts from classical works. In this genre, T. Shanin acted as the head of research projects, the author of editorial introductions and the scientific articles themselves in anthologies devoted to models of scientific knowledge of the world, peasants and peasant communities, developing countries, Marxist theory in connection with the development of Russia, types of informal-expolar economies, reflexive peasant studies, methods of qualitative research, interdisciplinary research of generations. Shanin’s books, written in the genre of authentic scientific monographs, on the social mobility of the Russian peasantry at the beginning of the 20th century, the two-volume “Russia as a Developing Society” and the collection of his selected scientific articles titled “Defining Peasants” are examined. In conclusion, it is noted that Teodor Shanin was a bright and sharp essayist who left a number of remarkable articles in the essay genre, namely in the later period of his life — when he was living and working in post-Soviet Russia. The defining feature of Shanin as a writing scientist was his ability to think in terms of original models in a wide interdisciplinary context.

Notes on the Reprint of Late Marx and the Russian Road Edited by Teodor Shanin

ABSTRACTThe reprint of Late Marx and the Russian Road on the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth offers a valuable opportunity to discuss the impact of this path-breaking miscellaneous volume on Marx scholarship. The first aim of this paper is to highlight the original approach of the work, which looked at Marx’s views on Russia from a different perspective to those of previous studies. This paper then deals with the main criticism raised by critics regarding the line of argument advanced in the book. Emphasis is placed on two aspects: (1) the debate over whether Marx believed in the possibility of socialist development in Russia without a proletarian revolution in the Western countries; (2) the argument that the shifts in Marx’s perspective after 1870 were not limited to his writings on the Russian question, which were part of a wider rethink of the political forms suitable for the emancipation of labour from capitalist exploitation.

The Concept of a ‘Peasant War’ in Soviet and Western Historiography of the ‘Troubles’ in Early 17th-Century and Early 20th-Century Russia

The concept of ‘peasant wars’ in 17th- and 18th-century Russia was borrowed by Soviet historians from Friedrich Engels’ work on the Peasant War in Germany. The four peasant wars of the early modern period were identified as the uprisings led by Ivan Bolotnikov (1606-1607), Sten’ka Razin (1667-1671), Kondratiy Bulavin (1707-1708) and Emel’ian Pugachev (1773-1775). Following a debate in the journal Voprosy istorii in 1958-1961, the ‘first peasant war’ was generally considered to encompass the period c.1603-1614 rather than simply 1606- 1607. This approach recognised the continuities in the events of the early 17th century, and it meant that the chronological span of the ‘first peasant war’ was virtually identical to that of the older concept of the ‘Time of Troubles’. By the 1970s the term, ‘civil wars of the feudal period’ (based on a quotation from Lenin) was sometimes used to define ‘peasant wars’. It was recognised by Soviet historians that these civil wars were very complex in their social composition, and that the insurgents did not exclusively (or even primarily) comprise peasants, with Cossacks playing a particularly significant role. Nevertheless the general character of the uprisings was seen as ‘anti-feudal’. From the 1980s, however, R.G. Skrynnikov and A.L. Stanislavskiy discarded the view that the events of the ‘Time of Troubles’ constituted an anti-feudal peasant war. They preferred the term ‘civil war’, and stressed vertical rather than horizontal divisions between the two armed camps. Western historians, with the notable exception of the American historian Paul Avrich, generally rejected the application of the term ‘peasant wars’ to the Russian uprisings of the early modern period, regarding them as primarily Cossack-led revolts. From the 1960s, however, Western scholars such as Teodor Shanin (following the American anthropologist Eric Wolf) began to use the term ‘peasant wars’ in relation to the role played by peasants in 20th-century revolutionary events such as those in Russia and China. Some of these Western historians, including Avrich and Wolf, used the term not only for peasant actions in the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, but also for peasant rebellions against the new Bolshevik regime (such as the Makhnovshchina and the Antonovshchina) that Soviet scholars considered to be counter-revolutionary banditry. The author argues that, in relation to the ‘Time of Troubles’ in early 20th-century Russia, the term ‘peasant war’ is not entirely suitable to describe peasant actions against the agrarian relations of the old regime in 1905 and 1917, since these were generally orderly and non-violent. The term is more appropriate for the anti-Bolshevik uprisings of armed peasant bands in 1918-1921, as suggested by the British historian Orlando Figes.

«Периферия», государство и революция, или морфология российской отсталости (Часть 2)

With this paper, we continue a series of publications on the theoretical aspects of Teodor Shanin’s conception of Russia as a ‘developing society’ first published in 1986 in the book Russia as a ‘Developing Society’. The Roots of Otherness: Russia’s Turn of Century. Vol. 1. In this part, the author considers the characterization of Russia as a “developing society” at the turn of the XX century, which cannot be understood outside the context of capitalism both internationally and intra-nationally. At the same time the unique/specific features that most profoundly characterized the Russian social scene at the turn of the century and made its mark as its past within its present were represented particularly by the state, ethnos and peasantry. The power of the Russian state apparatus, its share of resources, its control over the population and its legal claims exceeded those elsewhere where capitalism was on the march. Massive processes of consolidation and ‘extended reproduction’ of cultural patterns, language usage, fundamental symbols of identification and self-identification, as well as of related political loyalties, wielded together massive populations of different origins. Finally, during two centuries only, the Russian peasants moved all the way from the payment of tribute to unheard-of levels of exploitation and cattle-like enslavement of more than nine-tenths of the Russians; however, within another century came the emancipation from serfdom which made peasantry not only ‘free’ but landowning. The Russian dependent development of that time found its expression not only at the general level of the economic flows malfunctions and transformations but also at the distinct dimension of class generation and conflict. Parallel to the general crisis of the Russian political economy and the growing and increasingly explicit conflict between major social groups was an ideological/moral crisis expressed in perceptions, concepts and values (thus, the Russian intelligentsia confronted directly the state apparatus). The author concludes with the types of dissent initiated by men of knowledge, of ideas and of moral values, which was represented in different populist theorists including revolutionary populism and subjective sociology.

Типы исторического «развития», или морфология российской отсталости (Часть 1)

With this paper, we start a series of publications on the theoretical aspects of Teodor Shanin’s conception of Russia as a ‘developing society’ first published in 1986 in the book Russia as a ‘Developing Society’. The Roots of Otherness: Russia’s Turn of Century. Vol. 1. In the next issue of the journal, we will publish the second part of the fifth chapter of the book, as well as the refereed translation of the whole chapter. In this part, the author considers the key conceptual approaches to the notion of social and economic development on the global scale and in the historical framework. Thus, the variety of convergence theories assumed that whatever the rhetoric or the crudities of Russia’s socialist experiment, it was not much more than a gigantic exercise in ‘belated industrialization’ and in converging towards closing ‘the gap’ between Western Europe or the USA and the rest of the globe. The modernization theories divided the world into ‘three worlds’ - First, Second and Third - and assumed that the Second World would turn into First, while the Third World should go a much longer way. However, the author considers it much more important to specify what is meant by the category of societies defined as ‘developing’, ‘backward’, ‘underdeveloped’, ‘emerging’, etc. There are essentially two ways to delimit such entities structurally: the first treats ‘developing societies’ as backward and proceeding towards modernity along the necessary scale of social and economic advance, but for some reasons not yet ‘there’ or else moving ‘there’ too slowly; the second approach assumes different venues of ‘development’, with the ‘developing societies’ representing a category of this. Further, the article identifies possibilities and limits of different theoretical perspectives, in particular, regarding the Russian intellectual and social-economic history.

Book Reviews

MankindVolume 14, Issue 2 p. 128-160 Book Reviews First published: December 1983 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1835-9310.1983.tb01259.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Abstract Book reviewed in this article: Marxism and Anthropology: The History of a Relationship. By Maurice Bloch. The Anthropology of Pre-Capitalist Societies. Editesd by Joel S. Kahn and Josep R. Llobera. Marx: The First Hundred Years. Edited by David McLellan. A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism. By Anthony Giddens, Contemporary Social Theory. Introduction to the Sociology of ‘Developing Societies’. Edited by Hamza Alavi and Teodor Shanin. Sociology of ‘Developing Societies’. Is There a Future for Marxism? By Alex Gallinicos. Marx, Marginalism & Modern Sociology. From Adam Smith to Max Weber. By Simon Clarke. Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. By Karl Marx. Volume 3. Introduced by Ernest Mandel. Translated by David Fernbach. Beyond Marxism? Interventions After Marx. Edited by Judith Allen and Paul Patton. Max Weber and Karl Marx. By Karl Löwith. Edited with an introduction by Tom Bottomore and William Authwaite. In the Active Voice. By Mary Douglas. Essays in the Sociology of Perception. Edited by Mary Douglas. Dar La Vida Por La Vida: La Agrupacion Chilena de Detenidos Desaparecidos (Ensayo de Antropolgía Simbólica). By Hernán Vidal. Pattern of the Past. Studies in Honour of David Clarke. Edited by Ian Hodder, Glynn Isaac and Norman Hammond. Coast and Estuary: Archaeological Investigations on the North Coast of New South Wales at Wombah and Schnapper Point. By Isabel Mc Bryde. Early Native Americans: Prehistoric Demography, Ecology and Technology. Edited by David L. Browman. World Anthropology Series. The Moth Hunters. Aboriginal Prehistory of the Australian Alps. By Josephine Flood. Plants and People. Aboriginal Uses of Plants on Groote Eylandt. By Dulcie Levitt. The Hunters or the Hunted? An Introduction to African cave taphonomy. By C. K. Brain. Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myths. By L. R. Binford. Paleolithic Reflections. Lithic Technology and Excavations among Australian Aborigines. By Brian Hayden. Future Directions in the Study of the Arts of Oceania. Edited by Judith Huntsman. Material Culture. Styles, Organization and Dynamics of Technology. Edited by Heather Lechtman and Robert Merrill. The Research Potential of Anthropological Museum Collections. Edited by Anne-Marie Cantwell, James B. Griffin and Nan A. Rothschild. Physical Anthropology of European Populations. Edited by Ilse Schwidetzky, Brunetto Chiarelli and Olga Necrasov. Physiological and Morphological Adaptation and Evolution. Edited by William A. Stini. Human Variation. Races, Types, and Ethnic Groups. By Stephen Molnar. The Yindjibarndi Language. By F. J. F. Wordick. Pacific Linguistics Series C — No. 71. Basic Materials in Mara: Grammar, Texts and Dictionary. By Jeffrey Heath. Pacific Linguistics Series C — No. 60. Aborigines and Schooling: Essays in honour of Max Hart. Edited by Bill Menary with an introduction by Paul Finnane. Northern Australia: Options and Implications. Edited by Rhys Jones. The Affinal Relationship System. A New Approach to Kinship and Marriage among the Australian Aborigines at Port Keats. By Aslaug and Johannes Falkenberg. Body, Land and Spirit: Health and Healing in in Aboriginal Society. Edited by Janice Reid. Studies in Society and Culture Series. The Cultural Context of Therapeutic Choice: Obstetrical Care Decisions Among the Bariba of Benin. By Carolyn Fishel Sargent. Your Land Is Our Land: Aboriginal Land Rights. By Kenneth Maddock. An Australian Original. Aborigines, Land and Land Rights. Edited by Nicolas Peterson and Marcia Langton. AIAS 42 New Series. Oedipus in the Trobriands. By Melford E. Spiro. Feminine Sexuality. Jacques Lacan and the École Freudienne. Edited by Juliet Mitchell and Jacqueline Rose. Translated by Jacqueline Rose. Gender at Work. By Ann Game and Rosemary Pringle. Photography by Helen Grace. The Unfinished Liberation of Chinese Women, 1949–1980. By Phyllis Andors. Broken Earth. The Rural Chinese. By Steven W. Mosher. Japan and Australia. Two Scieties and Their Interaction. Edited by Peter Drysdale and Hironobu Kitaoji. A Northern Prospect. Australian Papers on Japan. Edited by Harold Bolitho and Alan Rix. The Women of Suye Mura. By Robert J. Smith and Ella Lury Wiswell. Taro. A Review of Colocasia Esculenta and Its Potentials. Edited by Jaw-Kai Wang. Roots in the Earth. Crops in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. By Paul Sillitoe. Caste Conflict and Elite Formation. The Rise of a Karāva Elite in Sri Lanka, 1500–1931. By Michael Roberts. Sri Lankan Fishermen. Rural Capitalism and Peasant Society. By Paul Alenxander. Volume14, Issue2December 1983Pages 128-160 RelatedInformation

The Peasants’ Kulak: Social Identities and Moral Economy in the Soviet Countryside in the 1920s

shila v meshke ne utaish' (you can't hide an awl in a sack) -the peasant I. Riaboi, noting that it is very easy to distinguish a from a laborer if one applies the above maxim (Derevnia pri NEP'e. Kogo schitat' kulakom, kogo-truzhenikom. Chto govoriat ob etom krest'iane? [Moscow: Krasnaia nov', 1924] 48) Western studies of the postrevolutionary Russian village have long minimized socio-economic division and struggle among peasants.1 The existence of the kulak (or rural capitalist) is often downplayed as Stalinist fabrication or treated as little more than a political issue exaggerated by leftist factions in the Communist Party during the power struggles of the 1920s. The dominant image of the 1920s village is that of an economically homogeneous and more or less socially cohesive community. The peasant experience of agricultural collectivization has, to a great extent, shaped Western analysis of rural social, economic, and political dynamics in the 1920s. During collectivization, peasants fiercely resisted the state's attempts to socialize their farms and banded together in their struggles against the common, outside enemy. Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist expectations of class war between rich and poor peasant failed to materialize as the predominant conflict became one of town versus countryside. Given this basic reality, most Western scholars have concluded that the antecedent socioeconomic stratification and struggle necessary to the Stalinist conception of class struggle were nonexistent or weakly developed. The threat did not exist or was grossly overestimated.2 Ironically, Marxist paradigms of the peasantry have dominated Western studies of the precollectivization village. In attempting to disprove Stalinist claims of class polarization and class struggle, predominantly non-Marxist scholars have essentially accepted many of the terms of Soviet debate laid down in the late 1920s. The basic emphasis in Western considerations has been on the issues of economic stratification and class formation. Accepting standard Soviet categories, most scholars have restricted their analysis within the confines of a model that divides the peasantry into poor, middle, and wealthy (and/or) groups, although they have concluded, contrary to Stalinist dogma, the existence of only a very minimal degree of stratification.3 In The Awkward Class, Teodor Shanin altered the categories of analysis, while broadly adhering to many of the terms of debate. Drawing on the seminal studies of A.V. Chaianov, Shanin focused his attention on the peasant family farm, arguing that it was precapitalist in nature and that the basis of its economic status was labor, or family size, rather than land or other forms of property and property relations. Shanin demonstrated the multi-directional mobility of the peasant family as families experience random catastrophe (e.g., fires, accidents, etc.) or, more generally in the course of several generations, traverse a path from a small (and therefore poor) family unit to a large (and therefore strong) extended family unit, and back to a smaller and poorer unit as the daughter units separate from the parental unit. This conception challenged Marxist notions of class polarization and consequent formation of class identities and consciousness, but still remained concerned with countering basic Marxist issues of socio-economic differentiation and conflict. Shanin was a participant in an argument, the terms of which were defined by Marxists.4 While it is true that the postrevolutionary village displayed minimal socioeconomic differentiation, the existence and degree of differentiation may not necessarily have been the sole or even primary determinant of village social relations. Socio-economic factors may have been less important in defining peasant social identities and interactions with other rural inhabitants than what we might broadly label cultural factors (moral economy, notions of utility, patriarchalism, etc. …

The First Revolution of the Twentieth Century

Review of The Roots of Otherness: Russia's Turn of the Century by Teodor Shanin. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Illusions about the peasantry: Karl Kautsky and the agrarian question

The Agrarian Question, by Karl Kautsky. Two volumes. Translated by Pete Burgess, with an Introduction by Hamza Alavi and Teodor Shanin. London: Zwan Publications, 1988. Pp.xxxix + 459. £25 per volume (hardback). The first English translation of the complete 1899 edition of Karl Kautsky's The Agrarian Question prompts a critical assessment of that work: as a political intervention, and as a work of theory; in its own time, and with respect to today's Third World. Kautsky, the political optimist, embraced an ineffectual political compromise: a stance no less likely today. His analysis has certain crucial limitations: including a conception of agrarian capitalism excessively moulded by the Prussian example, and an absence of any notion that wage‐labour can come in different forms. The strength of The Agrarian Question, however, is its refusal to compromise with illusions about the peasantry and its opposition to ‘agrarianism and policies of general ‘peasant protection’. Its continuing relevance is illustrate...

Rural Russia Under the New Regime. By V. P. Danilov. Translated by Orlando Figes. Foreword by Teodor Shanin. Introduction by Orlando Figes. The Second World. London, Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland, and Johannesburg: Hutchinson, 1988; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988. xii, 351 pp. Tables. $45.00, cloth.

Rural Russia Under the New Regime. By V. P. Danilov. Translated by Orlando Figes. Foreword by Teodor Shanin. Introduction by Orlando Figes. The Second World. London, Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland, and Johannesburg: Hutchinson, 1988; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988. xii, 351 pp. Tables. $45.00, cloth.

The Roots of Otherness: Russia's Turn of the Century. Teodor Shanin

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsThe Roots of Otherness: Russia's Turn of the Century. Teodor Shanin Allan WildmanAllan Wildman Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Modern History Volume 61, Number 4Dec., 1989 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/468406 Views: 3Total views on this site Copyright 1989 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

BOOK REVIEWS

Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity. Elizabeth Wilson. Social Knowledge: An Essay on the Nature and Limits of social Science. Paul Mattick, Jr. Peasants and Peasant Societies: Selected Readings. 2nd Ed. Edited by Teodor Shanin. Beyond Monopoly: Lawyers, Crises, and Professional Empowerment. Terence C. Halliday Values, Neo‐Kantianism and the Development of Weberian Sociology. Thomas W. Segady

The Roots of Otherness: Russia's Turn of Century. Volume I: Russia as a Developing Society; Volume II: Russia, 1905-07: Revolution as a Moment of Truth. By Teodor Shanin. Yale University Press. 268 pp.; 379 pp. Cloth, $30.00, $30.00; paper, $9.95, $9.95

The Roots of Otherness: Russia's Turn of Century. Volume I: Russia as a Developing Society; Volume II: Russia, 1905-07: Revolution as a Moment of Truth. By Teodor Shanin. Yale University Press. 268 pp.; 379 pp. Cloth, $30.00, $30.00; paper, $9.95, $9.95

Expoliary Economies: a Political Economy of Margins Agenda for the Study of Modes of Non‐Incorporation as Parallel Forms of Social Economy

Journal of Historical SociologyVolume 1, Issue 1 p. 107-115 Expoliary Economies: a Political Economy of Margins Agenda for the Study of Modes of Non-Incorporation as Parallel Forms of Social Economy TEODOR SHANIN, TEODOR SHANINSearch for more papers by this author TEODOR SHANIN, TEODOR SHANINSearch for more papers by this author First published: March 1988 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6443.1988.tb00006.xCitations: 4AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume1, Issue1March 1988Pages 107-115 RelatedInformation

Russia as a "Developing Society" By Teodor Shanin. The Roots of Otherness: Russia's Turn of the Century, Volume 1. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986. xvi, 268 pp. Figures. Maps. Tables. $30.00, cloth. $9.95, paper. - Russia, 1905-07: Revolution as a Moment of Truth. By Teodor Shanin. The Roots of Otherness: Russia's Turn of the Century, Volume 2.

Russia as a "Developing Society" By Teodor Shanin. The Roots of Otherness: Russia's Turn of the Century, Volume 1. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986. xvi, 268 pp. Figures. Maps. Tables. 9.95, paper. - Russia, 1905-07: Revolution as a Moment of Truth. By Teodor Shanin. The Roots of Otherness: Russia's Turn of the Century, Volume 2. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986. xvi, 379 pp. Figures. Tables. 9.95, paper. - Volume 47 Issue 1

Peasant Economy and Peasant Revolution at the Turn of the Century: Neither Immiseration nor Autonomy

long-term capacity of the tsarist regime to survive since the optimists-andpessimists debate subsided two decades ago. That argument did not-could not-end conclusively, but the two most memorable contributions were Leopold Haimson's Problem of Social Stability in Urban Russia, 1905-1917, which found tsarist society fatally riven by a dual socio-political polarization (government vs. society, society vs. masses); and Theodore Von Laue's Why Lenin? Why Stalin?, which argued that the ill-integrated society of prerevolutionary Russia could not bear the strain imposed by unavoidable competition with more developed Western countries.1 What was most remarkable about those essays was not that Haimson and Von Laue argued so forcefully for the necessity of the revolution, but that they shed the historian's customary reluctance to make a claim, in any forum more public than a classroom, for the necessity of a particular historical outcome. Teodor Shanin now enters the lists with two volumes that partly reconceptualize the pessimists' case and match Von Laue's work in their exceptional vigor. The effect would be bracing, if only Shanin were surer in his handling of the evidence. Shanin focuses particularly upon Russia's peasants, whom he holds responsible for Russia's otherness, her incapacity to follow the path of moder development blazed by Western Europe. Peasants, he says, did not behave in a manner compatible with the development of agricultural capitalism, nor did the changing industrial economy much affect their behavior. From their economic autonomy stemmed their autonomy as political actors; they rebelled