258 



restrictions, conuolled and managed by the state. Despite the fact that rural dii^erentiation is 

 occurring, the government has absolutely no intention of allowing a rural elite to emerge. 



The second obstacle to the emergence of a rural elite is rural conservatism, manifest as a 

 basic aversion to free land sales and a residual anti-kulak attitude in the countryside. In 

 Altai Kray, for example, a recent survey among rural dwellers showed that 95 percent 

 opposed the free sale of land.'^ That a basic egalitarian culture still exists in the countryside 

 is further evidenced by press stories of sabotage against successful farms, and in 1992 

 legislation was passed allowing farmers to own and use weapons to protect their property. 

 Russian land reform, therefore, differs from that in other countries in that land distribution 

 is intended not to break the power of an old rural elite, but to prevent the rise of a newly 

 landed, powerful, rural elite.'® 



CONCLUSION 



Despite the rhetoric for the peasant to "enrich himself," in fact the state has intervmed 

 in order to try to enforce an egalitarian policy among rural dwellers in reform . In January 

 1993, promises were made that further subsidies and financial support would attempt to 

 differentiate among farmers based on effectiveness, but specifics about how this would be 

 achieved have not been published. 



The effects of rural cgalitarianism on reform outcomes are clear, 



1. Rural egalitarianism prevents the rise of a stratum of strong, efficient farmers. 



2. Those who have been successful at some degree of differentiation arc few in number 



^' Sd'skava /.hi/n' . January 12. 1993, p. 1. 



^^ One might nrgue (hnt land disiribution is intended in pan to lessen the power of tho old communist rural 

 elite in general and of state and collective farms in particular. This argument has a degree of validity, but I 

 would finst argue that vis-a-vis the urban communist elite, the rural clilc was weak and fairly ineffectual. 

 Second, it is unlikely tliat any counter-elile, especially a rural one, would have been tolerated in the old 

 Soviet system. Instead, rural inicrcsls would have bccn co-optod and "TCprcscnua' by (he urban-based 

 communist elite. We could measure this weakness through representation on elite bodies, lagging wages, 

 poor rural infrastructure, poor rural health care and medical facilities, lack of rural amcnillos, and any 

 number of oilKr indices. For more on this subject sec Stephen K. Wcgrcn, "The Social Conuaci 

 Reconsidered: Peasanl-Slale Relations in the USSR," Soviei Geography , vol. 32 (December 1991), pp. 

 653-82. 



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