Neo-populist Fables: The Other World of A.V. Chayanov

Abstract

The political importance of Chayanov transcends his own time and space, influencing as it has done – and continues to do – both the debate about rural development in Third World countries and – more broadly – resurgent agrarian populist interpretations in academia and elsewhere. Less well known, but epistemologically as revealing of his politics, are his non-economic writings, particularly his contributions to the Gothic literary genre. Examined here, therefore, are three stories written pseudonymously by Chayanov, each of which is structured by the same discourse. All were composed over a short period just after the Bolsheviks took power in Russia, and reveal as a sub-text the political divergence and concomitant struggle between neo-populist and Bolshevik versions of societal development.