The Post-Soviet Potemkin Village: Politics and Property Rights in the Black Earth [Paperback]

This book explains how the introduction of rural private property rights in Ukraine and Russia generated poverty.In the 1990s, the Russian and Ukrainian governments undertook a project to privatize the collective farms created under Stalin. Under the guise of benefiting former farm employees, the plan instead dispossessed millions of rural people and created a Potemkin village for the post-Soviet era. This book explains how and why this occurred.In the 1990s, the Russian and Ukrainian governments undertook a project to privatize the collective farms created under Stalin. Under the guise of benefiting former farm employees, the plan instead dispossessed millions of rural people and created a Potemkin village for the post-Soviet era. This book explains how and why this occurred.In the 1990s, as the Soviet Empire lay in ruins, the Russian and Ukrainian governments undertook a project to dismantle the collective farm system that was created under Stalin and in the process privatize an expanse of farmland larger than Australia. Ordinary people were supposed to benefit from the reform, but local government leaders quietly rebelled against it. The end result was the dispossession of millions of rural people. This is the first book to explain why and how this happened through the perspective of a firsthand observer in the Black Earth region.Introduction: land reform in post-communist Europe; 1. Things fall apart; 2. Keeping the collectives; 3. The social origins of private farmers; 4. A return to regulation; 5. The politics of payment; 6. The facade; Conclusion: rural proletarians in the Potemkin village. This is an empirically rich study of land privatization in post-Soviet Ukraine and Russia that puts to rest some of the most fundamental assumptions underlining both theories and assessments of the political economy of post-communist transitions--for example, that privatization reduces the role of the state in the economy and that privatization transfers real property righ