History of Agricultural Education in Russia

The first educational establishment for disseminating advanced knowledge in the field of agriculture among peasants and training specialists for landlords’ farms was founded in Russia back in the early 18^th century.

The School of Applied Agriculture was opened in 1797 near Saint Petersburg on command of Emperor Paul I. The length of training course was just three years. Along with students of Moscow University and theological schools, as well as orphanage alumni, this school enrolled the children of peasant serfs’ families and adult state peasant serfs in the age of 20-35 years. By analogy with recruiting duty, those belonging to the two latter categories were chosen by the peasant community in numbers required. Thus, the peasants treated their fellow villagers leaving for school accordingly: “…the relatives were crying believing these people to be lost forever; the wives of some of them married again thinking that their husbands would never return; the others’ houses were sold as vacant; while the future students themselves were leaving for school determined to forget the new rules.” It is clear that the educational establishment “failed to have favorable impact on farming,” yet cost a pretty penny to the state (200,641 rubles for the period of five years). Therefore, the school was closed in 1803 for the sake of “saving the state’s revenues and ensuring peace among peasants.”

30 years later the State Property Ministry organized eight model farms in various regions of the empire for training peasants and arranging their mode of life. Count P.D. Kiselev, the project’s author, justly believed that one cannot improve agriculture “otherwise than by way of training young peasants for the latter to acquire due knowledge and subsequently found model farms on their lands….” The due knowledge included such subjects, as Religious Education, Russian grammar, arithmetic fundamentals, basic principles of farming, police manual sections devoted to obligations of country folk and information about “treating cattle with simple methods.” These farms functioned for almost three decades and released about 2,500 literate and competent farmers. However, none of them would run the farm using “improved” methods after training! They failed to become role models in terms of farming, yet turned into the so called “field bosses” – managers of landlords’ estates. Yet even such position, very promising in terms of salary, failed to inspire peasant serfs to sending their children to those model farms for getting education. As soon as the “duty” to send students to farms was abolished, the peasants stopped doing that, as there were no those willing to lose four years to get education among them. Thus all model farms had been closed by 1862.

In the long run, it is rather owing to enthusiasts than state officials that substantive and impressing results were still achieved as to disseminating progressive knowledge in the field of farming among peasants. Their personal commitment and initiative, backed by public forces, represented by the Free Economic Society and later its regional agricultural organizations, would yield fruit.

Countess Stroganova’s School

In 1824 Countess Sofia Vladimirovna Stroganova, owner of a large family estate in Perm province (Stroganov Majorat), famous for her active participation in the Free Economic Society’s activities, submitted to the VEO council a project of Private Mining and Metallurgical School that she intended to found in Saint Petersburg.

Sofia Vladimirovna wrote in her report to the Society: “The key objective of the new school in Saint Petersburg lies in training young peasant serfs living in my estate, both male and female, yet predominantly male, chosen from among orphans.” Subsequently young men from “other landlord’s and free peasant families” started being admitted to this school. 11 years later, it was renamed into the School of Farming, Mining and Forestry Sciences.

Stroganova’s school consisted of two departments – theoretical one in Saint Petersburg and the one of applied science in the village of Maryino, where the countess’s estate was located. 50 peasant orphans from Stroganova’s estate became the first students of the educational establishment. The mining department in Saint Petersburg admitted the boys, who had successfully completed a five-year training course at schools under Stroganov plants in the Urals. The Free Economic Society granted two scholarships, 1,000 rubles a year each, to support orphans studying at school.

The classes were held during the spring-summer season. The school had at its disposal a territory including 61 hectares of arable land, 38 hectares of meadows, 490 hectares of forest, as well as an orchard and a vegetable garden. Under the educational establishment, there also were several workshops for manufacturing farming utensils and machines, the samples of which were bought in Europe. The teaching staff included mostly the graduates of Moscow Farming School (founded in 1822 for training peasant serfs who were to become estate managers and surveyors), and later the graduates of Saint Petersburg school, who had completed training and internship courses in Europe. For some classes the administration invited university professors.

The level of training was so high that the countess’s friends even sought to send their relatives and foster children to this school. Many graduates left good memory of them in the form of valuable research papers and socially useful activities, even having failed to get further education.

The school functioned for 19 years, while the costs of running it amounted to over a million rubles. The investment effect lay in hundreds of competent specialists, who later worked as managers and administrators, craft supervisors, estate managers and accountants, mining surveyors, foresters and agronomists at the farms and enterprises owned by the countess. It is interesting that each peasant, school graduate, would gain up to 33 hectares of arable land, meadows and forest on lease after having married.

The Free Economic Society awarded Countess S.V. Stroganova with a gold medal for implanting this project, while her bust monument was installed in the Society’s conference hall.

Shortly before her death, the Countess closed the school and sold all of its property. The news about school’s closure caused deep regret among the residents of her estates in the Urals. One of the graduates later wrote in his memoirs: “First, the closure of Saint Petersburg school did not upset me much. However, when my brother Yakov returned from school in 1845 after having completed the training course at mining department, I would listen to his stories and appreciate his knowledge… Feeling his physical and mental superiority, I developed a passion for learning and grasped the irrevocable loss that all of us suffered after the Saint Petersburg school had been closed.”

President N.S. Mordvinov’s Program

“Count Mordvinov was devoted to public activities with abandon. He threw his heart into them, when it came to making something useful for his beloved Motherland, sparing neither efforts nor property,” historian of the Imperial Free Economic Society A.I. Khodnev wrote.

It was one of the most bright and busy periods in the activities of the Free Economic Society. For his presidential term that lasted for 17 years N.S. Mordvinov had personally drawn up some guidelines specifying the organization’s key mission and objectives: “Implementing for general use the methods of creating national wealth, derived from three primary sources: land, crafts and industry. To achieve these objectives the Society has decided to adopt the following types of activities:

Awards for solving problems successfully, invention and upgrade of methods and rules leading to Russia’s prosperity in agriculture, arts and industry.
Annual exhibitions displaying the samples of advanced handwork products for subsequent general distribution among factories, plants and crafts.
Testing newly invented utensils and machines that facilitate the labor of human workforce.
Producing such utensils and machines at the Society’s expense and implementing these into general use.
Making available to general public all research results and discoveries proven to be useful on the basis of experience.
Ordering the models of various useful utensils and machines that can serve as samples for those wishing to utilize them at their enterprises.
Establishing a special workshop for manufacturing the aforementioned models and distributing them among provinces.
Drawing up manuals for those willing to undertake activities that serve the purposes of Free Economic Society.
Encouraging public readings in physics, mechanical science, chemistry and mineralogy as technological sciences, delivering training courses at a price lower than the existing one to disseminate information as to the aforementioned sciences.
Establishing mutually beneficial cooperation between the scientists and those who put into practice their useful discoveries and inventions - namely between chemists, mechanics, mineralogists, biologists, on the one hand, and housekeepers, manufacturers and industrialists, on the other hand – as close relationship between these two groups leads to implementation of various improvements and advanced methods, which serves the Society’s purposes.”

Between the Devil and the Deep Sea

Throughout the rule of Nicholas I that lasted for 30 years, there was much tension around the so called “peasants’ issue.” It was during that period that the number of peasant serfs reduced drastically – according to different estimates, from 57-58 % of Russia’s population in 1811—1817 to 35-45 % in 1857—1858. Thus, they were no more in the majority in the country. The two key reasons behind it obviously lay in putting an end to the practice of “handing out” peasant serfs with land that had been popular during the rule of previous tsars and the start of spontaneous peasant’s liberation process.

A year after the Decembrist Revolt, on December 6^th, 1826 the Emperor founded a secret committee for preparing important state reforms to be carried out on the basis of the late Emperor Alexander I projects. The reform in the field of control over state villages had become the new committee’s first step. In 1837, the authorities founded the State Property Ministry that managed to streamline the system of control over the state peasants, levying tributes and recruitment. Schools and hospitals started being opened in Russian villages. Peasant communities having not enough land began to move to free lands in other provinces. At that time, various settlements released from community charges for some time started emerging on the country’s map. Such a settlement was called “sloboda,” and that is how word “freedom” (“svoboda” in Russian) appeared in the Russian language.

However, at that point the reforms went into a skid, as the landlords were dissatisfied with them. They believed that the measures intended for raising the peasants’ living standards make their serfs inclined to become state-owned ones. The historians say that during the rule of Nicholas I the serfdom changed in nature – from the institution of slavery it turned into the one of natural rent, which protected the peasants’ rights to some extent. Several laws improving their way of living were adopted. It was forbidden to sell peasant serfs (without land) and deport them for hard labor (which had been common practice before). The peasant serfs gained the rights to own the land and run a business. Moreover, they obtained relative freedom of movement.

Thus, a category of “peasant capitalists” appeared among the poor and deprived serfs and started growing in number at a swift rate. These dealt with retail and wholesale trade, usury and invested money in industrial production. Some rich peasants turned into major industrialists, who would buy their freedom and open factories, thus pushing back the landlords’ enterprises. Such business dynasties, as the ones of the Morozovs, Prokhorovs, Garelins, etc. can serve as vivid examples of this trend.

However, the agriculture was developing at a slow rate, unlike the industry. Some landlords tried to streamline their farms. These would buy machines and utensils from abroad, introduce new methods of farming and breed pedigree cattle. In some provinces, the landlords even started using hired labor. Yet, these new developments did not come into widespread acceptance due to lack of free workforce. The majority of landlords saw corvee and rent tribute as the only measures to raise their revenues. Such practice led to smashup of peasants’ farms and serfs’ revolts.

The discontent among upper classes along with peasants’ uprisings led Emperor Nicholas I to the conclusion that, though serfdom was evil, the attempts to abolish it immediately would pose a threat of protest on the part of all social classes and groups.

Economic Background of Decembrist Revolt

As is known, Emperor Alexander I refused from carrying out liberal reforms after the Patriotic War of 1812. The policy he pursued resulted in a split between the people and authorities. Some members of nobility went into opposition to the tsar’s regime. They demanded the abolishment or at least some relaxation of serfdom. The serfdom-based system impeded the process of state upgrade and renovation, slowed down production development and hindered capitalist relations that were gradually forming up. The extension of commodity-money relations and use of hired labor, as well as technical modernization of the industry, had to coexist with conventional elements of self-subsistence farming and patriarchal way of life.

Manufactories could serve as a vivid illustration of how the serfdom hindered the country’s normal development. Unrelated to the state, these enterprises worked for the market (first and foremost, the one of textile industry, which enjoyed having mass buyers) and used hired labor. They belonged to former peasants, who had turned rich, while the employees were hired among those peasants, who had left farming for an occupation in the industry. The future belonged to this very system of production, yet the owners of these enterprises were serfs and had to give a sufficient part of revenues to their landlords as tribute. The workers also belonged to landlords and therefore looked forward to coming back to their families and farms after having paid the tribute. The sales market was relatively narrow, which hindered production growth. At the same time, it was almost impossible to make the market wider, as the population consisted mostly of peasant serfs, who could not dispose of their labor products and therefore enjoy high purchasing capacity.

Thus, the tension was mounting both among upper classes, and common people. Radical nobility including many officers, who had taken part in the Patriotic War and foreign campaigns, was losing hopes for peaceful reforms. Publicist A.A. Bestuzhev wrote that the soldiers, having come back home from war, would say: “We have spilled our blood during the war, but now we are forced to work up a sweat again! We have protected our Motherland from the foreign tyrant, while the landlords are grinding us by their tyranny!”

The peasants’ uprisings against the landlords rose in number in 1820, when some parts of the country were seized by hunger. The most serious revolts took place in the Don river region. The worker serfs also protested demanding to raise wages, change the system of job rates, replace foremen, and improve the system of food supplies. The first quarter of the 19^th century saw over 64 such uprisings. 27 of them broke out in the period of 1800-1813, while the period of 1814-1825 accounted for 37 revolts. The overwhelming majority of them (62 out of 64) were excited by peasant serfs working at manufactories. The revolts in villages and at the plants often lasted up to over two months, and troops were used to put them down.

The Theses of Nationwide Manifesto Drawn up, According to S.P. Trubetskoy, by K.F. Ryleev and him on December 13, 1825

1. Liquidation of the former state system.
2. Constitution of a temporary rule for the period until the election of a new governance system.
3. Freedom of press and therefore liquidation of censorship.
4. Free celebration of divine services for all religions
5. Liquidation of ownership of people.
6. Equality of all estates before the law, and therefore liquidation of martial-law courts and special commissions. All cases from the latter are to be handed over to civil courts.
7. Every citizen should have the right to choose the occupation he wants. Thus members of all classes and social groups – nobility, merchants, bourgeoisie and peasants – should equally be entitled to choose military or civil service, and deal with retail or wholesale trade, paying the set taxes and duties. They should also have equal rights in terms of buying property, like land plots and houses in the cities and villages, as well as litigation in court.
8. Cancellation of all capitation taxes and respective arrears.
9. Liquidation of monopolies for salt, sales of alcoholic beverages, etc.; free alcohol distillation and salt production with payment of respective duties on the basis of produced salt and vodka quantities.
10. Abolishment of recruitment system and liquidation of military settlements.
11. Reduction of military service term for soldiers and sergeants and making it equal for all classes and social groups.
12. Resignation for all soldiers and sergeants who have served for 15 years.
13. Constitution of district, regional and provincial governments and procedure of electing their members, who are to replace all officials appointed by the state administration.
14. Publicity of judicial proceedings.
15. Introduction of jury trial in the systems of criminal and civil justice.

Sixteen-Field Farming System

Here is a description of crop rotation in sixteen-field farming system, as exemplified by planting and cropping on one field:

1st year: land was laid fallow with planting annual grasses for feeding cattle or haymaking. After spring ploughing, the field was used for seeding oats mixed with bean crops, like peas, vetch or lentils. Autumn fallow was also practiced – the land was ploughed only in autumn before frosts, while in summer the field was used as pasture, as long as grasses and weeds were growing there. Both in first and second cases, the field was either ploughed or cultivated for seeding winter crops, like rye and wheat, in August. In early spring, the peasants would seed clover on the field still covered with snow crust along with rye. The clover would grow there during the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th years, while on the 7^th year the clover was mowed down to make fodder for horses, at the same time the field was used as pasture for cattle. In autumn, before frosts, deep ploughing took place on the field with overturning flags. During the next year (8^th) the field was prepared for seeding barley, oats and spring wheat, as well as, after additional processing, buckwheat. On the 9^th year, the field was used for planting arable crops, like potatoes or beetroots. The land was prepared for planting as follows: the field was ploughed before planting potato tubers or seeding beet, the young crops were earthed-up, while after harvesting the field was ploughed again. On the next (10^th) year, the field was used for seeding flax or other technical crops, as a rule. On the 11^th year, the land was used for seeding buckwheat after spring plowing. Next year (12^th) or in autumn perennial grasses, like catmint, medic, etc. were seeded. After that, the land was used for growing perennial grasses for 3-4 years. During the last year, the fields with perennial grasses were used only as pastures, though during the previous years they were always used for cattle grazing. On the 16^th-17^th year the cycle would repeat – the field was laid fallow. The only exclusion was made for the fields with depleted soils that were withdrawn from crop rotation, as a rule. These were used only as pastures.

Free Economic Society Moves to New House

In early 1840s Emperor Nicholas I ordered to carry out the reconstruction of the group of buildings that hosted the General Staff. The house of Free Economic Society was located next to this group of buildings. Thus, in March 1844 the building located at 2 Nevsky Avenue was ceded to the military ministry within the framework of a respective deal. The economists started looking for a new house and moved to new premises in summer of the same year.

Galchenkova’s House looked “perfect for the Society.” It was located at the corner of Obukhovsky Prospekt and 4^th Izmaylovsky Regiment Street (now the intersection of Moscovsky Prospekt and 4^th Krasnoarmeyskaya Street), some 3.5 kilometers from the former building. The suggestion to move from the city center to an unattractive district full of barracks was met by the members of Free Economic Society with understandable discontent. Such feelings are common for people, who have to move from, say, Manezhnaya Square in Moscow to Southern Butovo, for instance. However, after some strong and scarcely disguised pressure on the part of Duke Peter of Oldenburg, president of the Free Economic Society at that time, the Society still had to move to the new premises. In 1846, the second story was added to the building’s wing, 13 Utermark heating furnaces (a round brick stove faced with iron sheets, popular at that time) and a gas device were installed in the new premises. Thus, both the Free Economic Society and Galchenkova’s House started a new life.

As secretary of the Imperial VEO S.S. Dzhunkovsky wrote, “along with conference halls, library and museum the new building includes premises for the workshop of Department 4 and a chemical laboratory, for which special apartment had been rented before at a price of 900 rubles a year. Moreover, a librarian, who is the house supervisor at the same time, museum curator, clerk of Department 1, and attendants live there. The house also hosts a seed depot and several vacant rooms reserved for possible increase in the library’s collection. The new building meets the Society’s requirements in terms of interior design elegance and comfort of the premises, which each member can verify by way of personal examination.”

It was in Galchenkova’s House that the Imperial Free Economic Society celebrated its jubilees – 100^th, 120^th and 150^th anniversaries. Letters and telegrams of congratulations were coming from all parts of Russia and foreign countries. At the celebration meeting on October 31, 1865 the Chairman read aloud a rescript of Emperor Alexander II that contained the following lines: “Giving full credit to the past activities of the Society, which had proved useful, I am sure that it will continue its fruitful work aimed at yielding benefit to our beloved Motherland in the future as well, and manage to keep our benevolent attitude.”

Private Schools for Peasants

Extract from the report of S.S. Lashkarev, State Councilor in Deed, correspondent member of the Academic Committee under the State Property Ministry, made at the meeting of Free Economic Society on April 24, 1847:

“…There is no doubt that many landlords have already paid attention to the need in educating their brothers, confided by God to their paternal care, that is dictated by way of life… I cannot deprive myself of the pleasure to repeat here the names of some persons, whose valorous labor is marked by the Moscow Society of Agriculture:

Landowner Stremoukhov, living in the town of Lebedin, Kharkov district, had organized a craft vocational school for peasants, both men and women, which had been functioning for 30 years already.

Princes Shirinsky-Shikhmatovy had also been holding a school for religious and moral education of the peasants’ children for 30 years in their estate in Mozhaysk district of Moscow province.

Everybody knows the school for factory workers at Trekhgornaya Manufactory owned by the Prokhorovy that is located near Moscow, as well as the beekeeping school of Mr. Prokopovich located not far from Baturin, Chernigov province. Landowner I.F. Klepatsky from the village of Kulyasy holds for many years a school of literacy and liturgical singing.

Landowner Rebrov from Pyatigorsk is teaching peasants’ children at his own house.

The widow of Major-General M.I. Repninsky, living in Alexandria district of Kherson province, established schools for peasants’ boys in 1842 and girls in 1845 and has been running them since that time.

Several schools were built during the period of 1846-1847. These were established by Prince V.V. Lvov at Podsolnechnaya station on Moscow – Saint Petersburg highway (for peasants’ children, both male and female); by landowner N.P Shishkov in the village of Danki; by P.V. Shabelsky in Kharkov province; and by landowner Lisevich from Maloyaroslavets (the latter’s small school is called “literacy hut”). Princess O.V. Baryatinskaya established an orphanage in Zolotonosha district. Finally, girls from peasants’ families receive training in reading and writing in Lokhvitsa district (estate of Countess M.P. Komarovskaya); in Skopin district (estate of Ye.A. Kurbatova) and Bezhetsk district (estate of Her High Excellence A.Ye. Shipova).

However, no matter how many such schools are, their number is a far cry from what the peasants from landowners’ estates really need. In some 10, 15, 20 years they would seriously fall behind free farmers and state-owned peasant serfs in terms of education. Who will be to blame for it, but the landowners themselves?

Who, but the Imperial Free Economic Society, should take charge of disseminating literacy among peasants by way of delivering religious and moral education, as well as training in either agriculture or crafts, depending upon their place of living?….”

Sergey Lashkarev’s Dream about Schools

Sergey Lashkarev’s life was rather short – just 53 years. A highly-educated and progressive person, he took interest in geography and industrial production, including such exotic industries, as silk farming and saltpeter production, yet the dissemination of education among peasants was, without exaggeration, his lifetime project.

Having graduated from the Faculty of Law at Saint Petersburg University, S.S. Lashkarev worked with the Foreign Ministry for some time, then developed a passion for agriculture, handed in resignation and decided to manage his father’s estate. This experience enabled him to identify a number of problems, common for Russia. He formulated his ideas about agriculture and the peasants’ way of life in the articles that were published in the Journal of the State Property Ministry in 1843 and caused a massive public outcry. The author was invited to assume a position at the Agriculture Department of the State Property Ministry.

Along with economic issues, Sergey Lashkarev was concerned about the problem of total illiteracy among peasant serfs. According to his estimates, only one of 1000 peasants’ children could read and write. The dissemination of popular education became, without exaggeration, his lifetime project.

Being a member of the Free Economic Society, Sergey Lashkarev twice (in 1847 and 1859) came fore with a proposal on organizing a Literacy Committee under the Society.

Revolutions in Europe prevented the Free Economic Society from implementing this project quickly, as Russian reactionaries were afraid of provoking such uprisings in the country as well, perceiving the idea of popular education as a threat to the state’s political system.

However, Sergey Lashkarev would not surrender. He continued to work on the project of establishing the Literacy Committee and published articles devoted to the respective topics in Russian press. He insisted on letting women, along with men, be admitted as members of the Literacy Committee, and supported the idea of ladies’ participation in the educational process in general. At the meetings of the Free Economic Society he would tell about the most interesting developments in the field of popular education, including the project “Society for Dissemination of Literacy and Elementary Education” drawn up by a famous Russian writer I.S. Turgenev.

Eventually, the pains he had taken for 13 years were crowned with success. In 1861, the Imperial Free Economic Society founded the Literacy Committee under its subdivision of supplementary sciences and appointed S.S. Lashkarev its chairman.

Sergey Lashkarev’s term as a chairman of the newly established committee was short – just 3 years – but he continued his activities in this field till his very death. Many respective projects were implemented with his active participation – schools were opened in villages, Saint Petersburg saw the foundation of an educational establishment for girls, who wanted to become school teachers in rural areas, the Free Economic Society would publish Literacy Committee’s Classes magazine, purchase and distribute copies of books among schools (a sufficient part of them was bought at Sergey Lashkarev’s own expense). The educational ideas were becoming popular with the public, people ever more often discuss the ideas of public museums, libraries and theaters.

Education of Peasant Serfs Depends upon Landowners Alone

“The measures taken for the enlightenment of lower classes lag seriously behind the education of other social groups,” State Councilor in Deed, correspondent member of the Academic Committee under the State Property Ministry S.S. Lashkarev would repeatedly say at the meetings of the Imperial Free Economic Society’s Council. According to his estimates, only one of 1000 peasants’ children could read and write. Thus, he suggested establishing a Literacy Committee under the Society that was to “incite landowners to founding village schools in their estates.”

“The president of our Society is His Imperial Highness Duke of Oldenburg, founder and active curator of many educational and humanitarian establishments,” S.S. Lashkarev was saying, “in the positions of vice president and members we see many charitable landowners and high-ranking state officials, who cannot help being willing to promote the idea of a religious and moral education of peasants… There is no doubt that the Imperial Free Economic Society would willingly take part in this noble cause… dealing with disseminating literacy (both religious and civil one) among the peasants’ children, both boys and girls, by way of implementing the project aimed at religious and moral, as well as partially applied economic education.”

The new Committee was to start its activities with collecting information about the existing schools for peasants. According to S.S. Lashkarev, by way of summing up and analyzing the training techniques data, working out programs for private village schools and drawing up lists of books and manuals for popular reading, the members of Literacy Committee could help the landlords in choosing “the methods of establishing orphanage schools for peasants’ children, “literacy huts” or at least Sunday readings in their estates.”

After that the Free Economic Society was to:

1. Encourage publishing books for peasants in the spirit of religious and moral values, as well as manuals easy to read and understand devoted to all agricultural industries and crafts.
2. Publish and sell at an affordable price or distribute free of charge these books to landowners, who would establish schools for peasants and notify the Society about it.
3. Encourage village priests and other personas diligently and successfully teaching the peasants’ children in their activities, awarding them with medals, along with those people vaccinating against smallpox, as advised by the local authorities.

However, S.S. Lashkarev’s idea was implemented only after the abolishment of serfdom in Russia. The Literacy Committee under the Imperial Free Economic Society, founded following his project, started working on April 7, 1861. Until that time, due to revolutions in Europe, the conservative Russian authorities viewed popular education as a key threat to the country’s state system.

Economic Crisis in the Second Quarter of 19^th Century

The classic landowner farming system based on serfdom started showing well-marked signs of crisis. First, it was gradually losing the features of subsistence farming and increasingly getting involved in commodity-money relations. Second, the landlords having estates in industrial provinces of Russia’s central part would often practice tithe for their peasants to leave and earn money at factories and plants. By the middle of the century, those paying tithe amounted from 65% to 90% of the peasants’ total number. Third, the landowners were continuously increasing the share of corvee labor and expanding their own plough lands, depriving their peasants of the land and switching over to food product and clothing allowance paid monthly. The aforementioned reasons caused a drop in labor productivity in landlords’ estates and growth in tithe payment amounts.

The serfdom farming system was living out its career. The conditions required for its existence and development (domination of subsistence farming, system of peasant holdings, personal dependence of peasants on landlords, outdated methods of farming) were irreversibly dying away during the first half of the 19^th century.

The landowners’ estates would increasingly get involved in commodity-money relations, increasing the marketable surplus of grain, expanding the areas intended for planting potatoes, sugar-beet and other technical crops, introducing grass cultivation and multiple-field crop rotation system, developing cattle breeding, building enterprises for processing agricultural raw materials, etc. The commodity-money relations involved the peasants’ farms as well, especially those located in provinces outside the Black Earth Belt, where tithe had dominated since olden times and small-scale production and seasonal work was popular. The competition between serfdom labor and hired workforce was gradually arising.

During the period of 1830-1840, industrial revolution started in Russia. The first railroads were built, steamships appeared on the rivers, the manufactories were gradually replaced by factories, while manual labor would give way to machines. Russia still retained its traditional socioeconomic system, but the country’s economy was seriously falling behind the ones of developed European states.

History of First Agricultural Exhibition

By the middle of the 19^th century, major national fairs, renowned throughout the world, started feeling pressure on the part of growing industry and international trade. With the introduction of commodity exchanges and the system of selling products through retail stores, they were losing their former importance turning into either seasonal sales events or even small-scale agricultural fairs organized to let the peasants sell their products in exchange for goods they required. Russian entrepreneurs were increasingly taking interest in the idea of turning the display of goods at the fair into an event to promote sharing of experience, knowledge, technologies, mastership, craft skills and scientific achievements.

It was at that time that the Free Economic Society came fore with an initiative to hold the first exhibition of cattle and other domestic animals, “bred for the purposes of producing dairy products, wool, etc..” in Saint Petersburg. The respective appeal to the Emperor (the decision on holding the event was to be taken on the highest level) was drawn up personally by President of the Free Economic Society, His Imperial Highness Duke Peter of Oldenburg. However, Emperor Nicholas I was not inspired by the idea, even though the Society was willing to allocate 10,000 rubles for the purposes of building exhibition “pavilions.” By his supreme order dated March 23, 1845, the Tsar recommended to hold exhibitions of “farming products” in places, where “the state of agriculture dictated it.”

Emperor Alexander II assumed more benevolent attitude towards the project on holding the first agricultural exhibition in the capital that had been submitted to his administration in 1849. Noting that “this suggestion looks useful,” he ordered to place the riding house of the Imperial Mounted Guard Regiment in service of the Organizing Committee. For the period of seven years, the economists had managed to think over the idea of holding an agricultural exhibition and finally decided not to limit it with a mere display of oxen, cows, sheep and pigs. Thus, the members of Free Economic Society had prepared a full-featured exhibition of agricultural achievements by 1850.

Duke Peter of Oldenburg: Prince and Philanthropist

Duke Peter of Oldenburg was born several days before the Battle of Borodino in Yaroslavl, where his father, Duke Georgy of Oldenburg was in charge of gathering militia troops, arranged military hospitals, supplied regiments passing through the province with food products and assigned war prisoners to places of confinement. His mother, Grand Princess Yekaterina Pavlovna fitted out at her own expense a battalion that subsequently took part in many battles of the war with Napoleon.

Duke Peter of Oldenburg received education in Germany. He was especially fond of law and logic. After Greece became a sovereign state, he was considered a prime claimant to Greek throne, yet in late 1830 his uncle Emperor Nicholas I invited him to Russia for state service. Once in Russia, he soon found out that the country suffered from severe shortage of state officials with legal education. In 1835, the School of Jurisprudence was established in Saint Petersburg upon the project developed by the Duke jointly with M.M. Speransky. Peter of Oldenburg continued to take care of this educational establishment for almost 50 years up to the point of his death. Shortly before he died, he established the Russian Society of International Law. At the opening ceremony, which was held on May 31, 1880, the Duke expressed the main criterion of civilized international relations: “Where there is no respect for law, peace is missing.”

The Duke of Oldenburg held positions of honorary guardian and chairman at the Saint Petersburg Board of Trustees, head manager of women’s educational establishments at the Department of Empress Maria, honorary member of various academic and charity associations, chairman of the Russian Society of International Law, patron of the Eye Infirmary. He was curator of the School of Jurisprudence, Saint Petersburg School of Commerce, Emperor Alexander’s Lyceum and Kiev Charity House for the Poor.

On March 10, 1867, the Duke of Oldenburg opened an orphanage for 100 kids in Saint Petersburg on his own money under the name of “The Orphanage of Yekaterina and Maria.” Later, in 1871, it was renamed into “The Orphanage of Yekaterina, Maria and Georgy.” He also took an active part in establishing and financing such educational and medical institutions, as the Women’s Institute of Duchess Theresa of Oldenburg, Child Health Clinic of Duke Peter of Oldenburg, Obukhovskaya, Mariinskaya and Petropavlovskaya hospitals, as well as Saint Trinity Order of Sisters of Mercy.

Gorgeous and Intelligent, Resolute and Noble-Minded

Born in the family of a German prince, Charlotte (future Grand Princess Elena Pavlovna) received education at a boarding school in Paris. She could boast of encyclopedic knowledge and fine sense of beauty. At the age of 14, Charlotte married Russian Grand Prince Mikhail Pavlovich, accepted Orthodox Christianity and Russian name – Elena Pavlovna. In her pursuit of understanding her new motherland, she followed the path of Catherine the Great – she learned the Russian language independently by way of reading books, studied thoroughly The History of Russian State by Karamzin and on the day of her arrival to Russia managed to find welcoming words for each of 200 noblemen meeting her.

Through her whole life Elena Pavlovna was eagerly learning. She would take courses of lectures in forestry, agronomics, military statistics, theology, and history. The Grand Princess took interest in arts as well. She was on friendly terms with Pushkin, Tyutchev, Turgenev, published a complete edition of works by Nikolay Gogol, established the Russian Music Society and Conservatoire having sold her diamonds.

Her most renowned and talked-about initiative dealt with founding the Order of Sisters of Mercy of the Exaltation of Holy Cross during the Crimean War – the prototype of Red Cross Organization. The Princess addressed unmarried women with a call for rendering aid to the wounded soldiers. The high society criticized her for that, believing that it was inappropriate for women to join the army. However the princess ignored the gossip, and eventually over 200 sisters of mercy would dress up soldiers’ wounds in Crimea in 1854-1856 under the command of a great Russian surgeon Nikolay Pirogov. Elena Pavlovna not only rendered financial assistance to the Order, but placed the premises of the Mikhailovsky Palace at its disposal and delivered scarce drugs to military hospitals through her Prussian relatives as well.

Progressive people of that time would often visit her lounge at the Mikhailovsky Palace, where crucial socio-political issues were discussed. The Princess liked to introduce to high-ranked officials and members of the royal family the people, who did not belong to high society, yet had “ideas,” which afterwards would often lead to the implementation of crucial state projects in the field of building railroads or judicial reforms. The future reform dealing with the abolishment of serfdom was also discussed in detail in this very lounge. Elena Pavlovna’s approach to problems was not emotional, but pragmatic – she would order case studies from specialists and listen to their forecasts and reports. Several years prior to the reform, in 1856, the Princess initiated the process of liberating 15,000 peasant serfs in her village of Karlovka, Poltava province, with the Emperor’s consent. Emperor Alexander II used to defer to his aunt’s opinion, calling her “our family scientist.” Later he awarded the Princess with a Champion of Reforms medal for her activities dealing with the liberation of peasant serfs. The Free Economic Society also highly appreciated Elena Pavlovna’s public activities.

The Princess died in Saint Petersburg and was buried in the royal family’s vault at the Cathedral of Peter and Paul. The future generations would remember her, as a person who never let things drift. Being of German origin, she became a real Russian patriot, who devoted all her talents and life in general to the cause of making her new motherland flourish.

Russia’s Special Path in Reforms

The supporters of feudal system argued that Russia was not ready for modernization. The Prussian way of introducing capitalism in agriculture – emancipation of peasant serfs without giving land to them – led to the emergence of capitalist latifundia, while former serfs turned into hired workforce. The path that transformed landowners into oligarchs did not inspire the Emperor. The landlords were not enthusiastic about it either, as instead of hunting and taking trips to the capital and Western Europe resorts they had to deal with farming.

The other way – granting all land to peasants (American variant) – did not suit the Tsar and bureaucracy even more. In this case, farmers could have become the real owners of the country, which would have led to a democratic republic. The absolutism increasingly felt the need in a special Russian path of serfdom abolishment that would guarantee the retention of monarchy.

Naturally, the idea of carrying out such a reform that would put an end to the Tsar’s power did not figure in the plans of Alexander II. That is why the administration suspended from work on this project all those sincerely fascinated by liberalism. Yet, when the bureaucracy would slow down the process, the Emperor had to impose pressure and take fierce actions.

Sophisticated in bureaucratic procedures, the members of reform preparation committee at first decided to bury the project by bureaucratic techniques – they did not refuse from carrying out reforms, yet did their best to slow the process down. Along with sabotage and libels against the supporters of serfdom abolishment, they would often adopt the method of delays, saying that they cannot make a decision and thus had to ask the Tsar to find the solution. Bouncing the documents to the very top, they hoped to demoralize the Emperor overloading him with work.

The reform supporters would find themselves in minority again and again. By March 1, 1861, the project had suffered a number of serious changes introduced for the benefit of nobility. The work resulted in a complex set of documents and very intricate mechanism full of compromises. Thus, the project just could not be implemented without the government’s participation. Capitalism was introduced in Russia by specific methods – very slow and sparing towards outmoded customs. The reform neither made the old life impossible, nor brought about a resolution to the conflict between the old and new, but just delayed it making even more heated. Moreover, the reform was not completed. In other words, the authorities did not proceed with it, as the next stage was obvious – completing the land reform with the liquidation of peasant commune and estates of those landowners who did not want to pass to capitalism, as well as changing the political system by way of switching over to constitutional monarchy.

As for Alexander II, he was willing to forge ahead. He prepared a plan of actions to be taken upon the expiry of a 20-year transition period. Yet on March 1, 1881 – right on the day of the 20^th anniversary of the Great Reforms – terrorists killed the Emperor before he could announce a new set of reforming actions.

Alexandr II Nikolaevich (1818-1881) – Russian Emperor (1855-1881), son of Emperor Nickolas I and Empress Alexandra Fedorovna, who went down in history as a great reformer and initiator of serfdom abolishment, for which he was granted a special title of Liberator.

Having succeeded to the throne upon the death of his father, Alexander II inherited a country suffering from serious problems. The defeat in the Crimean War was detrimental for the state system based on serfdom, absolutism and denial of independent public activities. The necessity of fundamental reforms in the state system and public life was obvious.

The first decade of the Emperor’s rule became “an era of great reforms.” In 1861 the peasant serfs were emancipated, 1863 saw the universities having become autonomous, while in 1864 the local territorial self-government system (zemstvo) was introduced. On the same year new court statutes based on the transparency of procedures and separation of judicial power from administrative one were made public. In 1865 the censorship reform followed. Later the state administration upgraded the municipal self-government system (1870) and introduced universal military service instead of recruiting duty borne exclusively by peasants and bourgeoisie (1874). This fundamental state reform was carried out under the influence and with the participation of public forces. Many members of the Imperial Free Economic Society took an active part in it.

The Tsar could not just announce the reform. The actions to be taken had to be prepared and discussed following the rules adopted for other draft laws (for instance, the documents should necessarily be passed through the State Council). Alexander II understood that his power was immense, yet authorities were limited, as the bureaucracy and nobility willing to swallow any kind of tyranny and despotism on his part would never tolerate the entrenchment upon their real interests and rights (the recollections as to the fate of Peter III and Paul I were still fresh in their mind).

In order to be carried out and completed, the reform on serfdom abolishment had to become a private business of the Emperor. Entrusting the task to somebody else would have meant refusing from completing it, taking into account strong resistance on the part of serfdom supporters. Thus, Alexander II deserved the title of Liberator. No reform at all would have been carried out without his active participation. Due to the nature of absolutism, the reform dealing with serfdom abolishment had to be initiated and implemented only by the Emperor himself.

Literacy Committee under Free Economic Society

A very important area of the Free Economic Society’s activities was related to the dissemination of literacy among the Russian people. The Literacy Committee founded under the Imperial Free Economic Society in April 1861 (a month after the abolishment of serfdom) established a school for “women willing to become village teachers,” drew up a list of best books for common people and started collecting, publishing and distributing books free of charge among village libraries (for the period of 20 years, from 1861 to 1881, the Committee managed to distribute about 1,000,000 copies of fiction and training literature for peasants). Though being unable to open general grammar schools due to its limited budget, the Society rendered aid in establishing and running educational establishments, granting temporary financial assistance in the form of subsidies amounting up to 200 rubles (for purchasing manuals or furniture).

The Committee’s unspoken motto said: “Freedom is Inseparable from Enlightenment.” The Free Economic Society developed the first methods guide for training common people – Instructions for Inexperienced School Founders – and thoroughly addressed the issue of making the books for popular reading cheaper, so the people could afford to buy not only manuals, but fiction as well. As the books were distributed all over Russia, the Literacy Committee took trouble to organize bookstores in different Russian provinces (all in all, 120 such temporary facilities for storing books were established).

The financing required to pursue the Committee’s activities was obtained through membership fees and money donated annually by individuals and public organizations.

Expedition of Free Economic Society and Russian Geographical Society Aimed at Studying Cereals Trade

In 1865, on the year of its centenary, the Free Economic Society introduced for discussion the following question: “What measures should be taken to study Russia in economic terms, and how can the members of Free Economic Society and other researchers participate in this process?” This issue was raised at the first congress of Russian landowners. The speakers again complained about lack of information as regards to trade, production and crafts, as well as quantities of agricultural products produced in the provinces. This time they decided to fill in the gaps on the country’s map by way of exploring the cereals trade and labor productivity in agriculture, as the “crucial industry, having direct effect on the economic health as to the living standards of both peasant population and landowners and reflecting the situation in commerce in general.”

The Free Economic Society was not alone in organizing and financing this expedition, as it received assistance from the Russian Geographical Society. Both organizations had allocated 4,000 rubles each for exploration. The State Property Ministry added 3,000 rubles, the Interior Ministry granted 2,000 rubles, while 1,000 rubles more came from the Navy Department (that also sent two of its officers to take part in the expedition).

According to the plan, Russia’s territory was divided into seven areas, each of them being secured to one of explorers. Academician V.P. Bezobrazov, active member of the Free Economic Society and outstanding Russian statistician and economist, was among those who took part in the expedition. The research was mostly carried out in the second half of 1867 and in 1868. The follow-up survey, dealing with specifying and complementing the obtained data, was completed in 1871-1873. The research findings were published in the form of a book titled “Works of Expedition, Organized by the Imperial Free Economic Society and Russian Geographical Society to Study Cereals Trade and Labor Productivity in Russia,” which was much sought after in the country in the 1880s. The book included several chapters, devoted to a detailed description of “the ways and methods of freight transportation from waterway stations located in the lower reaches of Volga to Saint Petersburg,” report on flax production and trade in the northern regions and information about trade in cereals in the Urals area.

Cheese Mountains and Milk Lakes

“It is no exaggeration to say,” secretary of the Free Economic Society A.N. Beketov wrote in 1890, “that patronage over cheese-making has been one of the most successful Society’s initiatives in the field of cattle breeding.” In 1865 Nikolay Vereshchagin addressed the Free Economic Society with a request to render aid to him in financing his project. The young man’s enthusiasm both made an impression on the Society’s Council and put it on the alert. The members believed Vereshchagin and gave him a loan to open three cheese dairies, yet laid down tough conditions. According to one of them, the young businessman was to submit financial reports every four months and grant free access to the members in case they would like to examine the enterprise. It is no wonder, as the founding father of the Russian dairy industry was 25 at that time.

This is what N.V. Vereshchagin himself was writing about his activities in 1901: “I had to perform a great deal of work: 1) teach peasants to process milk together, 2) supply them with appropriate crockery, 3) launch the production of all cheese and butter sorts, 4) organize the sales of products at both domestic market and abroad, 5) introduce the quality control of milk, 6) prove that Russian milk cows are fit for processing improved fodder and can “pay” for this fodder and improved care, 7) disseminate the knowledge obtained all over Russia.”

The first cheese-making partnership was founded in 1865 in Tver province, and after the first year of its work each participating peasant gained 15 rubles of net profit per cow (the amount comparable with the cost of the animal itself!). The news about the success of the newly formed “cooperative” ran like lightning all over the empire. People started sending letters to the Free Economic Society, Tver provincial authorities and N.V. Vereshchagin directly with requests to establish similar enterprises in Yaroslavl, Kharkov, Novgorod, Perm and other provinces.

Starting from 1866, the Society would hand over to Vereshchagin 1,300 rubles annually. This money was to cover expenses for training cheese makers, replacing faulty equipment, and establishing five (annually!) new partnerships. This time the condition was as follows: “cheese-making cooperatives were to be founded in the appropriate areas of other provinces.” Vereshchagin had to attract likeminded people to the project, and, working together, they managed to cope with the task set by the Free Economic Society.

With the assistance on the part of Free Economic Society, the cheese-making cooperatives opened a warehouse in Saint Petersburg, which was used to sell the products directly to consumers in order to remove the mediators from the chain. In the early 20^th century, the butter export would bring more gold to the Russia’s Treasure than all Siberian gold mines taken together. Up to 60% of these revenues were owned by the cooperatives.

Tour around N.V. Vereshchagin’s Cheese-Making Factory (extract from an essay by I.I. Kolyshko)

Passing through the inner porch with low ceiling, we entered the first very spacious room and immediately felt the pungent aroma of curd and milk whey. Large tanks with whey standing on the wet wooden floor were folded in steam. A pipe for supplying steam was hanging down from the ceiling. The high and narrow vessels located near the walls were full. Nikolay Vasilyevich explained that they held curdled milk, a raw material for cheese production. This room is intended for producing “lean” or “green” cheese that is very popular among the Russian consumers. The production of it was launched in the country not so long ago. Until quite recently, this process has been a secret of foreigners. The production method is quite simple. The skim milk is poured into copper tanks, which are inserted into wooden vessels in such a way that there is a certain space left between copper and wooden surfaces. This gap is filled in with steam through the pipe hanging down from the ceiling. The steam admission is carried out before milk reaches the boiling point. After the milk has started boiling, a certain quantity of whey is added to it. The milk immediately starts clotting, and the flocks of curd sink to the bottom. The workers mix it and after its transformation into separate grains pour the resulting substance into high vessels together with whey. It is kept in these vessels for several days until the moment all curd sinks to the bottom. After that, the curd is put into barrels, pressed with stones and kept for three months until the required reaction.

The ready-made curd has a specific, pungent taste. It is taken out of the barrels and crumbled up with the help of a huge stone grinder that is brought into action by a horse. Then the workers mix it with some of the blue substance from the bottom that adds a special aroma and greenish color to it. After that, the resulting product is stuffed into molds and placed in a dark and cool room to let it dry out. Several days later, the cheese is ready. This cheese with letters V. Sh. and S. is distributed in large quantities, especially in Asian regions, where the consumers buy it at 0.15 rubles per pound.

The next room is the creamery. Here we see several machines for churning butter. One of them is of American origin. These machines are very simple, featuring a keg brought into action by a handle in horizontal or vertical position. The American device represents a box equipped with soft springs that is moved by simple arm punches. The cream is put into such kegs or boxes, and after an hour of work the butter is ready. N.V. Vereshchagin produces butter using the most advanced method. The adjoining room holds the “refrigerator.” It is a big metal tank full of water with ice. It contains a number of narrow metal cylinders filled with milk. The temperature in the room is visibly lower, up to 10°. The milk settles very quickly, and the cream is collected from top of it with the help of a metal saucer with a handle in the middle. This cream is to settle until the period of first inoculation.

Experiments of D.I. Mendeleev

At that time, everyone was concerned with the matters of grain yield enhancement. The breakthrough in peasant agriculture after the reforms of the 1860s pushed researchers and practitioners to study the effect of various chemicals on the agricultural productiveness of land. Mendeleev proposed that “the first step” should be made, and “the land used to grow grain crops should be fertilized the way it was never fertilized before.” The scientist was not particularly opposed to the use of manure, but due to the poorly developed livestock breeding in Russia, there was simply not enough of that time-tested natural fertilizer for everyone to use in their fields.

The scientist’s idea was to select several test fields in various climatic zones, divide them into experimental sections and use various fertilizers following a pre-defined system. The Society was supportive of the plan, but could not provide the financial resources for its large-scale implementation. Mendeleev planed to work simultaneously in six regions, but in the end, the experiment was carried out in four locations – the VEO paid for the observers’ work, tools, fertilizers and seeds in Smolensk and Simbirsk provinces, a member of the Free Economic Society I.A. Brylkin personally financed the sowing near Saint Petersburg, and Mendeleev himself covered the experiments in his Boblovo estate near Moscow, in the vicinity of Klin. After two years of studies, the scientist has proven that acidic soils require chalking, tested the use of ground phosphate rocks, superphosphate, nitrogen and potassium fertilizers, and tested several mixtures of mineral and organic fertilizers. The work results (which also included the contribution of the young K.A. Timiryazev) were published in the Report of Experiments Conducted in 1866-1869 in Simbirsk, Smolensk, Moscow and Saint Petersburg Provinces to Study the Impact of Fertilizers on the Yield of Oats and Rye. D.I. Mendeleev proved that it was in fact possible to achieve a high grain yield in Russia. The test fields have produced times as much grain as the surrounding fields.

“The achievements of the Society are invaluable, and it is an immense benefit both for the state, and for individual land owners,” Mendeleev would later say. And in the late 1860s, a fascinating accident tied together the name of the great Russian scientist, his great discovery and his work in the Economic Society. He drafted his Attempt at a System of Elements Based on Their Atomic Weight and Chemical Affinity – the first variant of his Periodic Law – on a letter from the Free Economic Society. The letter commended Mendeleev’s experiments in animal breeding and dairy production. “It is an astonishing, yet historic fact,” wrote one of the historians of the VEO S.S. Khizhnyakov. “Mendeleev invented his periodic system of elements, but entrusted his assistant to announce the discovery because he was too busy: as assigned by the Free Economic Society, he was milking cows and studying cheese-making and butter-making technologies...” Indeed, his famous report Relationship between the Properties and the Atomic Weight of the Elements was read to the Russian Chemical Society by N.A. Menshutkin.

Prokopovich’s Apiary

Prokopovich’s apiary in the Chernigov province was home to over 10 thousand bee colonies – a world record at that time. To “teach the common people the theoretical knowledge about bees and rational apiary management” with the support from the VEO, in 1828 P.I. Prokopovich opened the first Russian specialized beekeeping school at his own apiary. Enrollment was open to governmental and private peasants, men aged 16 to 40, and their training lasted two years, during which Prokopovich’s students had to study the art of beekeeping, and learn how to read and write. After completing their training, graduates would obtain good positions in their landowners’ estates. One of such young men was appointed to manage the apiary of the Free Economic Society at the Okhta farm. The training program at the beekeeping school was developed by P.I. Prokopovich himself, and he published regular reports on the establishment’s operations and on his experiments in the Society’s Transactions. In 1832 he was awarded a gold medal of the Society.

In the 1840s the Free Economic Society offered a 10 rubles award to “the peasant who can prove to have started the most beehives.” The industry was in decline. On the one hand, the demand for honey plummeted: due to the fast-growing popularity of vodka and wine, honey was losing its role as an ingredient for alcoholic beverages. Another significant contribution to the decline of beekeeping was the development of the sugar industry. By 1848 there were over three hundred beet sugar refining plants in Russia. The number of beehives in Russian apiaries dropped 6-10 times.

Alexandr Mikhailovich Butlerov (1828-1886) was a head of the Apiary Commission of the Imperial Free Economic Society, a Russian chemist, creator the theory of chemical structure of organic substances, apiarian scientist, and Rector of Kazan Imperial University in 1860-1863. In 1871 the scientist became the head of the VEO Apiary Commission, and in January 1873 he published his detailed paper On the Bee Disease – Foulbrood in the Transactions of the VEO. In his paper, he described in great detail and from the perspective of an ordinary bee keeper the visible signs of the disease that was wiping out entire beekeeping operations, spreading from beehive to beehive, from apiary to apiary. The scientist provided the smallest detail of the ways the infection was spreading, and offered recommendations on countering it. The Butlerov’s paper garnered a great number of grateful responses from beekeepers from all over Russia.

Butlerov brought about the technical and technological reinvention of beekeeping. He was among the first to discuss the scientific framework of bee stock breeding, he introduced the concept of rational beekeeping, rationalized the use of artificial comb foundation and designed a beehive that made the beekeeper’s work easier and faster. At its meeting on March 21, 1886, the VEO Apiary Commission recognized his method as a model apiary operation. A beehive had to have movable frames, a detachable bottom, two entrances, a large space inside and frames with side bars.

Another contribution of A.M. Butlerov in the development of beekeeping was his practical classes and demonstrations at training apiaries and his participation in exhibitions. He was always concerned with promotion of the principles of rational beekeeping, of which he was a strong advocate. In 1886 the scientist arranged the publication of the Russian Apiary Bulletin, and became its first editor. His books were very popular among beekeepers: The Bee, Its Life and the Key Rules of Rational Beekeeping, which was re-issued 12 times, and How to Breed Bees, which was re-issued 11 times. The ideas and work of A.M. Butlerov brought the Russian beekeeping industry to a new level.

Following is an abstract from an article in the Russian Apiary Bulletin in memory of A.M. Butlerov: “Is there a single beekeeper in Russia who was not impacted by the outstanding personality of the deceased while reading The Bee and his other writings on beekeeping? Many still remember the fascinating lectures given by Alexandr Mikhailovich at the model apiary at the 1882 Moscow exhibition, where hundreds came to hear him speak. His lectures did an immense good: the knowledge on beekeeping he shared spread across Russia, and even those who never had interest in bees came to love these most beneficial and hardworking insects.”

How Peasants Got Their Land Back

This story is known through a detailed account in G.P. Sazonov’s book Peasant Land Property in Porkhov District. After obtaining statistics from the local municipality, G.P. Sazonov noticed that the lands of ten Porkhov villages in the Pskov province at once (with a total population of about two thousand people) were about to be auctioned off in debt repayment to a commercial bank. It would have been a rather ordinary situation for the time, if not for one special circumstance: the land in the Porkhov district was bought out and signed over to peasants by a local landowner Panteleev back in 1875. In his testament he allocated a million rubles to be used to buy out land for the people of 202 villages (10,000 per capita allotments, or 50,000 dessiatinas). That decision became a much-discussed matter both in print press, and in the society.

The absence of the obligation to make annual redemption payments to the treasury put the Porkhov district peasants at an advantage over their neighbors. And suddenly their land was being auctioned off. Sent by the Free Economic Society, G.P. Sazonov found out what pushed the peasants to deal with the commercial bank. A hailstorm in 1885 destroyed their crops, and they had no seeds to sow in the coming spring. Their crops in the following several years also failed. And the bank fixed a too high interest rate on their loans, placing the peasants in a “grievous position.” After discovering the background of the situation, the VEO petitioned the Ministers of Finance and Internal Affairs to put on hold the auction sale of the land and to transfer the peasants’ debt to the Peasant Land Bank. The government granted the petition, the debtors retained their land, and G.P. Sazonov published his book in 1890.

Agricultural School

The project said: “Agricultural schools accept children of any social background, but founders may place any restrictions in that respect, in accordance with the objectives and financial resources of the school.” The school program took four full years to complete, and the youngest age of enrollment was 14. It was expected that each such institution would be teaching up to 60 people at a time.

The curriculum included the study of the Law of God, the Russian language, reading and orthography, arithmetic, practical geometry and technical drawing, brief Russian history, a course in geography, basic required natural science, and “cattle breeding with practical recommendations on veterinary attendance and hygiene.” Schools were also allowed to include singing, gymnastics and book keeping in their curricula.

On December 27, 1883 the Imperial Regulation on Primary Agricultural Schools became effective in Russia, developed upon a draft prepared by the Free Economic Society. In 1898 there were 110 agricultural schools of all types in Russia, with a total of 4,033 students. However, the project faced the same problem as fifty years ago: having received good education and vocational training, graduates chose to not return to their agricultural lives. At the same time, the immediate purpose of primary agricultural schools was to train smallholding landowners – peasants who could apply their knowledge in their own work and run model operations.

At the All-Russian Congress of Agriculturalists in December 1895 the Director of the Mariino-Gorskaya School N.I. Kotov emphasized that one had to be a hero to put aside the benefits that become available to the graduates of primary agricultural schools and return to their villages, where they would face overwhelmingly hard work, land scarcity, inescapable poverty, and blazing ignorance. If they took the position of a steward or a starosta, they would be entitled to a pay of 100-120 rubles, and as small-sized estate managers they would be making 200-300 rubles. The knowledge alone cannot help the peasant, N.I. Kotov concluded: it should be accompanied by government measures, such as making sufficient loans available to peasants, making government land rentable, allowing the peasants a choice of residence.

The Congress prepared a number of proposals aimed at improving agricultural education. They were partially implemented in 1904, when first specialized schools opened, and the vocational training system was divided into three levels of education. By 1910 there were 243 agricultural training institutions in Russia, with a total of over 20 thousand students.

Bogodukhovo: First Meteorological and Experimental Agricultural Station in Russia

Upon the initiative of D.I. Mendeleev, the Free Economic Society (VEO) arranged for a number of fields to be used for experiments with fertilizers and soil treatment technologies. One of the fields belonged to Count Tolstoy.

Illarion Nikolaevich Tolstoy, a Count from the Tolstoy family, married Alexandra Golitsyna in 1857 and became the owner of land in Bogodukhovo, a village in the Oryol province. In the mid-1880s Tolstoy owned 1700 desiatinas of land in Bogodukhovo. In 1886-1898 he was financing the operations of the experimental agricultural station. A report on station operations indicates that Tolstoy made available “his estate along with the tools and workers to be used to carry out the experiments free of charge.” The agricultural station and its program were developed by members of the Free Economic Society V.V. Dokuchaev, A.V. Sovetov, A.S. Taneev, and I.N. Tolstoy; the station was manned by VEO members as well, and the position of its Head went to researcher and agriculturalist Pyotr Fedorovich Barakov. In 1898 he presented his Master’s thesis on the topic: Study of the Scientific Framework of Field Cultivation in the Forest-Steppe Belt of Europe and Russia, which he based on the findings obtained at the station. The station was managed by F.N. Korolev, whose work in that position won him gratitude and appreciation from the VEO members. The station had several purposes, working as a meteorological, agricultural, and geographical facility. It was used to measure the temperature under the snow and grass cover, in the black fallow and with the snow removed – on the surface and at the depth of 10 cm, 25 cm, 50 cm, 1 m and 2 m; to study the properties of organic fertilizers; to monitor strong winds; to study the soil – the loess formation left by a glacier. It was here that the researchers concluded that the loess formation was the creation of “wind that brought dust from the barren morianic fields, which remained after the retreat of the glacier and were in their harsh continental and desert state.” A great number of experiment reports were published in the VEO Transactions, Meteorological Bulletin, Letters of the Imperial Russian Geographic Society, etc.

The Bogodukhovo station continued its operations as an experimental agricultural station till 1890, and after that time it was primarily used for weather observation. In 1913 there were 44 experimental stations operating in Russia, and by 1917 a rather extensive network of experimental agricultural institutions developed in the country, encompassing about 400 stations, fields, farms, nursery gardens, etc. And only one third of those were state facilities.

Deadly Disease Defeated

In 1824, the VEO opened its Department 5 for “the protection of health of humans and domestic animals.” Its first Chairman, State Councilor in Deed V. Golynsky contributed 5 thousand rubles from his own resources for smallpox control. “This deed could mark the beginning of a service of great importance for our Fatherland,” the then-President of the VEO N.S. Mordvinov said of the initiative, and in order “to support the undertaking of our fellow member,” proposed to allocate a one-time contribution of 10 thousand rubles from the capital of the Society to the same cause, and later make contributions of 2 thousand rubles each year for the promotion of vaccination. For several years in addition to these amounts, Department 5 had been receiving personal donations from the Society members. N.S. Mordvinov himself was one of the regular donors. First of all, the Society bought and sent out to the Russian provinces the needles and lancets for smallpox vaccination, and glass slides for collection, storage and transportation of smallpox samples. Second, the VEO recognized the need for and organized the training of surgery specialists and development of surgery guides. Third, there was a need for training facilities – vaccination rooms that would allow simultaneous collection of samples from vaccinated patients, as before 1865 vaccination consisted of transfer of cowpox between humans, and only by the mid-1860s did retrovaccination became a standard, whereby the smallpox substrate was obtained from an already infected animal and then used to vaccinate humans. The first permanent smallpox vaccination station in Saint Petersburg opened in the VEO building in 1846. Two more opened several years later, in the early 1850s. The smallpox vaccination program of the Society thrived in 1824—1857. During that time, by special Imperial decree, each province contributed 1000 rubles annually to the VEO to promote its anti-smallpox campaign. The state treasury also made several contributions of 20 thousand rubles each. As a result of the Society’s efforts, by the middle of 1857, 34 million infants were vaccinated across Russia, including the far-away regions in Siberia. Over a million lancets and valioration needles, about 200,000 glass slides (clean and containing the valioration substance) were sent out to the Russian provinces, and about 400,000 copies of smallpox vaccination guides were printed in 12 languages.

By 1847 over 15,000 people had learned to do protective smallpox vaccination. In 1852 the VEO addressed the Province Smallpox Committees asking to help involve midwives and churchmen in the vaccination campaign. The initiative received support and smallpox vaccination began to be taught in obstetric institutions and some seminaries. In the 1870s the VEO was fully financing its own smallpox vaccination station and a special calf farm where the substrate for cowpox retrovaccination was being produced.

Peasant Movement in Late 19^th – Early 20^th Century

The radicalism of the peasantry’s attitudes and demands at the turn of the century was new and unexpected. Many protests entailed seizure of landowners’ lands, break-ins to grain warehouses and seizure of grain, arsons in estates, and often escalated into riots with open hostility towards the police and military forces. It became immediately and abundantly clear that the scale and force of the peasant movement increased sharply and that it became radicalized in its nature.

The situation was exacerbated by the poor grain harvest of 1901, which was in no way extraordinary, but proved to be enough to cause a social explosion in the Poltava and Kharkov provinces. The following is a typical description of the peasants’ actions in the telegram sent by one of the affected landowners to the Minister of Internal Affairs (dated April 1, 1902, Poltava province): “For several days peasants have been systematically and openly stealing owners’ grain, the robbers are from the poor. Usually entire neighboring villages come to an estate, bring along carts and bags, accompanied by wives and children, they force their way into estates and demand the keys to warehouses, and if owners refuse, they break the locks, load their carts with grain right in front of the owner, and leave… They do not enter the homes, but they take everything they see in warehouses.” In many places peasants were destroying landowners’ houses. The destruction of landowners’ estates was by no means an act of vandalism. Peasants said they burned homes and agricultural structures to push landowners from their villages at least for two-three years, so that the punitive forces could not be stationed there…

This conclusion about the deep change in the attitudes and behavior of the peasantry, of their “utter detachment” with respect to their “superiors” and the authorities, is confirmed by other accounts, as well as by the events that followed. In 1902 a new peasant openly entered the historical scene – a peasant of the revolutionary era.

A Severely Testing Time

The VEO itself was going through a hard time back then, with its operations effectively banned. Nevertheless, in 1914 the Imperial VEO was still publishing its Transactions (with a run of 900 copies) and sending them out free of charge – 44 copies to its honorary and life members, 232 to its current members, 229 to various governmental, public and research bodies, and in exchange for the periodicals delivered to the Society’s library, a total of 155 volumes. Moreover, 44 paid subscribers received their copies as well. In the second half of 1914 the number of visitors to the library of the Free Economic Society dropped significantly compared to 1913 – from 8,947 to 7,763. The number of books and magazines lent out reduced from 24,016 to 22,865. In the second half of 1914 the Society was not receiving any foreign magazines at all, and had difficulty publishing its own periodicals. In 1915 economists suspended the publication of Transactions, and focused on the monthly Bulletin of the Imperial Free Economic Society. The VEO created its Bulletin to offer a faster response to the rapidly changing situation. While Transactions had 3-4 issues a year, the Bulletin circulated every month. The editors of the Bulletin collected information about local events, filtered it, added detail and published the stories. In 1914 the Bulletin had 11 issues.

Food Crisis Exacerbates

The general hardships of war, which in the peasant Russia had to be borne by the common people, were exacerbated by the food crisis – the forced state procurement of agricultural products. In August 1915 state procurement prices for grain became fixed (for war needs).

In 1914 the Bulletin of the Imperial VEO reported crop failure in 15 provinces. In seven of those, winter grains failed. 14 provinces suffered from poor harvest of spring grains and fodder grass. The latter caused many owners to sell their cattle. The situation was made worse by the reduction or complete loss of income. Many families needed financial aid. Local patrons were organizing cooperatives that acted as intermediaries in the inevitable partial sale of cattle, hay, straw, or structures, helping to sell property with minimum loss and avoid profiteers. One of the functions of such cooperatives was to provide those in need with food and clothing. They paid special attention to the needs of children. There were special feeding stations for children, and children were given warm clothes and footwear. All of that was financed from self-imposed payments. For example, some villages in the Novgorod province were charged a tax at the rate of 10 kopecks from each household. In others, contributions were voluntary. Private charity was being suppressed. Everyone should have fair access to the aid. Women organized into committees under the patronages, where they were sawing clothes for the wounded, helping in the fields during harvest, collecting donations.

In December 1916 the state procurement crisis forced the government to resort to grain assessments. The state requirement of grain was divided between the provinces, settlements and farming operations in the form of grain supply obligation. In the grain-producing regions, the obligation became an overwhelming burden for peasants. The Tambov province rural council demanded that the supply requirements should be lowered: “Finding itself unable to willingly push the people towards riots and famine, this province council cannot see a way to make the supplies in the amount required by the Minister of Agriculture.”

Neither the fixed prices, nor the grain procurement, nor even the special “grain army” could slow down the build-up of the food crisis in the country. Holders of large enough grain stock preferred to speculate, causing uncontrollable price surge, and exacerbating the food shortage that plagued the poor both in cities and in villages. The “Bread for the Poor!” motto became one of the core demands in the Russian revolutions of 1917. Created by the February Revolution, the Provisional Government was expected to start from addressing the food problem by establishing the government grain monopoly, which meant price fixation and transfer of all grain stock (with the exception of grain reserved as food and agricultural resource of its owner) to the government through a special institution of food authorities. A law enacted on March 25, 1917 had quite a Bolshevism-sound to its name: On Transfer of Grain to the Government’s Disposal. But the strong ties with the selfish interests of large landowners and traders, the lack of coherence and resolution on the Provisional Government resulted in its failure to create a state grain monopoly and control the grain stock. Failure to make reserves from the 1917 crops became apparent immediately. On August 20 the Ministry of Food instructed the local authorities: “If grain is not given up voluntarily, use measures of coercion, including the force of arms.” And that force was indeed used against peasants who refused to give up their grain.

By the fall of 1917 the food crisis had spread to nearly all European parts of Russia, including its frontline. The famine became a real and the most impactful factor in the progression of events throughout the country.

Let the Strongest Win

The nature of wars changed in the second half of the 19^th century. From short-lived conflicts between two armies, wars evolved into confrontations between states that could last for years, until one of the battling countries runs out of its resources. The First World War that started on August 1, 1914 was that kind of war. Russia had to enter a long, exhausting military campaign that called for a total mobilization of its population and national economy.

Russia’s war against Germany was strongly tied with its desire to break free from its economic dependence on Germany. At the start of the war, Russia was receiving from Germany about half of its total import. 40% of its total trading volume came from its trade with Germany. The war was supposed to rid Russia of this dependency. But until then, Russia’s agricultural sector would have to go through seizure of horses, forced expropriation of pedigree cattle, crops failure, shortage of grain, and famine.

The war had an impact on the situation in Russia after just a month. It badly affected the most important segment of the Russian economy – its agriculture. Its railways could only satisfy the needs of the army. It was impossible to transport the harvested crops over long distances for sale. Export trade became paralyzed. Moreover, it turned out that agricultural cargo had nowhere to be delivered to either: all borders in the west, north and south were closed. Every problem with exports applied equally to imports as well: no agricultural machinery, no fertilizers, no pedigree livestock. At that moment it becomes apparent that all communities, all public organizations had to unite to provide food for the army and develop a program of measures that would help the people send their products and their crops, etc. The Free Economic Society addresses its fellow citizens with such an appeal.

Social Union of Economists is Reborn

Photo: The meeting of Deputy Head of the ERS Organizing Bureau V.N. Krasilnikov and one of the ERS founders, Head of the Economy Management Section G.Kh. Popov

In early 1982 the Economy Research Society, as the reborn organization was now called (no society could be “free” in the USSR, especially not during the height of the stagnation period), began the preparations for its founding congress. It took exactly nine months to organize the primary units, and over 400 thousand people expressed their wish to be involved in the Society’s activities – upon its creation it was already one of the largest professional unions in the country.

The Economy Research Society had a very tight schedule to begin its operations. Trade union committees and scientific and engineering councils of Soviet republics, krais, oblasts, regions, and the Moscow and Kiev municipalities had to form their own organizing bureaus till the end of March, and hold regional conferences within two months – between March 20 and July 15. Simultaneously, the Society was developing its new charter.

Just like their predecessors in the 18^th century, members of the Organizing Committee of the new union of economists (25 members led by academician T.S. Khachaturov) wanted to ensure that the local units attracted proactive, respected individuals with great administrative influence. In nine months they created a total of five thousand of primary units of the future Economy Research Society, each of them headed by directors of enterprises or their deputies for economic affairs, by party committee secretaries in district, city and regional units, by vice chairmen of councils of ministers and heads of economic authorities in republics, and by leading scientists.

In the spring of 1982 the primary units held their founding congresses, and regional units held theirs in May—July. On December 9, the MSU Grand Hall hosted a general congress which was attended by the representatives of all Soviet republics and Russian regions. Academician Tigran Sergeevich Khachaturov became the first Chairman of the ERS. T.S. Khachaturov was the head of the Association of Soviet Economists in the USSR Academy of Sciences, and formerly one of the leading experts in the A.N. Kosygin government for development and implementation of economic reforms.

Science-Based Economy Management

The organizational structures of management were the focus of the All-Union Conference Problems of Science-Based Economy Management (Moscow, November 1986), held upon the initiative of the Central Board of the ERS, Committee on Management Problems of the All-Union Council of Scientific and Engineering Societies, the Economics Division of the USSR Academy of Sciences. About a thousand delegates from all over the country came to Moscow, to the Pillar Hall in the House of Unions. The conference was co-organized by the Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta weekly of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The newspaper published seven key speeches made during the conference.

The conference on management (held in 1986) brought together nearly all heads of economic ministries and agencies, representatives of top universities and research institutes, directors and deputies of all major enterprises. There were so many speakers, that, in order to keep within the time limit, it was decided that only theses would be presented during the conference, and full-text speeches would be published in a book of proceedings. When the book was issued, almost all of its press run sold out immediately. It was thanks to the Problems of Science-Based Economy Management Conference that the idea of “full-scale economic accountability” was first discussed at the June 1987 Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

The discussion has shown that at the time, there was no singular interpretation of the perestroika and its objectives among the party and state authorities and the scientific community. The official goals of democratization and increased independence of enterprises were interpreted in two ways: either focusing on integration of market self-regulation with the current system for future decentralization and democratization of management; or focusing on democratization of the current system, for example, through extended involvement of workers, but without any drastic enhancement of the role of market in economy management.

The opinion that prevailed at the conference said that the management reform should focus on major changes to price formation, credit and finance mechanism, and procurement, all implemented in an integrated manner.

“Sore Spots” of Economic Experiment

When granting freedom to entrepreneurship, the government had to shift the emphasis in management from administrative measures to economic and financial ones. Market mechanisms had to be integrated in the absolutely statized life of the country.

The Law on Enterprise (Association) changed the scope of planning by introducing target figures, state order, long-term standards and limits. Enterprises would now develop and adopt their own production plans based on the above parameters and orders from their consumers. Full-scale economic accountability and self-financing meant that expenses had to be covered from revenues. The Law entitled enterprises to set their own prices on their products, to sell the products and to purchase physical resources. And if due to the nationwide deficit they failed to do so, it could be the ground for the state order rejection. The staff would become the rightful manager of operations that remained the government's property, and top managers of enterprises were now to be elected. Upon the initiative of one of the active members of the Economy Research Society (and today the Vice President of the VEO of Russia) V.I. Shcherbakov, Kama Automobile Factory became the venue for pilot adoption of full-scale economic accountability and self-financing.

In 1988 the official statistics registered some economic growth for the last time. A multitude of indicators signaled that the adversity was only getting worse. Socialism was far from succeeding in its economic competition with capitalism, judging by the qualitative, and not quantitative results of that competition. The high absolute growth and breakthroughs in individual industries (primarily, the defense industry) were made possible in the USSR not by any theoretical advantages of the socialist model, but simply by overconsumption of resources. Nearly at all times the growth in consumption of physical resources and production assets was ahead of the growth in the net national product.

In June 1988, in his speech at the 19^th Party Conference that was later assailed with criticism from the party and economy activists, member of the Central Board of the Economy Research Society, Academician Leonid Abalkin said: the economy failed to develop a radical change, it failed to overcome stagnation, growth in the net national product over the past several years did not reach the level of the previous five-year period, the consumer market was deteriorating, and the core idea of the current five-year period proposing simultaneous quantitative growth and qualitative change was unrealistic.

Russian National Manager of the Year Award

“Our transition from the planning and distribution system of economy to the market economy has been challenging. It was faced with incredible difficulties, the most impactful of them being the 1998 financial and economic crisis. The experience that the country has amassed over these years shows that it is impossible to achieve our end goals without the understanding of the market law, clever application of scientific data, combined principles, forms and methods of production and operational HR management – everything that is included in the concept of management.”

President of the International Academy of Management, Academician of RAS S.A. Sitoryan

It is remarkable that initially, among the Manager of the Year candidates there were industrialists, entrepreneurs, managers of enterprises, heads of collective and state-owned farms and other organizations. At first, the award did not consider state officials and companies that are natural monopolies – all to make sure that the award does not turn into a vanity parade for 20-30 or 60 largest companies in the country that are already quite privileged. Award organizers made a conscious effort to reach out beyond Moscow, aiming to attract the majority of candidates from other regions. A while later, two independent categories were created – Manager of the Year in Banking Sector and Manager of the Year in State and Municipal Administration.

“After President V.V. Putin said that the primary goal in the country should be to build strong, independent, financially sustainable local authorities so that those officials who help the country develop whould be celebrated,” says the First Vice President of the VEO of Russia V.N. Krasilnikov, “we decided to add the category of Manager of the Year in State and Municipal Administration to the framework of our project. It made for a phenomenal competition, an absolutely unique event. And it’s not just a formal give-away of honorary awards to mayors, municipal leaders, etc. Among the winners of our award are first deputies of governors, prefects. Later they were included in the President’s team of one hundred and then promoted to the federal level.”

Research Papers Competition for Youth Economic Growth of Russia

The competition is open to 9—11 grade students of general and profession-oriented schools, university students, research staff, PhD students and candidates from Russian universities and research institutes. The participants focus their creative research on studying and finding the solutions for the pressing issues of social development regarding the Russian regions and Russia as a whole, development projects, analysis of potential for legal framework improvement. Research papers of winners and runners-up are published in a special edition of the Transactions of the VEO of Russia. Many participants of the past competitions work at the regional units and the youth section of the Society.

Statistics shows that winners and runners-up of the competition are among the top students of their universities; they graduate from the best universities of Russia, develop their degree theses and obtain Candidate and Doctor degrees in economics. Since recently, the gala awards ceremony of the Russian National Research Papers Competition for the Youth Economic Growth of Russia has been held in the form of a scientific conference attended by the winners and runners-up, along with the leading Russian scientists, political figures and members of business community. Many papers spark a keen interest in the prominent experts.

Academician L.I. Abalkin used to say that the main prerequisite of progress is that every next generation should be even if a little bit smarter than its predecessors. “I believe that today, this condition is satisfied,” says the Chairman of the Applied Research Council of the VEO of Russia, Prorector for Research of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, corresponding member of the RAS Dmitry Evgenyevich Sorokin. “It is remarkable that the majority of award recipients are not from Moscow, not students of famous, prestigious universities, but they are young people from the regions of Russia. And that is one of the achievements of the Free Economic Society – it offers young people from remote regions an opportunity to explore their own abilities in research, receive feedback from the best Russian academic economists.”

Strategy Results

When in 2010 the results of the Strategy developed by German Gref’s team in 2000 were analyzed, it was found that only 36% of the measures incorporated in the strategy had been implemented, and only three out of ten strategic development goals had been accomplished. The GDP was nearly doubled, the level of poverty was reduced, and its per capita GDP now placed Russia among middle-income countries. “We have successfully improved the national credit status – in 2000 Russia had a massive external debt, and today we are among the countries with the lowest level of public debt,” Vedomosti wrote in June 2010. It was this newspaper that dubbed the past 10 years a “Kudrin’s decade,” after Alexei Kudrin who managed Russia’s super profits from oil wisely, retaining a sizeable portion in the budget reserve. German Gref, who by then had left his position as the head of the Ministry for Economic Development and became President of Sberbank of Russia, was rebuked for failing to diversify and rid the Russian economy of its energy dependence after 10 years. Nor was he successful in beating corruption, strengthening the independence of the judicial system, and ensuring uncompromising enforcement of the law.

Nevertheless, 36% of the only contemporary long-term national development program was implemented. It did fail to achieve the “formation of a culture of education, self-worth and independence of a person,” “formation and development of public institutions,” “efficiency enhancement in local governance,” but it was a real effort to set a common motion vector for development. “We did not pay enough attention to the governance reform and to the formation of the elite and managers who were supposed to be in charge of the reforms,” said G.O. Gref about the economic results of the 2000s. He admits that an essential section covering the government reform was excluded from the official text of Strategy 2000. That section only survived in the expert variant of the program.

The primary objectives of the Russian National Competition for Departments and Academic Programs in Economics and Management are:

• to identify the best departments of economics in Russian universities through independent and comprehensive expert assessment of their performance;
• to collect objective feedback on the quality of economy and management training at the competing departments, their alignment with the national and international standards of business education;
• to summarize and spread the best practices of the leading departments of economics, including their practices in the integration of the academic and research processes, integration with practice, engagement of employers and business in the academic process and graduates’ quality assessment, development and commercialization of innovations, etc.;
• to summarize and spread innovative educational technologies;
• to spread the knowledge about the quality of training in economics and management offered by the best degree-granting departments among the general population, employers and professional communities;
• to summarize and spread the best practices in educational institution management, enhancement of their competitive position in the Russian and international markets of education;
• to integrate the Russian Higher School in the global educational space, to enhance the competitive position of Russian universities and the international employability of Russian university graduates.

Global Reformation of World Order

In December 2014 the VEO of Russia held the National Research and Practice Conference Global Reformation of World Order within the framework of the Research Section of its Society Board Plenum. President of the VEO of Russia G.Kh. Popov set the tone for the discussion by stressing that over the last 25 years, a variety of international organizations, such as the UN and OSCE, have been striving to establish a world order globally. But their efforts have been based on the operating principles of government bureaucracy and cannot serve the long-term interests of the humankind.

In the meantime, a great number of issues are soon to require global-scale solutions, including the global climate change, nuclear proliferation and use control, epidemic control, depletion of resources in the context of the accelerating population growth, development of science, culture, education, medicine and, to some extent, recreation and tourism.

Russia should be prepared and must participate in the formation of the new world order, first of all, with internal measures, but during its period of reforms, the country has accumulated an immense burden of problems that call for a balanced and comprehensive approach. Business should be encouraged to invest in the development of the economy and restore the strategic management system. “We will be creating a new economic way, developing new technologies, restoring and developing the processing industry and the real economy in general,” said member of the Presidium of the VEO of Russia, President of the Inter-Regional Public Organization Chamber of Tax Consultants, academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences D.G. Chernik.

The global community is beginning to understand the need for a conceptually new civilization, the speakers at the Conference noted. The Vice President of the VEO of Russia, Adviser to the President of Russia, academician S.Yu. Glaziev believes that the model should ideally be a combination of strategic planning and market self-organization. At the same time, in the model “the public interest sets certain limits to the free private enterprise, and the majority of expenses are associated with the reproduction of human capital assets.” That way, instead of a consumer society we will have a life quality society.

“In order to change our position in the world, we must work out a conceptually different economic development model,” agrees the Chief Economics of Vnesheconombank A.N. Klepach. “We can’t lose this battle, but we have not yet worked out an economic development model that would not let Russia get weaker, that would really help it grow stronger.”

In the new world, an active, talented, strong, intelligent person should be on the pedestal. Thinking about the future global world order, the President of the VEO of Russia G.Kh. Popov suggests that the emphasis in its development should be on the intellectual elite united through various public organizations. Only the intellectuals making decisions at the global level can act not for their own benefit, which is typical of bureaucracy, but for the benefit of many. And Russia can fill the niche of the global “intellectual assets foundry.”

Political Economy: Defining the Subject of Studies

Some scientists see political economy as a means for overcoming the global crisis, as it can encourage the people in power to give up on the concept of “market fundamentalism,” which is proving to be utterly insolvent, and to improve capitalism to such an extent that it can even be called socialism. Other scientists believe that it is impossible to overcome the capitalism crisis without overcoming capitalism itself, but they, too, center their hopes on political economy.

The Free Economic Society cannot remain on the sidelines of this discussion. While admitting the rational components of the economic theory, members of the Society suggest the entire structure of teaching economics at Russian universities be arranged in a way that would allow students to develop a comprehensive, systematic understanding of economy and the laws of its development in general.

“I see as much difference between political economy and economics as there is between an architect and a construction engineer,” says Head of the Political economy Sector of the Institute of Economics RAS, Doctor of Economics, Professor M.I. Voeykov. “A political economist is an architect who designs the building based on its purpose, based on the location, climate, traditions, national mentality, etc. And a construction engineer has to make the right calculations for the load of the bearing structures or run the service lines. We all know that architecture in this country died out during the mass-construction of standard-design five-storey buildings. It no longer had any use. If we only want to build standard-design five-storey buildings, then we don’t need architects, we don’t need political economy. But modern civil engineers, proponents of economics, now have their sights set high. They aspire to lay out the entire world order, which they cannot do because all they know is how to make calculations.”

“Today it is the job of political economy to provide the solutions for the biggest challenges of our time, to define the fundamentals of the strategy for social and economic development of the country,” says Vice President of the VEO of Russia, Director of the S.Yu. Vitte Institute of New Industrial Development S.D. Bodrunov. “And in that context, the biggest problem of the modern Russian economy is the industrial revival of the country, creation of high-technology material production integrated with the science and education – it’s not merely about selecting the most efficient industrial structure. It is about shaping a new economic system of Russia, which should be capable of driving technological modernization and industrial growth of the country from the inside.”

However, creation of a long-term development program for Russia and assessment of the opportunities and resources for reindustrialization are only possible after a comprehensive political and economic analysis that should provide theoretical justification for any practical measures taken to shape the new economic system and the new economic policy for Russia.

The ceremonial reception with the head of the Russian Imperial House Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna has been a momentous event for the VEO of Russia. The history of the Imperial Free Economic Society is intimately associated with the history of the Romanovs. The VEO owes its existence to Empress Catherine II, who was not only directing its activities, but was also providing financial support to its initiatives. At various times, the Society counted representatives of the royal family among its members – Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich Sr., Prince Peter of Oldenburg.

Its status as an Imperial Society emphasized the absolute priority of state interests in all economic projects discussed or proposed by it. Upon ascension, every successor of the founder of the Society Catherine the Great confirmed the privileged position of the Imperial VEO, its independence from influential individuals and officials in its analysis of the current social and economic situation in Russia and in its ideas for its improvement.

The Free Economic Society of Russia is a spiritual successor and heir to the traditions of the Imperial VEO, as enacted by the Ministry of Law of the Russian Federation. In its contemporary operations, the VEO of Russia relies on continuity of the best ideas and traditions of service to the Fatherland instilled by Catherine the Great, and remains one of the top civil society institution in the country, dedicating itself to public outreach and development of the applied economic idea.

In his welcome speech, the President of the Free Economic Society of Russia Gavriil Kharitonovich Popov expressed special gratitude to Her Imperial Highness for the great honor and her attention to the operations of the VEO of Russia. Her visit included a grand ceremony where some outstanding representatives of the Free Economic Society of Russia were awarded orders and medals of the Russian Imperial House of Romanov.

“Fortunately, the old, good traditions have become fashionable again,” said Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna in her address to the audience. “And it is up to us to carry them on, to the next generations. That is why today I am here, meeting the best representatives of the Free Economic Society of Russia. The great Empress Catherine II would probably be pleased to see her great-great…granddaughter continue to support her important undertaking. I would like to wish you a happy anniversary and may you find a way to help our country reach a stable level of development that would help every Russian through all the problems of today. God save you!”