ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the examination of the traditional basic social organizational unit of Russian agriculture, krest'ianskie khoziaistvo, or peasant household. Scholarly approaches to the transition of Russian agriculture to a market economy tend to focus on privatization of land and the development of new efficient agricultural enterprises and a class of private farmers. Because results in both of these areas have been disappointing, there has been a sense that very little structural change has taken place in rural Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. There are two further implications of these differences in the capacity of rural households to compete in an emerging market economy. The first is that they will create differences in the levels of citizen support for market reforms and democratic institutions. The second is that local Oblasts and villages will become differentiated according to their ability to support the growth of human and social capital in peasant households.
