ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the positions of the various groups involved in the current debate over the Stolypin Agrarian Reforms to see what they say about the political atmosphere in Russia, as well as the prospects for change in agrarian policy—and within the professional intelligentsia. From their very outset there has been sharp conflict over the Stolypin Agrarian Reforms’ precise aims and goals, the nature of the opposition to them, the level of conflict they generated and whether or not they ultimately could be successful. The significance of Kovalchenko’s approach is the way it seeks to measure the Reforms in terms of some ideologically predetermined set of goals the government apparently had decided to achieve. Zyrianov emphasizes the Agrarian Reforms’ political goals and adopts the traditional stance that Stolypin sought to drive a “wedge” between different strata of the peasant population.
