Rural Inequality in Divided Russia by Stephen K Wegren

Author:Stephen K Wegren [Wegren, Stephen K]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138643437
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2015-12-09T00:00:00+00:00

Is there a rural middle class?

Russian observers agree that the development of a middle class is important for societal stability. Traditionally, a middle class is loosely defined as a class that stands between the rich and the poor, and is distinctive from each in characteristics and behavior.64 But the existence of a middle class in Russia, let alone in rural Russia, has been controversial. As late as 2003 Moscow-based analyst Peter Lavelle argued that:

the concept of class is still in the making in Russia…[it] does not have a middle class in any meaningful sense, not yet, at least. The so-called ‘Russian middle class’ is in fact a status group that has, as of yet, hardly embedded itself in society.65

Further, he disagreed with applying the usual measures of class to Russia, contending that, “defining Russia’s middle class in terms of income and/or disposable income is a poor man’s way of understanding the concept. It is also another habit that makes ‘getting Russia wrong’ easy.”66 Instead of identifying the middle class through consumption or status, Lavelle adopts a broader view by associating a middle class with the development of civil society and a set of “practices and established traditions that respect the empowerment of citizens and their right to make political and financial decisions.”67 While Lavelle’s point about a middle class playing a political role in society is a good one, economic consumption and status as the empirical measure of a middle class continue to be used by most analysts. Today, the concept of an urban middle class is so ingrained in the discourse about Russia that it is hard to imagine that there was ever disagreement over it. The official view from Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development is that 20–25 percent of the population belongs to the middle class.68

While the existence of an urban middle class is now conventional wisdom, Western scholarly attention has largely ignored the subject of a rural middle class, leaving it to Russian commentators and scholars to begin such a discourse. The issue is important because it directly reflects how far Russia’s agrarian capitalism has developed. Nikolaev postulates that Russia’s rural middle class was destroyed during collectivization and a new middle class has yet to emerge. The author argues that due to the general disinterest of banks to invest in the rural economy it is up to the state to adopt a leading role in the development of a rural middle class. He calls on the state to educate young specialists how to create rural cooperatives, which “should become the main form of farming of the rural population.”69 He sees the state as the primary instrument for creating and using market levers that facilitate the development of a rural middle class. Especially important are credit cooperatives that “create the conditions for the formation of a middle class that offer legal, consultative, and information services.”70 According to Nikolaev the state has clearly defined roles which will give rise to a middle class: it should elucidate equitable rules of

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