The Conceptions of Family and Labor Economy and Peasants' Cooperation in Works by A.V. Chayanov

The article is devoted to the issue of effective functioning of family and labor peasant economy in Russia in the second quarter of the 20th century according to the scientific research of A.V. Chayanov, a Soviet economist and public figure. The aim of the article is to analyze how his system of views on the agriculture economy influenced the reformation of this field and the emergence of centrally managed farms. The use of the method of comparative historical analysis allowed the authors to watch the evolution of the views of the Soviet economist on the key problems of the development of agriculture, the Russian village in the pre-revolutionary period, the era of military communism, NEP and collectivization. His views underwent major changes in the course of life. In his pre-revolutionary works, Chayanov focused on the development of small and medium-sized farms on the basis of the concept of labor balance, which implies a balance of production and natural factors and the desire not to maximize profits of the economic unit, but to increase gross income. The authors analyze what factors are associated with the inapplicability of market criteria and the basic laws of functioning of market subjects to assess the activities of small and medium-sized farms in Russia, which Chayanov wrote about in his first works. The main idea of the researcher in the post-revolutionary period was to carry out an agrarian reform based on the principles of state regulation and progressive taxation, as well as the change of ownership - from large landlords to small and medium-sized labor farms. Special attention is paid to the problems and conditions of development of peasant cooperation as a vertical integration of peasant farms in order to more effectively integrate them into the system of market relations. During his work at the Institute of Agricultural Agronomy, Chayanov was engaged in rational methods of farming, which was especially important for solving food problems of the young Soviet state. He wrote a special work on the intensification of the agrarian economy in the region of non-black earth and the Russian North. Important economic problems of large agricultural regions Chayanov discussed and proposals he made in this regard were the specialization of regions in economically profitable cultures, a rational combination of industries with their subordination to the industry that produces the most profitable products in the region. In conclusion, the authors analyzed Cha-yanov's practical activities in the development of an agro-industrial complex (agribusiness) in the Soviet economy. Many of his economic paradigms and practical projects were implemented, although sometimes in a somewhat truncated format: the development of a new program to prioritize the establishment of large-scale centrally managed crop farms.

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