On potential of multidimensional factor analysis of peasant household's economic system in Siberia in late 19 - early 20 centuries

A peasant household was the foundation of the agrarian evolution in the post-reform Siberia. Nowadays at the forefrontof Siberian agrarian studies is the key problem of finding out the content, forms and extent of the market modernization of a traditionalpeasant household in different regions, economic and natural zones of Siberia, as well as of defining its social, cultural and economicessence and major trends of evolution. This problem is still understudied. Accordingly, the objective of this paper is to demonstrate theresearch potential of the multidimensional factor analysis method in the studies of the economic development of Siberian countryside inthe late 19th - early 20th centuries. The sources of the research are the materials of Tomsk Province agricultural census of 1901. Theeconomic groups of peasant households singled out on the basis of the census data were subjected to the correlation andmultidimensional factor analysis with the aim of studying their internal economic systems and discovering the potential of themultidimensional factor methodology. The demonstrated experience of applying the multidimensional factor analysis to the studies ofthe Siberian peasant households' internal economic systems in the late 19th - early 20th centuries testifies to the high efficiency of thismethod. The major premise of the researcher's turning to the multidimensional factor methodology is the reliance on the representativedata of regional agricultural censuses and the usage of the multilevel system of production indicators (calculated per a peasanthomestead, per capita, per a family worker and a unit of production). As the conclusions of this paper show, the multidimensional factoranalysis helps to delineate clearly all the subsystems of a traditional small commodity labour-family economic system, to single out theinnovative capitalist market subsystem, which forms the basis of the rural economy modernization, and to define their comparative rolesin the functioning of a peasant household, its development and the qualification of its social and cultural essence. The present researchhas clearly proved the full involvement of the regional peasant households from the Siberian railway area of influence in the all-Russianagrarian-capitalist market, has shown their involvement in the economic modernization and has firmly demonstrated the smallcommodity labour-family essence of all the economic categories of peasant households, including the prosperous entrepreneurialhomesteads.

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