Reactions to the Market: Small Farmers in the Economic Reshaping of Nicaragua, Cuba, Russia, and China

Conclusion: Transitions Toward the Market and Their Theoretical Implications

Conclusion TRANSITIONS TOWARD THE MARKET AND THEIR THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS The policies pursued by the Nicaraguan and Cuban governments toward their respective agricultural sectors after  differed markedly, most especially those polices that focused on food crop production. The outcomes of those policy differences for the farmers involved were also, logically, quite distinct. The position of Nicaragua’s food crop producers, who were primarily small farmers, was notably undermined after . In contrast, the small farm sector in Cuba experienced a significant expansion and strengthening during this same period. These strikingly varied trajectories reflected the larger process of political economic change that each government promoted: in Nicaragua’s case, a rapid retreat from socialism; in Cuba, a reconfiguration of socialism. As suggested in Chapter , Nicaragua’s retreat from socialism, as expressed through its food crop policies, resembled the strategy of the Russian regime toward its agricultural sector as it, too, engaged in a rapid retreat from socialism in the post- period. Cuba’s fortification of food crop production and those responsible for it after  likewise resembled the shift in agricultural policy carried out by the Chinese government between  and , as it initiated its own reconfiguration of socialism. In this chapter, I will analyze more closely these resemblances, while also underlining the important differences      between countries in each pair. That the results of these distinct approaches to incorporating market relations into previously existing socialist economies and societies were similar in the two paired cases—Nicaragua/Russia and Cuba/China—despite the major differences between the countries in each pair points to the generalizability of my findings. The commonalities that will be highlighted also have implications for the areas of theoretical debate introduced in Chapter . The overarching discussion this study is engaged with concerns the societal effect of expanding market relations, especially as set forth by Karl Polanyi (). His analysis of the changes wrought by the spread of market relations during the first era of liberalism resonate with the social and economic consequences of the contemporary era of neoliberalism. Moreover, although describing the shift from feudalism to capitalism, Polanyi’s () assertions speak to the more recent transition toward the market experienced by socialist states, too. This study addresses the literature that has emerged to describe this latter process as well—most especially that focused on its social and economic effects for the populations involved. This study examines the transition to the market in Nicaragua, Cuba, Russia, and China through the lens of agriculture, as embodied in the situation of small farmers. Therefore, its findings also intersect with the extensive debate that emerged about the eventual fate of the peasantry in the context of the expansion of capitalism into agriculture. These four cases, particularly in their respective pairs, highlight the contrasting scenarios for the peasantry stemming from this transition process. As was evident, its fate was largely dependent on the vision each government had of its potential role in the economy/society. This vision flowed logically out of these governments’ general political economic orientation, whether they sought to move toward a fully capitalist economy or instead were committed to keeping the previous redistributive model hegemonic. Thus, I will also examine the theoretical implications of these cases and their commonalities . Commonalities/Differences in the Status of Small Farming During the Transition to the Market Nicaragua/Russia The last decade of the twentieth century opened with a dramatic shift in the reigning political economic orientation in Nicaragua and Russia. These two   formerly socialist regimes were displaced by governments whose principal mission was to bring about a rapid retreat from socialism. The other side of this agenda was to definitively institute a model of capitalism that was wide open to the international market, which was expected to propel their economies ‘‘forward.’’ The key policy mechanism that was relied on in each of these cases to set these two related processes in motion was structural adjustment (SA; see Figure ). SA was both imposed from without by the international lending community and warmly embraced by each country’s new leaders. SA in Russia and Nicaragua had major consequences for their agricultural sectors, particularly that part devoted to food crop production. A central component of Nicaragua’s and Russia’s SA programs was the privatization of former state and cooperatively owned properties (see Figure ). The process encountered a number of obstacles in each of these cases and was, by the end of the s, much closer to completion in the...