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Appendix A: A Note on the Use of the Terms SMALL FARMER and PEASANT
- Penn State University Press
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The focus of this study is small farmers. This sector of the population is, and has been, referred to differently in distinct countries and distinct eras. For example, in Nicaragua, the terms peasant and small farmer have been, over time, and are currently, used virtually interchangeably. This despite the fact that the former word, at times, denotes cultural attributes and relations of dependency with regard to a landlord class, in addition to the core concept of small-scale agricultural producer. In contrast, the term small farmer is a more delimited concept, referring specifically to their scale of production. In Cuba, the term small farmer is used much more commonly, although the term peasant is still used, at times, to refer to those engaged in smallscale production. There, though, the concept of peasant is largely devoid of the connotation of dependency, which has its origins in feudal relations in the countryside. The term small farmer is used inclusively in Cuba to cover individual small-scale producers as well as those who are members of the variety of cooperative relations that exist there, as witnessed by their organization in the National Association of Small Producers (ANAP). At the point in time when I conducted the fieldwork for this study in Cuba, members of the recently formed UBPCs, most of whom had previously been workers on the state farms that these cooperatives were located on, were not organized under the auspices of ANAP. Instead, they continued to be represented organizationally by the union they had belonged to on those state farms, the Cuban Labor Federation (CTC). Nonetheless, given their new position as members of cooperatives who ostensibly have a status similar to those of the already existing Agricultural Production Cooperatives (CPAs), I opted to include them in the category of ‘‘small producer,’’ and therefore in my study. Moreover, as indicated in note of Chapter , were all of the land within the CPAs and Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPCs) to be divided between their members, the area held by the latter would qualify them as small-scale producers. Their inclusion is not meant to imply that they have had, or currently have, a lived experience identical to that of individual small farmers. Rather, given that the focus of this study is on agricultural production and the livelihoods of those who engage in it, the more cultural characteristics typically associated with ‘‘peasants,’’ or individual small-scale producers—and the potential lack of these among certain kinds of cooperative members—are less relevant. Russia represents a large contrast from either of the first two countries. Before the revolution, its rural small-holders fit squarely within the comprehensive definition of the peasantry and were referred to as such. From to about , however, they were, over time, transformed into state farmworkers and members of collectives. Because of the massive size of these state farms and collectives, the birth-to-death social service coverage provided to their workers and members, respectively, and the internal work relations, those who labored on these estates came to resemble ‘‘workers’’ much more than ‘‘small farmers.’’ With the change in regime that occurred in /, though, private plot production on the former state farms and collectives grew in importance, while the area of collective production on those same farms was weakened substantially. As described in the Conclusion, this has led some scholars to even describe this process as one of ‘‘repeasantization.’’ This was, indeed, a significant shift in status as at least a few generations had grown up and lived their lives, effectively, as workers, rather than as peasants, during the intervening decades. Thus, the concept of ‘‘small farmer’’ became more relevant in Russia in the s than it had been during the mid- and latter-Soviet periods. It is now within reason to include these producers in a comparative discussion of the situation of small farmers with my other three cases. Finally, in China, collectivization drives during the s and s had led to the incorporation of that country’s peasantry, with all that the term implies, into massive collective farms. Yet the gap in time between collectivization and decollectivization that occurred within that country’s process of reform meant that, unlike the situation in Russia, some of those who became ‘‘small farmers’’ after were young enough to have been peasants before the revolution. And, the reversion to individual household production after , as well as the common usage of the term peasantry in China, justify their inclusion in my ‘‘small farmer’’ category. All...