Making Peasants Backward Agricultural Cooperatives and the Agrarian Question in Russia, 1861–1914

'In his original and imaginative book, Dr Kotsonis considers the rival projects for peasant reform in Tsarist Russia, and their impact on life and work of the peasants. The author argues that all these schemes, from the conservative to the radical left, assumed that the peasants were 'backward', and should be guided to a better progressive future. This was the root of their failure, of the peasants own attempt to modify the agenda. This study, based on a wide variety of new sources, will arouse much interest and controversy.' - Professor R.W. Davies, University of Birmingham

'This interesting book will provoke much controversy.' - Slavic Review

'This study presents succinctly...the clearest and most thorough explanation yet available in the West of the failure of those ostensibly responsible for the welfare of Russia's peasantry to assist them toward the progress enjoyed by many of their contemporaries in Western and Central Europe...This work is...a major contribution to augmenting our understanding of a crucial failure plaguing the troubled history of late Imperial Russia.' - Oliver Hayward, EH. NET