Alexander Chayanov: Путешествие моего брата Алексея в страну крестьянской утопии (The Journey of My Brother Alexei to the Land of Peasant Utopia)

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The latest addition to my website is Alexander Chayanov‘s Путешествие моего брата Алексея в страну крестьянской утопии (The Journey of My Brother Alexei to the Land of Peasant Utopia). This is a 1920 novel set in 1984 (yes, thirty-nine years before George Orwell got there), written by a well-respected Soviet agricultural economist, whose political views were too Utopian for Stalin and he sadly ended up shot in Kazakhstan in 1937. It tells the story of Alexei Kremnev, a Soviet official in 1921 (and not very happy with the Soviet system) who faints and wakes up in 1984 Moscow, a very different place. Moscow is much smaller and much greener. The economic system is something of a cooperative society with no collectivisation and little traditional capitalism. Everyone is encouraged to fulfill their potential, with art to the fore. It is all too wildly idealistic and improbable but a very interesting point of view but clearly one very much at odds with the then Soviet model. It is only available in a long since out of print academic journal in English translation, though the journal is available on-line (for a high price). See the review for more details.

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