Collective Farmers, Master Science

A book about rural Russian youth during the late Soviet era, Collective Farmers, Master Science! explores the opportunities and constraints imposed upon young people by virtue of their rural education and agricultural background. Soviet authorities had long aimed to create a classless society and eliminate the differences between the city and the countryside. Collective Farmers, Master Science! describes the Russian peasantry’s transformation and ultimate extinction through the young people who became immersed in a new Soviet education system. In the process, they adopted the attitudes of Soviet modernity and abandoned the long-standing social patterns of their class. Memory studies and Soviet sociocultural scholar Tatiana Voronina argues that inequality was created by Soviet educational institutions. This book describes how Soviet modernity was conceptualized and implemented by focusing on the work of the rural Komsomol, rural schools, and an agricultural university. The book is written as a micro-history of three distinct rural communities in the Vologda region. It is based on rich archival material from central and regional archives of Russia and oral history interviews with former members of the region’s rural youth. Collective Farmers, Master Science! illuminates the intricacy and diversity of the Soviet modernization processes that took place in the Russian provinces during the 1960s and 1970s.