Cows, Moonshine, Pheasants … versus Soybeans

Abstract

Drawing on decades of participant observation, followed by ethnographic research in Novoalexeevka (the Russian Far East), this article reveals why and how a polyphonic assemblages’ economy (economic relations different from both socialist and capitalist) was substituted by plantation capitalism. The story is that polyphonic assemblage involved almost all the villagers, while in plantation capitalism, almost all of them fell by the wayside. The article demonstrates that a polyphonic assemblages’ economy created on the ruins of socialism have not survived because of the deficit of different types of collaboration (for-translation, for-scaling up, for-protection). The article also explains why even the collective farms (in the article referred to as a socialist assemblage) better satisfied villagers needs than the plantation capitalism that developed.