When a young man with virtually no experience assumes the directorship of a large enterprise, and when the hundreds of new shareholders vote unanimously to give him total control when that enterprise is later privatized, one could assume either that he is a man of rare ability or that there is something not quite cricket about it all.
Large collective farms in Ukraine are privatized by granting land titles to farm employees, residents, and retirees. Each receives one to three hectares of land according to a well-understood formula that most people consider fair. Typically, 95 percent of the new owners will lease their parcels to one director who will manage a restructured, commercial farming enterprise, and the remaining 5 percent or so will lease their land into smaller private farms of 10 to 50 hectares each.
The plan was simple. As part of the privatization process, the soon-to-be landowners should have the opportunity to learn something about operating a farm as a business. No longer would they operate a farm as a mechanism to feed the population. No, a farm is a business, we would explain, and before you sign over your piece to anyone, you should learn something about how a farming business works.
That was the plan. A fairly complete publicity effort was made, training materials printed, and the venue prepared. Out of a potential audience of 1,850 new landowners at the ironically named 'Progress' farm in Brody, Lviv oblast, not one came to the seminar. Not even one person in this small town was even curious enough to stick his head in the door.
Either the abilities of the new director had inspired true awe and allegiance among the populace, or something was amiss. We asked around and were saddened but not surprised to learn that the director had made it known that no one was to participate in any training sessions. It was a deliberate effort to keep the people ignorant of knowledge that might be useful in improving their lives.
Confronted with specific cases in which direct efforts are made to derail reform, people deal with the frustration in different ways. An enraged scream can be useful. A resigned sigh is more common. This writer turns to an academic.
Feudalism as a system of social, economic, and political organization disappeared in England in the 16th century. On the continent, it finally ended in the 1700s and in Russia in 1860 or so. In a review of feudalism's late stages, Immanuel Wallerstein, in his famous series The Modern World System, labeled the holdouts a 'second serfdom.'
The term was co-opted for use in describing collective agriculture of the Soviet Union after Stalin's policy of forced collectivization had transformed the peasant into the kolkhoznyk.
Ukraine is forming a third serfdom as it transforms the kolkhoznyk into a 'land owner.'
As we recall from our days at secondary school, feudalism is an intricate network of duties and obligations linking royalty, nobility, lesser gentry, free tenants, villeins, and serfs. The modern Ukrainian economy is an intricate network of duties and obligations linking the presidency, ministries, oblast and raion administrations, farm directors and land-title holders.
A few hundred years ago, serfs lived on and worked the lord's land and were allowed some land for themselves. In present-day Ukraine, peasants lease their parcels to the director and maintain household plots to grow enough food to keep themselves alive.
Serfs could not leave the estate. Now, of course, Ukrainians have some measure of mobility – providing they have an external passport, an internal passport and proper registration with the local OVIR office (Department of Visas and Registration).
Much has been said and written about Ukraine's new economy, and much of it parallels this from Webster's Encyclopedia:
'Feudal society was characterized by a hierarchy of authority, rights and power enforced by a complex legal system under which the monarchy allowed vassals to hold land, administer justice and levy taxes.'
One could go on with the comparison – the economist P.T. Bauer, among others, argues that uncompensated labor is a form of taxation, for example – but 700 words is enough. The point is made. Now I'll think of something else, try to decide whether to scream or sigh, perhaps.
Jon Thiele is an agriculture specialist based in Lviv.
