Leonard and Kaneff have made a valuable contribution to the anthropology of postsocialist countries by assembling a wide range of studies dealing with rural social identities in the context of changing state-rural and urban-rural relationships--relationships that are often coterminous, since agricultural policies are frequently dictated by urban-based politicians and reformers with predominantly urban constituents.

Leonard and Kaneff’s analytical point of departure is the concept of peasantry, a concept that has been rediscovered by intellectuals in postsocialist states “just as western anthropologists seem to be questioning [its] enduring relevance” (p. 11). Government authorities viewed the privatization of agricultural land and the re-creation of a peasantry as a solution to inefficiencies in collectives. Whereas Leonard and Kaneff appear to take a critical stance toward the concept of peasantry, pointing out its use by urban elites as a tool of subjugation and decrying the essentialist arguments made by many Western anthropologists, they somewhat uncritically accept the validity of the categories rural and urban. Although that dichotomy may be useful in some instances, the editors largely ignore various anthropological critiques of the dichotomy, beginning with the “peasants in cities” concept and the ideas of Anthony Leeds as early as the 1960s. Even Redfield spoke of a rural–urban “continuum” rather than a dichotomy and noted the two-way influence of urban and rural communities.

The term peasant--or its local equivalent (the authors generally do not address the issue of whether the term can be translated directly)--is rarely used as a self-descriptive term. Only in the Vietnamese case do the informants describe themselves as peasants, and, interestingly, they are petty traders in cities, who use this identification to downplay their role as entrepreneurs, a role traditionally frowned on in a communist society. They emphasize their rural roots, even though they rarely return to their home communities, even at harvest time. In all of the other cases, the label is either imposed by outsiders or accepted by those engaging in agriculture as a positive designation but one that does not apply to them.

Although one may question the editors’ choice of the concept of “peasant” as an analytical tool, the book achieves the editors’ goal of highlighting the broad range of adaptations undertaken by individuals engaging in agriculture, as well as the disregard government authorities have had for their needs. Flower provides examples of the disdain urbanites have for peasants in China, in spite of Maoism’s professed high regard for the peasantry. Conversely, Leonard shows why Chinese peasants were reluctant to plant more than a limited portion of their fields in new high-yielding varieties of corn. The cadres, intent on furthering their own promotion by implementing change, failed to anticipate that the higher production cost and inferior taste of the new corn would decrease its appeal.

Similarly, Perrotta and Humphrey each show how economic changes instituted by the government are only partly carried out in practice in post-Soviet Russia and resulted in complex and contradictory shifts in rural identities. As in the case of the Chinese peasants, the cost of the transition to a more market-oriented economy is largely borne by agricultural producers, who, increasingly excluded from the state system of distribution, are at the mercy of powerful networks of former governmental officials turned entrepreneurs who control access to inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, and machinery as well as the price of agricultural products. As a result, and because the government has not conceded the right to buy and sell land, few such “private peasant farms” have been created in spite of the government promotion of such farms through land reform and the institution of private property. Rather than take their land out of the collective, agricultural workers merely continue the Soviet-era practice of intensively cultivating small areas to offset irregular wage payments, often with the aid of inputs from the collectives where they continue to be employed. Humphrey shows, in addition, how the cultivation of private plots has accelerated among inhabitants of provincial towns and cities, a trend she considers “an expedient, not a way of life” (p. 153) and one that does not constitute a movement toward peasantization. This is in marked contrast, as Czegledy describes, to the continued popularity of small-scale farming by urban-dwelling Hungarians, who, for cultural and social reasons, continue to cultivate small plots even if there is no strong economic necessity.

Of particular interest are Perrotta’s observations regarding the changing structure of Russian collectives. Whereas many collectives continue the Soviet tradition of autocratic management, decision making in others has become more democratic. A major factor determining the nature of member involvement in the collective “seems to be whether actual, official share certificates have been issued or not” (p. 125). The democratization of decision-making has occurred in spite of the fact that there are rarely any profits to be distributed. This process would constitute a marked departure from what Humphrey describes as the idea of the “Soviet peasant,” a contradictory concept in which the “the core of what was peasant-like in the peasantry: autonomous, property-conscious economizing” was suppressed and the “qualities of egalitarianism...and corporatism were excessively promoted” (p. 140). Antagonism against state-mandated dissolution of collectives is also the subject of Kaneff’s analysis of Bulgarian privatization. Such antagonism constitutes a marked change from the more harmonious relationship between the state and the rural population and by extension between rural and urban sectors that existed in the Soviet era.

Finally, Pine shows that the differing manner in which elderly informants viewed their experience of World War II in two rural Polish communities can be explained by differences in the manner in which they were integrated into the wider society.

Broad in range and yet complementary, clearly written and with a clear and important message, the essays in Leonard and Kaneff’s book are suitable for graduate and undergraduate courses on postsocialist societies, identity, and rural change, as well as for development practitioners.