From Knowledge to Influence: Building a Bridge to the New Peasant

Abstract

The project of “public agronomy” aspired to no less than changing the techniques of land cultivation and the very mode of economic thinking of peasants, which implied that rural professionals should somehow be in a position to persuade peasants to change their ways. The authority of agricultural specialists, particularly of those in zemstvo service, was based primarily on their special knowledge and professional expertise. The ambivalent formula “knowledge is power” in translation into Russian requires a clarification of meaning and a choice of wording: “power” can be translated as either “authority” or “force.” Similarly, in the Russian historical context of the early twentieth century, the most accurate way to apply the Baconian formula would be a somewhat different phrase: “knowledge grants influence.”¹ This significantly limits the applicability of Foucauldian interpretations that suggest the almost unchallenged and unrestricted power of rural professionals to manipulate both public discourse and culturally discriminated against peasants.² While their special expertise did allow Russian rural professionals to have a certain political weight as a group and to interfere with the peasants’ routine, they did not have any unquestionable institutional or even symbolic “power,” that is “authority.” Their “power as influence” was a result of social consensus involving many parties, and had to be negotiated on every occasion.