Non-academic paper

The monograph “Twenty Years before the Great War. The Russian Witte-Stolypin's Modernization” by M.A. Davydov summarizes the author's many years of research, and many of his stories are consecrated in his previous publications, as well as in the discussions that arose around them. Davydov tries to prove that the standard of living of Russian peasants has increased, while his main arguments (already formulated in other works) are an increase in the costs of peasants for alcohol and the growth of deposits in savings banks. The author also returns to the problem of the reliability of Russian harvest statistics, expressing again his doubts on this issue. In fact, only the material concerning the study of the dependence of tax arrears on the size of peasant holdings is new. When addressing these (and other) issues, the main methodological disadvantage of the work is revealed, namely: Davydov believes that one can confirm (or refute) statements that are of a general, statistical nature by listing suitable examples. Meanwhile, many of the issues discussed by him can be reliably resolved only via methods of mathematical statistics that are not used by the author. A great place in the monograph is given to the description of Stolypin's reforms. However, listing the small details of the processes of the community's destruction, land planning, development of agronomic assistance, the author goes from analyzing the relation of these measures to the main task of reforms - the task of increasing yields. He does not provide any evidence that the reforms have led to an increase in yields, but meanwhile, the statistical analysis conducted by his opponents indicates a lack of connection between the increase in yield and the pace of reform. A characteristic feature of the work is its political orientation, which the author has advertised, sometimes reaching the use of the non-academic lexicon