Russian novels, poetry and ballet put the country squarely in the European family of cultures and yet there is something different about this country, especially in terms of its political culture. What makes Russia different?

Maxim Trudolyubov uses private property as a lens to highlight the most important features that distinguish Russia as a political culture. In many Western societies, private property has acted as the private individuals bulwark against the state; in Russia, by contrast, it has mostly been used by the authorities as a governance tool. Nineteenth-century Russian liberals did not consider property rights to be one of the civil causes worthy of defending. Property was associated with serfdom, and even after the emancipation of the serfs the institution of property was still seen as an attribute of retrograde aristocracy and oppressive government. It was something to be destroyed and indeed it was, in 1917.

Ironically, it was the Soviet Union that, with the arrival of mass housing in the 1960s, gave the concept of private ownership a good name. After forced collectivization and mass urbanization, people were yearning for a space of their own. The collapse of the Soviet ideology allowed property to be called property, but not all properties were equal. You could own a flat but not an oil company, which could be property on paper but not in reality. This is why most Russian entrepreneurs register their businesses in offshore jurisdictions and park their money abroad.

This fresh and highly original perspective on Russian history will be of great interest to anyone who wants to understand Russia today.

Maxim Trudolyubov is a Senior Fellow at the Kennan Institute and the Editor-at-Large ofVedomosti, an independent Russian daily. He is also Director of Research at the independent think tank InLiberty.ru, Moscow, and a contributing opinion writer forThe New York Times International Edition.

AcknowledgementsForeword - Alexander EtkindIntroduction: The Tragedy of PropertyChapter 1. The Entrance1. Homeless people2. From city dwellers to citizens3. Reflected modernity4. The capital of succeeding generationsChapter 2. The Fence: Russian Title1. Good fences make good neighbours2. The permanence of the fence3. Life without property rights4. Russian titleChapter 3. Behind the Fence: the Privatization of Utopia1. Private palaces2. The privatization of Utopia3. The birth of private life4. The Dutch carpenters houseChapter 4. Private Property: My Home Is My Castle1. The myth of Sparta2. The domus of our forebears3. Mine and ours4. Life, liberty and property5. Christianity and Utopia6. Utopia without propertyChapter 5. Territory: Ambitions of Colonialism and Methods of Subjugation1. Yermak the Conquistador2. Stewardship and extraction3. A natural resource irony of historyChapter 6. The Lock on the Door: the Priority of Security1. The collapse of monarchy in the West2. Success in the East3. Control as the top priority4. Security as a threatChapter 7. Labourers: Moral Economics and the Art of Survival1. The plough, the scythe and the axe2. Moral economics3. The commune against the private farmer4. Dictatorship of the collectiveChapter 8. Masters: the Tragedy of Domination1. Owners and rulers2. Let not the nobility be dispossessed of their estates without due process of law3. The birth of free people4. Traduced and sacred law5. The attempt to shareChapter 9. Architecture, Happiness and Order1. The project we live in2. Stalins orders3. Khrushchevs social revolution4. Happiness and order5. Russian orderChapter 10. Our Half-built Home1. Favour from the tsar2. Property without the market3. A market without propertyChapter 11. Two Options: Finish Building the Home, or Emigrate1. Property without property rights2. Democracy without the rule of law3. Law enforcement without the rule of law4. The open doorAfterwordNotesIndex