Collectivization in the Soviet Union

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In the Soviet Union, collectivization was a policy, pursued between 1928 and 1933, to consolidate individual land and labour into collective farms (Russian: колхо́з, kolkhoz) and into state farms (Russian: совхо́з, sovkhoz).

Contents 1 Background 2 The crisis of 1928 3 Strategies of implementation 4 "Dizzy with Success" 5 Peasant reaction 6 Results 6.1 Siberia 6.2 Central Asia and Kazakhstan 6.3 Ukraine 6.4 Latvia 6.5 Lithuania 6.6 Estonia 7 Decollectivization 8 Notes 9 References and further reading 10 See also 11 External links 12 Further reading

[edit] Background

Following the end of Russian serfdom and emancipation in 1861, peasants gained control of about half of the land they had previously cultivated, and began to ask for the redistribution of all land.^[1] Aspirations to land for all the peasants, however, would be difficult to achieve; given the simple cultivation technology of Russian peasants at the time, there wasn't enough land to sustain everyone who wanted their own farm.^[1] The Stolypin agricultural reforms between 1905 and 1914 gave incentives for the creation of large farms, but these ended during World War I. The Russian Provisional Government accomplished little during the difficult wartime months, though Russian leaders continued to promise redistribution. Peasants began to turn against the Provisional Government and organized themselves into land committees, which together with the traditional peasant communes became a powerful force of opposition. When Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia on April 3, 1917, he promised the people "Peace, Bread, and Land," the latter appearing as a promise to the peasants for the redistribution of confiscated land.

During the period of war communism, however, the policy of Prodrazvyorstka meant peasantry were obligated to surrender the surpluses of almost any kind of agricultural produce for a fixed price. When the Russian Civil War ended, the economy changed with the New Economic Policy (NEP) and specifically, the policy of Prodrazvyorstka or "food tax." This new policy was designed to re-build morale among embittered farmers, and lead to increased production, while as a progressive tax, those with more money paid more.

Until this time, the Bolsheviks had little choice but to allow the peasants to take the land and farm it privately.^[1] In the 1920s, however, they began to lean toward the idea of collective agriculture. The pre-existing communes, which periodically redistributed land, did little to encourage improvement in technique, and formed a source of power beyond the control of the Soviet government. Although the income gap between wealthy and poor farmers did grow under the NEP, it remained quite small, but the Bolsheviks began to take aim at the wealthy kulaks. Clearly identifying this group was difficult, though, since only about 1% of the peasantry employed labourers (the basic Marxist definition of a capitalist), and 80% of the country's population were peasants.^[1]The equal land shares among the peasants gave rise to food shortages in the cities. Although grain had nearly returned to pre-war production levels, the large estates who had produced it for urban markets had been divided up.^[1] Not interested in acquiring money to purchase overpriced goods, the peasants chose to eat their produce rather than sell it, so city dwellers only saw half the grain that had been available before the war.^[1] Before the revolution, peasants controlled only 2,100,000 km² divided into 16 million holdings, producing 50% of the food grown in Russia and consuming 60%. After the revolution, the peasants controlled 3,140,000 km² divided into 25 million holdings, producing 85% of the food, but consuming 80% of what they grew. .^[2]

The Soviet Communist Party had never been happy with private agriculture and saw collectivization as the best remedy for the problem. Lenin claimed "Small-scale production gives birth to capitalism and the bourgeoisie constantly, daily, hourly, with elemental force, and in vast proportions."^[3] Apart from ideological goals, Stalin also wished to embark on a program of rapid heavy industrialisation which required larger surpluses to be extracted from the agricultural sector in order to feed a growing industrial work force and to pay for imports of machinery.^[4] The state also hoped to export grain, a source of foreign currency needed to import technologies necessary for heavy industrialisation.^{[citation needed]} Social and ideological goals would also be served though mobilisation of the peasants in a co-operative economic enterprise which would produce higher returns for the State and could serve a secondary purpose of providing social services to the people.

[edit] The crisis of 1928

This demand for more grain resulted in the reintroduction of requisitioning which was resisted in rural areas. In 1928 there was a 2 million ton shortfall in grains purchased by the state. Stalin claimed the grain had been produced but was being hoarded by "kulaks." Rather than raise the price, the Politburo adopted an emergency measure to requisition 2.5 million tons of grain.

The seizures of grain discouraged the peasants and less grain was produced during 1928 and again the government resorted to requisitions. Much of the grain being requisitioned from middle peasants as sufficient quantities were not in the hands of the "kulaks." In 1929, resistance to the seizures became widespread with some violent incidents of resistance but also massive hoarding (burial was the common method) and illegal transfers of grain. If they could not hide or otherwise dispose their entire crops, some peasants harvested it as hay, burned it, or threw it into the rivers.^{[citation needed]}

Faced with the refusal to hand grain over, a decision was made at a plenary session of the Central Committee in November 1929 to embark on a nationwide program of collectivization.

Several forms of collective farming were suggested by the People's Commissariat of Agriculture (Narkomzem), ranging in the level of common property: ^[5]

• Association for Joint Cultivation of Land (Товарищество по совместной обработке земли, ТОЗ/TOZ), where only land was in common ownership
• agricultural artel (initially in a loose meaning, later formalized to become an organizational basis of kolkhozes, via "The Recommended Statute of an Agricultural Artel"),
• agricultural commune, with the highest level of common ownership.

For comparison, in sovkhozes the land was the property of the state and employed waged labor. Also, various cooperatives for processing of agricultural products were installed.

In November 1929, the Central Committee decided to implement accelerated collectivisation in the form of kolkhozes and sovkhozes. This marked the end of the New Economic Policy (NEP), which had allowed peasants to sell their surpluses on the open market. Stalin had many so-called "kulaks" transported to collective farms in distant places to work in agricultural labor camps. It has been calculated that one in five of these deportees, many of them women and children, died. In all, 6 million peasants lost their lives to the conditions of the transportation or the conditions of the work camps^{[citation needed]}. In response to this, many peasants began to resist, often arming themselves against the activists sent from the towns. As a form of protest, many peasants preferred to slaughter their animals for food rather than give them over to collective farms, which produced a major reduction in livestock.

Collectivization had been encouraged since the revolution, but in 1928, only about one percent of farm land was collectivized, and despite efforts to encourage and coerce collectivization, the rather optimistic First Five Year Plan only forecast 15 percent of farms to be run collectively.^[1]

This situation changed incredibly quickly in the fall of 1929 and winter of 1930. Between September and December 1929, collectivization increased from 7.4% to 15%, but in the first two months of 1930, 11 million households joined collectivized farms, pushing the total to nearly 60% almost overnight.

[edit] Strategies of implementation

To assist collectivization, the Party decided to send 25,000 "socially conscious" industry workers to the countryside. This was accomplished during 1929–1933, and these workers have become known as twenty-five-thousanders ("dvadtsat'pyat'tysyachniki"). Shock brigades were used to force reluctant peasants into joining the collective farms and remove those who were declared kulaks and their "agents".

Collectivization sought to modernize Soviet agriculture, consolidating the land into parcels that could be farmed by modern equipment using the latest scientific methods of agriculture. It was often claimed that an American Fordson tractor (called "Фордзон" in Russian) was the best propaganda in favor of collectivization. The Communist Party, which adopted the plan in 1929, predicted an increase of 330% in industrial production, and an increase of 50% in agricultural production.

[edit] "Dizzy with Success"

The price of collectivization was so high that the March 2, 1930, issue of Pravda contained Stalin's article Dizzy with success, in which he called for a temporary halt to the process:

"It is a fact that by February 20 of this year 50 per cent of the peasant farms throughout the U.S.S.R. had been collectivized. That means that by February 20, 1930, we had over fulfilled the five-year plan of collectivization by more than 100 per cent... some of our comrades have become dizzy with success and for the moment have lost clearness of mind and sobriety of vision."

After the publication of the article, the pressure for collectivization temporarily abated and peasants started leaving collective farms. According to Martin Kitchen, the number of members of collective farms dropped by 50% in 1930. But soon collectivization was intensified again, and by 1936, about 90% of Soviet agriculture was collectivized.

[edit] Peasant reaction

Theoretically, landless peasants were to be the biggest beneficiaries from collectivization, because it promised them an opportunity to take an equal share in labor and its rewards. However the rural areas did not have many landless peasants, given the wholesale redistribution of land following the Revolution. For those with property, however, collectivization meant giving it up to the collective farms and selling most of the food that they produced to the state at minimal prices set by the state itself, so they were opposed to the idea. Furthermore, collectivization involved significant changes in the traditional village life of Russian peasants within a very short time frame, despite the long Russian rural tradition of collectivism in the village obshchina or mir. The changes were even more dramatic in other places, such as in Ukraine, with its tradition of individual farming, in the Soviet republics of Central Asia, and in the trans-Volga steppes, where for a family to have a herd of livestock was not only a matter of sustenance, but of pride as well.

Many peasants opposed collectivization, and often responded with acts of sabotage, included burning of crops and slaughtering draught animals. According to Party sources, there were also some cases of destruction of property, and attacks on officials and members of the collectives. Isaac Mazepa, former prime minister (1919-1920) of the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR), claimed "[t]he catastrophe of 1932" was the result of "passive resistance … which aimed at the systematic frustration of the Bolsheviks' plans for the sowing and gathering of the harvest". In his words, "[w]hole tracts were left unsown, [and as much as] 50 per cent [of the crop] was left in the fields, and was either not collected at all or was ruined in the threshing".

[edit] Results

Due to high government quotas peasants got, as a rule, less for their labor than they did before collectivization, and some refused to work. Merle Fainsod estimated that, in 1952, collective farm earnings were only one fourth of the cash income from private plots on Soviet collective farms.^[6] In many cases, the immediate effect of collectivization was to reduce output and cut the number of livestock in half. The subsequent recovery of the agricultural production was also impeded by the losses suffered by the Soviet Union during World War II and the severe drought of 1946. However the largest loss of livestock was caused by collectivization for all animals except pigs.^[7] The numbers of cows in the USSR fell from 33.2 million in 1928 to 27.8 million in 1941 and to 24.6 million in 1950. The number of pigs fell from 27.7 million in 1928 to 27.5 million in 1941 and then to 22.2 million in 1950. The number of sheep fell from 114.6 million in 1928 to 91.6 million in 1941 and to 93.6 million in 1950. The number of horses fell from 36.1 million in 1928 to 21.0 million in 1941 and to 12.7 million in 1950. Only by the late 1950s did Soviet farm animal stocks begin to approach 1928 levels.^[8]

Despite the initial plans, collectivization, accompanied by the bad harvest of 1932–1933, did not live up to expectations. The CPSU blamed problems on kulaks (Russian: fist; prosperous peasants), who were organizing resistance to collectivization. Allegedly, many kulaks had been hoarding grain in order to speculate on higher prices.

The Soviet government responded to these acts by cutting off food rations to peasants and areas where there was opposition to collectivization, especially in the Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of those who opposed collectivization were executed or sent to forced-labor camps. Many peasant families were forcibly resettled in Siberia and Kazakhstan into exile settlements and a significant number died on the way.

On August 7, 1932, the Decree about the Protection of Socialist Property proclaimed that the punishment for theft of kolkhoz or cooperative property was the death sentence, which "under extenuating circumstances" could be replaced by at least ten years of incarceration. With what some called the Law of Spikelets ("Закон о колосках"), peasants (including children) who hand-collected or gleaned grain in the collective fields after the harvest were arrested for damaging the state grain production. Martin Amis writes in Koba the Dread that the number of sentences for this particular offense in the bad harvest period from August 1932 to December 1933 was 125,000.

Between 1929 and 1932 there was a massive fall in agricultural production and famine in the countryside. Stalin blamed the well-to-do peasants, referred to as 'kulaks', who he said had sabotaged grain collection and resolved to eliminate them as a class. Estimates suggest that about a million so-called 'kulak' families, or perhaps some five million people, were sent to forced labor camps.^[9][10] Estimates of the deaths from starvation or disease directly caused by collectivization have been estimated as between four and ten million. According to official Soviet figures some 24 million peasants disappeared from rural areas with only an extra 12.6 million moving to state jobs^{[citation needed]}. The implication is that the total death toll (both direct and indirect) for Stalin's collectivization program was on the order of twelve million people.^[11]

[edit] Siberia

Main article: History of Siberia

Long before the twentieth century, Siberia had been a major agricultural region within Russia, espcially its southern territories (nowadays Altai Krai, Omsk Oblast, Novosibirsk Oblast, Kemerovo Oblast, Khakassia, Irkutsk Oblast). Stolypin's program of resettlement granted a lot of land for immigrants from elsewhere in the empire, creating a large portion of well-off peasants and stimulating rapid agricultural development in 1910s. Local merchants, for example, were able to export labeled grain, flour and butter into the central Russia and Western Europe^[12]

After the Revolution, a special resolution of the Western-Siberian regional executive committee ordered the expropriation of property and the deportation of kulaks to sparsely-populated areas in northern Siberia, such as the Evenk and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrugs, and the northern parts of the Tomsk Oblast.^[13]

[edit] Central Asia and Kazakhstan

In areas where the major agricultural activity was nomadic herding, collectivization met with massive resistance and major losses and confiscation of livestock. Livestock in Kazakhstan fell from 7 million cattle to 1.6 million and from 22 million sheep to 1.7 million. Restrictions on migration proved ineffective and half a million migrated to other regions of Central Asia and 1.5 million to China. Of those who remained as many as a million died in the resulting famine.^[14] In Mongolia, then a Soviet dependency, attempted collectivization was abandoned in 1932 after the loss of 8 million head of livestock.

[edit] Ukraine

See also: Holodomor

Most historians agree that the disruption caused by collectivization and the resistance of the peasants significantly contributed to the Great Famine of 1932–1933, especially in Ukraine, a region famous for its rich soil (chernozem). This particular period is called "Holodomor" in Ukrainian. During the similar famines of 1921–1923, numerous campaigns, inside the country, as well as internationally were held to raise money and food in support of the population of the affected regions. Nothing similar was done during the drought of 1932–1933, mainly because the information about the disaster was suppressed by Stalin.^[15] Moreover, migration of population from the affected areas was restricted.^[16]

About 40 million people were affected by the food shortages including areas near Moscow where mortality rates increased by 50%. The center of the famine, however, was Ukraine and surrounding regions, including the Don, the Kuban, the Northern Caucasus and Kazakhstan where the toll was one million dead. The countryside was affected more than cities, but 120,000 died in Kharkiv, 40,000 in Krasnodar and 20,000 in Stavropol.^[17]

The declassified Soviet archives show that there were 1.54 million officially registered deaths in Ukraine from famine.^[18] Alec Nove claims that registration of deaths largely ceased in many areas during the famine.^[19] However, it's been pointed out that the registered deaths in the archives were substantially revised by the demographics officials. The older version of the data showed 600 thousand fewer deaths in Ukraine than the current, revised statistics.^[20] In The Black Book of Communism, the authors claim the number of dead was at least 4 million, and characterize the Great Famine as "a genocide of the Ukrainian people".^[21]

[edit] Latvia

After the Soviet Occupation of Latvia in June 1940, the country's new rulers were faced with a problem: the agricultural reforms of the inter-war period had expanded individual holdings. The property of "enemies of the people" and refugees, as well as those above 30 hectares, was nationalised in 1940-'44, but those who were still landless were then given plots of 15 hectares each. Thus, Latvian agriculture remained essentially dependent on personal smallholdings, making central planning difficult. In 1940-'41 the Communist Party repeatedly said that collectivization would not occur forcibly, but rather voluntarily and by example. To encourage collectivization high taxes were enforced and new farms given no government support. But after 1945 the Party dropped its restrained approach as the voluntary approach was not yielding results. Latvians were accustomed to individual holdings (viensētas), which had existed even during serfdom, and for many farmers the plots awarded to them by the interwar reforms were the first their families had ever owned. Furthermore, the countryside was filled with rumours regarding the harshness of collective farm life.

Pressure from Moscow to collectivize continued and the authorities of the Latvian SSR sought to reduce the number of individual farmers (increasingly labelled kulaki or budži) through higher taxes and requisitioning of agricultural products for state use. The first kolkhoz was established only in November of 1946 and by 1948, just 617 kolkhozes had been established, integrating 13,814 individual farmsteads (12.6% of the total). The process was still judged too slow, and in March 1949 just under 13,000 kulak families as well as a large number of individuals were identified. Between March 24 and March 30, 1949, about 40,000 people were deported and resettled at various points throughout the USSR.

After these deportations, the pace of collectivization increased as a flood of farmers rushed into kolkhozes. Within two weeks 1740 new kolkhozes were established and by the end of 1950, just 4.5% of Latvian farmsteads remained outside the collectivized units; about 226,900 farmsteads belonged to collectives, of which there were now around 14,700. Rural life changed as farmers' daily movements were dictated to by plans, decisions and quotas formulated elsewhere and delivered through an intermediate non-farming hierarchy. The new kolkhozes, especially smaller ones, were ill-equipped and poor - at first farmers were paid once a year in kind and then in cash, but salaries were very small and at times farmers went unpaid or even ended up owed money to the kholhoz. Farmers still had small pieces of land (not larger than 0.5 ha) around their houses were they grew food for themselves. Along with collectivization, the government tried to uproot the custom of living in individual farmsteads by resettling people in villages. However this process failed due to lack of money since the Soviets planned to move houses as well.^[22][23]

[edit] Lithuania

[edit] Estonia

[edit] Decollectivization

This section does not cite any references or sources. (July 2007) Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

During the Great Patriotic War, Alfred Rosenberg, in his capacity as the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, issued a series of posters announcing the end of the Soviet collective farms. He also issued an Agrarian Law in February 1942, annulling all Soviet legislation on farming, restoring family farms for those willing to collaborate with the occupiers. But decollectivization conflicted with the wider demands of wartime food production, and Hermann Goering demanded that the kolkhoz be retained, save for a change of name. Hitler himself denounced the redistribution of land as 'stupid.'

[edit] Notes

[edit] References and further reading

• Ammende, Ewald, "Human life in Russia", (Cleveland: J.T. Zubal, 1984), Reprint, Originally published: London, England: Allen & Unwin, 1936, ISBN 0-939738-54-6
• Robert Conquest The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine, Oxford University Press, October 1986, hardcover, ISBN 0-88864-110-9; trade paperback, Oxford University Press, November, 1987, ISBN 0-19-505180-7; hardcover, ISBN 0-19-504054-6
• R. W. Davies, The Socialist Offensive (Volume 1 of The Industrialization of Soviet Russia), Harvard University Press (1980), hardcover, ISBN 0-674-81480-0
• R. W. Davies, The Soviet Collective Farm, 1929-1930 (Volume 2 of the Industrialization of Soviet Russia), Harvard University Press (1980), hardcover, ISBN 0-674-82600-0
• R. W. Davies, Soviet Economy in Turmoil, 1929-1930 (volume 3 of The Industrialization of Soviet Russia), Harvard University Press (1989), ISBN 0-674-82655-8
• R. W. Davies and Stephen G. Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933, (volume 4 of The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia), Palgrave Macmillan (April, 2004), hardcover, ISBN 0-333-31107-8
• R. W. Davies and S. G. Wheatcroft, Materials for a Balance of the Soviet National Economy, 1928-1930, Cambridge University Press (1985), hardcover, 467 pages, ISBN 0-521-26125-2
• Miron Dolot, Execution by Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust, W. W. Norton (1987), trade paperback, 231 pages, ISBN 0-393-30416-7; hardcover (1985), ISBN 0-393-01886-5
• Maurice Hindus, Red Bread: Collectivization in a Russian Village, Indiana University Press, 1988, hardcover, ISBN 0-253-34953-2; trade paperback, Indiana University Press, 1988, 372 pages, ISBN 0-253-20485-2; earlier editions dating from 1931 are available at used book sellers.
• Moshe Lewin, Russian Peasants and Soviet Power: A Study of Collectivisation, W.W. Norton (1975), trade paperback, ISBN 0-393-00752-9
• Library of Congress Revelations from the Russian Archives: Collectivization and Industrialization (primary documents from the period)
• Ludo Martens, Un autre regard sur Staline, Éditions EPO, 1994, 347 pages, ISBN 2-87262-081-8. See the section "External links" for an English translation.
• Nancy Nimitz. "Farm Development 1928–62", in Soviet and East European Agricultures, Jerry F. Karcz, ed. Berkeley, California (US): University of California, 1967.
• David Satter, Age of Delirium : The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union, Yale University Press (1996), hardcover, 424 pages, ISBN 0-394-52934-0
• The Russians Hedrick Smith (1976) ISBN 0-8129-0521-0
• Douglas Tottle. Fraud, Famine and Fascism: The Ukrainian genocide myth from Hitler to Harvard. Toronto: Progress Books, 1987. ISBN 0-919396-51-8.
• The Second Socialist Revolution, Tatyana Zaslavskaya, ISBN 0-253-20614-6 (a survey by a Soviet sociologist written in the late 1980s which advocated restructuring of the economy)
• Sally J. Taylor, Stalin's Apologist: Walter Duranty : The New York Times Man in Moscow, Oxford University Press (1990), hardcover, ISBN 0-19-505700-7

[edit] See also

• Dekulakization
• Holodomor
• Denial of the Holodomor
• History of the Soviet Union (1927-1953)
• Collectivisation in Hungary
• OZET

[edit] External links

• "The Collectivization 'Genocide'", in Another View of Stalin, by Ludo Martens. Translated from the French book Un autre regard sur Staline, listed above under "References and further reading".
• "Reply to Collective Farm Comrades" by Stalin
• Ukrainian Famine: Excerpts from the Original Electronic Text at the web site of Revelations from the Russian Archives
• "Soviet Agriculture: A critique of the myths constructed by Western critics", by Joseph E. Medley, Department of Economics, University of Southern Maine (US).
• "The Ninth Circle", by Olexa Woropay
• Prize-winning essay on FamineGenocide.com
• 1932-34 Great Famine: documented view by Dr. Dana Dalrymple
• COLLECTIVIZATION AND INDUSTRIALIZATION Revelations from the Russian Archives at the Library of Congress

[edit] Further reading

• Roy D. Laird, "Collective Farming in Russia: A Political Study of the Soviet Kolkhozy", University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS (1958), 176pp.
• Robert G. Wesson, "Soviet Communes", Rutgers University Press, 1963