Twenty-five-thousander

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Twenty-five-thousanders (Russian: Двадцатипятитысячники, Dvadtsatipyatitysyachniki) was a collective name for the frontline workers from big industrial cities of the USSR, who voluntarily left their homes for rural areas at the call of the CPSU in order to improve the performance of kolkhozes during the agricultural collectivisation in the USSR in the early 1930s.

In November of 1929, the plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) issued a decree on sending 25,000 workers with sufficient organizational and political experience to the rural areas to work in kolkhozy and Machine and Tractor Stations (MTS). The decree found a broad response among the workers of the country. As a result, 27,519 people were selected from all over the USSR and sent to work in the kolkhozy.

Social structure of 23,409 twenty-five-thousanders, who had personal files:

Males - 92.3%, females - 7.7%
Members of the CPSU - 69.9%
Members of the Komsomol - 8.6%
Members of the Metal Workers Union - approx. 16,000
Individuals with no party affiliation - 21.5%
Up to 5 years of work experience - 13%
5 to 12 years of work experience - 39%
More than 12 years of work experience - 48%

Source: Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969-1978.

In order to prepare the twenty-five-thousanders for work in the rural areas, the Soviets organized special courses. Some of them were sent to sovkhozy for two or three months as interns. Most of the twenty-five-thousanders were sent directly to kolkhozy in the principal cereal regions of the country, such as Ukraine, North Caucasus, Lower and Middle Volga, Black Earth Region and others.

The twenty-five-thousanders took part in creating new kolkhozy and strengthening the weak ones, conducting political, educational and cultural work among the inhabitants of the rural areas. They assisted kolkhozy in organizing stock, strengthening work discipline and establishing correct product distribution. Some of the twenty-five-thousanders were elected board members and chairmen of kolkhozy.

However, the twenty-five-thousanders encountered fierce resistance from the so called kulaks, who had been opposed to the socialist re-organization of the agriculture.

The phenomenon of the twenty-five-thousanders was widely reflected in the Soviet literature. One of the most famous books on this subject was Virgin Soil Upturned (Поднятая целина in Russian, or Podnyataya tselina) by Mikhail Sholokhov.