During the formation and development of the Soviet state, whose history began with the victory of the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution, there were many large-scale economic projects, the implementation of which was carried out by tough coercive measures. One of them is the complete collectivization of agriculture, the goals, essence, results and methods of which have become the subject of this article.
What is collectivization and what is its purpose?
Complete collectivization of agriculture can be briefly defined as a widespread process of merging small individual agricultural holdings into large collective associations, abbreviated as collective farms. In 1927, the regular XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks took place, at which a course was set for the implementation of this program, which was then carried out in the main part of the country's territory by 1933.
Complete collectivization, according to the party leadership, should have allowed the country to solve the acute food problem at that time through reorganizationsmall farms owned by middle peasants and poor peasants into large collective agrarian complexes. At the same time, the total liquidation of the rural kulaks, declared the enemy of socialist transformations, was supposed.
Reasons for collectivization
The initiators of collectivization saw the main problem of agriculture in its fragmentation. Numerous small producers, deprived of the opportunity to purchase modern equipment, mostly used inefficient and low-productive manual labor in the fields, which did not allow them to obtain high yields. The consequence of this was an ever-increasing shortage of food and industrial raw materials.
To solve this vital problem, a complete collectivization of agriculture was launched. The date of the beginning of its implementation, and it is considered to be December 19, 1927 - the day the work of the XV Congress of the CPSU (b) was completed, became a turning point in the life of the village. The violent breakup of the old, centuries-old way of life began.
Do this, don't know what
Unlike earlier agrarian reforms carried out in Russia, such as those carried out in 1861 by Alexander II and in 1906 by Stolypin, the collectivization carried out by the communists had neither a clearly developed program nor specifically outlined ways to implement it.
The party congress indicated a radical change in agricultural policy, and then local leaders were obligeddo it yourself, at your own risk. Even their attempts to appeal to the central authorities for clarification were stopped.
Process started
Nevertheless, the process, which was initiated by the party congress, went on and the next year covered a significant part of the country. Despite the fact that officially joining the collective farms was declared voluntary, in most cases their creation was carried out by administrative-coercive measures.
Already in the spring of 1929, agricultural representatives appeared in the USSR - officials who traveled to the field and, as representatives of the highest state power, exercised control over the course of collectivization. They were given help by numerous Komsomol detachments, also mobilized to rebuild the life of the village.
Stalin about the "great turning point" in the life of the peasants
On the day of the next 12th anniversary of the revolution - November 7, 1928, the Pravda newspaper published an article by Stalin, in which he stated that a "great turning point" had come in the life of the village. According to him, the country has managed to make a historic transition from small-scale agricultural production to advanced farming, put on a collective basis.
It also cited many specific indicators (mostly inflated), testifying to the fact that continuous collectivization everywhere brought a tangible economic effect. From that day on, the leading articles of most Soviet newspapers were filled with praise of the victoriousact collectivization.”
Reaction of peasants to forced collectivization
The real picture was radically different from the one that the propaganda agencies tried to present. The forcible seizure of grain from the peasants, accompanied by widespread arrests and the ruin of farms, in fact, plunged the country into a state of a new civil war. At the time when Stalin was talking about the victory of the socialist reconstruction of the countryside, peasant uprisings were blazing in many parts of the country, numbering in the hundreds by the end of 1929.
At the same time, the real production of agricultural products, contrary to the statements of the party leadership, did not increase, but fell catastrophically. This was due to the fact that many peasants, fearing to be ranked among the kulaks, not wanting to give their property to the collective farm, deliberately reduced crops and slaughtered livestock. Thus, complete collectivization is, first of all, a painful process, rejected by the majority of rural residents, but carried out by methods of administrative coercion.
Attempts to speed up the ongoing process
Then, in November 1929, it was decided to send 25,000 of the most conscious and active workers to the villages to lead the collective farms created there to intensify the process of reorganization of agriculture that had begun. This episode went down in the history of the country as a movement of "twenty-five thousandths". Subsequently, when collectivization took on an even greater scope, the numberurban envoys have almost tripled.
Additional impetus to the process of socialization of peasant farms was given by the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of January 5, 1930. It indicated the specific time frame in which complete collectivization was to be completed in the main arable areas of the country. The directive prescribed their final transfer to a collective form of management by the autumn of 1932.
Despite the categorical nature of the resolution, it, as before, did not give any specific explanations about the methods of involving the peasant masses in the collective farms and did not even give a precise definition of what the collective farm should have been in the end. As a result, each local chief was guided by his own idea of this unprecedented form of work and life organization.
Autonomy of local authorities
This state of affairs has led to numerous facts of local arbitrariness. One such example is Siberia, where instead of collective farms, local officials began to create some kind of communes with the socialization of not only livestock, implements and arable land, but also all property in general, including personal belongings.
At the same time, local leaders, competing with each other in achieving the highest percentage of collectivization, did not hesitate to apply cruel repressive measures against those who tried to evade participation in the process that had begun. This caused a new explosion of discontent, in many areas taking the form of open rebellion.
Famine caused by new agricultural policy
However, each individual district received a specific plan for the collection of agricultural products intended for both the domestic market and for export, for the implementation of which the local leadership was personally responsible. Each underdelivery was seen as sabotage and could have tragic consequences.
For this reason, a situation developed in which the heads of districts, fearing responsibility, forced collective farmers to hand over to the state all the grain they had, including the seed fund. The same picture was observed in animal husbandry, where all breeding cattle were sent for slaughter for reporting purposes. The difficulties were aggravated by the extreme incompetence of the collective farm leaders, who for the most part came to the village on a party call and had no idea about agriculture.
As a result, the total collectivization of agriculture carried out in this way led to interruptions in the food supply of the cities, and in the villages to widespread famine. It was especially destructive in the winter of 1932 and in the spring of 1933. At the same time, despite the obvious miscalculations of the leadership, the authorities blamed what was happening on some enemies who were trying to hinder the development of the national economy.
Liquidation of the best part of the peasantry
A significant role in the actual failure of the policy was played by the liquidation of the so-called class of kulaks - we althy peasants who managed to create strong farms during the NEP period andproducing a significant proportion of all agricultural products. Naturally, it did not make sense for them to join collective farms and voluntarily lose the property acquired by their labor.
A corresponding directive was immediately issued, on the basis of which kulak farms were liquidated, all property was transferred to the ownership of collective farms, and they themselves were forcibly evicted to the regions of the Far North and the Far East. Thus, complete collectivization in the grain regions of the USSR took place in an atmosphere of total terror against the most successful representatives of the peasantry, who constituted the main labor potential of the country.
Subsequently, a number of measures taken to overcome this situation, allowed to partially normalize the situation in the villages and significantly increase the production of agricultural products. This allowed Stalin at the party plenum, held in January 1933, to declare the complete victory of socialist relations in the collective farm sector. It is generally accepted that this was the end of the complete collectivization of agriculture.
What did collectivization eventually turn into?
The most eloquent evidence of this is the statistics published during the years of perestroika. They amaze even taking into account the fact that they are, according toapparently incomplete. From them it is clear that the complete collectivization of agriculture ended with the following results: over 2 million peasants were deported during its period, and the peak of this process falls on 1930-1931. when about 1 million 800 thousand rural residents were subjected to forced resettlement. They were not kulaks, but for one reason or another they turned out to be objectionable in their native land. In addition, 6 million people became victims of famine in the villages.
As mentioned above, the policy of forced socialization of farms led to mass protests among rural residents. According to the data preserved in the archives of the OGPU, only in March 1930 there were about 6,500 uprisings, and the authorities used weapons to suppress 800 of them.
In general, it is known that in that year over 14 thousand popular demonstrations were recorded in the country, in which about 2 million peasants took part. In this regard, one often hears the opinion that the complete collectivization carried out in this way can be equated with the genocide of one's own people.
