Merl S. Collectivization and socialist agriculture (1917–1992): Revised comparison of the Soviet and East-European experience. Part I. Soviet collectivization under Stalin (1925–1953) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2025. V.10. №2. P. 6-36.
EDN: ADGDWI
Annotation
Literature on collectivization in Eastern Europe presents an outdated picture of Soviet collectivization close to Stalin’s interpretation, and literature on Soviet collectivization ignores alternative policies to promote forced industrialization in countries with predominantly small-scale peasant farms. Before discussing collectivization and socialist agricultural policy in Eastern Europe, the author examines collectivization in the Soviet Union under Stalin, combining this analysis with some methodological reflections on the approach and central terms applied. Then the author focuses on the entangled comparison of collectivization and socialist agricultural policy after the World War II in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to thoroughly reassess this policy by answering the following key questions for the assessment of socialist agricultural policy: whether enforced collectivization was necessary or harmful for industrialization; whether Stalin’s collectivization aimed at modernization of the agrarian sector at all; why socialist agricultural policy, after liquidation of private farms during collectivization under Stalin and Khrushchev, since the late 1970s in almost all socialist countries returned to supporting private small agricultural production. In addition to focusing on the decisive turning points of the agricultural policy, the author keeps the whole period in view, distinguishing the following phases with basically different political approaches: (1) collectivization under Stalin as based on class war and peasant subjugation to transfer capital from agriculture to industry; (2) collectivization under Khrushchev striving to complete it, although this policy was basically put in question (in 1953 in the Soviet Union and in 1957 in the GDR and Hungary); (3) efforts to stabilize the economically weak collective farms in the 1960s after finishing collectivization and replacing Khrushchev; (4) the final turn to modernization of agriculture expecting economies of scale through different concepts of industrialization in the 1970s; (5) the failure of these concepts causing a cost trap and enforcing the rehabilitation of small-scale private agriculture in the 1980s. The first part of the article shows how Stalin in 1929 turned collectivization away from modernization goals, which made collectivization an end in itself, enforcing the diversion of resources from agriculture to industrialization. Stalin did not trust the peasants and ignored their great capacities of increasing production, which made members of collective farms forced laborers with limited civil rights. Mechanization ensured primarily state control over agriculture and prevented an increase in yields.
Keywords
Collectivization of agriculture, Stalin, Khrushchev, socialist agriculture, mechanization, kolkhoz system, industrialization of agriculture, modernization, Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, small peasant farms, Chayanov, economies of scale, private plots, social differentiation, exploitation, myth of infallibility, Litsom k derevne.
About the author
Stephan Merl, DSc (History), Professor, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstr., 25, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Additional Info
- Submitted Friday, 10 January 2025
- Reviewed Sunday, 02 February 2025
- Copyright © Auhtors, 2025
- Distribution Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Merl S. Was Chayanov’s concept of peasant agriculture under the Soviet rule realistic? The emerging of the kulturniki in answer to the Litsom k derevne policy // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2022. V.7. №2. P. 6-37.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-2-6-37
Annotation
Litsom k derevne (‘turning to the village’) was a short and unjustly neglected episode of the Soviet history. This program of development combined socialist construction and industrialization with the further growth of peasant agriculture. It was adopted by the Party’s CC-Plenum in April 1925 (although only for a short time), and designed by such agricultural experts as Chelintsev, Kondratiev and Makarov, i.e., it was close to Chayanov’s vision. Some peasants reacted positively to this program: following the call of the Party, a group of kulturniki started to improve and rationalize farming ‘in a cultural way’ — with the agricultural research knowledge. The article aims to question the feasibility of the Litsom k derevne program in regard to two decisive changes in 1925–1927: the nearly total stop of the state financial support for agriculture, and the Party’s return to the ‘class war’ in the countryside — against the imagined kulaks. The argument on the political alternatives mentions Chayanov’s and his colleagues’ statements to Molotov in October 1927. The author describes the state’s first attention to agriculture and its basic problems in the early 1920s; how and why the New Economic Policy led to a different program of agricultural development — Litsom k derevne — which strongly revised the Bolsheviks’ previous positions. The author identifies reasons for the failure of this program, and how changes in the industrialization strategy affected the political action in the countryside. For the feasibility of the Litsom k derevne program, the peasants active participation was decisive. The article considers the state measures for agricultural development, the desperate fight of the kulturniki against their discrimination, and the position of Chayanov and his school on this program and the chances of the ‘working peasants’. In the conclusion, the author presents his findings: 1) The agricultural program Litsom k derevne did not have any alternatives after the political decision to support primarily industrialization; only the kulturniki as rather well-to-do peasants could increase agricultural production in such conditions due to their higher profitability and lower costs. Only political discrimination and the threat of expropriation could stop their efforts to dynamically develop their farms. Thus, there was no way to combine the Party’s return to the ‘class war’ against the well-to-do peasants as ‘kulaks’ with the Litsom k derevne program. The Party’s internal fight for power had disastrous consequences not only for the kulturniki but also for the agricultural production and exports. 2) The author suggests to stop the fruitless debates on the ‘class differentiation’ of the peasantry and to focus on the real mid-1920s controversy: whether the growth of agricultural production and efficiency required agricultural expertise (by capable peasants and researchers) and the state financial support (for the needed institutions like cooperatives). Both points were the basic requests of Chayanov to Molotov in 1927. The Party leaders from Stalin to Brezhnev never understood that not only industry but also agriculture could be successful only with expertise and not just by command.
Keywords
Chayanov, peasant agriculture, Soviet agriculture, agricultural experts, Soviet rule, kulturniki, Litsom k derevne.
About the author
Stephan Merl, DSc (History), Professor, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstr., 25, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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Russian Peasant Studies
Peer-reviewed interdisciplinary academic journal in the field of theoretical and empirical peasant studies, rural sociology, economics and social geography. The journal publishes original works on the issues of socio-economic development of agricultural regions of Russia and the world, the history of the peasantry, including its formation and evolution, particularly from philosophical and cultural studies viewpoints. The journal aims at exploring the paths of Russian and international rural development and supporting cooperation of agrarian researchers representing different scientific disciplines. Read more>
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