Merl S. Collectivization and socialist agriculture (1917–1992): Revised comparison of the Soviet and East-European experience. Part II. Collectivization in Eastern Europe under Stalin and Khrushchev (1944-1962) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2025. V.10. №3. P. 6-37.
EDN: CAKXOY
Annotation
To reassess collectivization and socialist agricultural policy, it is necessary to keep 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 showed how Stalin eliminated modernization from collectivization so that agriculture would serve industrialization. The second part focuses on collectivization in Eastern Europe under Stalin and Khrushchev, including temporary attempts to revise collectivization policy after Stalin’s death. Stalin’s combination of collectivization and class war was applied in Eastern Europe, determining the same fatal consequences for the social-economic capital of agriculture as in the Soviet Union and threats for domestic food supplies. Stalin’s approach was criticized in the Soviet Union: in June 1953, Beria and Malenkov questioned Stalin’s infallibility. The revision of collectivization in several East European countries (primarily Hungary, GDR and Czechoslovakia) aimed at the stabilization of collective farms, which required consolidation denied by Stalin: state investment in agriculture, payment for work and efficient machinery for large-scale farming. Based on the working models of collective farming, numerous private farmers were to join collective farms, which was blocked by Khrushchev insisting on completing collectivization first. With his ideological approach, he worsened the destruction caused by Stalin’s collectivization, and was responsible for the exodus of more flexible workforce from agriculture in the Soviet Union. Only Hungary managed to make use of the potential of family labor. The third part will focus on the stabilization of collective farms after Khrushchev’s removal from office and on the industrialization of agriculture, which started in socialist countries in the 1970s, two decades later than in the West.
Keywords
Collectivization of agriculture, Stalin, Khrushchev, Kadar, Ulbricht, socialist agriculture, mechanization, collective farms, industrialization of agriculture, modernization, Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Hungary, GDR, small peasant farms, economies of scale, private plots, class war, myths of Stalin’s infallibility, social differentiation
About the author
Stephan Merl, DSc (History), Professor, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstr., 25, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
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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)
Kovalev A.S. State social policy towards the disabled and elderly in rural areas of the RSFSR in the 1920s–1930s: Ideas and everyday practices // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2025. V.10. №1. P. 77-103.
EDN: JXVRCF
Annotation
The article considers the main principles of the Soviet social policy towards disabled peasants in the 1920s–1930s, when they were the least protected category of citizens. The disabled in cities had priority in receiving state social assistance, while “disabled peasants” were supported on a residual basis. The leading actor of social policy in rural areas was peasant mutual-aid committees (peasant committees) which worked from 1921 to 1930. These committees were primarily responsible for providing social support to disabled rural residents. On the one hand, they were to receive the same types of social assistance as urban residents: pension, one-time financial and in-kind assistance, prosthetics, and employment opportunities. On the other hand, disabled and elderly peasants faced class, social and age-based discrimination when trying to get what was due. In addition to practices of social assistance, in the 1920s– 1930s, there were various projects aimed at improving the social situation of the disabled in rural areas. However, most of such ideas focused on the remaining work capacity of the disabled and elderly, including in collective farms. With the beginning of collectivization, peasant mutual-aid committees were replaced by mutual-aid funds, and the responsibility for supporting the disabled and elderly was given to the working population of collective farms. Due to the lack of sufficient financial resources in collective farms, the disabled and elderly were also assigned work tasks which often ignored their capabilities. The author makes a conclusion about low efficiency of the state social policy measures and low level of satisfaction of the real needs of the disabled and elderly in the village.
Keywords
Peasant mutual-aid committees, collective farms, peasants, disability, pension provision, prosthetics, employment.
About the author
Alexander S. Kovalev, DSc (History), Professor, Department of the History of Russia, World and Regional Civilizations, Siberian Federal University. Svobodny Prosp., 79, Krasnoyarsk, 660041.
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Additional Info
- Submitted Monday, 13 January 2025
- Reviewed Tuesday, 04 February 2025
- Copyright © Auhtors, 2025
- Distribution Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Chairmen of collective farms in Western Siberia in the 1930s: Practices of co-adaptation and maladaptation
Feb 10 2025Laperdin V. B. Chairmen of collective farms in Western Siberia in the 1930s: Practices of co-adaptation and maladaptation // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2024. V.9. №4. P. 144-158.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2024-9-4-144-158
Annotation
The article considers the role of the collective-farm chairman in the rural society. As the central figure of the collective farm, the chairman largely determined the degree of collective-farmers’ consolidation. At the same time, the head of the collective farm was “created” by social environment, and his behavior often reflected the collective-farm atmosphere. After becoming the head of the collective farm, the chairman realized its community’s opportunities. In a friendly atmosphere, the head acted effectively for the benefit of all. In case of conflict relations, he could more easily pursue his own interests. The peasantry adapted to the collective farm society within its communities, and successful adaptation depended on the relations between villagers and their head. At the same time, coadaptation of chairmen and collective farm collectives was also determined by social environment. In a favorable environment, both peasants and collective farm chairmen successfully adapted to new living conditions. On the contrary, conflict relations led to the maladaptation of the chairman and disintegration of the labor collective which lost its ability to economic activity and social interaction. The data presented in the article proves the key role of chairmen in collective farm collectives and describes their interaction as reflected at the economic level, in peasants’ attitude to the collective farm and in the nature of work and interpersonal communication of collective farmers.
Keywords
Agrarian history, collective farms, peasantry, collective farm society, chairman, adaptation, Siberia.
About the author
Vyacheslav B. Laperdin, PhD (History), Researcher, Institute of History, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Nikolaeva St., 8, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia.
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Additional Info
- Submitted Friday, 26 July 2024
- Reviewed Thursday, 22 August 2024
- Copyright © Auhtors, 2024
- Distribution Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Labor behavior of collective farmers in Siberia under the state agrarian policy in 1953–1964
Oct 25 2024Andreenkov S. N. Labor behavior of collective farmers in Siberia under the state agrarian policy in 1953–1964 // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2024. V.9. №3. P. 185-203.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2024-9-3-185-203
Annotation
The article considers the labor behavior of collective farmers in Siberia under the agrarian measures of the supreme power during Khrushchev’s thaw. The author identifies factors that influenced the labor behavior of collective farmers, its forms and role in the state agrarian policy, emphasizing contradictory tendencies in the functioning of collective farms. Thus, financial incentives were used more widely, but the state did not abandon mobilization methods for solving economic problems. Therefore, the production and technological discipline in collective farms remained at a low level; many villagers avoided working in the public economy. Personal subsidiary farms had a significant impact on the labor behavior of collective farmers, since the public economy provided main resources for their personal subsidiary plots. Increased wages at the collective farm allowed peasants to strengthen the feed base for their livestock. Collective farmers acquired means for personal subsidiary farming through petty thefts at the collective farm. The peasantry retained many of its past features manifested primarily in the labor behavior of women, who tended to pay more attention to their household than to the collective farm. To reduce the villagers’ labor costs in the private sector of the agrarian economy, the state periodically conducted campaigns to limit the size of personal subsidiary plots.
Keywords
Labor behavior, collective farms, collective farmers, machine-tractor stations, machine operators, personal subsidiary farms, state agrarian policy, agriculture.
About the author
Sergey N. Andreenkov, PhD (History), Senior Researcher, Sector of Agrarian and Demographic History, Institute of History, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Akademika Nikolaeva St., 8, Novosibirsk, 630090.
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Additional Info
- Submitted Thursday, 18 July 2024
- Reviewed Monday, 02 September 2024
- Copyright © Auhtors, 2024
- Distribution Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Sharapov S.V. Regional authorities and collective-farm peasantry during the Great Patriotic War: Mobilization, care, corruption (based on the data from the Novosibirsk Region) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №1. P. 67-84.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-1-67-84
Annotation
On the example of the Novosibirsk Region, the author considers the features of the interaction of local authorities and collective farms during the war. The contradiction, which regional and district authorities faced, was that the total mobilization of resources by the central authorities threatened the local social-economic situation. Therefore, the decisions and actions of the local authorities became contradictory as they had to compensate for the damage caused by their efforts to seize agricultural products from collective farms. Moreover, there were corrupt motives as very common for the relations between the authorities and collective farms. In most cases, collective-farm peasants responded to the obviously excessive state demands by inaction, which forced the local authorities to show additional efforts in order to make agricultural producers fulfill the state requirements. The complexity of the agrarian agenda diverted the attention of the party and governing bodies. However, the state activities were still insufficient to keep the collective farm production under constant control.
Keywords
Agrarian policy of the Soviet state, Great Patriotic War, collective farms, mobilization, trusteeship, corruption.
About the author
Sergey V. Sharapov, PhD (History), Researcher, Institute of History, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nikolaeva St., 8, Novosibirsk, 630090.
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Additional Info
- Submitted Wednesday, 01 February 2023
- Reviewed Monday, 27 February 2023
- Copyright © Auhtors, 2023
- Distribution Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Il`inykh V.A. Siberian village during collectivization: Microhistory (Plotnikovo village in the Novosibirsk district of the Novosibirsk Region) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №1. P. 71-90.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-1-71-90
Annotation
The author reconstructs the history of the Plotnikovo village in the Novosibirsk district of the Novosibirsk Region in the late 1920s – 1930s. The research was conducted in the microhistoric format, which allows to consider the agrarian history of Russia in the everyday perspective of its direct actors – peasants united in their primary communities. The article aims at presenting the course of collectivization and its price for a certain rural settlement. In the Plotnikovo village, collectivization began at the end of 1929 with the creation of a giant commune which collapsed after the publication of Stalin’s article “Dizzy with Success”. The small collective farm “Zavety Ilyicha” was established on the basis of this commune. Collectivization resumed in 1931 and ended in the late 1930s. The author also considers anti-peasant repressions, de-kulakization, local famine in 1934-1935, state regulations of the size of the collective farmers’ smallholdings, behavioral strategies of peasants and rural officials. The author concludes that in the early 1940s the Plotnikovo village was at the same or even lower level of development than in the early 1920s. Thus, in general collectivization had a negative impact on the development of agricultural productive forces in the village under study, and the difficulties the villagers survived in the 1930s cannot be counted – only named by V.P. Danilov’s term ‘tragedy of the Soviet village’.
Keywords
Peasantry, village, agrarian policy of the Soviet state, collectivization, collective farms, smallholdings, microhistory, Siberia, Т. Shanin, V.P. Danilov.
About the author
Vladimir A. Il’inykh, DSc (History), Head of the Agrarian and Demographic History Sector, Institute of History, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 630090, Novosibirsk, Ac. Nikolaev St., 8.
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Obozny K.P. Orthodox Church in the USSR on the eve of collectivization // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2020. V.5. №3. P. 97-108.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2020-5-3-97-108
Annotation
The article describes the position of the Orthodox Church in Soviet Russia on the eve of the mass collectivization and dekulakization in 1930. Based on the church documents and decrees of the Soviet government, the author identifies serious changes in the church life of different dioceses of the Moscow Patriarchate. Church schisms, mass repressions, quantitative and qualitative changes in the composition of the clergy —all these factors in some ways prepared Soviet citizens, primarily the peasantry, for serious changes in the agrarian policy of the Bolsheviks. Despite the tough internal policy of the Communist Party, which aimed at eliminating all opposition (political, economic and religious), including among the rural population, the resistance to the collective-farm system was primarily spiritual. Thus, the weakening church and its destruction in the late 1920s—early 1930s became a part of the Soviet government plan that aimed at suppressing and enslaving the peasantry.
Keywords
Russian Orthodox Church, Sergianism, collectivization, repressions, collective farms, spiritual opposition
About the author
Konstantin P. Obozny, PhD (History), Associate Professor, St. Philaret’s Christian Orthodox Institute. Pokrovka St., 29, Moscow, 105062, Russia.
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“Look out or you’ll be harmed!”: On the social-political reasons for Stalin’s collectivization
Oct 17 2020Aleksandrov K.M. “Look out or you’ll be harmed!”. On the social-political reasons for Stalin’s collectivization // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2020. V.5. №3. P. 70-96.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2020-5-3-70-96
Annotation
The article presents the results of the comprehensive analysis of the negative consequences of socialist transformations in the Soviet village for both society and national economy. The article is based on a wide range of sources and works on the reasons for collectivization in the USSR. The historiographic findings provide grounds for broad discussions that take into account different aspects, approaches and concepts—depending on the assessments of the priorities of I.V. Stalin and other leaders of the CPSU (b) at the turn of the 1920s—1930s: from the necessary and forced development of the industry at the expense of the rural population exploitation to the establishment of the personal dictatorship of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and eradication of the peasant economic independence. The author suggests to search for an answer to the conceptual question about the meaning and reasonability of collectivization not so much in the economic conditions as in the social realities of the late 1920s as related to the peculiarities of the one-party state and to the sharp deterioration in the political situation under the grain-procurement crises determined by the artificial restrictions on the private initiative in the previous period. The main beneficiaries of the collective-farm system, which was imposed on the village by the unprecedented violence, were thousands of appointees of the CPSU (b), who sought to preserve their power, privileges and state property in their possession by introducing the ‘second serfdom’ and the all-Union system of forced labor, which put an end to the Russian Revolution of 1917.
Keywords
collectivization, collective farms, peasant resistance, I.V. Stalin, V.M. Molotov, appointees, XVII Congress of the CPSU (b), grain procurement crises
About the author
Kirill M. Aleksandrov, PhD (History), Associate Professor, St. Philaret’s Christian Orthodox Institute. Pokrovka St., 29, Moscow, 105062, Russia.
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Andreenkov S.N. Reforms in the economies’ system and land use in the Novosibirsk Region in the 1990s // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2019. V.4. №4. P. 58-75.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2019-4-4-58-75
Annotation
The article considers the features of reorganization of agricultural enterprises and land use system in the Novosibirsk Region in the 1990s. This reform was the main direction of the agrarian transformations in the 1990s. The author identifies the logic and consequences of the collective and state farms transformation into various forms of commercial enterprises (joint-stock companies, cooperatives, peasant farms and their associations) and features of the land redistribution. At the first stage of the reform (1991), the collective and state farm system of the Novosibirsk Region did not change, new forms of farms and land use just started to develop, and the size of subsidiary plots significantly increased. At the second stage of the reform (1992–1993), the reorganization of collective and state farms accelerated, a network of large commercial enterprises developed, and the number of peasant farms increased. However, the new organizational-economic system met the market economy standards only formally. The new agricultural jointstock companies and cooperatives did not differ much from their predecessors—collective and state farms. Large farms remained the main supplier of agricultural products on the market although they worked in extremely unfavorable conditions. Nevertheless, the role of small economies represented by peasant farms also increased.
Keywords
land reform, collective farms, state farms, agriculture, land use, Novosibirsk Region
About the author
Sergey N. Andreenkov, PhD (History), Senior Researcher, Sector of Agrarian History, Institute of History, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 630090, Novosibirsk, Akademika Nikolaeva St., 8.
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Goncharova I.V., Chuvardin G.S. Communes of the Central Black Earth Region from “war communism” to collectivization: Design and implementation // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2018. V.3. №4. P. 105-122.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-4-105-122
Annotation
The article considers evolution of the Bolsheviks’ policy starting from the introduction of communes in the village as a socialist way of rural life in the post-revolutionary period. The archival materials of the Central Black Earth Region prove the idea of the authorities to create collective farms of commune type, which was determined by the revolutionary euphoria, and show the results of implementing this project in the agricultural center of the country during the NEP. The village communes (collective peasant associations) of the Orel Region depended on the state subsidies and state land fund. The social portrait of these communes’ members and their estimates of the communes prove that some former noblemen tried to adapt to the new Soviet reality under the Charter of the commune to preserve their ‘gentry nests’ from land redistribution. The most important factor determining the life of village communes in the 1920s — early 1930s was their changing role in the state ideology and policy. During this period, the position of the Bolsheviks changed according to the strategic aims of the state agricultural policy. Under the NEP, when market relations and private initiative were allowed, the communes were considered exemplary farms of the future showing peasants a new way of everyday life and joint farming. Their economic unprofitability was ignored due to the task of cultural education of local peasants, which became an additional incentive for peasant entrepreneurs to enter communes and to use state subsidies to improve their financial situation. Communards’ children had a good chance for education which was an important social lift of that time. The state collectivization policy radically changed the official attitude to village communes — they were thoroughly checked and strongly criticized. Thus, the multi-form agricultural sector was destroyed and the agricultural artel was declared the dominant form of collective farming. The primary task of new collective farms was to leave peasants without means of production and investments. Moreover, under the socialist experiment peasants simply disappeared as its observers and turned into collective farmers, i.e. participants of the experiment.
Keywords
Peasants, Central Black Earth Region, village communes, collective farms, authorities, Bolsheviks, collectivization.
About the authors
Irina V. Goncharova, DSc (History), Professor, Department of Russian History, Orel State University named after I.S. Turgenev. 302026, Orel, Komsomolskaya St., 95.
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German S. Chuvardin, DSc (History), Professor, Department of Russian History, Orel State University named after I.S. Turgenev. 302026, Orel, Komsomolskaya St., 95.
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