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2025. Vol.10. №2.

Collectivization and socialist agriculture (1917– 1992): Revised comparison of the Soviet and EastEuropean experience. Part I. Soviet collectivization under Stalin (1925–1953)

Jul 27 2025

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Literature on collectivization in Eastern Europe presents an outdated picture of Soviet collectivization close to Stalin’s interpretation, and literature on Soviet collectivization ignores alternative policies to promote forced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. 

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Additional Info

2017. Vol.2. №3

Yury Moshkov in the historiography of collectivization

Oct 05 2017

Kedrov N.G. Yury Moshkov in the historiography of collectivization // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №3. P. 76-96.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-3-76-96

Annotation

Article is devoted to the analysis of works of known Russian agrarian historian Ju. A. Moshkov. The author considers its works in a context of evolution of a Russian historiography of collectivization. The author notices that Moshkov has appeared for the first time on a proscenium of a historical science during epoch of «thaw». It was the major period in formation of a problematics of history of the Soviet society. Then, Soviet historians offered the research program of studying of agrarian transformations to the USSR as objective process of formation of a socialist way of production. Moshkov’s book «The Grain problem in years of continuous collectivization of agriculture in USSR» has played the most essential role in realization of science tasks of this program. The author analyzes the ideas of Moshkov’s book in a comparative context. He compares them both with concepts a Stalin’s historiography, as with the audit of the last offered by agrarian historians of an epoch of «thaw». In particular, it is underlined, that Moshkov’s work promoted revision in a Russian science: the reasons grain crisis in 1927/28 year, a question on the top chronological border of the New Economic Policy, estimations of results of collectivization. Thanks to it, Moshkov became one of the central figures in the Soviet agrarian historiography. Also, the author considers tracks of the following perception of the Moshkov’s works in the historiography. Moshkov participated in historiographic revolution of 1990th years. However, the results of this scientific revolution retouched the previous ideas of the scientist. Owing to it, influence of its works on development of modern researches of collectivization to the full is not estimated now yet.

Keywords

Soviet historical science, agrarian historiography, Ju. A. Moshkov, collectivization, kolkhoz system

About the author

Nikolay G. Kedrov, PhD (History), Research Fellow, Vologda State University; 15 Lenina St., Vologda, 160000, Russia
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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