Your grandparents, and possibly your parents, had to live in Soviet times and work on a collective farm, if your relatives are from They probably remember this time, knowing firsthand that the collective farm is the place where they spent their youth. The history of the creation of collective farms is very interesting, it is worth getting to know it better.
The first collective farms
After the First World War, around 1918, community farming began to emerge on a new basis in our country. The creation of collective farms was initiated by the state. The collective farms that appeared then were not widespread; rather, they were isolated. Historians testify that wealthier peasants did not need to join collective farms; they preferred farming within the family. But the strata accepted the new initiative favorably, because for them, who lived from hand to mouth, the collective farm was a guarantee of a comfortable existence. In those years, joining agricultural artels was voluntary and was not forced.
Enlargement course
Just a few years passed, and the government decided that the collectivization process needed to be carried out at an accelerated pace. A course was taken to strengthen joint production. It was decided to reorganize all agricultural activities and give them a new form - collective farming. This process was not easy; for the people it was more tragic. And the events of the 1920s and 30s forever overshadowed even the greatest successes of collective farms. Since wealthy peasants were not enthusiastic about such an innovation, they were forced there. All property was alienated, from livestock and buildings to poultry and small equipment. Cases became widespread when peasant families, opposing collectivization, moved to the cities, abandoning all their acquired property in the village. This was done mainly by the most successful peasants; they were the best professionals in the field of agriculture. Their move will subsequently affect the quality of work in the industry.
Dispossession
The saddest page in the history of how collective farms were created in the USSR was the period of mass repressions against opponents of the policies of Soviet power. Horrible reprisals against wealthy peasants followed, and a persistent aversion to people who were at least a little better was promoted in society. They were nicknamed "kulaks". As a rule, entire families of such peasants, together with the elderly and infants, were evicted to the distant lands of Siberia, after all their property was taken away. In the new territories, conditions for life and agriculture were extremely unfavorable, and a large number of dispossessed people simply did not make it to their places of exile. At the same time, in order to stop the massive outflow of peasants from the villages, a passport system and what we now call propiska were introduced. Without a corresponding note in the passport, a person could not leave the village without permission. When our grandparents remember what a collective farm is, they do not forget to mention passports and difficulties with moving.
Formation and flourishing
During the Great Patriotic War, collective farms contributed a considerable share to the Victory. For a very long time there was an opinion that if it were not for rural workers, the Soviet Union would not have won the war. Be that as it may, the form of collective farming began to pay off. Just a few years later, people began to understand that a modern collective farm is an enterprise with a turnover of millions. Such millionaire farms began to appear in the early fifties. It was prestigious to work at such an agricultural enterprise; the work of a machine operator and livestock breeder was held in high esteem. Collective farmers received decent money: the earnings of a milkmaid could exceed the salary of an engineer or doctor. They were also encouraged by state awards and orders. A significant number of collective farmers sat on the Presidium of the Congresses of the Communist Party. Strong, prosperous farms built housing for workers, maintained cultural centers, brass bands, and organized excursion tours around the USSR.
Farming, or collective farm in a new way
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the decline of the collective began. The older generation remembers with bitterness that the collective farm - which left the village forever. Yes, they are right in their own way, but in the conditions of the transition to a free market, collective farms, which were oriented toward activities in a planned economy, were simply unable to survive. Large-scale reform and transformation into farms began. The process is complex and not always effective. Unfortunately, a number of factors, such as insufficient funding, lack of investment, outflow of young people from villages, negatively affect the activities of farms. But still some of them manage to remain successful.
cooperative organization of voluntarily united peasants to run a large socialist economy on the basis of social means of production and collective labor
Excellent definition
Incomplete definition ↓
Collective farms
collective farms), one of the types of agricultural enterprises, a cross form of association. for joint management of large companies. agricultural production The economic basis of Kazakhstan was made up of societies. ownership of the means of production. and the collective work of its members. The first collective farms in the Ukraine arose in November. -Dec. 1917. In the fall of 1918, on the territory liberated from the White Guards. There were approx. 190 agricultural communes and artels, by the end of citizenship. war (Oct. 1920) - 443 K., incl. 234 agricultural cooperatives, 191 communes, 18 partnerships for joint cultivation of land. On Wednesday. There were 60 people per collective farm. and 107.4 des. land. In terms of land, livestock, and implements, the peasants were significantly superior to individual farmers. Collective crops did not exceed 0.5% of all sown areas, and social. sector (together with state farms) production. no more than 0.6% of gross agricultural production. After the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks proclaimed the course towards collectivization in Ur. region the number of collective farms increased by May 1928 to 1643, and the share of sown area. amounted to 1.6%. Through extraordinary measures of a violent nature over the years. 1st Five-Year Plan in Ur. region was united into collective farms 60% cross. x-v, in Orenb. region - 85.7% (1931). Total on U. as of Jan. 1. 1933 there were 9040 collective farms, uniting on Wed. for one K. 79 cross. x-v (in 1929-1933). The predominant type in the collective farm sector was the agricultural artel (88.4%). Basic post became the form of labor organization. prod. brigades with land assigned to them. plots, draft animals, machinery and equipment. Organizational household The strengthening of kolkhoznik was carried out on the basis of the Model Charter of the agricultural artel, adopted by the 2nd All-Union Congress of Shock Collective Farmers (1935). The measure of accounting for labor costs and income distribution was the workday. Manufacturer-tech. Collective farms were serviced by machine and tractor stations (MTS). Ch. K.'s task was to create a reliable mechanism for the procurement of agricultural products on a non-economic basis. In accordance with the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated August 7. 1932 “On the protection of the property of state enterprises, collective farms and cooperation and the strengthening of public (socialist) property” collective farm products. equated to state property was subject to planned alienation and redistribution according to centrally established prices and funds. The lands were transferred to collective farms for free, indefinite use. Collective farmers who left the K. were deprived of their individual plots. In Oct. - Dec. 1936 the awarding of ur was completed. state collective farms land deeds for 16.5 million hectares. In 2nd Five-Year Plan process of mass collectivization in the U. in the main was completed. As of 1 Jan. 1938 13929 collective farms united 95% cross. x-v, occupied 99.7% of the sown area. In 1939-1940, a transition was made to determine the size of harvesting from the planned sowing area. and livestock to calculate mandatory supplies per 1 hectare of arable land. In K.U.'s wars gave the country 7.0% of harvested bread, 5.7% of vegetables, 4.2% of potatoes, 5.6% of milk. In the post-war period, repeated attempts were made to improve organizational households. structure, management and remuneration in K. In accordance with the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated February 19. 1946 “On measures to eliminate violations of the Charter of the agricultural artel on collective farms” in five regions. U. was withdrawn from individual household holdings and subsidiary holdings in the industry. enterprises and transferred to K. 431.2 thousand hectares of arable land and hayfields. In 1950, on the initiative of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, a campaign was carried out to enlarge the capital. The number of capitals in the Ukraine decreased from 17,880 to 9,101 in 1950 (50%). Sep. (1953) plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, laid the beginning. departure from the policy of unequal exchange of industrial products. and food products between the city and the village. However, the principle of mat. the interests of collective farmers continued to be ignored. By decision Feb. (1958) of the plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, the MTS fleet was transferred to the balance of the K. In 1961, one K.U. accounted for 19 tractors and 14 grain harvesters, in 1985 - 45 and 22. Since the late 1950s, the K. have switched from the per-hectare principle of calculating mandatory supplies to establishing firm procurement plans for 5 years. With certain additions, the firm planning system existed until 1990. In accordance with the decisions of March. (1965) of the plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, K.U. set a course for the intensification, concentration and specialization of production, land reclamation and development of new lands. From ser. In the 1960s, K. switched to monthly guaranteed wages. Collective farmers received passports, joined trade unions, and a pension and social security system was formed. insurance. In the 1960-80s, an attempt was made to overcome the lag in wages of collective farmers. In 1965, the average monthly salary of a collective farmer in the Ukraine was 48 rubles, in 1985 - 159 rubles. If in 1965 the ratio of the average monthly wage of a U. collective farmer to the wages of a slave. prom. was 43%, slave. state farms 67%, then in 1985 - 79% and 91%. There has been an equalization of wages regionally. In 1965, the lowest wages in the U. were among the collective farmers of the Udm. ASSR - 32 rubles/month, which amounted to 66% of the average monthly wage of Ukrainian collective farmers; in 1985 this ratio reached 85%. Late 50s - early. 60s in K.U. early. search for progressive forms of organization of labor and production, aimed at the gradual introduction of economic incentives and methods. This process had a number of stages: family links (50-60s); unemployed units with a lump sum bonus system of remuneration (1965 - first half of the 80s); collective (brigade) in a row (80s). However, the introduction of elements of self-financing was of a half-hearted, brigade-echelon nature and did not extend to agriculture as a system and form of agricultural production. Despite the post. subsidies and debt write-offs production efficiency. in K. was low. By the end of the 80s, more than 80% of Ukrainian collective farms were unprofitable. Average annual grain yield in societies. sector U. amounted to 8.54 centners per hectare in 1961-1965, 13.14 centners per hectare in 1981-1985; potatoes 86 and 73 quintals per hectare; milk yield per cow is 1814 and 2323 liters. On Wednesday. in one K.U. at the end of the 80s there were 364 collective farmers, 5.4 thousand hectares of arable land, worth 7 million rubles. basic funds. The average K.U. produced agricultural products worth 2.2 million rubles. (in 1983 prices), consumed 1.8 million kWh. electricity. A group of advanced kolkhozs was formed in the U. (collective farm named after Sverdlov in the Sysertsky district, named after Chapaev in the Alapaevsky district of the Sverdlovsk region, etc.). Kolkhoz named after Chapaev (chief agronomist E.K. Rostetsky) in the 70-80s had 31.5 thousand hectares of land, 5 thousand heads of cattle, 6 thousand pigs. Wed. grain yields for the 70-80s amounted to 22-25 c/ha. K. annually produced. 18-20 thousand tons of grain, 5.5 thousand tons of milk, 1.3 thousand tons of meat. The consolidation of farms and their transformation into state farms determined a steady trend towards the reduction of farms as a type of agricultural enterprise. In 1960, there were 2,573 kos in the Uzbekistan, in 1970 - 1,905, in 1985 - 1,862. In the intraregional aspect, the collective farm type of enterprises predominated in Bashkortostan. and Udm. ASSR, Kurgan, Orenb. and Perm. region In industrial regions from ser. In the 60s, the state farm type of agricultural enterprises predominated. From ser. 80s in Sverdl. region there were 74 K. and 225 state farms in Chelyab. - 65 and 181. K.’s share in gross production. agricultural products post. decreased. In 1940, the share of K. in production. agricultural products in all categories amounted to 69%, in 1950 - 66%, in 1960 - 39%, in 1985 - 29%. In the beginning. In the 90s, the majority of companies were transformed into joint-stock companies, t-va, and associations. Lit.: Efremenkov N.V. Collective farm construction in the Urals in 1917-1930. // From the history of collectivization of agriculture in the Urals. Sverdlovsk, 1966. Issue. 1; Efremenkov N.V. Collective farm construction in the Urals in 1931-1932. // From the history of collectivization of agriculture in U. Sverdlovsk, 1968. Vol. 2; History of the national economy of the Urals. Part 1. (1917-1945). Sverdlovsk, 1988; History of the national economy of the Urals. Part 2. (1946-1985). Sverdlovsk, 1990; Motrevich V.P. Collective farms of the Urals during the Great Patriotic War. Sverdlovsk, 1990; Tolmacheva R.P. Collective farms of the Urals in the first post-war years. (1946-1950). Tomsk, 1979; Tolmacheva R.P. Collective farms of the Urals in the 50s. Tomsk, 1981; Tolmacheva R.P. Collective farms of the Urals. 1959-1965 Sverdlovsk, 1987. Bersenev V.L., Denisevich M.N.
Requisites
I. General results
Great were the difficulties that the proletariat of the USSR overcame while building socialism in a country devastated by imperialist and civil wars, surrounded by capitalist states and with a vastly predominant peasant population.
Truly heroic efforts had to be made by the working class to successfully lead the country through 15 years of struggle and creativity to the initial period of socialism. But the greatest difficulties, in which, according to the prophecy of class enemies, the Bolsheviks had to break their necks, was the task of wresting our multimillion-dollar, scattered, uncultured village from the tenacious clutches of a strong layer of kulaks 1 and turning it into socialist agriculture.
And so, under the brilliant leadership of Comrade Lenin, and after his death - Comrade Stalin and the Central Committee of the Communist Party headed by him, the proletariat led the poor and middle peasant masses, defeated the kulaks and achieved that by the 15th anniversary the majority of the peasant population ( 61% in the USSR, and in the main agricultural regions from 2/3 to 3/4) firmly entered the system of socialist (collective) farms, becoming a strong support of Soviet power in the countryside. On the basis of complete collectivization, the kulaks were defeated and the question of “who will win” in our country was finally resolved in favor of socialism.
We can judge how much the social face of our village has changed over the 15 years of the dictatorship of the proletariat from the following data on the distribution of gross grain production by social sectors of agriculture (as a percentage of the total):
If before the October Revolution half of the grain production was obtained from capitalist farms (landowner-kulak), then already in the 14th year of the revolution we had almost 2/3 of the gross grain production (64.3%), and this year more than 3/4 ( 77.7%) from socialist agriculture (state farms + collective farms), while capitalist agriculture was almost completely eliminated.
From a country of small and minute agriculture, the USSR turned into a country of the largest agriculture. Instead of 21 million peasant farms in 1916 and 25 million in 1927, in 1932 there were 211 thousand collective farms and only 10 million small individual farms. In addition, we have over 51 thousand (5,383 in 1931) state farms and cooperative farms with an average size of 2.1 thousand hectares of crops per farm.
In carrying out the socialist reconstruction of agriculture, the proletariat is providing it with the latest technical basis. Lenin 13 years ago spoke at the Eighth Party Congress:
“If tomorrow we could provide 100 thousand first-class tractors, supply them with gasoline, provide them with drivers (you know very well that this is still a fantasy), then the average peasant would say: “I am for commune, that is, for communism” 2.
And now, as of 1/VII 1932, our agriculture already has 147.8 thousand tractors with a capacity of 2,177 thousand liters. village, 10.8 thousand cars and 11.7 thousand combines. The reality at present is one and a half times greater than the “fantasy” that Lenin spoke about 13 years ago. We have an army of hundreds of thousands of tractor drivers, and 150 thousand tractors are provided with the necessary fuel and are successfully working in the fields of the USSR, completely transforming the economic and social face of the village.
The technical equipment of agriculture was the following picture on 1/VII 1932:
Our factories produce about three hundred tractors and cars every day. For example, in the 23rd quarter of the current year, the Kharkov and Stalingrad plants produced 245 tractors (72 of them equipped with radiators) and the Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod automobile plants produced 111 vehicles. The combine harvester and a number of other improved machines are being introduced into agriculture with the greatest speed. A technical revolution is taking place in the village, agriculture is beginning to turn into an industry.
In the summer of 1932, 2,513 machine-tractor and machine-haymaking stations were already operating, serving almost a million of their metal horses (931,237 l. With.) over 1/3 of collective farms (34.3%).
Mechanization of agriculture (in terms of mechanization of traction force) over the past 7 years and mainly over the 5 years of the reconstruction period has increased more than 10 times, rising in 1932 to 1/5 .
The gigantic growth over the past three years of socialist forms of agriculture and the latest machine technology has resulted in the fact that over these years the sown areas have significantly exceeded the pre-war level. This can be clearly seen from the following diagram.
The above-mentioned social and technical reconstruction of agriculture was possible only on the basis of the rate of industrialization of the country and the development of industry that was achieved by the heroic efforts of the proletariat under the leadership of the Communist Party. These rates can be judged by changes in the index of physical volume of industrial production 3
The industry of the USSR, which already in 1931 had grown three times compared to the pre-war one, is the material basis for the grandiose construction project that we have in agriculture for the 15th anniversary of the October Revolution.
The successes in the development of industry, especially heavy industry, made possible the rapid growth of agricultural production. mechanical engineering (in million rubles at prices of 1926/27):
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1926 |
1927 |
1928 |
1929 |
1930 |
1931 |
Only having developed its own mechanical engineering and agricultural production. in particular, the proletariat of the USSR could complement the trade bond with the peasantry (poor-middle peasantry) with a production bond. Thus, the basis was created for a comprehensive socialist offensive against the kulaks in the countryside, as a result of which, to date, the majority of the peasantry has been involved in the system of socialist (collective) farms.
The great problem of the socialist remaking of the countryside could be solved by the party and the working class of the USSR only by steadily pursuing the correct Leninist general line, inflicting crushing blows on the class enemy, and waging a merciless struggle on two fronts: against the “left” opportunist deviation, which represented the main danger during the restoration period of the NEP and degenerated into counter-revolutionary Trotskyism, and with kulak agents in the party - a right-wing opportunist deviation, which is the main danger in the reconstructive period of the NEP, as well as in its present stage, when we have already entered the period of socialism.
Let us now dwell on individual aspects of the world-historical successes that the party and the working class achieved in the most difficult area of socialist construction - in agriculture.
II. Implementation of Lenin's cooperative plan
Having established its dictatorship 15 years ago, in October 1917, and defended it together with the rural poor and in alliance with the middle peasantry in a fierce bloody struggle against its own and the world bourgeoisie, the proletariat of the USSR, even during the period of war communism, dealt the first cruel blows to capitalism in agriculture, nationalizing the land and expropriating the entire landowner and mostly kulak economy.
When the military struggle was victoriously completed, the working class was faced with the task of building socialism in our country, the most difficult part of which was the socialist reconstruction of small peasant farming.
Within 10 years, this last task was largely successfully resolved. The restructuring of the bulk of the multimillion-dollar small peasant economy into socialist agriculture currently being carried out in the USSR has world-historical significance, because tomorrow, after the world proletariat has conquered power, the same grandiose task will be faced by it, but on a global scale. From this point of view, the ingenious and at the same time simple cooperative plan for the socialist reconstruction of the countryside, created by Lenin and mostly carried out by the party under the leadership of Comrade Stalin, is of extreme interest.
A characteristic feature of the cooperative plan is that it contains, in Lenin’s words, “a degree of unification of private interests... a degree of subordination to general interests, which previously constituted a stumbling block for many, many socialists.”
In his cooperative plan, Lenin proceeded from the instructions of Marx and Engels.
“Both Marx and I,” wrote Fr. in his “Political Testament”. Engels, “we never doubted that during the transition to a communist economy we would need to use cooperative production on a large scale. It is only necessary to arrange things in such a way that society, that is, first of all, the state, retains ownership of the means of production, and so that the private interests of individual cooperatives do not contradict the interests of the whole society” 4 .
The setting for the cooperative plan was well formulated by Engels in his “The Peasant Question.” “Our task,” he says, “in relation to small peasants is, first of all, to transfer their private production and private property into partnership, but not by force, but through example and the offer of public assistance for this purpose” 5
In implementing Lenin's cooperative plan, the proletariat relies on the leading role of socialist industry.
“The village,” wrote Lenin, “cannot be equal to the city; in the historical conditions of this era (transitional, as well as capitalist), the city inevitably leads the village” 6.
“There is no doubt that the leading role of the socialist city in relation to the small peasant village is great and invaluable. This is precisely what the transformative role of industry in relation to agriculture is based on,” Comrade Stalin said at a conference of Marxist agrarians.
Hence the need, along with agriculture, to also first of all restore industry destroyed by the imperialist and civil war, and then, relying on it, to transfer private production and the private property of small peasants to comradely ownership. Therefore, Lenin, when we made the transition to a new economic policy, wrote in the spring of 1923 about the need “at the cost of the greatest and greatest economic savings in our state to ensure that every slightest saving is saved for the development of our large machine industry, for the development of electrification, hydropeat, for the completion of Volkhovstroy, etc. This and only this will be our hope” 7
At the same time, it was necessary to ensure the influence of socialist industry on small peasant farming, displacing the private trade intermediary between them with the help of the cooperative organization of peasant trade. In carrying out this task, the proletariat created a direct “trade bond” between city and countryside and thereby gathered the scattered small individual peasantry into a cooperative system, educating them in practical mass social and economic work, preparing them in this school for future collective farming.
This was the task of the first preparatory stage of its implementation in Lenin’s cooperative plan, which corresponded to the restoration period of the NEP, when industry was still weak and when the main link in the relationship between the working class and the small peasantry could only be a trade bond.
How successful were the results of this preparatory stage of the cooperative plan is evidenced by the data below.
By the end of 1926/27, cooperation covered more than half of all trade turnover.
Thus, already in 1927, the private trader was pushed aside in trade turnover by cooperation and state trade to such an extent that his share was reduced to almost 1/3 of trade turnover and less than 5% of wholesale. The trade link between city and countryside was almost completely realized.
In 1929, the overall cooperation of peasant farms in the field of turnover reached over 80%. From the same year, mass cooperation began in the field of agriculture. production (collectivization).
The total cooperation of peasant farms in 1929 was: in the RSFSR - 88%, in the Ukrainian SSR - 84% and the BSSR - 78%.
If we take cooperation only along the agricultural line. turnover (sales, supply and credit), then growth is characterized by the following rates (as a percentage of the total number of peasant farms):
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1925 |
1926 |
1927 |
1928 |
1929 |
1930 |
By the period of mass collectivization of agriculture. cooperative turnover has embraced the majority of peasant farms, and in recent years the kulak has increasingly been relegated to last place in cooperation. For the period from January 1928 to the autumn of 1929, the percentage of peasant farms included in rural cooperation in the area of circulation was expressed in the following figures for each class group:
Along with the restoration of industry, there was also a restoration of agriculture, and the growing network of agricultural cooperatives were overgrown with the simplest production associations, these elements of future collective farms (machine and tractor partnerships, rolling and breeding stations, enterprises for processing agricultural products, seed and livestock partnerships, control unions, etc.).
By the end of the restoration period, the sown area exceeded the pre-war level (105 million hectares). ha) and amounted to 110 million in 1926. ha, in 1927 - 112 million hectares and in 1928 - 113 million. ha.
By this time, however, the possibilities of small-scale individual farming had already been exhausted, the rise was becoming more and more slow, and a further increase in sown areas occurred already in 1930 and 1931. with the massive transition of individual peasant farms to collective ones.
In terms of cattle breeding, by the end of the restoration period, the pre-war level was somewhat not achieved for horses, but for all types of other (productive) livestock it was surpassed.
Restorative successes. period were achieved in a merciless struggle against Trotskyism, which did not believe in the possibility of a socialist remake of peasant farms, denied the union of the proletariat and the rural poor with the middle peasantry, and pushed us into a premature adventurist attack on the kulak, skipping over the necessary preparatory stage, which threatened to disrupt our entire socialist construction.
2. Number of livestock in the USSR (millions of heads)
The defeat of Trotskyism hastened the successful completion of the restoration stage in the development of our economy and the preparation of a comprehensive socialist offensive against the capitalist elements of the countryside.
When the restoration period was completed, the party (from the XV Congress) began to reconstruct our entire economy and to fulfill the second and main task of Lenin’s cooperative plan, which was the cooperation of peasant production, i.e., the unification of small-scale individual poor-middle peasant farms into collective (socialist) farms. But even during this period of reconstruction, a comprehensive offensive along the entire front against the kulaks became possible only when, on the basis of the successful construction of collective and state farms, we received the material basis for the liquidation of the kulak economy.
“Could we,” said Comrade Stalin in 1930 at a conference of Marxist agrarians, “five or three years ago have undertaken such an attack on the kulaks? Could we then count on the success of such an offensive? No, they couldn't. This would be the most dangerous adventurism. This would be a most dangerous offensive game. For we would certainly have lost our temper at this point and, having broken down, we would have strengthened the position of the kulak. Why? Because we did not yet have those strongholds in the countryside, in the form of a wide network of state farms and collective farms, on which we could base a decisive offensive against the kulaks, because we did not then have the opportunity to replace the capitalist production of the kulaks with socialist production in the form collective farms and state farms."
III. The full-scale offensive of socialism in the countryside
After the XV Congress, the party shifted the center of gravity of the implementation of Lenin’s cooperative plan from the cooperation of turnover to the cooperation of agricultural production. production, in other words, for the collectivization of peasant farms. This policy of the party, which undermined the very basis of kulak, capitalist agriculture, could not but cause an intensification of the class struggle, resistance of the kulaks, and, on the other hand, the deployment of an offensive against it by the proletarian state, expressed in emergency measures for grain procurements, increased restrictions on kulak exploitation and, finally, from the second half of 1929 and in the direct liquidation of kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization.
The data below testifies to the fundamental social and economic changes in our agriculture, carried out by the party despite the prophecies and resistance of the right.
State farms. In the socialist reconstruction of our agriculture, state-owned agricultural enterprises played a decisive role. enterprises, “Soviet farms”, which were the outpost of socialism in the countryside, the backbone of socialist agriculture. They have a double meaning: firstly, as a system of economic enterprises that represent a powerful weapon in the hands of the proletariat in the resolution of grain, livestock, raw materials and other agricultural production. problems. They have already had a decisive influence in resolving the grain problem: in 1932, grain production on state farms amounted to about 400 million poods. State farms will undoubtedly play a huge role in solving the livestock problem. Already at the beginning of 1932, state farms owned more than 1 1/2 million heads of cows and 6 million heads of small productive livestock (sheep and pigs). According to the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in 15 months (by the beginning of 1934), state farms will have to give the state 300 thousand. T meat versus 130 thousand. T for the previous 15 months.
Currently, we have a large number of state farm associations that have the task of solving, along with collective farms, a number of individual agricultural problems, as can be seen from their very name: Zernotrest, Cattle Breeding Association, Pig Breeding Association, Sheep Breeding Association, Horse Breeding Association, Olenevodtrest, Soyuzkarakul, Soyuzsakhar, Glavlenkom, Novlubtrest, Trust oilseed-essential crops, Glavkonoplevod, Soyuztabak, Soyuzshelk, Lektekhsyrye, Soyuzplodoovoshch, Kauchukonos, Soyuzsemenovod, Soyuzkonserv, Glavkhlopkom, Tsikortrest, Chaygruzia, Lemon-Mandarin, Soyuzvodkhoz.
Having given the state significant amounts of grain products, state farms, together with collective farms, opened up the opportunity by the end of 1929 to move to a policy of liquidating kulak farms, since preparations had already been made to replace the products of these capitalist farms with the products of socialist farms.
Another significance of state farms is that for the broad peasant masses they were clear proof of the advantages of a large socialist enterprise, organized according to the latest science and technology, over small, backward individual peasant farms. By 1932, state farms owned 62.6 thousand tractors with a capacity of more than 1 million. l. With. and were mechanized (in terms of traction force) on average by almost 3/4 .
The total value of their fixed assets reached more than 2 1/2 billion rubles. and the total number of state farm workers as of VI 1932 reached 2,353.7 thousand, including 1,070.9 thousand permanent workers. Fully equipped with technical means, state farms, along with the best collective farms and MTS, by demonstrating a rational organization of the economy and socialist organization, played a decisive role in changing the attitude of the middle peasant masses to collectivization in the second half of 1929. Despite the harassment of the right, the state farm system over the last 5 years has grown from amazing speed.
3. Growth indicators of state farms over 5 years
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1928 |
1929 |
1930 |
1932 |
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Number of state farms |
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Sowing area (thousand ha) |
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Quantity tractors |
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Their power (thousands) l. With.) |
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Percent fur. traction strength |
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Quantity cows (thousand heads) |
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Number of sheep and goats (thousand heads) |
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Quantity pigs older than 4 months. (thousand heads) |
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Cost of basic funds (at constant 1926/27 prices in million rubles) |
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1 In 1932, the unfinished process of disaggregation of state farms took place. |
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At present, state farms have not yet completed their organizational period. The preparation of sufficiently qualified new personnel and their socialist education, the development of new technology and, in general, the fulfillment of Comrade Stalin’s six conditions as applied to state farms are all immediate tasks. The organizational and economic strengthening of state farms, especially livestock farms, is in full swing. But the very idea of a comprehensive system of state agricultural enterprises has completely justified itself, their enormous significance is undoubtedly both in the past and in the upcoming solution to the problem of eliminating the opposition between city and countryside in the second five-year plan. The creation of a special People's Commissariat for grain and livestock state farms will undoubtedly play a decisive role in improving the quality of the work of state farms.
Supplying the surrounding peasant population with the best breeds of animals and plant varieties, spreading agriculture around them, organizing the first tractor columns and machine and tractor stations (remember the famous Shevchenko MTS), state farms abundantly scattered the seeds of large collective farms around them, and now these seeds have given rich shoots: state farms are surrounded rings of collective farms. The areas of greatest development of state farms (southeast) also turned out to be areas of greatest growth of the collective movement.
Collective farms. Summing up the results of collective farm construction over the 15 years of the dictatorship of the proletariat, it is necessary to emphasize the leading role of the proletariat in this most difficult of all its exploits during the entire period of the revolution. From this point of view, the history of collectivization is of great interest.
During the period of war communism, we had the first wave of collectivization, which with the advent of NEP gave way to stagnation. Throughout the entire restoration period of the NEP, we essentially had a stable state of collectivization with a short-term slight rise in 1925. Only with the transition to the reconstruction period in 1927 did a major rise in the collective farm movement begin.
In the first period, during the era of war communism, the main backbone of collective farmers were urban elements who came to the village: workers, handicraftsmen, artisans and employees, who in 1918 organized mainly communes on the former landowners' lands, and since 1919 also artels. Partnerships for the public cultivation of land were almost completely absent.
4. Composition of collective farms according to statutory forms (as a percentage of the total number of collective farms)
5. Social composition of the first collective farms (V percent to the total)
The non-peasant composition of collective farms reached half of the total number of collective farm members, and among them workers constituted the most compact mass in 1928/29, accounting for 40% of the number of urban newcomers. As for the peasants, about half of them were horseless, most of whom also came from other places. The proletarian and semi-proletarian parts of the collective farms together made up at least 40% of the total number of collective farmers and were the most active group of collective farmers. The first collective farms were formed mainly on state lands: according to the NK RKI on 1/VIII 1925, 90% of communes, 60% of artels and 56% of partnerships were organized on state lands.
Thus, for the first collective farms of the period of war communism, it was characteristic, firstly, that they were started by workers and groups close to them from among artisans, farm laborers, etc., and secondly, that they were organized primarily in the form of communes in nationalized former landowners' estates. Despite the motley composition of the remaining participants in the collective farms (including priests and even former landowners who took refuge in the collective farms), the role of the urban proletariat in the founding of the collective farm movement is completely obvious. Lacking experience, material resources, and in a situation of civil war, the first collective farms existed in extremely difficult conditions and often died. However, they played a huge role, forging the first cadres of collective farmer organizers and creating examples of collective farming that have survived to this day. The proletariat not only created the political prerequisites for the collective farm movement (dictatorship of the proletariat, nationalization of industry and land, etc.), it itself directly organized the first collective farms, initially drawing into them the social elements closest to itself - farm laborers and the poor.
With the advent of NEP, with the restoration of factories in cities and the improvement of the food situation in industrial centers, proletarian elements for the most part returned from collective farms to industrial enterprises, but the collective farm movement did not die out. Picked up by the rural poor, it was maintained at the same size until the most favorable time, which came towards the end of the recovery period of the NEP. During this period, the share of communes is constantly decreasing, the number of simple collectives-partnerships for public cultivation of the land is growing, although for now the majority of collective farms are artels that have stabilized in number (Table 6).
6. The ratio of the statutory forms of collective farms during the NEP period (as a percentage of the total)
The number of workers on collective farms was reduced in 1925 to 5%, including urban proletarians to 2.4%. The rural poor begin to play a predominant role among collective farmers (Table 7).
7. Social composition of collective farmers in the RSFSR in 1925
During this period, the main link in the relationship between city and countryside was the trade bond, the center of gravity in carrying out Lenin’s cooperative plan lay in the cooperation of peasant turnover, industry was restored as the basis for mass collectivization, the private intermediary was ousted from trade turnover, and cooperative preparation of the main peasant masses for collectivization was underway. .
The second five years have passed since the October revolution. Socialist industry has strengthened and its output has exceeded the pre-war level. By this time, the discrepancy between large urban socialist industry, which was moving rapidly forward, and small, fragmented peasant agriculture, which was exhausting the possibilities of its development in an individual form, was becoming clear. Taking into account the new situation, the party at the XV Congress moved from restoration to reconstruction of the entire national economy, agriculture in particular, shifted the center of gravity from the trade link between the city and the countryside to the production one and called on the main peasant masses to build a large collective farm. The period has come for solving the most difficult task, the struggle to involve the multimillion-strong middle peasant masses in collectivization.
This period is divided into two parts: the preparatory part, covering almost two years (from 1928 to the autumn of 1929), and the stage of the offensive launched along the entire front against the capitalist elements of the countryside, covering the end of 1929 and the next three years - 1930, 1931 and 1932.
The first stage of the reconstruction period for the collective farm movement is characterized by: a) expansion of the poor social base; b) the dominance of the “manufacturing” type of collective farms, organized on the basis of the addition of simple peasant equipment, live traction power and manual labor; a) the small size of collective farms - 10-15 households and d) the predominance of the lowest form of collective farm construction - partnerships for public (joint) cultivation of the land.
During this preparatory stage, before the majority of the middle peasants turned towards collectivization, the following results were achieved.
1. By the fall, collective farms covered 7% of all peasant farms, and in the southeastern regions (N. Caucasus, N. Volga, etc.) - 18-19%, and collective farms, together with state farms, exceeded the reduced production of kulak farms in total production ( according to the 1929 harvest).
8. Share of the socialist and capitalist sectors of agriculture in grain production in 1929 (for 8 main grain-producing regions)
2. Collective farms showed the peasant masses that even on the basis of simple addition of peasant equipment, collective farm farming, due to a more rational organization, gives greater profitability than individual farming, increasing the size of crops per 1 worker and increasing productivity by 1 ha.
Thus, the average yield of winter rye for 1928 and 1929 on collective farms, compared with the productivity of an individual peasant farm, taken as 100, was expressed in the following figures:
The sown area on 1/VII 1929 in the USSR was on average per 1 yard: individual farmer - 4.59 ha and collective farmer - 5.68 ha.
3. By the fall of 1929, we already had 35 thousand tractors in agriculture, and by the fall of 1930, 66 thousand of them with a capacity of 92 thousand. l. With. By this time, the best-established mechanized state farms and cluster associations of collective farms, which had a tractor fleet (predecessors of the MTS), gave the middle peasant clear evidence of the economic advantages of large socialist farms over small peasant farms.
4. Pressure on the increasingly embittered kulaks in terms of taxes and grain procurements, the fight against their profiteering, and decisive restrictions on exploitative aspirations disorganized the kulaks and weakened their role and influence among the peasant masses.
5. Finally, in the very qualitative content of the prevailing form of collective farms - in partnerships for the public cultivation of the land - significant changes occurred that brought the partnerships closer in level of socialization to agricultural ones. artels, as a result of which their socialist quality increased and the overall level of socialization increased significantly. This prepared the transition of the majority of POP partnerships to the agricultural charter. artels.
18. Degree of socialization on collective farms in the USSR (in percent)
All this prepared a turning point in the attitude of the middle peasants to collectivization and was the impetus for their mass entry into collective farms, starting in the autumn of 1929. The mass movement of the middle peasants into collective farms radically changed the picture of the collective farm movement.
In terms of social composition, the middle peasant began to predominate in it, as it occupied a central position among the individual peasantry, as a result of which the collectivization of individual groups began to develop into the complete collectivization of the entire peasantry (with the exception of the kulak group).
Instead of small collective farms of 10-15 households, large collective farms, often covering entire settlements, became the dominant type. The change in the average size of collective farms (by number of farms) is shown in Diagram 9.
In 1931, collectivization moved to more northern regions with a predominance of small villages, which affected a slight decrease in the average size of a collective farm throughout the USSR. In 1932, when the pace of collectivization slowed down and the main task became the qualitative strengthening of collective farms, the geographical location of collective farms changed to a small extent and the process of consolidation of collective farms, occurring mainly in the more northern regions, with the simultaneous disaggregation of collective farms in some southern regions, was again reflected.
The expansion of the collective farm movement was accompanied by an increase in its socialist quality and a transition to agricultural production. artel as the main form of collective farm construction. The center of gravity of the collective farmer's economy and work has moved from his individual farm to the collective one; The collective farmer planted both feet on the soil of socialist farming and thereby became the main and strong support of Soviet power in the countryside.
9. Change in the ratio of collective farm forms (in percent)
Simultaneously with these processes, the process of mechanization of collective farms took place, that is, their transition from the manufacturing stage to the stage of industrialized agriculture. enterprises. However, characteristic of this stage of the collective farm movement is precisely the transitional form from the collective farm “manufactory” to the industrial collective farm system, a sign of which is the combination of a tractor and a horse. This combination is in full accordance with the artel form of the collective farm, which combines the public interests of the collective and the private interests of the collective farmer in the best way for the given level of development of collective farms. This is the same principle that Lenin so often pointed out when speaking about the extent to which the public and private interests of the peasant are combined and the need to move with them, without breaking away from the broad peasant masses.
The industrialization of collective farms, i.e., the transition of the collective farm system from the manufacturing stage to the machine stage, is closely connected with the construction of machine and tractor stations, and therefore consideration of the issue of industrialization of collective farms is naturally associated with the interpretation of the problem of machine and tractor stations, which will be discussed below .
IV. Class struggle and collective farm construction
The first collective farms were born amid the roar of the civil war. They were born in the class struggle and they in turn strengthened the class struggle. Collective farms, representing a system of socialist production relations, replaced the system of commodity-capitalist production relations inherited from pre-revolutionary Russia. A study of the geography of the collective farm network over the entire period of collectivization definitely indicates that where capitalist relations in agriculture were more developed, where class stratification reached the greatest levels, collective farms developed first and fastest. Where capitalist relations in agriculture reached greater maturity, where more formalized capitalist classes already stood against each other, where, consequently, the class struggle was more developed, there the successes of collectivization were greatest. It was in such areas that complete collectivization was created earlier than others and earlier the liquidation of the kulaks as a class took place.
Complete collectivization made the existence of kulak farms impossible, because it deprived these capitalist farms of objects for their exploitation. Therefore, in areas of complete collectivization, the question inevitably arose for the kulak: either he must perish as the owner of a capitalist enterprise, or he must destroy the collective farm movement. The kulak economy, replaced by a socialist economy, had to be liquidated, and the slogan of the elimination of the kulak as a class on the basis of complete collectivization was a natural consequence of the success of the socialist offensive in the countryside. The first decisive battles around collectivization took place in areas such as the North Caucasus, steppe Ukraine, the Volga region, the Urals, etc., i.e., in those areas where we had the greatest capitalist exploitation, which pushed the poor-middle peasant masses who made up the first collective farm personnel to organize collective farms. It was in these areas that the main tracts of kulak farms were liquidated, and the kulaks as a class were dealt a mortal blow.
The fierce struggle against the kulaks, the merciless struggle against their agents - right-wing opportunism, as the main danger in the reconstructive period of the NEP, as well as at the stage when we entered the period of socialism, were and are the basis of the party’s policy in this historical period. “Leftist”, essentially Trotskyist, excesses in the practice of a number of districts over the past three years have also caused serious harm to collective farm development. Their characteristic feature was the violation of the Leninist principle of voluntariness in collectivization, the replacement of ideological and organizational-political leadership with administrative pressure and coercive methods. The most striking examples of these “leftist” excesses were: the forced collectivization of peasants in a number of regions in February and March 1930, excesses in the distribution of the grain procurement plan among collective farms in 1931, mainly in some parts of Ukraine and the Urals, the forced socialization of cows and small and productive livestock in 1932 also in a number of areas. The vigilant attention of the Central Committee of our party and its timely intervention prevented the disastrous consequences of the work of these Trotskyist smugglers on the ground, but they still managed to cause serious harm to collective farm construction, giving the kulaks the best trump cards for their struggle against collectivization.
Leaving the scene, the defeated (but still unfinished) kulaks managed to influence the broad masses of individual farmers and collective farmers, captivating them with their own example and pushing them to destroy working and productive livestock. Our livestock industry came under the brutal fire of the class struggle.
A favorable environment for kulak work was the unfavorable conditions for creating a food supply, the lack of qualified personnel for the complex organization of socialist livestock farming, and the generally unfinished period of mastering both new socialist forms and new technical means and tools in our agriculture.
If in the part of working livestock the gap was mainly closed by the growth of tractor traction, then we have not yet eliminated the sensitive damage in part of productive livestock. A number of measures taken by the Central Committee in 1932 not only stopped the decline in the number of livestock, but also showed a tendency towards its expansion with a noticeable increase in small livestock and young cattle.
At the same time, by 1932, the bases of socialist livestock farms, livestock state farms and livestock commercial farms of collective farms had been created and strengthened.
11. Development of collective farm livestock commercial farms
The strongest incentive for the development of livestock farming, both collective and individual (collective farmers and individual farmers), was given by the resolutions of the Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of 10/V 1932 on livestock procurement and collective farm trade and of 23/1X 1932 on meat procurement. The latest resolution to encourage livestock breeding established firm standards for the yard for the delivery of meat products, differentiating them for individual farmers and collective farmers, separately for collective farms with and without farms, and also differentiated by regions of varying degrees of livestock development.
Thus, livestock farming, both socialist and individual, is put on a solid footing and its further development is ensured. The kulak rate in this area is just as bad as in all the others.
Machine and tractor stations. The form of industrialization of collective farms, their transfer from the “manufacturing” stage to the stage of mechanized agriculture. enterprises is to combine them with state-owned machine and tractor stations.
MTS are a form of “organization by the Soviet state of large collective agriculture on a high technical basis, which most fully combines the initiative of the collective farm masses in the construction of their collective farms with organizational and technical assistance and the leadership of the proletarian state” 8
MTS is a powerful instrument of the proletarian leadership of the collective farm peasantry on the paths of socialist reconstruction and the involvement of the broad peasant masses in collectivization.
MTS developed with amazing speed, exceeding all expectations and calculations. Here is a table of some indicators on the dynamics of MTS over the 3 years of their existence (Table 12).
12. Dynamics of the MTS network by direction (Number of MTS in the USSR that participated in the spring sowing campaign of the corresponding year )
In 1929, the first grain (Shevchenko) MTS was organized. In 1930, there were only 158 MTS, belonging to the Tractor Center and representing 3 directions (besides them, there were several dozen less organized grain MTS, owned by cooperative organizations). In the spring of 1932, there were already 2,115 MTS operating, specializing in more than 12 areas.
The sown areas covered by MTS (on collective farms served by MTS) grew as follows (in million ha):
|
1931 |
1932 |
|
|
including spring sowing |
MTS were born from state farm tractor columns, through which state farms provided technical assistance to the surrounding peasantry. To create machine-tractor stations, the soil was prepared by the so-called cluster associations of collective farms, which united to organize quite powerful machine-tractor columns that were beyond the strength of individual collective farms and the workshops and garages that served them.
The energy power of the MTS system can be judged by comparing it in this regard with the state farm system, which is given in the diagram. 10th.
In the present year of 1932 (as of 1/VI), MTS had a tractor fleet that exceeded the fleet of state farms by 10 thousand tractors, but in terms of power they were inferior to state farms by 140 thousand horsepower. While the tractor fleet of state farms exceeded its capacity by 72 thousand 1 million. l. With., MTS tractor fleet has not yet reached 1 million by 68 thousand. l. With. From this it is clear that state farms have more powerful brands of tractors, but in terms of the total power of the entire tractor fleet, both systems approximately balanced each other, since in addition to MTS, some collective farms had a small number of their own tractors (at 1/V 1932, 9.5 thousand tractors with a power of 98 thousand hp). Consequently, in total, 1,029 mechanical workers worked on collective farm fields in the summer of 1932. l. With.
We consider the percentage of mechanization of traction force to be an indicator of the degree of mechanization of agriculture. labor because replacing the traction power of draft animals with the motive power of a tractor means a transition to a system of working machines (trailer tractor equipment, combine harvesters, etc.) instead of elementary agricultural ones. tools with extensive use of direct manual labor.
Mechanization of agriculture labor of collective farmers, turning it into a type of industrial labor - represents the first task of the MTS.
The second task of the MTS is to involve the broad peasant masses in collective farms and consolidate them in them, especially to exert a powerful influence on the middle peasant masses. By bringing improved mechanized equipment to collective farms and significantly increasing labor productivity there, MTS are the last and most compelling argument for the middle peasant in favor of the obvious advantages of large collective farms over small individual peasant farms.
By plowing solid virgin lands, covering wider areas with their tractors than living traction force could cover, MTS contributed to the expansion of collective farm crops. In 1931, the size of the sown area per yard in the MTS areas increased, for example, in the southeast of the European part of the USSR by 8-10%, while on collective farms outside the MTS areas this increase was by 5%. In the MTS areas, we received higher yields due to better and more timely cultivation of the land, and it is clear that here we had higher profitability of collective farms and collective farmers and greater marketability of collective farms.
The table below, compiled on the basis of materials from the annual reports of collective farms, shows the dependence in the MTS areas of the growth of “net production” (gross income) of the collective farm per 1 worker on the degree of its equipment with means of production, expressed in the amount of material costs per 1 worker. Data are presented as a percentage of the corresponding indicators outside the MTS areas.
This small table testifies to a very important fact - the effectiveness of our investments in agriculture and the expediency of the form of these investments used, namely the mechanization of socialist farms: the higher the collective farms in the MTS areas rise in terms of equipment over other collective farms, the more they surpass them in their profitability, and this also speaks of another circumstance - that the MTS are indeed a faithful instrument for the organizational and economic strengthening of collective farms.
If we take that part of the collective farm income that turns into the income of the collective farmer, and add here the latter’s income from his individual farm, then the total income of the collective farmer in the MTS regions exceeds the income of the individual farmer to a greater extent than outside the MTS regions. To confirm what has been said, we present a table compiled on the basis of more than 300 budget descriptions of collective farmers and individual farmers, carried out by the TsUNKhU in 1930 in the main regions of the USSR (Table 13).
13. Income of a collective farmer
It is clear that the increase in the peasant’s profitability from joining a collective farm, and then from servicing the collective farm with MTS, is a simple and clear reason why MTS played such an important role in changing the attitude of the middle peasant masses towards collectivization and in consolidating their new attitude towards collective farms.
By arming collective farms with advanced machinery, which is the product of heavy industry enterprises, MTS at the same time play the role of intermediaries in the return supply of industry with collective farm products. Thus, MTS represent a genuine form of direct production link between city and countryside, the closest practical business contact between the proletariat and the collective farm peasantry - the best condition for the concrete leadership of this collective farm peasantry on the part of the working class. Therefore, grain procurements carried out by machine-tractor stations in the collective farms they serve are of great importance from the point of view of the development of planning in the relationship between city and countryside and the socialist influence of the proletariat on the collective farm peasantry.
So, MTS is not only an energy center for collective farms, MTS is also the organizer of collective farm production and sales of products to the state, the most important factor in the organizational and economic strengthening of collective farms and the development of collectivization.
With the increasing coverage of collective farms by MTS, the share of state means of production in the form of MTS among all those means to which the labor of the collective farmer is applied is increasing. Until now, this share, if we take into account all collective farms, including those not connected with the MTS, grew throughout the USSR annually at the following rates (in value terms):
|
1929 |
1930 |
1931 |
1932 |
This indicator is the most important for measuring the degree of development of collective farms into enterprises of a consistent socialist type. As the industrialization of the collective farm develops, that is, as it transitions from the “manufacturing” stage to the stage of fully mechanized agriculture. production, more and more of the means of production, to which the labor of the collective farmer is attached, are centralized in the MTS. And at a certain stage of this development, the labor of the collective farmer will, for the most part, be combined with the means of production that already belong to the proletarian state, and this will be a necessary condition for classifying such enterprises (MTS together with the collective farms it serves) to the consistently socialist type. “The completion of the main mechanization of agriculture. production on the basis of MTS means that state means of production in the total mass of technical equipment of collective farms will occupy an overwhelming share. This means that collective farms will work not only on state land, but also with means of production, the bulk of which will belong to the state” 9.
The collective farm peasantry, participating together with the proletariat in the creation of a material and technical base in the form of MTS for agriculture as a branch of industry, coming into ever closer contact in the production process itself with the working class leading it, adopts from it a new, communist attitude towards work, develops under the leadership of the proletariat, socialist initiative and thus re-educated and transformed into a member of a classless society. This is the third task of MTS.
This process of developing collective farms into consistently socialist enterprises, the process of creating a classless society does not happen by itself, but in an intensified class struggle with the remnants of the already defeated kulaks, in an environment of overcoming many difficulties, in a constant struggle against deviations in collective farm construction from the general line of the party: both with “left” bend, as well as with the right-wing practice of gravity and underestimation of the proletarian leadership (in particular in the form of MTS), which represents the main danger at this stage.
V. Economic results and immediate tasks in agriculture
The first huge problem in agriculture, which was basically resolved by the Soviet government, is the grain problem, which underlies all other problems of agriculture. This problem has been largely resolved precisely because the overwhelming majority of grain (more than 3/4) has already become the product of socialist enterprises (state farms and collective farms). Large socialist enterprises took the place of small peasant farms, which, becoming smaller and smaller, could no longer support expanded reproduction and were increasingly lagging behind, especially in their marketable products, from the rapid growth of industry. It is thanks to this that we have so much exceeded the pre-war level of both the total sown area and the grain area. Taking the sown area of all grain crops in 1913 as 100, we will have the following growth curve of sown areas:
The decrease in sown areas in 1922 was caused by the civil war and the shortage of crops in 1921. During the restoration period of the NEP, there was an increase in grain farming as a result of the peasantry's development of the lands conquered by the October Revolution. Beginning in 1926, due to the exhaustion of opportunities for the development of small peasant farming, the growth of sown areas stopped again, but since 1930 the growth of grain areas has resumed, in which grain state farms, grain MTS and, in general, the growth of socialist agriculture played a major role. enterprises.
A slight reduction in grain area in 1932 was caused by a significant increase in industrial crops.
Despite the decrease in the share of grain crops from 87.7% in 1913 and 88.4% in 1921 to 76.3% in 1931, their absolute area this year exceeded the pre-war area, since the total sown area from 105 million in 1931 rose to 134 million. ha in 1931
In terms of yield, the successes of our agriculture are much less, but there were some successes in this less successful area. Comparing the yield of grain crops for the Soviet period from 1920 to 1931 with their yield for the same duration of the period of pre-war Russia from 1900 to 1911, we find that during the Soviet period the average trend (flattened curve) increased from 6.7 to 8 .0 ts, whereas during the tsarist period this curve gave almost no increase - 6.7 and 6.9 c.
In general, we find the same difference in yield trends in the pre-war period and during the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat for individual grain crops; This trend is especially striking for rye.
On the diagram Figure 13 shows the gross grain harvest as a percentage of the pre-war harvest, calculated based on the sown area in 1913 and the average harvest for the five-year period 1909-1913.
Of even greater importance is the marketable grain production (diagram 14), which grew more intensively than its gross harvests due to the increase in the share of socialist farms, which significantly exceed small peasant farms in their marketability.
Nevertheless, the gigantic growth of urban industry, despite the resolution of the grain problem mainly, maintains a certain tension in the grain balance. The reason for this is that, having achieved great success in terms of growth in acreage, we have lagged significantly behind in terms of yield. This circumstance prompted the Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars in a special resolution (dated 29/IX 1932) to outline a number of measures to increase productivity. “Cultivated areas,” the resolution says, “have been sufficiently expanded, and the goal of the first stages of the rise in agriculture—the largest expansion of areas—has already been achieved.” “The time has come when, from expanding the economy in breadth, by increasing the acreage, it is necessary to turn to the struggle for better cultivation of the land, to the struggle for increasing productivity, as the main and central task in the field of agriculture at this stage of development.”
Suspending further expansion of the area of industrial and row crops, this resolution allows for a slight expansion of spring sowing by the spring of 1933 (by 1 million hectares). ha) with so that the area under wheat, oats and barley increases by 2 1/2 million. ha, of which 1 million ha- due to the general increase in area in 1933, and 1 1/2 million. ha- by displacing other less important crops.”
This is our situation with the main problem of agriculture - grain. Resolving it basically allowed us, within the first five-year plan, to resolve another important problem - industrial crops. Due to a decisive improvement in the structure of sown areas, the expansion of the most valuable old technical ones and the inclusion of a number of new technical and row crops, the area under these crops increased three times in 1931 relative to the pre-war level. Taking the sown area in 1913 as 100, we have the following increase in area in 1931: cotton - 310.7, sugar beets - 214, flax - 175, hemp - 188.5, sunflower - 380.6 and tobacco - 315.6 .
The curve of the general growth of technical cultures (diagram 15) shows that a particularly large rise in technical cultures occurred during the years of the widespread socialist offensive against the kulaks and the development of complete collectivization, i.e. in 1929-1931.
The brilliant successes in expanding the area of industrial crops, which created our economic independence from foreign countries (cotton, essential oil plants, etc.), must be followed by a struggle to increase the yield of these crops.
Until now, we have not yet solved the problems of animal husbandry. But we have already come close to solving this problem, firstly, because we have already solved mainly the problems of grain and industrial crops, secondly, because we have created the basis for socialist livestock farming, and thirdly, because we have given the strongest incentives for breeding livestock in individual livestock farms of collective farmers and individual farmers. All this completely ensures a solution to the livestock problem.
In conclusion, let us dwell on the characteristics of the anniversary year of the 15-year era of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a characteristic feature of which is a comprehensive turn from quantitative achievements and indicators to qualitative ones.
We have covered a significant majority (over 13 million) of peasant farms with collective farms. We have expanded the state farms enormously. But we are faced with the still unresolved problem of achieving the same success in quality indicators on state farms and collective farms, in the organizational and economic strengthening of both types of our socialist enterprises, and in ultimately increasing labor productivity in them. Labor organization still remains a pressing task both on state farms and especially on collective farms.
The year 1932 is marked by the assimilation of colossal gains - new socialist forms and new technical achievements, and the overcoming of numerous obstacles along this path. That is why this year the development of collectivization is proceeding mainly in depth, and not in breadth, along the path of organizing the means of production, labor, creating personnel, etc. Under the leadership of the Central Committee, persistent systematic efforts are aimed at resolving the problem of the quality of work of the socialized sector.
From this point of view, it becomes extremely important to strengthen the main form of collective farm construction at this stage, namely the artel, in which we find the easiest and most understandable combination for the peasants of the public interest of the collective farm with the private personal interest of the collective farmer, which constitutes an essential feature of Lenin’s cooperative plan, and which therefore “ more accessible to the consciousness of the broad peasant masses" 10 . One of the most important tasks of the resolutions of the Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars over the past year was to strengthen the artel form of collective farms - the development of not only collective, but also individual livestock farming of collective farmers, gardening, etc.; development of collective farm trade not only in collective farm products, but also in the products of the individual collective farmer’s farm. Of great importance is also the elimination of equalization and impersonality on collective farms, raising the productivity of collective farm labor not only by increasing socialist consciousness, but also by stimulating the personal interest of the collective farmer (piecework, bonuses).
At the present stage of socialist construction in agriculture, along with achievements of world-historical significance, we have a number of serious difficulties, which are difficulties of growth, difficulties in mastering advanced machine technology and advanced large socialist organizations in agriculture. One of the most important problems here is the problem of personnel capable of concretely leading socialist construction in the countryside with real knowledge of the matter. Resolution of the Central Committee on the organization of higher communist agricultural workers. schools will undoubtedly help to resolve the agricultural problem as quickly as possible. frames.
In the last year of the first five-year plan and for the second five-year plan, the main task in the field of agriculture is the organizational and economic strengthening of collective farms and state farms, meaning the application of six historical conditions of Comrade Stalin to agriculture. Only by successfully resolving it can we move forward along the path of further expansion of the socialist sector in agriculture, further deepening the socialist quality of collective farms, along the path of implementing the tasks set by the 17th All-Union Party Conference for the second five-year plan - the elimination of the opposition between city and countryside and the construction of a classless socialist society.
________________________________________________________
1 By the beginning of the 20th century. and Russia there were about 8 million kulak farms (Lenin. The Agrarian Question in Russia by the end of the 19th century, vol. IX, 1st ed., p. 666). By the beginning of the October Revolution, the number of kulak farms increased. During the period of war communism, the kulaks were liquidated by more than half, but by the end of the restoration period of the NEP it reached almost 1 million farms, i.e. 3.9% of all peasant farms. By the summer of 1931, most of the kulak farms had already been liquidated and the kulaks as a class were completely defeated.
2 Lenin, Collection. cit., vol. XVI, p. 151
3 Art. T. Minaev No. 3-4 of the magazine “National Economy of the USSR”
4 Engels, Political Testament, ed. "Red News", pp. 16-17.
5 Engels, The Peasant Question in France and Germany, ed. 1920, p. 87.
6 Lenin, Collection. cit., vol. XVI, p. 472 (art. ed.).
7 Lenin, Collection. cit., vol. XVIII, part 2, art. about Rabkrin, 1st ed.
9 See the editorial of Pravda dated 3/II 1932.
10 Stalin, Questions of Leninism, p. 200.
Kolkhoz(from count lective household Yaystvo) - a legal entity created for agricultural production on the basis of production cooperation, in which the means of production (land, equipment, livestock, seeds, etc.) were jointly owned and under public management of its participants and the results of labor were also distributed by a common decision participants. They became widespread in the USSR; there were also fishing collective farms.
Analogues of collective farms in other countries: kibbutz(Israel), " people's communes"(China during the Great Leap Forward).
Story
The first collective farms
Collective farms in the countryside in Soviet Russia began to emerge starting in 1918. At the same time, there were three forms of such farms:
- An agricultural commune (unitary enterprise), which combined all means of production (buildings, small equipment, livestock) and land use. Consumption and consumer services for the members of the commune were entirely based on the public economy; the distribution was egalitarian: not according to work, but according to eaters. Members of the commune did not have their own private farming. Communes were organized mainly on former landowners' and monasteries' lands.
- An agricultural artel (production cooperative), in which land use, labor and the main means of production were socialized - draft animals, machinery, equipment, productive livestock, outbuildings, etc. The residential building and subsidiary plots (including productive farms) remained in the personal property of the peasants cattle), the size of which was limited by the charter of the artel. Income was distributed according to the quantity and quality of labor (by workdays).
- Partnerships for joint cultivation of the land (TOZ), in which land use and labor were socialized. Livestock, cars, equipment, and buildings remained the personal property of the peasants. Income was distributed not only according to the amount of labor, but also depending on the size of share contributions and the value of the means of production provided to the partnership by each of its members.
As of June 1929, communes made up 6.2% of all collective farms in the country, TOZs - 60.2%, agricultural artels - 33.6%.
In parallel with collective farms, since 1918, state farms were created on the basis of specialized farms (for example, stud farms), in which the state acted as the owner of the means of production and land. State farm workers were paid wages according to standards and in cash; they were hired workers, not co-owners.
Mass collectivization
Since the spring of 1929, events aimed at increasing the number of collective farms were carried out in the countryside - in particular, Komsomol campaigns “for collectivization”. Mainly through the use of administrative measures, it was possible to achieve a significant increase in collective farms (mainly in the form of TOZs).
This caused sharp resistance from the peasantry. According to data from various sources cited by O. V. Khlevnyuk, in January 1930, 346 mass protests were registered, in which 125 thousand people took part, in February - 736 (220 thousand), in the first two weeks of March - 595 ( about 230 thousand), not counting Ukraine, where 500 settlements were affected by unrest. In March 1930, a total of 1,642 were registered in Belarus, the Central Black Earth Region, the Lower and Middle Volga regions, the North Caucasus, Siberia, the Urals, the Leningrad, Moscow, Western, Ivanovo-Voznesensk regions, the Crimea and Central Asia. mass peasant uprisings, in which at least 750-800 thousand people took part. In Ukraine at this time, more than a thousand settlements were already engulfed in unrest.
Fighting kinks
On March 2, 1930, Stalin’s letter “Dizziness from Success” was published in the Soviet press, in which the blame for “excesses” during collectivization was placed on local leaders.
On March 14, 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On the fight against distortions of the party line in the collective farm movement.” A government directive was sent to the localities to soften the course due to the threat of a “wide wave of rebel peasant uprisings” and the destruction of “half of the grassroots workers.” After Stalin’s harsh article and the bringing of individual leaders to justice, the pace of collectivization decreased, and the artificially created collective farms and communes began to collapse.
Collective farm charter
Most communes and TOZs switched to Charter of the agricultural artel. The artel became the main, and then the only form of collective farms in agriculture. Subsequently, the name “agricultural artel” lost its meaning, and in the current legislation, party and government documents the name “collective farm” was used.
The distribution of products was carried out in the following sequence: sale of products to the state at fixed, extremely low purchase prices, return of seed and other loans to the state, settlement with MTS for the work of machine operators, then filling of seeds and fodder for collective farm livestock, creation of an insurance seed and fodder fund. Everything else could be divided among collective farmers in accordance with the number of workdays they worked. One day worked on a collective farm could be counted as two or half a day, depending on the severity and importance of the work performed and the qualifications of the collective farmers. Blacksmiths, machine operators, and management staff of the collective farm administration earned the most workdays [ ] . Collective farmers earned the least in auxiliary work.
To stimulate collective farm labor, a mandatory minimum of workdays was established in 1939 (from 60 to 100 for each able-bodied collective farmer). Those who did not produce it were dropped out of the collective farm and lost all rights, including the right to a personal plot.
The state constantly monitored the use by collective farms of the land fund allocated to them and compliance with livestock standards. Periodic inspections of the size of household plots were carried out and excess land was confiscated. In 1939 alone, 2.5 million hectares of land were cut off from the peasants, after which all remnants of farmsteads were liquidated and resettled in collective farm villages.
As a rule, collective farmers did not need a passport to register. Moreover, peasants had the right to live without registration in cases where other categories of citizens were required to register. For example, Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated September 10, 1940 No. 1667 “On approval of the Regulations on Passports” established that collective farmers, individual farmers and other persons living in rural areas where a passport system has not been introduced, arriving in the cities of their region for a period of up to 5 days, live without registration (other citizens, except military personnel, who also did not have passports, were required to register within 24 hours). The same resolution exempted collective farmers and individual farmers temporarily working during the sowing or harvesting campaign on state farms and MTS within their district, even if a passport system had been introduced there, from the obligation to reside with a passport.
According to the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 2193 of September 19, 1934 “On the registration of passports of collective farmers-otkhodniks entering work in enterprises without agreements with economic authorities”, in the areas provided for by the Instruction on the issuance of passports to citizens of the USSR: in Moscow, Leningrad and Kharkov, and also, in a 100-kilometer strip around Moscow and Leningrad and in a 50-kilometer strip around Kharkov, a collective farmer-otkhodnik (a peasant who went to work at industrial enterprises, construction sites, etc., but retained membership in the collective farm) could not be hired without an agreement with the economic body registered with the collective farm board, otherwise than with a passport (it was already noted above that in these areas, collective farmers were issued passports) and a certificate from the collective farm board about its consent to the collective farmer’s departure. Registration in this case was carried out for a period of three months.
It should be noted that the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated March 17, 1933 “On the procedure for otkhodnichestvo from collective farms” established that a collective farmer, without permission, without an agreement registered with the collective farm board with the “economic body” - the enterprise where he got a job, left the collective farm, subject to expulsion from the collective farm.
Thus, a peasant could leave the collective farm, maintaining the status of a collective farmer, only by notifying the collective farm board.
At the same time, obstacles on the part of local authorities and collective farm organizations to the departure of peasants entailed criminal liability for the relevant leaders [ ] .
In 1970, the “Instructions on the procedure for registration and discharge of citizens by the executive committees of rural and township Soviets of Working People’s Deputies”, approved by the Order of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, stated that “as an exception, it is permitted to issue passports to residents of rural areas working in enterprises and institutions, and also citizens who, due to the nature of the work performed, require identification documents" [ ] .
Finally, in 1974, a new “Regulation on the passport system in the USSR” was adopted (approved by Resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers of August 28, 1974 N 677), according to which passports began to be issued to all citizens of the USSR from the age of 16, for the first time including village residents and collective farmers. Full certification began on January 1, 1976 and ended on December 31, 1981. In six years, 50 million passports were issued in rural areas.
Collective farms after Stalin's death
Most collective farms in the 1990s ceased to exist or were transformed into economic societies, production cooperatives, partnerships or peasant (farm) farms (analogous to a private unitary enterprise).
In the current Russian legislation (Federal Law No. 193-FZ On Agricultural Cooperation), the term “collective farm” is used as a synonym for the term “agricultural (fishing) artel” - a type of agricultural production cooperative, which is characterized by the pooling of property contributions with their transfer to a mutual fund cooperatives and personal labor participation. At the same time, in everyday life the word “collective farm” is often still used to designate any agricultural producers - legal entities, regardless of their organizational and legal form, and often to designate rural areas in general.
The project to revive collective farms, as a tool for eliminating unemployment and uplifting the countryside, was discussed back in 2008 as part of the global program of Self-sufficient Russia, but the initiative, due to the economic crisis of 2008, was postponed until “better times.”
On May 27, 2016, the Governor of the Irkutsk region, Sergei Levchenko, announced plans to revive collective farms in the remote northern territories of the region. Farms will be created in remote northern areas to unite local farmers and entrepreneurs. .
Collective farm and collective farm life in art
In the 1930-1960s, many songs, films and books promoted life on collective farms, talking about the good and friendly work of collective farmers, where the heroes were satisfied with their life and work.
In cinema
- Kuban Cossacks (1949) - the life of collective farmers is shown in an embellished, ostentatious manner
- Guest from Kuban (1955) - shows the life of a collective farm, harvesting, the work of MTS machine operators
- Ivan Brovkin on the virgin land (1958) - the life of a virgin state farm is shown
- Virgin Soil Upturned (1959) - shows the process of formation of collective farms, collectivization
- Quarrel in Lukashi (1959) - shows the life of a collective farm in the late 50s.
- A simple story (1960) - shows the life of a collective farm at the turn of the 1950s - 1960s.
- Chairman (1964) - shows the life of a collective farm in the difficult post-war years
- Kalina red (1973) - the work of collective farmers (driver, machine operator) is shown
- Farewell, Gyulsary! (2008) - collective farm drama in Soviet Kazakhstan of the 50s
- “Virgin soil upturned” (1932/1959) - novel by M. A. Sholokhov
- “Prokhor XVII and others” (1954) - collection of satirical stories
The collectivization of agriculture in the USSR was the process of uniting small individual peasant farms into large collective farms through production cooperation.
Most leaders of the Soviet Union followed Lenin's thesis that small-scale peasant farming "daily, hourly, spontaneously and on a mass scale" gives birth to capitalism. Therefore, they considered it dangerous to base the dictatorship of the proletariat for a long time on two different foundations - state (socialist) large-scale industry and small individual peasant farming. The opinion of the minority, who believed, following Bukharin, that an individual peasant, including a wealthy one (kulak), could “grow” into socialism, was rejected after the boycott of grain procurements in 1927. The kulak was declared the main internal enemy of socialism and Soviet power. The economic necessity of collectivization was justified by the fact that the individual peasant was unable to meet the demand of the growing urban population with food, and industry with agricultural raw materials. The introduction of the card system in cities in 1928 strengthened this position. In a narrow circle of party and state leadership, collectivization was seen as the main lever for pumping funds from the countryside for industrialization.
Forced industrialization and complete collectivization became two sides of the same course towards creating an independent military-industrial power with a maximally nationalized economy.
The beginning of complete collectivization. 1929
On the 12th anniversary of the October Revolution, Stalin published an article in Pravda, “The Year of the Great Turning Point,” in which he set the task of speeding up collective farm construction and carrying out “complete collectivization.” In 1928-1929, when under conditions of “emergency” the pressure on individual farmers sharply increased, and collective farmers were provided with benefits, the number of collective farms increased 4 times - from 14.8 thousand in 1927 to 70 thousand by the fall of 1929 The middle peasants went to collective farms, hoping to wait out the difficult times there. Collectivization was carried out through the simple addition of peasant means of production. Collective farms of the “manufacturing type” were created, not equipped with modern agricultural machinery. These were mainly TOZs - partnerships for joint cultivation of land, the simplest and temporary form of a collective farm. The November (1929) plenum of the Central Committee of the Party set the main task in the countryside - to carry out complete collectivization in a short time. The plenum planned to send 25 thousand workers (“twenty-five thousand workers”) to the villages “to organize” collective farms. Factory teams that sent their workers to the villages were obliged to take patronage over the created collective farms. To coordinate the work of government institutions created for the purpose of restructuring agriculture (Zernotrest, Kolkhoz Center, Tractor Center, etc.), the plenum decided to create a new Union People's Commissariat - the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, headed by Ya.A. Yakovlev, Marxist agrarian, journalist. Finally, the November plenum of the Central Committee ridiculed the “prophecies” of Bukharin and his supporters (Rykov, Tomsky, Ugarov, etc.) about the inevitable famine in the country, Bukharin, as the “leader and instigator” of the “right deviation”, was removed from the Politburo of the Central Committee, the rest were warned that at the slightest attempt to fight against the line of the Central Committee, “organization measures” will be used against them.
On January 5, 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm construction.” It planned to complete the complete collectivization of the grain regions in stages by the end of the five-year plan. In the main grain regions (North Caucasus, Middle and Lower Volga) it was planned to be completed in the fall of 1930, in other grain regions - a year later. The resolution outlined the creation of agricultural artels in areas of complete collectivization “as a transitional form of collective farm to the commune.” At the same time, the inadmissibility of admitting kulaks to collective farms was emphasized. The Central Committee called for organizing socialist competition to create collective farms and resolutely fight “all attempts” to restrain collective farm construction. As in November, the Central Committee did not say a word about observing the principle of voluntariness, encouraging arbitrariness by silence.
At the end of January - beginning of February 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted two more resolutions and instructions on the liquidation of the kulaks. It was divided into three categories: terrorists, resisters and the rest. Everyone was subject to arrest or exile with confiscation of property. “Dekulakization became an integral part of the collectivization process.
Progress of collectivization
The first stage of complete collectivization, which began in November 1929, lasted until the spring of 1930. The forces of local authorities and the “twenty-five thousanders” began the forced unification of individual farmers into communes. Not only the means of production, but also personal subsidiary plots and property were socialized. The forces of the OGPU and the Red Army evicted “dispossessed” peasants, which included all the dissatisfied. By decision of the secret commissions of the Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, they were sent to special settlements of the OGPU to work according to economic plans, mainly in logging, construction, and mining. According to official data, more than 320 thousand households (more than 1.5 million people) were dispossessed; According to modern historians, about 5 million people were dispossessed and exiled throughout the country. The discontent of the peasants resulted in mass slaughter of livestock, flight to the cities, and anti-collective farm uprisings. If in 1929 there were more than a thousand of them, then in January-March 1930 there were more than two thousand. Army units and aviation took part in suppressing the rebellious peasants. The country was on the brink of civil war.
The mass indignation of peasants over forced collectivization forced the country's leadership to temporarily ease the pressure. Moreover, on behalf of the Politburo of the Central Committee, in Pravda on March 2, 1930, Stalin published the article “Dizziness from Success,” in which he condemned the “excesses” and blamed the local authorities and workers sent to create collective farms for them. Following the article, Pravda published a resolution of the Central Committee of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (b) dated March 14, 1930, “On the fight against distortions of the party line in the collective farm movement.” Among the “distortions”, the violation of the principle of voluntariness was put in first place, then the “dekulakization” of the middle peasants and the poor, looting, wholesale collectivization, jumping from the artel to the commune, the closure of churches and markets. After the resolution, the first echelon of local collective farm organizers were subjected to repression. At the same time, many of the created collective farms were dissolved, their number was reduced by approximately half by the summer of 1930, they united a little more than 1/5 of the peasant farms.
However, in the autumn of 1930, a new, more cautious stage of complete collectivization began. From now on, only agricultural artels were created, allowing the existence of personal, subsidiary farms. In the summer of 1931, the Central Committee explained that “complete collectivization” cannot be understood primitively, as “universal”, that its criterion is the involvement of at least 70% of farms in grain farming and more than 50% in other areas into collective farms. By that time, collective farms already united about 13 million peasant households (out of 25 million), i.e. more than 50% of their total number. And in the grain regions, almost 80% of the peasants were on collective farms. In January 1933, the country's leadership announced the eradication of exploitation and the victory of socialism in the countryside as a result of the liquidation of the kulaks.
In 1935, the Second All-Union Congress of Collective Farmers took place. He adopted a new Model Charter of the agricultural artel (instead of the 1930 Charter). According to the Charter, land was assigned to collective farms for “eternal use”; the basic forms of labor organization on collective farms (teams), its accounting and payment (by workdays), and the size of personal subsidiary plots (LPH) were established. The Charter of 1935 legislated new production relations in the countryside, which historians called “early socialist”. With the transition of the collective farm to the new Charter (1935-1936), the collective farm system in the USSR finally took shape.
Results of collectivization
By the end of the 30s. collective farms united more than 90% of peasants. Collective farms were serviced by agricultural machinery, which was concentrated on state machine and tractor stations(MTS).
The creation of collective farms did not, contrary to expectations, lead to an increase in agricultural production. In the 1936-1940s gross agricultural output remained at the level of 1924-1928, i.e. pre-collective farm village. And at the end of the first five-year plan, it turned out to be lower than in 1928. The production of meat and dairy products sharply decreased, and for many years, in the figurative expression of N.S. Khrushchev, “virgin meat land” was formed. At the same time, collective farms made it possible to significantly increase state procurement of agricultural products, especially grain. This led to the abolition of the rationing system in cities in 1935 and the increasing export of bread.
The course towards maximum extraction of agricultural products from the countryside led in 1932-1933. to mortal famine in many agricultural areas of the country. There is no official data on the victims of artificial famine. Modern Russian historians estimate their numbers differently: from 3 to 10 million people.
The mass exodus from the village exacerbated the difficult socio-political situation in the country. To stop this process, as well as to identify fugitive “kulaks” at the turn of 1932-1933. A passport regime with registration in a specific place of residence was introduced. From now on, it was possible to move around the country only if you had a passport or a document officially replacing it. Passports were issued to residents of cities, urban-type settlements, and state farm workers. Collective farmers and individual peasants were not issued passports. This attached them to the land and collective farms. From that time on, it was possible to officially leave the village through state-organized recruitment for five-year construction projects, study, service in the Red Army, and work as machine operators in MTS. The regulated process of forming workers has led to a decrease in the growth rate of the urban population, the number of workers and employees. According to the 1939 census, with a total population of the USSR of 176.6 million people (historians put the figure at 167.3 million), 33% of the population lived in cities (versus 18%, according to the 1926 census).