COLLECTIVE FARMS (collective farms, agricultural artels), in the USSR, large semi-state agricultural enterprises in which the labor of peasants and all the main means of production (inventory, outbuildings, commercial and draft livestock, etc.) were socialized; the land occupied by the collective farm was state property and was assigned to the collective farm for indefinite (eternal) use. Created mainly in 1929-37 during the process of collectivization of individual peasant farms with the aim of establishing state control over the production and distribution of agricultural products, replacing the natural and small-scale production system with large-scale socialized commercial production of agricultural products. Along with state farms, they remained the main form of agricultural production in the socialist economy. In 1917-29, the term “collective farm” was often used in relation to any form of collective farming - agricultural communes, partnerships for joint cultivation of land, agricultural, fishing, hunting and other cooperatives.
The main form of collective farms, by the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the pace of collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm construction” (January 1930), was recognized as an agricultural artel with a high degree of socialization of labor and means of production, which actually excluded the possibility of voluntary unification of commodity farms (unlike cooperatives based on voluntary association of production, sales or credit operations). With the creation of collective farms, residential and outbuildings in the peasant yard, small implements, and livestock remained in the personal property of the peasants in the amount provided for by the Model Charter of the Agricultural Artel (adopted in March 1930, in a new edition in February 1935), and a small plot of land was in use land for personal farming. Peasants were accepted into collective farms from the age of 16, except for those who were classified as kulaks, as well as persons who did not have voting rights (an exception under certain conditions could be made for their children).
An ordinary collective farm of the early 1930s was an enterprise organized on the basis of peasants' implements and draft horses, which, as a rule, covered one village and had an average arable area of about 400 hectares. The main form of labor organization on the collective farm was a permanent production team - a collective of collective farmers, to whom a plot of land and the necessary means of production were assigned for a long period of time. Mechanized cultivation of the land on the collective farm was carried out with the help of state enterprises - machine and tractor stations (MTS; created since 1929). Formally, the highest governing body on the collective farm was the general meeting of collective farmers, which elected the chairman, board and audit commission. In fact, all important decisions were made under strict administrative pressure and control of party and government bodies. People were elected to the position of collective farm chairman on the recommendation or on the direct instructions of district party committees, often city residents who understood little about agricultural production. With the introduction of the passport system in the USSR (resolution of the Central Executive Committee and Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated December 27, 1932), collective farmers were excluded from the number of persons receiving passports, which made it difficult for them to move freely and find employment outside the collective farm.
The relationship between collective farms and the state was initially built on the basis of contract agreements. The size of the grain supply was determined by the state plan, which was drawn up in the summer in accordance with the harvest plans and was often changed upward. In January 1933, mandatory, tax-like supplies of collective farms to the state (procurement) of grain, rice, sunflowers, potatoes, meat, milk, wool, as well as per-hectare (from 1936 - income) taxation were introduced. It was not the barn yield that was taken into account, but the biological one (it was 20-30% higher than the actual threshing). State procurement prices, as a rule, did not exceed collective farm costs. The remaining main products or some minor types of agricultural products (down, feathers, bristles, etc.) after mandatory deliveries could be sold by collective farms to the state at fixed (higher than procurement) prices. The sale of agricultural products to the state was encouraged by granting the collective farm and collective farmers the right to buy scarce industrial goods at purchasing fund prices. Another channel for the redistribution of agricultural products in favor of the state was the obligation of collective farms to pay for the work of MTS with grain; as the number of MTS grew, the size of payment grew (by 1937 - about 1/3 of the harvest).
Among the members of the collective farm, the products were distributed by workday on the basis of the residual principle: after settlement with the state for procurement, return of seed loans, payment of MTS, renewal of seed and fodder funds and sale of part of the products to the state or on the collective farm market. The cash income of the collective farm was distributed according to the same principle. Until the mid-1950s, the average payment for a collective farm workday was about 36% of the average daily wage of an industrial worker, and annual earnings were 3 times less than on state farms and 4 times less than in industry.
Most of the food products consumed by the collective farmers themselves, with the exception of bread, were provided by personal plots (they became the only source of food for peasants in lean years, when workdays were practically not paid). Part of the livestock products produced there went to the state fund through in-kind agricultural taxes and fees or was sold by peasants on the market. Therefore, the state, on the one hand, was interested in the development of household plots, on the other hand, it was afraid of this development, seeing in household plots a threat to the revival of private property and the main reason for the diversion of peasants from working on collective farms. Resolutions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR “On measures to protect public lands of collective farms from squandering” and “On measures for the development of public livestock farming on collective farms” (both 1939) ordered the cutting off of “surpluses” from household plots in excess of established norms (in the same year 2.5 million hectares of land were cut off) and the confiscation of “extra” livestock from collective farmers was intensified. An effective form of limiting the size of personal plots was taxation.
The Great Patriotic War dealt a heavy blow to collective farms. Cultivated areas in 1941-1945 decreased by 20%, and the provision of collective farms with basic production assets decreased by a quarter. The number of cattle was less than 80% of the pre-war number, and the number of pigs was about half. Women and teenagers became the main workforce on collective farms. Brigades formed from city residents began to be sent to help collective farmers to harvest the harvest. Despite the departure of most of the male population of collective farms to the front, wartime difficulties, a decrease in gross grain harvests and the loss of grain regions occupied by German troops, collective farms in 1941-44 prepared about 70 million tons of grain (in the 1st World War it was prepared and purchased about 23 million tons).
In the late 1940s - early 1950s, thanks to the beginning of the implementation of large-scale government programs aimed at strengthening the material and technical base and improving the organization of collective farms, agricultural production was restored. In 1952 it was 101% of the level of 1940. However, the rural economy was still far from recovering from the damage caused by the war and the mobilization measures of the state in the first post-war years. The crop failure of 1953 and the threat of a new famine forced the government to disburse a significant part of the state reserve to cover food needs.
After the death of I.V. Stalin in 1953 and the abolition of repressive measures aimed at forcing peasants to work, the new Soviet leadership, on the initiative of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR G.M. Malenkov, made an attempt to overcome the crisis of agricultural production to increase the interest of collective farmers in the results of their labor by weakening putting pressure on collective farms, strengthening their economic independence, and supporting private farms. In September 1953, the plenum of the CPSU Central Committee for the first time raised the question of the need to improve the living standards of collective farmers and called on local authorities to stop the practice of infringing on their interests in relation to subsidiary farming. All arrears on mandatory supplies of livestock products to the state were written off from collective farmers' farms. The standards for state supplies of agricultural products were significantly reduced, and procurement and purchasing prices were significantly increased. Instead of an income tax on personal plots, as a result of which the most zealous peasants found themselves at a loss, a tax was introduced on the area of household plots at a fixed rate, regardless of the size of the total amount of income. Tax amounts were reduced in 1953 by 50% and in 1954 by 30% for farms that did not have cows. At the same time, for families of collective farmers, in which individual members did not work the established minimum workdays in the past year, the tax was increased by half. The resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR “On changing the practice of agricultural planning” (9.3.1955) obliged local authorities to communicate to collective farms only general indicators on the volume of procurement; collective farms received the right to carry out specific production planning at their own discretion. The new Charter of the agricultural artel of 1956 gave collective farms the right to determine the size of peasants' plots, the number of livestock that were in personal ownership, establish a minimum of workdays, and make changes to the Charter of the agricultural artel in relation to local conditions. On collective farms, monthly advances of labor and a form of cash payment at differentiated rates were introduced. In the summer of 1957, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a joint resolution “On the abolition of mandatory supplies of agricultural products to the state by the farms of collective farmers, workers and employees” (came into force on January 1, 1958). The supply of agricultural products began to be carried out in the form of government procurement based on long-term plans with the distribution of planned targets by year. The issuance of interest-free cash advances was established. At the same time, the leaders of the state and the CPSU, mainly N. S. Khrushchev (continued reforming agriculture after the release of Malenkov from the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers in January 1955), relied on achieving a sharp rise in agriculture by creating large farms and expanding production: grain - due to virgin land development (since 1954), livestock farming - due to the widespread spread of fodder corn crops (since 1955). The consolidation of collective farms and their transformation into state farms was accompanied by the centralization of management, agrotechnical, engineering services, and the construction of central estates; hundreds of thousands of villages were declared “unpromising.” Agricultural equipment of the abolished MTS was sold to collective farms (according to the law “On the further strengthening of the collective farm system and the reorganization of machine and tractor stations” dated March 31, 1958). This justified, but hasty and poorly prepared measure led to exorbitant financial costs, undermining the repair base of collective farms, and a massive “drain” of machine operators from the village.
“Field work can’t wait!” Poster. Artist V.I. Govorkov. 1954.
During 1953-58, gross agricultural output increased almost 1.5 times, livestock production doubled, the volume of commercial agricultural products increased 1.8 times (in 1953-1958, cash and natural income of collective farmers increased 1.6 times, the issuance of money for the workday increased threefold), but in 1959 the grain harvest began to decline, including on virgin lands. For the first time, grain consumption exceeded state procurements (in 1963, management was forced to purchase it abroad; this practice became systematic). In order to fulfill inflated plans for meat and dairy products (in 1957 the task was set to catch up with the United States in the next 3-4 years in the production of meat, butter and milk per capita), collective farms began to resort to codicils, as well as forcibly buying out cows from peasants, threatening not to allocate them feed and pasture. In turn, the peasants began to slaughter their livestock. The feed problem worsened: the “corn campaign” failed (it was carried out everywhere, including in climatically unsuitable zones), and traditional perennial forage grasses were plowed up. In 1956-60, the number of livestock on personal plots decreased noticeably (from 35.3% in relation to the total number of productive livestock in the country to 23.3%), on collective farms it increased slightly (from 45.7% to 49.8%). ). By purchasing equipment from MTS (often forcibly), collective farms fell into debt. All this led to a deterioration in the food situation in the country. In 1961, a serious shortage of meat, milk, butter, and bread arose in the USSR. Trying to solve the food problem, the government in 1962 increased purchase prices for meat and poultry by an average of 35% and accordingly increased retail prices for meat and dairy products by 25-30%, which led to unrest in a number of cities, including Novocherkassk (see Novocherkassk events 1962).
Measures were required aimed at intensifying agricultural production based on the widespread use of fertilizers, the development of irrigation, comprehensive mechanization and the introduction of scientific achievements and best practices to quickly increase agricultural production. They received serious attention at the plenums of the Central Committee (December 1963, February 1964, March 1965). Since the mid-1960s, attempts have been made again to increase the productivity of collective farm production by increasing the material interest of collective farmers and expanding the economic independence of collective farms. The plan for mandatory grain purchases was reduced and declared unchanged for the next 10 years. Purchasing prices for agricultural products have been increased by 1.5-2 times. A 50% premium was provided for above-plan production, and prices for equipment and spare parts were reduced. All debts were written off from collective farms. The number of reporting indicators sent down from above has been reduced. Collective farms were given the right to independent planning within the limits of state assignments. This led to an increase in the production of agricultural products and had a positive impact on trade at collective farm markets. The supply of meat, dairy products, vegetables, and fruits has increased, and prices have noticeably decreased. In 1964, collective farmers received the right to state pensions for old age (men at 65 years old, women at 60 years old), disability and in the event of loss of a breadwinner. In accordance with the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated May 16, 1966 “On increasing the material interest of collective farmers in the development of social production,” collective farms began to switch to guaranteed monthly wages, based on the tariff rates of the corresponding categories of state farm workers (in 1969, more than 95% of collective farms switched) . To ensure a guarantee of wages, the State Bank was allowed to provide loans (if collective farms lacked their own funds) for a period of 5 years with repayment starting after 3 years. The new Model Charter (1969) provided for the establishment of a standardized working day on collective farms, the introduction of paid holidays, disability benefits and other measures to expand the rights of collective farmers. The timing of agricultural work was optimized, and the supply of mineral fertilizers increased sharply. However, in general, the reforms of the 1960s did not lead to the expected increase in the efficiency of the collective farm system, since the payment of collective farmers was not associated with an increase in the volume of agricultural products and a decrease in its cost.
In an effort to stimulate the labor productivity of collective farmers, the state in the late 1970s began to encourage collective contracting and the creation of intensive technology teams in which wages depended on the final result. Since 1976, in accordance with the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR “On measures to further improve the passport system in the USSR” (1974), collective farmers, like all Soviet citizens, were issued passports (since 1959, collective farmers who went to work in the city were issued temporary passports) . The steady increase in state investment in the development of collective farms and agriculture in general (3.5 billion rubles in the mid-1960s, 55 billion rubles in the mid-1980s) was accompanied by a decrease in returns from them. Cash and equipment supplied to the village were used in the form of indivisible funds that were not economically related to the material interests of collective farmers. And the increase in funding was accompanied by increased centralization and, as a consequence, bureaucratization in the sphere of regulation of agricultural production. The annual growth rate of agricultural output gradually decreased: 4.3% in 1966-70, 2.9% in 1971-75, 1.8% in 1976-80, 1.1% in 1981-85. By 1980, the level of profitability on collective farms was 0.4%, the production of 7 of the 13 main types of agricultural products was unprofitable. The annual attraction of labor from the cities to help collective farms helped in harvesting, but could not bring the collective farm system out of the crisis. The 1982 Food Program provided for the improvement of the agricultural sector based on the industrial modernization of agricultural production, but did not envisage a qualitative transformation of the collective and state farm system. Therefore, it had only a temporary effect thanks to large financial injections into the agro-industrial complex.
In the second half of the 1980s, a course was set for the large-scale and widespread introduction of collective, family and individual rental contracts, but the process of “de-peasantization” of the village went too far and these measures did not help. During the implementation of radical market reforms in the 1990s, the cost of agricultural machinery, fuel, and electricity constantly grew, and the price of finished products from collective farms fell; In connection with the government's policy towards the development of farms, state support for collective farms ceased. In the early 1990s, many collective and state farms were reorganized into share partnerships (joint stock companies) with full or limited liability, some of them disintegrated, 2.9 thousand (8.8% of all agricultural enterprises) were transformed into agricultural cooperatives with the name retained "collective farm".
Source: Documents show. From the history of the village on the eve and during collectivization of 1927-1932. M., 1996; The tragedy of the Soviet village. Collectivization and dispossession. 1927-1939: Documents and materials. M., 1999-2006. T. 1-5.
Lit.: Venzher V. G. Collective farm system at the present stage. M., 1966; Zelenin I. E. Agrarian policy of N. S. Khrushchev and agriculture. M., 2001; Rogalina N. L. Collective farms in the system of state socialism in the USSR (1930s - 1970s) // Economic history. Yearbook. 2003. M., 2004.
The collective and state farm system of agricultural production has become a thing of history. More than 15 years have passed since that time. Modern people who have not lived no longer understand how a state farm differed from a collective farm, what the difference is. We will try to answer this question.
How was the collective farm different from the state farm? The only difference is the name?
As for the differences, from a legal point of view the difference is huge. If we speak in modern legal terminology, these are completely different organizational and legal forms. Approximately as much as today is the difference between the legal forms of LLC (limited liability company) and MUP (municipal unitary enterprise).
A state farm (Soviet economy) is a state enterprise, all the means of production of which belonged to it. The chairman was appointed by the local district executive committee. All workers were government employees, received a certain salary under a contract and were considered public sector employees.
A collective farm (collective farm) is a private enterprise, although this sounds paradoxical in a state in which there was no private property. It was formed as a joint farm of many local peasants. Future collective farmers did not want, of course, to give up their property for common use. Voluntary entry was out of the question, except for those peasants who had nothing. They, on the contrary, happily went to collective farms, since this was the only way out for them at that time. The director of the collective farm was appointed nominally by the general meeting, in fact, as in the state farm, by the district executive committee.
Were there any real differences?
If you ask a worker living at that time about how a collective farm differs from a state farm, the answer will be unequivocal: absolutely nothing. At first glance, it is difficult to disagree with this. Both collective farms and state farms sold their agricultural products to only one buyer - the state. Or rather, officially the state farm simply handed over all the products to him, and they were bought from the collective farm.
Was it possible not to sell goods to the state? It turned out that no. The state distributed the volume of mandatory purchases and the price of goods. After sales, which sometimes turned into free change, the collective farms had practically nothing left.
State Farm - a budget enterprise
Let's simulate the situation. Let's imagine that today the state is again creating both economic and legal forms. The state farm is a state-owned enterprise, all workers are state employees with official wages. A collective farm is a private association of several producers. What is the difference between a collective farm and a state farm? Legal property. But there are several nuances:
- The state itself determines how much goods it will buy. Apart from him, it is prohibited to sell to anyone else.
- The cost is also determined by the state, that is, it can buy products at a price below cost at a loss to collective farms.
- The government is not obliged to pay wages to collective farmers and take care of their well-being, since they are considered owners.
Let's ask the question: "Who will actually live easier in such conditions?" In our opinion, to the state farm workers. At least they are limited from the arbitrariness of the state, since they work completely for it.
Of course, in conditions of market ownership and economic pluralism, collective farmers actually turn into modern farmers - the very “kulaks” who were once liquidated, forming new socialist enterprises on their economic ruins. Thus, to the question “how does a collective farm differ from a state farm” (or rather, it was different before), the answer is this: the formal form of ownership and sources of formation. We'll talk about this in more detail below.
How collective and state farms were formed
To better understand the difference between a collective farm and a state farm, it is necessary to find out how they were formed.
The first state farms were formed due to:
- Large former landowner farms. Of course, serfdom was abolished, but large enterprises, a legacy of past times, worked by inertia.
- At the expense of former kulak and middle peasant farms.
- From large farms that were formed after dispossession.
Of course, the process of dispossession occurred before collectivization, but it was then that the first communes were created. Most of them, of course, went bankrupt. This is understandable: in place of the hardworking and zealous “kulaks” and middle peasants, they recruited workers from the poor who did not want and did not know how to work. But of those who did survive to see the collectivization process, the first state farms were formed.
In addition to them, there were large farms at the time of collectivization. Some miraculously survived the process of dispossession, others have already managed to develop after these tragic events in our history. Both of them fell under a new process - collectivization, that is, the actual expropriation of property.
Collective farms were formed by “merging” many small private farms into a single large one. That is, nominally no one canceled the property. However, in fact, people with their property became a state object. We can conclude that the practically communist system returned serfdom in a slightly modified version.
"Collective farms" today
Thus, we answered the question of how a collective farm differs from a state farm. Since 1991, all these forms have been eliminated. However, you should not think that they actually do not exist. Many farmers also began to unite into single farms. And this is the same collective farm. Only, unlike socialist predecessors, such farms are formed on a voluntary basis. And they are not obliged to sell all their products to the state at low prices. But today, on the contrary, there is another problem - the state does not interfere in their lives in any way, and without real help from it, many enterprises cannot get out of debt under loan obligations for years.
We definitely need to find a middle ground, when the state will help farmers, but not rob them. And then food crises will not threaten us, and prices in stores for food will be acceptable.
The NEP, which replaced “war communism,” created conditions for the rapid restoration of the productive forces of the Russian countryside, undermined by the revolutionary upheavals of 1917 and the civil war.
So, if in the 1921/22 business year agricultural production was only 46.8% of the level of 1913, then by 1926/27. the level of 1913 was practically reached. Nevertheless, the development of the Russian village during the NEP period was very contradictory.
The country's population grew faster than gross grain harvests grew. So in 1928/29 there were only 484.4 kg of bread per capita compared to 584 kg in pre-war times.
There was a decline in the marketability of agriculture. If before the war half of the grain was collected on landowner and kulak farms, and the grown grain went to the domestic and foreign markets, then the “middleization” of the countryside contributed to reduction in the share of grain produced for sale. The middle peasants collected 85% of all grain, most of which (70%) they consumed themselves. In 1927/28, the state was able to procure only 630 million poods. grains against the pre-war 1300.6 million. Bread exports decreased by 20 times. “By eating most of their grain harvest...” wrote the Western historian M. Levin in his book “Russian Peasants and Soviet Power,” “the peasants, without realizing it, tightened the noose around the neck of the regime and tightened it ever tighter, as the situation developed from bad to worse.” to even worse."
The country has constantly faced grain procurement crises, the reasons for which were the naturalization of peasant farming and low grain prices. The grain procurement crisis of 1927/28 turned out to be especially acute. The party leadership was taken by surprise: despite the good harvest, peasants, due to lower purchasing prices, supplied the state with only 300 million poods of grain (instead of 430 million as in the previous year). There was nothing to export. The country found itself without the currency necessary for industrialization.
To get out of this situation, the leadership of the USSR resorted to urgent measures reminiscent of food appropriation. Top party leaders went to regions producing high grain yields: I.V. Stalin - to Siberia, A.A. Andreev, N.M. Shvernik, A.I. Mikoyan, P.P. Postyshev and S.V. Kosior - to the Volga, Ural and North Caucasus. The party sent “investigative officers” and “work detachments” to the villages, who were tasked with cleaning up village councils and party cells and, enlisting the support of the poor, finding hidden surpluses and punishing the perpetrators.
The authorities blamed the current situation on the kulaks who refused to hand over the bread the country needed for industrialization. However, emergency measures (primarily the forcible seizure of grain) affected not only the kulaks, but the middle peasantry.
Soviet poster
The following year, the situation with grain procurements repeated itself, forcing the top party leadership to draw a number of conclusions. In his speeches in May-June 1928 I.V. Stalin he said about the need to create “supports of socialism” in the countryside - collective farms and machine and tractor stations (MTS), capable, according to the leader, of giving the state 250 million poods of grain. The absence of mass protests by the peasantry during the period of emergency measures convinced I.V. Stalin and his entourage are that the village will not resolutely resist the destruction of the traditional foundations of its economic life and way of life.
In addition, the use of emergency measures to confiscate bread and other products from peasants made it possible to solve the problem of lack of money for industrialization.
Thus, The NEP was recognized by the country's leadership as having exhausted itself. The completion of industrialization, impossible without the transfer of funds from agriculture to industry, required breaking the previous relations between the authorities and the peasantry.
December 1927 took place XV Congress of the CPSU(b), where the need for a further offensive against the kulaks was proclaimed and the task of creation of collective production enterprises in the village - collective farms.
The “offensive against the kulaks” was expressed in increasing the tax burden on wealthy peasants and confiscating land surpluses from them and so on. In the summer of 1929, a decree was issued “On the inexpediency of admitting kulaks to collective farms and the need for systematic work to cleanse collective farms of kulak elements trying to corrupt the collective farms from within.” The very entry of kulaks into collective farms was considered a criminal act, and collective farms created with their participation were qualified as false collective farms.
However, the main direction of the party course was the creation of large production farms in the village. In the spring of 1928, the People's Commissariat of Agriculture and the Kolkhoz Center of the RSFSR drew up a draft five-year plan for the collectivization of peasant farms, according to which by the end of the five-year period, i.e. by 1933, it was planned to involve 1.1 million farms in collective farms (4% of the total number in the republic). In the summer of the same year, the Union of Agricultural Cooperation Unions increased this figure to 3 million farms (12%). And in the five-year plan approved in the spring of 1929, it was planned to collectivize 4-4.5 million farms, i.e. 16-18% of their total number.
In real pace of collectivization turned out to be different: by June 1929, there were already more than a million peasant farms on collective farms (i.e., as many as were originally planned only by 1933); by October of the same year - 1.9 million. The number of collective farms in the grain regions - the North Caucasus, Lower and Middle Volga regions - grew especially rapidly.
At the end of July 1929, the Chkalovsky district of the Middle Volga region took the initiative to declare it a district complete collectivization. By September 1929, 500 collective farms had been created in the region, which included 6,441 farms (about 64% of the total number) and socialized 131 thousand hectares of land (out of 220 thousand hectares). A similar movement that arose in some other regions of the republic received approval from the department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for work in the countryside. The idea of complete collectivization of grain regions began to be actively promoted in the press and put into practice.
Areas of complete collectivization began to appear in many territories and regions of the country. However, such “successes” in organizing collective farms in the countryside were explained not so much by the enthusiasm of the peasants, but the use of administrative methods and violence by the authorities.
Collective farm construction acquired an accelerated character at the end of 1929 - beginning of 1930, thanks to a publication published in Pravda. November 7, 1929 article by I.V. Stalin's "Year of the Great Turning Point". It stated that the party managed to turn the bulk of the peasantry to a new, socialist path of development, “we managed to organize a radical change in the depths of the peasantry itself and lead the broad masses of the poor and middle peasants.”
The leader was wishful thinking. By October 1929 in the USSR, only 7.6% of the total number of peasant households was united into collective farms. However, the article by I.V. Stalin had a direct impact on the decisions of the November (1929) Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. From the rostrum of the Plenum of the Central Committee it was stated that the transition “to the collective path of the rest of the peasants” would be a matter of several months, not several years. Thus, in essence, the party leadership proclaimed complete collectivization - 100% inclusion of poor and middle peasant farms into collective farms.
The impulse for collectivization, according to the unanimous decision of the Plenum of the Central Committee, was to be the sending to the villages of 25 thousand industrial workers with organizational and political work experience. The latter, according to A.A., who spoke at the November Plenum of the Central Committee. Andreev, is required, since “organizing a large collective farm is almost as difficult a task as organizing a large industrial enterprise.” The “twenty-five thousanders” (mostly communists and Komsomol members) were supposed to create and lead collective farms in the grain regions.
In the decisions of the Plenum, there was also a place for kulaks, whom party members qualified as the main class force interested in disrupting collective farm construction. Local party organizations were recommended to more decisively attack the kulak and stop all his attempts to get into the collective farms.
Soviet poster
Thus, the transition to a policy of complete collectivization also meant an expansion of the scale dispossession -forcible deprivation of wealthy peasants of means of production, buildings, property, etc.. I.V. unequivocally stated about the changes that had occurred in the general course of the party and government. Stalin in December 1929. Speaking at a conference of Marxist agrarians, he noted that “from the policy of limiting the exploitative tendencies of the kulaks” power is transferred "towards the policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class".
After the November Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which decided on complete collectivization, the country’s leadership took some measures to carry out organizational and technical preparations for the implementation of this decision. Firstly, the collective farm-cooperative system was reoriented to primarily serve collective farms rather than individual farms. Secondly, during 1929, for the needs of collective farms, leadership and rural specialists were trained: collective farm chairmen, accountants, tractor drivers, etc. Thirdly, to mechanize the labor of collective farmers in the regions, it was decided organize machine and tractor stations (MTS) and columns.
To more effectively carry out complete collectivization, two special commissions were created: one - under the leadership of the People's Commissar of Agriculture A. Yakovlev - was supposed to develop a collectivization schedule; the other - chaired by V. Molotov - decide the fate of the fist.
The result of the work of A. Yakovlev’s commission was the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of January 5, 1930 “On the pace of collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm construction,” which determined the deadline for completing collectivization: for the North Caucasus, Lower and Middle Volga - autumn 1930. or the spring of 1931, for the remaining grain regions - the autumn of 1931 or the spring of 1932. The decree called the agricultural artel the main form of collective farm construction, which was defined as a “transitional form of farming to the commune.”
The resolution of the Party Central Committee spurred the activity of local authorities in carrying out collectivization. Directives from the center, as well as the constant threat of being accused of “right deviation” due to indecisive actions, pushed local workers to use violence against peasants who did not want to join collective farms.
The expansion of the pace of collectivization required the authorities to clearly define their position regarding the future fate of the kulaks. In January 1930, at the insistence of I.V. Stalin issued a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, which indicated signs of kulak farms: annual income per consumer is more than 300 rubles. (more than 1,500 rubles per family), engaging in trade, renting out cars, premises, using hired labor; the presence of a mill, oil mill, grain crusher, fruit or vegetable dryer, etc. The presence of any of the above signs gave local authorities the opportunity to classify the peasant as a kulak.
On January 30, 1930, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a secret resolution prepared by V. Molotov’s commission “On measures to eliminate kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization.” According to this document, in areas of complete collectivization it was prescribed to confiscate the means of production, livestock, farm and residential buildings, food, feed and seed stocks from the kulaks.
All kulaks were divided into three categories: the first (“counter-revolutionary activist”) were subject to imprisonment in concentration camps and, in some cases, execution; the second (“individual elements of the kulak activists”) were sentenced to deportation to remote areas of the country or to remote areas of a given region; the third group (“loyal to the Soviet regime”) was to be resettled in new areas allocated outside the collective farms.
The resolution also indicated the approximate number of kulak farms being liquidated - 3-5%. The figure was clearly overestimated: in the fall of 1929, the share of kulak farms in the USSR was 2.3%. In 9 regions of the country it was planned to send 60 thousand kulaks to concentration camps and evict 150 thousand kulaks. The resolution also stated that family members of those imprisoned in concentration camps and those deported could, with the consent of the district executive committees, remain in the same area. However, in reality, family members of repressed kulaks were deported along with the accused. The property confiscated from the kulaks was to be transferred to collective farm funds as entrance fees for the poor and farm laborers.
Soviet poster
Specially created “troikas” were called upon to eliminate the kulaks locally, consisting of the first secretary of the party committee, the chairman of the executive committee and the head of the local department of the GPU. Lists of fists of the first category were compiled only by the GPU bodies, lists of rich people of the second and third categories - by representatives of local authorities and rural “activists”.
The release of the resolution became a signal to action for local authorities. At the same time, the criteria for kulak farms specified in the January 1930 decision of the Council of People's Commissars were often ignored. The main document exposing the kulak was denunciations. According to the OGPU data only for 1930-1931. 381,026 families with a total number of 1,803,392 people were evicted and sent to special settlements (in Siberia, Kazakhstan and the North). Some peasant families (200-250 thousand) “dispossessed themselves” - they sold or abandoned their property and fled to the city and industrial construction sites. The majority of those 400-450 thousand dispossessed families classified as the third category, who were initially supposed to be resettled in separate settlements within the areas of their residence, also ended up there. In 1932-1936. the number of dispossessed farms decreased and amounted to about 100 thousand people. Thus, during the entire period of collectivization, about 1,100 thousand households or 5-6 million people were subjected to repression. The share of dispossessed peasant farms was 4-5%, which turned out to be almost twice the number of kulak farms in 1929. There was nothing surprising in this - the majority of middle peasants who did not want to join the collective farm were classified as kulaks.
The dispossession campaign further accelerated the pace of collectivization. Only in February 1930, the number of farms that joined the collective farm increased from 32.5 to 56%, and in the Russian Federation from 34.7 to 57.6%. The highest numbers were observed in Siberia, the Nizhny Novgorod region and the Moscow region. There, the percentage of collectivized farms has doubled.
The violence that accompanied the process of collectivization could not but cause resistance (including armed resistance). According to the OGPU of the USSR, in January-April 1930, 6,117 performances took place in the village, in which 1,755 thousand participants took part. The peasants opposed both forced collectivization and dispossession, as well as other lawlessness - the closure and desecration of churches and mosques, the arrest and persecution of clergy, the closure of bazaars, etc. However, more often the peasants practiced passive resistance: they refused to carry out grain procurements, slaughtered livestock, not wanting to hand them over to the collective farm, did not go to collective farm work or worked “carelessly,” etc.
Admission of new members to a collective farm near Moscow. Photo from 1930
In an effort to reduce the growing tension in the countryside, the party leadership resorted to tactical maneuver. March 2, 1930 was published in the newspaper Pravda article by I.V. Stalin "Dizziness from success", wherein Some representatives of local authorities were blamed for the “excesses” in collectivization, who “often try to replace the preparatory work on organizing collective farms with bureaucratic decree of the collective farm movement.”
The reaction of the peasantry to I.V.’s article was also unexpected for the local authorities. Stalin. Referring to Pravda, many of the peasants began to leave the collective farms, into which they had recently been driven by force. As a result of these “outputs,” the level of collectivization at the end of the summer of 1930 throughout the country as a whole decreased to the level of January 1930.
After the mass exit of peasants from collective farms, a short-term “calm” set in in the countryside: peasants who left the collective farms did not return there voluntarily, and the confused local authorities were afraid to force them to do so. The senior Soviet leadership was not happy with this course of events. In September 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks sent a letter to local party organizations, in which it demanded energetic work “to achieve a powerful rise in the collective farm movement”.
Soviet poster
The stake in the matter of re-collectivization was made on propaganda of the advantages of collective farms among individual farmers. Recruitment teams and initiative groups created from rural activists, poor and middle peasants had to play a special role in persuading opponents of collective farms. In December 1930, there were 5,625 recruiting brigades operating in the RSFSR, and in the spring of 1931, over 21 thousand in the main grain regions alone.
The party and state leadership of the USSR also took measures to encourage peasants to join collective farms. So on December 29, 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks approved the annual program for the construction of 1,400 machine and tractor stations (MTS) and canceled the decision on the purchase of equipment by collective farms as untimely. By spring sowing, the number of MTS reached 1228, and the number of tractors in them increased from 7102 in 1930 to 50114. By the end of 1931, the MTS construction program was completed.
Another incentive for individual farmers to join the collective farm was providing collective organizations with loans and tax benefits. The state also promised to streamline the organization and payment of labor on collective farms and guarantee the collective farmer the management of personal subsidiary farming.
However, in addition to the “carrot”, the “stick” also continued to be used. In the autumn of 1930 it began mass eviction of dispossessed peasants, carried out by the OGPU. Former kulaks were exiled to Siberia, the Urals, the Northern Territory and Kazakhstan. Life was no better for that part of the kulaks who were classified in the third category and allowed to settle non-collective farm (usually bad) lands. These peasants found themselves crushed by taxes. The tax pressure on ordinary individual peasants has also increased. So, if 1 collective farm yard in 1931 accounted for about 3 rubles. agricultural tax, then for one individual owner - more than 30 rubles, and for a kulak - almost 314 rubles. With this tax policy, the state clearly pushed peasants to join the collective farm. By June 1931, the level of collectivization in the country reached 52.7% of the total number of peasant farms.
However, the emerging rise soon ended. This circumstance caused further concessions to the peasantry from the authorities. On March 26, 1932, a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was issued “On the forced socialization of livestock,” which explained that “the practice of forced selection of cows and small livestock from collective farmers has nothing to do with the policy of the party” and that “the task of the party is to so that each collective farmer has his own cow, small livestock, and poultry.”
In May of the same year, joint resolutions were adopted by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, according to which After fulfilling the state plan for the procurement of bread and meat, collective farms were allowed to sell the remaining products at market prices.
However, the reality was completely different. During the grain procurement period of 1931, significant grain reserves were confiscated from thousands of collective farms (in some farms - up to 80%). There could be no question of the existence of any kind of surplus. The confiscation of grain led to sad consequences: There is a real threat of famine in Ukraine.
Under these conditions, the authorities decided to reduce the procurement plan compared to last year. All republican and local taxes and fees on the trade of collective farms and collective farmers were abolished, and no more than 30% of their income from trade was collected from individual farmers. But lowering the grain procurement plan could not correct the situation. Grain procurement tasks were not completed. The peasants went to all sorts of tricks to save part of the harvest. In reply the party leadership again used the “whip”. On August 7, 1932, the law “On the protection of the property of state enterprises, collective farms and cooperation and the strengthening of public (socialist) property” was adopted, popularly nicknamed the law of five ears of corn. Behind theft of collective farm and cooperative property, the document provided for capital punishment - execution. In mitigating circumstances, the exceptional punishment could be replaced by imprisonment for 10 years. By February 1933, 103 thousand people were convicted under the “five ears of corn” law, of which 6.2% were shot.
Another act of intimidation was the dispatch in October-November 1932 to the North Caucasus, Ukraine and the Volga region emergency commissions on grain procurements. With the help of mass repressions, the resistance of the peasants was broken and grain (including seed supplies) was confiscated. The result of these actions was terrible hunger, which killed, mainly in Ukraine, about 5 million people. The authorities carefully hid information about the crop failure not only from the world community, but also from the citizens of their country. All attempts by starving people to leave their villages were decisively suppressed by troops.
The disaster forced the government to somewhat change its policy towards the peasants. By May 1933, in connection with the “new favorable situation” that had arisen in the village, it was decided stop the use of mass evictions and “acute forms of repression”. On January 19, 1933, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On the mandatory supply of grain to the state by collective farms and individual farms.” Collective farms and individual farms received firm obligations that had the force of a tax to deliver grain within certain periods and at prices established by the state. All grain remaining after the mandatory delivery was completed was considered to be at the full disposal of the producers.. Local authorities and procurement institutions were prohibited from imposing obligations for the delivery of grain that exceeded the norms established by law. Theoretically, this measure was supposed to protect collective farms from repeated taxes by local authorities, but in practice this resolution did not improve the lot of the peasants at all. In addition, in addition to the established tax, collective farmers had to pay in kind for services provided by MTS.
A year later, a new decree was issued, according to which the state’s above-plan purchases of grain from collective farms, state farms and individual farmers should be carried out on the basis of complete voluntariness at prices 20-25% higher than procurement prices. Farms that sold bread at purchase prices could purchase scarce manufactured goods for an amount three times the cost of the bread sold. However "merchandising" system, which was supposed to be the main incentive for purchasing, did not justify itself, since the state did not have the goods the village needed, and purchase prices were too low. Having existed for a little more than six months, the “reproduction” was cancelled. On August 31, 1931, by directive of I.V. Stalin and V.M. Molotov, a new procurement procedure was introduced: collective farms that had fulfilled plans for grain supplies and payment in kind were required to create a reserve to fulfill the procurement plan before paying the collective farmers. Thus, procurement turned into a mandatory system for the delivery of additional products to the state.
Alternating between “carrot” and “stick”, the government managed in 1933-1935. achieve the delivery of bread throughout the country. The growth of procurement allowed the state, starting in January 1935, to abolish the rationing system for flour, bread and cereals, and at the end of the year - for meat, fish, sugar, fats and potatoes.
There has also been some relief for the peasantry. In February 1935, at the Second Congress of Shock Collective Farmers, a model charter of the agricultural artel was adopted, which provided the possibility of a collective farmer running a personal subsidiary plot. Depending on the region, the peasant was allowed to have from 0.25 to 0.5 (in some areas - up to 1) hectares of land, from one to 2-3 cows and an unlimited number of poultry.
These “concessions” to the peasantry played a significant role in meeting the agricultural needs of the rural population itself and the country as a whole. Personal subsidiary plots accounted for 20.6% of the country's gross livestock production. By the end of the second five-year plan, this farm produced 52.1% of potatoes and vegetables, 56.6% of fruit crops, 71.4% of milk, 70.9% of meat, etc. Most of the production was for personal consumption, but about 1/4 of livestock products and up to 1/2 of potatoes and vegetables were sold on the market. The turnover of market collective farm trade during the second five-year plan increased 2.4 times.
Collectivization was completed by the end of the second Five-Year Plan. Her as a result was the creation by 1937 of 243.7 thousand collective farms, which involved 93.9% of the remaining farms in the village by that time. A completely different type of economy took hold in the village. Formally he was listed as a special type of cooperative economy, with collective ownership of the main means of production(except for the land, which was considered public property, handed over for free and indefinite use to collective farms). However in fact, the new type of economy was semi-state. He was distinguished by strict centralization, directiveness and planning.
Demonstration. Photograph from the 1930s.
The transformation of small peasant farms into large collective ones allowed the state confiscate the required amount of grain from the peasantry at a symbolic purchase price and uncontrollably dispose of the harvest. Such a simple payment system allowed the authorities to easily redistribute financial flows and, by withdrawing money from agriculture, invest in the industrialization of the country.
The relationship between collective farms and the state meant the predominantly non-economic nature of forcing the rural worker to work, as a result of which he lost interest in raising the economy of his artel. This coercion was also legally supported with the help of the law implemented at the end of 1932 - beginning of 1933. certification of the country's population. In rural areas, passports were issued only on state farms and in territories declared “secure” (border zones, capital cities with adjacent areas, large industrial centers and defense facilities). It was not easy for collective farmers to obtain a passport. A joke appeared among the peasants: What is the name of the party VKP(b)? Second serfdom of the Bolsheviks.
Like many events, collectivization was carried out through direct administration and violence. Millions of wealthy peasants and middle peasants were declared kulaks and formed a huge army of the Gulag, working for free on the great construction projects of the country.
The establishment of the collective farm system meant a qualitatively new milestone not only in the life of the domestic village, but also in the country as a whole. Two forms of ownership that are homogeneous in nature - state and collective farm-cooperative - have become all-encompassing in society.
Collectivization fulfilled its main goal - it ensured the accelerated transfer of funds from agriculture to industry and freed up the labor force necessary for the industrialization of the country (15-20 million people). However, contrary to official propaganda, production indicators in agriculture have not improved much compared to the NEP period. The only difference was that if by the end of the NEP these products were produced by 50-55 million individual peasants, then in the pre-war years - 30-35 million collective farmers and state farm workers, i.e. there are a third fewer workers.
At the same time, the negative aspects of collectivization also became completely obvious. With some expansion of sown areas, grain yield per hectare decreased; the peasants' nutrition deteriorated; The number of livestock decreased due to mass slaughter on the eve of the peasants joining the collective farm and the inability to manage livestock on the farm itself. Due to the massive selection of grain, famine became a frequent occurrence in the Soviet countryside.
For all its cruelty, the agricultural policy of forced collectivization included elements of sober socio-economic calculation. The creation of collective farms ensured the transfer of funds from agriculture to industry and freed up the labor needed for the industrialization of the country. The Stalin regime solved the problem by uniting 61.8% of peasant farms and about 80% of sown areas into collective farms.
4.4.3. Cultural life of the country in the 1920s - 1930s.
The inconsistency of Bolshevik policy and its results was nowhere manifested with such force as in the field of cultural construction. Its origins are rooted in the doctrinal principles of Bolshevism, which sharply distinguished the new culture from the culture of the old, “bourgeois” society.
Although V.I. Lenin rejected the purely class approach to culture, characteristic of the initial stage of the Russian revolution and preached by proletkult supporters, he believed that it was impossible to build a new society on the basis of the entire existing culture. This approach inevitably raised the question of cultural selection for the architects of the new system: what to adopt and what to discard as unnecessary rubbish. The methodological basis for such selection was initially Marxism as a value system, a kind of ideological matrix on the basis of which the authorities tried to create a new culture, play and broadcast it. Therefore, the political technologies of Bolshevism in this area inevitably created instrumental approach to culture as one of the means to achieve one’s political goals.
Soviet poster
It is noteworthy that this approach was the complete opposite of the position of European social democracy on this issue. Its main provisions were clearly formulated by K. Kautsky, who believed that under socialism there can be no guiding influence on the processes of scientific and artistic creativity. “Communism in material production, anarchism in intellectual production - this is the type of socialist mode of production,” he declared, strongly protesting against any dogmatic and doctrinal interference in this most complex process.
Cultural Revolution, according to the Bolsheviks, was supposed to make a revolution in the cultural sphere. It involved the solution of two blocks of tasks subordinated to the main strategic task - building socialism.
First block represented program to prepare the population for its participation in the industrialization of the country. That is, what every country needs in the industrial phase of its development. According to Lenin, it was necessary for workers to master the basics of knowledge and professional skills. In Russia, where the bulk of the population could neither read nor write, the first task was literacy. Therefore it is no coincidence the most important direction in this area was the creation, restoration and expansion of the public education system. Actually, there was nothing revolutionary about this, except for the total ideological intervention in this area of culture.
Back in October 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issued a regulation “On a unified labor school.” Instead of the various types of schools that previously existed in Russia, a single labor school was created, which was divided into two levels: the first for children from 8 to 13 years old and the second for children from 13 to 17 years old. The new school was declared secular, that is, free from the influence of religion. It was a free and compulsory co-educational labor school. However, practice has shown that such a school did not meet the requirements of life, and in the late 20s. there has been a return to traditional forms of education.
The issue of eliminating illiteracy and creating an education system that met the needs of ongoing industrialization arose especially acutely in the late 20s and early 30s. In the summer of 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On universal compulsory primary education.” Having soon received the force of law, it provided for the introduction, starting from the 1930-1931 school year in the USSR, of universal compulsory education for children aged 8-10 years for at least four years of primary school. In this regard, work on training teaching staff was launched. Universal primary education was introduced in the country within three years. Already on September 5, 1931, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in its resolution “On Primary and Secondary Schools,” indicated the need for the immediate organization of work on the Marxist revision of programs with a precisely defined range of necessary information. With this resolution, preparations began for the transition to universal seven-year education, which was introduced in cities by the end of the 30s.
Educational classes. Photo from 1928
Despite all the difficulties and costs, the broad masses of the people in the period of the 20s and 30s managed to become familiar with the book and the printed word. In fairness, it should be noted that the state has done a lot of work to creation of national schools on the former outskirts of the Russian Empire. Many peoples did not even have their own written language. In many republics, an alphabet was created based on the Cyrillic alphabet, in particular, it was acquired by the peoples of Central Asia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and the Far North. It is also important to note that teaching in national areas was conducted in the native language.
Specialists were required to build plants and factories and manage production. However, the Bolsheviks did not have their own personnel, so in the first decade after the revolution the Bolsheviks used the so-called “bourgeois specialists” or “specialists”.
Meanwhile, already in the second half of the 20s. is being created in the country higher education system.For the first time, universities were created in Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and all the republics of Central Asia. The Institute of the Peoples of the North, unique for that time, was opened in Leningrad, which gave a start to science and literature to many representatives of the northern peoples of the USSR. Those from the working classes, Red Army soldiers who had served in active military service, had a preferential right to enter new universities. It was then that the first generation of the Soviet intelligentsia was born.
During the first five-year plans, scientific schools and personnel were formed in the country, and a wide network of research institutes was created, predominantly of an applied nature.
In those areas of cultural construction where there was a need to train specialists with technical knowledge and certain production skills, undoubted progress was achieved. The higher school performed the important function of a personnel forge. The scientific and technical intelligentsia was necessary for the regime to solve the problems of industrialization and defense of the country.
The Bolsheviks managed to win over to their side the founder of aircraft manufacturing N.E. Zhukovsky, the creator of geochemistry and biochemistry V.I. Vernadsky, chemist N.D. Zelinsky, biologist A.N. Bach, the father of astronautics K.E. Tsiolkovsky, physiologist I.P. Pavlov, test agronomist I.V. Michurin, plant growing specialist K.A. Timiryazev.
The October Revolution revived the cultural life of the country. Until the mid-1920s. in various branches of art there was a search for new forms. Triumphant in literature and art revolutionary avant-garde. Colorful festive processions, large-scale performances, exhibitions of avant-garde artists, constructivist architects, and futurist poetry evenings were a frequent occurrence at that time.
Cobblestone is the weapon of the proletariat. Sculptor I.D. Shadr
The proclamation of the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat gave rise to a new form of culture - proletkult. The country encouraged art studios, clubs, and theaters for working youth, designed to promote the development of amateur creativity of the proletariat.
Worker and collective farmer. Sculptor V.I. Mukhina
The favorite topic of Soviet cultural figures has become depiction of the revolution and the Civil War, usually in apologetic or romantic forms. This was clearly manifested in the literary works of I.E. Babel (“Cavalry”), A.S. Serafimovich (“Iron Stream”), M.A. Sholokhov (“Don Stories”, “Quiet Don”), D.A. Furmanov (“Chapaev”).
The worker and the Red Army soldier became the main characters of paintings, posters, and sculptures. 1920-1930s became the time of the birth of Soviet cinema. The films of S.M. have received worldwide recognition. Eisenstein "Battleship Potemkin" and "October". In 1931, the first sound film by N.V. was released on the screens of the country. Ekka "Path to Life". The films of G.N. enjoyed enormous success among viewers. and S.D. Vasiliev “Chapaev”, G. Alexandrov “Volga-Volga”, “Jolly Fellows”, etc.
Still from the film “Chapaev”
Still from the film “Jolly Guys”
Stills from the film "Volga-Volga"
However, gradually in the field of humanitarian knowledge, literature and artistic creativity began to be felt more and more clearly ideological press and dictatorship, which distorted and nullified the goals that the regime itself proclaimed.
Has been installed total censorship. The initial criteria for evaluating certain works of literature and art were their compliance with the requirements of revolutionary Marxism and the goals of Bolshevism. The principle of “socialist realism” became the ideological template. He demanded that works of art unconditionally criticize the pre-revolutionary order in Russia and life in capitalist countries, while unconditionally praising the Soviet order and chanting the merits of the Bolshevik Party and its leaders, showing the advantages of the Soviet social and state system. The monopoly on truth became the principle of the ruling regime's attitude towards the creative process.
At the same time, the same principle of socialist realism led to the fact that often truly gifted cultural figures were forced to create works of art that were undoubtedly talented in form, but deceitful in their content. Among them were writers and artists, directors and composers, playwrights and sculptors.
Moreover, this principle opened the way for numerous cultural artisans who produced low-quality, throwaway crafts that had nothing in common with real works of art.
In order to make it more convenient for the Bolshevik leadership to “shepherd” the creative intelligentsia, in the early 30s. Unions were created that united cultural workers according to their type of activity: Writers' Union, Composers' Union, Architects' Union, Theater Workers' Union etc. Membership in these unions was voluntary and compulsory.
These Unions strictly monitored the “ideological consistency” of their members. If their works did not fit the established templates, their authors were criticized or even expelled from the Union. This threatened the expelled person with the most serious consequences - he was deprived of the opportunity to publish his creations in the Soviet Union.
Such contradictory results were due to methods subordinated to the super task that formed the core of the cultural revolution - re-education of people on the principles of Marxism-Leninism, the creation of people with a new system of spiritual values, a new psychology and mentality, deeply integrated into the social system of the new system. Solving such a problem would make it possible to achieve the goals proclaimed by the regime, strengthen its position within the country, reveal the advantages of the new system and prove the need for social reconstruction on a global scale.
The monopoly of Marxist ideology, identified with scientific truth, was not only the leading principle of cultural construction: ideology was transformed in the hands of the Bolshevik leadership into a value in itself, into a kind of new religion militant atheism.This dangerous trend in the development of Soviet society was noticed by A. Toynbee, who wrote: “We see how Marxism is turning into an emotional and intellectual replacement of Orthodox Christianity with Marx instead of Moses, Lenin instead of the Messiah and collections of their works instead of the holy scriptures of this new atheistic church " To this it should be added that there was a certain transformation of the ideology itself, which was Marxist only in form. In fact, in the context of a struggle for power, she became the core of totalitarian ideology, with its characteristic cult of personality, leaderism, and absolute militant intolerance of any dissent. This ideology became not just an integral part of the culture of the new society - it permeated the entire culture, giving it a specific character. In the hands of the ruling regime, it turned into a powerful means of social engineering, which was far from humanitarian in nature.
Soviet poster
Results of the "cultural revolution" difficult to assess unambiguously. If we compare them with achievements in other areas of society, they look somewhat preferable, moreover, they can even be considered successful. Art, literature and education have become more accessible to the masses. This is an undeniable fact. However the Bolsheviks drove culture into a Procrustean bed of ideological demands, which sharply limited creative freedom. The most important achievements of world culture were cut off from the Soviet people.
The collapse of the market inevitably led to a strengthening of command and administrative principles in managing the national economy and an increase in bureaucracy. The dominance of the “bosses” has become the universal form of existence of the bureaucracy, and technocracy has become the core of its consciousness. Culture has become the handmaiden of politics.
4.5. USSR ON THE EVE AND DURING THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR
4.5.1 International relations and Soviet foreign policy
In 1932, the National Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, led by A. Hitler, won the elections to the Reichstag. Soon its leader formed a new government, and then concentrated all state power in his hands. One of the most brutal dictatorships in the history of human civilization was established in Germany.
A. Hitler. Photograph from the 1930s.
The victory of Nazism in Germany was one of the decisive factors in international life in the 30s. XX century.
The Nazis proclaimed the destruction of “world communism” as the first goal of their foreign policy. To do this, they were going to organize a “crusade” against the Soviet Union. Preparing for an anti-Soviet campaign, the fascist Germany V 1936 concluded with Japan so-called Anti-Comintern Pact, which she joined a year later Italy. This is how a bloc of three aggressive states emerged, which bear the main blame for the preparation and outbreak of the Second World War.
The Nazis did not hide the ultimate goal of its foreign policy: the establishment of German dominance over the rest of the world. To substantiate their claims to world domination, they developed a racist theory, according to which the Germans should rule all humanity as representatives of the superior, Aryan race.
Already in the summer of 1933, the fascist rulers demanded the return of Germany to its former colonies in Africa, which she lost under the Treaty of Versailles. And soon they began openly violate the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Contrary to this agreement, the country had universal conscription introduced, and the multi-million dollar created the army entered the Rhineland bordering France, where she was prohibited from maintaining any military forces.
The victorious countries in the First World War turned a blind eye to these daring steps of the Nazis. Among the large Western European countries, the threat of fascist aggression loomed most over France, which predetermined its certain rapprochement with the Soviet Union. In 1934, these two countries jointly proposed that all European states, including Germany, sign an agreement on collective resistance to possible aggression. However, this idea was not supported by England and Poland, which did not allow putting a barrier on the way to the Second World War.
Under the current conditions, the Soviet leadership in 1935 concluded triple treaty of mutual assistance with France and Czechoslovakia. In accordance with this treaty, in the event of aggression, the USSR was obliged to provide armed assistance to the Czechoslovak Republic, but only on the condition that France would provide such assistance, and Czechoslovakia itself would organize armed resistance to the aggressor country.
Pre-storm rumbles of the approaching new world war thundered in different parts of the globe in the mid-30s.
A. Hitler and B. Mussolini. Photograph from the 1930s.
Autumn 1935 Italy, where the fascist dictator B. Mussolini ruled, occupied Ethiopia. In 1936 Germany and Italy intervened in the Spanish Civil War, on the side of the pro-fascist General B. Franco. England, France and the USA proclaimed a policy of non-interference in the affairs of Spain, which deprived the legitimate republican government of this country of the opportunity to receive the necessary economic and military support from them. The Soviet Union acted differently. He provided all possible assistance to the Republicans with food, military equipment, weapons and military personnel. But, despite the heroic resistance of the Republican army, the Francoists won, after which a fascist dictatorship was also established in Spain.
Summer 1937 Japan continued started in 1931 takeover of China. Already at the end of 1938, the Japanese managed to occupy the eastern part of the country, where the main industrial centers and the most important railway lines of China were located.
Spring 1938 German troops occupied Austria, turning the country into the German Reich. The USSR invited other countries of the world to immediately convene an international conference to take effective measures against fascist aggression. However, the disappearance of the Austrian state from the map of Europe went unnoticed by the League of Nations.
Entry of Nazi troops into Austria. Photo from 1938
The Nazis chose as their second victim Czechoslovakia. As a pretext for their claims to the territory of this country, the fascists used the fact that in the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia the majority of the population were Germans. Under pressure from A. Hitler, England and France presented an ultimatum to Czechoslovakia to return the Sudetenland to the Germans. In their note, they promised the Czechoslovak leadership international guarantees of independence if German territorial claims were satisfied. In September 1938, to discuss this problem an international conference took place in Munich. Delegations from four countries took part in it: Germany, Italy, England and France. Czechoslovakia, whose fate was being decided, was not even invited to the meeting.
Deciding to “pacify the aggressor” and avert the threat from their own countries, the leaders of England and France agreed to annex the Sudetenland to Germany. At the same time, Czechoslovakia lost not only a large part of its territory, it lost its main industrial potential and the main fortified areas along the German border. US leaders who did not participate in the Munich Agreement approved this decision.
However, receiving the Sudetenland only whetted A. Hitler's appetite. Returning to Berlin after the conference, the Fuhrer and German Foreign Minister J. Ribbentrop exchanged views on its participants and results. Describing the Prime Minister of England N. Chamberlain, I. Ribbentrop cynically said: “Today this old man signed the death warrant of the British Empire, giving us the right to put under it the date of its execution.” The Prime Minister of England in the 1940s gave an exceptionally apt assessment of the Munich Conference in his memoirs. W. Churchill. “In Munich,” he wrote, “We had to choose between shame and war. We chose shame and got war.”
At the end of 1938, Nazi Germany sent its troops into the Sudetenland, and in March of the following year occupied all of Czechoslovakia.
In order to calm public opinion alarmed by these events, the ruling circles of England and France decided to enter into negotiations with the Soviet Union. They started in the spring 1939 in Moscow. But since Western countries offered options for an agreement under which they did not undertake any specific obligations in the event of war with Germany, the Moscow negotiations reached a dead end. In addition, the British and French delegations did not have the authority to sign any official documents.
V.M. Molotov. Photography of the first half of the 20th century
Under such conditions, the Soviet leadership accepted A. Hitler’s proposal to sign a non-aggression pact. German Foreign Minister J. Ribbentrop urgently flew to Moscow. August 23, 1939 he and the head of the Soviet government and People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR V.M. Molotov signed non-aggression agreement between the Soviet Union and Germany for a period of 10 years, which went down in history under the name "Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact".
V.M. Molotov and I. Ribbentrop. Photo from 1939
Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. Footage from the chronicle.
The conclusion of the Soviet-German pact led to the cessation of all diplomatic contacts between England, France and the USSR, the recall of the British and French delegations from Moscow, although the leadership of our country proposed to continue negotiations.
Some regard it as forced but necessary step Soviet leadership. Others define the pact as gross foreign policy mistake I.V. Stalin and his inner circle. Still others claim that this document was betrayal of the interests of our country. Many foreign and domestic authors argue that the Soviet-German Pact allowed A. Hitler to soon attack Poland and, thereby, start the Second World War.
In our opinion, in the specific conditions of the late 30s. the signing of a non-aggression pact with Germany was a legitimate step on the part of the Soviet leadership. The agreement itself, from a legal point of view, did not go beyond the agreements adopted at that time and did not violate domestic legislation and international obligations of the Soviet Union.
Regarding the claim that the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact paved the way for the Nazis to attack Poland and start World War II, some important circumstances should not be overlooked. Namely, similar non-aggression pacts were signed by Germany even earlier with a number of European countries, including England, France and Poland. A reasonable question arises as to why it was the Soviet-German non-aggression pact, and not other similar documents, that gave Hitler a free hand. And one more important circumstance: from the archives it became known that the German leadership made its decision to attack Poland on April 3, 1939, that is, several months before the signing of the Soviet-German Pact.
In this case, the fault of the Soviet rulers was different. Attached to the non-aggression pact were secret protocols. And if the pact itself was legal and, therefore, justified, then the protocols were illegal and immoral. In accordance with these documents Germany and the Soviet Union divided Europe into zones of influence. Eastern Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Bessarabia and Finland fell into the sphere of the USSR. Into the sphere of influence Nazi Germany included the rest of Europe.
These documents really made it easier for A. Hitler to further aggressively seize neighboring countries, and therefore drag humanity into a new world war. Having taken the path of dividing the “booty” with the fascist predator, I.V. Stalin began to communicate in the language of ultimatums and threats with neighboring states, especially with small countries.
Soviet border guards at the parade. Photograph from the 1930s.
In the summer of 1940, the Soviet Union, based on the division of spheres of influence with Germany, achieved establishment of Soviet power in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and the subsequent “voluntary” entry of these countries into the USSR. In all respects it was an unwise move. If previously the population of the Baltic states condemned the pro-German policies of their rulers, then after the deployment of Soviet troops they began to look at Germany as their potential liberator and savior.
Almost simultaneously with these events, in the summer of 1940, as a result of diplomatic pressure on Romania Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina were included in the USSR. This act also had deeply negative consequences for our country. Royal Romania, which previously pursued a pro-British and pro-French policy during the Great Patriotic War, also found itself among the allies of Nazi Germany.
I.V. Stalin did not consider it shameful to use weapons in a dispute over the border with Finland. The Soviet leadership invited Finland to cede part of its territory to our country in exchange for a much larger piece of land in South Karelia. The motives for this proposal were the fact that on the Karelian Isthmus the Soviet-Finnish border passed only three dozen kilometers from Leningrad, and in the north it came too close to the Kirov Railway, which connects the center of our country with Murmansk - its only ice-free port in the Arctic. These motives had an undoubted reason. Moreover, the USSR offered twice as much territory in exchange. However, the Finns refused such a “barter”, and both sides began to prepare for military action. Finland - defensive, the Soviet Union - offensive.
The active troops of the Red Army outnumbered the Finnish forces in number of personnel by 3 times, in the number of guns and mortars by 5 times, aircraft by 6 times and tanks by 35 times. With such overwhelming superiority of Soviet forces, it was impossible for Finland to avoid defeat. However Soviet-Finnish war turned out to be more difficult than expected in Moscow. Due to the inept actions of the Soviet commanders, during the 105 days of the war, Soviet troops lost only 127 thousand people killed and missing, while the Finns lost 48 thousand, that is, almost three times less. The halo of the Red Army has completely faded.
The Soviet-Finnish war came back to haunt our country in 1941: Finland, which had previously pursued a policy of neutrality, entered the war against the USSR on the side of Nazi Germany.
Thus, the imperial policy of I.V. Stalin and his entourage in the pre-war years multiplied the number of enemies of our country and undermined the already small prestige of the Soviet Union in the eyes of the international community.
The division of spheres of influence in Europe with the USSR gave Germany a free hand in implementing its aggressive plans and served as a prologue to the beginning Second World War.
At various times, Italy, Romania, Finland, Slovakia and Japan entered the war on the side of Germany, which were opposed by England, France, the USSR, the USA and other countries. In total, 72 countries participated in World War II to one degree or another, with a combined population of about 80 % all inhabitants of the globe. A total of 110 million people were put under arms during this war.
In addition to Europe, World War II engulfed vast areas of Asia, Africa and Oceania. The naval forces conducted combat operations in the waters of all four oceans of our planet: the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic.
The starting date of World War II is September 1, 1939. On this day fascist Germany, in accordance with the pre-developed Weiss plan, attacked Poland. During the first week of the war, the Wehrmacht inflicted a number of crushing blows on the Polish army. Poland turned to England and France for help. Two days later, they declared war on Germany, but did not take any real steps to help out Poland, which was in trouble, hoping that Germany, after the completion of the Polish campaign, would deliver its new blow not to Western Europe, but to the Soviet Union.
After the invasion of Poland by fascist troops, Germany began to put pressure on the Soviet government, insisting that the USSR enter the war against Poland. Under this pressure, but rather based on their imperial plans, the Stalinist leadership gave the order to the troops to cross the Soviet-Polish border, which was done by the Red Army September 17. The invasion of foreign territory was hidden behind a plausible goal - liberation of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, included in Poland after the Soviet-Polish War of 1920. But if the goal was plausible, then the method of achieving it was very unseemly. The “liberation” campaign of the Red Army was actually a stab in the back for Poland. And it was carried out in violation of the Soviet-Polish non-aggression treaty, signed in 1932 and extended in 1937. Thus, the Soviet Union practically became an ally of the Nazi aggressors.
On September 28, the command of the Warsaw garrison, having exhausted all the forces and means to defend the city, was forced to sign an act of surrender. Under attack from the west and east Poland as a state ceased to exist. The fascist and Soviet troops celebrated this “success” with a joint parade in Brest-Litovsk.
At the same time, the Soviet leadership took another shameful step. On the day of the surrender of Warsaw, September 28, 1939, V.M. Molotov and I. Ribbentrop signed Soviet-German Treaty “On Friendship and Border”. The leaders of the USSR, who had once organized many years of violent anti-fascist propaganda, now publicly declared their friendship with the aggressor country that had unleashed a new world war. In the secret annexes to the new treaty the spheres of influence of the Soviet Union and Germany were clarified. Territory of Lithuania Now was included in the zone of influence of the USSR in exchange for the Lublin and part of the Warsaw voivodeship, which, in a change to the previous division, went to the sphere of influence of Nazi Germany.
V.M. Molotov and A. Hitler. Photo 1940
From the moment Germany attacked Poland until the spring of 1940, England and France, on the one hand, and Germany, on the other, essentially did not conduct combat operations on the Western Front. French and English soldiers and officers mainly played football and volleyball and visited entertainment venues. That is why this period of World War II went down in history as "strange war".
In September and October 1939, Hitler publicly stated more than once that he did not intend to fight with Western countries, that the border with France was inviolable, and that the Germans only expected from England the return of former German colonies.
In reality, with these assurances the Fuhrer only lulled the vigilance of his opponents. Already at the end of September 1939, he gave a directive to immediately begin preparing a major strategic offensive in the west. In the secret documents prepared, the Wehrmacht was given the task of achieving victory over these countries during one lightning campaign.
In April 1940, fascist German troops occupied Denmark and Norway, and then, in May of the same year, bypassing the famous French defensive Maginot Line, through the territory of Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg, they unleashed a powerful blow on the Anglo-French army. It took Germany less than four weeks to defeat the main forces of France and England.
On June 14, 1940, the Germans occupied Paris, and on June 22 France signed an armistice agreement, which effectively meant its surrender. This procedure was presented in a humiliating manner for the French. It took place in the Compiègne forest, in the same place and in the same saloon car delivered by the Germans from the museum, in which in 1918 the French Marshal F. Foch accepted the surrender of Germany.
Hitler with his comrades in Paris. Photo from 1940
Under the terms of the armistice, France was divided into two zones. The most developed and rich northern regions of the country were subject to German occupation. The French armed forces were demobilized and disbanded.
These days, the British expeditionary forces, having suffered defeat and abandoned their military equipment, evacuated through the port of Dunkirk to their home islands. Only its island position saved ancient Albion from complete destruction. The defeat of France and England in 1940 was the result of their policy of connivance with Nazi Germany.
In the fall of 1940, the flames of World War II spread to the Balkan Peninsula. On September 29, the troops of fascist Italy from the territory of Albania, captured by the Italians back in 1939, invaded Greece. Its army and people - the descendants of the legendary and proud Hellenes - offered heroic resistance to the invaders. A few months later, on April 6, 1941, Nazi and Hungarian troops attacked Yugoslavia. A week later they occupied its capital - the city of Be
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 acts 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 Chapaeva (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.
When Russia’s ill-wishers write about collective farms, they immediately declare their low efficiency and always declare the destruction of the peasantry by the Bolsheviks.
In fact, the Bolsheviks saved all of Russia from destruction by the West, including the peasantry, which made up the bulk of the country’s inhabitants.
To understand this, one must distinguish February 1917, when Russia, with the help of the West, was dismembered into dozens of territorial and national entities, from October 1917, after which the collapsed Russian state began to be assembled and was assembled for four years from 1918 to 1922.
By reuniting the Russian lands, the Bolsheviks saved the country from imminent destruction and destroyed all the intricacies of the West’s conspiracy against Russia. The peasants were also saved. The peasants were not only preserved, but also united into large communities, collective farms, where they lived, undoubtedly, better than in tsarist Russia.
It was after the revolution that the peasants received landowners' lands, and the issue of landless peasants, which was tearing Russia apart, was resolved.
Collective farms received land for perpetual use, and collective farmers worked on their land on the collective farm and on their land on their personal plots. What kind of de-peasantization is this when a peasant works on the land!?
Without collectivization, Russia and the Russian nation would have disappeared from the face of the earth. Why? Because the USSR would not have been able to provide itself with bread and build before the war of 1941-1945. 12.5 thousand large industrial enterprises, which during the Great Patriotic War produced twice as much military equipment and other weapons than the total of enterprises in Germany and the rest of Europe united by Hitler.
The population of the European states opposing us in 1941 was well over 300 million people. (in the USSR as of June 20, 1941 - 195 million people).
Collectivization was vitally necessary, since grain production in the USSR stopped at the level before the start of the First World War: 1913 - 76.5 million tons; 1925 - 72.5; 1926 - 76.8; 1927-72.3; 1928 - 73.3; 1929-71.7.
That is why in 1927, at the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, J.V. Stalin put forward the task of fully developing the collectivization of agriculture.
“Collective farms and state farms are, as is known,” noted J.V. Stalin in January 1928, “large farms capable of using tractors and machines. They are more commercial farms than landowner and kulak farms. It must be borne in mind that our cities and our industry is growing and will grow every year. This is necessary for the industrialization of the country. Consequently, the demand for bread will grow every year..." That is, the issue of industrialization is inextricably linked with the issue of collectivization.
In 1937, the gross grain harvest was already 97.5 million tons (according to American estimates, 96.3 million tons).
As a result of collectivization, all the problems mentioned above were solved. Industrial production grew at a pace unprecedented in the world, grain production increased, labor productivity rose sharply, as a result of which people were freed for industrialization.
For example, in 1929, 80 million people were engaged in agriculture, and in 1933, 56 million people remained in agriculture. However, both in 1929 and in 1934 the same grain harvest was obtained - 74 million tons. That is, the number of people employed in the agricultural sector decreased by about a third, but grain production remained at the same level.
Agriculture freed up 24 million pairs of workers for industry, which it desperately needed. It must be said that in the USSR, even forty years after collectivization, there were not enough workers, because the country was constantly building, developing, moving forward, overtaking the most developed countries. And no country in the world protected workers and peasants as much as in the USSR.
Thanks to collectivization, grain production increased by more than one third within five years, and by January 1941, the USSR was able to create a state reserve of 6.162 million tons of grain and flour.
Having entered a stable regime after the war, collective and state farms increased grain production in 1986/87 to 210 - 211 million tons, which ensured the food security of the USSR. The peasants of the USSR produced this grain, and liberals claim that the peasantry was destroyed.
Thus, by the second half of the 1980s, grain production was increased by more than three times, and the production of milk, eggs and industrial crops by 8-10 times.
The USSR increased agricultural production year after year, beginning to outstrip a country like the United States in the production of many types of crops.
Even liberals write that during the 8th Five-Year Plan from 1966 to 1970. the volume of agricultural products increased by 21%, but they immediately talk about a decline in agricultural production in 1970-1980.
Most readers immediately get the impression that in the period indicated above, that is, in the 9th and 10th five-year plans, the amount of agricultural products produced in the country decreased, while agricultural production during the indicated period increased annually.
For example, grain production in million tons in the 8th Five-Year Plan from 1966 to 1970. the average was 167.6, in the 9th – 181.6, in the 10th – 205 million tons. They call recession growth in production at a percentage lower than in the 8th Five-Year Plan.
In general, compared to 1917, gross agricultural output increased by 5.5 times by 1986, and 4 times compared to 1913, including crop production - 3.8 times, livestock products - 4.2 times.
They further write that agriculture became increasingly subsidized. Please note that in our country it became subsidized, while in Western countries it has long existed almost entirely on subsidies from the state budget, such as, for example, the armed forces. In the Western world, where conditions for agriculture are much more favorable compared to Russia, in all countries, without exception, agriculture receives large subsidies from the state.
Criticism of collective farms was of great importance in the destruction of the USSR. About agriculture, in most information on the Internet, historical and economic books published since 1985, you will not find the truth about collective farms and state farms of the USSR.
They write that the state allocated huge amounts of money for the development of agriculture, but the latter allegedly did not develop, that the money received from the sale of oil (as if at that time we lived from the sale of oil) and all the gold went abroad to buy grain. This is written about in the vast majority of books about USSR agriculture published in these years. But when we begin to look at the facts, we become convinced that what we are being told is not true. I don’t think that this untruth is caused by the insufficient competence of the authors. Perhaps there are some dropouts. Now they are available in abundance in all areas of knowledge. But it looks more like a conspiracy between Russia’s opponents. Hatred of our country and Western money gave rise to a lot of false books, articles and programs about agriculture in the USSR.
In fact, under Brezhnev, the USSR bought a small amount of feed grain abroad, since the USSR's cattle population exceeded that of the United States. In fact, the USSR was ahead of the United States in wheat production.
The minds of our citizens have been implanted with the idea that collective farms are extremely ineffective compared to farming. Collective farms (kolkhozes) are a Russian community at a new stage of development of society and the state. The same community that existed for centuries in Rus' and formed the basis of the socialist society that was built.
Criticism of collective farms, after the fictitious mass Stalinist repressions and the invented number of losses during the Great Patriotic War, can be called one of the main enemy attacks on the USSR. In total, tens of thousands of these strikes were inflicted, and today every day strikes are being struck against the Soviet Union, that is, against our great past. Moreover, criticism of the USSR and collective farms is based on information prepared in Western subversive centers.
We did not produce such ideological weapons as lies and did not use lies in the Cold War with the West. That's why we lost.
But it couldn’t be any other way, because we, Russians, belong to the most honest and noble nation on earth. And Russia has always been direct and honest in its foreign and domestic policies. Deceit and lies were completely unacceptable ideological techniques, both in Tsarist and Soviet Russia.
And the fact that only the community could provide food for Russia became obvious in the days of the post-Soviet widespread destruction of agriculture. “I’ll also make a reservation,” writes S.G. Kara-Murza, that I do not at all consider Soviet agriculture to be ideally organized - the possibilities for its improvement were great. But they could only be realized through development, and not through defamation and destruction of what we actually had. We are talking about the type of economy and the trend of its development within this type.
And if we compare it with the West, then we all had to, first of all, bow to our collective and state farms - in terms of efficiency, farmers were no match for them. For efficiency is the ratio of what is produced to what is put into production.”
Even in 1992, Russian collective farms sold grain at a price of slightly more than 10 rubles per kg, and in the United States in the same autumn they bought grain for 70 rubles per kg. The difference in price may be explained by the fact that, together with government subsidies and other investments, the cost of grain production by US farmers was 7 times higher than the cost of grain production by Soviet collective farms.
Collective farms were destroyed on purpose, just as faith in Stalin, socialism, and Soviet power were deliberately destroyed. The architect of perestroika, that is, the destruction of the USSR, A. N. Yakovlev wrote: “It takes will and wisdom to gradually destroy the Bolshevik community - the collective farm. There can be no compromise here, bearing in mind that the collective and state farm agro-GULAG is strong and infinitely lumpen. Decollectivization must be carried out legally, but harshly.”
The destruction of collective farms was carried out according to plan with the aim of destroying the Russian community, on which the Russian state rested for centuries.