COLLECTIVIZATION OF AGRICULTURE
Plan
1. Introduction.
Collectivization- the process of uniting individual peasant farms into collective farms (collective farms in the USSR). The decision on collectivization was made at the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1927. It was carried out in the USSR in the late 1920s - early 1930s (1928-1933); in the western regions of Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, collectivization was completed in 1949-1950.
Goal of collectivization :
1) establishment of socialist production relations in the countryside,
2) transformation of small-scale individual farms into large, highly productive public cooperative industries.
Reasons for collectivization:
1) The implementation of grandiose industrialization required a radical restructuring of the agricultural sector.
2) In Western countries, the agricultural revolution, i.e. a system of improving agricultural production that preceded the industrial revolution. In the USSR, both of these processes had to be carried out simultaneously.
3) The village was considered not only as a source of food, but also as the most important channel for replenishing financial resources for the needs of industrialization.
In December, Stalin announced the end of the NEP and the transition to a policy of “liquidation of the kulaks as a class.” On January 5, 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks issued a resolution “On the pace of collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm construction.” It set strict deadlines for completing collectivization: for the North Caucasus, Lower and Middle Volga - autumn 1930, in extreme cases - spring 1931, for other grain regions - autumn 1931 or no later than spring 1932. All other regions had to “solve the problem of collectivization within five years.” This formulation aimed to complete collectivization by the end of the first five-year plan. 2. Main part.
Dispossession. Two interrelated violent processes took place in the village: the creation of collective farms and dispossession. The “liquidation of the kulaks” was aimed primarily at providing collective farms with a material base. From the end of 1929 to the middle of 1930, over 320 thousand peasant farms were dispossessed. Their property is worth more than 175 million rubles. transferred to collective farms.
In the generally accepted sense, a fist- this is someone who used hired labor, but this category could also include a middle peasant who had two cows, or two horses, or a good house. Each district received a dispossession norm, which equaled on average 5-7% of the number of peasant households, but local authorities, following the example of the first five-year plan, tried to exceed it. Often, not only the middle peasants, but also, for some reason, the unwanted poor people were registered as kulaks. To justify these actions, the ominous word “podkulaknik” was coined. In some areas the number of dispossessed people reached 15-20%. The liquidation of the kulaks as a class, depriving the village of the most enterprising, most independent peasants, undermined the spirit of resistance. In addition, the fate of the dispossessed should have served as an example to others, to those who did not want to voluntarily go to the collective farm. Kulaks were evicted with their families, infants, and old people. In cold, unheated carriages, with a minimum amount of household belongings, thousands of people traveled to remote areas of the Urals, Siberia, and Kazakhstan. The most active “anti-Soviet” activists were sent to concentration camps. To assist local authorities, 25 thousand urban communists (“twenty-five thousanders”) were sent to the village. "Dizziness from success." By the spring of 1930, it became clear to Stalin that the insane collectivization launched at his call was threatening disaster. Discontent began to permeate the army. Stalin made a well-calculated tactical move. On March 2, Pravda published his article “Dizziness from Success.” He placed all the blame for the current situation on the executors, local workers, declaring that “collective farms cannot be established by force.” After this article, most peasants began to perceive Stalin as a people's protector. A mass exodus of peasants from collective farms began. But a step back was taken only to immediately take a dozen steps forward. In September 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) sent a letter to local party organizations, in which it condemned their passive behavior, fear of “excesses” and demanded “to achieve a powerful rise in the collective farm movement.” In September 1931, collective farms united already 60% of peasant households, in 1934 - 75%. 3.Results of collectivization.
The policy of complete collectivization led to catastrophic results: in 1929-1934. gross grain production decreased by 10%, the number of cattle and horses for 1929-1932. decreased by one third, pigs - 2 times, sheep - 2.5 times. Extermination of livestock, ruin of the village by continuous dispossession, complete disorganization of the work of collective farms in 1932-1933. led to an unprecedented famine that affected approximately 25-30 million people. To a large extent, it was provoked by the policies of the authorities. The country's leadership, trying to hide the scale of the tragedy, banned mention of the famine in the media. Despite its scale, 18 million centners of grain were exported abroad to obtain foreign currency for the needs of industrialization. However, Stalin celebrated his victory: despite the reduction in grain production, its supplies to the state doubled. But most importantly, collectivization created the necessary conditions for the implementation of plans for an industrial leap. It placed at the disposal of the city a huge number of workers, simultaneously eliminating agrarian overpopulation, made it possible, with a significant decrease in the number of employees, to maintain agricultural production at a level that prevented prolonged famine, and provided industry with the necessary raw materials. Collectivization not only created the conditions for pumping funds from villages to cities for the needs of industrialization, but also fulfilled an important political and ideological task by destroying the last island of a market economy - privately owned peasant farming.
All-Russian Communist Party of the Bolsheviks of the USSR - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Reason 3 - But it is much easier to siphon funds from several hundred large farms than to deal with millions of small ones. That is why, with the beginning of industrialization, a course was taken towards the collectivization of agriculture - “the implementation of socialist transformations in the countryside.” NEP - New Economic Policy
Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks - Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party of the Bolsheviks
"Dizziness from success"
In many areas, especially in Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia, the peasantry resisted mass dispossession. Regular units of the Red Army were brought in to suppress peasant unrest. But most often, peasants used passive forms of protest: they refused to join collective farms, they destroyed livestock and equipment as a sign of protest. Terrorist acts were also committed against the “twenty-five thousanders” and local collective farm activists. Collective farm holiday. Artist S. Gerasimov.
The collectivization of the peasantry (80% of the country's population) was intended not only to intensify labor and raise the standard of living in the countryside. It facilitated the redistribution of funds and labor from villages to cities. It was assumed that it would be much easier to obtain grain from a relatively small number of collective farms (collective farms) and state farms (state agricultural enterprises) operating according to the plan than from 25 million scattered private producers. It was precisely this organization of production that made it possible to concentrate labor as much as possible at decisive moments in the agricultural work cycle. For Russia this was always relevant and made the peasant community “immortal”. Mass collectivization also promised to release from the countryside the labor needed for construction and industry.
Collectivization was carried out in two stages.
First: 1928–1929 – confiscation and socialization of livestock, creation of collective farms on local initiative.
In the spring of 1928, the accelerated creation of collective farms began.
Table 1 Chronicle of collectivization
| Years | Events |
| 1928 | The beginning of the accelerated creation of collective farms |
| 1929 | Complete collectivization - "The year of the great turning point" |
| 1930 | Elimination of the kulaks as a class - "Dizziness from success" |
| 1932-1933 | Terrible famine (according to various sources, from 3 to 8 million people died). The actual suspension of collectivization |
| 1934 | Resumption of collectivization. The beginning of the final stage of creating collective farms |
| 1935 | Adoption of a new collective farm charter |
| 1937 | Completion of collectivization: 93% of peasant farms were united into collective farms |
In the spring of 1928, a campaign began to confiscate food from peasants. The role of performers was played by the local poor and workers and communists who came from the city, who, based on the number of the first intake, began to be called “twenty-five thousanders.” In total, 250 thousand volunteers went from the cities to carry out collectivization from 1928 to 1930.
By the autumn of 1929, measures to prepare the transition of the village to complete collectivization, undertaken since the XV Party Congress (December 1925), began to bear fruit. If in the summer of 1928 there were 33.3 thousand collective farms in the country, uniting 1.7% of all peasant farms, then by the summer of 1929 there were 57 thousand. Over a million, or 3.9%, of farms were united in them. In some areas of the North Caucasus, the Lower and Middle Volga, and the Central Black Sea Region, up to 30-50% of farms became collective farms. In three months (July-September), about a million peasant households joined collective farms, almost the same as in the 12 post-October years. This meant that the main strata of the village - the middle peasants - began to switch to the path of collective farms. Based on this trend, Stalin and his supporters, contrary to previously adopted plans, demanded that collectivization be completed in the main grain-growing regions of the country within a year. The theoretical justification for forcing the restructuring of the village was Stalin's article “The Year of the Great Turnaround” (November 7, 1929). It said that peasants joined collective farms in “entire villages, volosts, and districts” and that already this year “decisive successes in grain procurement” had been achieved; the assertions of the “right” about the impossibility of mass collectivization had “collapsed and dissipated into dust.” In fact, at this time only 7% of peasant farms united into collective farms.
The Plenum of the Central Committee (November 1929), which discussed the results and further tasks of collective farm construction, emphasized in the resolution that the change that had occurred in the attitude of the peasantry to collectivization “in the upcoming sowing campaign should become the starting point of a new movement forward in the rise of the poor-middle peasant economy and in the socialist reconstruction of the village." This was a call for immediate, complete collectivization.
In November 1929, the Central Committee instructed local party and Soviet bodies to launch complete collectivization of not only villages and districts, but also regions. To encourage peasants to join collective farms, a directive was adopted on December 10, 1929, according to which in collectivization areas local leaders were to achieve almost complete socialization of livestock. The response of the peasantry was the mass slaughter of animals. From 1928 to 1933, peasants slaughtered 25 million heads of cattle alone (during the Great Patriotic War, the USSR lost 2.4 million).
In a speech at a conference of Marxist agrarians in December 1929, Stalin formulated the task of eliminating the kulaks as a necessary condition for the development of collective and state farms. The “Great Leap” in development, the new “revolution from above,” was supposed to put an end to all socio-economic problems at once, to radically break and rebuild the existing economic structure and national economic proportions.
Revolutionary impatience, enthusiasm of the masses, moods of storming, to a certain extent inherent in the Russian national character, were skillfully exploited by the country's leadership. Administrative levers prevailed in managing the economy, and material incentives began to be replaced by work based on people’s enthusiasm. The end of 1929, in essence, marked the end of the NEP period.
Second stage: 1930–1932 - after the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of January 5, 1930 “On the pace of collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm construction,” the campaign of “complete collectivization” planned in Moscow began. The whole country was divided into three regions, each of which was given specific deadlines for completing collectivization.
This resolution outlined strict deadlines for its implementation. In the main grain-growing regions of the country (Middle and Lower Volga region, Northern Caucasus) it was supposed to be completed by the spring of 1931, in the Central Chernozem region, in Ukraine, the Urals, Siberia and Kazakhstan by the spring of 1932. By the end of the first five-year plan, collectivization was planned to be carried out on a national scale.
Despite the decision, both the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the grassroots party organizations intended to carry out collectivization in a more compressed form. A “competition” between local authorities began for the record-breaking rapid creation of “regions of complete collectivization.”
The five-year plan for collectivization was completed in January 1930, when over 20% of all peasant farms were registered in collective farms. But already in February, Pravda directed readers: “The outline of collectivization - 75% of poor and middle peasant farms during 1930/31 is not the maximum.” The threat of being accused of right-wing deviation due to insufficiently decisive actions pushed local workers to various forms of pressure against peasants who did not want to join collective farms (deprivation of voting rights, exclusion from the Soviets, boards and other elected organizations). Resistance was most often provided by wealthy peasants. In response to the brutal actions of the authorities, mass peasant discontent grew in the country. In the first months of 1930, the OGPU authorities registered more than 2 thousand peasant uprisings, in the suppression of which not only the OGPU-NKVD troops, but also the regular army took part. In the Red Army units, which consisted mainly of peasants, dissatisfaction with the policies of the Soviet leadership was brewing. Fearing this, on March 2, 1930, in the newspaper Pravda, J.V. Stalin published an article “Dizziness from Success,” in which he condemned the “excesses” in collective farm construction and blamed them on the local leadership. But in essence, the policy towards the countryside and the peasantry remained the same.
After a short break for the agricultural season and harvest, the campaign to socialize peasant farms was continued with renewed vigor and completed on schedule in 1932–1933.
In parallel with the socialization of peasant farms, according to the resolution of the Central Committee of January 30, 1930 “On measures to eliminate kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization,” a policy of “liquidation of the kulaks as a class” was pursued. Peasants who refused to join the collective farm were deported with their families to remote areas of the country. The number of “kulak” families was determined in Moscow and reported to local leaders. About 6 million people died during dispossession. The total number of liquidated “kulak farms” only in 1929-1931. amounted to 381 thousand (1.8 million people), and in total during the years of collectivization it reached 1.1 million farms.
Dekulakization became a powerful catalyst for collectivization and made it possible by March 1930 to raise its level in the country to 56%, and in the RSFSR - 57.6%. By the end of the five-year plan, more than 200 thousand fairly large (on average 75 households) collective farms were created in the country, uniting about 15 million peasant farms, 62% of their total number. Along with collective farms, 4.5 thousand state farms were formed. According to the plan, they were supposed to become a school for running a large socialist economy. Their property was state property; the peasants who worked in them were state workers. Unlike collective farmers, they received a fixed salary for their work. At the beginning of 1933, it was announced that the first five-year plan (1928–1932) would be completed in 4 years and 3 months. All reports cited figures that did not reflect the actual situation in the Soviet economy.
According to statistics, from 1928 to 1932, the production of consumer goods fell by 5%, total agricultural production by 15%, and personal income of the urban and rural population by 50%. In 1934, collectivization resumed. At this stage, a broad “offensive” was launched against individual peasants. An unaffordable administrative tax was imposed on them. Thus, their farms were brought to ruin. The peasant had two options: either go to the collective farm, or go to the city for the construction of the first five-year plans. In February 1935, at the Second All-Russian Congress of Collective Farmers, a new model charter of the agricultural artel (collective farm) was adopted, which became a milestone in collectivization and secured collective farms as the main form of agricultural producer in the country. Collective farms, as well as industrial enterprises throughout the country, had production plans that had to be strictly implemented. However, unlike urban enterprises, collective farmers had practically no rights, such as social security, etc., since collective farms did not have the status of state enterprises, but were considered a form of cooperative farming. Gradually the village came to terms with the collective farm system. By 1937, individual farming had virtually disappeared (93% of all households were united into collective farms).
The first attempts at collectivization were made by the Soviet government immediately after the revolution. However, at that time there were many more serious problems. The decision to carry out collectivization in the USSR was made at the 15th Party Congress in 1927. The reasons for collectivization were, first of all:
- the need for large investments in industry to industrialize the country;
- and the “grain procurement crisis” that the authorities faced in the late 20s.
The collectivization of peasant farms began in 1929. During this period, taxes on individual farms were significantly increased. The process of dispossession began - deprivation of property and, often, deportation of wealthy peasants. There was a massive slaughter of livestock - the peasants did not want to give it to collective farms. Members of the Politburo who objected to harsh pressure on the peasantry were accused of right-wing deviation.
But, according to Stalin, the process was not going fast enough. In the winter of 1930, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to carry out complete collectivization of agriculture in the USSR as quickly as possible, within 1 - 2 years. Peasants were forced to join collective farms under the threat of dispossession. The seizure of bread from the village led to a terrible famine in 1932-33. which broke out in many regions of the USSR. During that period, according to minimal estimates, 2.5 million people died.
As a result, collectivization dealt a significant blow to agriculture. Grain production decreased, the number of cows and horses decreased by more than 2 times. Only the poorest layers of peasants benefited from mass dispossession and joining collective farms. The situation in rural areas improved somewhat only during the 2nd Five-Year Plan period. Carrying out collectivization became one of the important stages in the approval of the new regime.
Collectivization in the USSR: reasons, methods of implementation, results of collectivization
Collectivization of agriculture in the USSR- is the unification of small individual peasant farms into large collective ones through production cooperation.
Grain procurement crisis of 1927 - 1928 threatened industrialization plans.
The XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party proclaimed collectivization as the main task of the party in the countryside. The implementation of the collectivization policy was reflected in the widespread creation of collective farms, which were provided with benefits in the field of credit, taxation, and the supply of agricultural machinery.
Goals of collectivization:
- increasing grain exports to ensure financing of industrialization;
- implementation of socialist transformations in the countryside;
- ensuring supplies to rapidly growing cities.
The pace of collectivization:
- spring 1931 - main grain regions;
- spring 1932 - Central Chernozem region, Ukraine, Ural, Siberia, Kazakhstan;
- end of 1932 - other areas.
During mass collectivization, kulak farms were liquidated - dispossession. Lending was stopped and taxation of private households was increased, laws on land leasing and labor hiring were abolished. It was forbidden to admit kulaks to collective farms.
In the spring of 1930, anti-collective farm protests began. In March 1930, Stalin published the article Dizziness from Success, in which he blamed local authorities for forced collectivization. Most of the peasants left the collective farms. However, already in the fall of 1930, the authorities resumed forced collectivization.
Collectivization was completed by the mid-30s: 1935 on collective farms - 62% of farms, 1937 - 93%.
The consequences of collectivization were extremely severe:
- reduction in gross grain production and livestock numbers;
- growth in bread exports;
- mass famine 1932 - 1933 from which more than 5 million people died;
- weakening of economic incentives for the development of agricultural production;
- alienation of peasants from property and the results of their labor.
Results of collectivization
I have already mentioned the role of complete collectivization and its miscalculations, excesses and mistakes above. Now I will summarize the results of collectivization:
1. Elimination of wealthy farmers - kulaks with the division of their property between the state, collective farms and the poor.
2. Ridding the village of social contrasts, striping, land surveying, etc. The final socialization of a huge share of cultivated land.
3. Beginning to equip the rural economy with modern economics and communications, accelerating rural electrification
4. Destruction of rural industry - the sector of primary processing of raw materials and food.
5. Restoration of an archaic and easily managed rural community in the form of collective farms. Strengthening political and administrative control over the largest class, the peasantry.
6. The devastation of many regions of the South and East - most of Ukraine, the Don, Western Siberia during the struggle over collectivization. Famine of 1932-1933 - “critical food situation.”
7. Stagnation in labor productivity. Long-term decline in livestock farming and worsening meat problem.
The destructive consequences of the first steps of collectivization were condemned by Stalin himself in his article “Dizziness from Success,” which appeared back in March 1930. In it, he declaratively condemned the violation of the principle of voluntariness when enrolling in collective farms. However, even after the publication of his article, enrollment in collective farms remained virtually forced.
The consequences of the breakdown of the centuries-old economic structure in the village were extremely severe.
The productive forces of agriculture were undermined for years to come: in 1929-1932. the number of cattle and horses decreased by a third, pigs and sheep - by more than half. The famine that struck the weakened village in 1933 killed over five million people. Millions of dispossessed people also died from cold, hunger, and overwork.
And at the same time, many of the goals set by the Bolsheviks were achieved. Despite the fact that the number of peasants decreased by a third, and gross grain production by 10%, its state procurements in 1934 compared to 1928 doubled. Independence from the import of cotton and other important agricultural raw materials was gained.
In a short time, the agricultural sector, dominated by small-scale, poorly controlled elements, found itself in the grip of strict centralization, administration, orders, and turned into an organic component of a directive economy.
The effectiveness of collectivization was tested during the Second World War, the events of which revealed both the power of the state economy and its vulnerabilities. The absence of large food reserves during the war was a consequence of collectivization - the extermination of collectivized livestock by individual farmers, and the lack of progress in labor productivity on most collective farms. During the war, the state was forced to accept help from abroad.
As part of the first measure, a significant amount of flour, canned food and fats entered the country, mainly from the USA and Canada; food, like other goods, was supplied by the allies at the insistence of the USSR under Lend-Lease, i.e. in fact, on credit with payment after the war, due to which the country found itself in debt for many years.
Initially, it was assumed that the collectivization of agriculture would be carried out gradually, as peasants realized the benefits of cooperation. However, the grain procurement crisis of 1927/28 showed that maintaining market relations between city and countryside in the context of ongoing industrialization is problematic. The party leadership was dominated by supporters of abandoning the NEP.
Carrying out complete collectivization made it possible to siphon funds from the countryside for the needs of industrialization. In the autumn of 1929, peasants began to be forcibly driven into collective farms. Complete collectivization met resistance from the peasants, both active in the form of uprisings and riots, and passive, which was expressed in the flight of people from the village and reluctance to work in collective farms.
The situation in the village was so aggravated that in the spring of 1930 the leadership was forced to take steps to eliminate “excesses in the collective farm movement,” but the course towards collectivization was continued. Forced collectivization affected the results of agricultural production. The tragic consequences of collectivization include the famine of 1932.
Basically, collectivization was completed by the end of the first five-year plan, when its level reached 62%. By the beginning of World War II, 93% of farms were collectivized.
Economic development of the USSR in 1928-1940.
During the years of the first five-year plans, the USSR made an unprecedented industrial breakthrough. The gross social product increased 4.5 times, national income more than 5 times. The total volume of industrial production is 6.5 times. At the same time, there are noticeable disproportions in the development of industries of groups A and B. The production of agricultural products has actually been marking time.
Thus, as a result of the “socialist offensive”, at the cost of enormous efforts, significant results were achieved in transforming the country into an industrial power. This contributed to increasing the role of the USSR in the international arena.
Sources: historykratko.com, zubolom.ru, www.bibliotekar.ru, ido-rags.ru, prezentacii.com
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40. Collectivization in the USSR: reasons, methods of implementation, results.
The collectivization of agriculture in the USSR is the unification of small individual peasant farms into large collective farms through production cooperation.
Grain procurement crisis of 1927 - 1928 (peasants handed over 8 times less grain to the state than in the previous year) jeopardized industrialization plans.
The XV Congress of the CPSU (b) (1927) proclaimed collectivization as the main task of the party in the countryside. The implementation of the collectivization policy was reflected in the widespread creation of collective farms, which were provided with benefits in the field of credit, taxation, and the supply of agricultural machinery.
Goals of collectivization:
increasing grain exports to provide financing for industrialization;
implementation of socialist transformations in the countryside;
ensuring supplies to rapidly growing cities.
The pace of collectivization:
spring 1931 - main grain regions (Middle and Lower Volga region, Northern Caucasus);
spring 1932 - Central Chernozem region, Ukraine, Ural, Siberia, Kazakhstan;
end of 1932 - remaining areas.
During mass collectivization, kulak farms were liquidated - dispossession. Lending was stopped and taxation of private households was increased, laws on land leasing and labor hiring were abolished. It was forbidden to admit kulaks to collective farms.
In the spring of 1930, anti-collective farm protests began (more than 2 thousand). In March 1930, Stalin published the article “Dizziness from Success,” in which he blamed local authorities for forced collectivization. Most of the peasants left the collective farms. However, already in the fall of 1930, the authorities resumed forced collectivization.
Collectivization was completed by the mid-30s: 1935 on collective farms - 62% of farms, 1937 - 93%.
The consequences of collectivization were extremely severe:
reduction in gross grain production and livestock numbers;
growth in bread exports;
mass famine of 1932 - 1933, from which over 5 million people died;
weakening of economic incentives for the development of agricultural production;
alienation of peasants from property and the results of their labor.
41. USSR in the late 30s; internal development,
FOREIGN POLICY.
The internal political and economic development of the USSR at the end of the 30s remained complex and contradictory. This was explained by the strengthening of the personality cult of J.V. Stalin, the omnipotence of the party leadership, and the further strengthening of the centralization of management. At the same time, the people's faith in the ideals of socialism, labor enthusiasm and high citizenship grew.
The economic development of the USSR was determined by the tasks of the third five-year plan (1938 - 1942). Despite the successes (in 1937, the USSR took second place in the world in terms of production), the industrial lag behind the West was not overcome, especially in the development of new technologies and in the production of consumer goods. The main efforts in the 3rd Five-Year Plan were aimed at developing industries that ensure the country's defense capability. In the Urals, Siberia, and Central Asia, the fuel and energy base was developing at an accelerated pace. “Double factories” were created in the Urals, Western Siberia, and Central Asia.
In agriculture, the tasks of strengthening the country's defense capability were also taken into account. Plantings of industrial crops (cotton) expanded. By the beginning of 1941, significant food reserves had been created.
Particular attention was paid to the construction of defense factories. However, the creation of modern types of weapons for that time was delayed. New aircraft designs: the Yak-1, Mig-3 fighters, and the Il-2 attack aircraft were developed during the 3rd Five-Year Plan, but they were not able to establish widespread production before the war. The industry also had not mastered the mass production of T-34 and KV tanks by the beginning of the war.
Major events were carried out in the field of military development. The transition to a personnel system for recruiting the army has been completed. The law on universal conscription (1939) made it possible to increase the size of the army to 5 million people by 1941. In 1940, the ranks of general and admiral were established, and complete unity of command was introduced.
Social events were also driven by defense needs. In 1940, a program for the development of state labor reserves was adopted and the transition to an 8-hour working day and a 7-day working week was implemented. A law was passed on judicial liability for unauthorized dismissal, absenteeism and lateness to work.
At the end of the 1930s, international tensions increased. The Western powers pursued a policy of concessions to Nazi Germany, trying to direct its aggression against the USSR. The culmination of this policy was the Munich Agreement (September 1938) between Germany, Italy, England and France, which formalized the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.
In the Far East, Japan, having captured most of China, approached the borders of the USSR. In the summer of 1938, an armed conflict occurred on the territory of the USSR in the area of Lake Khasan. The Japanese group was repulsed. In May 1938, Japanese troops invaded Mongolia. Units of the Red Army under the command of G.K. Zhukov defeated them in the area of the Khalkhin Gol River.
At the beginning of 1939, the last attempt was made to create a system of collective security between England, France and the USSR. The Western powers delayed negotiations. Therefore, the Soviet leadership moved towards rapprochement with Germany. On August 23, 1939, a Soviet-German non-aggression pact for a period of 10 years (Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact) was concluded in Moscow. Attached to it was a secret protocol on the delimitation of spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. The interests of the USSR were recognized by Germany in the Baltic states and Bessarabia.
On September 1, Germany attacked Poland. Under these conditions, the leadership of the USSR began to implement the Soviet-German agreements of August 1939. On September 17, the Red Army entered Western Belarus and Western Ukraine. In 1940, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania became part of the USSR.
In November 1939, the USSR started a war with Finland in the hope of its quick defeat, with the goal of moving the Soviet-Finnish border away from Leningrad in the Karelian Isthmus region. At the cost of enormous efforts, the resistance of the Finnish armed forces was broken. In March 1940, a Soviet-Finnish peace treaty was signed, according to which the USSR received the entire Karelian Isthmus.
In the summer of 1940, as a result of political pressure, Romania ceded Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the USSR.
As a result, large territories with a population of 14 million people were included in the USSR. Foreign policy agreements of 1939 delayed the attack on the USSR for almost 2 years.
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Subtitles
Agriculture in Russia before collectivization
The country's agriculture was undermined by the First World War and the Civil War. According to the All-Russian Agricultural Census of 1917, the working-age male population in the village decreased by 47.4% compared to 1914; the number of horses - the main draft force - from 17.9 million to 12.8 million. The number of livestock and sown areas decreased, and agricultural yields decreased. A food crisis has begun in the country. Even two years after the end of the civil war, grain crops amounted to only 63.9 million hectares (1923).
In the last year of his life, V.I. Lenin called, in particular, for the development of the cooperative movement. It is known that before dictating the article “On Cooperation,” V.I. Lenin ordered literature on cooperation from the library, among others there was book by A. V. Chayanov “Basic ideas and forms of organization of peasant cooperation” (M., 1919). And in the Lenin library in the Kremlin there were seven works by A.V. Chayanov. A. V. Chayanov highly appreciated V. I. Lenin’s article “On Cooperation.” He believed that after this Leninist work, “cooperation is becoming one of the foundations of our economic policy. During the NEP years, cooperation began to be actively restored. According to the memoirs of the former Chairman of the USSR Government A.N. Kosygin (he worked in the leadership until the early 1930s cooperative organizations in Siberia), “the main thing that forced him to “leave the ranks of cooperators” was that collectivization, which unfolded in Siberia in the early 30s, meant, paradoxical as it may be at first glance, disorganization and largely powerful , covering all corners of Siberia cooperative network".
The restoration of pre-war grain sown areas - 94.7 million hectares - was achieved only by 1927 (the total sown area in 1927 was 112.4 million hectares against 105 million hectares in 1913). It was also possible to slightly exceed the pre-war level (1913) of productivity: the average yield of grain crops for 1924-1928 reached 7.5 c/ha. It was practically possible to restore the livestock population (with the exception of horses). Gross grain production by the end of the recovery period (1928) reached 733.2 million quintals. The marketability of grain farming remained extremely low - in 1926/27, the average marketability of grain farming was 13.3% (47.2% - collective and state farms, 20.0% - kulaks, 11.2% - poor and middle peasants). In the gross grain production, collective and state farms accounted for 1.7%, kulaks - 13%, middle peasants and poor peasants - 85.3%. The number of private peasant farms by 1926 reached 24.6 million, the average crop area was less than 4.5 hectares (1928), more than 30% of farms did not have the means (tools, draft animals) to cultivate the land. The low level of agricultural technology of small individual farms had no further prospects for growth. In 1928, 9.8% of the sown areas were plowed with a plow, three-quarters of the sowing was done by hand, 44% of grain harvesting was done with a sickle and scythe, and 40.7% of threshing was done by non-mechanical (manual) methods (flail, etc.).
As a result of the transfer of landowners' lands to the peasants, peasant farms were fragmented into small plots. By 1928, their number increased one and a half times compared to 1913 - from 16 to 25 million
By 1928-29 The share of poor people in the rural population of the USSR was 35%, middle peasants - 60%, kulaks - 5%. At the same time, it was the kulak farms that had a significant part (15-20%) of the means of production, including about a third of agricultural machines.
"Bread Strike"
The course towards collectivization of agriculture was proclaimed at the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (December 1927). As of July 1, 1927, there were 14.88 thousand collective farms in the country; for the same period 1928 - 33.2 thousand, 1929 - St. 57 thousand. They united 194.7 thousand, 416.7 thousand and 1,007.7 thousand individual farms, respectively. Among the organizational forms of collective farms, partnerships for joint cultivation of land (TOZs) predominated; There were also agricultural cooperatives and communes. To support collective farms, the state provided various incentive measures - interest-free loans, the supply of agricultural machinery and implements, and the provision of tax benefits.
Already by November 1927, a problem arose with providing food to some industrial centers. The simultaneous increase in prices in cooperative and private shops for food products with a decrease in planned supplies led to an increase in discontent in the working environment.
To ensure grain procurements, the authorities in many regions of the USSR returned to procurement on the principles of surplus appropriation. Such actions, however, were condemned in the Resolution of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of July 10, 1928, “The Policy of Grain Procurement in Connection with the General Economic Situation.”
At the same time, the practice of collective farming in 1928 in Ukraine and the North Caucasus showed that collective and state farms have more opportunities to overcome crises (natural, wars, etc.). According to Stalin’s plan, it was large industrial grain farms - state farms created on state lands - that could “solve grain difficulties” and avoid difficulties in providing the country with the necessary amount of marketable grain. On July 11, 1928, the plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On the organization of new (grain) state farms,” which stated: “to approve the task for 1928 with a total plowed area sufficient to obtain 5-7 million poods in 1929 commercial bread."
The result of this resolution was the adoption of the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated August 1, 1928 “On the organization of large grain farms”, paragraph 1 of which read: “It is recognized as necessary to organize new large grain Soviet farms (grain factories) on free land funds, taking this into account in order to ensure the receipt of marketable grain from these farms in an amount of at least 100,000,000 poods (1,638,000 tons) by the harvest of 1933.” It was planned to unite the new Soviet farms being created into a trust of all-Union significance “Zernotrest”, directly subordinate to the Council of Labor and Defense.
A repeated grain crop failure in Ukraine in 1928 brought the country to the brink of famine, which, despite the measures taken (food aid, reduction in the level of supply to cities, the introduction of a rationing supply system), occurred in certain regions (in particular, in Ukraine).
Considering the lack of state reserves of grain, a number of Soviet leaders (N.I. Bukharin, A.I. Rykov, M.P. Tomsky) proposed slowing down the pace of industrialization, abandoning the development of collective farm construction and the “attack on the kulaks, returning to the free sale of grain, raising prices by 2-3 times, and buying the missing bread abroad.”
This proposal was rejected by Stalin, and the practice of “pressure” was continued (mainly at the expense of the grain-producing regions of Siberia, which were less affected by crop failures).
This crisis became the starting point for a “radical solution to the grain problem,” expressed in “the development of socialist construction in the countryside, planting state and collective farms capable of using tractors and other modern machines” (from I. Stalin’s speech at the XVI Congress of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (b) ( 1930)).
Goals and objectives of collectivization
The party leadership saw a way out of the “grain difficulties” in the reorganization of agriculture, providing for the creation of state farms and the collectivization of poor and middle peasant farms while simultaneously resolutely fighting the kulaks. According to the initiators of collectivization, the main problem of agriculture was its fragmentation: most farms were in small private ownership with a high share of manual labor, which did not allow satisfying the growing demand of the urban population for food products, and industry for agricultural raw materials. Collectivization was supposed to solve the problem of the limited distribution of industrial crops in small-scale individual farming and create the necessary raw material base for the processing industry. It was also intended to reduce the cost of agricultural products for the end consumer by eliminating the chain of intermediaries, as well as through mechanization to increase the productivity and efficiency of labor in agriculture, which was supposed to free up additional labor resources for industry. The result of collectivization was supposed to be the availability of a marketable mass of agricultural products in quantities sufficient to form food reserves and supply the rapidly growing urban population with food. [ ]
Unlike previous major agrarian reforms in Russia, such as the abolition of serfdom in 1861 or the Stolypin agrarian reform of 1906, collectivization was not accompanied by any clearly formulated program and detailed instructions for its implementation, while attempts by local leaders to obtain clarification were stopped by disciplinary means. The signal for a radical change in policy towards the village was given in the speech of I.V. Stalin at the Communist Academy in December 1929, although no specific instructions were given for collectivization, except for the call to “liquidate the kulaks as a class.”
Complete collectivization
The transition to complete collectivization was carried out against the backdrop of an armed conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway and the outbreak of the global economic crisis, which caused serious concerns among the party leadership about the possibility of a new military intervention against the USSR.
At the same time, some positive examples of collective farming, as well as successes in the development of consumer and agricultural cooperation, led to a not entirely adequate assessment of the current situation in agriculture.
Since the spring of 1929, events aimed at increasing the number of collective farms were carried out in the countryside - in particular, Komsomol campaigns “for collectivization.” In the RSFSR, the institute of agricultural commissioners was created; in Ukraine, much attention was paid to those preserved from the civil war to the komnesams(analogous to the Russian commander). Mainly through the use of administrative measures, it was possible to achieve a significant increase in collective farms (mainly in the form of TOZs).
In the countryside, forced grain procurements, accompanied by mass arrests and destruction of farms, led to riots, the number of which by the end of 1929 numbered in the hundreds. Not wanting to give property and livestock to collective farms and fearing the repression that wealthy peasants were subjected to, people slaughtered livestock and reduced crops.
Meanwhile, the November (1929) plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On the results and further tasks of collective farm construction,” in which it noted that the country had begun a large-scale socialist reconstruction of the countryside and the construction of large-scale socialist agriculture. The resolution indicated the need for a transition to complete collectivization in certain regions. At the plenum, it was decided to send 25 thousand urban workers (twenty-five thousand people) to collective farms for permanent work to “manage the established collective farms and state farms” (in fact, their number subsequently almost tripled, amounting to over 73 thousand).
This caused sharp resistance from the peasantry. According to data from various sources cited by O. V. Khlevnyuk, in January 1930, 346 mass protests were registered, in which 125 thousand people took part, in February - 736 (220 thousand), in the first two weeks of March - 595 ( about 230 thousand), not counting Ukraine, where 500 settlements were affected by unrest. In March 1930, in general, in Belarus, the Central Black Earth Region, in the Lower and Middle Volga region, in the North Caucasus, in Siberia, in the Urals, in the Leningrad, Moscow, Western, Ivanovo-Voznesensk regions, in the Crimea and Central Asia, 1642 mass peasant uprisings, in which at least 750-800 thousand people took part. In Ukraine at this time, more than a thousand settlements were already engulfed in unrest. In the post-war period in Western Ukraine, the collectivization process was opposed by the OUN underground.
XVI Congress of the CPSU(b)
Collectivization was carried out primarily through forced administrative methods. Excessively centralized management and at the same time the predominantly low qualification level of local managers, equalization, and the race to “exceed plans” had a negative impact on the collective farm system as a whole. Despite the excellent harvest of 1930, a number of collective farms were left without seed by the spring of the following year, while in the fall some of the grain was not fully harvested. Low wage standards on Kolkhoz Commodity Farms (KTF), against the backdrop of the general unpreparedness of collective farms for large-scale commercial livestock farming (lack of necessary premises for farms, stock of feed, regulatory documents and qualified personnel (veterinarians, livestock breeders, etc.)) led to mass death of livestock.
An attempt to improve the situation by adopting on July 30, 1931 the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR “On the development of socialist livestock farming” in practice led locally to the forced socialization of cows and small livestock. This practice was condemned by the Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of March 26, 1932.
The severe drought that struck the country in 1931 and mismanagement of the harvest led to a significant decrease in the gross grain harvest (694.8 million quintals in 1931 versus 835.4 million quintals in 1930).
Famine in the USSR (1932-1933)
Despite the failure of the harvest, local efforts were made to meet and exceed the planned norms for the collection of agricultural products - the same applied to the plan for grain exports, despite a significant drop in prices on the world market. This, like a number of other factors, ultimately led to a difficult food situation and famine in villages and small towns in the east of the country in the winter of 1931-1932. The freezing of winter crops in 1932 and the fact that a significant number of collective farms approached the sowing campaign of 1932 without seed and draft animals (which died or were unsuitable for work due to poor care and lack of feed, which were paid towards the general grain procurement plan ), led to a significant deterioration in the prospects for the 1932 harvest. Across the country, plans for export supplies were reduced (by about three times), planned grain procurements (by 22%) and delivery of livestock (by 2 times), but this did not save the general situation - repeated crop failure (death of winter crops, lack of sowing, partial drought, a decrease in yield caused by a violation of basic agronomic principles, large losses during harvesting and a number of other reasons) led to severe famine in the winter of 1932 - spring of 1933.
Elimination of the kulaks as a class
By the beginning of complete collectivization, the view prevailed in the party leadership that the main obstacle to the unification of poor and middle peasants was the more prosperous stratum in the countryside formed during the years of the NEP - the kulaks, as well as the social group that supported them or depended on them - "subkulak".
As part of the implementation of complete collectivization, this obstacle had to be “removed.”
On January 30, 1930, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On measures to eliminate kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization.” At the same time, it was noted that the starting point for the “liquidation of the kulak as a class” was the publication in newspapers of all levels of Stalin’s speech at the congress of Marxist agrarians in late December 1929. A number of historians note that planning for “liquidation” took place in early December 1929 - in the so-called. “Yakovlev Commission” since the number and “areas” of eviction of “1st category kulaks” had already been approved by January 1, 1930.
"Fists" were divided into three categories:
- 1st - counter-revolutionary activists: kulaks who actively oppose the organization of collective farms, fleeing from their permanent place of residence and going into hiding;
The heads of kulak families of the first category were arrested, and cases about their actions were transferred to the “troikas” consisting of representatives of the OGPU, regional committees (territorial committees) of the CPSU (b) and the prosecutor’s office.
- 2nd - the richest local kulak authorities, who are the stronghold of the anti-Soviet activists;
Dispossessed peasants of the second category, as well as families of kulaks of the first category, were evicted to remote areas of the country in a special settlement, or labor settlement (otherwise it was called “kulak exile” or “labor exile”). The certificate from the Department of Special Resettlers of the Gulag OGPU indicated that in 1930-1931. 381,026 families with a total number of 1,803,392 people were evicted (and sent to a special settlement), including 63,720 families from Ukraine, of which: to the Northern Territory - 19,658, to the Urals - 32,127, to Western Siberia - 6556, to Eastern Siberia - 5056, to Yakutia - 97, Far Eastern Territory - 323.
- 3rd - the remaining fists.
Kulaks classified in the third category, as a rule, were resettled within the region or region, that is, they were not sent to a special settlement.
In practice, not only kulaks were subjected to eviction with confiscation of property, but also the so-called sub-kulaks, that is, middle peasants, poor peasants and even farm laborers convicted of pro-kulak and anti-collective farm actions (there were also many cases of settling scores with neighbors and déjà vu “rob the loot”). - which clearly contradicted the point clearly stated in the resolution about the inadmissibility of “infringement” of the middle peasant.
To oust the kulaks as a class, the policy of limiting and ousting its individual detachments is not enough. In order to oust the kulaks as a class, it is necessary to break the resistance of this class in open battle and deprive it of production sources of existence and development (free use of land, tools of production, rent, the right to hire labor, etc.).
Collective farm construction in the vast majority of German villages in the Siberian region was carried out as a result of administrative pressure, without sufficient consideration of the degree of organizational and political preparation for it. Dispossession measures were used in many cases as a measure of influence against middle peasants who did not want to join collective farms. Thus, measures aimed exclusively against kulaks affected a significant number of middle peasants in German villages. These methods not only did not contribute, but repelled the German peasantry from collective farms. It is enough to point out that of the total number of kulaks expelled administratively in the Omsk District, half were returned by the OGPU authorities from assembly points and from the road.
Management of the resettlement (timing, number and selection of resettlement sites) was carried out by the Sector of Land Funds and Resettlement of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR (1930-1933), the Resettlement Directorate of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR (1930-1931), the Sector of Land Funds and Resettlement of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR (Reorganized) (1931-1933) , ensured the resettlement of the OGPU.
The deportees, in violation of existing instructions, were provided with little or no necessary food and equipment in the new places of resettlement (especially in the first years of mass expulsion), which often had no prospects for agricultural use.
The collectivization of agriculture in the western regions of Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which became part of the USSR in the pre-war years, was completed in 1949-1950.
Export of grain and import of agricultural equipment during collectivization
Since the late 80s, the history of collectivization has included the opinion of some Western historians that “Stalin organized collectivization to obtain money for industrialization through the extensive export of agricultural products (mainly grain)” [ ] .
- Import of agricultural machinery and tractors (thousands of red rubles): 1926/27 - 25,971, 1927/28 - 23,033, 1928/29 - 45,595, 1929/30 - 113,443, 1931 - 97,534, 1932-420.
- Export of bakery products (million rubles): 1926/27 - 202.6, 1927/28 - 32.8, 1928/29 - 15.9, 1930-207.1, 1931-157.6, 1932 - 56.8.
Total, for the period 1926 - 33. grain was exported for 672.8 million rubles, and equipment was imported for 306 million rubles.
In addition, during the period 1927-32, the state imported breeding cattle worth about 100 million rubles. Imports of fertilizers and equipment intended for the production of tools and mechanisms for agriculture were also very significant.
Consequences of collectivization
As a result of Stalin's collectivization policy: more than 2 million peasants were deported, of which 1,800,000 were deported in 1930-1931 alone; 6 million died of hunger, hundreds of thousands were in exile.
This policy caused a lot of uprisings among the population. In March 1930 alone, the OGPU counted 6,500 mass protests, of which 800 were suppressed using weapons. Overall, during 1930, some 2.5 million peasants took part in 14,000 uprisings against the Soviet collectivization policy.
In one interview, professor of political science at Moscow State University and Ph.D. Alexey Kara-Murza expressed the opinion that collectivization was a direct genocide of the Soviet people. But this issue remains debatable.
Theme of collectivization in art
- Take us for a ride, Petrusha, on a tractor (song) - music: Vladimir Zakharov; words: Ivan Molchanov, 1929