Today’s objectives

 

  1. Define: collective farms, and how they were supposed to work
  2. Discuss: why collectivization was so difficult in practice
  3. Deconstruct: how collectivization laid foundation for collective punishment and mass repression

Collectivization and Industrialization

How collective farms worked

Why collectivize?

 

Problem:

How to fuel mass industrialization in cities?

 

Solution:

  • transform small private farms into large, high-yield cooperative farms


Part of the plan

Types of collective farms

  1. Sovkhoz (Soviet agro enterprise)
    • state farm
    • on state-owned land
    • farmers had salaries/wage labor
    • government-funded investment, more mechanized than kolkhoz
  2. Kolkhoz (collective agro enterprise)
    • cooperative farm
    • on formerly private land
      (former communes)
    • revenues divided between members of cooperative


Future is here

But not yet here

Three types of kolkhozy in 1918

  1. kommuna (commune)
    • everything communally owned
      (no private gardening)
    • proceeds distributed “to each according to his needs,” not proportional to labor/investment
  2. artel’ (cooperative farm)
    • means of production communally owned (livestock, equipment, etc)
    • private property includes home, garden for household consumption
  3. tovarishchevstsvo (association)
    • only land, labor in communal use
    • proceeds distributed in proportion to labor, investment

artel’ became main form of collective farm


Work the fields

for greater good

How kolkhozy were organized

  1. Membership
    • everyone over 16 (except kulaks)
  2. Governing body
    • general assembly
  3. Head of farm
    • in theory: chairman, elected by general assembly
    • in practice: directors were often urban workers sent from cities

How kolkhozy operated

  • farms got rigid, non-negotiable quotas
  • surrender all grain to state, keep only surplus above quota
  • no cushion for bad weather, crop failure
  • failure to meet quota \(\to\)
    higher quota next harvest \(\to\)
    black list (everything confiscated)


Bread to state

Pre-1928: collectivization was voluntary

  • incentives:
    • 0% interest loans
    • government-financed farm machinery
    • tax benefits

Post-1928: mass, forced collectivization

 

Discussion:
Why the switch?

 

Would collectivization have been possible in a democratic state?

 

Would collectivization be possible today?


Kolektyvizuysya!

Did collective farms work?

How successful was collectivization in fueling industrialization?

 

Not very, according to data from NEP days

  • in 1926, 47% of farms were collectives
  • they accounted for 1.7% of production

Post-NEP: agricultural surplus was negative (sales to industry \(<\) purchases from industry)

  • decline in livestock (need machinery)
  • unfavorable terms of trade (low agro prices, high manifacture prices)
  • limited state-funded capital investment


Meet the quota!

Problems before collectivization

  • small, subdivided land holdings
  • reliance on manual labor,
    very little mechanization
  • production not scalable

Problems after collectivization

  • gigantomania: emphasis on large agricultural enterprises, big acreage
  • low mechanization: dependence on manual labor (sickles still dominant technology of harvest)
  • low crop yield: grain rots before it is collected, processed and shipped
  • monocultures: plant same crop over large plot, no diversification

why were these “problems” problematic?


Plowing ahead!

Dekulakization and Famine

Kulaks

Who were the kulaks?

  • in theory: wealthy peasants who used hired labor and engaged in rural usury
  • in practice: peasants (broadly defined)

Dekulakization: “destroy kulaks as a class”

  • Politburo order, Jan 30, 1930
  • arrest kulaks, confiscate their property
  • sentencing quotas:
    • 60,000 to concentration camps
    • 150,000 resettled to remote areas
    • death penalty for kulaks in “counterrevolutionary core”


Death to kulaks!

Geographic distribution of dekulakization

Temporal distribution of dekulakization

Who was “dekulakized”? (data from Memorial NGO)

  1. Occupation
    • 93.7% farming
    • 5.9% services
    • 0.4% other
  2. Nationality
    • 76% Russian
    • 9% Ukrainian
    • 2.5% Tatar
    • 12.5% other


  1. Party affiliation
    • 48% no party
    • 6% Communist
  2. Education
    • 47% none/illiterate
    • 52% primary
    • 1% secondary
    • 0.2% higher

Holodomor

Famine deaths in Ukraine (1933 borders)

Explanations for 1933 Ukrainian famine

  1. Bad weather
    • unusually cold, wet spring
    • unusually hot, dry summer
    • early frost in fall
    • disrupted sowing, germination
  2. Bad policies
    • collectivization
    • rural brain drain due to dekulakization
    • punitive production quotas
    • confiscation of grain, livestock
    • internal passports
    • use of hunger as punishment
  3. Ethnic discrimination
    • punitive measures stricter in Ukraine than in other regions
    • more excess fatalities in Ukraine than in other regions


De zerno?

Os’ de zerno!

Discussion:
How could famine have been avoided?

  1. reduce pace of industrialization?
  2. reduce quotas?
  3. reduce exports of grain?
  4. return to market system?
  5. go easy on the kulaks?
  6. accept foreign aid?


Avoidable?

NEXT MEETING

 

Forced Labor and the Gulag (Th, Oct. 2)

  • mass bondage machine
  • things to consider:
    • what parallels and difference do you see between the
      Gulag and other forced labor institutions we’ve covered?
    • what came first: demand for forced labor, or supply of
      forced laborers?