A Short History of Soviet Socialism by Mark Sandle

Author:Mark Sandle
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf, azw3
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

was a collective farm? What sort of land tenure should be implemented? How

much should be collectivized? Which peasants would join the collective farms?

None of these issues was discussed. Implementation was left to “local discretion”

in the absence of clear central guidelines. The resolution of 5 January 1930

(issued in the name of the cc, but not discussed at a plenum) expressed the

importance and the possibility of immediate, rapid collectivization irrespective

of developments in both the country-side and the industrial sector. 38 In other words, it was to be conducted without a sufficient supply of machinery available,

and irrespective of the progress made by voluntary collectivization.

Implementation followed general prescriptions: purge the country-side of kulaks, 180 STALINIST SOCIALISM

create large-scale farms, accomplish it as quickly as possible to minimize

disruption to the 1930 spring sowing. In purely quantitative terms, by 1936 90

per cent of households had been collectivized. The questions of productivity,

output and the contribution of collectivization are more contested. Grain

deliveries clearly increased, but the sources of this are unclear.39

The process itself proceeded haphazardly, brutally and rapidly after 1929. In

the initial months of 1930, the emphasis was upon dekulakization. Class war was

declared upon a section of rural society,

For the purpose of squeezing out the kulaks as a class we must break down

the resistance of this class in open battle and deprive it of the productive

sources of its existence and development (the free use of land, means of

production, the renting of land, the right to hire labour etc.).40

Amid this chaos and coercion, local officials attempted to create gigantic

kolkhozy, encompassing several villages, and socializing all the livestock. The peasants resisted wholesale collectivization and, in March 1930, Stalin called a

halt because the chaos threatened to prevent the spring sowing. In an article,

“Dizzy with success”, Stalin laid the blame on local overzealousness, and called

for the restoration of the voluntary principle. 41 The offensive was resumed again in the autumn of 1930 and proceeded apace for the next six years. The cost was

enormous: unquantifiable human suffering, a massive famine in 1932–3 and

destruction of vast quantities of livestock. Gradually over this period, the

collective farm sector evolved a number of features that were eventually codified

in the 1935 Model Kolkhoz Statute.

The Bolshevik preference for large farms, and for state farms over collective

farms was modified in practice. From 1930 onwards, farms corresponded

approximately to existing villages. Numerically kolkhozy predominated.

Sovkhozy were organized as large-scale, single product structures, which paid their employees a guaranteed minimum wage. 42 The majority of kolkhozy were based around the artel’ form. They were defined as “voluntary co-operatives”, whose members managed the farm on a day-to-day basis. The land, horses and

basic implements (e.g. ploughs) were held in common, while the livestock were

still the property of individual households. After the kolkhoz had met the

compulsory delivery quota imposed by the centre, whatever cash or produce

remained was divided up between the kolkhozniki on the basis of a unit of value called the labour day (trudoden’). Labour days were calculated on the basis of the nature of the task: highly skilled tasks being rewarded more lucratively. 43

Another major concession saw the consolidation of personal live-stock and a

household plot within the collective farm.

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