Misplaced Pages

#819180

105-617: Initially, a collective farm resembled an updated version of the traditional Russian obshchina "commune", the generic "farming association" ( zemledel’cheskaya artel ’ ), the Association for Joint Cultivation of Land (TOZ), and finally the kolkhoz. This gradual shift to collective farming in the first 15 years after the October Revolution was turned into a "violent stampede" during the forced collectivization campaign that began in 1928. The portmanteau колхоз , kolkhóz

210-500: A rural community ( Russian : сельское общество ; Ukrainian : сільське товариство ) between the 19th and 20th centuries, was a peasant village community (as opposed to an individual farmstead), or a khutor , in Imperial Russia . The term derives from the word obshchiy ( Russian : общий , literally "common"). The mir was a community consisting of former serfs , or state peasants and their descendants, settled as

315-656: A "shock" order. A separate point was also suggested to carefully study the combat experience of the Civil War, including the units that opposed the Red Army (officer units of the White Guards, Makhnovists carts, Wrangel "bombing airplanes", etc. In addition, the authors also urged to urgently organize the publication in Russia of foreign "Marxist" works on military issues. After the end of the Civil War, Russia again faced

420-503: A collective farm, a kolkhoz was legally organized as a production cooperative. The Standard Charter of a kolkhoz, which since the early 1930s had the force of law in the USSR, is a model of cooperative principles in print. It speaks of the kolkhoz as a "form of agricultural production cooperative of peasants that voluntarily unite for the main purpose of joint agricultural production based on [...] collective labor". It asserts that "the kolkhoz

525-419: A family. However, the productivity of such plots is reflected in the fact that in 1938 3.9 percent of total sown land was in the form of private plots, but in 1937 those plots produced 21.5 percent of gross agriculture output. Kolkhoz members had to perform a minimum number of labor days per year both on the kolkhoz and on other government work (such as road building). In one kolkhoz, the official requirements were

630-560: A history of socialization of property and lacked bourgeois impulses toward ownership: Russia is the sole European country where the "agricultural commune" has kept going on a nationwide scale up to the present day. It is not the prey of a foreign conqueror, as the East Indies , and neither does it lead a life cut off from the modern world. On the one hand, the common ownership of land allows it to transform individualist farming in parcels directly and gradually into collective farming , and

735-434: A minimum of 130 labor days a year for each able-bodied adult and 50 days per boy aged between 12 and 16. This work requirement was unevenly distributed around the year according to the agricultural cycle, ranging from 30 required labor days between January 1 and June 15, to 30 required labor days in a single month during harvest. If kolkhoz members did not complete the required minimum, the penalties could involve confiscation of

840-470: A mir community which acted as a village government and a cooperative. Arable land was divided in sections based on soil quality and distance from the village. Each household had the right to claim one or more strips from each section depending on the number of adults in the household. The purpose of this allocation was not so much social (to each according to his needs) as it was practical (that each person pay his taxes). Strips were periodically re-allocated on

945-499: A multiple increase in the tasks of the five-year plan, arguing be exceeded. In order to increase incentives to work, payment has become more tightly attached to performance . Actively developed centers for the development and implementation of the principles of the scientific organisation of labor . One of the largest centres of this kind, the Central Institute of Labour , created about 1,700 training points with 2,000 of

1050-415: A newly-established family unit or a catastrophic loss, which places one unit at an unfair reproductive disadvantage in relation to its allies, are evened out". In addition, the alliance system had residual communal rights, sharing exchanges during shortages as well as certain distributive exchanges. Furthermore, the structure defined by these alliances and risk-sharing measures were regulated by scheduling and

1155-506: A presidential decree of October 1995 initiated a process of conversion of kolkhozes into share-based farms operating on leased land, agricultural production cooperatives, and dehkan (peasant) farms. However, contrary to the practice in all other CIS countries, one-third of the 30,000 peasant farms in Tajikistan are organized as collective dehkan farms and not family farms. These collective dehkan farms are often referred to as "kolkhozy" in

SECTION 10

#1732776869820

1260-434: A radical reorganization of society" ( industrialization , economic centralization , collectivization of agriculture and a cultural revolution ) was laid down by the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy lasting from 1928 until 1932. In Soviet times, industrialization was considered a great feat. The rapid growth of production capacity and the volume of production of heavy industry (4 times)

1365-414: A rule in a single village, although sometimes a village included more than one mir and, conversely, several villages were sometimes combined in a single mir. The title of the land was vested in the mir and not in the individual peasant. Members of the mir had the right to the allotment, on some uniform basis, of a holding that each member cultivated separately. A holding could not be sold or bequeathed without

1470-430: A share of the farm's product and profit according to the number of days worked, whereas a sovkhoz employed salaried workers. In practice, most kolkhozy did not pay their members in cash at all. In 1946, 30 percent of kolkhozy paid no cash for labour at all, 10.6 paid no grain, and 73.2 percent paid 500 grams of grain or less per day worked. In addition the kolkhoz was required to sell its grain crop and other products to

1575-567: A shift on the night of August 30, 1935. Since after the nationalization of foreign concessions for gold mining against the Soviet Union, a "golden boycott" was declared, such methods as selling paintings from the Hermitage collection were used to obtain the foreign currency needed to finance industrialization. At the same time, the state shifted to the centralized distribution of the means of production and consumer goods belonging to it,

1680-416: A significant dent in the structure of peasant life in Russia. The organization of the peasant mode of production is the primary cause for the type of social structure found in the obshchina. The relationship between the individual peasant, the family and the community leads to a specific social structure categorized by the creation of familial alliances to apportion risks between members of the community. In

1785-484: A significant part of the equipment models produced in those years at Soviet factories, were copies or modifications of foreign analogues (for example, a Fordson tractor assembled at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant ). In February 1930, between Amtorg and Albert Kahn, Inc., a firm of American architect Albert Kahn , an agreement was signed, according to which Kahn's firm became the chief consultant of

1890-428: A tenth of a hectare of sugar beets was typically equivalent to two and a half labor days. However, the official rates and the actual ability of individual laborers were often highly disproportionate. Completing one labor day of work (nominally 8 hours) would often require multiple twelve-hour days of work to complete. Because laborers were compensated based on the number of labor days they completed, not time spent working,

1995-499: A thorough rearmament. The military schools of the Russian Empire, destroyed by the revolution and the civil war, were rebuilt: military academies, schools, institutes and military courses began training for the Red Army. However, it was impossible to immediately begin technical re-equipment of the Red Army due to the backwardness of heavy industry. At the same time, the existing rates of industrialization seemed insufficient, as

2100-507: A unique feature distinguishing Russia from other countries. Alexander Herzen , for example, hailed this pre- capitalist institution as a germ of the future socialist society. His Slavophile opponent Aleksey Khomyakov regarded obshchina as symbolic of the spiritual unity and internal co-operation of Russian society and worked out a sophisticated "Philosophy of Obshchina" which he called sobornost . The European socialist movement looked to this arrangement as evidence that Russian peasants had

2205-453: Is a contraction of коллективное хозяйство , kollektívnoye khozyáystvo , 'collective farm'. This Russian term was adopted into other languages as a loanword ; however, some other languages calqued equivalents from native roots, such as Ukrainian колгосп , kolhósp , from колективне господарство , kolektývne hospodárstvo . The Russian terms for members of a kolkhoz is "kolkhoznik" (male) and "kolkhoznitsa" (female). As

SECTION 20

#1732776869820

2310-417: Is managed according to the principles of socialist self-management, democracy, and openness, with active participation of the members in decisions concerning all aspects of internal life". In practice, the collective farm that emerged after Stalin’s collectivization campaign did not have many characteristics of a true cooperative, except for nominal joint ownership of non-land assets by the members (the land in

2415-751: Is no longer an official classification: in 2014 Lukashenka ordered to formally reorganize them into the enterprises of types "хозяйственное общество" and "коммунальное унитарное предприятие". The land in Belarus is owned by the state, but for small plots privatized for personal use. Just like it was in the Soviet Union, the agriculture is heavily subsidized by the state. Obshchina An obshchina ( / ə p ˈ ʃ iː n ə / , lit.   ' commune ' ; Russian: община , IPA: [ɐpˈɕːinə] ) or mir ( / ˈ m ɪər / , lit.   ' world, peace ' ; Russian: мир , IPA: [mʲir] ), also officially termed as

2520-461: The mir consists of all the peasant householders of the village. These elect a Village Elder ( starosta ) and a collector of taxes who was responsible, at least until the ukaz of October 1906 which abolished communal responsibility for the payment of taxes, for the repartition among individuals of the taxes imposed on the commune. A number of mirs are united into a volost which has an assembly consisting of elected delegates from

2625-425: The mirs . The mir was protected from insolvency by the rule that the families cannot be deprived of their houses or implements necessary for agriculture; nor can the mir be deprived of its land. The mir or obshchina became a topic in political philosophy with the publication of August von Haxthausen 's book in 1847. It was in the mid-19th century that Slavophiles discovered the mir. Romantic nationalists and

2730-566: The Central Committee majority which was controlled by the troika and derided by Stalin at the time. Trotsky as president of the electrification commission and the Opposition bloc also put forward an electrification plan which involved the construction of the hydroelectric Dnieprostroi dam . One of the first ideologues of industrialization was Evgeny Preobrazhensky , an economist close to Trotsky, who in 1924–25 developed

2835-556: The NEP . At the initial stage, it was reduced to the redistribution of the maximum possible amount of resources for the needs of state-owned industrialisation. In December 1927, at the 15th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) , "Directives for drafting the first five-year national economic development plan of the Soviet Union" were adopted, in which the congress spoke out against super-industrialization:

2940-414: The domestic system of higher technical education was urgently created. In 1930, universal primary education was introduced in the Soviet Union, and seven-year compulsory education in the cities. In 1930, speaking at the 16th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) , Stalin admitted that an industrial breakthrough was possible only when building " socialism in one country " and demanded

3045-473: The industrial potential of the Soviet Union to reduce the economy 's lag behind the developed capitalist states , which was carried out from May 1929 to June 1941. The official task of industrialization was the transformation of the Soviet Union from a predominantly agrarian state into a leading industrial one. The beginning of socialist industrialization as an integral part of the "triple task of

3150-475: The 14th congress was called the "industrialization congress", but it made only a general decision about the need to transform the Soviet Union from an agrarian country into an industrial one, without determining the specific forms and rates of industrialization. The choice of a specific implementation of central planning was vigorously discussed in 1926–1928. Proponents of the genetic approach ( Vladimir Bazarov , Vladimir Groman , Nikolai Kondratiev ) believed that

3255-454: The 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in January 1934, Stalin cited the following figures with the words: "This means that our country has become firmly and finally an industrial country". Following the first five-year plan, the second five-year plan followed, with a somewhat lower emphasis on industrialisation, and then the third five-year plan, which was thwarted by

Kolkhoz - Misplaced Pages Continue

3360-595: The 1990s generally indicated that, in the opinion of the members and the managers, many of the new corporate farms behaved and functioned for all practical reasons like the old kolkhozes. Formal re-registration did not produce radical internal restructuring of the traditional Soviet farm. Number of kolkhozes and all corporate farms in Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova 1990–2005 Sources : Kolkhozes have disappeared almost completely in Transcaucasian and Central Asian states. In Armenia , Georgia , and Azerbaijan ,

3465-402: The All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (December 1927), Mikoyan admitted that the country had experienced the difficulties of "the eve of war without having a war". The main task of the introduced command economy was to build up the economic and military power of the state at the highest possible rates, accompanied with the near complete elimination of private industry that had allowed under

3570-510: The Chicago-based Freyn Engineering Co. At the end of 1932, the successful and early implementation of the first five-year plan for four years and three months was announced. Summarizing its results, Stalin announced that heavy industry had fulfilled the plan by 108%. During the period between October 1, 1928 and January 1, 1933, the production fixed assets of heavy industry increased by 2.7 times. In report at

3675-547: The Party's Central Committee in late 1927, he changed his position to the opposite. This led to a decisive victory for the teleological school and a radical turn from the New Economic Policy. Researcher Vadim Rogovin believes that the cause of Stalin's "left turn" was the grain harvest crisis of 1927; the peasantry, especially the well-to-do, massively refused to sell the bread, considering the purchase prices set by

3780-459: The Russian peasants are already practising it in the undivided grasslands; the physical lie of the land invites mechanical cultivation on a large scale; the peasant’s familiarity with the contract of artel facilitates the transition from parcel labour to cooperative labour; and, finally, Russian society, which has so long lived at his expense, owes him the necessary advances for such a transition. On

3885-471: The Slavophiles hailed the mir as a purely Russian collective, both ancient and venerable; free from what they considered the stain of the bourgeois mindset found in western Europe. Not surprisingly, it was but a short step from this to the mir being used as a basis for Slavophilic idealist theories concerning communism, communalism, communal lands, history, progress and the nature of mankind itself. By

3990-800: The Soviet Republic Surrounded", stated that preparations for the Second World War, which had begun in Europe: What we see every day in Europe ...testifies that the war is not over, armies move, combat orders are given, garrisons are sent to one or the other area, no borders can be considered firmly established. ...one can expect from hour to hour that the old finished imperialist slaughter will generate, as its natural continuation, some new, even more monstrous, even more disastrous imperialist war. Preparation for war required

4095-610: The Soviet Union and Russia, which also questioned its results and long-term consequences for the Soviet economy and society. Already during the Civil War , the Soviet government began to develop a long-term plan for the electrification of the country. In December 1920, the GOELRO plan was approved by the 8th All-Russian Congress of Soviets, and a year later it was approved by the 9th All-Russian Congress of Soviets. The plan provided for

4200-473: The Soviet Union conducted the " New Economic Policy ". While agriculture , retail , services, food and light industries were mostly in private hands, the state retained control of heavy industry, transport , banks , wholesale and international trade ("commanding heights"). State-owned enterprises competed with each other, the role of the Gosplan of the Soviet Union was limited to forecasts that determined

4305-415: The Soviet Union was nationalized in 1917). Even the basic principle of voluntary membership was violated by the process of forced collectivization; members did not retain a right of free exit, and those who managed to leave could not take their share of assets with them (neither in kind nor in cash-equivalent form). They imposed detailed work programs and nominated their preferred managerial candidates. Since

Kolkhoz - Misplaced Pages Continue

4410-712: The Soviet Union: number of farms, average size, and share in agricultural production Source: Statistical Yearbook of the USSR , various years, State Statistical Committee of the USSR, Moscow. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the general policy of transition from the Soviet centrally planned economy to a market economy was announced. The number of kolkhozes and sovkhozes declined rapidly after 1992, while other corporate forms gained in prominence. Still, field surveys conducted in CIS countries in

4515-471: The Soviet government on industrial construction and received a package of orders for the construction of industrial enterprises worth $ 2 billion (about $ 250 billion in prices of our time). This company has provided construction of more than 500 industrial facilities in the Soviet Union. A branch of Albert Kahn, Inc. was opened in Moscow under the name " Gosproektstroy ". Its leader was Moritz Kahn, brother of

4620-883: The Soviet-British joint-stock company Arcos in London (May 12). In June 1927, representatives of the Russian All-Military Union conducted a series of terrorist attacks against the Soviet Union. In particular, on June 7, White émigré Koverda killed the Soviet Plenipotentiary in Warsaw, Voykov , on the same day in Minsk, the head of the Belarusian Joint State Political Directorate, Iosif Opansky,

4725-517: The State at fixed prices. These were set by Soviet government very low, and the difference between what the State paid the farm and what the State charged consumers represented a major source of income for the Soviet government. This profit was used to fund the purchase of foreign machinery to accelerate the industrialisation of the Soviet Union , which Stalin and the AUCP believed was necessary to modernise

4830-476: The State came to pay less than one half or even one third of the cost of production. Members of kolkhozes had the right to hold a small area of private land and some animals. The size of the private plot varied over the Soviet period, but was usually about 1 acre (0.40 ha). Before the Russian Revolution of 1917 a peasant with less than 13.5 acres (5.5 ha) was considered too poor to maintain

4935-569: The USSR and its population to avoid military disasters like those suffered in WW1 and the Russo-Japanese War . In 1948 the Soviet government charged wholesalers 335 rubles for 100 kilograms of rye , but paid the kolkhoz roughly 8 rubles. Nor did such prices change much to keep up with inflation. Prices paid by the Soviet government hardly changed at all between 1929 and 1953, meaning that

5040-515: The United States. Imports fell sharply, which was viewed as the country's gaining economic independence. Open unemployment had been eliminated. Employment (at full rates) increased from one third of the population in 1928 to 45% in 1940, which provided about half of the growth of the gross national product . For the period 1928–1937 universities and colleges prepared about two million specialists. Many new technologies were mastered. Thus, it

5145-458: The Urals. In the 1920s, overpopulation took the form of urban unemployment . It has become a serious social problem that has grown throughout the New Economic Policy, and by the end of it was more than 2 million people, or about 10% of the urban population. The government believed that one of the factors hindering the development of industry in the cities was the lack of food and the unwillingness of

5250-550: The advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they crush us. According to historian Sheila Fitzpatrick , the scholarly consensus was that Stalin appropriated the position of the Left Opposition on such matters as industrialisation and collectivisation . First of all, using propaganda , the party leadership mobilized the population in support of industrialization. Komsomol members, in particular, took it with enthusiasm. There

5355-408: The army; during the first five-year plan, defense spending rose to 10.8% of the budget. With the onset of industrialization, the consumption fund, and as a result, the standard of living of the population, has sharply decreased. By the end of 1929, the rationing system was extended to almost all food products, but the shortage of rations was still there, and there were long queues to buy them. In

SECTION 50

#1732776869820

5460-617: The assistance of foreign specialists, a number of giant industrial buildings were erected: DneproGES , metallurgical plants in Magnitogorsk , Lipetsk and Chelyabinsk, Novokuznetsk , Norilsk and Uralmash , tractor plants in Stalingrad , Chelyabinsk , Kharkov , Uralvagonzavod , GAZ , ZIS (modern ZiL ) and others. In 1935, the first line of the Moscow Metro opened with a total length of 11.2 km (7 mi). Attention

5565-519: The basis of a census to ensure equitable share of the land. This was enforced by the state which had an interest in the ability of households to pay their taxes. The concept of Obshchina was an important part in Old Russia and had its roots in Slavic communities. A detailed statistical description of the Russian village commune was provided by Alexander Ivanovich Chuprov . Communal land ownership of

5670-520: The chief consultant for the construction of the DneproGES , hydro turbines for which were purchased from General Electric and Newport News Shipbuilding. The Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Plant was designed by the American firm Arthur G. McKee and Co., which also supervised its construction. A standard blast furnace for this and all other steel mills of the industrialization period was developed by

5775-596: The concept of forced "superindustrialization" at the expense of funds from the countryside ("initial socialist accumulation", according to Preobrazhensky). For his part, Bukharin accused Preobrazhensky and his "left opposition" who supported him in imposing "feudal military exploitation of the peasantry" and "internal colonialism". The general secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Joseph Stalin , initially supported Bukharin's point of view, but after Trotsky's exclusion from

5880-433: The consent of the mir. As a consequence of its collective tenure, the mir had the power to repartition the land from time to time among its constituent households. The mir dealt primarily with the household and not with the individual. The peasant had a right to a holding but not to a particular holding, and he could not dispose of it freely. The vast majority of Russian peasants held their land in communal ownership within

5985-449: The direction and size of public investment . One of the fundamental contradictions of Bolshevism was the fact that the party that called itself "workers" and its rule the "dictatorship of the proletariat" came to power in an agrarian country where factory workers constituted only a few percent of the population, and most of them were recent immigrants from the village who have not yet completely broken ties with her. Forced industrialization

6090-468: The disappearance of the kolkhoz was part of an overall individualization of agriculture, with family farms displacing corporate farms in general. In Central Asian countries, some corporate farms persist, but no kolkhozes remain. Thus, in Turkmenistan , a presidential decree of June 1995 summarily "reorganized" all kolkhozes into "peasant associations" ( Turkmen : daikhan berleshik ). In Tajikistan ,

6195-564: The exact meaning of this expression has changed over time and now in Russian it has a negative meaning of mutual cover-up. In 1905, repartitional tenure did not exist in the Baltic provinces, but it was used by a quarter of western and southwestern (i.e. Ukrainian) peasants, two thirds of steppe peasants and 96.9% elsewhere. The institution was undermined by the Stolypin agrarian reforms (1906–1914). The ambitious reforms however failed to make

6300-421: The farmer's private plot and a trial in front of a People's Court that could result in three to eight months of hard labour on the kolkhoz or up to one year in a corrective labour camp . However, the number of labor days completed by laborers was often much higher than the minimum. For that same kolkhoz mentioned above, the average number of labor days completed by each able-bodied member was 275, more than twice

6405-495: The former were supported by a supporter of the evolutionary path to socialism, Nikolai Bukharin , and the latter by Leon Trotsky , who insisted on an accelerated pace of industrialization. Trotsky had delivered a joint report to the April Plenum of the Central Committee in 1926 which proposed a program for national industrialization and the replacement of annual plans with five-year plans. His proposals were rejected by

SECTION 60

#1732776869820

6510-426: The future, the standard of living began to improve. In 1936, the cards were canceled, which was accompanied by an increase in wages in the industrial sector and an even greater increase in state rations prices for all goods. The average level of per capita consumption in 1938 was 22% higher than in 1928. However, the greatest growth was among the party and labor elite and did not at all touch the overwhelming majority of

6615-444: The growth rates should not be maximal and should be planned so that failures do not occur. Developed on the basis of directives, the draft of the first five-year plan (October 1, 1928 – October 1, 1933) was approved at the 16th Conference of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (April 1929) as a complex of carefully thought-out and real tasks. This plan, in reality, is much more stressful than previous projects, immediately after it

6720-532: The head of the company. It employed 25 leading American engineers and about 2,500 Soviet employees. At that time it was the largest architectural bureau in the world. During the three years of the existence of Gosproektroy, more than 4,000 Soviet architects, engineers and technicians who have studied the American experience passed through it. The Moscow Office of Heavy Machinery, a branch of the German company Demag , also worked in Moscow. The firm of Albert Kahn played

6825-500: The introduction of command-administrative methods of management and the nationalization of private property were carried out. A political system emerged based on the leading role of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), state ownership of the means of production and a minimum of private initiative. Also began the widespread use of forced labor by prisoners of the Gulag , special settlers and rear militia . The first five-year plan

6930-431: The labor day ultimately functioned more as an abstract method by which state authorities predetermined labor costs and kolkhoz production requirements, rather than as a method for fairly compensating workers for their labor. As such, the official rates greatly underrepresent both the labor requirements of agricultural production on kolkhozes and the demand placed on kolkhoz workers for that labor. Kolkhozes and sovkhozes in

7035-515: The lag behind the capitalist countries, which had an economic upswing in the 1920s, was increasing. One of the first such plans for rearmament was laid out as early as 1921, in the draft reorganization of the Red Army prepared for the 10th congress by Sergey Gusev and Mikhail Frunze . The draft stated both the inevitability of a new big war and the unpreparedness of the Red Army for it. Gusev and Frunze suggested organizing mass production of tanks, artillery, "armored cars, armored trains, airplanes" in

7140-501: The late 1960s, Khrushchev's administration authorized a guaranteed wage to kolkhoz members, similarly to sovkhoz employees; this reduced the already minor distinction between state and collective farms. Essentially, his administration recognised their status as hired hands rather than authentic cooperative members. The guaranteed wage provision was incorporated in the 1969 version of the Standard Charter. The most basic measure

7245-428: The mid-1930s, the kolkhozes had been in effect an offshoot of the state sector (although notionally they continued to be owned by their members). Nevertheless, in locations with particularly good land or if it happened to have capable management, some kolkhozes accumulated substantial sums of money in their bank accounts. Subsequently, numerous kolkhozes were formally nationalized by changing their status to sovkhozes . In

7350-436: The mir predated serfdom , surviving emancipation and the Russian Revolution . Until the abolition of serfdom in 1861 , the mir could either contain serfs or free peasants. In the first case, lands reserved for serf use were assigned to the mir for allocation by the proprietor. Even after the 1861 emancipation of the serfs , a peasant in his everyday work normally had little independence from obshchina, governed at

7455-636: The most qualified instructors of the Central Labor Institute in different parts of the country. They operated in all leading sectors of the national economy—in engineering, metallurgy, construction, light and timber industries, on railways and motor vehicles, in agriculture and even in the navy. In 1933, at the joint plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Stalin said in his report that according to

7560-434: The object of aggression. We would not have non-aggression pacts with other countries, but military intervention and war. A dangerous and deadly war, a bloody and unequal war, for in this war we would be almost unarmed before the enemies, having at our disposal all modern means of attack. Since capital investments in heavy industry almost immediately exceeded the previously planned amount and continued to grow, money emission

7665-549: The obshchina, alliances were formed primarily through marriage and common descent of kin. Usually, the eldest members of the household made up the mir to govern the redistribution of land. The families came together to form a community that depended on making taxes more equitable and the concept of mutual help. Jovan E. Howe writes: "The economic relations so established are essentially distributive: through various categories of exchanges of both products and labor, temporary imbalances such as those occasioned by insufficient labor power of

7770-470: The official minimum. In essence, the requirement was the amount of labor days below which kolkhoz members would become subject to punitive state measures, but fulfilling this minimum would not then release the laborers from obligations to perform additional work demanded by the kolkhoz or state authorities. Specific tasks on kolkhozes were assigned a particular number of labor days, with the rates determined in advance by state authorities. For example, thinning

7875-502: The other hand, the contemporaneity of western production, which dominates the world market, allows Russia to incorporate in the commune all the positive acquisitions devised by the capitalist system without passing through its Caudine Forks [i.e. undergo humiliation in defeat]. Industrialization in the Soviet Union Industrialization in the Soviet Union was a process of accelerated building-up of

7980-416: The outbreak of World War II . The result of the first five-year plans was the development of heavy industry, thanks to which the increase in gross domestic product during 1928–40, according to Vitaly Melyantsev, was about 4.6% per year (according to other, earlier estimates, from 3% to 6.3%). Industrial production in the period 1928–1937 increased 2.5–3.5 times, that is, 10.5–16% per year. In particular,

8085-411: The peasants massively held the bread, considering the purchase prices to be low. The disruptions in the supply of cities and the army that had begun were aggravated by the exacerbation of the foreign policy situation, which even reached the point of trial mobilisation. In August 1927, a panic began among the population, which resulted in the wholesale purchase of food for the future. At the 15th Congress of

8190-416: The plan should be based on objective regularities of economic development, identified as a result of an analysis of existing trends. Proponents of the teleological approach ( Gleb Krzhizhanovsky , Valerian Kuybyshev , Stanislav Strumilin ) believed that the plan should transform the economy and proceed from future structural changes, production opportunities and rigid discipline. Among the party functionaries,

8295-429: The population of Russia) formed a class apart, largely excepted from the incidence of the ordinary law and governed in accordance with their local customs. The mir itself, with its customs, is of immemorial antiquity, but it was not until the 1861 emancipation of the serfs that the village community was withdrawn from the patrimonial jurisdiction of the landowning nobility and endowed with self-government. The assembly of

8400-460: The pre-revolutionary problem of agrarian overpopulation (the " Malthusian-Marxist trap "). In the reign of Nicholas II, overpopulation caused a gradual decrease in the average allotments of land, the surplus of workers in the village was not absorbed by the outflow to the cities (amounting to about 300,000 people per year, with an average increase of up to 1 million people per year), nor by emigration Stolypin government program of resettling colonists in

8505-461: The priority development of the electric power industry, tied to the plans for the development of territories. The GOELRO plan, designed for 10–15 years, provided for the construction of 30 district power plants (20 thermal power plants and 10 hydroelectric power plants) with a total capacity of 1.75 gigawatts. The project covered eight major economic regions (Northern, Central Industrial, Southern, Volga, Ural, West Siberian, Caucasian and Turkestan). At

8610-405: The release of machinery in the period 1928–1937 grew on average 27.4% per year. From 1930 to 1940, the number of higher and secondary technical educational institutions in the Soviet Union increased 4 times and exceeded 150. By 1941, about 9,000 new plants were built. By the end of the second five-year plan, the Soviet Union took the second place in the world in industrial output, second only to

8715-547: The results of the first five-year plan, consumer goods produced less than needed, but the policy of moving industrialization to the background would have that we would not have a tractor and automobile industry, ferrous metallurgy, metal for the production of machines. The country would sit without bread. Capitalist elements in the country would incredibly increase the chances for the restoration of capitalism. Our position would become similar to that of China, which at that time did not have its own heavy and military industry, and became

8820-520: The ritualization of time. Howe writes that "the traditional calendar of the Russian peasants was a guide for day-to-day living. The names attached to calendar dates, the calendrical periods into which they were grouped, the day on the week on which each fell, and the sayings connected with them encoded information about when to undertake tasks, but also about when not to work, when it was necessary to perform symbolic actions, take part in rituals and compulsory celebrations". Peasants (i.e. three-quarters of

8925-566: The role of coordinator between the Soviet customer and hundreds of Western companies that supplied equipment and advised the construction of individual objects. Thus, the technological project of the Nizhny Novgorod Automobile Plant was completed by Ford , the construction project by the American company Austin Motor Company . Construction of the 1st State Bearing Plant in Moscow, which was designed by Kahn,

9030-687: The same time, the alliance of the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communists fell apart; on April 12, Chiang Kai-shek and his allies massacred the Shanghai Communists . This incident was widely used by the "united opposition" (the "Trotsky-Zinoviev bloc") to criticize the official Stalinist diplomacy as deliberately a failure. In the same period, a raid on the Soviet embassy in Beijing (April 6) took place; British police searched

9135-507: The same time, the development of the country's transport system was carried out (reconstruction of old and construction of new railway lines, construction of the Volga–Don Canal ). The GOELRO project made possible the industrialization in the Soviet Union: electricity generation in 1932 compared with 1913 increased almost 7 times, from 2 to 13.5 billion kWh . Researchers highlight the following features of industrialization: Until 1928,

9240-454: The second half of the 19th century, the Slavophiles were challenged by the opposing Western faction. Boris Chicherin , a leading spokesman for the Western school, argued that the mir was neither ancient nor particular to Russia. The mir, the Western school argued, had arisen in the late 17th to early 18th century and was not based on some sort of social contract or communal instinct. Rather, it

9345-670: The state to be low. The internal economic crisis of 1927 intertwined with a sharp exacerbation of the foreign policy situation. On February 23, 1927, the British Foreign Secretary sent a note to the Soviet Union demanding that it stop supporting the Kuomintang–Communist government in China. After the refusal, the United Kingdom on May 24–27 broke off diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. However, at

9450-661: The vernacular, although legally they are a different organizational form and the number of "true" kolkhozes in Tajikistan today is less than 50. Similarly in Uzbekistan the 1998 Land Code renamed all kolkhozes and sovkhozes shirkats ( Uzbek for agricultural cooperatives) and just five years later, in October 2003, the government's new strategy for land reform prescribed a sweeping reorientation from shirkats to peasant farms, which since then have virtually replaced all corporate farms. In Belarus , kolkhozes survived, although it

9555-431: The village level ( mir ) by the full assembly of the community ( skhod ). Among its duties were control and redistribution of the common land and forest (if such existed), levying recruits for military service and imposing punishments for minor crimes. Obshchina was also held responsible for taxes underpaid by members. This type of shared responsibility was known as krugovaya poruka (mutual responsibility), although

9660-471: The village to provide the city with bread at low prices. The party leadership intended to solve these problems by the planned redistribution of resources between agriculture and industry, in accordance with the concept of socialism , which was announced at the 14th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the 3rd All-Union Congress of Soviets in 1925. In the Stalinist historiography,

9765-476: The whole period of agricultural operations, and taking responsibility for all relevant tasks during that period. The brigade was headed by a brigade leader ( brigadir ). This was usually a local man (a few were women). Brigades could be subdivided into smaller units called zvenos (links) for carrying out some or all of their tasks. In a kolkhoz, a member, called a kolkhoznik ( Russian : колхо́зник , feminine form kolkhoznitsa , Russian : колхо́зница ), received

9870-506: Was a monarchical creation, created and enforced for the purpose of tax collection. Whatever the merits of either case, both schools agreed that the landlord and the state both played a vital role in the development (if not the origin of) the mir: Where (arable) land is scarce, the communal form of tenure tends to prevail, but where ever it (arable land) is abundant it is replaced by household or even family tenure. The 19th-century Russian philosophers attached signal importance to obshchina as

9975-504: Was approved by the 5th Congress of Soviets of the Soviet Union in May 1929, gave grounds for the state to carry out a number of economic, political, organizational and ideological measures, which elevated industrialization in status of the concept, the era of the " Great Turn ". The country had to expand the construction of new industries, increase the production of all types of products and start producing new equipment. We are 50–100 years behind

10080-449: Was associated with rapid urbanization . The urban labour force increased by 12.5 million people, of whom 8.5 million were migrants from rural areas. However, the Soviet Union reached a share in 50% of the urban population only in the early 1960s. Engineers were invited from abroad, many well-known companies, such as Siemens-Schuckertwerke AG and General Electric , were involved in the work and carried out deliveries of modern equipment,

10185-497: Was carried out with the technical assistance of the Italian company RIV. The Stalingrad Tractor Plant , designed by Kahn in 1930, was originally built in the United States, and then was unmounted, transported to the Soviet Union and assembled under the supervision of American engineers. It was equipped with the equipment of more than 80 American engineering companies and several German firms. American hydrobuilder Hugh Cooper became

10290-569: Was designed to eliminate this contradiction. From a foreign policy point of view, the country was in hostile conditions. According to the leadership of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) , there was a high probability of a new war with capitalist states. It is significant that even at the 10th congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1921, Lev Kamenev , the author of the report "About

10395-499: Was killed, the day before, the Russian All-Military Union terrorist threw a bomb at the Joint State Political Directorate in Moscow. All these incidents contributed to the creation of a "military psychosis" environment, the emergence of expectations of a new foreign intervention ("crusade against Bolshevism"). By January 1928, only two-thirds of the grain was harvested compared to last year's level, as

10500-476: Was no shortage of cheap labor, because after collectivization , a large number of yesterday's rural inhabitants moved from rural areas to cities from poverty, hunger and the arbitrariness of the authorities. Millions of people selflessly, almost by hand, built hundreds of factories , power stations , laid railways , subways . Often had to work in three shifts. In 1930, around 1,500 facilities were launched, of which 50 absorbed almost half of all investments. With

10605-497: Was of great importance for ensuring economic independence from capitalist countries and strengthening the country's defense capability. At this time, the Soviet Union made the transition from an agrarian country to an industrial one. During the Second World War , the Soviet industry proved its superiority over the industry of Nazi Germany. Since the late 1980s, discussions on the price of industrialization have been held in

10710-407: Was only during the first five-year period that the production of synthetic rubber, motorcycles, watches, cameras, excavators, high-quality cement and high-quality steel grades was adjusted. The foundation was also laid for Soviet science , which in certain areas eventually became world-leading. On the basis of the established industrial base, it became possible to conduct a large-scale re-equipment of

10815-653: Was paid to the destruction of private agriculture and its replacement by state-run large farms. Due to the emergence of domestic tractor construction, in 1932, the Soviet Union refused to import tractors from abroad, and in 1934, the Kirov Plant in Leningrad began to produce a tilled tractor "Universal", which became the first domestic tractor exported abroad. In the ten years before the war, about 700,000 tractors were produced, which accounted for 40% of their world production. In order to create its own engineering base,

10920-440: Was sharply increased (that is, printing of paper money ), and during the entire first five-year period money supply growth in circulation more than doubled than production of consumer goods , which led to higher prices and a shortage of consumer goods. In 1935, the " Stakhanovist movement " appeared, in honor of the mine worker Alexey Stakhanov , who, according to official information of that time, performed 14.5 norms for

11025-449: Was to divide the workforce into a number of groups, generally known as brigades, for working purposes. By July 1929 it was already normal practice for the large kolkhoz of 200–400 households to be divided into temporary or permanent work units of 15–30 households.' The authorities gradually became in favour of the fixed, combined brigade – that is, the brigade with its personnel, land, equipment and draught horses fixed to it for

#819180