Collectivization This is the process of uniting small individual peasant farms into large socialist farms based on the socialization of property.
Goals of collectivization:
1) The creation of collective farms in a short time in order to overcome the dependence of the state on individual peasant farms in the matter of grain procurement.
2) Transfer of funds from the agricultural sector of the economy to the industrial sector for the needs of industrialization.
3) The liquidation of the kulaks as a class.
4) Ensuring industrialization is cheap labor force due to the departure of peasants from the countryside.
5) Strengthening the influence of the state on the private sector in agriculture.
reasons for collectivization.
By the end of the recovery period, the country's agriculture had basically reached the pre-war level. However, the level of its marketability remained lower than before the revolution, because. large landowners were destroyed. The small peasant farm provided mainly its own needs. Only large-scale farming could lead to an increase in commodity production, or an increase in marketability could be achieved through cooperation. Credit, marketing and supply, consumer cooperatives began to spread in the countryside even before the revolution, but by 1928 they were not enough. The involvement of the broad masses of the peasantry in collective farms allowed the state, Firstly , to implement the Marxist idea of transforming small peasant farms into large socialist farms, Secondly to ensure the growth of commodity production and, third, take control of stocks of grain and other agricultural products.
The 15th Congress of the CPSU (b) in December 1927 proclaimed a course towards the collectivization of the countryside. However, no deadlines and specific forms of its implementation have been established. The party leaders who spoke at the congress unanimously noted that the small individual peasant economy would exist for quite a long time.
It was supposed to create various forms of industrial cooperation:
§ Commune – major degree socialization of production and life.
§ Artel (collective farm) - socialization of the main means of production: land, inventory, livestock, including small livestock and poultry.
§ TOZ (association for cultivation of the land) - General work on the cultivation of the land.
But the grain procurement crisis of 1927/1928 changed the attitude of the party leadership towards the individual peasant economy.. Violent discussions broke out in the party (see the topic "Industrialization").
1) One way out was offered I. Stalin. He spoke in favor of the maximum concentration of resources due to the tension of the entire economic system, the transfer of funds from secondary industries (agriculture, light industry).
2) N. Bukharin insisted on a balanced development of the industrial and agricultural sectors of the economy on the basis of a market form of communication between the city and the countryside, while maintaining individual peasant farms. N.I. Bukharin spoke out against the imbalance and disruption of proportions between industry and agriculture, against directive-bureaucratic planning with its tendency to organize big leaps. Bukharin believed that under the conditions of the New Economic Policy, cooperation through the market would include ever larger sections of peasants in the system of economic ties and thereby ensure their growth into socialism. This was to be facilitated by the technical re-equipment of peasant labor, including the electrification of agriculture.
N.I. Bukharin and A.I. Rykov suggested the following way out of the procurement crisis of 1927/28:
§ increase in purchase prices,
§ refusal to apply emergency measures,
§ a reasonable system of taxes on the village upper classes,
§ deployment of large collective farms in grain regions, mechanization of agriculture.
The Stalinist leadership rejected this path
, regarding it as a concession to the kulak.
Seizure of surplus grain began in the image and likeness of the period of “war communism. Peasants who refused to hand over grain at state prices were prosecuted as speculators.
Simultaneously, the forcing of collectivization began ( 1928). In some places, peasants were forced to join collective farms, declaring those who resisted were enemies of Soviet power.
In 1928, the first machine and tractor stations (MTS) began to appear, which provided peasants with paid services for cultivating the land with the help of tractors. The tractor demanded the elimination of the boundary between the peasant stripes, therefore, the introduction of a common plowing.
Forced collectivization.
In November 1929, at the Plenum of the Central Committee, Stalin spoke with the article “The Year of the Great Turning Point”, where he stated that a “radical turning point” had occurred in the collective farm movement: the middle peasants had already gone to the collective farms, they are being created in mass quantity. In fact, this was not the case, since only 6.9% of the peasants joined the collective farms.
After the statement about the accomplished "radical change" the pressure on the peasants to force them to join the collective farm increased sharply, "complete collectivization" began to be carried out ( 1929). The party organizations of the main grain-growing regions declared areas of complete collectivization (the Lower and Middle Volga regions, the Don, and the North Caucasus) began to take obligations to complete collectivization by the spring of 1930, i.e., in two or three months. The slogan "frantic pace of collectivization" appeared. In December 1929, a directive followed to socialize cattle in areas of complete collectivization. In response, the peasants began to slaughter cattle en masse, which caused catastrophic damage to livestock.
In January 1930, the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was adopted "On the pace of collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm construction." In the main grain-growing regions of the country, it was proposed to complete collectivization by the autumn of 1930, in other regions - a year later. The resolution declared that the main form of collective farming was not the agricultural artel, but the commune (the highest degree of socialization) . Unlike the artel, the commune socialized not only the means of production, but all property. Local organizations were asked to launch a collectivization competition. Naturally, in this situation the pace of collective-farm construction increased sharply. By March 1, 1930, almost 59% of households were in collective farms.
The main means of forcing the peasants to join the collective farms was the threat of dispossession. Since 1928 a policy of restricting the kulaks was pursued. It was subject to increased taxes, state lending to kulak farms was prohibited. Many wealthy peasants began to sell their property and leave for the cities.
Since 1930 dispossession policy begins. dispossession - these are mass repressions in relation to the kulaks: deprivation of property, arrests, deportations, physical destruction.
On January 30, 1930, 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." The fists were divided into three groups :
Ø counter-revolutionary kulak asset - were subject to dispossession, arrest and imprisonment in camps, and often - the death penalty;
Ø the largest fists - Moved to remote areas
Ø all other fists - were evicted from collective farm lands.
The property of the dispossessed was placed at the disposal of the collective farms.
The dispossession was carried out not by the judiciary, but by the executive branch and the police, with the involvement of the communists, the local poor and workers-agitators specially sent to the village of the communists ("twenty-five thousandths"). There were no clear criteria for who should be considered a kulak. In some cases, rural rich people were dispossessed, on whose farms several laborers worked, in others, the presence of two horses in the yard became the basis for dispossession. Often the campaign to "eliminate the kulaks as a class" turned into a settling of personal scores, into plundering the property of wealthy peasants. On the whole, 12-15% of households were dispossessed across the country (up to 20% in some areas). Real specific gravity kulak farms did not exceed 3 - 6%. This indicates that the main blow fell on the middle peasantry. Those dispossessed and evicted to the North were considered special settlers. Special artels were created from them, the working and living conditions in which were not much different from the camp ones.
The following methods and forms of dispossession were used:
ü administrative coercion to participate in collective farm construction;
ü exclusion from cooperation and confiscation of deposits and shares in favor of the fund for the poor and farm laborers;
ü confiscation of property, buildings, means of production in favor of collective farms;
ü inciting by the party and Soviet authorities of the poor strata of the population on the prosperous peasantry;
ü the use of the press to organize an anti-kulak campaign.
But even such repressive measures did not always help. Forced collectivization and mass repressions during dispossession provoked resistance from the peasants. In the first three months of 1930 alone, more than 2,000 demonstrations related to violence took place in the country: arson and breaking into collective farm barns, attacks on activists, etc. This forced the Soviet leadership to temporarily suspend collectivization. Stalin March 2, 1930 spoke in "Pravda" with the article "Dizziness from success", where coercion to join the collective farm and the dispossession of the middle peasants were condemned as "excesses". The blame for this rested entirely with local workers. The Exemplary Charter of the collective farm was also published, according to which the collective farmers received the right to keep a cow, small livestock, and poultry on their personal farmstead.
March 14, 1930 issued a resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) "On the fight against distortions of the party line in the collective-farm movement". Those who joined the collective farm under pressure received the right to return to individual farming. A mass exit from the collective farms followed. By July 1930, 21% of households remained in them, compared to 59% by March 1. However, a year later, the level of collectivization again reached the March level of 1930. This is due to higher taxes on individual farmers, the difficulties they encountered in trying to get back the plots, livestock and equipment transferred to the collective farms.
In 1932-1933, in the grain regions, which had just survived collectivization and dispossession, there was a severe famine. The year 1930 was fruitful, which made it possible not only to supply the cities and send grain for export, but also to leave a sufficient amount of grain for the collective farmers. But in 1931, the harvest turned out to be somewhat below average, and the volume of grain procurement not only did not decrease, but even increased. This was due mainly to the desire to take as much grain as possible abroad in order to obtain currency for the purchase of industrial equipment. Bread was confiscated, leaving the peasants not even the necessary minimum. The same pattern was repeated in 1932. The peasants, realizing that the bread would be confiscated, began to hide it. Grain procurements, especially in the main grain regions, were disrupted.
In reply the state resorted to cruel punitive measures. In areas that did not fulfill the tasks for grain procurement, the peasants were taken away all the available food supplies, dooming them to starvation. The famine covered the most fertile grain regions, for example, the Lower and Middle Volga regions, the Don, and Ukraine. Moreover, if the villages were dying of exhaustion, then in the cities there was only a slight deterioration in supply. According to various estimates, from 4 to 8 million people became victims of the famine.
In the midst of hunger On August 7, 1932, the law "On the protection and strengthening of public (socialist) property" was adopted, known in everyday life as the "law of three (five) spikelets." Any, even the smallest theft of state or collective farm property was henceforth punishable by execution with a replacement of ten years in prison. The victims of the decree were women and teenagers who, fleeing from starvation, sheared ears of corn with scissors at night or picked up grain spilled during the harvest. In 1932 alone, over 50,000 people were repressed under this law, including more than 2,000 who were sentenced to death.
During the famine, the process of collectivization was suspended. Only in 1934, when the famine ended and agricultural production began to grow again, did peasants resume joining the collective farms. The ever-increasing taxes on individual farmers and the limitation of their field plots left the peasants no choice. It was necessary either to join the collective farms, or to leave the village. As a result, by 1937, 93% of the peasants became collective farmers.
Collective farms were placed under the strict control of the Soviet and party organs. Purchase prices for agricultural products were set at extremely low levels. In addition, the collective farms had to pay for the services of the MTS with their products and pay the state tax in kind. As a result, collective farmers worked virtually for free. Each of them, under pain of criminal punishment, was obliged to work out a certain minimum of workdays on the collective farm field. It was impossible to leave the village without the consent of the collective farm board. peasants did not receive passports introduced in 1932. The main source was personal household plots.
Results and consequences of collectivization.
1) Solving the country's socio-economic problems for a long period at the expense of agriculture, the village (the collective farm system is a convenient form of withdrawing the maximum volume of agricultural products, transferring funds from the countryside to industry, to other sectors of the economy).
2) Elimination of a layer of independent, prosperous peasants who wanted to work without dictate from the state.
3) The destruction of the private sector in agriculture (93% of peasant farms are united in collective farms), the complete nationalization of agricultural production, the subordination of all aspects of rural life to the party-state leadership.
4) Cancellation in 1935 of the rationing system for the distribution of products.
5) Alienation of peasants from property, land and the results of their labor, loss of economic incentives to work.
6) Lack of qualified labor force, youth in the countryside.
Thus, collectivization inflicted heavy damage on agriculture, brought down famine and repression on the peasants. In general, there was a slowdown in the growth of agricultural production, and there was a constant food problem in the country.
Chronology
- 1927, December XV Congress of the CPSU (b). The course towards the collectivization of agriculture.
- 1928/29 - 1931/33 The first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR.
- 1930 Beginning of complete collectivization.
- 1933 - 1937 The second five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR.
- 1934 The entry of the USSR into the League of Nations.
- 1936 Adoption of the Constitution of the USSR.
- 1939, August 23 The conclusion of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact.
- 1939 Accession of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus.
- 1939 -1940 Soviet-Finnish war.
- 1940 Inclusion of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into the USSR.
Rejection of the NEP at the end of the 20s. Course towards collectivization
In 1925, the XIV Congress of the RCP (b) stated that the question "who - whom" raised by Lenin at the beginning of the NEP was decided in favor of socialist construction. XV Congress of the CPSU (b),
N. K. Krupskaya, M. I. Kalinin, K. E. Voroshilov, S. M. Budyonny in the group of delegates of the XV Congress of the Party. 1927held in December 1927, set the task, on the basis of further cooperation of the peasantry, to gradually carry out the transition of peasant farms to the rails large-scale production. It was supposed to introduce collective cultivation of the land "on the basis of the intensification and mechanization of agriculture, in every way supporting and encouraging the sprouts of social agricultural labor." His decisions also expressed a course towards rapid development large machine socialist industry capable of transforming the country from an agrarian to an industrial one. The Congress reflected the trend towards strengthening of socialist principles in the economy.
From NEP Russia there will be socialist Russia. Poster. Hood. G.Klutsis
In January 1928 I.V. Stalin proposed to build collective farms And state farms.
IN 1929. party and state bodies decide on forcing collectivization processes. The theoretical justification for forcing collectivization was Stalin's article "The Year of the Great Turn", published in Pravda on November 7, 1929. The article stated the change in the mood of the peasantry in favor of the collective farms and, on this basis, put forward the task of completing collectivization as soon as possible. Stalin assured that on the basis of the collective farm system, our country in three years would become the most grain-producing country in the world, and in December 1929 Stalin made calls to plant collective farms, to eliminate the kulaks as a class, not to let the kulak into the collective farm, to make dekulakization an integral part of collective farm construction .
The special commission of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on issues of collectivization developed a draft resolution that proposed to solve the problem of collectivization of the “vast majority of peasant farms” during the first five-year plan: in the main grain regions in two to three years, in the consuming zone - in three to four years . The Commission recommended that the main form of collective farm construction agricultural artel, in which “the main means of production (land, inventory, workers, as well as marketable productive livestock) are collectivized, while maintaining, under the given conditions, the peasant’s private ownership of small implements, small livestock, dairy cows, etc., where they serve consumer the needs of the peasant family.
January 5, 1930. adopted a resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) " On the pace of collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm construction". As proposed by the commission, grain regions were delimited into two zones according to the deadlines for the completion of collectivization. But Stalin made his own amendments, and the terms were drastically reduced. The North Caucasus, the Lower and Middle Volga were to be basically completed collectivization "in the autumn of 1930, or in any case in the spring of 1931", and the rest of the grain regions - "in the autumn of 1931 or in any case in the spring of 1932". Such short deadlines and the recognition of “socialist competition in the organization of collective farms” were in complete contradiction with the indication of the inadmissibility of “any kind of “decree” from above of the collective farm movement.” This created favorable conditions for the race for “100% coverage”.
As a result of the measures taken, the percentage of collectivization grew rapidly: if in June 1927 the proportion of peasant farms involved in collective farms was 0.8%, then by the beginning of March 1930 it was over 50%. The pace of collectivization began to overtake the country's real possibilities in financing farms, supplying them with machinery, and so on. Decrees from above, violation of the principle of voluntariness when joining the collective farm and other party-state measures caused discontent among the peasants, which was expressed in speeches and even armed clashes.
Local party bodies tried to ensure the highest possible results by coercion and threats. Often this turned out to be unrealistic numbers. Thus, according to reports in the Central Committee, out of 420 farms from the Kharkov district, 444 farms were socialized. The secretary of one of the district committees in Belorussia reported in an urgent telegram to Moscow that 100.6% of the farms were included in the collective farms.
In his article " Dizzy with success”, which appeared in Pravda March 2, 1930, Stalin condemned numerous cases of violation of the principle of voluntariness in the organization of collective farms, "bureaucratic decreeing of the collective farm movement." He criticized the excessive "zealousness" in the cause of dispossession, the victims of which were many middle peasants. It was necessary to stop this "dizziness from success" and do away with "paper collective farms, which do not yet exist in reality, but about the existence of which there are a lot of boastful resolutions." In the article, however, there was absolutely no self-criticism, and all responsibility for the mistakes made was assigned to the local leadership. The question of revising the very principle of collectivization was not raised.
The effect of the article, followed by March 14th There was a decision of the Central Committee On the struggle against the distortion of the party line in the collective farm movement”, affected immediately. A mass exit of peasants from the collective farms began (5 million people in March alone). Therefore, adjustments, at least at first, were made. Economic levers began to be used more actively. The main forces of party, state and public organizations were concentrated on solving the problems of collectivization. The scale of technical reconstruction in agriculture increased, mainly through the creation of state machine and tractor stations (MTS). The level of mechanization of agricultural work has risen markedly. The state in 1930 provided assistance to the collective farms, they were provided with tax benefits. But for individual farmers, the rates of agricultural tax were increased, lump-sum taxes levied only on them were introduced.
In 1932, abolished by the revolution was introduced passport system, which established strict administrative control over the movement of labor in the cities, and especially from the village to the city, which turned the collective farmers into a population without a passport.
In the collective farms, cases of theft of grain, hiding it from accounting, were widespread. The state fought against the low rates of grain procurements and concealment of grain with the help of repressions. August 7, 1932 law is passed On the protection of socialist property”, written by Stalin himself. He introduced “as a measure of judicial repression for theft of collective farm and collective property the highest measure social protection- execution with confiscation of all property and with replacement under extenuating circumstances by imprisonment for a term of at least 10 years with confiscation of all property. Amnesty for cases of this kind was prohibited. In accordance with this law, tens of thousands of collective farmers were arrested for unauthorized cutting of a small amount of ears of rye or wheat. The result of these actions was, mainly in Ukraine, mass famine.
The final completion of collectivization took place by 1937. There were more than 243 thousand collective farms in the country, uniting 93% of peasant farms.
The policy of "eliminating the kulaks as a class"
During the years of the implementation of the new economic policy, the share of prosperous peasant farms has increased. In market conditions fist” has intensified economically, which was the result of deep social stratification in the countryside. Bukharin's famous slogan "Get rich!", put forward in 1925, meant in practice the growth of kulak farms. In 1927 there were about 300 thousand of them.
In the summer of 1929, the policy towards the kulak became tougher: a ban on accepting kulak families into collective farms followed, and with January 30, 1930. after the decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) " On measures to liquidate kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization”Large-scale violent actions began, expressed in the confiscation of property, in forced resettlement, etc. Not infrequently, the middle peasants also fell into the category of kulaks.
The criteria for classifying an economy as a kulak economy were defined so broadly that it was possible to include under them both a large economy and even a poor one. This allowed officials to use the threat of dispossession as the main lever for creating collective farms, organizing pressure from the declassed sections of the village on the rest of it. Dekulakization was supposed to demonstrate to the most intractable the inflexibility of the authorities and the futility of any resistance. The resistance of the kulaks, as well as of part of the middle and poor peasants to collectivization, was broken by the most severe measures of violence.
Various figures of the dispossessed are given in the literature. One of the specialists in the history of the peasantry, V. Danilov, believes that at least 1 million kulak farms were liquidated during dispossession. According to other sources, by the end of 1930, about 400,000 farms were dispossessed (that is, about half of the kulak farms), of which about 78,000 were deported to separate areas, according to other data, 115,000. Although the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b ) on March 30, 1930, issued a resolution to stop the mass eviction of kulaks from areas of complete collectivization and ordered that it be carried out only on an individual basis, the number of evicted farms in 1931 more than doubled - to almost 266 thousand.
The dispossessed were divided into three categories. TO first treated " counterrevolutionary asset”- participants in anti-Soviet and anti-kolkhoz speeches (they were subject to arrest and trial, and their families to eviction to remote areas of the country). Co. second — “big kulaks and former semi-landowners who actively opposed collectivization” (they were evicted with their families to remote areas). And finally to third — “the rest of the fists”(She was subject to resettlement in special settlements within the areas of her former residence). The lists of kulaks of the first category were compiled by the local department of the GPU. Lists of kulaks of the second and third categories were drawn up on the ground, taking into account the recommendations of village activists and organizations of the village poor.
As a result, tens of thousands of middle peasants were dispossessed. In some areas, from 80 to 90% of the middle peasants were condemned as "podkulaks". Their main fault was that they shied away from collectivization. Resistance in the Ukraine, the North Caucasus and the Don was more active than in the small villages of Central Russia.
COLLECTIVIZATION OF AGRICULTURE
reasons for collectivization. The implementation of grandiose industrialization required a radical restructuring of the agricultural sector. In Western countries, the agrarian revolution, i.e. system of improving agricultural production, preceded the industrial revolution. In the USSR, both of these processes had to be carried out simultaneously. At the same time, some party leaders believed that if the capitalist countries created industry at the expense of funds received from the exploitation of the colonies, then socialist industrialization could be carried out through the exploitation of the "inner colony" - the peasantry. 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. But it is much easier to drain funds from a few hundred large farms than to deal with millions of small ones. That is why, with the beginning of industrialization, a course was taken for the collectivization of agriculture - "the implementation of socialist transformations in the countryside."
In November 1929, Pravda published Stalin's article "The Year of the Great Turn", which spoke of "a radical change in the development of our agriculture from small and backward individual farming to large-scale and advanced collective farming." In December, Stalin announced the end of the NEP and the transition to a policy of "liquidating 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 rate of collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm construction." It set strict deadlines for the completion of collectivization: for the North Caucasus, the 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 were to "solve the problem of collectivization within five years." Such a formulation oriented to complete collectivization by the end of the first five-year plan.
However, this document did not answer the main questions: what methods to carry out collectivization, how to carry out dispossession, what to do with the dispossessed? And since the countryside had not yet cooled off from the violence of grain procurement campaigns, the same method was adopted - violence.
Dispossession. Two interconnected violent processes took place in the countryside: the creation of collective farms and dispossession. The "liquidation of the kulaks" was aimed primarily at providing the collective farms with a material base. From the end of 1929 to the middle of 1930, more than 320,000 peasant farms were dispossessed. Their property worth more than 175 million rubles. transferred to collective farms.
At the same time, the authorities did not give a precise definition of who should be considered kulaks. In the generally accepted sense, a kulak is someone who used hired labor, but this category could also include an average peasant who had two cows, or two horses, or good house. Each district received a dispossession rate, which averaged 5-7% of the number of peasant households, but the local authorities, following the example of the first five-year plan, tried to overfulfill it. Often, not only the middle peasants, but also, for some reason, objectionable poor peasants were recorded in kulaks. To justify these actions, the ominous word "fist-fist" was coined. In some areas, the number of dispossessed reached 15-20%.
The liquidation of the kulaks as a class, by depriving the countryside of the most enterprising, most independent peasants, undermined the spirit of resistance. In addition, the fate of the dispossessed was supposed to serve as an example to others, those who did not want to voluntarily go to the collective farm. Kulaks were evicted with their families, infants, and the elderly. In cold, unheated wagons, 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" were sent to concentration camps.
To assist the local authorities, 25 thousand urban communists ("twenty-five thousand people") were sent to the village.
"Dizzy with Success" In many areas, especially in the Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia, the peasantry resisted mass dispossession. To suppress peasant unrest, regular units of the Red Army were involved. But most often the peasants used passive forms protest: they refused to join collective farms, destroyed livestock and implements in protest. Terrorist acts were also committed against "twenty-five thousand" and local collective farm activists. Collective farm holiday. Artist S. Gerasimov.
By the spring of 1930, it became clear to Stalin that the insane collectivization launched at his call was threatening with disaster. Discontent began to seep into the army. Stalin made a well-calculated tactical move. On March 2, Pravda published his article "Dizziness from Success". He laid all the blame for the situation on the executors, local workers, declaring that "collective farms cannot be planted by force." After this article, most peasants began to perceive Stalin as a people's defender. A mass exit of peasants from collective farms began.
But a step back was taken only in order to immediately take a dozen steps forward. In September 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks sent a letter to local party organizations condemning their passive behavior, fear of "excesses" and demanding "to achieve a powerful upsurge of the collective-farm movement." In September 1931, collective farms already united 60% of peasant households, in 1934 - 75%.
Collectivization results. The policy of continuous collectivization led to disastrous results: for 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.
The extermination of livestock, the ruin of the village by the incessant dispossession of kulaks, the 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 policy of the authorities. The country's leadership, trying to hide the scale of the tragedy, forbade mentioning the famine in the media. Despite its scale, 18 million centners of grain were exported abroad to receive foreign currency for the needs of industrialization.
However, Stalin celebrated his victory: despite the reduction in grain production, its deliveries to the state increased by 2 times. But most importantly, collectivization created the necessary conditions to implement plans for an industrial leap. It put 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 employed, to maintain agricultural production at a level that did not allow for a long famine, and provided industry with the necessary raw materials. Collectivization not only created the conditions for transferring funds from the village to the city for the needs of industrialization, but also fulfilled an important political and ideological task, destroying the last island of the market economy - the privately owned peasant economy.
Kolkhoz peasantry. Village life in the early 1930s proceeded against the backdrop of the horrors of dispossession and the creation of collective farms. These processes led to the elimination of the social gradation of the peasantry. The kulaks, the middle peasants, and the poor, as well as the generalized concept of the individual peasant, disappeared from the countryside. New concepts were introduced into everyday life - the collective farm peasantry, the collective farmer, the collective farm woman.
The situation of the population in the countryside was much more difficult than in the city. The village was perceived primarily as a supplier of cheap grain and a source of labor. The state constantly increased the rate of grain procurements, taking almost half of the harvest from the collective farms. The calculation for the grain supplied to the state was made at fixed prices, which during the 30s. remained almost unchanged, while the prices of manufactured goods increased by almost 10 times. The wages of collective farmers were regulated by a system of workdays. Its size was determined based on the income of the collective farm, i.e. that part of the harvest that remained after settlement with the state and the machine and tractor stations (MTS), which provided agricultural machinery to the collective farms. As a rule, the incomes of collective farms were low and did not provide a living wage. For workdays, peasants were paid in grain or other manufactured products. The work of the collective farmer was almost not paid for with money.
At the same time, as industrialization progressed, more tractors, combines, motor vehicles and other equipment began to arrive in the countryside, which were concentrated in the MTS. This helped to partly mitigate the negative consequences of the loss of working livestock in the previous period. Young specialists appeared in the village - agronomists, machine operators, who were trained by educational institutions of the country.
In the mid 30s. the situation in agriculture has somewhat stabilized. In February 1935, the government allowed the peasants to have household plot, one cow, two calves, a pig with piglets and 10 sheep. Individual farms began to supply their products to the market. The card system was abolished. Life in the countryside began to improve little by little, which Stalin did not fail to take advantage of, declaring to the whole country: "Life has become better, life has become more fun."
The Soviet countryside reconciled itself to the collective farm system, although the peasantry remained the most disenfranchised category of the population. The introduction of passports in the country, which the peasants were not supposed to, meant not only the erection of an administrative wall between the city and the countryside, but also the actual attachment of the peasants to their place of birth, depriving them of their freedom of movement and choice of occupation. From a legal point of view, the collective farmer, who did not have a passport, was tied to the collective farm in the same way as a serf had once been to the land of his master.
The direct result of forced collectivization was the indifference of the collective farmers to the socialized property and the results of their own labor.
FORMING THE POLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE USSR IN THE 1930s
Formation of a totalitarian regime. The grandiose tasks set before the country, which required centralization and exertion of all forces, led to the formation of a political regime, later called totalitarian (from the Latin word "whole", "complete"). Under such a regime, state power is concentrated in the hands of any one group (usually a political party), which has destroyed democratic freedoms in the country and the possibility of an opposition. This ruling group completely subordinates the life of society to its interests and retains power through violence, mass repressions, and spiritual enslavement of the population.
In the first half of the XX century. such regimes were established not only in the USSR, but also in some other countries that also solved the problem of a modernization breakthrough.
The core of the totalitarian regime in the USSR was the Communist Party. Party bodies were in charge of the appointment and dismissal of officials, nominated candidates for deputies of the Soviets at various levels. Only party members occupied all responsible state posts, headed the army, law enforcement and judicial agencies, and led the national economy. No law could be adopted without prior approval from the Politburo. Many state and economic functions were transferred to party authorities. The Politburo determined the entire foreign and domestic policy of the state, solved the issues of planning and organizing production. Even party symbols have acquired an official status - the red banner and the party anthem "Internationale" have become state.
By the end of the 30s. The face of the party has also changed. She finally lost the remnants of democracy. Complete “unanimity” reigned in the party ranks. Ordinary members of the party and even the majority of members of the Central Committee were excluded from the development of party policy, which became the prerogative of the Politburo and the party apparatus.
Ideologization of public life. special role played party control over the media, through which the dissemination of official views and their explanation. With the help of the "Iron Curtain" the problem of the penetration of other ideological views from the outside was solved.
The education system has also changed. The structure of the curricula and the content of the courses were completely rebuilt. They were now based on the Marxist-Leninist interpretation not only of social science courses, but sometimes of the natural sciences as well.
Under the undivided party influence was the creative intelligentsia, whose activities, along with the bodies of the CPSU (b), were controlled by creative unions. In 1932, the Central Committee of the party adopted a resolution "On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations." It was decided "to unite all writers who support the platform of Soviet power and strive to participate in socialist construction into a single union of Soviet writers. To carry out similar changes in the line of other types of art." In 1934, the First All-Union Congress of the Union of Soviet Writers took place. He accepted the charter and elected a board headed by A. M. Gorky.
Work began on the creation of creative unions of artists, composers, filmmakers, who were supposed to unite all those who worked professionally in these areas in order to establish party control over them. For "spiritual" support, the government provided certain material benefits and privileges (the use of art houses, workshops, receiving advance payments during long-term creative work, providing housing, etc.).
In addition to the creative intelligentsia, other categories of the population of the USSR were covered by official mass organizations. All employees of enterprises and institutions were members of trade unions, which were completely under the control of the party. Young people from the age of 14 were united in the ranks of the All-Union Leninist Communist Youth Union (Komsomol, Komsomol), declared a reserve and assistant to the party. The younger schoolchildren were members of the October organization, and the older ones were members of the pioneer organization. Mass associations were created for innovators, inventors, women, athletes and other categories of the population.
Formation of Stalin's personality cult. One of the elements of the political regime of the USSR was the personality cult of Stalin. December 21, 1929 he turned 50 years old. Until that date, it was not customary to publicly celebrate the anniversaries of the leaders of the party and state. The Lenin Jubilee was the only exception. But on this day Soviet country learned that she had a great leader - Stalin was publicly declared "the first student of Lenin" and the only "leader of the party." The newspaper "Pravda" was filled with articles, greetings, letters, telegrams, from which flowed a stream of flattery. The initiative of Pravda was picked up by other newspapers, from metropolitan to regional, magazines, radio, cinema: the organizer of October, the founder of the Red Army and an outstanding commander, the winner of the armies of the White Guards and interventionists, the guardian of Lenin's "general line", the leader of the world proletariat and the great strategist of the five-year plan ...
Stalin began to be called "wise", "great", "brilliant". A "father of peoples" and "the best friend of Soviet children" appeared in the country. Academics, artists, workers and party workers challenged each other for the palm of praise for Stalin. But everyone was surpassed by the Kazakh folk poet Dzhambul, who in the same "Pravda" intelligibly explained to everyone that "Stalin is deeper than the ocean, higher than the Himalayas, brighter than the sun. He is the teacher of the Universe."
Mass repression. Along with ideological institutions, the totalitarian regime also had another reliable support - a system of punitive organs for the persecution of dissidents. In the early 30s. the last political trials took place over the former opponents of the Bolsheviks - the former Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. Almost all of them were shot or sent to prisons and camps. At the end of the 20s. "Shakhty case" served as a signal for the deployment of the fight against "pests" from among the scientific and technical intelligentsia in all sectors of the national economy. From the beginning of the 1930s A massive repressive campaign was launched against the kulaks and the middle peasants. On August 7, 1932, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars adopted the law written by Stalin "On the protection of property of state enterprises, collective farms and cooperation and the strengthening of public (socialist) property", which went down in history as the law "on five spikelets", according to which even for minor theft from the collective farm fields were supposed to be shot.
In November 1934, a Special Council was formed under the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, which was given the right to administratively send "enemies of the people" into exile or forced labor camps for up to five years. At the same time, the principles of legal proceedings that protected the rights of the individual in the face of the state were discarded. The special meeting was given the right to consider cases in the absence of the accused, without the participation of witnesses, the prosecutor and the lawyer.
The reason for the deployment of mass repressions in the country was the murder on December 1, 1934 in Leningrad of a member of the Politburo, the first secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, S. M. Kirov. A few hours after this tragic event, a law was passed on the "simplified procedure" for dealing with cases of terrorist acts and organizations. According to this law, the investigation was to be carried out in an accelerated manner and complete its work within ten days; the indictment was handed over to the accused a day before the case was heard in court; cases were heard without the participation of the parties - the prosecutor and the defense; requests for pardon were prohibited, and execution sentences were carried out immediately after their announcement.
This act was followed by other laws that toughened punishments and expanded the circle of persons subjected to repression. Monstrous was the government decree of April 7, 1935, which prescribed "minors, starting from the age of 12, convicted of theft, violence, bodily injury, murder or attempted murder, to be brought to criminal court with the use of all measures criminal penalties, including death penalty. (Subsequently, this law will be used as a method of pressure on the defendants in order to persuade them to give false testimony in order to protect their children from reprisal.)
Show trials. Having found a weighty reason and created a "legal foundation", Stalin proceeded to physically eliminate all those who were dissatisfied with the regime. In 1936, the first of the largest Moscow trials of the leaders of the internal party opposition took place. Lenin's closest associates - Zinoviev, Kamenev and others - were on trial. They were accused of murdering Kirov, of trying to kill Stalin and other members of the Politburo, and also to overthrow the Soviet government. Prosecutor A. Ya. Vyshinsky declared: "I demand that the enraged dogs be shot - every one of them!" The court granted this requirement.
In 1937, a second trial took place, during which another group of representatives of the "Leninist Guard" was convicted. In the same year, a large group of senior officers led by Marshal Tukhachevsky was repressed. In March 1938, the third Moscow trial took place. The former head of the government, Rykov, and the "favorite of the party," Bukharin, were shot. Each of these processes led to the unwinding of the flywheel of repression for tens of thousands of people, primarily for relatives and friends, colleagues and even just housemates. Only in the top leadership of the army were destroyed: out of 5 marshals - 3, out of 5 commanders of the 1st rank - 3, out of 10 commanders of the 2nd rank - 10, out of 57 corps commanders - 50, out of 186 commanders - 154. Following them, 40 thousand were repressed officers of the Red Army.
At the same time, a secret department was created in the NKVD, which was engaged in the destruction of political opponents of the authorities who found themselves abroad. In August 1940, on Stalin's orders, Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico. The victims of the Stalinist regime were many leaders of the white movement, the monarchist emigration.
According to official, clearly underestimated data, in 1930-1953. 3.8 million people were repressed on charges of counter-revolutionary, anti-state activities, of which 786 thousand were shot.
The constitution of "victorious socialism". The "Great Terror" served as a monstrous mechanism by which Stalin tried to eliminate social tension in the country caused by the negative consequences of his own economic and political decisions. It was impossible to admit to the mistakes made, and in order to hide the failure, and, therefore, to maintain one's unlimited dominance over the party, the country and the international communist movement, it was necessary by all means of intimidation to wean people from doubting, to accustom them to see what actually did not exist. The logical continuation of this policy was the adoption of the new Constitution of the USSR, which served as a kind of screen designed to cover the totalitarian regime with democratic and socialist clothes.
The new constitution was adopted on December 5, 1936 at the VIII All-Union Extraordinary Congress of Soviets. Stalin, justifying the need to adopt new constitution, declared that Soviet society "carried out what the Marxists call the first phase of communism - socialism." The "Stalinist constitution" proclaimed the elimination of private property (and, consequently, the exploitation of man by man) and the creation of two forms of ownership - state and collective-farm-cooperative as the economic criterion for building socialism. The Soviets of Working People's Deputies were recognized as the political basis of the USSR. The Communist Party was given the role of the leading core of society; Marxism-Leninism was declared the official, state ideology.
The Constitution provided all citizens of the USSR, regardless of their gender and nationality, with basic democratic rights and freedoms - freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly, inviolability of the person and home, as well as direct equal suffrage.
The supreme governing body of the country was the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, consisting of two chambers - the Council of the Union and the Council of Nationalities. In the intervals between its sessions, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was to exercise executive and legislative power. The USSR included 11 union republics: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Armenian, Turkmen, Uzbek, Tajik, Kazakh, Kyrgyz.
But in real life, most of the provisions of the constitution turned out to be an empty declaration. And socialism "Stalinist" had a very formal resemblance to the Marxist understanding of socialism. Its goal was not to create economic, political and cultural prerequisites for the free development of each member of society, but to increase the power of the state by infringing on the interests of the majority of its citizens.
NATIONAL POLICY AT THE LATE 1920-1930s
Attack on Islam. In the second half of the 20s. changed the attitude of the Bolsheviks to the Muslim religion. Church land holdings, the proceeds of which went to the maintenance of mosques, schools and hospitals, were abolished. The lands were transferred to the peasantry, the schools that gave religious education(madrassas) were replaced by secular ones, and hospitals were included in the state health care system. Most mosques were closed. Sharia courts were also abolished. Removed from their duties, the clergy were forced to publicly repent that they "deceived the people."
In the cities, on the instructions of the Center, a campaign was launched to eradicate Muslim traditions that do not correspond to the norms of "communist morality." In 1927, on International Women's Day on March 8, women gathered for a rally defiantly tore off their burqa and threw it directly into the fire. For many believers, this sight was a real shock. The fate of the first representatives of this movement was deplorable. Their appearance in in public places caused an outburst of indignation, they were beaten, and sometimes killed.
Noisy propaganda campaigns were carried out against ritual prayers and the celebration of Ramadan. The official ruling on this matter stated that these humiliating and reactionary practices prevent workers from "taking an active part in the building of socialism" because they are contrary to the principles of labor discipline and the planned principles of the economy. Polygamy and the payment of kalym (bride price) were also banned as incompatible with Soviet family law. Making the pilgrimage to Mecca, which every Muslim is obliged to make at least once in his life, has become impossible.
All these measures caused violent discontent, which, however, did not take the scale of mass resistance. However, several Chechen imams declared a holy war against the enemies of Allah. In 1928-1929. uprisings broke out among the highlanders of the North Caucasus. In Central Asia, the Basmachi movement again raised its head. These speeches were suppressed with the help of army units.
The repressions that fell upon Muslims led to the fact that people stopped openly demonstrating their adherence to Islam. However, the Muslim faith and customs never disappeared from family life. Underground religious brotherhoods arose, whose members secretly performed religious rites.
Sovietization of national cultures. In the late 20s - 30s. the course towards the development of national languages and culture was curtailed. In 1926, Stalin reproached the Ukrainian people's commissar for education for the fact that his policy led to the separation of Ukrainian culture from the general Soviet one, which was based on Russian culture with "its highest achievement - Leninism."
First of all, the use of local languages in public institutions was abolished in national education systems. Compulsory study of a second language, Russian, was introduced in elementary and secondary schools. At the same time, the number of schools where teaching was conducted only in Russian increased. Teaching in higher education was translated into Russian. The only exceptions were Georgia and Armenia, whose peoples jealously guarded the primacy of their languages.
At the same time, the state languages of the Caucasus and Central Asia went through a double reform of the alphabet. In 1929, all local writing systems, mainly Arabic, were transferred to the Latin alphabet. Ten years later, Cyrillic was introduced - the Russian alphabet. These reforms virtually nullified previous efforts to spread literacy and written culture among the population.
Another source of introduction to the Russian language was the army. In the 1920s, with the introduction of universal military service, attempts were made to create ethnically homogeneous units. Even then, however, commanders were usually either Russians or Ukrainians. In 1938, the practice of forming national military units was eliminated. Recruits were sent to units with a mixed national composition, stationed far from their homeland. Russian became the language of military training and command.
The recognition of the Russian language as the state language of the USSR pursued not only ideological goals. Firstly, it facilitated the possibility of interethnic communication, which was important in the conditions of ongoing economic modernization. Secondly, it made life easier for the Russian population in the national republics, whose number increased significantly in connection with the implementation of the five-year plans.
And, thirdly, it made it possible for parents who had far-reaching plans for the future of their children to send them to schools where they could learn the state language and thus gain advantages over their compatriots. Therefore, the national elites did not protest against linguistic innovations.
However, the increase in the status of the Russian language did not at all mean a return to the tsarist policy of Russification. The anti-religious campaign and the collectivization of agriculture dealt a crushing blow to all national cultures, which were predominantly rural and contained a strong religious element, including Russian culture. Most of the Russian villages lost Orthodox churches, priests, believing hardworking peasants, the traditional system of land tenure, has lost the most important elements of Russian national culture. The same can be said about Belarus and Ukraine. In addition, the Russian language has now become an expression of the multinational party Soviet culture, and not Russian in its traditional sense.
"Economic Leveling of the National Outskirts". Destruction of national personnel. One of the main tasks of industrialization and collectivization was proclaimed by the party to raise the level economic development national outskirts. To accomplish this task, the same universal methods were used, which often did not take into account at all the national traditions and peculiarities of the economic activities of different peoples.
The example of Kazakhstan was indicative, where collectivization was primarily associated with intensified attempts to force the nomadic people to switch to arable farming. In 1929-1932. cattle, and especially sheep, were literally destroyed in Kazakhstan. The number of Kazakhs engaged in cattle breeding decreased from 80% of the total population to almost 25%. The actions of the authorities did not correspond to national traditions so much that fierce armed resistance became the answer to them. Basmachi, who disappeared in the late 1920s, reappeared. Now they were joined by those who refused to join the collective farms. The rebels killed the collective farm authorities and party workers. Hundreds of thousands of Kazakhs with their herds went abroad, to Chinese Turkestan.
While proclaiming a policy of "equalizing the economic level of the national outskirts," the central government at the same time demonstrated colonial habits. The first five-year plan, for example, envisaged a reduction in cereal crops in Uzbekistan, and in return, cotton production expanded to incredible proportions. Most of it was to become raw material for the factories of the European part of Russia. Such a policy threatened to turn Uzbekistan into a raw materials appendage and aroused strong resistance. The leaders of the Uzbek Republic worked out an alternative plan for economic development, which assumed greater independence and versatility of the republican economy. This plan was rejected, and its authors were arrested and shot on charges of "bourgeois nationalism."
With the beginning of industrialization and collectivization, the principle of "indigenization" was also subject to adjustment. Since directive changes in the economy and the centralization of management were by no means always welcomed by local leaders, leaders were increasingly sent from the Center. Leaders of national formations and cultural figures who tried to continue the policy of the twenties were subjected to repression. In 1937-1938. in fact, the party and economic leaders of the national republics were completely replaced. Many leading figures of education, literature and art were repressed. Usually, local leaders were replaced by Russians sent directly from Moscow, sometimes by more "understanding" representatives of the indigenous peoples. The most egregious situation was in the Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, where the republican politburos disappeared in their entirety.
Industrial construction in national areas. Nevertheless, the economic modernization that began in the country changed the face of the national republics. The policy of creating industrial centers based on local raw materials has brought positive results.
In Belarus, mainly woodworking, paper, leather and glass enterprises were built. Already during the years of the first five-year plan, it began to turn into an industrial republic: 40 new enterprises were built, mainly for the production of consumer goods. The share of industrial production in the national economy of the republic was 53%. During the years of the second five-year plan, new industries were created in Belarus: fuel (peat), machine-building, and chemical.
In the Ukrainian SSR during the years of the first five-year plan, 400 enterprises were put into operation, among them such as the Dneproges, the Kharkov Tractor Plant, the Kramatorsk Heavy Engineering Plant, etc. The share of industrial products in the economy of the republic increased to 72.4%. This testified to the transformation of Ukraine into a highly developed industrial republic.
In Central Asia, new cotton-cleaning plants, silk-reeling factories, food processing plants, canning factories, etc. were built. Power plants were built in Fergana, Bukhara and Chirchik. The Tashkent plant of agricultural machines began to work. A sulfur plant was built in Turkmenistan and mirabilite mining began in the Kara-Bogaz-Gol Bay.
The Turkestan-Siberian Railway played an important role in industrialization. Its construction was completed in 1930. Turksib connected Siberia, rich in grain, timber and coal, with the cotton-growing regions of Central Asia and Kazakhstan.
In the RSFSR, much attention was paid to the development of industry in the autonomous republics: Bashkir, Tatar, Yakut, Buryat-Mongolian. If capital investments in the industry of the RSFSR as a whole grew 4.9 times during the first five years, then in Bashkiria - 7.5 times, in Tataria - 5.2 times. During the years of the second five-year plan, even more significant funds were allocated for the development of autonomous republics, regions and national districts. A powerful woodworking industry was created in the Komi ASSR, the industrial exploitation of the region's oil and coal resources began, and oil wells were built in Ukhta. The development of oil reserves began in Bashkiria and Tatarstan. The extraction of non-ferrous metals in Yakutia, the development of the natural resources of Dagestan and North Ossetia have expanded.
Often, industrial enterprises on the national outskirts were built by the whole country. Workers and builders arrived here from Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, from the Urals and from other large industrial centers. The internationalism proclaimed by the party was not just a propaganda slogan. Representatives of various nationalities grew up, studied, worked, created families nearby. In the 30s. in the USSR, a multinational community of people with its own social and cultural specifics, behavioral stereotype, and mentality has developed. An artistic expression of the spirit of internationalism that reigned in Soviet society was the most popular film "The Pig and the Shepherd", which tells about the love of a Russian girl and a guy from Dagestan.
SOVIET CULTURE OF THE 1930s
Development of education. The 1930s went down in the history of our country as the period of the "cultural revolution". This concept meant not only a significant increase, compared with the pre-revolutionary period, in the educational level of the people and the degree of their familiarization with the achievements of culture. Another component of the "cultural revolution" was the undivided dominance of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine in science, education and all areas of creative activity.
Under the conditions of the economic modernization carried out in the USSR, special attention was paid to raising the professional level of the population. At the same time, the totalitarian regime demanded to change the content of school education and upbringing, for the pedagogical "liberties" of the 20s. were of little use for the mission of creating a "new man".
In the early 30s. The Central Committee of the Party and the Council of People's Commissars adopted a number of resolutions on the school. In the 1930/31 academic year, the country began the transition to universal compulsory primary education in the amount of 4 classes. By 1937 seven years of education became compulsory. The old teaching and upbringing methods, condemned after the revolution, were returned to the school: lessons, subjects, a fixed schedule, grades, strict discipline and a whole range of punishments, up to and including expulsion. School curricula were revised, new stable textbooks were created. In 1934, the teaching of geography and civil history was restored on the basis of Marxist-Leninist assessments of the events and phenomena that took place.
School building was widely developed. Only during 1933-1937. more than 20,000 new schools opened in the USSR, about the same number as in tsarist Russia in 200 years. By the end of the 30s. over 35 million students studied at school desks. According to the 1939 census, literacy in the USSR was 87.4%.
The system of secondary specialized and higher education developed rapidly. By the end of the 30s. Soviet Union ranked first in the world in terms of the number of students and students. Dozens of middle and higher educational institutions arose in Belarus, the republics of Transcaucasia and Central Asia, the centers of autonomous republics and regions. The circulation of books in 1937 reached 677.8 million copies; books were published in 110 languages of the peoples of the Union. Mass libraries were widely developed: by the end of the 30s. their number exceeded 90 thousand.
Science under ideological pressure. However, both education and science, as well as literature and art, were subjected to ideological attack in the USSR. Stalin declared that all sciences, including natural and mathematical ones, are political in nature. Scientists who disagreed with this statement were persecuted in the press and arrested.
An acute struggle unfolded in biological science. Under the guise of defending Darwinism and Michurin's theory, a group of biologists and philosophers headed by T. D. Lysenko came out against genetics, declaring it a "bourgeois science." The brilliant developments of Soviet geneticists were curtailed, and subsequently many of them (N. I. Vavilov, N. K. Koltsov, A. S. Serebrovsky, and others) were repressed.
But Stalin paid the closest attention to historical science. He took personal control of textbooks on the history of Russia, which became known as the history of the USSR. According to Stalin's instructions, the past began to be interpreted solely as a chronicle of the class struggle of the oppressed against the exploiters. At the same time, a new branch of science appeared, which became one of the leading ones in the Stalinist ideological construction - the "history of the party." In 1938, the "Short Course in the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks" was published, which Stalin not only carefully edited, but also wrote one of the paragraphs for it. The publication of this work marked the beginning of the formation of a single concept for the development of our country, which all Soviet scientists had to follow. And although some of the facts in the textbook were rigged and distorted in order to exalt the role of Stalin, the Central Committee of the party in its resolution assessed the "Short Course" as "a guide that represents the official, verified by the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) interpretation of the main issues of the history of the CPSU (b) and Marxism- Leninism, which does not allow any arbitrary interpretations. Every word, every provision of the "Short Course" had to be taken as the ultimate truth. In practice, this led to the defeat of all existing scientific schools, a break with the traditions of Russian historical science.
Successes of Soviet science. Ideological dogmas and strict party control had the most detrimental effect on the state of the humanities. But representatives of the natural sciences, although they experienced the negative consequences of the intervention of party and punitive bodies, nevertheless managed to achieve noticeable success, continuing the glorious traditions of Russian science.
The Soviet physical school, represented by the names of S. I. Vavilov (problems of optics), A. F. Ioffe (study of the physics of crystals and semiconductors), P. L. Kapitsa (research in the field of microphysics), L. I. Mandelstam ( works in the field of radiophysics and optics); .
A significant contribution to applied science was made by the works of chemists N. D. Zelinsky, N. S. Kurnakov, A. E. Favorsky, A. N. Bach, S. V. Lebedev. A method for the production of synthetic rubber was discovered, the production of artificial fibers, plastics, valuable organic products, etc. began.
World achievements were the work of Soviet biologists - N. I. Vavilov, D. N. Pryanishnikov, V. R. Williams, V. S. Pustovoit.
Significant progress was made in Soviet mathematics, astronomy, mechanics, and physiology.
Geological and geographical research has acquired a wide scope. Mineral deposits were discovered - oil between the Volga and the Urals, new coal reserves in the Moscow and Kuznetsk basins, iron ore in the Urals and in other areas. The North was actively explored and developed. This made it possible to sharply reduce the import of certain types of raw materials.
socialist realism. In the 30s. the process of liquidating dissent in artistic culture was completed. Art, completely subordinate to party censorship, was obliged to follow one artistic direction - socialist realism. The political essence of this method was that the masters of art had to reflect the Soviet reality not as it really was, but as it was idealized by those in power.
Art propagated myths, and most Soviet people readily accepted them. After all, since the time of the revolution, the people have lived in an atmosphere of belief that the grandiose social upheaval that has taken place should bring a beautiful "tomorrow", although "today" was difficult, painfully difficult. And art, together with the encouraging promises of Stalin, created the illusion that the happy time had already come.
In the minds of people, the boundaries between the desired "bright future" and reality were blurring. This state was used by the authorities in order to create a socio-psychological solidity of society, which, in turn, made it possible to manipulate it, constructing either labor enthusiasm, or mass indignation against "enemies of the people", or popular love for their leader.
Soviet cinema. An especially great contribution to the transformation of people's consciousness was made by cinematography, which has become the most popular form of art. Events of the 20s and then 30s. reflected in the minds of people not only through their own experience, but also through their interpretation in films. The whole country watched the documentary chronicle. It was seen by the audience, sometimes unable to read, unable to deeply analyze the events, they perceived the surrounding life not only as a cruel visible reality, but also as a joyful euphoria pouring from the screen. The stunning impact of Soviet documentary filmmaking on mass consciousness is also explained by the fact that brilliant masters worked in this field (D. Vertov, E. K. Tisse, E. I. Shub).
Do not lag behind the documentary and artistic cinema. A significant number of feature films were devoted to historical and revolutionary themes: "Chapaev" (directed by the Vasilyev brothers), a trilogy about Maxim (directed by G. M. Kozintsev and L. Z. Trauberg), "We are from Kronstadt" (directed by E. L. Dzigan).
In 1931, the first Soviet sound film "Start in Life" (directed by N. V. Ekk), which tells about the upbringing of a new Soviet generation, was released. The films of S. A. Gerasimov "Seven Courageous", "Komsomolsk", "Teacher" were devoted to the same problem. In 1936, the first color film "Grunya Kornakov" appeared (directed by N.V. Ekk).
In the same period, the traditions of Soviet children's and youth cinema were laid. There are film versions of famous works by V. P. Kataev (“The lonely sail turns white”), A. P. Gaidar (“Timur and his team”), A. N. Tolstoy (“The Golden Key”). Wonderful animated films were produced for children.
Especially popular among people of all ages were musical comedies by G. V. Aleksandrov - "Circus", "Merry Fellows", "Volga-Volga", I. A. Pyryev - "The Rich Bride", "Tractor Drivers", "Pig and Shepherd" .
Historical films became the favorite genre of Soviet cinematographers. The films "Peter I" (dir. V. M. Petrov), "Alexander Nevsky" (dir. S. M. Eisenstein), "Minin and Pozharsky" (dir. V. I. Pudovkin) and others were very popular.
Talented actors B. M. Andreev, P. M. Aleinikov, B. A. Babochkin, M. I. Zharov, N. A. Kryuchkov, M. A. Ladynina, T. F Makarova, L. P. Orlova and others.
Musical and visual arts. The musical life of the country was associated with the names of S. S. Prokofiev, D. D. Shostakovich, A. I. Khachaturian, T. N. Khrennikov, D. B. Kabalevsky, I. O. Dunaevsky. Groups were created that later glorified Soviet musical culture: the Quartet. Beethoven, the Grand State Symphony Orchestra, the State Philharmonic Orchestra, etc. At the same time, any innovative searches in the opera, symphony, chamber music. When evaluating certain musical works, the personal aesthetic tastes of the party leaders, which were extremely low, affected. This is evidenced by the rejection by the "tops" of D. D. Shostakovich's music. His opera "Katerina Izmailova" and the ballet "Golden Age" were subjected to rough criticism in the press for "formalism".
The most democratic branch of musical creativity, songwriting, reached its peak. Talented composers worked in this field - I. O. Dunaevsky, B. A. Mokrousov, M. I. Blanter, the Pokrass brothers and others. Their works had a huge impact on contemporaries. The simple, easy-to-remember melodies of the songs of these authors were on everyone's lips: they sounded at home and on the street, poured from movie screens and from loudspeakers. And along with the major cheerful music, uncomplicated verses glorifying the Motherland, labor, and Stalin sounded. The pathos of these songs did not correspond to the realities of life, but their romantic-revolutionary elation had a strong impact on a person.
The craftsmen also had to demonstrate loyalty to socialist realism. visual arts. The main criteria for evaluating the artist were not his professional skills and creative individuality, but the ideological orientation of the plot. Hence the dismissive attitude towards the genre of still life, landscape and other "petty-bourgeois" excesses, although such talented masters as P. P. Konchalovsky, A. V. Lentulov, M. S. Saryan worked in this area.
Leading now have become other artists. Among them, the main place was occupied by B.V. Ioganson. His paintings "Rabfak goes (University students)", "Interrogation of Communists" and others have become classics of socialist realism. A. A. Deineka, who created his famous poetic canvas "Future Pilots", Yu. I. Pimenov ("New Moscow"), M. V. Nesterov (a series of portraits of the Soviet intelligentsia), and others worked a lot.
At the same time, portraits, sculptures and busts of Stalin became an indispensable attribute of every city, every institution.
Literature. Theatre. Strict party dictatorship and comprehensive censorship could not but affect the general level of mass literary production. One-day works appeared, resembling editorials in newspapers. But, nevertheless, even in these years, unfavorable for free creativity, Russian Soviet literature was represented by talented writers who created significant works. In 1931, A. M. Gorky finally returned to his homeland. Here he finished his novel "The Life of Klim Samgin", wrote the plays "Egor Bulychov and Others", "Dostigaev and Others". A. N. Tolstoy, also at home, put the last point in the trilogy "Walking through the torments", created the novel "Peter I" and other works.
M. A. Sholokhov, the future Nobel Prize winner, wrote the novel "Quiet Flows the Don" and the first part of "Virgin Soil Upturned". M. A. Bulgakov worked on the novel "The Master and Margarita" (although it did not reach the mass reader then). The works of V. A. Kaverin, L. M. Leonov, A. P. Platonov, K. G. Paustovsky and many other writers were noted for their generous talent. There was excellent children's literature - books by K. I. Chukovsky, S. Ya. Marshak, A. P. Gaidar, A. L. Barto, S. V. Mikhalkov, L. A. Kassil and others.
Since the end of the 20s. plays by Soviet playwrights were established on the stage: N. F. Pogodin ("The Man with a Gun"), A. E. Korneichuk ("Death of the Squadron", "Plato Krechet"), V. V. Vishnevsky ("Optimistic Tragedy"), A. N. Arbuzov ("Tanya") and others. The repertoire of all theaters in the country included Gorky's plays written in different years - "Enemies", "Petty Bourgeois", "Summer Residents", "Barbarians", etc.
The most important feature of the cultural revolution was the active familiarization of Soviet people with art. This was achieved not only by increasing the number of theaters, cinemas, philharmonic societies, concert halls, but also by developing amateur art activities. Clubs, palaces of culture, houses of children's creativity were created all over the country; grandiose reviews of folk talents, exhibitions of amateur works were arranged.
FOREIGN POLICY OF THE SOVIET UNION IN THE 1930s
Change in the foreign policy of the USSR. In 1933, the Nazis came to power in Germany, making no secret of their intentions to start a struggle for the redivision of the world. The USSR was forced to change its foreign policy. First of all, the position was revised, according to which all "imperialist" states were perceived as real enemies, ready at any moment to start a war against the Soviet Union. At the end of 1933, the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, on behalf of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, developed a detailed plan for creating a system of collective security in Europe. From that moment until 1939, Soviet foreign policy took on an anti-German orientation. Its main goal was the desire for an alliance with democratic countries in order to isolate Nazi Germany and Japan. This course was largely associated with the activities of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs M. M. Litvinov.
The successful results of the new course were the establishment in November 1933 of diplomatic relations with the United States and the admission of the USSR in 1934 to the League of Nations, where he immediately became a permanent member of its Council. This meant the formal return of the country to the world community as a great power. It is fundamentally important that the entry of the Soviet Union into the League of Nations took place on its own terms: all disputes, primarily over tsarist debts, were resolved in favor of the USSR.
In May 1935, an agreement was concluded between the USSR and France on assistance in the event of a possible attack by any aggressor. But mutual obligations were in fact ineffective, since the treaty was not accompanied by any military agreements. Then an agreement on mutual assistance was signed with Czechoslovakia.
In 1935, the USSR condemned the introduction of compulsory military service in Germany and Italy's attack on Ethiopia. And after the introduction of German troops into the demilitarized Rhineland, the Soviet Union proposed to the League of Nations to take measures to stop violations of international obligations. But the voice of the USSR was not heard.
The course of the Comintern towards the creation of a united anti-fascist front. The USSR actively used the Comintern to implement its foreign policy plans. Until 1933, Stalin considered the main task of the Comintern to be the organization of support for his internal political course in the international arena. The sharpest criticism of Stalin's methods came from world social democracy. Therefore, Stalin declared the Social Democrats the main enemy of the Communists of all countries, regarding them as accomplices of fascism. These Comintern guidelines in practice led to a split in the anti-fascist forces, which greatly facilitated the coming of the Nazis to power in Germany.
In 1933, along with the revision of the Soviet foreign policy, the attitudes of the Comintern also changed. The development of a new strategic line was headed by G. Dimitrov, the hero and winner of the Leipzig process initiated by the Nazis against the Communists. The new tactics were approved by the 7th Congress of the Comintern, which took place in the summer of 1935. The communists proclaimed the creation of a united anti-fascist front to prevent a world war as the main task. To this end, the Communists had to organize cooperation with all forces - from the Social Democrats to the Liberals. At the same time, the creation of an anti-fascist front and broad anti-war actions were closely linked with the struggle "for the security of the Soviet Union." The Congress warned that in the event of an attack on the USSR, the Communists would call on the working people "by all means to contribute to the victory of the Red Army over the armies of the imperialists."
The first attempt to put the new tactics of the Comintern into practice was made in 1936 in Spain, when General Franco raised a fascist revolt against the republican government. The USSR openly declared its support for the republic. Soviet military equipment, two thousand advisers, as well as a significant number of volunteers from among military specialists were sent to Spain. The events in Spain clearly showed the need for united efforts in the struggle against the growing strength of fascism. But the democracies were still weighing which regime is more dangerous for democracy - fascist or communist.
Far East policy of the USSR. Despite the complexity of the European foreign policy, the situation on the western borders of the USSR was relatively calm. At the same time, on its Far Eastern borders, diplomatic and political conflicts resulted in direct military clashes.
The first military conflict took place in the summer-autumn of 1929 in Northern Manchuria. The stumbling block was the CER. According to the agreement of 1924 between the USSR and the Beijing government of China, the railway passed under joint Soviet-Chinese management. But by the end of the 20s. the Chinese administration was almost completely replaced by Soviet specialists, while the road itself actually became the property of the Soviet Union. This situation became possible due to the unstable political situation in China. But in 1928, the government of Chiang Kai-shek came to power, which began to pursue a policy of unification of all Chinese territories. It tried to regain by force the positions lost on the CER. An armed conflict broke out. Soviet troops defeated the Chinese border detachments on Chinese territory, which began fighting.
At this time on Far East in the face of Japan, the world community received a powerful hotbed of incitement to war. Having seized Manchuria in 1931, Japan created a threat to the Far Eastern borders of the Soviet Union, moreover, the CER, which belonged to the USSR, ended up on the territory controlled by Japan. The Japanese threat forced the USSR and China to restore their diplomatic relations.
In November 1936, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which was later joined by Italy and Spain. In July 1937, Japan launched a large-scale aggression against China. In such a situation, the USSR and China went to mutual rapprochement. In August 1937, a non-aggression pact was concluded between them. After the signing of the treaty, the Soviet Union began to provide technical and material assistance to China. In the battles, Soviet instructors and pilots fought on the side of the Chinese army.
In the summer of 1938, armed clashes began between Japanese and Soviet troops on the Soviet-Manchurian border. A fierce battle took place in the area of Lake Khasan, not far from Vladivostok. On the part of Japan, this was the first reconnaissance in force. It showed that it would hardly be possible to take the Soviet borders in a rush. Nevertheless, in May 1939, Japanese troops invaded the territory of Mongolia in the area of the Khalkhin Gol River. Since 1936, the Soviet Union has been connected with Mongolia by a union treaty. True to its obligations, the USSR brought its troops into the territory of Mongolia.
Munich Agreement. Meanwhile, the fascist powers were making new territorial conquests in Europe. In mid-May 1938, German troops concentrated on the border with Czechoslovakia. The Soviet leadership was ready to help her even without France, but on the condition that she herself would ask the USSR about it. However, Czechoslovakia still hoped for the support of the Western Allies.
In September, when the situation escalated to the limit, the leaders of England and France arrived in Munich for negotiations with Germany and Italy. Neither Czechoslovakia nor the USSR were admitted to the conference. The Munich Agreement finally fixed the course of the Western powers to "appease" the fascist aggressors, satisfying Germany's claims to seize the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union was ready to provide assistance to Czechoslovakia, guided by the charter of the League of Nations. For this, it was necessary that Czechoslovakia applied to the Council of the League of Nations with a corresponding request. But the ruling circles of Czechoslovakia did not do this.
The hopes of the USSR for the possibility of creating a collective security system were finally dispelled after the signing in September 1938 of the Anglo-German, and in December of the same year, the Franco-German declarations, which were essentially non-aggression pacts. In these documents, the contracting parties declared their desire "never again to wage war against each other." The Soviet Union, seeking to protect itself from a possible military conflict, began searching for a new foreign policy line.
Soviet-English-French negotiations. After the conclusion of the Munich Agreement, the heads of government of Britain and France proclaimed the onset of an "era of peace" in Europe. Taking advantage of the connivance of the Western powers, on March 15, 1939, Hitler sent troops into Prague and finally liquidated Czechoslovakia as an independent state, and on March 23 captured the Memel region, which was part of Lithuania. At the same time, Germany made demands on Poland to annex Danzig, which had the status of a free city, and part of Polish territory. In April 1939 Italy occupied Albania. This somewhat sobered the ruling circles of Britain and France and forced them to agree to the proposal of the Soviet Union to start negotiations and conclude an agreement on measures to curb German aggression.
On August 12, after lengthy delays, representatives of England and France arrived in Moscow. Here it suddenly became clear that the British did not have the authority to negotiate and sign an agreement. Secondary military figures were placed at the head of both missions, while the Soviet delegation was headed by Marshal K. E. Voroshilov, People's Commissar for Defense.
The Soviet side presented a detailed plan of joint action by the armed forces of the USSR, Britain and France against the aggressor. The Red Army, in accordance with this plan, was to deploy 136 divisions, 5 thousand heavy guns, 9-10 thousand tanks and 5-5.5 thousand combat aircraft in Europe. The British delegation stated that in the event of a war, England would initially send only 6 divisions to the continent.
The Soviet Union did not have a common border with Germany. Consequently, he could take part in repelling aggression only if the allies of England and France - Poland and Romania - let the Soviet troops through their territory. Meanwhile, neither the British nor the French did anything to induce the Polish and Romanian governments to agree to the passage of Soviet troops. On the contrary, the members of the military delegations of the Western powers were warned by their governments that this decisive question for the whole affair should not be discussed in Moscow. Negotiations deliberately dragged on. The French and British delegations followed the instructions of their governments to negotiate slowly, "to strive to reduce the military agreement to the most general terms possible."
Rapprochement of the USSR and Germany. Hitler, without abandoning the use of force to solve the "Polish question", also suggested that the USSR begin negotiations on the conclusion of a non-aggression pact and the delimitation of spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. Stalin faced a difficult choice: either reject Hitler's proposals and thereby agree with the withdrawal of German troops to the borders of the Soviet Union in the event of Poland's defeat in the war with Germany, or conclude agreements with Germany that make it possible to push the borders of the USSR far to the west and to some time to avoid war. For the Soviet leadership, the attempts of the Western powers to push Germany into war with the Soviet Union were no secret, as well as Hitler's desire to expand his "living space" at the expense of the eastern lands. Moscow knew about the completion of the preparation of the German troops for an attack on Poland and the possible defeat of the Polish troops due to the clear superiority german army over Polish.
The more difficult the negotiations with the Anglo-French delegation in Moscow, the more Stalin was inclined to the conclusion that it was necessary to sign an agreement with Germany. It was also necessary to take into account the fact that since May 1939, military operations of the Soviet-Mongolian troops against the Japanese were carried out on the territory of Mongolia. The Soviet Union faced an extremely unfavorable prospect of waging war simultaneously on both the eastern and western borders.
On August 23, 1939, the whole world was shocked by the shocking news: the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR V. M. Molotov (appointed to this position in May 1939) and the German Foreign Minister I. Ribbentrop signed a non-aggression pact. This fact came as a complete surprise to the Soviet people. But no one knew the most important thing - secret protocols were attached to the agreement, in which the division of Eastern Europe into spheres of influence between Moscow and Berlin was fixed. According to the protocols, a demarcation line was established between German and Soviet troops in Poland; the Baltic states, Finland and Bessarabia belonged to the sphere of influence of the USSR.
Undoubtedly, at that time the treaty was beneficial to both countries. He allowed Hitler, without unnecessary complications, to begin the capture of the first bastion in the east and at the same time convince his generals that Germany would not have to fight on several fronts at once. Stalin received a gain in time to strengthen the country's defense, as well as the opportunity to push back the initial positions of a potential enemy and restore the state within the borders of the former Russian Empire.
The conclusion of the Soviet-German agreements frustrated the attempts of the Western powers to draw the USSR into a war with Germany and, conversely, made it possible to switch the direction of German aggression primarily to the West. The Soviet-German rapprochement introduced a certain discord in relations between Germany and Japan and eliminated the threat of war on two fronts for the USSR.
Having settled matters in the west, the Soviet Union stepped up military operations in the east. At the end of August, Soviet troops under the command of G.K. Zhukov surrounded and defeated the 6th Japanese army on the river. Khalkhin Gol. The Japanese government was forced to sign a peace agreement in Moscow, according to which, from September 16, 1939, hostilities ceased. The threat of an escalation of the war in the Far East was eliminated.
What you need to know about this topic:
Socio-economic and political development of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. Nicholas II.
Domestic policy of tsarism. Nicholas II. Strengthening repression. "Police socialism".
Russo-Japanese War. Reasons, course, results.
Revolution of 1905 - 1907 The nature, driving forces and features of the Russian revolution of 1905-1907. stages of the revolution. The reasons for the defeat and the significance of the revolution.
Elections to the State Duma. I State Duma. The agrarian question in the Duma. Dispersal of the Duma. II State Duma. Coup d'état June 3, 1907
Third June political system. Electoral law June 3, 1907 III State Duma. The alignment of political forces in the Duma. Duma activities. government terror. The decline of the labor movement in 1907-1910
Stolypin agrarian reform.
IV State Duma. Party composition and Duma factions. Duma activity.
The political crisis in Russia on the eve of the war. The labor movement in the summer of 1914 Crisis of the top.
The international position of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.
Beginning of the First World War. Origin and nature of war. Russia's entry into the war. Attitude towards the war of parties and classes.
The course of hostilities. Strategic forces and plans of the parties. Results of the war. Role Eastern Front in the first world war.
The Russian economy during the First World War.
Workers' and peasants' movement in 1915-1916. Revolutionary movement in the army and navy. Growing anti-war sentiment. Formation of the bourgeois opposition.
Russian culture of the 19th - early 20th centuries.
Aggravation of socio-political contradictions in the country in January-February 1917. The beginning, prerequisites and nature of the revolution. Uprising in Petrograd. Formation of the Petrograd Soviet. Provisional Committee State Duma. Order N I. Formation of the Provisional Government. Abdication of Nicholas II. Causes of dual power and its essence. February coup in Moscow, at the front, in the provinces.
From February to October. The policy of the Provisional Government regarding war and peace, on agrarian, national, labor issues. Relations between the Provisional Government and the Soviets. The arrival of V.I. Lenin in Petrograd.
Political parties (Kadets, Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Bolsheviks): political programs, influence among the masses.
Crises of the Provisional Government. An attempted military coup in the country. Growth of revolutionary sentiment among the masses. Bolshevization of the capital Soviets.
Preparation and conduct of an armed uprising in Petrograd.
II All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Decisions about power, peace, land. Formation of public authorities and management. Composition of the first Soviet government.
The victory of the armed uprising in Moscow. Government agreement with the Left SRs. Elections to the Constituent Assembly, its convocation and dissolution.
The first socio-economic transformations in the field of industry, agriculture, finance, labor and women's issues. Church and State.
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, its terms and significance.
Economic tasks of the Soviet government in the spring of 1918. Aggravation of the food issue. The introduction of food dictatorship. Working squads. Comedy.
The revolt of the left SRs and the collapse of the two-party system in Russia.
First Soviet constitution.
Causes of intervention and civil war. The course of hostilities. Human and material losses of the period of the civil war and military intervention.
The internal policy of the Soviet leadership during the war. "War Communism". GOELRO plan.
The policy of the new government in relation to culture.
Foreign policy. Treaties with border countries. Participation of Russia in the Genoa, Hague, Moscow and Lausanne conferences. Diplomatic recognition of the USSR by the main capitalist countries.
Domestic policy. Socio-economic and political crisis of the early 20s. Famine of 1921-1922 Transition to a new economic policy. The essence of the NEP. NEP in the field of agriculture, trade, industry. financial reform. Economic recovery. Crises during the NEP and its curtailment.
Creation projects USSR. I Congress of Soviets of the USSR. The first government and the Constitution of the USSR.
Illness and death of V.I. Lenin. Intraparty struggle. The beginning of the formation of Stalin's regime of power.
Industrialization and collectivization. Development and implementation of the first five-year plans. Socialist competition - purpose, forms, leaders.
Formation and strengthening of the state system of economic management.
The course towards complete collectivization. Dispossession.
Results of industrialization and collectivization.
Political, national-state development in the 30s. Intraparty struggle. political repression. Formation of the nomenklatura as a layer of managers. Stalinist regime and the constitution of the USSR in 1936
Soviet culture in the 20-30s.
Foreign policy of the second half of the 20s - mid-30s.
Domestic policy. The growth of military production. Extraordinary measures in the field of labor legislation. Measures to solve the grain problem. Armed forces. Growth of the Red Army. military reform. Repressions against the command personnel of the Red Army and the Red Army.
Foreign policy. Non-aggression pact and treaty of friendship and borders between the USSR and Germany. The entry of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus into the USSR. Soviet-Finnish war. The inclusion of the Baltic republics and other territories in the USSR.
Periodization of the Great Patriotic War. First stage war. Turning the country into a military camp. Military defeats 1941-1942 and their reasons. Major military events Capitulation of Nazi Germany. Participation of the USSR in the war with Japan.
Soviet rear during the war.
Deportation of peoples.
Partisan struggle.
Human and material losses during the war.
Creation of the anti-Hitler coalition. Declaration of the United Nations. The problem of the second front. Conferences of the "Big Three". Problems of post-war peace settlement and all-round cooperation. USSR and UN.
Beginning of the Cold War. The contribution of the USSR to the creation of the "socialist camp". CMEA formation.
Domestic policy of the USSR in the mid-1940s - early 1950s. Restoration of the national economy.
Socio-political life. Politics in the field of science and culture. Continued repression. "Leningrad business". Campaign against cosmopolitanism. "Doctors' Case".
Socio-economic development of Soviet society in the mid-50s - the first half of the 60s.
Socio-political development: XX Congress of the CPSU and the condemnation of Stalin's personality cult. Rehabilitation of victims of repressions and deportations. Intra-party struggle in the second half of the 1950s.
Foreign policy: the creation of the ATS. The entry of Soviet troops into Hungary. Exacerbation of Soviet-Chinese relations. The split of the "socialist camp". Soviet-American Relations and the Caribbean Crisis. USSR and third world countries. Reducing the strength of the armed forces of the USSR. Moscow Treaty on the Limitation of Nuclear Tests.
USSR in the mid-60s - the first half of the 80s.
Socio-economic development: economic reform 1965
Growing difficulties of economic development. Decline in the rate of socio-economic growth.
USSR Constitution 1977
Socio-political life of the USSR in the 1970s - early 1980s.
Foreign Policy: Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Consolidation of post-war borders in Europe. Moscow treaty with Germany. Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Soviet-American treaties of the 70s. Soviet-Chinese relations. The entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. Exacerbation of international tension and the USSR. Strengthening of the Soviet-American confrontation in the early 80s.
USSR in 1985-1991
Domestic policy: an attempt to accelerate the socio-economic development of the country. An attempt to reform the political system of Soviet society. Congresses of People's Deputies. Election of the President of the USSR. Multi-party system. Exacerbation of the political crisis.
Exacerbation of the national question. Attempts to reform the national-state structure of the USSR. Declaration on State Sovereignty of the RSFSR. "Novogarevsky process". The collapse of the USSR.
Foreign policy: Soviet-American relations and the problem of disarmament. Treaties with leading capitalist countries. The withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Changing relations with the countries of the socialist community. Disintegration of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact.
Russian Federation in 1992-2000
Domestic policy: "Shock therapy" in the economy: price liberalization, stages of privatization of commercial and industrial enterprises. Fall in production. Increased social tension. Growth and slowdown in financial inflation. The aggravation of the struggle between the executive and legislative branches. The dissolution of the Supreme Soviet and the Congress of People's Deputies. October events of 1993. Abolition of local bodies of Soviet power. Elections in Federal Assembly. The Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993 Formation of the presidential republic. Aggravation and overcoming of national conflicts in the North Caucasus.
Parliamentary elections 1995 Presidential elections 1996 Power and opposition. Trying to get back on track liberal reforms(Spring 1997) and her failure. The financial crisis of August 1998: causes, economic and political consequences. "Second Chechen War". Parliamentary elections in 1999 and early presidential elections in 2000 Foreign policy: Russia in the CIS. The participation of Russian troops in the "hot spots" of the near abroad: Moldova, Georgia, Tajikistan. Russia's relations with foreign countries. The withdrawal of Russian troops from Europe and neighboring countries. Russian-American agreements. Russia and NATO. Russia and the Council of Europe. Yugoslav crises (1999-2000) and Russia's position.
- Danilov A.A., Kosulina L.G. History of the state and peoples of Russia. XX century.
Collectivization- the process of uniting individual peasant farms into collective farms (collective farms in the USSR). Conducted in the USSR in the late 1920s - early 1930s. (the decision on collectivization was adopted at the XV Congress of the CPSU (b) in 1927), in the western regions of Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Asia - after World War II, in Cuba - in the 1960s.
The goal of collectivization is the formation of socialist production relations in the countryside, the elimination of small-scale production in order to resolve grain difficulties and provide the country with the necessary amount of marketable grain.
Agriculture in Russia before collectivization
In pre-revolutionary Russia, grain farming was the predominant branch of agriculture. Grain crops accounted for 88.6% of all crops. Gross production for 1910-1912 reached an average of about 4 billion rubles, with all field crop production amounting to 5 billion rubles. Grain was the main export item of Russia. Thus, in 1913 the share of grain products was 47% of all exports and 57% of agricultural exports. More than half of all marketable grain was exported (1876-1888 - 42.8%, 1911-1913 - 51%). In 1909-1913, grain exports reached their maximum size - 11.9 million tons of all grains, of which 4.2 million tons of wheat and 3.7 million tons of barley. 25% of exports were provided by the Kuban. On the world market, grain exports from Russia accounted for up to 28.1% of all world exports. With a total cultivated area of approximately 80 million hectares (105 million hectares in 1913), grain yields, however, were among the lowest in the world. The main commodity producers of grain (over 70%) were landowners and wealthy peasants, the share of the bulk of the peasantry (15-16 million individual peasant farms) in marketable output was about 28%, with a marketability level of about 15% (47% for landowners and 34% for wealthy peasants). The energy capacity of agriculture amounted to 23.9 million liters. from. (1 hp \u003d 0.736 kW), of which only 0.2 million liters are mechanical. from. (less than 1%). The power supply of peasant farms did not exceed 0.5 liters. from. (per 1 employee), energy supply - 20 liters. from. (per 100 hectares of crops). Almost all agricultural work was done manually or by live traction. In 1910, peasant farms had at their disposal 7.8 million plows and roe deer, 2.2 million wooden and 4.2 million iron plows, and 17.7 million wooden harrows. Mineral fertilizers (mostly imported) accounted for no more than 1.5 kg per hectare of crops (on landlord and kulak farms). Agriculture was conducted by extensive methods; the productivity of agriculture and animal husbandry was low (cf. the grain harvest in 1909-13 was about 7.4 centners per hectare, the average annual milk yield per cow was about 1,000 kg). The backwardness of agriculture, its complete dependence on natural conditions served as the cause of frequent crop failures, mass death of livestock; in lean years, famine engulfed millions of peasant farms.
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 able-bodied male population in the countryside 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 have decreased, and the productivity of agricultural crops has 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). The restoration of the pre-war grain sown area - 94.7 million hectares - was achieved only by 1927 (the total sown area in 1927 amounted to 112.4 million hectares against 105 million hectares in 1913). It was also possible to slightly exceed the pre-war level (1913) of yields: the average yield of grain crops for 1924-1928 reached 7.5 c/ha. Almost managed to restore the livestock (with the exception of horses). By the end of the recovery period (1928), gross grain output reached 733.2 million centners. The marketability of grain farming remained extremely low - in 1926/27 the average marketability of grain farming was 13.3% (47.2% - collective farms and state farms, 20.0% - kulaks, 11.2% - poor and middle peasants). In the gross grain output, collective farms and state farms accounted for 1.7%, kulaks - 13%, middle peasants and poor peasants - 85.3%. The number of individual peasant farms by 1926 reached 24.6 million, the average sown area was less than 4.5 hectares (1928), more than 30% of the farms did not have the means (tools, draft animals) for cultivating 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 area was plowed, three-quarters of the sowing was manual, 44% was harvested with a sickle and scythe, and 40.7% was threshed by non-mechanical methods (flail, etc.).
As a result of the transfer of landowners' lands to the peasants, there was a fragmentation of peasant farms into small plots. By 1928, their number, compared with 1913, had grown one and a half times - from 16 to 25 million.
By 1928-29 the proportion of poor peasants in the rural population of the USSR was 35%, middle-peasant households - 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 the collectivization of agriculture was proclaimed at the 15th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (December 1927). As of July 1, 1927, there were 14.8 thousand collective farms in the country; for the same period in 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 the joint cultivation of land (TOZs) prevailed; there were also agricultural artels and communes. To support collective farms, the state provided for various incentive measures - interest-free loans, the supply of agricultural machinery and implements, and the provision of tax benefits.
By the autumn of 1927 the state had established fixed prices for bread. The rapid growth of industrial centers, the increase in the urban population caused a huge increase in the demand for bread. The low marketability of grain farming, crop failure in a number of regions of the USSR (mainly in Ukraine and the North Caucasus) and the wait-and-see attitude of suppliers and sellers led to events called the “grain strike”. Despite a slight decrease in the harvest (1926/27 - 78,393 thousand tons, 1927/28 - 76,696 thousand tons), in the period from July 1, 1927 to January 1, 1928, the state harvested 2,000 thousand tons less than during the same period of the previous year.
By November 1927, there was a problem with the provision of food for some industrial centers. The simultaneous increase in prices in cooperative and private shops for foodstuffs, with a decrease in planned supplies, led to an increase in discontent among the working environment.
To ensure grain procurements, the authorities in many regions of the USSR returned to procurements 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 farms and state farms have more opportunities to overcome crises (natural, wars, etc.). According to Stalin's plan, it was precisely large industrial grain farms - state farms created on state lands - that could "resolve 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 plowing area sufficient to obtain in 1929 5-7 million pounds marketable 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 of August 1, 1928 “On the organization of large grain farms”, paragraph 1 of which read: “To recognize the need to organize new large Soviet grain farms (grain factories) on free land funds with such in order to ensure the receipt of marketable grain from these farms by the harvest of 1933 in an amount of at least 100,000,000 poods (1,638,000 tons). The newly created Soviet farms were planned to be united into a trust of all-Union significance "Zernotrest", directly subordinate to the Council of Labor and Defense.
A repeated crop failure in Ukraine in 1928 brought the country to the brink of starvation, which, despite the measures taken (food aid, a decrease in the supply of cities, the introduction of a rationing system), took place in certain regions (in particular, in Ukraine).
Taking into account the absence of state stocks of grain, a number of Soviet leaders (N. I. Bukharin, A. I. Rykov, M. P. Tomsky) proposed to reduce the pace of industrialization, to abandon the deployment of collective farm construction and “attacking the kulaks, to return to the free sale of bread, raising prices for it 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 the “radical solution of the grain problem”, expressed in “the deployment of socialist construction in the countryside, planting state and collective farms capable of using tractors and other modern machines” (from a speech by I. Stalin at the XVI Congress of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) ( 1930)).
April (1929) plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks - the search for ways to solve "bread difficulties"
From Stalin's speech "On the right deviation in the CPSU(b)" at the plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the CPSU(b) in April 1929:
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But the main moments of our grain opportunistic difficulties have been overlooked. First of all, they forgot that this year we harvested rye and wheat - I'm talking about the gross harvest - 500-600 million pounds less than last year. Could this not be reflected in our grain procurements? Of course, it could not but be reflected. Perhaps the policy of the Central Committee is to blame for this? No, the policy of the Central Committee has nothing to do with it. This is explained by a serious crop failure in the steppe zone of Ukraine (frost and drought) and a partial crop failure in the North Caucasus, in the Central Black Earth region, in the North-Western region. This mainly explains that last year, by April 1, we procured 200 million poods of grain (rye and wheat) in the Ukraine, and this year only 26-27 million poods. This should also explain the drop in wheat and rye harvests by almost 8 times in the Central Chernobyl region and by 4 times in the North Caucasus. Grain procurements in the east have nearly doubled this year in some areas. But they could not compensate, and did not compensate, of course, for the lack of grain that we had in Ukraine, the North Caucasus and the Central Chernozem region. It should not be forgotten that, with normal harvests, the Ukraine and the North Caucasus procure about half of all procured grain in the USSR. |
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Finally, the second circumstance, representing the main point of our opportunistic grain procurement difficulties. I have in mind the resistance of the kulak elements in the countryside to the grain procurement policy of the Soviet government. Rykov bypassed this circumstance. But to bypass this moment means to bypass the main thing in grain procurement. What does the experience of the last two years in grain procurements show? He says that the wealthy strata of the countryside, who have considerable grain surpluses in their hands and play a serious role in the grain market, do not want to give us voluntarily right amount bread at prices fixed by the Soviet government. We need about 500,000,000 poods of grain annually to provide the cities and industrial centers, the Red Army, and industrial crop regions with grain. By gravity, we manage to procure about 300-350 million poods. The remaining 150 million poods have to be taken in the form of organized pressure on the kulak and wealthy sections of the countryside. This is what the experience of grain procurements over the past two years tells us. |
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Finally, a few words about grain imports and foreign exchange reserves. I have already said that Rykov and his closest friends raised the question of importing grain from abroad several times. Rykov spoke at first about the necessity of importing 80-100 million poods of grain. This will amount to about 200 million rubles. currencies. Then he raised the question of importing 50 million poods, that is, 100 million rubles. currencies. We rejected this case, deciding that it was better to put pressure on the kulak and squeeze out of him grain surpluses, of which he has a lot, than to spend the currency set aside in order to import equipment for our industry. Now Rykov is changing the front. Now he assures us that the capitalists give us bread on credit, while we supposedly do not want to take it. He said that several telegrams passed through his hands, from which it is clear that the capitalists want to give us bread on credit. At the same time, he portrayed the matter as if we had such people who did not want to accept bread on credit, either out of a whim or for some other incomprehensible reason. All this is nonsense, comrades. It would be ridiculous to think that the capitalists of the West suddenly took pity on us, wanting to give us several tens of millions of poods of grain almost for free or on long-term credit. This is nonsense, comrades. What then is the matter? The point is that various capitalist groups are probing us, probing our financial opportunities , our creditworthiness, our resilience for six months now. They turn to our sales representatives in Paris, Czechoslovakia, America, Argentina and promise us to sell bread on credit for the shortest possible time, three months or, at most, six months. They want to achieve not so much to sell us bread on credit, but to find out whether our situation is really difficult, whether our financial possibilities have really been exhausted, whether we are strong in terms of financial position and whether we are falling for the bait which they give us. Now in the capitalist world there are big disputes about our financial capabilities. Some say that we are already bankrupt and the fall of Soviet power is a matter of several months, if not weeks. Others say that this is not true, that the Soviet government is firmly seated, that it has financial possibilities and that it has enough bread. The task at present is to show us due stamina and endurance, not to succumb to false promises about the sale of grain on credit, and to show the capitalist world that we can do without grain imports. This is not just my opinion. This is the opinion of the majority of the Politburo. On this basis, we decided to refuse the offer of various benefactors, such as Nansen, to import grain into the USSR on credit for 1 million dollars. On the same basis, we gave a negative answer to all these scouts of the capitalist world in Paris, in America, in Czechoslovakia, who offered us a small amount of grain on credit. On the same basis, we decided to show maximum economy in the expenditure of grain, maximum organization in the matter of grain procurement. We pursued two goals here: on the one hand, to dispense with the import of grain and save the currency for the import of equipment, on the other hand, to show all our enemies that we stand strong and do not intend to succumb to promises of handouts. Was this policy correct? I think it was the only correct policy. It was correct not only because we opened here, inside our country, new possibilities for obtaining bread. It was also correct because, by doing without grain imports and throwing away the intelligence agents of the capitalist world, we strengthened our international position, we raised our creditworthiness and smashed the chatter about the "imminent death" of Soviet power. The other day we had some preliminary talks with representatives of the German capitalists. They promise to give us a loan of 500,000,000, and it looks like they really consider it necessary to give us this loan in order to secure Soviet orders for their industry. The other day we had a British delegation of Conservatives, which also considers it necessary to state the strength of Soviet power and the expediency of granting us credits in order to secure Soviet industrial orders. I think that we would not have had these new opportunities in terms of obtaining credits, first of all from the Germans, and then from one group of British capitalists, if we had not shown the necessary steadfastness that I spoke about above. Therefore, we are not talking about the fact that we refuse, as if out of a whim, to receive imaginary bread in an imaginary long-term loan. It is a matter of unraveling the face of our enemies, unraveling their real desires and showing the restraint necessary to consolidate our international position. That is why, comrades, we have refused to import grain. As you can see, the question of grain imports is not as simple as Rykov portrayed here. The question of grain imports is a question of our international position. |
Goals of collectivization
As a way out of the "bread difficulties", the party leadership chose the socialist reconstruction of agriculture - the construction of state farms and the collectivization of poor and middle peasant farms, while at the same time decisively fighting the kulaks.
Agriculture, which was based mainly on small private property and manual labor, was unable to meet the growing demand of the urban population for food products, and industry for agricultural raw materials. Collectivization made it possible to form the necessary raw material base for the processing industry, since industrial crops had a very limited distribution in the conditions of small individual farming.
The elimination of the chain of intermediaries made it possible to reduce the cost of the product for the end consumer.
It was also expected that increased labor productivity and efficiency would free up additional labor resources for industry. On the other hand, the industrialization of agriculture (the introduction of machines and mechanisms) could be effective only on the scale of large farms.
The presence of a large commercial mass of agricultural products made it possible to ensure the creation of large food reserves and the supply of food to the rapidly growing urban population.
Solid collectivization
The transition to complete collectivization was carried out against the backdrop of an armed conflict on the CER 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, measures were taken in the countryside aimed at increasing the number of collective farms - in particular, Komsomol campaigns "for collectivization". In the RSFSR, the institute of agricultural representatives was created, in Ukraine much attention was paid to those preserved from the civil war komnezam(analogue of the Russian comedian). Basically, the use of administrative measures managed to achieve a significant increase in collective farms (mainly in the form of TOZs).
On November 7, 1929, the Pravda newspaper, No. 259, published Stalin's article "The Year of the Great Break", in which 1929 was declared the year of "a fundamental turning point in the development of our agriculture": "The availability of a material base in order to replace kulak production served the basis for the turn in our policy in the countryside... We have recently moved from a policy of restricting the exploiting tendencies of the kulaks to a policy of liquidating the kulaks as a class.” This article is recognized by most historians as the starting point of "solid collectivization." According to Stalin, in 1929 the party and the country managed to achieve a decisive turning point, in particular, in the transition of agriculture "from small and backward individual farming to large-scale and advanced collective farming, to joint cultivation of the land, to machine and tractor stations, to artels, collective farms , relying on new technology, and finally, to the giant state farms, armed with hundreds of tractors and combines.
The real situation in the country, however, was far from being so optimistic. According to the Russian researcher O. V. Khlevnyuk, the course towards forced industrialization and forced collectivization "actually plunged the country into a state of civil war."
In the countryside, forced grain procurements, accompanied by mass arrests and the ruin of farms, led to mutinies, the number of which by the end of 1929 was already in the hundreds. Not wanting to give property and livestock to the 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 a large-scale socialist reconstruction of the countryside and the construction of large-scale socialist agriculture had begun in the country. The resolution pointed out the need for a transition to complete collectivization in certain regions. At the plenum, it was decided to send 25,000 urban workers to the collective farms for permanent work to “manage the established collective farms and state farms” (in fact, their number later almost tripled, amounting to over 73 thousand).
Created on December 7, 1929, the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR under the leadership of Ya. A. Yakovlev was instructed to "practically lead the work on the socialist reconstruction of agriculture, directing the construction of state farms, collective farms and MTS and uniting the work of the republican commissariats of agriculture".
The main active actions to carry out collectivization took place in January - early March 1930, after the release of the Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of January 5, 1930 "On the pace of collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm construction." The resolution set the task of basically completing collectivization by the end of the five-year plan (1932), while in such important grain-growing regions as the Lower and Middle Volga and the North Caucasus, by the autumn of 1930 or spring 1931.
“Lowered collectivization” took place, however, in accordance with the way one or another local official saw it - for example, in Siberia, peasants were massively “organized into communes” with the socialization of all property. The districts competed with each other in who would quickly receive a greater percentage of collectivization, etc. Various repressive measures were widely used, which Stalin later (in March 1930) criticized in his famous article (“Dizziness from Success”) and which were subsequently received the name "left bends" (subsequently, the vast majority of such leaders were condemned as "Trotskyist spies".).
This provoked sharp resistance from the peasantry. According to data from various sources cited by O. V. Khlevnyuk, in January 1930, 346 mass demonstrations 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 covered by unrest. In March 1930, in general, in Belarus, the Central Black Earth region, in the Lower and Middle Volga regions, 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 that time, more than a thousand settlements were already covered by unrest.
On March 14, 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution "On Combating Distortions in the Party Line in the Collective-Farm Movement." A government directive was sent to the localities to soften the course in connection with the threat of a "wide wave of insurgent peasant uprisings" and the destruction of "half of the grassroots workers." After a sharp article by Stalin and bringing individual leaders to justice, the pace of collectivization slowed down, and the artificially created collective farms and communes began to fall apart.
After the XVI Congress of the CPSU (b) (1930), however, there was a return to the rates of complete collectivization established at the end of 1929. The December (1930) joint plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided in 1931 to complete collectivization mainly (at least 80% of farms) in the North Caucasus, the Lower and Middle Volga, and in the steppe regions of the Ukrainian SSR. In other grain-growing areas, collective farms were to cover 50% of farms, in the consuming band for grain farms - 20-25%; in cotton and sugar beet regions, as well as the national average for all sectors of agriculture - at least 50% of farms.
Collectivization was carried out mainly by coercive-administrative methods. Excessively centralized management and, at the same time, a predominantly low qualification level of local managers, leveling, the race for "overfulfillment of plans" had a negative impact on the collective farm system as a whole. Despite the excellent harvest of 1930, a number of collective farms by the spring of the following year were left without seed, while in the autumn part of the grain was not completely harvested. Low wage rates on collective-farm commodity farms (KTF), against the background of the general unpreparedness of collective farms to conduct large-scale commercial animal husbandry (lack of necessary premises for farms, a supply of feed, normative documents and qualified personnel (veterinarians, livestock breeders, etc.)) led to mass death of livestock.
An attempt to improve the situation by the adoption on July 30, 1931 of 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 Deployment of Socialist Animal Husbandry” in practice led to the forced socialization of cows and small livestock on the ground. This practice was condemned by the Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of March 26, 1932.
The severe drought that hit the country in 1931 and mismanagement in harvesting led to a significant decrease in the gross grain harvest (694.8 million centners in 1931 against 835.4 million centners in 1930).
Despite this, locally, they tried to meet and exceed the planned norms for the collection of agricultural products - the same applied to the plan for the export of grain, despite a significant drop in prices on the world market. This, like a number of other factors, eventually 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 working cattle (which fell or were not suitable for work due to poor care and lack of fodder, which were handed over to the plan for general grain procurements ), led to a significant deterioration in the prospects for the 1932 harvest. Plans for export deliveries were reduced across the country (by about three times), planned harvesting of grain (by 22%) and delivery of livestock (by 2 times), but this did not save the overall situation - a repeated crop failure (death of winter crops, undersowing, 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 a severe famine in the winter of 1932 - in the spring of 1933.
As Gareth Jones, adviser to the former British Prime Minister Lloyd George, wrote in the Financial Times on April 13, 1933, who visited the USSR three times between 1930 and 1933, the main cause of the mass famine in the spring of 1933, in his opinion, was collectivization agriculture, which led to the following consequences:
- the seizure of land from more than two-thirds of the Russian peasantry deprived them of incentives to work; in addition, in the previous year (1932), almost the entire harvest was forcibly seized from the peasants;
- the mass slaughter of livestock by peasants because of their unwillingness to give it to collective farms, the mass death of horses due to lack of fodder, the mass death of livestock due to epidemics, cold and starvation on collective farms catastrophically reduced the number of livestock throughout the country;
- the fight against the kulaks, during which "6-7 million of the best workers" were driven from their lands, dealt a blow to the labor potential of the state;
- an increase in food exports due to a decrease in world prices for the main export commodities (timber, grain, oil, oil, etc.).
Realizing the critical situation, the leadership of the CPSU (b) by the end of 1932 - the beginning of 1933. adopted a number of decisive changes in the management of the agrarian sector - a purge was launched both of the party as a whole (Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of December 10, 1932 on the purge of members and candidates of the party in 1933), and institutions and organizations of the USSR People's Commissariat of Agriculture. The contracting system (with its disastrous "counter plans") was replaced by mandatory deliveries to the state, commissions were created to determine the yield, the system of purchases, supplies and distribution of agricultural products was reorganized, and a number of other measures were taken. The most effective under the conditions of the catastrophic crisis were the measures for the direct party leadership of the collective farms and MTS - the creation of political departments of the MTS.
This made it possible, despite the critical situation in agriculture in the spring of 1933, to sow and harvest a good harvest.
Already in January 1933, at the Joint Plenum of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the liquidation of the kulaks and the victory of socialist relations in the countryside were ascertained.
The liquidation of the kulaks as a class
By the beginning of complete collectivization, the party leadership won the opinion that the main obstacle to the unification of the poor and middle peasants is the more prosperous stratum in the countryside formed during the years of the NEP - the kulaks, as well as the social group supporting them or depending on them - "fist fists".
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 is 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 the last days of December 1929. A number of historians note that the planning for the “liquidation” took place in early December 1929 - in so-called. "Yakovlev Commission" since the number and "areas" of the eviction of the "kulaks of the 1st category" were already approved by January 1, 1930. The "kulaks" were divided into three categories: 1st - counter-revolutionary asset: kulaks actively opposing the organization of collective farms, fleeing from a permanent place of residence and moving to an illegal position; 2nd - the richest local kulak authorities, who are the stronghold of the anti-Soviet activists; 3rd - the rest of the fists. In practice, not only kulaks were subjected to eviction with confiscation of property, but also so-called sub-kulaks, that is, middle peasants, poor peasants and even farm laborers caught in pro-kulak and anti-collective farm actions (there were not isolated cases of settling scores with neighbors and deja vu “rob the loot”) - which clearly contradicted the point clearly indicated in the resolution on the inadmissibility of "infringement" of the middle peasant. The heads of kulak families of the first category were arrested, and cases about their actions were referred to the “troikas” consisting of representatives of the OGPU, regional committees (district committees) of the CPSU (b) and the prosecutor’s office. Kulaks assigned to the third category, as a rule, moved within the region or territory, that is, they were not sent to a special settlement. Dispossessed peasants of the second category, as well as families of kulaks of the first category, were evicted to remote areas of the country for a special settlement, or labor settlement (otherwise it was called "kulak exile" or "labor exile"). In the certificate of the Department for Special Settlers of the GULAG of the OGPU, it was indicated that in 1930-1931. 381,026 families with a total number of 1,803,392 people were evicted (with sending 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, the Far Eastern Territory - 323.
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Collective-farm construction in the overwhelming majority of German villages in the Siberian Territory was carried out in the manner of administrative pressure, without sufficient consideration of the degree of organizational and political preparation for it. Dekulakization measures were used in very many cases as a measure of influence against the middle peasants who did not want to join the collective farms. Thus, measures directed exclusively against the kulaks affected a significant number of middle peasants in the German villages. These methods not only did not help, but repelled the German peasantry from the collective farms. Suffice it to point out that of the total number of administratively deported kulaks in the Omsk District, half was returned by the OGPU from assembly points and from the road. |
Resettlement management (terms, number and selection of places of resettlement) was carried out by the Land Funds and Resettlement Sector of the USSR Narkomzem (1930-1933), the Resettlement Administration of the USSR Narkomzem (1930-1931), the Land Funds and Resettlement Sector of the USSR Narkomzem (Reorganized) (1931-1933) , ensured the resettlement of the OGPU.
Deportees, in violation existing instructions, little or no provision was made with the necessary food and equipment in new places of settlement (especially in the early years of mass expulsion), which often had no prospects for agricultural use.
Export of grain and import of agricultural machinery during collectivization
From the end of the 80s, the opinion of individual Western historians was brought into the history of collectivization that "Stalin organized collectivization in order to obtain money for industrialization through the extensive export of agricultural products (mainly grain)." Statistical data does not allow us to be so sure of this opinion:
- Import of agricultural machinery and tractors (thousand red rubles): 1926/27 - 25,971; 1927/28 - 23,033; 1928/29 - 45,595; 1929/30 - 113,443;
- Export of grain 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 and imported equipment 306 million rubles.
In addition, for the period 1927-32, the state imported pedigree cattle in the amount of about 100 million rubles. Imports of fertilizers and equipment intended for the production of tools and mechanisms for agriculture were also very significant.
The results of collectivization
The results of the "activity" of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR and the long-term effect of the "left bends" of the first months of collectivization led to a crisis in agriculture and significantly influenced the situation that led to the famine of 1932-1933. The situation was significantly corrected by the introduction of strict party control over agriculture and the reorganization of the administrative and support apparatus of agriculture. This made it possible to cancel cards for bread at the beginning of 1935, and by October of the same year, cards for other food products were also eliminated.
The transition to large-scale social agricultural production meant a revolution in the entire way of life of the peasantry. In a short time, illiteracy was basically eliminated in the countryside, work was carried out to train agricultural personnel (agronomists, livestock specialists, tractor drivers, drivers and other specialists). A new technical base was prepared for large-scale agricultural production; the construction of tractor factories and agricultural engineering began, which made it possible to organize the mass production of tractors and agricultural machines. In general, all this made it possible to create a manageable, in a number of areas, progressive system of agriculture, which provided the raw material base for industry, reduced the influence of natural factors (droughts, etc.) to a minimum, and made it possible to create the necessary strategic grain reserve for the country before the start of the war.
Despite significant efforts to eliminate the "breakthrough in animal husbandry" that had formed by 1933-34, the number of all categories of livestock was not restored by the beginning of the war. It reached the quantitative indicators of 1928 only by the beginning of the 1960s.
Despite the importance of agriculture, industry remained the main development priority. In this regard, the managerial and regulatory problems of the early 1930s were not completely eliminated, the main of which were the low motivation of collective farmers and the lack of competent leadership in agriculture at all levels. The residual principle of the distribution of leadership resources (when the best leaders were sent to industry) and the lack of accurate and objective information about the state of affairs also had a negative impact on agriculture.
By 1938, 93% of peasant farms and 99.1% of the sown area were collectivized. The energy capacity of agriculture increased during 1928-40 from 21.3 million liters. from. up to 47.5 million; per 1 employee - from 0.4 to 1.5 liters. s., per 100 hectares of crops - from 19 to 32 liters. from. The introduction of agricultural machinery, an increase in the number of qualified personnel ensured a significant increase in the production of basic agricultural products. In 1940, gross agricultural output increased by 41% compared with 1913; the productivity of agricultural crops and the productivity of farm animals have increased. Collective farms and state farms became the main producing units of agriculture.
As a result of the comprehensive solution of the most important agrarian problems in agriculture, the volume of production and state purchases of the main types of agricultural products increased, the sectoral structure of agriculture improved - the share of livestock products increased (in 1966-70, livestock accounted for 49.1% of gross agricultural output, in 1971-75 - 51.2%). Gross agricultural output in 1975 increased 1.3 times compared to 1965, 2.3 times since 1940, and 3.2 times since 1913. Labor productivity in agriculture increased 1.5 times in 1966-1975 with a reduction in the number of employees in the industry from 25.8 million people. up to 23.5 million (compared with 1940 - 3.5 times, compared with 1913 - 5.7 times)
The negative consequences of collectivization, such as the plight of the countryside, low labor productivity in agriculture, are felt in Russia at the beginning of the 21st century.
I have already mentioned the role of complete collectivization and its miscalculations, excesses and mistakes. Now to summarize the results of collectivization:
1. Elimination (to a large extent, physical) of prosperous farming - the kulaks with the division of their property between the state, collective farms and the poor.
2. Ridding the village of social contrasts, stripes, land surveying, etc. The final socialization of a huge share of cultivated land.
3. The beginning of equipping the rural economy with the means of a modern economy and communications, accelerating the electrification of the countryside (completed on a national scale by the 70s.)
4. Destruction of the rural industry - the sector of primary processing of raw materials and food.
5. Restoration in the form of collective farms of an archaic and easily managed rural community. Strengthening political and administrative control over the most numerous class - the peasantry.
6. The ruin of many regions of the South and East - most of the Ukraine, the Don, Western Siberia in the course of the struggle around collectivization. The famine of 1932-1933 is a "critical food situation."
7. Stagnation in labor productivity. A long decline in animal husbandry and an aggravation of the meat problem.
The devastating consequences of the first steps of collectivization were also condemned by Stalin himself in his article "Dizziness from Success", which appeared as early as 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 compulsory.
The consequences of breaking the age-old economic structure in the countryside were extremely severe.
The productive forces of agriculture were undermined for years to come: for 1929-1932. the number of cattle and horses was reduced by a third, pigs and sheep - by more than half. The famine that struck the weakened village in 1933 claimed the lives of over five million people. Millions of the dispossessed also perished from cold, hunger, 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 the gross production of grain by 10%, its state procurement in 1934. compared to 1928 have doubled. Independence from imports of cotton and other important agricultural raw materials was gained.
In a short time, the agrarian sector, dominated by small-scale, poorly controlled elements, found itself in the grip of strict centralization, administration, order, and turned into an organic component of the 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 vulnerable sides. The absence of large food reserves during the war years was a consequence of collectivization - the extermination of collectivized livestock by individual farmers, the lack of progress in labor productivity on most collective farms. During the war years, the state was forced to accept help from abroad.
Under the first measure, a significant amount of flour, canned food and fats entered the country, mainly from the United States and Canada; food, like other goods, was supplied by the allies at the insistence of the USSR in the order of lend-lease, i.e. in fact, on credit with a settlement after the war, in connection with which the country was drawn into debt for many years.
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