Alternative to collectivization.

[Guardia Rossa]

Was collectivization really the best way to estabilish socialism in the countryside? I am really ignorant in economic matters (Apart from historic economics e.g. before USSR)

Did resistance to it in USSR came from the petit-peasantry and kulaks alone?

Does Ukranian nationalism and radical anti-sovietism come from this collectivization? I remember the Tzar distributed land to little proprietarians in order to create a strong, numerous class that was favorable to the Monarchy.

[Rafiq]

There was no alternative to collectivization (Only retrospectively might we argue that it could have been pursued in a different manner) that would not inevitably entail the destruction of the Soviet Union. Industrialization would not have been possible had the Soviet peasantry remained intact, there were no internal predispositions in them toward the large scale mechanization and industrialization of agriculture. Ironically, Stalin was right when he said something along the lines of "We have ten years, we either catch up, or they'll devour us" in 1928.


Does Ukranian nationalism and radical anti-sovietism come from this collectivization? I remember the Tzar distributed land to little proprietarians in order to create a strong, numerous class that was favorable to the Monarchy.

No, actually following collectivization the Soviet state was able to win the support of most of the population not only because living standards might have increased, but because the population no longer constituted hostile peasant classes.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Socialism can't be "established" in one country, in any case. The Soviet state found it necessary to reorganise the agricultural sector so that the law of value was curtailed and so that agriculture assisted the development of industrial production in the cities instead of being the stone around the neck of urban Russia, as it was during the Scissors Crisis etc. This could be accomplished, in the main, in three ways:

(1) making a conscious effort to exploit and ruin the independent peasant, treating such "third persons" as an "internal colony", the approached favoured by Preobrazhensky and the entire Left Opposition;

(2) to forcibly collectivise the peasantry; or

(3) to seize land to develop state enterprises in the agricultural sector, such as sovkhozes.

As for which approach was correct, I don't know. I strongly suspect some combination of (1) and (3) (even post-collectivisation, the productivity of the sovkhoz surpassed that of the kolkhoz and the kolkhoznik remained essentially a petty producer) would have been better than (2).

Of course the best course of action would have been to not divide the large landed estates at all, but that was impossible due to the civil war (Soviet Hungary adopted this approach).

[Guardia Rossa]

How would be the agricultural sector administrated in today, say, Germany/Russia if theorically most germans/russians became communist and declared a quick revolution that didn't dragged them into war with everyone near them

So radical ukranian nationalism comes from the times of crisis like most nationalism comes from?

[Guardia Rossa]

Ninja'd :v


Of course the best course of action would have been to not divide the large landed estates at all, but that was impossible due to the civil war (Soviet Hungary adopted this approach).

Wut? How that would work?

Also:


(1) making a conscious effort to exploit and ruin the independent peasant, treating such "third persons" as an "internal colony", the approached favoured by Preobrazhensky and the entire Left Opposition;

Explain what that means please, I'm neither an english speaker and neither I have reached the USSR in my readings of history (I'm at Marx and Rome :( )


EDIT: quick research at Wikipedia said Sovkhozes were less productive then Kholkozes?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Wut? How that would work?

Land belonging to the large estates, instead of being parceled out to petty producers, would be nationalised to form large corporate farms, plantations etc.


Explain what that means please, I'm neither an english speaker and neither I have reached the USSR in my readings of history (I'm at Marx and Rome :( )

The state would set price, credit etc. policies so that the independent peasant producer would find it increasingly difficult to operate and would be compelled to either leave agriculture or join a state agricultural enterprise. In addition surplus value would be extracted by the state from the peasant economy, both by economic policy and through direct appropriation.


EDIT: quick research at Wikipedia said Sovkhozes were less productive then Kholkozes?

I'm fairly sure productivity was higher in sovkhozes, and I'll try to dig up some substantial sources. Although note kolkhozes generally fared better under the first five-year plans (see e.g. Jasny, "The Socialized Agriculture of the USSR") as they were less susceptible to disruptions caused by running the economy through campaigns, "finishing the Five-Year Plan in four years" and so on.

[Red Guardian]

Rafiq had it exactly right. Collectivization allowed the growing cities to be fed -and the cities were growing especially fast as more and more peasants became urban industrial workers.

Why did this happen?

Peasant production is basically subsistence farming. Peasants typically produced their own food and clothing, etc, and consumed what they produced directly. If they didn't own land they might have paid rents in kind or in money to the landlord. But they did not, by and large, trade in markets except when they had an excess of produce, and because they were not aiming for such a surplus as their primary objective, it would have been little.

Commercial farming is very different. Commercial farms primarily produce for exchange, and for purposes beyond immediate local consumption. This is essentially what collectivization tried to achieve. Consolidating peasant lands and turning them into collective farms made agriculture far more efficient, for a number of reasons: farm equipment and livestock could be used widely. Mechanization made the need for agricultural labor much less, so those people became superfluous to the production process - these people migrated to the cities in search of urban industrial jobs.

If you're interested, I highly recommend the book "Farm to Factory" by Robert Allen. It details Soviet economic development with some very nice analysis too.