History of the Motherland Industrialization in Soviet Union

The task of the first five‐year plan, set by the Communist Party, was to build the foundation of a socialist economy in the shortest possible time in the form of powerful heavy industry and socialist agriculture, to strengthen the countryʹs defense capability, and to eliminate the capitalist elements of town and country. Proceeding from this task, almost three quarters of capital investments in industry were directed to heavy industry, which produces the means of production. The implementation of the first five‐year plan took place in a difficult situation and with enormous difficulties associated with the capitalist encirclement, the class struggle within the country, the actions of the right opposition against the high rates of socialist construction, and the attack on the kulak.

The economic tasks of the second five‐year plan, set by the party, were to master the advanced technology of newly built and reconstructed enterprises during the first five‐year plan, complete the technical reconstruction of the entire national economy, create the latest technical base for all its branches and continue the industrial development of the eastern regions of the country. In the second five‐year plan, it was also planned to ensure a higher rate of growth in the production of consumer goods. Based on these tasks, it was necessary to significantly increase the volume of capital construction not only of machine building plants, but also of power plants, enterprises of ferrous and non‐ferrous metallurgy, coal mines, textile and shoe factories.

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, 2022

In Soviet Central Asia, efforts at the mass collectivization of agriculture began in early 1930, and by 1935, more than 80 percent of all farming and herding households joined collective farms (kolkhoz) or state farms (sovkhoz). The Communist Party's main purpose was to control peasant lives and labor. Collectivization was supposed to lead to increased agricultural production due to modernized methods and intensification. The USSR's Central Asian republics were given unachievable plans to raise their output of cotton, wheat, and meat, while wealthier herders and peasants were threatened with arrest and exile if they resisted collectivization. Collectivization was devastating for Kazakh nomadic herders, whose livestock numbers plummeted, and who endured a three-year long famine that killed more than one-fourth of the Kazakh population. Investments went into expanding irrigation canals and irrigable fields, forcing an ever-increasing number of kolkhoz members to expend most of their labor on cotton cultivation.

In this article has been analyzed the collectivization policy of the Soviet government and its implementation, why the Bolsheviks decided to mass collectivize agriculture in the Union in the late 1920s, and how the mechanism for implementing this idea was developed, based on primary sources and scientific literature.

Russian Peasant Studies, 2020

Despite its initial backwardness, the agricultural sector played a decisive role in the Russian/Soviet history. Until the 1950s, it was the main sector of occupation; it had contributed greatly to the gross domestic product and gross value added until forced collectivization destroyed huge agricultural resources. The article argues that emancipation paved the way for agricultural modernization by promoting a new agricultural structure based on the market and the skills of the heads of large-scale and family farms. The author identifies three Russian/Soviet approaches to the agrarian reform (1856-1928, 1929-1987, from 1987) in terms of contribution to the modernization of agriculture and of catching up with the developed countries. The article argues that until 1928 and (after the agricultural depression of the 1990s) from 2000, Russia was successful in both modernization and catching up, while Stalin's forced collectivization at first led to stagnation. After the World War II, forced collectivization prevented any "green revolution" (i.e. application of the agricultural scientific research findings). Under the state command system in agriculture, poor mechanization did not increase the labor productivity. Although Russia was known for agricultural surpluses before collectivization, the late Soviet Union became a major grain importer. Only the reform that started in 1987 removed the state command system to make the agricultural producers masters of their fields again, which led to a considerable increase in agricultural productivity since 2005. Basing the reappraisal of the agrarian reforms on the recent successes, the article likes to encourage further discussion. It proposes to regard the use of the available rural labor force, the quality of the industrial inputs in agriculture and the extent to which the producers were allowed to be masters of their agricultural production as the most appropriate criteria for assessing the agrarian reforms' results.

Krestʹânovedenie, 2021

The author focuses on internal aspects to answer the question why the complex mechanization of agriculture under Khrushchev and Brezhnev failed. The author argues that the command economy did not solve the basic task of ensuring animal production by large farms, because the high-quality equipment to reduce labor input and costs was not provided. Behind the facade of impressing reforms-from the virgin-land program and liquidation of the machine-tractor stations (MTS) to Brezhnev's 1966 promise to speed up mechanization and the Non-Black-Earth program of 1974-nothing really changed. The basic deficiencies named in 1955 still existed in 1969 and after the establishment of the Gosagroprom in 1986: nearly all Soviet machinery was not reliable and was badly done. Thus, the increase in the production of such machinery under Brezhnev was only a waste of resources. Less than 10% of Soviet machines met the world standards. Instead of increasing labor productivity, this machinery caused the farms (and the state) enormous losses. Due to the gaps in mechanization (primarily in transportation and collecting feed) the majority of the agricultural workforce (70% in 1982) was still engaged in manual work. In the late 1960s, the Ministry of Agriculture made alarming reports on the state of the USSR's agriculture to the CC and CM and demanded-again in vain-urgent action and investment to modernize the agricultural machinery industry in order to ensure the world-standard inputs by 1975. The article considers challenges of developing animal husbandry, consequences of such campaigns as the virgin-land program, conversion of collective farms into state farms and liquidation of the MTS, successes and failures of the mass production of highly efficient machinery, proposed alternatives of organizing agricultural work and payment, and the state of agriculture in 1955, 1969 and 1986.

This collection is an integral part of an all-Union series of documents and materials on the history of industrialization of the USSR (1926-1941). It contains documents describing the industrial development of the country during the third five-year plan (before the start of the Great Patriotic War) and thus completes the all-union volumes of the series. By the end of the second five-year plan, the Soviet Union had successfully completed, in the main, the building of a socialist society. The victory of socialism opened up tremendous opportunities for the development and improvement of the productive forces of Soviet society, its political and spiritual life.

Russian Peasant Studies, 2019

Obvious successes of Putin's policy require a reassessment of the Soviet agrarian policy. The article addresses the question of whether the Bolsheviks' approach was appropriate for the Russian peasantry and considers limitations of the concept "socialist industrialized agriculture'. To assess achievements of the Soviet agriculture the author uses qualitative instead of quantitative criteria: per hectare yields and milk per cow since 1913. They kept to be extremely low which is striking for the agriculture based on large-scale and partly mechanized production. The gap in yields as compared to the neighboring capitalist countries even widened from 1930 to 1991. The strong and steady growth in yields since 2000 does not allow to explain failures of the Soviet agriculture by bad soils, specific climate or natural limitations-the Soviet agrarian policy is to blame. Instead of "revolutionizing", socialist agriculture did not take part in any significant productivity rise as elsewhere in the world during the "green revolution". The author argues that the main reason for such a failure was "infantilization" of agricultural producers-peasants, heads of state and collective farms-by a combination of mistrust and scrupulous control. During the Soviet period agricultural producers never were the masters of their fields. The situation became even worse after the planned economy provided agriculture with insufficient and ineffective machinery below Western standards. Although necessary machinery and knowledge of organizing the production were available in the West, in the Soviet Union the mechanization of crop production and animal husbandry was not completed. The article starts with the description of peasants' interests, behavior und expectations in the Revolutions of 1905 and 1917-1918; then the author focuses on the foundations of the Soviet agrarian policy suggested by Lenin and Stalin, continues with a short review of different approaches to agriculture developed by Khrushchev, Brezhnev und Gorbachev, and finishes with a summary of the reasons for Putin's successes paying special attention to the short periods of

H-Net Reviews, 2018

Review of 'The Collectivization of Agriculture in Communist Eastern Europe: Comparison and Entanglements.' Editors Constantin Iordachi and Arnd Bauerkämper. Budapest, New York, CEU Press, 2014

From War Communism (1917/18 to 1921) and the New Economic Policy (N.E.P.) there was continual debate and revision of economic policy, on labour management and economic planning, till in 1928 the Stalin faction in the Bolshevik Party launched an all drive to "collectivize agriculture" and launch the "Forced Industrialization" drive from 1928. The effects and "politics of production" is discussed critically.

Osteuropa, 2016

The collectivisation of agriculture is one of the central events in the early Soviet Union, alongside enforced industrialisation. The amalgamation of private farms to form collectives changed the social and economic foundations of the Soviet system of rule and still influences Russia's economic culture today. The Bolsheviks assumed that the mechanisation of soil cultivation in large, socialised farms was superior to traditional land management. However, the prospect of mechanisation did not lead the farmers to voluntarily come together in collective farms. The Bolsheviks reacted to resistance among farmers with violence and force. During the early 1930s, the repression of the farmers, slaughtering of livestock and the collapse of the grain industry resulted in starvation which led to the deaths of over six million people.

Can J Agr Econ Rev Can Agroec, 2008