AGRICULTURE IN RUSSIA BEFORE AND AFTSR COLLECTIVIZATION APPROVED: Major Mrofesspr ¢. Winor ProfessorAGRICULTURE IN RUSSIA BEFORE AND AFTER COLLECTIVIZATION ‘CHESTS Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State Teachers College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements Vor the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE By James Arnoid Jolly, B. 3. LoS494 Gores, texas June, 1948NT. S.C, LIBRARY 158491 Binders 9 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES 2. ee ee et ee ee ee PREFAQR 2 ee eee tt te ee ee ee ee ite Chapter I, AGRICULTURE UNDER OZARS 6. ee ee ee ee OD II, THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION AND THE NEW HOONOMIC POLICY... 1+ ee eee 19 III, FORCED COLLECTIVIZATION AND PROBLEMS OF THE KULAKS eee ee ee ee ee ee BE Iv. NISTRATION OF THE COLLECTIVE RMS AND MACHINE STATIONS . 2... 4. 48 v The Hodel Constitution of an Agricultural Artel V. DOMESTIC UCONOMY IN COLLECTIVE FARMS ... 70 VI. WHAT COLLECTIVIZATION HAS DONE FOR THE PEASANT 6. ee et ee te ee ee 8B BIBLIOGRAPHY os ee pee ee ee ee ee ee eo LOL 44hLIST OF TABLES Table Page 1, Average Money Receipts in Koubles from Different Sources of the Peasants on Collective Farms. . . . ss + + 062 2. Average Total Gross Money Income per Kolhoz in 1952 and 1937 2. 2 eee eo 079 3, Distribution of Uxpenditures Made by the Russian Kolhogniki in the Years 1054 to 1937 ob ee ee ee he ee eo BR ivaay Ab the present bine a creat atrucsle ts developing between bie ideologies of Leaperacy and Com wnat tach aystan is ating Lue own olatus for suner- jority; eagh balieves Shit the heat {ateresta of the neovle will be nerved wider its own nartiouler systen.of sovern= sent. In order to judge intelligently between the two son~ flict: ng ideae of goveranant, a factual knowledge of the netual workings Is necessary. Agrdoulture, basieally, may be said to be the fundaq rental industry of 4 nation, Its failure or success autouatiesrily dctarmines the failure or sugcesa of the entire enterprise, A study of the economics of axrtoul- ture of any country is of prine importance, then, in une derstandias rnd evaluating tne aysten of covernsent under whien it operates. the atudy of the economies of Rusatan acrteulture is of specisl invortance in studying Gonmunisa because the entire system as scen changed by Gommunistie beliefs, Tusq sion loaders mve soucit to put the theory of Gommunisa inte actual prectice in the farming practices of the country. riot has been secommlished?ith this sas boen undertake: estion in mind, In 90 doing, tae subject was approached without aay preconceived feelinss of prejudice or an unvillingness to rive credit where crelit is due, ne entire ageloul~ tural history of Russia was oxa ned and interpretatioas attempted of the anay changes, a woaguring tae suacens or failure of tussia's experi- nent in Soamunl: je farming, attention aaa veea focused lesson bae tnersaze in produgbion om tha decrease, than on 2% hie nrogran gas Xv tne effects th ion the peasant farmer of Russ nd saterial 4, ‘lis velfare, ais apiritaal being, tave all been atutied, Th is in tats lisht tat the cone lusio drawn fron the study a ve been formulated, The writer 193 no ontagonism to thy precepts of Som ans ag far as its sidlesophy is concerned, we is cerned with the effects that its © had on the lives und fortunes of aby uiilios These effects constitute the mmjor portion of tais study, “sey are pre= sented as the results of an unbiased study,CHAPTER I AGRICULTURE UNDER THE CZARS Russian statistics today show a large increase in sericul- tural goods, and the claim is made by advocates of Communism that collectivization of agriculture has been advantareous for both the people and the amount of goods produced. the purpose of this chapter is to make a survey of agriculture in Russia under the Czars as a background for Coununist practices of collectivization of farming activities. this is necessary to any appraisal of the validity of the claims advanced. Russia is, end has been, preeminently an agricultural country. Seventy per cent of the population is dependent upon the land for its livelihood, The amount of land under cultivation before the war was about the sane as in the United States, but because of its larger population there were only 2.2 acres per person in Russia as compared to 2.8 acres per person in the United States. In spite of the Soviet emphasis on industrialization, the rural population in 1959 was 114,557,276, or 67.2 per cent of the total population, The rural population of the United States in1940 was only 57,245,573, or 43,5 per cent of the total.) ‘The native Russians are Slavs and originally were partly nomeds. They did not dwell in permanent villages nor nade permanent farms, but after erowing crops on a particular piece of land for, perhaps, three or four years, moved on. Therefore private and permanent ownership aid not take root. All lend, unless it was in @efacto occupation and utilize- tion, “as open to settlement. Therefore, when the country was overrun by the Varingians, Scandinavien princes, the liberty of the people was not violated by taking their homes away from them, They had no homes to take. The early Scandinavian princes were in reality little more than local ehieftans surrounded by a number of followers. In order to attach these followers to their service or to reward them for services rendered, the Princes made them grants of the land over which they had imposed their rule, ‘The natives who lived within the areas granted, under preva~ lent feudal customs, owed allegiance to the crantees, In most gases, these grants were not made in entirety to the grantees but were given on the basis of service that could or might be rendered to the Prince and were for life. Jnouse Document, No. 754; Communism in Action, p. 75, (79th. Coneress, 2nd; Session, United States of america). “Ibid.The peasents who occupied the land rendered military aid to the grantee when called upon and paid taxes by surrendering part of their erops or by performing a stated amount of work in the private domain of the feuds] lord. Since most of the landlords were, owing to their duties to the Prince, absentee owners, the system of crop payments was used more often than that of labor. Sometimes the peasant's liability was a con pound of both. In the beginning, the peasant was not bound to the land. He could leave after his harvest had been collected if he aid not owe the pomestehik (one who held a ponestie or estate on conditions of service). Since practically no peusant pos- sessed any capital of nis own, loans were frequent. An ab- sconding peasant could be prosecuted and brought back within a certain time-limit. In 1649, Tzar Alexei legalized the recovery of runaway peasants without any tine Minit and in effect introduced the principle of hereditary bondedness, Cradually the 3ussian peasants beceme serfs who were bound to the land and could not leave nor change their allepiance, Peter, the Great, a stronr ruler, ade many changes which influenced the lives of the peasants. Nwiers, here~ tofore, had made grants of land to the nobility for service to be rendered; Peter, desirous of building up industrial pro- duction, extended to the merchant class the privileges S,eonara E. Pe 1B. jbbord, The Economtes of soviet Acriculture4 previously reserved only for the nobility. He gave then the right to acquire villages (land settled with bonded pecsants) on condition that the sald villages were used for the benefit of the industrial enterprises concerned. In so doing, Poter was not motivated with any desire to enhance the interests of the merchant manufacturer; he was convinced that Russia, Af she could develop her natural resources, could equal the rest of the world in progress. He believed, also that only the State could properly develup these resources and that compulsion was necessary, ‘Mence, serfs wore committed to landowners and industrialists not as personal possessions for their own purposes, but as a trust from the State to en- able them to fulfill the demands of the State". Service rendered to the merchant-manufecturer by the peasant was of two kinds; work in the factory and labor in the communal fields. ‘here there was a surplus of labor, a peasant might receive permission to work in another area, provided he paid a part of his earnings to his commune. He could not leave without permission, and in most instances had to return to the commune at harvest tine. In this way the State kept the serf from acquiring independence as an industrial worker an@ at the same time kept his allegiance to the soil, Farming, under such conditions, could not be efficient, *thid., p. 15.o The estate-owner held it only for life; he had no incentive to try to enrich the soil or build extensive improvements. At that time, too, there were no railroads and no market for any great agricultural surplus. ‘The demand was only for food for the subsistence of the people. Power machinery had not been invented and agricultural instruments were crude. Deep plowing of the land was unknown, Tip peasant had little incentive to work. In addition to these conditions, the serfs increased at a rapid rate. Between 1762 and 1812, the total population increased from about nineteen to forty-one millions, and the peasant population provided considerably more than enough labor to cultivate all the good agricultural land. In less fertile roeions, no efforts were made to produce crops other than the amount needed for logal consumption. The natural consequence was that the surplus labor was utilized in handi- crafts and industry. In the southern portion of the country, where the land was rich, grain wae grown for the market. A eleavare between the two sections pradually developed; the Northern section became the center of industry, and the Southern, of aericulture.5 4gitation for freeing the serfs began in the eichteenth century. At that time serfs could be bought and sold with orapart from land, in families or singly. Only publieauctions of serfs were forbidden. In 1797 a law forbade the pomastehik® to make his serfs work for him on more than three days in the week, In 1803 another law permitted the owner to free the seri's if he desired, In 1861 the serfs were given their unconditional freedom. Some forty million pea- sants were affected by this emancipetion. ‘The Act of Emancipation, however, did not give land as individual property to peasant farmers, but made it the pro- perty of agrarian communities, the so-called mir,’ composed of groups of homesteads, This land was divided and, after a certain number of years, redistributed among the hone- steads; every homestead received a portion of every field or of every subdivision of the field; land was allotted to the separate homesteads in the ratio of the number of family nenbers or, in certain parts of Russia, of adult mele workers in the homesteads, Yor the corresponding period the allot~ ments had to be cultiveted individually. 4n excollont de- scription of the difficulties experienced by the peasants has been written by Verriner: ‘The land of the villsgs had to be used mainly to grow bread crons for the consumption of all the fami-~ lies in the villeze, ach family had to have enough land to feed itself, and as in a primitivo state the quality of land varies much more than when it can be improved by 4rainage and manuring, each family had to Sponestchik is the Russian word for "squire", ‘yin was the name used for the communal village.sharo in tho good land and the bad. Almost all the cultivated land was under corn crops, except for a few meadows near the stream and the houses. Con- tinuous cropping under corn exhausted the soil, and to avoid this it had to be left fallow every third year. Of course this was an immense waste; one third of the land produced nothing; but with no al- ternative crops and very little manure it could not be avoided. The rotation followed was the so-called three-field--"inter corn (rye or wheat), spring corn (wheat or barley) and fallow, This course had to be enforced of all owners, otherwise the crops of one would have spread into the fallows of the others. It was also necessary thst all the crops should be the same in each area, because after harvest the cattle of the village grazed in herds on the fields and had to be let in on the same date, Thus the feature which later became an obstacle to progress was inevitable in mediaeval conditions; it was no hardship to be compelled to srov crops’in a certain rotation when no others could be grown,® This was very unfortunate, It discouraged advance in agricultural technique, 4 peasant could not be expected to invest money, or even his labor, in land which by the next redistribution might be assigned to another homestead. Only improvements effected collectively, by the total com- munity was no easy task. Large families were also encouraged by the provisions; the allotment granted to an individual homestead depended on the size of tne family, An unlimited increase of the rural population therefore was encouraged without providing for additional means of subsistence. Then, too, the pea- sants having no land of their own could not develop that Sjuoted in Hubbard, op. cits, pe 34.strong respect for property which characterizes ‘estern farmers ond makes them the foundation of sootal stability.? However, in 1906 some notable land reforms were made. A provisional law allowed the peasants to separate their allotments from the agrarian communities, They could be~ come private owners of the allotments which they possessed in the common fields and, if they wished, have their por- tiona united into one allotnent and their housen and stalls rebuilt there with government ald, In the communal type of farming heretofore prevalent, the peasants' lands had often veon divided into strips which were sometimes widely sepa- rated, The new law called after Stolypin, its sponsor, elinineted this separation and made {t possible for the peas sant to have his cultivated lend in one ficld, The peasant who exercised his right to become an independent farmer did not hereby lose his membership in tho commune or villace in which he hed previously lived, He retained his right to the use of the comune's undistributed land, such as common erazing and woodlends, and he still had a voice in the com- nune's affairs, The whole intention of the reform would have boon defeated if there had beon no means provided for a peasant to increase bis holdings over his original nadiel?0 land, The aim of the legislation was to encourage the rise Nicholas 3. Timasheff, The Great Retreat, p. 30. 1yeaiel land was the individual plots allotted to pea- sants.of a class of prosperous farmers with aufficient land to enable them to adopt up-to-date farming methods. It was necessary, then, to provide opportunity and means of ace quiring additional lend. ‘vo sources were availiable: land belonging to private or public owners and land belonging to fellow nenbers of the communs, The lew which granted the peasants the rirht to claim their nadieli es private frechold also gave them the risht to sell their freehold to other peasants. Thus peasants who wished to leave the commune to sesk hones elsewhere or to become independent industrial workers sero able to sell their. property,11 he results of the Stolypin reforms were many and varied. One of them waa the severance of the ties of the industrial leborer with those of his native village; he could now establisi binself permanently in the town as an industrial worker. 4nother result was tho enrichment of the resourceful peasant and the further impoverishment of the poor shiftless ones, Communal operation of farming had tended to keep all the peasants on the same level. ‘The pea- sant who had ability end resourcefulness now had the op- pertuiity to expand his holdings, ‘The poor peasants thus suffered because the fallow crounds at their dispoeal were no longer- large enough for pasturing their cattle. Their Untmasheff, on. elte, p. Sle10 honesteads had to disappear, and they either had to go to the cities, where industry was rapidly advancing, or be re- settled on free land in Tiberias, \ progran of settling the peasants was fostered by the Covernment, From 1€83 to 1912 the Government Yank was in- strumental in settling peasants on sbout 43,000,000 acras, Though this seems a large avea i was not very larve when compared with the total land held by the peasants, amount- ing to some 345,000,000 acres of nadiel land in 1905, At the close of 1916 there were 1,600,000 independent farms covering 40,000,000 acres. The averare size was about twenty-five acres, The number of freehold farms was 10.7 per cent of all peasant holdings, the total number of which was about 11.5 millions.12 Statistics of the period show the results of the new policy. #rom 1800 to 1915, area seeded vith cereals ine creased 8.0 per cent. ‘The use of fertilizers jumped fron 052 million tons in 1908, to 0.5 million in 1915. Hetween 1896 and 1915, the net harvest increased by 8.0 per cent. There was also a substantial ineraase in cattle; the number of horses increased from 26.5 million in 1895 to 39.6 in 1916, and that of horned cattle from 31.6 million in 1695, to 60,8 million in 1916,15 Minsa., p. ole 18peul W, Miliukoff, Outlines of Russian Gulture, p. 73.oom One factor which caused an increase in production was better market facilities, At the time of the libera- tion of the serfs in 1961 there were only 1,400 miles of railroad in the country. In 1900, Russia possessed 38,000 miles of railways, and 49,000 in 1916, This new means of transportation made it possible to ship products fran one part of the country to the other and to export commodities as well. There was a new incentive for the peasant to try to make nis farm productive. Another market was the in- creased buying power of the industrial worker whose nunbers inereased like maric during this pertod.1¢4 Vowever, the inmproverent in sone of the peasants' finan~ celal standing did not include 411 of them. Though a steadily inereasing number of freehold proprietors improved both their ways of farming and manner of living, the standards of the average and poorer peasunts steadily decreased. The main reason for this was overpopulation, expecially in the Central Agricultural Provinces ana the Central Ukraine, Peasant households possessing only a small nadiel were compelled to sond some of their members to work in industrial plants or to rent additional land. Because of the larce number of available workers, wares were low. The Moinacnett, op. oft., p. She12 Peasants themselves belisved that the remedy for the aitua- tion was to give them all the land in the country and divide it equally, Without any aid from the government or other sources, such a division vould not materially have altered the situation. The thing thst the peasant necded was capital with which te work--eapitel to buy modern machinery and to fertilize the land. Sy adopting a scientific rotation of crops, the necessity for leaving about one-third of the farne ing land fallow each year would have been avoided, and this alone would have Increased the total area under erops by about one-third. Deep plowing of the land and the applica- tion of fertilizers would have ereatly increased the yield. The black land of the Russian Ukraine is among the beat grain soils in the world, but under the primitive farming of the peasants the average wheat yield here in the years 1909-15 was only 10,8 bushels an sere compared with 38.8 bushels in Germany. it the samo time the peasant population in the thickly populated aren of Russie was one to every 1.6 acres compared with a rural population of one to 2,28 acres in Germany.15 Tt was Impossible to attempt to improve farming science and methods among millions of omall holders without any capi- tal and without the means to accumulate capital, The Govern~ ment endeavored to help the peasants by providing agricultural Buupbard, op. elt. pe 60.15 experts to advise on farming methods, and by awisting than with oredit to obtain better implements, but saese efforts did not touch the root of the problem. Tho only solution was to make possible the rise of a large class of peasant farmers with sufficient land to enable them to accumulate capital and adopt more up-to-date methods, This meant the consolidation of the small faris into larger ones and the creation of a class of people who worked in industry or be- came agricultural laborers, The poor peasants who were dis- placed from their meagre communal allotments perhaps would eventually be better off as permanent farm laborers or as industrial wage-earners, but many of them were not satisfied with such an arrangement, Hubbard. states: But the peasant who found himself compelled, by circuastences which he did not fully understand, to part with his few acres and the last shadow of his econowle independence, did not stop to think whether the loss might not be to his ultimate advantage, He was merely conseieous of a grievance against the Cov- erment which was primarily responsible for the new order of things, and a grudge against his better-to- do fellows to whom the new order gave, visible opor- tunities of still further betterment, 16 This smouldering feeling of resentment on the part of the poorer peasants was one of the causes of the 1917 Revo- lution which deposed the Czar, It accounts, too, for the ease with which the Communists spread their doctrines in which they promised the peasants land and goods on an equal basis: with all others, Le. Ibid., De 63414 orld Yar I also had its repercussions in the orricul- tural economy of Russia, For the first two years the ef- fects vere somewkat favorable to peasant econony; prices of grain went up ané a lar ortion of the best pensant workers were drafted into military service, ‘This left fewer workers und less mouths te feed, ages increased and the demand for labor exceoded the suprly. The families of sol- @iers, also, vere civen separation allowances, ‘The peasants, therefore, had more money than ever before, but they soon found that increasing prices decreased the amount of rooda EL the money would buy. The War had stopped th tation of cons mers' goods, and all industrial enterprises thet could be converted into munition works were so converted. 4 large portion of the coods which were manufactured were Geranded by the irmy end the consuming public had to do without.27 As a result of these conditions the country became flooded with paper money. ‘he sale of slcokol was prohibited, and the peasant unable to gat his favorite drink, worked more and likewise consumod more food, ‘The net outcome was that the agrienltural population consumed more and gold less of its production, Tho ‘ar also had a certain effect on the nature of the crops crown. “hen the peasant frew crops entirely for his own use, he planted grain, potatoes, vere= tables and fodder crops; after the market developed from ipia., pe 85.15 other countries, sugar beets, flax, und other so-called ine dustrial crops vegan to be planted, ‘he worthleseness of noney lessened the stinulus to grow any sort of crops for the market alone, ‘ie reneral tendency was to expand the areas of crops for home conswaption and decrease the area cultivated for the market, ‘whe decilne in the production of industrial and warketeble produce became especially in 1917, because dy then the presiiar stocks of consumers! goods were practically exhausted, and thore was nothing for the pesaant to buy with his money. It is small wonder that he reduced iis farming operations to a large extent tack to the subsistence level. In the autumn of 1915 the Governzent decided to fix the price of praix in order to secure encugh to neot the needs of tinun paid the Army. These fixed prices represented the by the Government to the growers, who vers not probibited fron selling at higher prices to private buyers. fewever, the Government demanded the rirht to requisition the rain where necessary, In 1916 fixed crain prices for the whole of the erain trade were introduced. The prices, however were fixed too low and the peasants rebelled avainst selling. Compulsory levies were then made. Te general results of the War on peasant economy nay be summed up as follows:16 A decline in the standaré of zarming, owing to a vartety of reasons, including inereasin’ difficulty in procuring farm machinery, etc., and the retro¢res~ sion from a fairly erowine money économy to a nore prhaitive natural econo A much more marked éroneration of lsrrescale rarning by the landowning sentcy, In consequence of which a considerable area of privately owned land went out of cultivation. A disorganization of the market end a consequent decrease in private trade, resulting In the different parts of the country being thrown much more than be= fore on their own rescurces This meant that the difference in re¢ional prices became much more marked, and this has as a further consequence, the rise of a class of enterprisine dealers or speculators in the erain trade.1é Qussian agriculture in 1917 at the beginning of the Revolution, then, may be said to have been slowly progressing towards the free economy of Western agriculture. ‘he poa- sants had been given the right to own their own lend, to sell their poods in the free market, and to take part in the civic affairs of their adninistrative district. ‘the in- troduction of power machinery, erowth of railroads, and in- crease in purchasing power of industriel workers, all com- pined to advance the srowth of ugriculture and to make it a wore profitable undertaking. Wore than anything else the farmer peasant lacked capital with which to develop hia holdings. If an alien ideology » d not gained control of the povernment, this capital, no doubt, would have been furnished by the Western powers iu order to develop a source of goods for their use, The temperary setback caused by 16. rt bid., p. 68. |uv World “Yar I conditions, however, intensified the fundanental feeling of tho rebe: ons peasants 4, st covernuent ox- ploitation. The entire strueture of agriculture was built The appeals of tho ¢ on a pracarious unstable ba for equal opportunities for all fell on receztivo ears in the persons of Russian farnine peasants, Yor purposes of comparison, the situation of the Russian peasant in 1917 moey be conpared to that of the nill-farme of the stotes of Tennessee and Alabwm in the 1930's, In these areas at that tivating srall wu The returns from the land were inadeqw zd of Living. There were no major industries to furnish er plus labor. ‘hero was little eapital for investment in bet- ter faras and better ways of farming for the roturn would not. justify the outlay. cods ravage: valley land at ocx ain seasons of the year. New dedl legislation in Concress authorized the develop- mont cf the Tennessee Uiver Vulley authority, a project for harnessing and utiliuing the waters of creat Tennessee River. 4 aropran of flood ¢ sod building ‘amet control. low= ever, the cover: to take over the faras of the area, bub endeavored to help the farser help hinvel?. the ssnufacture ef power from t river water made the area a favoradle one for industry. Creat manufacturing plantssprang up aluost overnigat. Control of the flood waters permite faring of the ric valley lands. Gxbonsio power Lines oarrying cheay clectricity brought the conveniences of the of . Kore enploy production brought higher steadards of living, Tho eatire area vas changed end de nelp, not of developing tt. i tussia © simu Lmpover: aus f 2 onphasiges the diffter- wo countriss,CHAPTER IT ‘TM BOLSARVIK REVOLUTION AND THE NEV BOONOVIG POLICY One of the strange things about the Holshevik Revolu- tion in Russia in 1917 is that the Bolsheviks were not the master minds in the event. Yrevious to this tine there wer- few Bolsheviks in Russia, The revolution was brought about by internal events, the dissatisfaction of both the indus- trial-labor sroup and the peasants, and by a general fecl- ing of tenslén throurhout the country. Sefore the War of 1914, orthodox Marxists did not believe in launehing the International Communist Revolution in Qussia. Acording to the Harxian theory, revolution occurred in the highly in- dustrialized capitalistic countries and resulted directly from the practices of capitalism, Russia, on the contrary, was not hirhly industrialized; indeed only five per eent of the population belonged to the industrial proletariat group. bares gives this version of the causes of the Revolutions) (Prarxton was not inevitable in Zussiay It wes in no sense the cause of the Russian gevolution. 3) Re listed two main causes: the fantastic incompetence of the Russian overnment, ernard Pares, Russia and the Feace, p. 16. 1920 and the Slaughter of 3,800,000 troups in the war. The actual revolution started as an unorganizeé street demonstration, asking at first only for bread. ‘he Czar ordered the police to fire upon the rioters, the troops stationed in the capital took up the cause of the demonstrators and "in a single dey the whole thing was over." Tha Revolution was not planned and executed by the Bolsheviks, -Thevay.in-whtehthey~Hained gontrot-is-another story, which tas io” "Slave “bi thre"stidy, but history records that the Holshevike, under the leader- ship of Lenin, an ardent Marxist, gained control of the ius- sian covernnent on Novenber 7, 1917. 3m po doing they baa 17» BRAY fe ery concentrated their propaganda on tour pointe: owe, ee 1, Peace, i.e., the immediate cessation of a war whose ends were never sufficiently understood by the masses; 2. Ian, i. @., the inuediate gratification of the peasants’ loneing to nave the landlcrds’ estates divided among them; 73, aread, 1.e., the innediate alleviation of the food crisis in the major cities, and 4, "All power to the dovicts", which was inter- nreted abolition of tureaueracy, difect rule by the masses, and the likelihood of the cessation of taxa- tion and compulsory military service,? In the lipht of the situation, as developed in the study of pre-Couuunist Russia, the effect of these appeals con well be understood. The ¢reat masses of the Russian people were unhappy, dissatisfied with a war thet was slaughtering their soldiers, increasing food prices, and disrupting the Rmimasheff, op. cite, De 58.el sale of consumer goods, The promises of peace, land, dread, and power were all like the promise of manna from heavens the people were overjoyed and embraced the new doctrines without much understanding of what they really meant. Nowever, as far as the land was concerned, the peasants had already taken over tho estates of the nobility when the Polshevixe yained control of the Government in 1917, The abdication of the Czer in March 1917 resulted in the disin- tegration of government authority in the villages, ‘The mem= bers of the new eovernment were socialists and in principle they believed in communal lend tenure and the expropriation of large landowners and the breaking up of their estates, ‘The peasants grasped the idea that they were to have the land of the nobility and they did not stop to ask anything further: they proceeded to annex the land, At first they acted with restraint; peasants wao had leased lend simply stopped pay- ing rent, while peasant communities pastured their cattle on private meadows and cut wood in private forests. ‘The soldiers of Qussia, it should be remembered, at tiis tine were envared in battle. As soon as the word reached then that land was to be had for the taking they deserted by the thousands. When they reached their homes they were actuated by the battle instincts they had acquired in the war, and they began pillaging an@ burning the laree homes of the nobility. Landowners wers historic anemies of the peasants22 and they were destroyed. ‘ven the possessions of the laree estates, such as farm machinery and animals, were senselessly destroyed. hen the Provisional Government at last realized what was going on, the moverent had prorreased so far that it could not be stopped.5 Thus, long before the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917 brought the Provisional Government to an end, private ownership of land had been sbolished, ‘his applied not only to the gentry and non-peasant landowners, but to a large part of the peasant proprietors who had become freeholders of their own farms; ‘The political beliefs of the men who had engineered the Revolution were not altogether in favor of such a polley; they favored the old systen of communal land tenure, They viewed the ‘hegprma which had given the pea- sants the right to ow thea scm land as anti-social measures calculated to increase the oSiver and extent of capitalism, One of the distinguishing characteristics of communal tenure of lend had been the equalization of all the members. The Bolshevik agitatora, endeavoring to seize control of aussia, pretended to sympathize with the peasants in their forcible seizure of the land, ‘The real progran of the Bolsheviks was nationalization and the creation of largo centrally controllet State farms, but the peasants would wave turned against then23 Af they had known it, The Holshevike had not worked out any thorough plan to carry out a nationalization poliey of Land 0 they very wisely maintained silence on the question and encouraged the peasants in land=srabbing.# “J. The collapse of the Provisional Government under Kerensky and the succession to power of Lenin and the Bolshe- vike in November 1917 nade very little innediate difference to the peasants. The country was in a very dtaorganized state, and Lenin had no desire to antagonize the peasants who were in possession of their newly-won estates. The NarocnikS serarien policy was adopted in ite main principles and little changes wore made in the berinning. In February 191@ the Rolskevike issued a decree undor which the peasants were cranted the use of all lands fornerly belonging to landowners, the Crown, the State, and the Church. All dealines in land were forbidden ond the principle of equality in @istripution was officially recornizea. The only land not handed over to the peasants was that occupled by collective farms and State farms and these together ac- counted tor less than four per cont of the total area of spricutturel land, In, all, the gopsants received about 185, 000,000 acres of land/ tut ‘thsy already occupied the greater part of this as tenants, tlubbard ives some interesting statistics on farm acreage and number of live sto: *yid., p. 77. Sane Narodnik (people) agrarian policy was individual ownership of farms,efore the Revolution peasant farms of all sorts numbered some eighteen millions. In 1919 there wore over twenty- million separate peasant farms and in 1923 over twenty-two millions. Very many peasants who had been agricultural laborers became yossessed of land; thus between 1917 and 1919 the proportion of landless peasant households fell from 11.6 to 6.4 per cent. At the other end of the acalo, the proportion of peasant farms over twenty-seven acres in total area fell fron 5 to 1.5 per cent. The equalization of peasant hold- ings‘ extended also to horses; in 1917, 28.9 per cent of peasant farns were horseless, in 1919, 25.1 per cent, but the proportion of farms with only one horse Ainerease’ from 47.6 to 60.1 per cent, and the pro portion of fama with ywo or more ho?ses fll fron 25.5 to 14.8 per cent. These statistics compiled during tie early days of the Revolution indicate the trend of happenings oven if the data are not always reliable, Other factors, though, had heiped increase the number of landholders besides the Bolshevik Revolution. ‘the shortese of food in the cities forced many _ industrial laborers to return to their native villages. ‘tho large estates were broken up, and this relwased a laree num- ber of agricultural laborers. The Bolsheviks prohibited any private enterpriee altogether and one peasant could not hire another to work on hia farm, There were no markets, too, for surplua. ‘he larger fermers reduced their acreare to an area just sufficient for their own personal needs, ‘The net results, so far as the wnole country was concerned, was that the total area of land under crops declined and the average yield of the land deteriorated, because the small farmer with Suubbard, op. ett., D+ 70+one poor horse, erude Implements and no money for artificial fertilizers, even ha@ there been any to buy, was ineapable of matntainiar even the very medicere standard of farming of the average pre-war peasant.” The Bolsheviks were compelled to continue the Frovis- jonal Covernnent's grain monopoly and to increase its sever- ity and restrictions. Tho peasant still refused to raise grain for which there was no market, The erowning insult, however, came when the Bolsheviks attempted to dispense with money. The peasants were to exchange thelr food for manu- factured goods with the State as the exchange arent. The peasant refused to nand over his supply when he could secure nothing in return; the lack of manufactured roods nade it imposaible to carry out the terns of the agreement. The natural result was that the peasant who was willing to work and produce cut down tis production, ‘There waa a severe Grourht in 1920, which with the reduced sowings caused a terrible famine, in whieh millions of people died. In a eriticisn voleed before the Coneress of Soviets on December 2%, 1920, 2 member of the social democratic revolu- tionary party cave the following description of the attitude of the Bolshevik government toward the peasants who had been promised so much: ‘alter Russel Satsell, Soviet ule in Russia, p. 477.26 Mlllions of peassnta, without whose active as~ sistance te vietory on the external front and easpeci~ ally in the eivil war could hardly be inacioned wore cegrivens an customary, of their richt te oreanize na to rartlelnste not’. on: in the settlement of nat- tere of foreign pelliey liso in sattors which creatly affected their nost vital econonie interests. She polley towards the peasantry and particularly concerning the collection of food and raw materials, 23 well ac the development of srall village industry, vas, aa'usual, carried out In a purely veaucratic fashion, vith no attention be: paid to the goceial~ econouié nature of peasant economy snd Bithout ages wate analysis of all possibilitias, all of which led to the cestruction of ceonory, to the spreaé of famine, and to the genorel cownfa! ook ath ee ne peasant gerroristic nethods of collection were used.” who refuse? to cooperate or yield hia er was arroste?, Ysere vera nash excoutions, ness Imprisonment, whe Rolshov!* Govern= and corraling concontration eam arly seb itself up a Sietuhor whieh brooked no op= position. The resclut ion seed before the Songresa of Soviets, 1920, nad Little effect, but at the next rooting took the forn of the in- peasants, auguration of acononie policy, popularly Lonin dictated the transition from a poliey of foreed levies of grains to the right of the peasant frecly to dispose of hig grain after the payment of a tax, The petty trader could again try to make a living. These concessions were made, according to Lenin, because the great mass of the laboring population had expressed a desire for thom, Reforms Squoted in Batsell, op. cit., -. 479.of this nature, a step backward according to the doctrines of the communists, had cone too late to prevent the famine which already had Russia in its grasp. The nain differences between war-communism and the new eeononic policy were classified by Varra, a communist writer, as followa: NEP Wer-Communisn Private ownership in the means of Private ownership per~ production mitted only in arti- Money economy eles of consumption Only the products of tho socialist sector are under the immediate Barter control of the state Freedom to trade and carry on eco- The state controls ghe nomie activity (apart from state sntire production monopoly) ‘The MEP it is evident was a reversal of the original plan for the State to take over all the means of production, both in- dustrial and agricultural. The effect of NEP on peasant agriculture was immediate, In 1922 only 156 million acres were planted, nearly 100 million less than in 1913; in 1923 the area inereased to 205 million acres, in 1924 to 217 millions and by 1927, it reached 236 millions, Sut this was still below 1913, Communism, in 1927, had been the ruling foree for ten years; agriculture under it was not as great as it had been fourteen years before. tubvard saya that it is unlikely that the average peasant's money turnover in 1921 was half what it had been in 1914, ‘The Government 9. uoted in Batsell, op. cit., p. 481.26 collected a large part of the peasants" surplus production ag a tox in kind, and this satisfied a considerable part of the urben demand; therefore, it vas necessary for the nor agricultural population, the industrial laborer, to provide goods in exchange for the balance of their requirements. It vas calculated that during the early years’ of the WEP the peasants were able to obtain in exchange for their food- stuffs lovs than one-half the quantity of goods they had received before the war. During the war-communism era, the Government had soucht to encourarc collective farming while permitting the old form of peasant land tenure. 4 certain number of former indus- trial workers and landless peasants with no capital of their own to start farming took advantage of the Government's offer to provide stock and credit and established collective farns on land alictted then from State land and large ostates, The peasants on those farms were treated nore liberally than independent peasents; they were required to deliver less grain and were riven more manufactured goods than the individual peasant. In endeavoring to maintain its attitude of syn- pathy for the "underdog" the Governont handed over local village affairs to the poorest peasants in the town. These peasants promptly assessed the sore prosperous peasants im- possible quantities of rain. The Bolsheviks were eventually compelled to realize the the lowest strata of society were principally low because they lacked the intelligence and the29 will to better themselves, ‘he collective farms, after the new NEP went into effect, erew less popular, In 1924 peasant, taxstion,was placed on a monetary basis, The Covernnont was still the chief purchaser of grain, and it kent the prices low, Hoth the quantity of grain bouht and the yield of taxes fell below the eatimates; an@ the Governnent once nore nad to admit that its farm polloy was a failure. It suddenly deeided that the hard~ working and intelligent peasant was the backbone of the country and & worthyeitizen. ‘he restrictions imposed were lifted to some extent, and the peasants were allowed to rent land, hire labor, and vere oven assisted in buying machinery, the principle of private ownorsiip was ones more achnowledged in agriomtture., The result wae an appreciable inerease in the size of farms and in the rain harvest .10 The reversal of the Bolstevik's agrarian poliey soon resulted in the peasants arain becoming differentiated into rich, widdle and poor, The term "rich" merely meant that ene was less poverty-stricken than another; all the peasants were poverty stricken, The more resourceful of then, how ever, soon managed to become more prosperous than the average. The rich peasant, however, declined to produce any great axout of Wewvoard, ope Olte, Pe EB.30 surplus food; during the first half of the NEF period even the richest peasants produced rainly for thelr own needs and only marketed sufficient surplus to pay their taxes and buy a few essential manufactured goods. During the later yeare of the MEF, the covernnent tried various ways to induce peasants to sell their crops to governmental agents and, when their failure had become ob- vious, reintroduced compulsion. Clause 107 of the Criminal Code of 1926, vroiibitine the artificial raising of prices, wes applied against rich peusants who had refused to sell their corn. In accordance vith this law, their erops wore confiscated. ‘the experience of ar Communism was repeated: compulsion applied to individual producers resulted in de~ creasing the output. A totel change of sone kind wae necessary in order to save the aituation,2 Lenin died in 1926 and was succeeded vy Stalin, a ran ho was the son of a cobbler. Te was not the dreamer or idealist that Lonin was, and he looked at the agricultural economy of soviet uscia with a realistic eye, Tin remedy was the drastic one of eollectivazation of agriculture, but this will be considered in 4 subsequent chapter, The thing to be considered here is the need for 4 new plan of sone kind. ‘The peasant, as has been developed, was a serf for Uypia., p. 90.Sl centuries and only reegived his liberty and 4 small area of land in 1061. He owned this land, h sever, through his renbership in the commune and he farmed it accordingly. The Stolpyin land reforrs aided the more resourceful peasants to become independent bub o large class of the poorer ones were more impoverished than before, ‘The Bolsheviks cave the peasants all the land of the nobles; at least the land was taken under the Bolshevik vorime. The peasants took the land themselves. ‘They, under Bolshevik rule, were not al- lowed to sell any Jand and the old communal system was re~ stored toa lavge oxtent. Under such an arrangement the farns were smal} and the veasant had Little o eo to dn ia standard of living. The Covernnent, through prove forced levees, destroyed any initiative to raise any crons other than for subsistence. Cheap money and no goods for ex- change, too, were otiar factors causing curtailment of pro- duction. ) the Rolsheviks' economic noint of view the cone tinuation of the arrerian situation sa 1 was in 1926 and 1987 offered no prospects, ‘the peasant nonulation was rapidly acrioultural increasing, and there wos a crowing surplus of ac: labor. ‘The oleheviks could not afford to vay fair vrices for arricultural produce, especially for grain.l® ‘Their whole noliey since the Revolution had been to make the ypta., ps 94.88 peasants pay for the industrial program since they had no capital with which to work. On aecount of foreie: antipathy to the doctrines of Communism, foreign eapitel would not come to the country; industrial production was Inefficient and had not paid any profit above operating costs. since the industriel population could not furnish the needed capital for expension, the peasants were exploited for all that could be drained away trom them in the form of crops ana taxation. One of the results of such a policy was the peasants refusal to raise crops over and above their im- mediate needs for subsistence. Another question that srose concerned the Government's needs for certain crops. Crain had always been the chief crop of Russia for food and for export. During the period under consideration, other industrial raw material, such as sugar beet, cotton, hemp, and sunflower seed, brought better prices than the one paid by the Government for the wheat. The peasants raised more of these crops and decreased their wheat acreage because they made more profit. This ides of private profit, too, was sot in accord with the Telshevik philosophy. Industry was completely socialized; if a large and influential class of prosperous peasant farmers was allowed to grow up, the Solsheviks would be discredited in their initial undertekinr. Some ehanve had to be msde. ‘The change took the form of collectivization of peasant farms, The Yolsheviks believed that this was the only33 practicable way of farming large-scale and economic farn wnlts under Government control. A collective could grow whatever crop the Government desired without eonsiderine whether it wus the most profitable crop te the growers; a larger portion of the harvest could be taken fron a col- lective #arm than could easily be rscovereé from a number of independsnt farmers cultivating the same agererate area. Then, too, @ collective farm could be made to use new and improved iamming methods, and power machinery. Jt was less likely to operate at a loss because the embers were paid not fixed wages but out of the net proceeds in kind ang money. If the yroceeds vere small, the roturua to the peasant wor? er were anali, Mainly for these reasons the collective farm was adopted as the standard form of agricultural anterprise in Russia in 1927.15 Wu wrerd, op. clt., pe 99.CEAPTER IIL FORCED COLLECTIVIZA'TON AND PROSLEK OF THE KULAKS Sant farms was under Forced collectivization of the = taken by the Communist Government in Russia for two reasons: the establishment of large-scale and economic farm units and dispoving of the kuleks as barrier to the further spread of the Comunistiec doctrine. Collectivization means a complete realization of ‘the Coummist doctrine in both land use and sericultural pro- duction. The Solshevis's agrarian policy from the veginning was founded on State ownership and larce centrally controlled farms, but they were compelled to continue the old form of peagents lant tenure for the time being. Opposition of the peasants to such a procedure would have nade the undertaking precarious at the tine when the Government was occupied with trying to organize urban industry. Yowever, the Soviet authorities tried to encourage collective farming by giving special assistance in stock, credit or land to eroups of people prepared to form joint farming enterprises, somo former industrial worke: and landless peasants with no cap- ital of their own to start farming took advantage of the cov- ernment's offer. In sowe places poor peasants owning small 3435 farns voluntarily nerged their separate holdings inte col- lective farms in order to obtain Government assistance. These State fama were of three types; the commune, ~ the artel, and the association. The cormuno was formed by the conplete pooling of all resources and property, and the members lived & communal Life in communal buildings. In the artol the nonbers retained thelr own houses, small car~ den plots and some livestock and lpved separately, but pooled the land an@ working stock and shared in the proceeds of f the joint farming. In associations the menbers cooperated in | cultivating the arable land, but all property remained in private possession, The coumnal type of farm was founded \ \ sociation, A number of collective farms were aleo organized =| by members of the urban proletariat, while the genuine poa~ sants preferred tho comparative freedom of the artel or as~ by religious sects. The total uembership of collective farms at the beginning of 1922 was just over one million, or son 2 1.4 per cent of the whole agrioultural population.) / Sollectivization was Increasingly popular as long as the Yar Communism recine endured. Th peasants on collect= ive farms were treated ore liberally tian independent pea~ sante, delivering proportionately less srain and being given preference in the distribution of manufactured goods. Once Agupbara, op. eit, pe Ot.36 private enterprise snd Individual economic liberty were re~ stored, many of the collective farms were liguidated, and the members became individual farmers, ‘The number of pea sant homesteads increased from about 22,000,000 in 1922 to 25,000,000 in 1927,% Tho peasants, as they boceme more prosporous and in- fluential, opposed the Sovernment's policy of levying on the Surplus crops to the extent practiced. The Covernment, on the ot hand, to save a large surplus of agricultural products if it was to make a succeus of its industriel ex- pansion progran, Xepeated efforts had failed to persuade the peasants to produce this surplus. only moans that Russia had of raising capital was through sale agencies waich usually would have financed industrial ex- pansion would not loan capital because of unfriendliness to the Comiunistic tdeclery, It became Inereasingly clear that the agrarien policy uust be based on large farms served with the most up-to-date labor-saving machinery. An experiment carried on at a State farm "Shevchenko" in the Ukraine further impressed the Soviet government with the advanteses of collective farming.5 vere two favorable conditions were combined; (1) an exceptionally able manager, Warkevich at the head; (2) more machinery than it could use. Smgmasheff, op. git., De 126.27 This was an accidental result of faulty distri*ution for the woe jorit of State ferms were badly handicapped by lack of machinery of any Xind. The surrounding villages were auf fering from land shortages and backward farming, so Varke~ vich proposed to the peasants that they combine all their possessions In one larce organization, \ six-year rotation of crops would be introduced and all the fields woulé be cultivated with the new nachinory. The With their ants, horses, would help on the days indicated by Warkevich. ‘This plan would apply to flve of the felds; the sixth field was to be used for votatoes ant beets and separated inte al- Lotments corresponding to tomestesds. After the "ecllective™ plowing, pessants would oultivate their portions dividually. Ag renumeration for the use of the machinery, the State farm would receive a certain percentace (tventy-five to thirty per cent) of the grain; the t, a8 well us the straw and crop of the sixth Peli, would zenain the property of the people on the farm. ‘the peasant six villares cooperated in the plan and it was put into effect in lsze over an ereu of 24,000 hectares, ‘The furm gainod high pro= fits and {t was regarded as a grest acecnpliskment.* ‘The accomplishment of this undertaking, 1t may be cars tain, was not lost on the soviet officals who were desper- ately striving to increase farm production. The ides of 4tpta., p. O7.collective farming was included in the first Pive-Year Plan. It wes to edvanee slowly for two reasons: opposition was ex= pected from the wealthier peasente and the amount of needed machinery for such sn undertaking was not immediately avail~ able, Sodel articles of association for an agricultural artel were formilated and given to local authorities as a guide, They were siuple, concise ang consisted of seven elauses: (1) purposes and GbJects.--ife, poor peasants and middle peasants of the “Wiitare . of our own free will unite in on agricultural arte! so that our united means of production and our comuon organized labor may be used Yor the purpose of forming a large econontc unit. (2) Lgnd.-=s11 bouidaries separating the arable hol@ings of the members of the artel shall be removed. No land can be withdrawn from the pool by a nenber leaving the artel, ‘hose leaving the artel can only obtain land from free State Land (3) Means of @roduction,--The following live and ead atoak becoues tue collective property of the artel: draft eninels and other livesteck, ali seed reserves, fodder in sufiicient quantities to feed the livestock, farm lmplenents, building necessary for running the farm and all agricultural plant. ‘The @welling-nouses of the members of the artel are not collectivised, und in areas % 1 livestock farming ie not developed, pirs, sheep and coats shall not be collectivised. tut, where practicable, col- leetive farms shal} organize small livestock and poultry enterprises. (4) Activities of the Artel.--whe management and members undertake to-- {a) Increase the anount of land under cule tivation by waking use of all available land. (b) Vake full use of ell motive power, im- plonents, tradtors, machines, aeod, and other means of’ production. (¢) Haintein in good order and condition all Live and dead stock and ewploy then only for their groper purposes.39 (a) Take proper measures to increase the yield of the land and improve permanent pasture. (e} 2aise the cultural level and political enlishtennent of the members of the members, (£} Improve the standard of living of the nenbers, (5) Membership.--any worker eos become 9 member of an artel upon Preaching the age of sixteon. Pea- sants who slaughter or soll their livestock and ais- nose of their inslements before apnlying for menber- ship of on arte! shall not be admitted, (5) Resources of the Artel.--Every new member shall pay an ontranee Teo In proportion to the value of lis property; landless eqricultural laborers shall pay not nors than 5 roubles. Of the proverty brourht into the artel by each nenber, fron 25 to 0 por cont shell ba eredited to tho reserve fund: the greater the value of the pro~ perty tha hirher is the proportion eredited to the reserve. The bulence shall de considered the men- ber's personal share in the artel. the adminiatrative and working expenses shall be covered ont of the net ineome from the artel, from which dadvetions shall also be made for the support of persons unfit for work and for reserve and other funds. : (7) Organization and P: nt of Labor:--all « shall be carried out by = @ personal labor of embers. ‘The hiring of outside labor is per- exceptional elreunstences, Standards put and coatiny schedules shall he laa down aysten of payment for work performed shall sted. During the year advances not exceadine 60 por cent of the umount due to them may be paid to members of the artel to enable them to buy food and other necessities.® This was the plan of the early collective farm. Pro- ereas Waa eradual., In January 19%0 the Central Committec of the Conmunist Party issued an order directing that $0,000,000 hectares of lang be placed under collective cultivation by spring, ‘This was about twenty-five ner cent of the totel Origen i)40 area under crops in 1929, “y March 1930, sixty per eent of peasant homesteads in “ussia were officially collectivised. he oririnal plan for fifteen per cent collectivization by the end of 1985 was entirely diarerarded, ond collectivize- tion was literally forced on the peasants. Several factors had combined to forea this vr In the first plaea, Soviet industry was baghaning production of tractors and other heavy farm zoel ery. the average peasant farn contained 4 yood Gaul less than twenty hectares of arable land; one treetor was capable of all the plowing, sowing, ond reaping on a farm of two hundred hect- ares. If tho planned output of the new factories was to be fully and economically esployed, large sosle farming was necessary. on if capitalist methods had prevailed in tue davelopnan’ of agrieulture, 1t would tave teen a lene tine pefere any large seale resulted, During the latter part of the New Sconomic Yeliey period, a number of elations for the ac- peasants hed formed ec-operetive a quisition and common use of tractors. In 1927, over 6,000 were privately owned end in 1928 the nuxber Increased olightly. The totel nunber encaged in agriculture in 1927 on 2£,000,000 peasant honembeads was 24,500; by tke end of 1921 after col- leetivizetion vas introduced, they nuwbered over 106,000.6 Sipia., p. 1.41 The other factors have previously been commented on. one of these was the fact that the @ussian people, not out- side capital, had to furnish the money with which to build the great factories. Some means had to be found to make them pey. ‘he other wes the increasing need for more grain not only for export but to feed the crowing industriel popu- lation. Unless agriculture produced a larger surplus there would be difficulty in paying for all the industrial invest- nents to whieh the Government had committed itself. By collectivising the peasant farms, the authorities counted on the production of an increasing surplus partly by incroas= ing the area under cultivation and by inereased yield through better farming methods, The establishment of collectivization and the trans- formation of Russian pessants into members of collectives constitutes one of the sost radical changes known in history. "Its effects were more profound and distressing than the ox- propriation of the propertied classes in 1916-20."7 There were a creat many uprisings ewbrecing whole regions, revolts ruthlessly suppressed by CPU troops, Tanks were let loose upon the peasants, whole villages were burned to the ground. The peasants who objected to collectivization were ruthlessly @ispossessed and in many instances exiled to the forced labor camps. pavia J. Ballin, The Zeal Soviet Russia, p. 170.42 One of the factors in the general unrest was ths fact that the Government would not understand the rights and needs of the poasants and lacked tact in dealing with them, The men that were sent into the country to organize and adminiater the collective undertakings were perhaps good loyal perty men, but they were not farmers, In theory the collectives were cooperative enterprises but in reality they put the peasant back where he was prior to 1905--a prisoner to the land. very ablebodied member of a collective was to do whatever work he was detailed to, and to work during specified hours, In return he was to receive rations and, perhaps, a small sum of money, but he had no voies in the @isposal of the farm's surplus, which the State took at a fixed price, very low in comparison with the prices charged by the State for the goods produced by State industries, Nothing was done to make collectivization attractive to the peasant.8 ‘The consequences were tragic for the entire country. Under the new policy the peasants were supposed to coonerate and to produce; the actual results were that many preferred to kill their cattle, sell the meat, or consume it then- selves, In mony instances, they wrecked their equipment. It is estimated that half the total heed of livestock was lost ®tpta., pe 171.43 within a apace of four years, The number of cattle decreased from 30.4 million in 1929 to 19,5 million in 1934, the num- ver of horses from 34,6 million to 1 .6 million. The gen- eral disorgunization plus dry summers of 1981-52 resulted in such poor harvests that the wheat yleld declined 17.0 per cont. ince the state insisted on collecting Lts share first, regardless of the need of the growers there was @ terrible famine, willions of peasants died of direct starvation or @iseases brought on by starvation. According to official figures the aumber of peasant howesteads fell from 28.0 mil~ Lionsin 1929 to 20.9 million in 1935, a loss of 24.1 million? In the samo period the urban population increased more than 16,000,000, but it could not have absorbed the total loss of peasants from the farms, collectivization was started in 1920 and by 1950 it had cauged such chaos that the Government was forced to take some means to remedy the situation. In Maron, 1930 a letter from Stalin was published in all the Soviet newspapers. In it the administrators were reproached for tactless dealing with the peasants, He claimed they had used force instead of persuasion. We repeated the necessity for collectivised farming, but told those who had been forced into the col- lectives against their will that they would be allowed to leave. In two months collectivization dropped from 60.0 to Ssubbard, op. oit., pp. 117-8.44 24.3 per cont. Those who left, however, did not cet back their originel land nor their stock; usually they were civen a small sum of money, which being almost worthless, was small compensation for all they had lost. Most of the peasants who left the collectives in the spring of 1930 were only too glad to be readmitted before the end of the year, In carrying out its plans the Soviet Government had also eon liquidating the kulaks, the uore prosperous class of peasants, who tad consistently opposed Communism and had re~ fuged to grow surplus crops for the Government. The early Bolsheviks realized thet if the peasants were allowed to be- come prosperous they would be independent and vecone more powerful, 4 scheme for taxin away their wealth was first tried, ‘They were divided into three groups: poor, middle, and rich, The rick peasant was taxed out of all proportion to the other croups. If he paid at the first assessment, he was reassessed two or three times the original au, If he failed to pay, his property was sold for the arrears and handed over to the nearest collective, The middle peasants were so numerous thet they were treated with greater consider- ation, and their taxes were lightened. The kulak, if he re~ gistered any opposition whatever to the Government decrees was immediately deported to one of the many forced labor camps, The elass was then effectively disposed of by.the Government through this system of taxation, liquidation, and deportation.45 The results of the collectivization policy were so dis- astrous that even the Government realized that there was something fundamentally wrong with the system, Staelin, who had tried in 1930, to make the collective farm more attract- ive to the land peasant, appeared before a convention of "prominent collective farmers" and made a speech in which he stressed a new understanding of the peasants’ problems. He stated: If the collective farm cannot supply all the nesas of the nenbers and their families, thon it is better to acknowledge frankly that a certain kind of work must be public and another kind individual. It is better to “acknowledge that along with the large-scale form of collective acrioulture there must be a system of small and individual farming to satiafy the individual needs of the kolhoz menbers. To harnonize the individual ine terests of the Eolholz membera with the collective in- terest of the kolioz--there lies the secret of how to strengthen the collective farm,10 In eecordance with these statements, the new kolhoz statute allowed the peasants to possess small individual al- lotments within the collective farms. Kolhoz members were alse allowed to possess cows, sheep, and pi¢s. The reaction of the peasants was immediate, and shows the innate desire of people for personal gain from their work, Allotments were carefully cultivated and they used auch scientific in- formation about farming made availbale through the collectives such a9 fertilizing and the breeding of dairy and beef cattle. Meuoted in Timasheff, p. 14l.46 One year after the reform was made, the individual allotments covered 4,000,000 hectares. In 1939 the Government checked the number of allotments and found thet they far exceeded those allowed by law, Production fiures, however, showed that these small plots with four years furnished a fourth of the agricultural production. The great need for food brought on by World War II restrainod the Soviet Covernment from too harsh measures against the individual workers, ‘the Covernuent, it is apparent, won in the battle for collectivization, In 1920 the peasants defeated the plans and forced a strategic retreat from the principles of dom nunism by refusing to supply the country with surplus food. Now, however, they could not withhold the food; it was pro- duced under government ownership, and if the peasant rebel- led he was deported to a labor camp in some outpost. Hub= bard's statemont aptly sums up the situation: The struggle over colloctivization ended dis- tinotly in favor of the Soviet Government, unlike the conflict that broueht War Communism to a Close. The peasants were no lonfer able to starve the Covernment into yielding because the Government had not created an efficient organization for obtaining the foodsturts necessary for the subsistence of the urban and indus- trial population. It had shown the peasants that, if anybody was to starve, they would be the first to do so. The peasants, therefore, decided to make the best of the situation and began to drop thelr obstructionist tactics, ‘Whether collectivization can justifiably be claimed as @ success depends on what ie meant by suc- cess. It is questionable whether the kolhozniki in the mass are better off or enjoy a hicher standard of47 living than they would have done had they remained small peasant farmer: end the use of machinery and the esploynent of scientific nothods of farming have not yet had a striking effect on the yield of the land, though 1t has resulted tn a large expansion of the area under cultivation.) Unyupberd, op. clt., pp. 125-24,CHAPTER IV THE COLLECTIVE FARYS AND ISTRATION 03 MACHTNG STATIONS In order to understand the functioning and administre-. tion of a collective the model xolhoz constitution should be read. Tor this reason it ls given in full here. The Nodel Constitution of an Agpieultural artel I Ains and Objectives 1. The working peasants of the village volun tarily associate thenselves in an agricultural artel in order by neans of production end the mutual orcan- ization of their labor to create a collective or socialized economic unit, to complete the oxtermina- tion of the kulaks and all explciters and enoties of the workers, to banish poverty and ignorance and dis- solve the remnants of small individual uddertakines, and raise the productivity of labor and thus improve the standard of living of the collectivisized peasants. The path of the collective farm is the path of soelalian and is the only true path for the peasant to follow, ‘he members of the artel undertake to consolidate their organization by honest toll, to share the collective incowe according to their in- aividual contribution of work, to protect the common property snd roods, to maintain the tractors, nachines and horses in good condition and tulff21 all’their obligations towards the Workers’ and Peasants’ State; and thus ereate a truly Bolshevik collective farn and enable every collective peasant to becane 4849 Ir The Land 2, 411 boundaries formerly separatiny, the farms of individuel members of the artel shall be demolished and the land amalgated into a single for the common use and profit of the artel, ‘The land occupied by an artel (and this applies equally to all lend in the USSR) remains the property of the State, Sy virtue of the laws of the workers! and Peasants’ State it is transferred to the artel for the latter's permanent use, Land eganot be sold or boughs or leased. very artel shall receive from the Distriet ixecu- tive Committee a State certificate confirming the per= manent usufruct of its land, This document shall ac~ curately delineate the boundries of the land, of whic no reduction is permissible, 4dditions to the land hold by an artel can be made only from unoccupied State Areas or from unused land occupied by independent peasants, with the proviso that there shall be no in- terposition {i.e., a plot of independent peasant land surrounded by collectiviged land, or vice versa). Small allotments shall be provided out of the artel's land for the private use of every household as vegetable gardens, ete, The area of these garden allotments (excluding the area immediately surrounding the dwelling houses) shall vary between one-fourth hectare and one-half hectare, thouch in special districts it may amount to one hectare (2.5 acres), The area of land held by an artel can in no cir- cumstances be reduced, It is forbidden to allot any artel land to a member leaving the artel, who can re- ceive an allotment only from unoccupied State land, Farm land held by an artel shall be divided into fields in accordance with the authorized crop rotation. Bach fara brigade shall be attached to specific fields for the period of an entire orop rotation (i.9,, three or more years). When an artel possesses a considerable head of livestock, if the area of the farm permits, a certain area my be set aside for the sole purpose of growing fodder crops. III The Means of Production The following are held in common: all working50 cattle, agricultural implements (plows, drills, har- rows, ete.) seed stocks, fodder in quantities suffi- elent to supply the needs of the collective live stock, farm buildings necessary for carrying on the work of the artel and all onterprises for working up the products of the farm, Tae following remain in the private use of the individual households: dwelling houses, private live~ stock, farm buildings necessary for the proper hous- ing of private livestock, and the garden tools nec- essary for cultivating private allotments. At ite own discretion the administration of the artel say allow against payment the farm's working cattle to be used by individual members for thelr own purposes, Artels shall, wherever possible, organize a mixed livestock produce farm (i,e,, a livestock side comprising cattle, sheep, pigs, etc., for producing marketable commodities). sihen’an artel possesses a specially large head of livestock, several special- ized livestook departments may be organized, 5. Every dvor in an artel in a grain, cotton, sugar beet, flax, hemp, potato, vegetable, tea and tobacco growing region’ may have for its own use one cow, tro calves, one sow and its progeny, or, at the discretion of the farm administration, two sows and their progeny, up to ten sheep or goats, an unlimited amount of poultry 2nd rabbits up to twenty beehives, very dvor in an agriculture region in which there is a well-developed stock-breeding industry may possess two to three cows together with their calves, two to three sows and their litters, from twenty to twenty-five sheep and goats, an unlimited quantity of poultry and rabbits and up to twenty beehives, This applies to agricultural areas not contiguous to resions inhabited by nomad people, such a5 certain districts of Kazakhstan, the forest parts of white Russia, the Tenernixovsky and Kiev provinces of the Ukraine, the Sarabinsky Steppes and the Subaltai re- f Western Jiberia, the Ishimgk and Tobolsk Fegions of the Omsk province, the mountainous parts of Basnkira, the Hastern portion of Zastern Siberia, the agricultural districts of the Far Zastern Pro- vince and the Vologda and Holnozorsky districts in the Northern Vrovince. Yvery dvor in non-nomad or simi-nonad regions where agriculture plays a minor role and stocx breeding is the chief industry may own four to five cows and their calves, from thirty to forty sheep and goats, two to three sows and their progeny, and en unlimited quantity of poultry andS51 rabbits and up to twenty beehives; in addition, one horge or one milch mare, or two camels, or two asses, or two mules. Every dvor in the nomad regions where agriculture is practically non-existent may own eight to ten cows and their calves, 100 to, 150 sheep or goats, an un- limited quantity of poultry, up to ten horses, and from five to eight camels..... Iv The Operations of the Artel and its Administration 6, The artel shall carry out its collective vork according to a plan, paying strict attention to the Government's plan of agricultural production, and with due regard to its obligetions towards the State. In carrying out field work the artel shall execute the various seasonal tasks such as plouzhing, sowing, ate., in accordance with the requirements of each particu lar crop, and shall also carry out the Covernuent's plan for developing, the Livestock side of its activities, The management and all members of the artel shall-- (a) inorease the yield of the farm by observing a proper system of crop rotation, deep ploughing, fallowing, etc., and strictly adhere to the rules ald down by the local asro-technical authorities, (o) Select the best available seed and see that it is properly cleaned and stored. (o) ixtend the cultivated area of the farm by using all suitable land at the disposal of the artel. (a) Use to the best advantage and keep in good repair and condition all implements, machinery, draught cattle, ete, (e) Organize a livestock department, including where ovsille horse breeding. The artel shall also tske adequate steps to improve the live- stock belonsin: to the individual members of the artel. (f) Increase the production of fodder ond im- prove meadows und pasturage, giving assistance also to the individual members of the artel by advice and by allowing them the use of the common pasture lund when possible.(g)_ Develop all other branches of agricultural production suitable to the locality, as well as handicrafts. (nh) Construct buildings on proper economic rinoiples. i) Improve the tecinical proficiency of the kolhozniki, according to their qualifications posting them to brigades or appointing them tractor driver, cattle and horse men, veteri~ nary or laboratory workers, etc, (j) Inprove the cultural level of theartel by providing newspapers, books, wireless, ete., by forming olubs and libraries and installing baths, barber shops, and by secing that the premises of the villase are kept clean and orderly and the houses in good repair, {k) Draw the women into the productive work of the farm, and give them opportunities of develop- ing their qualifications and increasing their experience by relieving them, as far as possible, frow domestic duties through organizing ereches, kindergartens, ete. v Membership Bleotions of new members take place at a general meeting of the kolhoaniki to congider candidates pro- posed by the administration, All workers of both sexes having reached the age of sixteen years, are olisible to become menbers of an artel. Rulake and all persons deprived of eivil rights are ineligible for nembersaip, But this doos not apply-~ (a) Yo children of outlews who for some years have been engaged in communal agricultural labor and have worked coasclentiously. To former kulake and members of kulak fami- lies who, having beon exiled to new acttlements on gecount of teir anti-oviet and anti-col- lective attitude, having during the past tnree years ziven evidence of their reform by honest labor and subordination to Soviet regulations, Independent peasants who sold their uorses less than two years before being admitted to an artel and53 who possessed no seed, wust within six years repay to the artel out of their own income the price of a horse and given quantity of seed. 8, Expulsion from an artel can be effected only by the decision of 2 general meeting of members at which sot less than two-thirds of all members are pre~ sent. In the protocol of expulsion must be shown the number of members present at the meeting and the mem- ber may appeal asainst his expulsion to the District xecutive Conmittes, and lis appeal eventually be decided by the Preslaua of the Gomittee in the pre- sence of the director and managing committee of the artel. vi The Property of the Artel %, Wew members on entering an artel must pay an entrance fee of between tairty and forty roubles per dvor according to their means, ‘The entrance fees of new wembers aro paid into the indivisible fund, 10, One-quarter to one-half of the property brought in by the new members of the artel shall be credited to the indivisible fund, ‘The remaining part of the property shall be considered ag the Gividend earning contribution of the member con~ cerned, In the case of a member leaving the artel, the managenent shall make a settlement with and return to him ths value of his dividend-sarning contribution in the form of money. No member leaving an artel ean be allotted any of the land belonzins to the artel. 11. The gross produce from both the arable and Livestock sides of the artel farm is disposed as fol- lows, in order of presedonce: (a) The delivery to the State of compulsory quoteas, the repayment of seed loang and payment in kind to the M.T.3. (Machine Tractor Stations). (b) Provision of seed for the following agricul- tural year and fodder for the cattle for the fol- lowing year; the formation of a reserve fund as an assurcnee against harvest failures. (c} Provision for the subsistence of invalids, the azed those temporarily {noapacitated from work, the families of serving soldiers, and to supplying meals to olildren In the creches and to orpnans. Tae total amount allotted for these4 purposes is determined by the wembors at 2 gon- eral meeting, but shall not exceed two per cent of the farmer's total produce, (d) Marketable surplus as determined at a general meeting of uembers for sale either to the State or on the open uarket. (9) The reuainder of the artel's farm produce shall ve divided among the manbers of the artel according to the number of thoir labor days, 12, The monetary income of the « tome ‘tal is allotted {a} The payment of taxes and insurance premiums, b) A dividend of not less than 60 to 70 per cent of the whole income to the kolhozniki in proportion to their lavor-days. (ce) Necessary current expenditures such as re~ pairs to machinery, treatment of animals, mea- Bures against pests, ete. (d) Administration expenses, not to exceed two por cent of tie farms gross money inoone, {e) Sultural purposes, such as technical courses for solhozniki, ereches for the chiléren of kol- hoznikl, clubs’and reading rooms, ote, (f) Tne indivisible fund, not exceeding ten per cent of the sross money income, for purchasing faru, stock, erecting new buildings, and generally for inoreasins and inproving the capital re- sourees of the artel, The artel aiainistration draws up the artel's annual budget, which however, susl be approved and adopted at a general meeting of menbers, hen passed, the budget is obligatory on the artel administration, which oust obtain the approval of a gen- eral meeting of memberg before funds may be diverted from one object to another. VII The Organization, Payment, and Discipline of Labor 13. The vork of a collective farm is normally to be performed by the members of theartel, Cutside assist- is only bo be resorted to when it is nocessary to call in the services of an expert, or when ordinary hired lavor is reyulred to supplesent the full laboro g strenjtn of the artel during a rush of work, Outside hired labor uay be employed in building. 14, The meubers of the artel shail be organized into "brigades". Agricultural brigades are organized for a poriod of not less than @ coaplete erep cycle. They shall be attached to tie same fields for the whole period. ivery agrioultural brigade shall be allotted the necessary aaguinery, implements, enimals and fara buildings to enable lt to carry out ite work, Livestock brigades are formed for a period of not less than three years. ach brigade has a number of ead of stock allotted to it with the necessary con- plement of implenents, draft animals, buildings, ete, ‘he members of the brigades simli be allotted to jobs by their brigades, wuo are to avoid any favouri- tism or discriminaiion'and shall pay due regard to each individual's skill and capacity. Women are not to work for one month before and one month after enild- birth, and during these two months are to be credited with half their average earnings. 15, All agricultural work Is to be renuwerated on the piccevork system. The managesont of the artel is to work out scales of work and fix the labor-day equivalents. ‘he scheme must be approved at a goneral meeting of members. ‘the daily task in every sort of job must be with- in the capacity of the ordinary meuber working con- seientiously, In determining the labor-dey equivalent of the unit task (e.z., ploughing a hectare, sowing a lectare, picking a hectare of cotton, threshiny « ton of grain} due consideration must be given bo the degree of skill required, the difficulty of the work, ote., and its importunce for the community. The brigadiers must reckon up tie laborsday earn- ings of each member of their brigade at least once a week and enter the result in the member's labor books. Avery sonth the administration must expose a list of members showing the number of labor-days earned by each during the preceding month. At the end of the year the book-keeper shell cal- culate each member's total earnings, and after a counter check by the brigadiers and the presideat, a complete Statouent, siall be exposed in public at least two weeks before tae date of the general meoting at which the dis- tribution of the artel's income is to be decided,56 Zf an agricultural or livestock brigade, by rea~ son of excellent vork, returns a ureater yield fron its land or animals than the average for the whole farm, the manageaent may award each member a bonus up to ten per cent wore labor-day units than Aave actually been earned, up to twenty per cent to the brigadier. Tn the’case of a brizade returning a lower yield than the average throuci bad work, a deduction up to ten per cant from the labor-day earnings of each mem= ber may be made. The division of the divisible income of the artel among: the meubers shail be strictly prorata according to their labor-day earnings. 16. very member say receive woney advances dur~ ing the year up to fifty per cent of the sum already due hin, Advances in ind to members say be mada after thresiings ave becun from the ten to fifteen per cent of the amount thresied which may be devoted at once to the fsrm's internal consusption. In farns groviny teeaniesl erops such as cotton, Flax, ete, money advances may be made to members to an ageregate amount not exceeding fifty per cent of the value received for current sales of produce. That is, the distribution of the artel's wonetary income shall not he held back till tne total crop has beon sold, 17. All members of the artel must obey the de- cision of the general meeting and the administration, take #11 possible care of the faru's property and State machines working on the farm, and generally do their work honestly snd obaerve proper discipline, iiisbehavior, disobedience, laziness snd so on is punished according to the artel's rules, esc. a badiy done job mist be done again without pay; an offender ay be censured or reprimanded at a senoral neetiny of hembers, may pave his name written on the "ylack" board, (names of bad workers on "black" boards, nawes of exeuplary worsers aro displayed on "red" boards), may be fined up to five labor-days, nay be devraded to a lower job, or aay be temporarily suspended frost work. If all attempts to reform a menber by persuasion or punishment fail, the management may provose his ex- pulsion to a general meeting of members, Hxpulsion nay foliow under the provisions of Clause 8 above, 18, Any dawage or loss caused to collective or State propery, by nerligency, abuse of the property or aninals belonsin: to the fara or the machinery of the M.7,8. shall be rezarded as treason towards the coomunity end as support of the enemies of the People,57 Any person accused of such erimes shall bo handed over to the authorities for punishment accordin the laws of the Vorkerg’ and Peasants' States, VIIE the Admin: ration of the Affairs of the &rtel 1s, The aftaira of the artel are controlled by bers in cuneral assembly; during the periods general neetings decisions are taken by the administration elected and Appointed by the memberg in generel aaseubly. 20, The general assembly is the hich Its funetions are: st authority, (a) To elect the president, the uanaginz com mittee, and tae revisisnary commission, the last- named deine confirmed hy the District txecutive Coumittee (ive. the local Governaent authority) y {b) To decide on the admission of nev menbors and the expulsion of existins members, (ce) Yo approve and coufirm the annual production plan, the eatigetes of incoming ani outuoings, the standard of work and the Velue of different kinds of work in labor-days, (a) To confirn contracts entered into wit the LTS. (9) fo approve and confirm tho geueral annual Peport of the administration in conjunction with the revisionary commission, as “ell as the separ- ate renorts of the administration on the most important activities of the artel. {f) To approve and confirm the amount of the Various funds aad the labor-day equivalent in produce and money. g confirm the internal rules ani regula- tions of the artel, in all tae above mentioned questions a decision the Sedeebrsieaidon 1s invita “untkl confirmed by for ordinary dveisions w quoruc of one-halt of the fall aunber of members is necessary, but a decision fe the followin: questions requires tis presence at the meoting of at least two-thirds of the full membership: Blection of president and nanasing conaittes.58 Uxpulsion of a weber, She determination of the amounts of the various funds All resolutions are passed by 4 majority vote re= corded by open voting, 21. Tho managing coma ttee of five to nine men- bers, acvordins to the size of the wtel, is chosen by oral aoetine of members from enon; their own num ber. The comiittee is elected for a poriod of two years. ‘The comuittes iz tie executive organ of the gen- Linvetiny of aeaters, to which It 1s responsible for all its activities. 22, The presidesb, who is ex officio chairman of tite handsin» committee, 1s resnonsible for the day- to-day voutine of the farm and for seeing that the de- cisions of tue comaittes are carried out. The oresident aust calla neeting of the com- mittee not less than twice a mouth for the purpose of considering vurrens satvers and taking any necessary decisions, he committee shall appoint one of its number as vice president, who sas11 take his orders from the president, 25, Brivgadiers and managers of the livestock de~ partments siwii be appointed by the committee for a period of nov less than tuo years. 24, Vor keeping the books and accounts of the farm the comaittee nay appoint a book-keeper from among the members of the artel or onvaye an outside book-keeper at a salary, The bookkeeper shall keep the accounts according to the approved system, and is directly subordinate to the committee and the’ president. The bookXseper shall have no personal authority regarding the disposal of the farnits means, nor in re- spect of advances io membera in money and Kind. These matters can only be decided by the comsittee and the president, 11 documents relating to payments of money require the signatures of the book=xeeper and the president or vice-president, 25, he revisionary commission slinll chee’ all the ecoloule-finaneial actions of the committes to en- sure tnal all receists in uoney and kind are properly accounted for, and that ell outgoings and expenditures are asreeable 46 the reguletiens ond constitution of the artei, be suard asainst waste and the Improper use of the arbel's property aad to ensure that the artel, fulfils ite obligations towards the State, and to see tuat 211 debts are punctually paid and money due col- leated.Wue revisionary commigsion snall hold an audit four tines a year, “The anntl accounts shall ve audited and formally certified as correct before sub- mission to the general assembly The revisionare comission is regponsivle to the general casembly for all its actions, The provisions of the Artel are very plain. Upon ou- terins a collective, the member turns over to it all major farm buildings (except dwelling house), all draft animals, all dub a desienated nunber of Livestock, all equipment ox- cept sm@ll tools, and ali fodder and seed. These are henee- forth the property of the collective, and the individual member nay not hereafter seauire property of this desorip- tion, The individual somber may own bis dwelling house, but not the land upon whieh it is built, such minor buildings as are needed in connection with his allotted plot of lana, a linited amount of livestock and small tools, In general, the individual is permitted to own suck farm property as ig reyuired in cultivating the plot of lend allotted to him. “itn 20s exceptions, not even the collective is allowed to own its own tractors, combines, and other large machanized equiamont, Nearly ali farm equipment of this types is owned by the Meenine and Tractor Stations, which are state agencies.” avery able-bodied member of a collestive is obliged to perform a Specified amount of work determined by the 1 woted in Hubbard, op. gite, pp. 185-37. 2zouse Document No, 754, Communism in Action, p. 75.60 governing body each year, subject to certain minimum stand- ards prescribed for all collectives. The specified amount of labor to be devoted to the collective is expressed in terns of "workdays". A workday is measured, aot in terms of time, but in terms of the type of work performed and the quality of the perforn nee, Production quotas are made ' for different types of work, ie number of workdays credited for one actual day's work may vary from one-half to two, depending on the type of work and on performance in relation to the quota, Skilled work, such as tractor driv- ing, is given a higher valuation than unskilled work, In otner words one member may earn the prescribed number of working days in much less actual time than another who does a different type of work,> The member is very largely free to spend the remainder of his time as he chooses, He may earn extra credits, work on his individual plot, or engage in other work, Collectives are rejuired to furaish workers to the state for road building and certain other purposes. On the averase, only a few days work is required, Sometimes col- lectives contract, on a legally voluntary basis, to provide labor for state organizations, Gollectives are not sup- posed to employ outsiders for work on the collective ex- cept in the case of certain specialized or technical labor, pabiaeep De 76:61 but this reulation is not always observed. the collective is carried on in brigades and squads, each of which is civen a nite tesk, The triade leader allocates work, maintains discipline and is renerally Tespondible for the performence of ita assigned task, The system corresponds very closely to that used in the army. In recent years a system of bonuses has been doveloned where- by individual members of the brigade recelve extra compensa- tion for superior performance by their brigades or squads, Once more the Soviet Covernnent has tad to recognize the part that individual ambition pleye in the work problem. A member's income is derived partly fron sale of the produce raised on his own plot of land, and partly from dividends received from the collectives in produce and cash, and are tased on the credits earned. The valus of a workday is determined at the end of the year by dividing the collective incone, after certain deductions, by the total number of workde © reliable estimates are available os to the monetary values of peasant incomes. According to Hubbard, the aver- age money earnings through work on the kolhoz is 164 roubles. ‘The average money derived tron grain sales vould bring this figure up to avout 210 roubles. ‘Mo other sources of incane are work outside the kolioz and products from the land allot- nient of the peasant, The following table ives the averace62 money receipts in roubles from different sources per dyor (peasant) in 150 avory (collective farms) in 1934, TABLE 1 AVERAGE MONEY RECEIPTS IN ROUBLES FROM DIFFERENT SOUKOES OF Tilt PEASANTS ON COLLMCTIVE FARMS IN 19594 Labor-Day | dale of | Sale of | Wages Other Total Dividends | Produce | Live Marned | Sources Animals | By Out- side work 239.37 | 1111.63 | 295.63 | 123,57 165.07 | 1935.27 12.4 574 15.3 6.4 8.5 100 This is probably not the income of the peasants through- out Russia. ilubbard stresses that the figure refersto a very small portion of the country and that the collectives investigated were above the average in production and income, There are many differences between the income levels of the collective farms: some are more prosperous, others less, Administration varies from farm to farm; in some kolhozy the peasants get three or four times as much money as they do in others, while the difference in the grain dividend is 4jubbara, op. git., p. 176.63 great, ranging from less than two kilos to about ten kilos per labor day. Methods of marketing also allow for dif- ferent returns.> The marketing of farm produce in Russia bears some resomblanve to that in capitalist countries. Normally most American agricultural products are marketed through various types of "middlemen". In the Soviet Union middle~ men are strictly forbidden, ‘The collectives and their mem- bers, however, are permitted to sell a part of the produce themselves in open town markets, the only semblance of "free" markets remaining in the Soviet Union. There are, in general, three ways of marketing the pro- duce raised on the collective farms, A stated quantity per hectare or per unit of livestock must be sold to the state at a fixed rate, Tas “contribution” is in reality a form of tax, and the governwent sets a relatively low price, An equally large or larcer proportion goes to the Machine and Tractor stations as compensations for their services, A second market is state industrial enterprises and the cooper- atives, with which the collectives make contracts at prices considerably higher than those paid for the forced contri- bution, A third type of market is the "free" or relatively free, town market, Here the collectives may sell any pro- duce otuerwise not disposed of, and here members of collec- tives may sell the produce raised on their own plots as well Syouse Document No. 754, Communism in Action, p. 76,64 as produce received from the collective as their share in the receipts of the enterprise.® This privilege of sarketing produce directly in town markets is very important, since prices in these markets aro generally well above the prices paid by the state or its agents, ‘lubbard estimates that in 1935 the sale of farm produce on the open markets yielded a larger sum than sales to the state and state orgenizations, although the latter were at least four times as great in volume.? Speculation in prices, however, is strictly controlled. Buying any~ thing for resale and not personal consumption is prohibited. Likewise, the kolhozniki may not sell to a middleman; if he has only one dozen eggs he may not send thom in by another member of the collective--all sales must be made from the producer directly to the consumer in the free markets, The rule las been difficult to enforce, “ven es late as 1938 complaints were made in Pravda, official pub- lication of the Soviet government, that speculation was being carried on in the markets, sot only by professional speculators but also by ordinary kolhozniki who included their neighbors' produce with their own, ‘The governnent controls the collective farms, It owns Stpsa. Tiubbard, op. gite, Pe 208,the land and the major instru ments of production, the tractors and mechanized equipment. According to the Charter of the artel, the internal administration of the collectives is largely left to the General Assembly of the collective and the various officers and agencies selected by and re- sponsible to it, Internal self-government, however, is subject to the conditions prescribe in the Charter itself-- under the Soviet's system of economic planning, the collec~ tive must adapt its operations to the state plan, and to the specific goals set for it in the plan, Sosplan, the State Planning Agency, annually prescribes the scope and nature of the work for each collective and sets certain "control figures" or goals. Tne collective then prepares a detailed production plan. This can not change assignments or methods prescribed by the Government. Periodic reports must be made to the Government on the per- centage of the fulfillment of the plan,8 The GPU aids the Government in keeping check of the extent to which the col- lectives carry out orders, In theory, the kolhoz is a co-operative and democratic association of peasants engaged in farming an area of land, with fixed end inviolable boundaries, granted by the State in perpetuity and free of rent, The members of the kol- hoz » dn theory, may elect their own officers, and have Suouse Document Wo. 754, Communism in Action, Dp. 77.66 some voice in the determination of what crops shall be erown and the disposition of them, In reality the collec tive Ig an absolute dictatorship--tha Cosplan sakes out the Plan for eash year, and party man, selected by tie Govern- ment, see that it is carried out. The kolhoznixi is free to the extent tint he ean do ag he is told in every respect, ay D or be deported if ne rebels in an. The Machine Yracter Stations play no little part in the rerinentation of the collective farus, These md their dn tion in coonerative associations iomed before the era of Colloctivization. Groups of peasants would pool their resources to buy 2 tractor which would be used on all the farms. The sesle of ynent for tha uso of the tractors was fixed by the mutual apreenent between the members of each coonerative. Towards the end of 1929, after compul~ sion had been decided upon, the first Uachine Tractor Stations were established for the sole purpose of cultivating the Cislds of collective farms, At first, the collectives were not obliged to accept the servicas of the lachine tractor stations, ani payment, from those that did, was usually made in money. The tractors, under this plan, were hired out to the kolhozy. Siuppard, op. elt., 7. 158.a7 4n 1953 @ new deores governing lachine Tractor Stations Was issued, and in 1954 a standard contract was drawn up. Te Kolhozy waa forced to use the services of the tractors. The contract specifies the azount and nature of the work to be done and also that the Machine Tractor Stations should assist the collectives with advice on technical questiona, Such as the zotation of erops and financial plans, and ceive Instructions to wenbers of the kelnoz in the use ond care of machinery. ‘The Kelhoz, on its part, agrecd to provide all he field labor necessary and to put into effect the instructions issued by tho district authorities. is pays nent for the vse of its sachines, the kolhoz was to dea Liver a cortain pereontars of harvest to the State eol« jecting orranization ovcr and above thet which was to be peid to the State os a tax, To tractor agi ord, conbine noctenies, and other nec= Sesary Workers sre us a uaus) thine members of the kolhozy. Wractor drivers are patd by tao kelhoz on whose lane they to 4 seale of labor-days dow in a deeree of vay 15, lose,l0 4 new euntract vas dram up in 1939, Tis was not a ollel, but hed the Pores af uw. 4 table showed the rreoise rou of land to be ploughed, or eultivated, the 10tmia., mr. 155,68 depth of the furrows, tho dates when each class of work was to de completed, ‘The kolhoz bas to provide a specified number of field workers, have its own machinery and tmple~ ments in food condition when required, and provide th needed anount of cood seed when and where vented, Yor a tine after the Machine Tractor Stations were first establisued exerciged 4 larys wnount of politi- eal control over the collective farun. A "Politioal De- sent" Waa attached to Station to supervise the Kolvos that tis ers of these dew haoiuents vere Comuniet Part; nd aha nob rep= resent the interests of the Yor two years they vere La control of e211 th the power to dis~ pod the collective sath oaciies of ne thet nay be cultural, interests, ont that satisfac~o contented and have souething to gain by honest work, The frequent and numerous laws and decrees as well as the changes in general policy show that the condi- tion of agriculture is stil) far from satisfactory, and one is forced to conclude that this is often due as much to mere icnorance ani supidity as to wilful carelessness or even sabotage,+ Uivia., p. 166.CHAPTER ¥ DOMESTIC ZCONOMY IN COLLECTIVE FARMS An accurate appraisal of the domestic economy of goviet Russia is difficult on account of the lack of official figures on price indices end family budgets, Publication of these figures was discontinued in 19%0 by the Government. Variations in the purchasing power of the rouble also make comparisons difficult, This is especially true in attempt- ing to compare Russia with other countries; the rouble is an isolated currency without connection with foreign money marketa,t The English pound is vorth so many American dol- lars so comparisons between English and American standards is cowparatively easy. The itussian roble has no such value, and the changes by the Government increase the difficulties of comparison--since the bezinning of 1948 the Government hes radically changed the value of the rouble. All the money in the country was called in by the Government, and was then depreciated in value fifty per cent,” An article which had previously cost twenty roubles under the new Juenry A, Freund, Russia From A to Z, p. 567. ®one Dallas Morning News, April 1, 1948, Section II, De Se 707 valuation would cost forty roubles. It is characteristic of Russian economy that no change was made in the price of the products, The net effect ws a depreciation of fifty per cent in the currency. There are still other factors which make a factual appraisal of the domestic economy difficult, One of these is the aethods of payment for labor, ‘The kolhozniki is paid for his work in both money and kind, he amounts have varied from time to time due to the many changes made by the Government in its efforts to increase production, Another factor is the number of types of stores--Govern- ment, kolhoz, and private, Prices of articles vary from one to enother, The quality of the goode available, also, influence their worth to the consumer, The amount of goods and services furnished free or at nominal cost during various periods must also be considered. General state- meats about living standards are of doubtful accuracy, be- cause of tne wide variety of peoples and cultures included in Soviet territory. Life is very different for the Kazakh nomad in his tent, the Mohammedan Uzbek, the Ukaranian wheeat-zrowing peasant, the Caucasian mountaineer, the in- dustrial worker in the creat Ural industrial area, and the eity dweller in Nloseow, No one standard of living fits these varied people and ocoupations, The "Iron Curtain" effectually conceals such that is happening at the present time and that which has happened within the last few years.7 However, there is much available information relating to production of consumers' goods, methods of distribution, social and cultural services rendered by the state, and variations in wages received by different types of workers, Sources friendly as well as those unfriendly to tho present Soviet regime have made such information public in various ways, Discussions, therefore, will follow these various aspects of the domestic economy of Russia under Gonmunist rule. ‘fhe production of consumers' goods has stressed the sanufacture of tractors and other heavy farm machinery, In 1940 Russia produced more agricultural mohinery than any other country in the world, not even excluding the United States.5 In production of combines or harvesters it also lead the world, both in quantity and in quality, As early as 1934 Russia also saw the imminent possibility of another war and began the manufacture of heavy machinery which would inevitably be needed, The consequences were that light industry, or supplies for the consumer at home, suf- fered a decrease in production, ‘his in turn, worked many hardships on the people, The first Five-Year Plan had called for this large in- crease in heavy industry as well as other production, Siewlett Johnson, The Soviet Power, p. 144.73 According to Fisher the more the Five-Year Plan expanded, 4 the scarcer food and other commodities became,* Private entorprises catering to everyday necessities of life were abolished, and the covernment concentrated chiefly on the expansion of heavy industry. Large quantities of victuals-- butter, eggs, and meat--were shipped abroad in exchange for foreign machinery, In the beginning of the Plan it was im= possible to obtain butter, milk, eggs, kerosene, galoshes, tea, sugar, clothing, shoestrings, almost anything without standing in line for many hours under rain, snow, or scorching sun, Soon standing in lines did not help, The stores were eupty. The Government explained the situation to the people in these words; Alexei never looks far enough ahead, To be sure we make sacrifices now. Food cards will give us each two pounds of sugar on free sale in Latvia, We export all we can of flour, of cloth, of everything we lack here. Wo deny our own people in order to get foreign ourrency we can buy abroad the machines we need to build our own industry, All tais speeds the World Revolution...Look at our position. Tae government owns the factories, the banks, the raw materials. Our industries pay no swollen profits to investors or owners, In a few years we shall be able to dump our manufactures abroad at any price, and always cheaper then the capitalists, ight’now my mill is underselling your American textiles in Yersia, We shall be the World's largest dumping nation, and the more we dump abroad the more we will increase unemployment and discontent-- 4u, Fisher, My Lives in Russia, p 13,” anong foreign workmen. Hevolutionaty situations will arise which our foreign Communist parties can use, The eventual spread of Communism, seams to be the funda- mental aim of the program of industry. The people were taught to deny themselves consumers goods in order that the Government might have a surplus with which to further ite work of spreading discontent among foreign workers, a pre~ lude to Communistic propaganda, One of the characteristics of the Russian propaganda is its long-distance aims-~it has displayed remarkable patience in waiting for the consum- mation of desired ends, Fisher says that the "new plenty" that had been pro= mised the Mussian people was comparative, There actually never was a moment when the supply of goods in Russia equalled the demand, Even during the "fat" years, between 1938 and 1956 when the wheat harvests were good, one had to stand in line several hours in an overcrowded store to buy a pair of shoos, 2 man's suit, @ piece of goods, a bed sheet or a pair of stockings, Medicines, drugs, and many necessities were always hard to obtain, Shoes, stockings, suits, books, furniture, textiles were being turned out in quantities litherto unknown in the country's history, but millions of new buyers had been created by the increase in industrial workers, Pre-Communist peasants had sade their own shoes, woven tueir own clothing, and made their own furniture. All these millions now wanted and could affordi} to buy manufactured shoes, ready-made clothing, books, fur= niture, and miscellaneous manufactured articles. Goods were manufactured in great quantities, but the people still had to wait in line to get them.® The scarcity of consuner poods is vividly illustrated by the story of Nina I, Alexeiev, "why I didn't want my Children to Crow up in Soviet Russia". vith ner family, she managed to escape and come to the United States. She says that on a typical working day she had to get up be- tween five and six o'clock to "queue" up at the neighbor- hood store in soarch of a few vegetables or a loaf of bread. The rations given the workers, she said, were never enough to still the family's hunger. Tea and dry bread made up the breakfast, This was cooked on a single-burner kerosene stove. It took her an hour to get to work on "an evil- smelling streetcar packed tight with grouchy humanity". The thought wont with her all day that she had been able to leave no milk or eges for the children,” Alexeiev is the wife of the one-time commercial attache of the Soviet Nabassy in Vexico, and she was writing in 1946, Conditions have not materially improved, it is indicated by present-day happenings in spite of the great increases which Spisher, op. cite, ps 21. Tyina I, Alexeiev, "I Didn't Want My Children to Grow up in Soviet Russia", Reader's Digest, June, 1947, pp. 11-16. Reader's Digest,76 have been mide in production, An article "How to Wait" in the December 9, 1946 issue of Time stresses the domestic problems of Russia and the influence that the "blind-folded, voiceless~193,000,000" were wielding in determining Russia's course, A new Five-Year Plan indicated that the Russian would by 1950, if the Plan was completely fulfilled, still ave less sugar than in 1913, less beef and mutton than in 1929, less oil a d soap than in 1937, less pork than in 1938, less living space, shoes and stockings than int1940.8 Increased production, it is indicated, has not brought a plentiful supply of goods to the consumer, Further proof of this 1s an analysis made rosently by 3. Burton Heath, SUA Staff Correspondent, on the amount of soods the Russian worker could buy with his pay check, He made his analysis on the recent deflationary decrees and the infor- mation they contained, Meath estimates that @ Moscow factory vorker could buy the followin: provisions with his entire pay envelope for one week: pounds of good veal pounds of sole pounds of macaroni ges pounds of rye bread quarts of milk ounces of tea-and 24 kopecks, or three cents in change. wsvoynn Suuow to Wait", Time, December 9, 1946, p. 30, 93, Burton Heath, sian Worker's Weekly Wage Won't Pay ¥ood Costs, Tie Denton Xecord~Chronicle, January 1, 1948, De 4,77 he shop fores my who drew f differont wage, could buy three pounds of veal instead of two and other things in proportion but se are only bare essentials, No mention is made of sugar, butter, condimehts, fruita, or desserts, Likewise no rent, no transportatibn money, no lunch money, no doctor or entertainment or reajing material. There are no extras for clothing, A wool dress for a women would cost four week's salary, and for a ook suit for s man it would | require the wages for two months.) The scarcity of zoods raises prices out of all proportion to their value, The methods of distribution $f goods employed by the Soviets are varied. Distribution|1s poorly done sonsider- ing the number of people to be seyved. The following ao- count has been given: In Russia in 1912 there were 1 million trade units, At the end of the New seonomic Policy in 1927 there were not more thay 648,000, But after the obolition of private trade there remained only 285,000 in 1933, “After tha, |under the Second Plan, which fostered the production of consumption xoods, the number rose to 555,000 units in 1938, Of these there were 154,000 stores in |the towns, catering to @ total of 50,000,000 inhabitants, and 200,000 in the copntry districts with thelr 120,000,000 inhabi- tants. In 1956-87 delivery service as very rare, even among the best shops in Moscow, although it was said to be in- creasing, re was no daily delivery of such artioles as bread or milk at homes, Credit “9 not sranted by Soviet Wrpgund, Ov. Ghte, pe 542.7% shops, Installment purchases were rare, and wien made the purchaser obtained his purchase on payment of the last in- stalluent, In the United States, the common practice in installment buying is for the purchaser to have the use of the article while paying for it. Consumer goods are sold through consumer cooperatives and in farmers’ markets in the rural areas: and in state- owned and operated stores of various types in the cities, Government shops include large department stores, and also specialized shops selling only one type of commodity. "Closed shops" are those in which only one category of workers can buy. Suchshopa exist for the Red Army and for other special zroups, such as Government officials, higher technical personnel, and university and high school teachers, Luxury zoods, made by cooperative artels, are often sold through artel stores. ‘The Comnissionariata of Food, Light, and Industry also operate stores in which various food pro- ducts are sold direct to the public.) the "free markets” waintained for the sale of products of the collective farms have previously been mentioned. The kolhozy are permitted to sell products from their in~ dividually owned cattle and cultivated acreaze in these free markets, but they are required to do the mrketing then- Selves, The services of a middleman are prohibitedy-not even a neighbor is allowed to sell a dozen eggs for a fel- low worker.79 The standard of living varies from section to section end from class to class, The use of the word "class" may appear to be a misnomer; Communism, it will be renenbered, was supposed to forma "classless" society, but in reality there lias been a steady division of society into classes. This is true, even on the collective farms where workers are classified and peid according to the type of work that bey perfors The average number of workers ina kolhoz at the bogin- ning of 1935 was 124, hich may be taken as approxinately correc’ for the follow ng two or three years, This figure, too, probably included 211 capable of earning labor-days, such as woren who work’on the farm only at busy times and occupy themselves at other times with housework and in the cultivation of the plot of land allotted to each family for its individual use, Vhe average gross money income and the amount distributed on account of labor-day divi- dends per kolhoz in 1935 and 1937 are shown in Table 2. TABLE 2 AVERAGE TOTAL GROSS MONEY ING OME PER KOLHOZ Tl 1932 anp 193712 Item 1933 1937 Average total money income R R per KoLhOZ «ee ee ee ee og of 25,300 66,500 Average sum per kolhoz distributed among the kolhoznixi. .... + «| 6,100 51,800 22 uoted from Hubbard, op. cits, p. 218.80 The aversge dividend per worker vas, therefore, % in 1953 and 2, 256 in 1987, Tho nus Poet lebe: by the averare kolhozni%4 11 1987 vas 220, se rot 2he money value of nari oub na a each kolhoza. ned abo Rost easas and wife, tiv sees inee ence : Labor-days cama te Tess Hen 2.50 cee 7 the labor-d Seen on fe coe portion of ie saliits tetul neon. In 1037 averace inesis oe n tamstyeak of aeev ae R.1606. rie: Poe ee outside » incons as tractor Az sn@ hundlera’e states that tn 1837 thers vere chout 25,000 Producers! Co- 1 Cooperatives collectives. operatives, Inter aytels, and ones of from Live to y wundred or Bach of these was com! more menbers and in a few cases nuskered ag may as Sive thousand, In them over threo uillion people vere encared in makine all kinds of wares from pearl buttons to barres and 018 to exquisite luces boiler, from erade wooden vacon wv and embroideries. They operated brick-yerds, Line-kilns, qluas plants, distilleries, canneries, buxeries., They sent semi-finished goods to the State fnetories or took from them products to finish. They rendered all kinds of services from house-building to tailorinc, and the carrying of baggage atel airports, wharves, and depots. A ohain of 7,500 repair mended books, shoes, samovars, sevin> machines, « instruments, Half the total cater of fish Fisherman's Collectives and most of tb Pure of Trappers and Munters in Leather=Tamnere; Charcoal ~lurn of Seulptérs and and@ Toy Makers; Associatio: their own ateliers, of ‘rite: their own wrentse: ne kolhoz, thon, sas Ats kolnognilti besides tha return fran lahor-do. turn fron different xolioz, too, vary. done ure uanaced y than athe: more sffloient: + Soils and climate aiffer in the various rerious, No amount ov sovernmat ald can eque alize theae differences, Crops vary also in some regions the main crop is industrial raw material--surar beets or cotton, Taxes on this type of nroduct sro levied in money end not in kind. On the other hand, in the erain-produc- ing areas the main portion of the tax is paid in kind--a certain proportion of the harvested erop. In this instance, however, the kolhoz also raises a larco part of hie food, supply. The returns from a kolhoz, therefore, depend on more than one factor: the ability of the farmer, the typo of soil and climate, the Kind of product raised and the amount of taxes levied, 13.) 5ert ays Jilldams, The Soviets, pp. 164-65.The anoant of money toat the kolhoznikt have to spend is shown in Table 3, TABLE 3 DISTRIBUTION OF EXPENDITURES MADE BY THE MOLMDZNTAT IN TEE YRARS 1934 To 1987 STAN . expenditures | 1954 1935 1936 1937 + Purchases of which--|a1,6 80,0 78,2 79.7 Industrial goods 35.4 36.2 38.5 38,4 Foodstufzs 28.9 25.5 24.5 27.5 Livestook 17.0 13,4 WAL 10.1 Taxation, Loan sub- seriptious, and other obligatory and "voluntary" | 10,7 9.7 37 5.8 payments Sundries 747 10.5 15,1 14.5 Cultural Aol Social services Le According to the data in Table S, the kolhoznik appa- rently has to buy a considerable percentage of his food sinee it accounts for wore than a fourta of uis purcuases, 4 steady Increase in tie amount of money, too, spent for industrial goods is also noticeable, ‘The perooutages spent for livestock show a steady decrease rancin= from 17,0 per Mprennea Heonony, No. 8, 1938, p. 1128s cent in 1934 to 10.1 ver cent in 1937, the production of technical crops (industrial raw material) in the artels has been one of the main causes for the hich percentage of food purchased, Another thine that tends to increase the proportion of peasant income spent on food 1s the increas- ing number of uechanios and other specialists who work on the artels ani receive all their pay in uoney wares. the averare oxponditura in 1987 per dvor in twenty= eicht proviness on nanufsotured coods was 2.678.70, of which 2,659.20 was spent on “ouls of personal consumption, the balence of about %.20 beinr presumably spent on such things os window vlass, rardening tools, and other things required by douestie ceonory, The money for personal use was epent on clothine ang footwear, consumable roods (tea, purer, and the Lie), aon-conawwoble cools, and cultural he sniount of money spent in 1937 rer cent preater non that for 1936, that spent for the same uses indicate thet the incone of wolkound!: “us InersaseJ ng well as the amount of goods avetlaple vor surehuse.1S En ti kelhoanitd are tres to take employment in sever, they are enployed Aindustes. In aetuel practios, 1Seupbard, op. git., pp. 219-20,84 according to a State plan, A decree published in 1930 pro- videsfor the recruitment of surplus kolhoz labor, wvery kolnoznik gets @ contract from his employing enterprise, ana when the work is of a permanent nature, the aluinun term of engagenent is twelve months. If there oocurs a period when ald the koliosalki are not neoded for the avail- able work, the contract provides that they can be sent to other Xolhoz or enterprises, If ten or sore kolhogniki are gent together, they are placed in charge of a politi ally trustworthy and reliable leader. On arrival at their destination they are mot by a representative of the employ- ing enterprise and provided with housin: and subsistence,16 These provisions indioate bint the oluognix may be drafted for labor ata distance from his home artel, that ue is under supervision of some kind, and that he has no choice in the type of work which he is sent to do, This indi~ cates that the Governnent uas absolute coutrol over tue lives of the kolhoznii and that their labor is ab the dis- posal of the Goaplan. The living conditions of the kolhozniki ave not in- proved to any marked oxtent in respect to housing. voasants comprise more than fifty per cent of the totel population of the Soviet Union, so the following description applies to the living conditions of a high percentage of the nia, p. 250.BS Population, An account of the weasreness of peasant oxist- ance and written as late as 1938 state: Alwost every peasant home still uses the old- fasaioned brick stove wich combines tae functions of heat supply and cooking. Moat refrigerators are pits dug deep into the groumlin whieh the winter's ice is packed with straw or sawdust, Tne village well is the usual source of water supply. in the typical Soviet village, practically overy fenily owns its own "bathhouse", a long shack, vith wooded benches inside, located on the bank of tho usual suall brook. 1? Another writer, however, paints a different picture of the housing conditions, He says that the old hut, built of clay, without a chimney, and with sleeping bunks and tiny windows has disappemred, any new houses with more light and space have been built, ‘The dirt and filth prevalent in the peasant homes of the pre-Conmunist era have been re- placed with cleanliness, and furniture, and crockery have appeared in many homes, In many regions, the villages have electric lights, a pump, and paved streets. Public buildings lave been erected for the village Soviet council, the Kolhoz administration, the school, a reading room, and frequently a club, a day nursery and hospitals, The stendard of living, however, is lower on the col- lective farms than it is in the modern industrial areas, The principle of paying different wage scales to the in- dustrial worker and to the agricultural laborer may account 1. i. EB, Tracy, Our Country, Our People and Theirs, p. 55.36 for this. Suvi conditions exist in tue capitalist count- ries. According to the early Yolshevik doctrine, labor should be rewarded according to its quality, that is the amount of energy expended and the skill required, But in Soviet Russia, just asin capitalist countries, renunera- tion is still determined by supply and demand ana the uacket velue of the product. Although the number of kol- hoaniki have steadily decreased--due to increased industrial~ ization--they still constitute the major group of the in- habitants, Agricultural labor is still far in excess of absolute requireuenta, In Lastera and southeastern turope, bhe population per one hundred hectares of farm land aver- a sity persons. In the Central Agri- 3 soe seventy to @. cultural region of Russia tie number of workers was over eigaty per one hundred hectares of arable land. If the agricultural labor were rationalized and the machinery economically and efficiently operated, it vould probably be found tast about half the present available supply of labor would be sufficient for the present type of farming, If the present arca of agricultural land is to provide full euploycent for the present agricultural population, it could ao so only if large areas under the extensive cultivation of grain were transferred to the intensive cultivation of luxury and industrial crops sueh as fruit, vegetables, flax. tobacco and other like crops and a considerable expansiona? effected in the output of animals products. Luxury food~ stuffs, tiowever, ean de produced only if there is 9 navket for them, At the present were scale and the nelee of prow ducta the urban population is too poor to afford luxuries in larre quantities. Russia clearly hea not yet solved the problen of do= mentic seonony. Under the Yar Connunisn era cerievlture 8 brourht to the verre of ruin, A resurronee aceorpanied ro to take a uration of the the kolhoaniki if the donestie warket ean ve meintained for surplus coeds. Sooner or later the demands of the con- sunors vill be set if produetion continues to exne » and there will be nore foods for the home consumers. The chnnciny world situation, ovever, y change the whole aspect of domestic econo} y overnicht, The outstanding fact is tiet Russia ls exverinenting with the problem of abso~ lute control of tts donestie econory-qland, raw materials, Ighor, produetion=-on a world seals, The Covernnent has Naen oulek to vealixe the need for chance and to alter its snliey wen failure treatened the ruin of 211, The manner wt vebheds whieh 4 uses in the selving of the many our- 8 will be © tchod very closely by an interested cor ld.ClaPTER VI WHAT COLLECTIVIZATION HAS DONE FOR THE PRASANT Has collectivization raised the standard of living of the Russian peasant and improved nis general way of life? las it been for the best interests of the peasants? Was it been for the best interests of Russia? All these and many more questions arise when the subject of collectiviaation of agriculture is studied, Answering these questions is no easy task for wany reasons. The diversity of opinion and the underlying spirit of the Communists and those opposed to Communism mark the subject as controversial, The tendency of the Soviet dovernnent to suppress allnews conceming Rus- sian life end economic activities prevent the use of needed reliable government statistics, ‘The figures available show unmistakably that agricultural conditions have improved from the standpoint of dollars and cents, some improvement would no doubt have taken plece had there been no Holshevik Revo- lution--there was progress from 1905 to 1917, Hut. this was also true in the capitalist nations, ould the progress achieved under the Bolsheviks have been surpassed id a capitalist ecouomy provailed and outside capital brought in eB89 to develop the country? ‘These questions ean only be answered by a review of the old life in peasant Russia before the 1917 Revolution and by comparison with the life under the collectivised methods of farming, The peasants of the pre-Revolutionary era, belonged to the land on which they lived, Prior to 186i thoy were considered as the property of the fuedal barons within whose realas they resided. ‘echnically, they were under his control ana fad to obey his commands, ‘They could not leave the mir in which they lived, ang if they went to other portions of tae country they had to return to their homes during the busy season, and pay a certain sum of uoney for the privilege of working away. ‘he feudal baron aad the power to banish those from the wir who disobeyed him, ie probably could tell them what to plant because he collected a portion of the harvest, A very small portion of the serf-owners, however, seem to have utilized the land as a direct revenue-producing asset. Very few farmed their own land or made any attempt to improve its yield so that they might nave e larger monetary return.) ‘the serf- owner valued his wealtfi in the number of serfs that he owned, not in what they might earn for aim, The communal land belonging to the village was allotted to the different tuabbard, op. git.,90 fasilies generally in accordance with the nuaber of their men-folx, and each ale sember of 9 family bad a rignt to hig share of the family lana and chattels. A peasant could never becouse an outcast or destitute as loug as be re- mained in the village; if he starved #11 the members starved together, The peasant usd few consumer goods save waat te sade Sor hiuself--he uads is snoes trom the Bides of the cattle that furnished moat for tne wiz; the women wove the olota for clothes, and alnost all the food was raised on the communal property. ‘ne emancipation of 1861 freed the serfs from the land, out many of the old customs pre~ vailed until 1905. Hubbard gives this description of the pre-War standard of Living of the peasanta: In pre-War Russia about 16 per cant of the pea~ sant farmers were well-to-do according to local standards, while 12 per cent were landless and earned their living almost entirely by hiring themselves out as avricultural or industriel unsicilled Laborers. The standard of liviny, of these landless peasants was ineredibly low. A peasant holdins of less taan Bdosstatini (3,5 acres) in total area waa in ordinary circuustances considered too amall to sup- port a family without some extraneous souree of in- coue. In 1917 nearly 80 per cent of ail peasant households had less taon 4 desaiantini (10.8 acres) of arable lani, 26.9 per cent possessed no iiorae and 47.6 had only one horse, and the total head of cattle came to 44 per every hundred of rural popu- lation, In the densely populated central arricul- tural provinces thore were only 28.5 head of cattle per 100 population ond many peasant iouseholds had ho Livestock at all oxcept poultry, because they were too poor properly to feed theuselves, let alone animals.® we ‘Teid., pp, 233-54.91 The kolhoz of today's Russia differs in many ways from the mir of pre-iar times. In the first place, collectiviaa- tion was forced upon the people who ovned their own land, in 1917 there were wore than a million land owners in Rus- sia, the great majority of whom were peasants owning less than twenty-five acres. The homes were theirs, nevertheless, and the Communist revolution made few changes in land tenure except the addition of tho estates of the nobles and of the Chureh-owned lands, he peasanta’ defiance of the Communist form of sovernment was one of the leading causes of the eollectivization forced on the people in 1928, Jn tae Artel Constitution all boundaries formerly sep- arating the farms of individual members were "demolished" and the land "amalgated into a sincle ageregate area for the common use and profit of the artel."5 The land became the property of the State; it could not be sold or bought or leased, ‘Tne Bolshevixi, by suca means, intended that collectivization should level all the peasants and elimin- ate all cluss differences, They would all profit eyually from larze seale far: ning. Differences have arisen in carrying out the plan. Soae of the koluoz are in better farming areas than others. Some have better managers, An article in Pravda, September 1, 1936 describes the differences from kolhoz to kolhoz: S uoted in iubbard, op. oit., p. 132,92 Last year ia Mazan Yrovines 77 koluos out of 187 paid no mouey dividends at all on account of labor-days aad 83 ‘soliozy paid out less tian R.o. 50 per labor-dey, ‘There are some kolhozy in whieh the presidents, After be new accounts save beon adopted, simply isnore them and continue to pay money a3 iS suits thea, Ta tho kolhog 'naned after Budeany’ expenditures exceeded the estimates by R. 6000, The president of tie kolioa 'named after VYoroshilov' received uoney for the sale of produce, but instead of paying it into tho KoLhog'a bank account, spent it according to his ovn ideas.4 tuwan nature, it is apparent, enters into the picture in spite of the efforts of tae Government to mske all tre peasants or Kolnozmiki equal, Because of tne wide variety of soils and climates, some Kolhoz have sucn better land than others, soe have more efficient and honest presidents and officials. ‘the kolnoznik of today satisfies a large portion of his needs from his own allotment and animals, and is perliaps less dependent on his labor-day oarnings than the pre-War farm laborer on nis wages; but kolhozniki belonzing to the most backward and poorest kolhozy do not live any better than the pre-lier farm laborers and poor peasants. In such Koliozy the members are practically com- pelled to take outside employment during, the slack season in order to make a living. Instead of poverty belng eliminated from the country- side, collectivization lias created relative wealth end poverty side by side, There is little difference here from 4tpid., p. 236.93 Capitalism. besides this, the kolhoznik has lost a great measure of tie independence he enjoyed under pre-tax govern= ment. Since 1905 and uy to 1917 the pre-War peasant had been a free man; he could sell his land if he wished to do 30, and he could leave his native village and go to town to work in a factory. Under collectivization, the worker can not sell his luni or leave it and go to a city to work with his hands, Se can not go from one kolhoz to another with- out credentials and these must be furnished by the author- ities in his own kolnozy. Theoretically the kolhoznix cannot be expelled from hia Koluozy except by a free sajority vote of a seneral mecting of his fellows at which at least two thirds of the membership are present, But in actual practice the officers of the kolhoz are “ood party men" and a kolhognik may be exiled to Siberia or a forced labor camp for no other of= fense than a difference of opinion or a refusal to per- forn any task allotted to him, ie is ovmed, almost body and soul by the State, The following items, taken trou Pravda in the course of 1958, show the tendeney of the Soviets to make wholesale expulsions of the xolhozniki: In Sverdlovsk Province (Urals) in 1937 more than 5,000 families were expelled from kolnozy, In Usins:t Rayon, in kolhoz Peredovaya, kol- hoznik Houstoy was expelled simply because his father was not a kolhoznik and worked in a co-operative,94 The Ldagoushinskt kolhog in the Koungoursici Rayon xxx expelled koloznik Kobelov because he made a bad_raxe ang wheels, Yn the Sylvensici kolhoz, Koungourski Rayon, kol~ bounik Chaitin was expelled because he worked at lum- bering under a contract, which, it should be noted, was wade by She lnoz itsolr, Last year and durins the early part of this year in the Zelenchoukski Zayon of tae Ferachsey Antonomus Area 17 kolnoanixi were expelled. The expulsions one and eli were decided at illogal meebings.5 A still wore serious aspect of the kolhouniki's free- dom is tae privilege the Governnent takes of transporting labor s'rom place to place where it is needed. since a great deal of the labor force on the kolhozy is surplus, particularly at off seasons of the year, it is apparent that this isa prolific source of migretory labor thet say be moved at will, The instance developed in this study indicates timt suci is the practice in iussia. The xol- hozniki's situation may be sumed up thus as regarding the land: He can nob buy it or sell it or lease it. fie can not aove away from the kolhoay without losin; every thi: that he nas, fle ean oe deported at the will of the general assembly and instances !mve been cited where large nun pers of Xolhounixi “ave beon deported illegally. If ue is a good party man snd edheres faitafully to the teachings of Communism he may be advanced to 8 Aigher class than the peasant. de belongs to the kolhozy which in turn belongs to the State. e aas no free will of his own, Ibid., pp. 241-42,95 The 1936 Constitution promised the Russian peasant the right to an education. Llementary education is compulsory for all, but in 1940 « tuition fee was put on the high schools and colleges. Yowever, the decree which provided for tac drafting ond trad of boys from fourteen to seventeen, years alse provided for the establisiment of spocial trade schools in various oi se schools have a two year course in ohenis try, wining (o1l), water transport, and commoaication ork, training fee and living expenses ave borne by the State, After training, the Students are assigned for four years to establishments ana jobs, receiving the current wage scale, it is really 4 sort of coupulsozy child labor. In the last decade before “orld tiar I education nade great progress: in 1926 it was found that eighty-one per cent of the male population ama fifty-three per cont of the feualos between the ages of twenty and twenty-four were literate, Hlenentary education, therefore, was within the reach of most of the population in the years inmediabely before the Var. Yoday vory near one hundred per cent of the populace is literate. According to Soviet atebtistics the auuber of pupils of all age groups increased from 5,591,600 in 1914 to 20,408,800 in 1939, Suouse Document 754, Comauaism in Action, p. 113.96 Besides extertin: education to the rural arecs, the sehools have brouct obker benefits to the olhoeniki., In stitutions include the state the Soviet Union eduantior theaters, libraries, operas, and cinemas, The Bolsheviks fave made life for the peasant auch fuller iu this respect, ‘The chief drawback, sccordins to Mubbard, is that so meh Sine is devoted to political lectures and discussions. In- decd, the sin of Russian education in the sain is the spread of Communism, Albert F. Pinkeviteh, President of the Second State University of Hosoow, wrote in lens: The aim of all rkers in the sphere of public education will be to instill into the growing genere~ tion socialistic (communistic) ideas and thereby to increase the ranks of those who are righting for the astablisimant of the socislistic (conmunistic) state. Tne aim is, so to speak, the indoctrination of the youth in the proletarian philosophy...In the vords of the accepted program “the school must not only be a vehicle of the principles of communism in general but also an instrument throush which the proletariat may affect the proletarian and nonproletarian strata of the laborins masses with a view to training up a gen- eration capable of finally esteblishing commmnisn,? 4 professor of education in tho iiicher Commmist In- stitute of dneation at Moscow wrote in 1957: In speaking of public eduoation in the broad sense of the term it should be sald that the entire Soviet eee elucates the masses in the spirit of communism, This far-reaching process has been part- icularly intensive durias the last fem voans, singe the purpose of the second Five-Year tan OF Socialist 7s1bert P. Pinkeviteh, The New Education in the Soviet Republic, p. 213.S-B7F is to construction in the Soviet Union (19 ism both in eliminate the last vestiges of capt: the economy and in tho minds of men.? Another iter, dn sheff, in camenting on the ex- travegant Claina mde vy Soviet Russia for improving edu- cation, saya that the entire system las disintecrated. Rapidly increasing millions of children of school age have been given acovss to education and nurber of students in institutions of higher learning has inereased greatly. The methods and traininr used in the style of the Communist Experiment, Mmasheff charges, have made the efforts of both texehers and pupils a waste of tine. There were hundreds of thousands of etudents in institutions of hirher learning, but they hardly knew the three R's, Despite strenous efforts, they gould not eain that command of the elementary’ forces of nature which is the key to advanced techniqua, be~ cause their minds were not prepared to receive the training. There were millions of children in ole~ nentary and aseondary sokools, Dut actually they ac~ quired mastery in one art only--that of discussing in stereotyped terms, politieal and social problems.? fas the poasant been aided by such teaching and such propaganda? Perhays no one really Ynows. This much is known: he 4a becoming literate, ‘hether he will achieve understanding and realization of the social structure in which he lives is doubtful and cannot be snticipated. S.uoted in Nouse Document No. 754, Communism in Action, ppe 112-13, Sentmasheff, op. elt., p+ 365.98 The argument is advanced by those in favor of Communism that collectivization tac increased the purchasing power of individaa) Xolhoaniks, This,say be true, dut the purchas- ing power of most farmers has increased durinz the sane period, Ia the discussion of the incomes of the kolhoaniki, it was develooad timt the labor-day income accounts for 4 conparatively swall part of tie kolhozmik’s total ssouey neomees=thia labor-day pay in kind in the besinnin: uader Yar Communism was the total return received by the reasant from farsine operations, Vizares tivan by 4udbard show taat the aoney income trom labor-days for bhe averara family was leas than 8,500 ver faaily in 1953, About twenty ver cent aaaitional incone was derived fron outside work on other kolhozy or Stete fans. “andioraft, after the peasant Was pernitted to sell in the open markets, also yielded an additional, tncome, and Likewise the products raised from the small farus the peasants were allowed to own af'ter ‘ax Communism hed faitea, LO Collectivisation, itself, thus cannot be credited with Taising the purchasing power of the kolhoznik, ‘Without other sources of income than those provided by capitalist practices, the peasant of Russia today would not earn a subsistence wae, Ag for the profits that vevernment, makes: from agriculture, they ere not returned to the form quvvard, op. ets, ps 218.99 laborers except in an indirect way--the profits are sup- posed to pay for increased industrialization which, in turn, should supply more consumer sooas. In its economic results, the system of collectivization appears to have been successful--by increasing production, Measured by financial returns alone they favor ths new sys- tem. Material things, however, are not all that can be considered in the appraisal of any system, In the process of collectivizing the Russian peasant farmer, the Covern- ment has put him in bondage. He 1s no longer a free man and recent reports concerning the moving of labor from place to place under government supervision vould indleate that all farm labor a not auea above the status of slave labor. Foreed labor is cheap, Whatare the ultimate results of such e policy? History has been very specific in its answers to this question, ‘The nations thet have enslaved their citizens have perished and their institutions have crumbled, The Ronan & ve had millions of slaves, Abraham Lincoln de clared in the United States thst no nation could exist, half slave and half free, Spiritual values decay where slaves are a part of tite sooial structure, The fact that the Rus- sian kolboznix has more to eat and more to wear than hedid under the capitalist regime does not necessarily mean that the system of collectivization is a success, The Russian100 peasant farucr Sac lost nis land, lost bis frosdom, aad hss vecome a tool of the Governsicnt to use as desired, The one nope tint a0 bs » and taat obuer peoples hold, is the in- creasing literacy of the Slay people, row tho beginnings of history, aen have fouyt for frovdem and the things that i brings; Shere is uo reason to suppose that this spi: hws died out. fhe yeasaat Taruers oF Russiu constitute a alga pereentaze of tae total population. Twies they have vrousat the Gosmunist prograws to tho verge of disaster=~ in 1920 and 1935, Their future course will be watehed with a great deal of interest by tis outside world,BIBLIOGRAPHY Books a, ie Ye, Batsell, walter dusseli, Jovies Zule in gu Thomas Y. Crovell Gorpany, 1943. Dallin, David J., The Real Soviet. Russia, New Haven, Yale University ?ress, 1944, Plauen, 4) ty Lives Ly Lugaia, "a, pablisning Company, 1944, Freund, Henry 4,, Russia From A To 4, London, Angus and Robinson, Ltd., 1945, rper and Lrotiers House Document io, 754, Comunigsm ia igtion, vashington Government Printing Office, 1946, Hubbard, Leonard £., The Keonomlos of Soviet Agriculture, London, saemtllan and Com cuy, 1940. Johnson, tiewlett, he Soviet Power, Ni, Y. ‘iarcourt Brace and Company, T845, Milliukoff, Paul ¥., Cutlines of Russian Culture, N. ¥., Wnittlesey ilouse, 1945, Pares, Sernard, iusaia and the Zeace, N. Y. Alfred 4 Knopf, 1930, Wimasherf, Xicholas, The Great Retreat, N. oy Be Pe Dut~ ton and Company, ino,, 1946, 7 Jountry, Yur Yeople, and Pheirs, . %., ‘an Company, 1938, Williams, Albert wys, The Soviets, N. Y., Harcourt Brace and Company, 1943, ‘Tracy, U4 Gey 0 Phe Kaomt’ Articles Alexeiev, Kina, "I didn't Want my Ghildren to Grow Up In Soviet Xussia", Reader'y Dizost, June, 1947, nol102 Heath, Burton +, "Russian “iorker De de “eekly Wage Yon't rey Food Costs”, Denton Xecord-Chronicie, January 1, 1948, "How to Wait", Tine, December 2, 1946, 9. 30. Planned Zeonomy, No. » 1988, p. 112,