during collectivization. In the footsteps of Soviet collectivization. Famine as a consequence of the new agrarian policy

Reasoning and answer from the point of view of pure arithmetic.
The USSR in the late 1920s faced a serious crisis. The international situation was aggravating, another war for the redivision of the world was approaching, and the USSR, although it reached the level of 1913 in terms of basic industrial and agricultural indicators, was much weaker than the Russian Empire in relative terms - after all, the world did not stand still. And therefore, the country has become the primary task of making a modernization breakthrough in order to overcome the lag and develop the country. The country did not have any resources for this, except for the export of agricultural products. The question "where to get them?" did not stand. It is clear that it was possible to take only in the village. The question was "how to make the village produce more?".

How to raise the marketability of agriculture? Marketability is the excess of production that Agriculture able to give to the whole society, except for their own consumption. The surplus went to provide food for the townspeople, workers, the army, etc. From the same surplus it was possible to sell grain abroad in order to obtain currency for the purchase of equipment and technologies for new factories. And there were no other significant sources of products for export then.

The then ruling regime chose the path of collectivization of the countryside. For which it is now mercilessly criticized up to declaring it criminal. What is collectivization? This is the union of disparate producers (individual farmers) into one single and large economy. Plus mechanization. That is, collectivization is the enlargement of farms and the mechanization of work in order to increase labor productivity and the marketability of all agriculture. Can such a necessary thing be criminal? After all, this is a huge progress for the benefit of the whole society, and progress cannot be criminal by definition.

With this, I conclude the lengthy introductory part and move on to pure arithmetic. To get started, take a look at social structure the Soviet countryside and make sure that there were no other reserves, except for general collectivization, to increase the marketability of agricultural production. Academician Strumilin and his "The Stratification of the Soviet Village" will help me with this. According to him, I made the following schematics:

Critics of collectivization scold her for the fact that the Soviet government did not rely on the kulak, as the most effective business executive and producer. This is true: the fist was efficient and productive. The schemes show that kulak farms accounted for 3.5% of the number of farms, while cultivating 11.5% of the total land. It is clear that it was they who produced the main marketable products, which went to the market and to the state feed. But were they effective? For myself - certainly, but for the whole society - no. This can be seen from their share in the total income of the village:

Working almost 12% of the land, they had a share of only 8% of taxable income. Those. somewhere, somehow managed to bypass taxes. But the bulk of the taxes were given by the middle peasants with 76%, which corresponded to their share of the land.

But that is not my goal. I want to show that only a bet on the growth of the productivity of all the villagers could give a tangible and significant increase in the productivity and marketability of agriculture. Relying only on efficient and productive kulaks had a very weak effect. To do this, let's fix a number of figures of that time: the average gross grain harvest of the late 20s in the USSR was about 65 million tons, with an average yield of 7.5 centners per hectare. The entire area of ​​cultivated land was 87 million hectares. How these numbers were distributed among these groups:

Of the total harvest of 65 million tons, about 11 million tons of grain are purchased by the state. The rest of the village sold on the market and consumed itself. It was on these 11 million that the ruling regime lived, fed the townspeople, the army, and some of it was exported. This quantity was categorically lacking: the townspeople lived from hand to mouth, not enough was spent on cards and for export for industrialization.

Let us assume the hypothesis that the state does not carry out collectivization, but relies on the efficient kulak. By some miracle, the fist strains, although he categorically did not want to strain (it was easier for him to hand over less grain to the state and more and more expensive to sell grain and flour on the market). So, the fist, as it were, strains and gives out a fantastic yield for those times of 12 centners per hectare instead of 9.3. What will be the schedule in this case? Here's one:

In this scenario, we get a total harvest of 68 million tons instead of 65, and in this case, not 11 million tons, but 13-14 million will go to state purchases. Do these additional 3-4 million tons of grain from kulaks solve the problem? Don't decide at all. It is not yet certain that they will give them. And industrialization needs much more. That is why the state, relying on all sections of the rural population, except for the openly resisting kulaks, is carrying out forced collectivization and literally in the first half of the 30s the yield was up to 9 centners per year, and in the late 30s and 10. And with such a yield, state purchases reach 25-30 million tons annually with a general increase in gross collections, which allows the state to have much larger food resources than in the 20s before collectivization.

This simple arithmetic shows that a small increase in the productivity of all peasants has a much greater effect than a slightly larger increase in the productivity of a small, albeit the most efficient, part of the peasantry.

Any event that took place in the history of our country is important, and collectivization in the USSR cannot be briefly considered, since the event concerned a large segment of the population.

In 1927, the XV Congress took place, at which it was decided that it was necessary to change the course of agricultural development. The essence of the discussion was the unification of the peasants into one whole and the creation of collective farms. Thus began the process of collectivization.

Reasons for collectivization

In order to start any process in a country, the citizens of that country must be prepared. This is what happened in the USSR.

The inhabitants of the country were prepared for the process of collectivization and indicated the reasons for its start:

1. The country needed industrialization, which could not be carried out partially. It was necessary to create a strong agricultural sector that would unite the peasants into one.
2. At that time, the government did not look at the experience foreign countries. And if abroad the process of the agrarian revolution began first, without the industrial revolution, then in our country it was decided to combine both processes, for correct construction agricultural policy.
3. In addition to being the main source of food supply, the village also had to become a conduit through which major investments and industrialization could be made.

All these conditions and reasons became the main starting point in the process of beginning the process of collectivization in the Russian countryside.

Goals of collectivization

As with any other process, before large-scale changes can be set in motion, it is necessary to clear goals and understand what needs to be achieved from this or that direction. It is the same with collectivization.

In order to start the process, it was necessary to set the main goals and plan to go towards them:

1. The process was to establish socialist industrial relations. There were no such relations in the village before collectivization.
2. It was taken into account that in the villages almost every inhabitant had his own household, but it was small. Through collectivization, it was planned to create a large collective farm, uniting small farms into collective farms.
3. The need to get rid of the class of kulaks. This could be done only by exclusively using the dispossession regime. What did the Stalinist government do.

How was the collectivization of agriculture in the USSR

The government of the Soviet Union understood that the Western economy developed due to the existence of colonies, which were not in our country. But there were villages. It was planned to create collective farms according to the type and likeness of the colonies of foreign countries.

At that time, the Pravda newspaper was the main source from which the inhabitants of the country received information. In 1929, it published an article entitled "The Year of the Great Break". She was the start of the process.

In the article, the leader of the country, whose authority at that time was quite high, announced the need to destroy the individual imperialist economy. In December of the same year, the beginning of the New Economic Policy and the liquidation of the kulaks as a class were announced.

The developed documents characterized the establishment of strict deadlines for the implementation of the dispossession process for North Caucasus and the Middle Volga. For Ukraine, Siberia and the Urals, a period of two years was set, three years was set for all other regions of the country. Thus, in the first five-year plan, all individual farms were to be converted into collective farms.

Processes were simultaneously going on in the villages: a course towards dispossession and the creation of collective farms. All this was done by violent methods, and by 1930, about 320 thousand peasants became poor. All property, and there was a lot of it - about 175 million rubles - was transferred to the ownership of collective farms.

1934 is considered the year of completion of collectivization.

Q&A rubric

• Why was collectivization accompanied by dispossession?

The process of transition to collective farms could not have been carried out in any other way. Voluntarily, only poor peasants went to the collective farms, who could not donate anything for public use.
More prosperous peasants tried to keep their economy in order to develop it. The poor were against this process, because they wanted equality. Dispossession was caused by the need to start a general forced collectivization.

• What was the slogan of collectivization? farms?

"Complete collectivization!"

• Which book vividly describes the period of collectivization?

In the 1930s and 1940s, there was a huge amount of literature describing the processes of collectivization. One of the first to draw attention to this process was Leonid Leonov in his work “Sot”. The novel "Shadows Disappear at Noon" by Anatoly Ivanov tells how collective farms were created in Siberian villages.

And of course, “Virgin Soil Upturned” by Mikhail Sholokhov, where you can get acquainted with all the processes that took place at that time in the village.

• Can you name the pros and cons of collectivization?

Positive points:

• the number of tractors and combines increased on the collective farms;
• thanks to the food distribution system, during the Second World War it was possible to avoid mass starvation in the country.

Negative aspects of the transition to collectivization:

• led to the destruction of the traditional peasant way of life;
• the peasants did not see the results of their own labor;
• consequence of depopulation cattle;
• the peasant class ceased to exist as a class of proprietors.

What are the features of collectivization?

Features include the following:

1. After the process of collectivization began, industrial growth took place in the country.
2. The association of peasants into collective farms allowed the government to manage the collective farms more effectively.
3. The entry into the collective farm of each peasant made it possible to begin the process of developing a common collective farm economy.

Are there films about collectivization in the USSR?

There are a large number of films about collectivization, and they were filmed during the period of collectivization. The events of that time are most clearly reflected in the films: "Happiness", "Old and New", "Land and Freedom".

The results of collectivization in the USSR

After the process was completed, the country began to count the losses, and the results were disappointing:

• grain production decreased by 10%;
• the number of cattle decreased by 3 times;
• The years 1932-1933 were terrible for the inhabitants of the country. If earlier the village could feed not only itself, but also the city, now it could not even feed itself. This time is considered to be a hungry year;
• despite the fact that people were starving, almost all grain stocks were sold abroad.

The process of mass collectivization destroyed the prosperous population of the countryside, but at the same time a large number of the population remained in the collective farms, which was kept in it by force. Thus, the policy of the formation of Russia as an industrial state was carried out.

COLLECTIVIZATION OF AGRICULTURE

reasons for collectivization. The implementation of grandiose industrialization required a radical restructuring of the agricultural sector. In Western countries, the agrarian revolution, i.e. system of improving agricultural production, preceded the industrial revolution. In the USSR, both of these processes had to be carried out simultaneously. At the same time, some party leaders believed that if the capitalist countries created industry at the expense of funds received from the exploitation of the colonies, then socialist industrialization could be carried out through the exploitation of the "inner colony" - the peasantry. The village was considered not only as a source of food, but also as the most important channel for replenishing financial resources for the needs of industrialization. But it is much easier to drain funds from a few hundred large farms than to deal with millions of small ones. That is why, with the beginning of industrialization, a course was taken for the collectivization of agriculture - "the implementation of socialist transformations in the countryside."

In November 1929, Pravda published Stalin's article "The Year of the Great Turn", which spoke of "a radical change in the development of our agriculture from small and backward individual farming to large-scale and advanced collective farming." In December, Stalin announced the end of the NEP and the transition to a policy of "liquidating the kulaks as a class." On January 5, 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks issued a resolution "On the rate of collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm construction." It set strict deadlines for the completion of collectivization: for the North Caucasus, the Lower and Middle Volga - autumn 1930, in extreme cases - spring 1931, for other grain regions - autumn 1931 or no later than spring 1932. All other regions were to "solve the problem of collectivization within five years." Such a formulation oriented to complete collectivization by the end of the first five-year plan.

However, this document did not answer the main questions: what methods to carry out collectivization, how to carry out dispossession, what to do with the dispossessed? And since the countryside had not yet cooled off from the violence of grain procurement campaigns, the same method was adopted - violence.

Dispossession. Two interconnected violent processes took place in the countryside: the creation of collective farms and dispossession. The "liquidation of the kulaks" was aimed primarily at providing the collective farms with a material base. From the end of 1929 to the middle of 1930, more than 320,000 peasant farms were dispossessed. Their property worth more than 175 million rubles. transferred to collective farms.

At the same time, the authorities did not give a precise definition of who should be considered kulaks. In the generally accepted sense, a kulak is someone who used hired labor, but the middle peasant, who had two cows, or two horses, or a good house, could also be included in this category. Each district received a dispossession rate, which averaged 5-7% of the number of peasant households, but the local authorities, following the example of the first five-year plan, tried to overfulfill it. Often, not only the middle peasants, but also, for some reason, objectionable poor peasants were recorded in kulaks. To justify these actions, the ominous word "fist-fist" was coined. In some areas, the number of dispossessed reached 15-20%.

The liquidation of the kulaks as a class, by depriving the countryside of the most enterprising, most independent peasants, undermined the spirit of resistance. In addition, the fate of the dispossessed was supposed to serve as an example to others, those who did not want to voluntarily go to the collective farm. Kulaks were evicted with their families, infants, and the elderly. In cold, unheated wagons, with a minimum amount of household belongings, thousands of people traveled to remote areas of the Urals, Siberia, and Kazakhstan. The most active "anti-Soviet" were sent to concentration camps.

To assist the local authorities, 25 thousand urban communists ("twenty-five thousand people") were sent to the village.

"Dizzy with Success" In many areas, especially in the Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia, the peasantry resisted mass dispossession. To suppress peasant unrest, regular units of the Red Army were involved. But most often the peasants used passive forms of protest: they refused to join collective farms, they destroyed livestock and implements as a sign of protest. Terrorist acts were also committed against "twenty-five thousand" and local collective farm activists. Collective farm holiday. Artist S. Gerasimov.

By the spring of 1930, it became clear to Stalin that the insane collectivization launched at his call was threatening with disaster. Discontent began to seep into the army. Stalin made a well-calculated tactical move. On March 2, Pravda published his article "Dizziness from Success". He laid all the blame for the situation on the executors, local workers, declaring that "collective farms cannot be planted by force." After this article, most peasants began to perceive Stalin as a people's defender. A mass exit of peasants from collective farms began.

But a step back was taken only in order to immediately take a dozen steps forward. In September 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks sent a letter to local party organizations condemning their passive behavior, fear of "excesses" and demanding "to achieve a powerful upsurge of the collective-farm movement." In September 1931, collective farms already united 60% of peasant households, in 1934 - 75%.

Collectivization results. The policy of continuous collectivization led to disastrous results: for 1929-1934. gross grain production decreased by 10%, the number of cattle and horses for 1929-1932. decreased by one third, pigs - 2 times, sheep - 2.5 times.

The extermination of livestock, the ruin of the village by the incessant dispossession of kulaks, the complete disorganization of the work of collective farms in 1932-1933. led to an unprecedented famine that affected approximately 25-30 million people. To a large extent, it was provoked by the policy of the authorities. The country's leadership, trying to hide the scale of the tragedy, forbade mentioning the famine in the media. Despite its scale, 18 million centners of grain were exported abroad to receive foreign currency for the needs of industrialization.

However, Stalin celebrated his victory: despite the reduction in grain production, its deliveries to the state increased by 2 times. But most importantly, collectivization created the necessary conditions for the implementation of plans for an industrial leap. It put at the disposal of the city a huge number of workers, simultaneously eliminating agrarian overpopulation, allowed, with a significant decrease in the number of employed, to maintain agricultural production at a level that did not allow for a long famine, provided industry with the necessary raw materials. Collectivization not only created the conditions for transferring funds from the village to the city for the needs of industrialization, but also fulfilled an important political and ideological task, destroying the last island market economy- privately owned peasant economy.

Kolkhoz peasantry. Village life in the early 1930s proceeded against the backdrop of the horrors of dispossession and the creation of collective farms. These processes led to the elimination of the social gradation of the peasantry. The kulaks, the middle peasants, and the poor, as well as the generalized concept of the individual peasant, disappeared from the countryside. New concepts were introduced into everyday life - the collective farm peasantry, the collective farmer, the collective farm woman.

The situation of the population in the countryside was much more difficult than in the city. The village was perceived primarily as a supplier of cheap grain and a source of labor. The state constantly increased the rate of grain procurements, taking almost half of the harvest from the collective farms. The calculation for the grain supplied to the state was made at fixed prices, which during the 30s. remained almost unchanged, while the prices of manufactured goods increased by almost 10 times. The wages of collective farmers were regulated by a system of workdays. Its size was determined based on the income of the collective farm, i.e. that part of the crop that remained after settlement with the state and the machine and tractor stations (MTS), which provided agricultural machinery to the collective farms. As a rule, the incomes of collective farms were low and did not provide a living wage. For workdays, peasants were paid in grain or other manufactured products. The work of the collective farmer was almost not paid for with money.

At the same time, as industrialization progressed, more tractors, combines, motor vehicles and other equipment began to arrive in the countryside, which were concentrated in the MTS. This helped to partly mitigate the negative consequences of the loss of working livestock in the previous period. Young specialists appeared in the village - agronomists, machine operators, who were trained by educational institutions of the country.

In the mid 30s. the situation in agriculture has somewhat stabilized. In February 1935, the government allowed peasants to have a household plot, one cow, two calves, a pig with piglets, and 10 sheep. Individual farms began to supply their products to the market. The card system was abolished. Life in the countryside began to improve little by little, which Stalin did not fail to take advantage of, declaring to the whole country: "Life has become better, life has become more fun."

The Soviet countryside reconciled itself to the collective farm system, although the peasantry remained the most disenfranchised category of the population. The introduction of passports in the country, which the peasants were not supposed to, meant not only the erection of an administrative wall between the city and the countryside, but also the actual attachment of the peasants to their place of birth, depriving them of their freedom of movement and choice of occupation. From a legal point of view, the collective farmer, who did not have a passport, was tied to the collective farm in the same way as a serf had once been to the land of his master.

The immediate result of forced collectivization was the indifference of the collective farmers to the socialized property and the results of their own labor.

FORMING THE POLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE USSR IN THE 1930s

Formation of a totalitarian regime. The grandiose tasks set before the country, which required centralization and exertion of all forces, led to the formation of a political regime, later called totalitarian (from the Latin word "whole", "complete"). Under such a regime, state power is concentrated in the hands of any one group (usually a political party), which has destroyed democratic freedoms in the country and the possibility of an opposition. This ruling group completely subordinates the life of society to its interests and retains power through violence, mass repressions, and spiritual enslavement of the population.

In the first half of the XX century. such regimes were established not only in the USSR, but also in some other countries that also solved the problem of a modernization breakthrough.

The core of the totalitarian regime in the USSR was the Communist Party. Party bodies were in charge of the appointment and dismissal of officials, nominated candidates for deputies of the Soviets at various levels. Only party members occupied all responsible government posts, headed the army, law enforcement and judicial agencies, and led the national economy. No law could be adopted without prior approval from the Politburo. Many state and economic functions were transferred to party authorities. The Politburo determined the entire foreign and domestic policy of the state, solved the issues of planning and organizing production. Even party symbols have acquired an official status - the red banner and the party anthem "Internationale" have become state.

By the end of the 30s. The face of the party has also changed. She finally lost the remnants of democracy. Complete “unanimity” reigned in the party ranks. Ordinary members of the party and even the majority of members of the Central Committee were excluded from the development of party policy, which became the prerogative of the Politburo and the party apparatus.

Ideologization of public life. Party control over the mass media played a special role, through which official views were disseminated and explained. With the help of the "Iron Curtain" the problem of the penetration of other ideological views from the outside was solved.

The education system has also changed. The structure has been completely rebuilt curricula and content training courses. They were now based on the Marxist-Leninist interpretation not only of social science courses, but sometimes of the natural sciences as well.

Under the undivided party influence was the creative intelligentsia, whose activities, along with the bodies of the CPSU (b), were controlled by creative unions. In 1932, the Central Committee of the party adopted a resolution "On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations." It was decided "to unite all writers who support the platform of Soviet power and strive to participate in socialist construction into a single union of Soviet writers. To carry out similar changes in the line of other types of art." In 1934, the First All-Union Congress of the Union of Soviet Writers took place. He accepted the charter and elected a board headed by A. M. Gorky.

Work began on the creation of creative unions of artists, composers, filmmakers, who were supposed to unite all those who worked professionally in these areas in order to establish party control over them. For "spiritual" support, the authorities provided certain wealth and privileges (use of art houses, workshops, receiving advances during long-term creative work, providing housing, etc.).

In addition to the creative intelligentsia, other categories of the population of the USSR were covered by official mass organizations. All employees of enterprises and institutions were members of trade unions, which were completely under the control of the party. Young people from the age of 14 were united in the ranks of the All-Union Leninist Communist Youth Union (Komsomol, Komsomol), declared a reserve and assistant to the party. The younger schoolchildren were members of the October organization, and the older ones were members of the pioneer organization. Mass associations were created for innovators, inventors, women, athletes and other categories of the population.

Formation of Stalin's personality cult. One of the elements of the political regime of the USSR was the personality cult of Stalin. December 21, 1929 he turned 50 years old. Until that date, it was not customary to publicly celebrate the anniversaries of the leaders of the party and state. The Lenin Jubilee was the only exception. But on that day, the Soviet country learned that it had a great leader - Stalin was publicly declared "the first disciple of Lenin" and the only "leader of the party." The newspaper "Pravda" was filled with articles, greetings, letters, telegrams, from which flowed a stream of flattery. The initiative of Pravda was picked up by other newspapers, from metropolitan to regional, magazines, radio, cinema: the organizer of October, the founder of the Red Army and an outstanding commander, the winner of the armies of the White Guards and interventionists, the guardian of Lenin's "general line", the leader of the world proletariat and the great strategist of the five-year plan ...

Stalin began to be called "wise", "great", "brilliant". A "father of peoples" appeared in the country and " best friend Soviet children". Academicians, artists, workers and party workers challenged each other for the palm in praising Stalin. But everyone was surpassed by the Kazakh folk poet Dzhambul, who in the same Pravda intelligibly explained to everyone that "Stalin is deeper than the ocean, higher than the Himalayas , brighter than the sun. He is the teacher of the universe."

Mass repression. Along with ideological institutions, the totalitarian regime also had another reliable support - a system of punitive organs for the persecution of dissidents. In the early 30s. the last political trials took place over the former opponents of the Bolsheviks - the former Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. Almost all of them were shot or sent to prisons and camps. At the end of the 20s. "Shakhty case" served as a signal for the deployment of the fight against "pests" from among the scientific and technical intelligentsia in all sectors of the national economy. From the beginning of the 1930s A massive repressive campaign was launched against the kulaks and the middle peasants. On August 7, 1932, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars adopted the law written by Stalin "On the protection of property of state enterprises, collective farms and cooperation and the strengthening of public (socialist) property", which went down in history as the law "on five spikelets", according to which even for minor theft from the collective farm fields were supposed to be shot.

In November 1934, a Special Council was formed under the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, which was given the right to administratively send "enemies of the people" into exile or forced labor camps for up to five years. At the same time, the principles of legal proceedings that protected the rights of the individual in the face of the state were discarded. The special meeting was given the right to consider cases in the absence of the accused, without the participation of witnesses, the prosecutor and the lawyer.

The reason for the deployment of mass repressions in the country was the murder on December 1, 1934 in Leningrad of a member of the Politburo, the first secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, S. M. Kirov. A few hours after this tragic event, a law was passed on the "simplified procedure" for dealing with cases of terrorist acts and organizations. According to this law, the investigation was to be carried out in an accelerated manner and complete its work within ten days; the indictment was handed over to the accused a day before the case was heard in court; cases were heard without the participation of the parties - the prosecutor and the defense; requests for pardon were prohibited, and execution sentences were carried out immediately after their announcement.

This act was followed by other laws that toughened punishments and expanded the circle of persons subjected to repression. Monstrous was the government decree of April 7, 1935, which prescribed "minors, starting from the age of 12, convicted of theft, violence, bodily injury, murder or attempted murder, to be brought to criminal court with the use of all measures criminal punishment, including the death penalty. (Subsequently, this law will be used as a method of pressure on the defendants in order to persuade them to give false testimony in order to protect their children from reprisal.)

Show trials. Having found a weighty reason and created a "legal foundation", Stalin proceeded to physically eliminate all those who were dissatisfied with the regime. In 1936, the first of the largest Moscow trials of the leaders of the internal party opposition took place. Lenin's closest associates - Zinoviev, Kamenev and others - were on trial. They were accused of murdering Kirov, of trying to kill Stalin and other members of the Politburo, and also to overthrow the Soviet government. Prosecutor A. Ya. Vyshinsky declared: "I demand that the enraged dogs be shot - every one of them!" The court granted this requirement.

In 1937, a second trial took place, during which another group of representatives of the "Leninist Guard" was convicted. In the same year, a large group of senior officers led by Marshal Tukhachevsky was repressed. In March 1938, the third Moscow trial took place. The former head of the government, Rykov, and the "favorite of the party," Bukharin, were shot. Each of these processes led to the unwinding of the flywheel of repression for tens of thousands of people, primarily for relatives and friends, colleagues and even just housemates. Only in the top leadership of the army were destroyed: out of 5 marshals - 3, out of 5 commanders of the 1st rank - 3, out of 10 commanders of the 2nd rank - 10, out of 57 corps commanders - 50, out of 186 commanders - 154. Following them, 40 thousand were repressed officers of the Red Army.

At the same time, a secret department was created in the NKVD, which was engaged in the destruction of political opponents of the authorities who found themselves abroad. In August 1940, on Stalin's orders, Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico. The victims of the Stalinist regime were many leaders of the white movement, the monarchist emigration.

According to official, clearly underestimated data, in 1930-1953. 3.8 million people were repressed on charges of counter-revolutionary, anti-state activities, of which 786 thousand were shot.

The constitution of "victorious socialism". The "Great Terror" served as a monstrous mechanism by which Stalin tried to eliminate social tension in the country caused by the negative consequences of his own economic and political decisions. It was impossible to admit to the mistakes made, and in order to hide the failure, and, therefore, to maintain one's unlimited dominance over the party, the country and the international communist movement, it was necessary by all means of intimidation to wean people from doubting, to accustom them to see what actually did not exist. The logical continuation of this policy was the adoption of the new Constitution of the USSR, which served as a kind of screen designed to cover the totalitarian regime with democratic and socialist clothes.

The new constitution was adopted on December 5, 1936 at the VIII All-Union Extraordinary Congress of Soviets. Stalin, justifying the need to adopt a new constitution, said that Soviet society "realized what the Marxists call the first phase of communism - socialism." The "Stalinist constitution" proclaimed the elimination of private property (and, consequently, the exploitation of man by man) and the creation of two forms of ownership - state and collective-farm-cooperative as the economic criterion for building socialism. The Soviets of Working People's Deputies were recognized as the political basis of the USSR. The Communist Party was given the role of the leading core of society; Marxism-Leninism was declared the official, state ideology.

The Constitution provided all citizens of the USSR, regardless of their gender and nationality, with basic democratic rights and freedoms - freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly, inviolability of the person and home, as well as direct equal suffrage.

The supreme governing body of the country was the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, consisting of two chambers - the Council of the Union and the Council of Nationalities. In the intervals between its sessions, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was to exercise executive and legislative power. The USSR included 11 union republics: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Armenian, Turkmen, Uzbek, Tajik, Kazakh, Kyrgyz.

But in real life most of the norms of the constitution turned out to be an empty declaration. And socialism "Stalinist" had a very formal resemblance to the Marxist understanding of socialism. Its goal was not to create economic, political and cultural prerequisites for the free development of each member of society, but to increase the power of the state by infringing on the interests of the majority of its citizens.

NATIONAL POLICY AT THE LATE 1920-1930s

Attack on Islam. In the second half of the 20s. changed the attitude of the Bolsheviks to the Muslim religion. Church land holdings, the proceeds of which went to the maintenance of mosques, schools and hospitals, were abolished. The lands were transferred to the peasantry, schools that provided religious education (madrasahs) were replaced by secular ones, and hospitals were included in the state health care system. Most mosques were closed. Sharia courts were also abolished. Removed from their duties, the clergy were forced to publicly repent that they "deceived the people."

In the cities, on the instructions of the Center, a campaign was launched to eradicate Muslim traditions that do not correspond to the norms of "communist morality." In 1927, on International Women's Day on March 8, women gathered for a rally defiantly tore off their burqa and threw it directly into the fire. For many believers, this sight was a real shock. The fate of the first representatives of this movement was deplorable. Their appearance in in public places caused an outburst of indignation, they were beaten, and sometimes killed.

Noisy propaganda campaigns were carried out against ritual prayers and the celebration of Ramadan. The official ruling on the matter stated that these humiliating and reactionary practices prevent workers from "taking an active part in the building of socialism" because they are contrary to the principles of labor discipline and planned principles of the economy. Polygamy and the payment of kalym (bride price) were also banned as incompatible with Soviet family law. Making the pilgrimage to Mecca, which every Muslim is obliged to make at least once in his life, has become impossible.

All these measures caused violent discontent, which, however, did not take the scale of mass resistance. However, several Chechen imams declared a holy war against the enemies of Allah. In 1928-1929. uprisings broke out among the highlanders of the North Caucasus. In Central Asia, the Basmachi movement again raised its head. These speeches were suppressed with the help of army units.

The repressions that fell upon Muslims led to the fact that people stopped openly demonstrating their adherence to Islam. However, the Muslim faith and customs never disappeared from family life. Underground religious brotherhoods arose, whose members secretly performed religious rites.

Sovietization of national cultures. In the late 20s - 30s. the course towards the development of national languages ​​and culture was curtailed. In 1926, Stalin reproached the Ukrainian people's commissar for education for the fact that his policy led to the separation of Ukrainian culture from the general Soviet one, which was based on Russian culture with "its highest achievement - Leninism."

First of all, the use of local languages ​​in national education systems was abolished. public institutions. In primary and high school obligatory study of the second - Russian language was introduced. At the same time, the number of schools where teaching was conducted only in Russian increased. Teaching in higher education was translated into Russian. The only exceptions were Georgia and Armenia, whose peoples jealously guarded the primacy of their languages.

At the same time, the state languages ​​of the Caucasus and Central Asia went through a double reform of the alphabet. In 1929, all local writing systems, mainly Arabic, were transferred to the Latin alphabet. Ten years later, Cyrillic was introduced - the Russian alphabet. These reforms virtually nullified previous efforts to spread literacy and written culture among the population.

Another source of introduction to the Russian language was the army. In the 1920s, with the introduction of universal military service, attempts were made to create ethnically homogeneous units. Even then, however, commanders were usually either Russians or Ukrainians. In 1938, the practice of forming national military units was eliminated. Recruits were sent to units with a mixed national composition, stationed far from their homeland. Russian became the language of military training and command.

The recognition of the Russian language as the state language of the USSR pursued not only ideological goals. Firstly, it facilitated the possibility of interethnic communication, which in the context of ongoing economic modernization was important. Secondly, it made life easier for the Russian population in the national republics, whose number increased significantly in connection with the implementation of the five-year plans.

And, thirdly, it made it possible for parents who had far-reaching plans for the future of their children to send them to schools where they could learn the state language and thus gain advantages over their compatriots. Therefore, the national elites did not protest against linguistic innovations.

However, the increase in the status of the Russian language did not at all mean a return to the tsarist policy of Russification. The anti-religious campaign and the collectivization of agriculture dealt a crushing blow to all national cultures, which were predominantly rural and contained a strong religious element, including Russian culture. Most of the Russian villages lost their Orthodox churches, priests, believing hardworking peasants, traditional system land ownership, has lost the most important elements of Russian national culture. The same can be said about Belarus and Ukraine. In addition, the Russian language has now become an expression of the multinational party Soviet culture, and not Russian in its traditional sense.

"Economic Leveling of the National Outskirts". Destruction of national personnel. One of the main tasks of industrialization and collectivization was proclaimed by the party to raise the level economic development national outskirts. To accomplish this task, the same universal methods were used, which often did not take into account national traditions and characteristics. economic activity different peoples.

The example of Kazakhstan was indicative, where collectivization was primarily associated with intensified attempts to force the nomadic people to switch to arable farming. In 1929-1932. cattle, and especially sheep, were literally destroyed in Kazakhstan. The number of Kazakhs engaged in cattle breeding decreased from 80% of the total population to almost 25%. The actions of the authorities did not correspond to national traditions so much that fierce armed resistance became the answer to them. Basmachi, who disappeared in the late 1920s, reappeared. Now they were joined by those who refused to join the collective farms. The rebels killed the collective farm authorities and party workers. Hundreds of thousands of Kazakhs with their herds went abroad, to Chinese Turkestan.

While proclaiming a policy of "equalizing the economic level of the national outskirts," the central government at the same time demonstrated colonial habits. The first five-year plan, for example, envisaged a reduction in cereal crops in Uzbekistan, and in return, cotton production expanded to incredible proportions. Most of it was to become raw material for the factories of the European part of Russia. Such a policy threatened to turn Uzbekistan into a raw materials appendage and aroused strong resistance. The leaders of the Uzbek Republic worked out an alternative plan for economic development, which assumed greater independence and versatility of the republican economy. This plan was rejected, and its authors were arrested and shot on charges of "bourgeois nationalism."

With the beginning of industrialization and collectivization, the principle of "indigenization" was also subject to adjustment. Since directive changes in the economy and the centralization of management were by no means always welcomed by local leaders, leaders were increasingly sent from the Center. Leaders of national formations and cultural figures who tried to continue the policy of the twenties were subjected to repression. In 1937-1938. in fact, the party and economic leaders of the national republics were completely replaced. Many leading figures of education, literature and art were repressed. Usually, local leaders were replaced by Russians sent directly from Moscow, sometimes by more "understanding" representatives of the indigenous peoples. Most egregious was the situation in the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, where the republican politburos disappeared into in full force.

Industrial engineering in national areas. Nevertheless, the economic modernization that began in the country changed the face of the national republics. The policy of creating industrial centers based on local raw materials has brought positive results.

In Belarus, mainly woodworking, paper, leather and glass enterprises were built. Already during the years of the first five-year plan, it began to turn into an industrial republic: 40 new enterprises were built, mainly for the production of consumer goods. The share of industrial production in the national economy of the republic was 53%. During the years of the second five-year plan, new industries were created in Belarus: fuel (peat), machine-building, and chemical.

In the Ukrainian SSR, during the years of the first five-year plan, 400 enterprises were put into operation, among them such as the Dneproges, the Kharkov Tractor Plant, the Kramatorsk Heavy Engineering Plant, and others. Specific gravity industrial output in the economy of the republic increased to 72.4%. This testified to the transformation of Ukraine into a highly developed industrial republic.

In Central Asia, new cotton-cleaning plants, silk-reeling factories, food processing plants, canning factories, etc. were built. Power plants were built in Fergana, Bukhara and Chirchik. The Tashkent plant of agricultural machines began to work. A sulfur plant was built in Turkmenistan and mirabilite mining began in the Kara-Bogaz-Gol Bay.

An important role in the industrialization was played by the Turkestan-Siberian Railway. Its construction was completed in 1930. Turksib connected Siberia, rich in grain, timber and coal, with the cotton-growing regions of Central Asia and Kazakhstan.

In the RSFSR, much attention was paid to the development of industry in the autonomous republics: Bashkir, Tatar, Yakut, Buryat-Mongolian. If capital investments in the industry of the RSFSR as a whole grew 4.9 times during the first five years, then in Bashkiria - 7.5 times, in Tataria - 5.2 times. During the years of the second five-year plan, even more significant funds were allocated for the development of autonomous republics, regions and national districts. A powerful woodworking industry was created in the Komi ASSR, the industrial exploitation of the region's oil and coal resources began, and oil wells were built in Ukhta. The development of oil reserves began in Bashkiria and Tatarstan. The extraction of non-ferrous metals in Yakutia, the development of the natural resources of Dagestan and North Ossetia have expanded.

Often, industrial enterprises on the national outskirts were built by the whole country. Workers and builders arrived here from Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, from the Urals and from other large industrial centers. The internationalism proclaimed by the party was not just a propaganda slogan. Representatives of various nationalities grew up, studied, worked, created families nearby. In the 30s. in the USSR, a multinational community of people with its own social and cultural specifics, behavioral stereotype, and mentality has developed. An artistic expression of the spirit of internationalism that reigned in Soviet society was the most popular film "The Pig and the Shepherd", which tells about the love of a Russian girl and a guy from Dagestan.

SOVIET CULTURE OF THE 1930s

Development of education. The 1930s went down in the history of our country as the period of the "cultural revolution". This concept meant not only a significant increase, compared with the pre-revolutionary period, in the educational level of the people and the degree of their familiarization with the achievements of culture. Another component of the "cultural revolution" was the undivided dominance of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine in science, education and all areas of creative activity.

Under the conditions of the economic modernization carried out in the USSR, special attention was paid to raising the professional level of the population. At the same time, the totalitarian regime demanded to change the content of school education and upbringing, for the pedagogical "liberties" of the 20s. were of little use for the mission of creating a "new man".

In the early 30s. The Central Committee of the Party and the Council of People's Commissars adopted a number of resolutions on the school. In the 1930/31 academic year, the country began the transition to universal compulsory primary education in the amount of 4 classes. By 1937 seven years of education became compulsory. The old teaching and upbringing methods, condemned after the revolution, were returned to the school: lessons, subjects, a fixed schedule, grades, strict discipline and a whole range of punishments, up to and including exclusion. School curricula were revised, new stable textbooks were created. In 1934, the teaching of geography and civil history on the basis of Marxist-Leninist assessments of the events and phenomena that took place.

School building was widely developed. Only during 1933-1937. more than 20,000 new schools opened in the USSR, about the same number as in tsarist Russia in 200 years. By the end of the 30s. over 35 million students studied at school desks. According to the 1939 census, literacy in the USSR was 87.4%.

The system of secondary specialized and higher education. By the end of the 30s. The Soviet Union came out on top in the world in terms of the number of pupils and students. Dozens of secondary and higher educational institutions have emerged in Belarus, the republics of Transcaucasia and Central Asia, the centers of autonomous republics and regions. The circulation of books in 1937 reached 677.8 million copies; books were published in 110 languages ​​of the peoples of the Union. Mass libraries were widely developed: by the end of the 30s. their number exceeded 90 thousand.

Science under ideological pressure. However, both education and science, as well as literature and art, were subjected to ideological attack in the USSR. Stalin declared that all sciences, including natural and mathematical ones, are political in nature. Scientists who disagreed with this statement were persecuted in the press and arrested.

An acute struggle unfolded in biological science. Under the guise of defending Darwinism and Michurin's theory, a group of biologists and philosophers headed by T. D. Lysenko came out against genetics, declaring it a "bourgeois science." The brilliant developments of Soviet geneticists were curtailed, and subsequently many of them (N. I. Vavilov, N. K. Koltsov, A. S. Serebrovsky, and others) were repressed.

But Stalin paid the closest attention to historical science. He took personal control of textbooks on the history of Russia, which became known as the history of the USSR. According to Stalin's instructions, the past began to be interpreted solely as a chronicle of the class struggle of the oppressed against the exploiters. At the same time, a new branch of science appeared, which became one of the leading ones in the Stalinist ideological construction - the "history of the party." In 1938, the "Short Course in the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks" was published, which Stalin not only carefully edited, but also wrote one of the paragraphs for it. The publication of this work marked the beginning of the formation of a single concept for the development of our country, which all Soviet scientists had to follow. And although some of the facts in the textbook were rigged and distorted in order to exalt the role of Stalin, the Central Committee of the party in its resolution assessed the "Short Course" as "a guide that represents the official, verified by the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) interpretation of the main issues of the history of the CPSU (b) and Marxism- Leninism, which does not allow any arbitrary interpretations. Every word, every provision of the "Short Course" had to be taken as the ultimate truth. In practice, this led to the defeat of all existing scientific schools, a break with the traditions of Russian historical science.

Successes of Soviet science. Ideological dogmas and strict party control had the most detrimental effect on the state of the humanities. But representatives of the natural sciences, although they experienced the negative consequences of the intervention of party and punitive bodies, nevertheless managed to achieve noticeable success, continuing the glorious traditions of Russian science.

The Soviet physical school, represented by the names of S. I. Vavilov (problems of optics), A. F. Ioffe (study of the physics of crystals and semiconductors), P. L. Kapitsa (research in the field of microphysics), L. I. Mandelstam ( works in the field of radiophysics and optics); .

A significant contribution to applied science was made by the works of chemists N. D. Zelinsky, N. S. Kurnakov, A. E. Favorsky, A. N. Bach, S. V. Lebedev. A method for the production of synthetic rubber was discovered, the production of artificial fibers, plastics, valuable organic products, etc. began.

World achievements were the work of Soviet biologists - N. I. Vavilov, D. N. Pryanishnikov, V. R. Williams, V. S. Pustovoit.

Significant progress was made in Soviet mathematics, astronomy, mechanics, and physiology.

Geological and geographical research has acquired a wide scope. Mineral deposits were discovered - oil between the Volga and the Urals, new coal reserves in the Moscow and Kuznetsk basins, iron ore in the Urals and in other areas. The North was actively explored and developed. This made it possible to sharply reduce the import of certain types of raw materials.

socialist realism. In the 30s. the process of liquidating dissent in artistic culture was completed. Art, completely subordinate to party censorship, was obliged to follow one artistic direction - socialist realism. The political essence of this method was that the masters of art had to reflect the Soviet reality not as it really was, but as it was idealized by those in power.

Art propagated myths, and most Soviet people readily accepted them. After all, since the time of the revolution, the people have lived in an atmosphere of belief that the grandiose social upheaval that has taken place should bring a beautiful "tomorrow", although "today" was difficult, painfully difficult. And art, together with the encouraging promises of Stalin, created the illusion that the happy time had already come.

In the minds of people, the boundaries between the desired "bright future" and reality were blurring. This state was used by the authorities in order to create a socio-psychological solidity of society, which, in turn, made it possible to manipulate it, constructing either labor enthusiasm, or mass indignation against "enemies of the people", or popular love for their leader.

Soviet cinema. An especially great contribution to the transformation of people's consciousness was made by cinematography, which has become the most popular form of art. Events of the 20s and then 30s. reflected in the minds of people not only through their own experience, but also through their interpretation in films. The whole country watched the documentary chronicle. It was seen by the audience, sometimes unable to read, unable to deeply analyze the events, they perceived the surrounding life not only as a cruel visible reality, but also as a joyful euphoria pouring from the screen. The stunning impact of Soviet documentary filmmaking on mass consciousness is also explained by the fact that brilliant masters worked in this field (D. Vertov, E. K. Tisse, E. I. Shub).

Do not lag behind the documentary and artistic cinema. A significant number of feature films were devoted to historical and revolutionary themes: "Chapaev" (directed by the Vasilyev brothers), a trilogy about Maxim (directed by G. M. Kozintsev and L. Z. Trauberg), "We are from Kronstadt" (directed by E. L. Dzigan).

In 1931, the first Soviet sound film "Start in Life" (directed by N. V. Ekk), which tells about the upbringing of a new Soviet generation, was released. The films of S. A. Gerasimov "Seven Courageous", "Komsomolsk", "Teacher" were devoted to the same problem. In 1936, the first color film "Grunya Kornakov" appeared (directed by N.V. Ekk).

In the same period, the traditions of Soviet children's and youth cinema were laid. There are film versions of famous works by V. P. Kataev (“The lonely sail turns white”), A. P. Gaidar (“Timur and his team”), A. N. Tolstoy (“The Golden Key”). Wonderful animated films were produced for children.

Especially popular among people of all ages were musical comedies by G. V. Aleksandrov - "Circus", "Merry Fellows", "Volga-Volga", I. A. Pyryev - "The Rich Bride", "Tractor Drivers", "Pig and Shepherd" .

Historical films became the favorite genre of Soviet cinematographers. The films "Peter I" (dir. V. M. Petrov), "Alexander Nevsky" (dir. S. M. Eisenstein), "Minin and Pozharsky" (dir. V. I. Pudovkin) and others were very popular.

Vivid images talented actors B. M. Andreev, P. M. Aleinikov, B. A. Babochkin, M. I. Zharov, N. A. Kryuchkov, M. A. Ladynina, T. F. Makarova , L.P. Orlova and others.

Musical and visual arts. The musical life of the country was associated with the names of S. S. Prokofiev, D. D. Shostakovich, A. I. Khachaturian, T. N. Khrennikov, D. B. Kabalevsky, I. O. Dunaevsky. Collectives were created that later glorified the Soviet musical culture: Quartet them. Beethoven, the Grand State Symphony Orchestra, the State Philharmonic Orchestra, etc. At the same time, any innovative searches in opera, symphony, and chamber music were decisively suppressed. When evaluating certain musical works, the personal aesthetic tastes of the party leaders, which were extremely low, affected. This is evidenced by the rejection by the "tops" of D. D. Shostakovich's music. His opera "Katerina Izmailova" and the ballet "Golden Age" were subjected to rough criticism in the press for "formalism".

The most democratic branch of musical creativity, songwriting, reached its peak. Talented composers worked in this field - I. O. Dunaevsky, B. A. Mokrousov, M. I. Blanter, the Pokrass brothers and others. Their works had a huge impact on contemporaries. The simple, easy-to-remember melodies of the songs of these authors were on everyone's lips: they sounded at home and on the street, poured from movie screens and from loudspeakers. And along with the major cheerful music, uncomplicated verses glorifying the Motherland, labor, and Stalin sounded. The pathos of these songs did not correspond to the realities of life, but their romantic-revolutionary elation had a strong impact on a person.

The craftsmen also had to demonstrate loyalty to socialist realism. visual arts. The main criteria for evaluating an artist were not his professional excellence and creative individuality, but the ideological orientation of the plot. Hence the dismissive attitude towards the genre of still life, landscape and other "petty-bourgeois" excesses, although such talented masters as P. P. Konchalovsky, A. V. Lentulov, M. S. Saryan worked in this area.

Leading now have become other artists. Among them, the main place was occupied by B.V. Ioganson. His paintings "Rabfak goes (University students)", "Interrogation of Communists" and others have become classics of socialist realism. A. A. Deineka, who created his famous poetic canvas "Future Pilots", Yu. I. Pimenov ("New Moscow"), M. V. Nesterov (a series of portraits of the Soviet intelligentsia), and others worked a lot.

At the same time, portraits, sculptures and busts of Stalin became an indispensable attribute of every city, every institution.

Literature. Theatre. Strict party dictatorship and comprehensive censorship could not but affect the general level of mass literary production. One-day works appeared, resembling editorials in newspapers. But, nevertheless, even in these years, unfavorable for free creativity, Russian Soviet literature was represented by talented writers who created significant works. In 1931, A. M. Gorky finally returned to his homeland. Here he finished his novel "The Life of Klim Samgin", wrote the plays "Egor Bulychov and Others", "Dostigaev and Others". A. N. Tolstoy, also at home, put the last point in the trilogy "Walking through the torments", created the novel "Peter I" and other works.

M. A. Sholokhov, the future Nobel Prize winner, wrote the novel "Quiet Flows the Don" and the first part of "Virgin Soil Upturned". M. A. Bulgakov worked on the novel "The Master and Margarita" (although it did not reach the mass reader then). The works of V. A. Kaverin, L. M. Leonov, A. P. Platonov, K. G. Paustovsky and many other writers were noted for their generous talent. There was excellent children's literature - books by K. I. Chukovsky, S. Ya. Marshak, A. P. Gaidar, A. L. Barto, S. V. Mikhalkov, L. A. Kassil and others.

Since the end of the 20s. plays by Soviet playwrights were established on the stage: N. F. Pogodin ("The Man with a Gun"), A. E. Korneichuk ("Death of the Squadron", "Plato Krechet"), V. V. Vishnevsky ("Optimistic Tragedy"), A. N. Arbuzov ("Tanya") and others. The repertoire of all theaters in the country included Gorky's plays written in different years - "Enemies", "Petty Bourgeois", "Summer Residents", "Barbarians", etc.

The most important feature of the cultural revolution was the active familiarization of Soviet people with art. This was achieved not only by increasing the number of theaters, cinemas, philharmonic societies, concert halls, but also by developing amateur art activities. Clubs, palaces of culture, houses of children's creativity were created all over the country; grandiose reviews of folk talents, exhibitions of amateur works were arranged.

FOREIGN POLICY OF THE SOVIET UNION IN THE 1930s

Change in the foreign policy of the USSR. In 1933, the Nazis came to power in Germany, making no secret of their intentions to start a struggle for the redivision of the world. The USSR was forced to change its foreign policy. First of all, the position was revised, according to which all "imperialist" states were perceived as real enemies, ready at any moment to start a war against the Soviet Union. At the end of 1933, the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, on behalf of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, developed a detailed plan for creating a system of collective security in Europe. From that moment until 1939, Soviet foreign policy took on an anti-German orientation. Its main goal was the desire for an alliance with democratic countries in order to isolate Nazi Germany and Japan. This course was largely associated with the activities of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs M. M. Litvinov.

The successful results of the new course were the establishment in November 1933 of diplomatic relations with the United States and the admission of the USSR in 1934 to the League of Nations, where he immediately became a permanent member of its Council. This meant the formal return of the country to the world community as a great power. It is fundamentally important that the entry of the Soviet Union into the League of Nations took place on its own terms: all disputes, primarily over tsarist debts, were resolved in favor of the USSR.

In May 1935, an agreement was concluded between the USSR and France on assistance in the event of a possible attack by any aggressor. But mutual obligations were in fact ineffective, since the treaty was not accompanied by any military agreements. Then an agreement on mutual assistance was signed with Czechoslovakia.

In 1935, the USSR condemned the introduction of compulsory military service in Germany and Italy's attack on Ethiopia. And after the introduction of German troops into the demilitarized Rhineland, the Soviet Union proposed to the League of Nations to take measures to stop violations of international obligations. But the voice of the USSR was not heard.

The course of the Comintern towards the creation of a united anti-fascist front. The USSR actively used the Comintern to implement its foreign policy plans. Until 1933, Stalin considered the main task of the Comintern to be the organization of support for his internal political course in the international arena. The sharpest criticism of Stalin's methods came from world social democracy. Therefore, Stalin declared the Social Democrats the main enemy of the Communists of all countries, regarding them as accomplices of fascism. These Comintern guidelines in practice led to a split in the anti-fascist forces, which greatly facilitated the coming of the Nazis to power in Germany.

In 1933, along with the revision of the Soviet foreign policy, the attitudes of the Comintern also changed. The development of a new strategic line was headed by G. Dimitrov, the hero and winner of the Leipzig process initiated by the Nazis against the Communists. The new tactics were approved by the 7th Congress of the Comintern, which took place in the summer of 1935. The communists proclaimed the creation of a united anti-fascist front to prevent a world war as the main task. To this end, the Communists had to organize cooperation with all forces - from the Social Democrats to the Liberals. At the same time, the creation of an anti-fascist front and broad anti-war actions were closely linked with the struggle "for the security of the Soviet Union." The Congress warned that in the event of an attack on the USSR, the Communists would call on the working people "by all means to contribute to the victory of the Red Army over the armies of the imperialists."

The first attempt to put the new tactics of the Comintern into practice was made in 1936 in Spain, when General Franco raised a fascist revolt against the republican government. The USSR openly declared its support for the republic. Soviet troops were sent to Spain military equipment, two thousand advisers, as well as a significant number of volunteers from among military specialists. The events in Spain clearly showed the need for united efforts in the struggle against the growing strength of fascism. But the democracies were still weighing which regime is more dangerous for democracy - fascist or communist.

Far East policy of the USSR. Despite the complexity of the European foreign policy, the situation on the western borders of the USSR was relatively calm. At the same time, on its Far Eastern borders, diplomatic and political conflicts resulted in direct military clashes.

The first military conflict took place in the summer-autumn of 1929 in Northern Manchuria. The stumbling block was the CER. According to the agreement of 1924 between the USSR and the Beijing government of China, the railway passed under joint Soviet-Chinese management. But by the end of the 20s. the Chinese administration was almost completely replaced by Soviet specialists, while the road itself actually became the property of the Soviet Union. This situation became possible due to the unstable political situation in China. But in 1928, the government of Chiang Kai-shek came to power, which began to pursue a policy of unification of all Chinese territories. It tried to regain by force the positions lost on the CER. An armed conflict broke out. Soviet troops defeated the Chinese border detachments on Chinese territory, which began hostilities.

At that time, in the Far East, in the face of Japan, the world community received a powerful hotbed of incitement to war. Having seized Manchuria in 1931, Japan created a threat to the Far Eastern borders of the Soviet Union, moreover, the CER, which belonged to the USSR, ended up on the territory controlled by Japan. The Japanese threat forced the USSR and China to restore their diplomatic relations.

In November 1936, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which was later joined by Italy and Spain. In July 1937, Japan launched a large-scale aggression against China. In such a situation, the USSR and China went to mutual rapprochement. In August 1937, a non-aggression pact was concluded between them. After the signing of the treaty, the Soviet Union began to provide China with technical and financial assistance. In the battles, Soviet instructors and pilots fought on the side of the Chinese army.

In the summer of 1938, armed clashes began between Japanese and Soviet troops on the Soviet-Manchurian border. A fierce battle took place in the area of ​​​​Lake Khasan, not far from Vladivostok. On the part of Japan, this was the first reconnaissance in force. It showed that it would hardly be possible to take the Soviet borders in a rush. Nevertheless, in May 1939, Japanese troops invaded the territory of Mongolia in the area of ​​the Khalkhin Gol River. Since 1936, the Soviet Union has been connected with Mongolia by a union treaty. True to its obligations, the USSR brought its troops into the territory of Mongolia.

Munich Agreement. Meanwhile, the fascist powers were making new territorial conquests in Europe. In mid-May 1938, German troops concentrated on the border with Czechoslovakia. The Soviet leadership was ready to help her even without France, but on the condition that she herself would ask the USSR about it. However, Czechoslovakia still hoped for the support of the Western Allies.

In September, when the situation escalated to the limit, the leaders of England and France arrived in Munich for negotiations with Germany and Italy. Neither Czechoslovakia nor the USSR were admitted to the conference. The Munich Agreement finally fixed the course of the Western powers to "appease" the fascist aggressors, satisfying Germany's claims to seize the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union was ready to provide assistance to Czechoslovakia, guided by the charter of the League of Nations. For this, it was necessary that Czechoslovakia applied to the Council of the League of Nations with a corresponding request. But the ruling circles of Czechoslovakia did not do this.

The hopes of the USSR for the possibility of creating a collective security system were finally dispelled after the signing in September 1938 of the Anglo-German, and in December of the same year, the Franco-German declarations, which were essentially non-aggression pacts. In these documents, the contracting parties declared their desire "never again to wage war against each other." The Soviet Union, seeking to protect itself from a possible military conflict, began searching for a new foreign policy line.

Soviet-English-French negotiations. After the conclusion of the Munich Agreement, the heads of government of Britain and France proclaimed the onset of an "era of peace" in Europe. Taking advantage of the connivance of the Western powers, on March 15, 1939, Hitler sent troops into Prague and finally liquidated Czechoslovakia as an independent state, and on March 23 captured the Memel region, which was part of Lithuania. At the same time, Germany made demands on Poland to annex Danzig, which had the status of a free city, and part of Polish territory. In April 1939 Italy occupied Albania. This somewhat sobered the ruling circles of Britain and France and forced them to agree to the proposal of the Soviet Union to begin negotiations and conclude an agreement on measures to curb German aggression.

On August 12, after lengthy delays, representatives of England and France arrived in Moscow. Here it suddenly became clear that the British did not have the authority to negotiate and sign an agreement. Secondary military figures were placed at the head of both missions, while the Soviet delegation was headed by Marshal K. E. Voroshilov, People's Commissar for Defense.

The Soviet side presented a detailed plan of joint action by the armed forces of the USSR, Britain and France against the aggressor. The Red Army, in accordance with this plan, was to deploy 136 divisions, 5 thousand heavy guns, 9-10 thousand tanks and 5-5.5 thousand combat aircraft in Europe. The British delegation stated that in the event of a war, England would initially send only 6 divisions to the continent.

The Soviet Union did not have a common border with Germany. Consequently, he could take part in repelling aggression only if the allies of England and France - Poland and Romania - let the Soviet troops through their territory. Meanwhile, neither the British nor the French did anything to induce the Polish and Romanian governments to agree to the passage of Soviet troops. On the contrary, the members of the military delegations of the Western powers were warned by their governments that this decisive question for the whole matter should not be discussed in Moscow. Negotiations deliberately dragged on. The French and British delegations followed the instructions of their governments to negotiate slowly, "to strive to reduce the military agreement to the most general terms possible."

Rapprochement of the USSR and Germany. Hitler, without abandoning the forceful solution of the "Polish question", also suggested that the USSR begin negotiations on the conclusion of a non-aggression pact and the delimitation of spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. Stalin faced a difficult choice: either reject Hitler's proposals and thereby agree with the withdrawal of German troops to the borders of the Soviet Union in the event of Poland's defeat in the war with Germany, or conclude agreements with Germany that make it possible to push the borders of the USSR far to the west and to some time to avoid war. For the Soviet leadership, the attempts of the Western powers to push Germany into war with the Soviet Union were no secret, as well as Hitler's desire to expand his "living space" at the expense of the eastern lands. Moscow knew about the completion of the preparation of the German troops for an attack on Poland and the possible defeat of the Polish troops due to the clear superiority of the German army over the Polish.

The more difficult the negotiations with the Anglo-French delegation in Moscow, the more Stalin was inclined to the conclusion that it was necessary to sign an agreement with Germany. It was also necessary to take into account the fact that since May 1939, military operations of the Soviet-Mongolian troops against the Japanese were carried out on the territory of Mongolia. The Soviet Union faced an extremely unfavorable prospect of waging war simultaneously on both the eastern and western borders.

On August 23, 1939, the whole world was shocked by the shocking news: the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR V. M. Molotov (appointed to this position in May 1939) and the German Foreign Minister I. Ribbentrop signed a non-aggression pact. This fact came as a complete surprise to the Soviet people. But no one knew the most important thing - secret protocols were attached to the agreement, in which the section of Eastern Europe on spheres of influence between Moscow and Berlin. According to the protocols, a demarcation line was established between German and Soviet troops in Poland; the Baltic states, Finland and Bessarabia belonged to the sphere of influence of the USSR.

Undoubtedly, at that time the treaty was beneficial to both countries. He allowed Hitler, without unnecessary complications, to begin the capture of the first bastion in the east and at the same time convince his generals that Germany would not have to fight on several fronts at once. Stalin received a gain in time to strengthen the defense of the country, as well as the opportunity to push back the initial positions of a potential enemy and restore the state within the borders of the former Russian Empire.

The conclusion of the Soviet-German agreements frustrated the attempts of the Western powers to draw the USSR into a war with Germany and, conversely, made it possible to switch the direction of German aggression primarily to the West. The Soviet-German rapprochement introduced a certain discord in relations between Germany and Japan and eliminated the threat of war on two fronts for the USSR.

Having settled matters in the west, the Soviet Union stepped up military operations in the east. At the end of August, Soviet troops under the command of G.K. Zhukov surrounded and defeated the 6th Japanese army on the river. Khalkhin Gol. The Japanese government was forced to sign a peace agreement in Moscow, according to which, from September 16, 1939, hostilities ceased. The threat of an escalation of the war in the Far East was eliminated.

What you need to know about this topic:

Socio-economic and political development of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. Nicholas II.

Domestic policy of tsarism. Nicholas II. Strengthening repression. "Police socialism".

Russo-Japanese War. Reasons, course, results.

Revolution of 1905 - 1907 The nature, driving forces and features of the Russian revolution of 1905-1907. stages of the revolution. The reasons for the defeat and the significance of the revolution.

Elections to the State Duma. I State Duma. The agrarian question in the Duma. Dispersal of the Duma. II State Duma. Coup d'état June 3, 1907

Third June political system. Electoral law June 3, 1907 III State Duma. The alignment of political forces in the Duma. Duma activity. government terror. The decline of the labor movement in 1907-1910

Stolypin agrarian reform.

IV State Duma. Party composition and Duma factions. Duma activities.

The political crisis in Russia on the eve of the war. The labor movement in the summer of 1914 Crisis of the top.

The international position of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.

Beginning of the First World War. Origin and nature of war. Russia's entry into the war. Attitude towards the war of parties and classes.

The course of hostilities. Strategic forces and plans of the parties. Results of the war. The role of the Eastern Front in the First World War.

The Russian economy during the First World War.

Workers' and peasants' movement in 1915-1916. Revolutionary movement in the army and navy. Growing anti-war sentiment. Formation of the bourgeois opposition.

Russian culture of the 19th - early 20th centuries.

Aggravation of socio-political contradictions in the country in January-February 1917. The beginning, prerequisites and nature of the revolution. Uprising in Petrograd. Formation of the Petrograd Soviet. Provisional Committee of the State Duma. Order N I. Formation of the Provisional Government. Abdication of Nicholas II. Causes of dual power and its essence. February coup in Moscow, at the front, in the provinces.

From February to October. The policy of the Provisional Government regarding war and peace, on agrarian, national, labor issues. Relations between the Provisional Government and the Soviets. The arrival of V.I. Lenin in Petrograd.

Political parties (Kadets, Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Bolsheviks): political programs, influence among the masses.

Crises of the Provisional Government. An attempted military coup in the country. Growth of revolutionary sentiment among the masses. Bolshevization of the capital Soviets.

Preparation and conduct of an armed uprising in Petrograd.

II All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Decisions about power, peace, land. Formation of public authorities and management. Composition of the first Soviet government.

The victory of the armed uprising in Moscow. Government agreement with the Left SRs. Elections to the Constituent Assembly, its convocation and dissolution.

The first socio-economic transformations in the field of industry, agriculture, finance, labor and women's issues. Church and State.

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, its terms and significance.

Economic tasks of the Soviet government in the spring of 1918. Aggravation of the food issue. The introduction of food dictatorship. Working squads. Comedy.

The revolt of the left SRs and the collapse of the two-party system in Russia.

First Soviet Constitution.

Causes of intervention and civil war. The course of hostilities. Human and material losses of the period of the civil war and military intervention.

The internal policy of the Soviet leadership during the war. "War Communism". GOELRO plan.

The policy of the new government in relation to culture.

Foreign policy. Treaties with border countries. Participation of Russia in the Genoa, Hague, Moscow and Lausanne conferences. Diplomatic recognition of the USSR by the main capitalist countries.

Domestic policy. Socio-economic and political crisis of the early 20s. Famine of 1921-1922 Transition to a new economic policy. The essence of the NEP. NEP in the field of agriculture, trade, industry. financial reform. Economic recovery. Crises during the NEP and its curtailment.

Projects for the creation of the USSR. I Congress of Soviets of the USSR. The first government and the Constitution of the USSR.

Illness and death of V.I. Lenin. Intraparty struggle. The beginning of the formation of Stalin's regime of power.

Industrialization and collectivization. Development and implementation of the first five-year plans. Socialist competition - purpose, forms, leaders.

Formation and strengthening state system economic management.

The course towards complete collectivization. Dispossession.

Results of industrialization and collectivization.

Political, national-state development in the 30s. Intraparty struggle. political repression. Formation of the nomenklatura as a layer of managers. Stalinist regime and the constitution of the USSR in 1936

Soviet culture in the 20-30s.

Foreign policy of the second half of the 20s - mid-30s.

Domestic policy. The growth of military production. Extraordinary measures in the field of labor legislation. Measures to solve the grain problem. Military establishment. Growth of the Red Army. military reform. Repressions against the command personnel of the Red Army and the Red Army.

Foreign policy. Non-aggression pact and treaty of friendship and borders between the USSR and Germany. The entry of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus into the USSR. Soviet-Finnish war. The inclusion of the Baltic republics and other territories in the USSR.

Periodization of the Great Patriotic War. First stage war. Turning the country into a military camp. Military defeats 1941-1942 and their reasons. Major military events Capitulation of Nazi Germany. Participation of the USSR in the war with Japan.

Soviet rear during the war.

Deportation of peoples.

Partisan struggle.

Human and material losses during the war.

Creation of the anti-Hitler coalition. Declaration of the United Nations. The problem of the second front. Conferences of the "Big Three". Problems of post-war peace settlement and all-round cooperation. USSR and UN.

Start " cold war". The contribution of the USSR to the creation of the "socialist camp". The formation of the CMEA.

Domestic policy of the USSR in the mid-1940s - early 1950s. Restoration of the national economy.

Socio-political life. Politics in the field of science and culture. Continued repression. "Leningrad business". Campaign against cosmopolitanism. "Doctors' Case".

Socio-economic development of Soviet society in the mid-50s - the first half of the 60s.

Socio-political development: XX Congress of the CPSU and the condemnation of Stalin's personality cult. Rehabilitation of victims of repressions and deportations. Intra-party struggle in the second half of the 1950s.

Foreign policy: the creation of the ATS. The entry of Soviet troops into Hungary. Exacerbation of Soviet-Chinese relations. The split of the "socialist camp". Soviet-American Relations and the Caribbean Crisis. USSR and third world countries. Reducing the strength of the armed forces of the USSR. Moscow Treaty on the Limitation of Nuclear Tests.

USSR in the mid-60s - the first half of the 80s.

Socio-economic development: economic reform 1965

Growing difficulties of economic development. Decline in the rate of socio-economic growth.

USSR Constitution 1977

Socio-political life of the USSR in the 1970s - early 1980s.

Foreign Policy: Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Consolidation of post-war borders in Europe. Moscow treaty with Germany. Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Soviet-American treaties of the 70s. Soviet-Chinese relations. The entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. Exacerbation of international tension and the USSR. Strengthening of the Soviet-American confrontation in the early 80s.

USSR in 1985-1991

Domestic policy: an attempt to accelerate the socio-economic development of the country. An attempt to reform the political system of Soviet society. Congresses of People's Deputies. Election of the President of the USSR. Multi-party system. Exacerbation of the political crisis.

Exacerbation of the national question. Attempts to reform the national-state structure of the USSR. Declaration on State Sovereignty of the RSFSR. "Novogarevsky process". The collapse of the USSR.

Foreign policy: Soviet-American relations and the problem of disarmament. Treaties with leading capitalist countries. The withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Changing relations with the countries of the socialist community. Disintegration of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact.

the Russian Federation in 1992-2000

Domestic policy: "Shock therapy" in the economy: price liberalization, stages of trade privatization industrial enterprises. Fall in production. Increased social tension. Growth and slowdown in financial inflation. The aggravation of the struggle between the executive and legislative branches. The dissolution of the Supreme Soviet and the Congress of People's Deputies. October events of 1993. Abolition of local bodies of Soviet power. Elections to the Federal Assembly. The Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993 Formation of the presidential republic. Aggravation and overcoming of national conflicts in the North Caucasus.

Parliamentary elections 1995 Presidential elections 1996 Power and opposition. An attempt to return to the course of liberal reforms (spring 1997) and its failure. The financial crisis of August 1998: causes, economic and political consequences. "Second Chechen War". Parliamentary elections in 1999 and early presidential elections in 2000 Foreign policy: Russia in the CIS. Participation Russian troops in "hot spots" of the near abroad: Moldova, Georgia, Tajikistan. Russia's relations with foreign countries. The withdrawal of Russian troops from Europe and neighboring countries. Russian-American agreements. Russia and NATO. Russia and the Council of Europe. Yugoslav crises (1999-2000) and Russia's position.

• Danilov A.A., Kosulina L.G. History of the state and peoples of Russia. XX century.

December 1928 - 1933

The process of uniting individual peasant farms into collective farms. The purpose of collectivization is the establishment of socialist production relations in the countryside, the elimination of small-scale production in order to solve grain difficulties and provide the country with the necessary amount of marketable grain. It gave rise to mass famine in the early 1930s.

REASONS AND BACKGROUND

Collectivization had at least four goals. The first, officially proclaimed by the party leadership, is the implementation of socialist transformations in the countryside. The heterogeneity and multistructural nature of the economy was perceived as a contradiction that needed to be overcome. In the future, it was planned to create a large-scale socialist agricultural production, which would reliably provide the state with bread, meat and raw materials. Cooperation was considered the way to transition to socialism in the countryside. By 1927 various forms more than a third of peasant farms were covered by the cooperatives.

The second goal is to ensure an uninterrupted supply of cities that are rapidly growing in the course of industrialization. The main features of industrialization were projected onto collectivization. The frantic pace of industrial growth and urbanization demanded a sharp increase in the supply of food to the city in an extremely short time.

The third goal is the release of workers from the countryside for the construction of the first five-year plans. Collective farms were major producers of grain. The introduction of technology into them was supposed to free millions of peasants from heavy manual labor. They were now waiting for work in factories and factories.

The fourth goal, also related to industrialization, is to increase the sale of grain for export with the help of collective farm production. The proceeds from this sale were to be used to purchase machinery and equipment for Soviet factories. There was virtually no other source of foreign currency from the state at that time.

In 1927, another "bread crisis" broke out in the country. Due to lack industrial goods for exchange for grain, as well as a crop failure in a number of areas, the amount of marketable bread received on the market, as well as the sale of agricultural products to the state, decreased. Industry did not keep up with feeding the city through the exchange of goods. Fearing a repetition of the grain crises and a disruption in the implementation of the industrialization plan, the country's leadership decided to speed up the implementation of complete collectivization. The opinion of agrarian economists (A.V. Chayanov, N.D. Kondratiev and others), that the most promising for the economy is the combination of individual-family, collective and state forms of organization of production, was ignored.

In December 1927, the 15th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a special resolution on the question of work in the countryside, in which it proclaimed the "Course towards collectivization." The tasks were set: 1) to create "factories of grain and meat"; 2) provide conditions for the use of machines, fertilizers, the latest agro- and zootechnical production methods; 3) free up labor for industrialization construction projects; 4) eliminate the division of the peasants into the poor, the middle peasant and the kulak. The “Law on the General Principles of Land Use and Land Management” was issued, according to which significant amounts were allocated from the state budget to finance collective farms. Machine and tractor stations (MTS) were organized for the maintenance of peasant united cooperatives in rural areas. Collective farms were open to everyone.

Collective farms (collective farms) were managed by the general meeting and the board elected by it, headed by the chairman. There were three types of collective farms: 1) a partnership for the joint cultivation of the land (TOZ), where only complex machines were socialized, and the main means of production (land, implements, working and productive livestock) were in private use; 2) an artel, where land, inventory, working and productive livestock were socialized, and vegetable gardens, small livestock and poultry, hand tools were left in personal ownership; 3) communes, where everything was common, sometimes before the organization Catering. It was assumed that the peasant himself would be convinced of the advantages of socialization, and they were in no hurry to take administrative measures.

Having set a course for industrialization, the Soviet leadership was faced with the problem of a lack of funds and labor for industry. It was possible to get both, first of all, from the agrarian sector of the economy, where by the end of the 20s. 80% of the country's population was concentrated. The way out was found in the creation of collective farms. The practice of socialist construction dictated fast, tough rates and methods.

"YEAR OF THE GREAT TURN"

The transition to a policy of collectivization began in the summer of 1929, shortly after the adoption of the first five-year plan. The main reason for its accelerated pace was that the state was unable to transfer funds from the countryside to industry by setting low prices for agricultural products. Peasants refused to sell their products on unfavorable terms. In addition, small, technically poorly equipped peasant farms were not able to provide the growing urban population and the army with food, and the developing industry with raw materials.

In November 1929, the article "The Year of the Great Break" was published. It spoke of "a radical change in the development of our agriculture from small and backward individual farming to large-scale and advanced collective farming."

In the spirit of this article, in January 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution "On the pace of collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm construction." It outlined strict deadlines for its implementation. Two zones were distinguished: the first - the North Caucasus Territory, the Middle and Lower Volga regions, in which collectivization was scheduled to be completed in the autumn of 1930-spring of 1931; the second - all other grain regions - by the autumn of 1931 to the spring of 1932. By the end of the first five-year plan, collectivization was planned to be carried out on a national scale.

To carry out collectivization, 25 thousand workers from the cities were mobilized, ready to fulfill party directives. Evasion of collectivization began to be treated as a crime. Under the threat of closing markets and churches, peasants were forced to join collective farms. The property of those who dared to resist collectivization was confiscated. By the end of February 1930, there were already 14 million households on collective farms - 60% of the total

In the winter of 1929-1930. in many villages and villages there was a terrible picture. The peasants drove to the collective farm yard (often just a barn surrounded by a fence) all their cattle: cows, sheep, and even chickens and geese. Local collective farm leaders understood the party's decisions in their own way - if socialized, then everything, right down to the bird. Who, how and for what means will feed the cattle in the winter, was not foreseen in advance. Naturally, most of the animals died after a few days. More sophisticated peasants slaughtered their cattle in advance, not wanting to give it to the collective farm. As a result, animal husbandry suffered a huge blow. In fact, at first there was nothing to take from the collective farms. The city began to experience even greater food shortages than before.

dispossession

The lack of food led to the growth of non-economic coercion in the agricultural sector - the further, the more they did not buy from the peasant, but took it, which led to an even greater reduction in production. First of all, the wealthy peasants, called kulaks, did not want to hand over their grain, cattle, inventory. Many of them openly opposed local authorities and village activists. In response, the locals are moving to dispossession, which since 1930 has been elevated to the rank of state policy. The lease of land and the use of hired labor were prohibited. The definition of who is the “kulak” and who is the “middle peasant” was dealt with directly on the ground. There was no single and precise classification. In some areas, those who had two cows, or two horses, or a good house were attributed to kulaks. Therefore, each district received its own norm of dispossession. In February 1930, a decree was issued defining its procedure. The kulaks were divided into three categories: the first ("counter-revolutionary asset") - subject to arrest and could be sentenced to death; the second (active opponents of collectivization) - eviction to remote areas; the third - resettlement within the region. The artificial division into groups, the uncertainty of their characteristics created the ground for arbitrariness in the field. The compilation of lists of families subject to dispossession was carried out by the local bodies of the OGPU and local authorities with the participation of village activists. The resolution determined that the number of dispossessed in the region should not exceed 3-5% of all peasant farms.

The country was increasingly covered with a network of camps, settlements of "special settlers" (expelled "kulaks" and members of their families). By January 1932, 1.4 million people had been evicted, of which several hundred thousand were deported to remote regions of the country. They were sent to forced labor (for example, the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal), logging in the Urals, Karelia, Siberia, Far East. Many died on the way, many - upon arrival at the place, since, as a rule, "special settlers" were landed on a bare ground: in the forest, in the mountains, in the steppe. Families being evicted were allowed to take with them clothes, bedding and kitchen utensils, food for 3 months, but the total luggage should not weigh more than 30 pounds (480 kg). The rest of the property was confiscated and distributed between the collective farm and the poor. Families of Red Army soldiers and officers of the Red Army were not subject to eviction and confiscation of property. Dispossession became a tool for forcing collectivization: those who resisted the creation of collective farms on legal grounds could be repressed as kulaks or sympathizers - "sub-kulakists".

FROM LETTERS TO THE CHAIRMAN OF THE VTsIK M.I. KALININ. EARLY 1930s

“Dear comrade Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin! I report from the Makarihi camp - Kotlas. ...Did you see that defenseless children from 2 weeks and older are resettled with their parents and suffer in barracks that are completely unsuitable ... Bread is issued with a delay of 5 days. Such a meager ration, and even then untimely ... All of us, innocent, are waiting for the final consideration of the case on our statements ... ".

“To the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Comrade. M.I. Kalinin. While in exile, I saw enough of the horror of this mass expulsion of entire families ... Let them be kulaks, although many of them had a completely insignificant, below the average, state, let them be harmful elements, although, to tell the truth, many got here only because of evil languages ​​of their neighbors, but still they are people, not cattle, and they have to live much worse than cattle live with a cultural owner ... "

"Dizzy with Success"

Forced collectivization and dispossession of kulaks provoked protests from the peasants. In February-March 1930, mass slaughtering of livestock began, and as a result, the number of cattle decreased by a third. In 1929, 1,300 peasant anti-kolkhoz actions were registered. In the northern Caucasus and in a number of regions of Ukraine, regular units of the Red Army were thrown to pacify the peasants. Discontent also seeped into the army, which consisted mainly of peasant children. At the same time, in the villages, there were numerous facts of the murder of “twenty-five thousandths” - worker activists sent from the city to organize collective farms. The kulaks repeatedly broke and damaged the collective farm machines during the spring sowing and wrote threatening messages to the heads of the farms.

On March 2, 1930, Pravda published Stalin's article "Dizziness from Success", which contained an accusation of excesses against the local leadership. A resolution was adopted on the struggle against "the distortion of the party line in the collective-farm movement." Some local leaders were punished in a revealing manner. At the same time, in March, the Exemplary Charter of the Agricultural Artel was adopted. It proclaimed the principle of voluntary entry into the collective farm, determined the procedure for unification, the volume of social means of production.

From an article by I.V. Stalin “Dizziness from success”, March 2, 1930: “... Collective farms cannot be planted by force. That would be stupid and reactionary. The collective-farm movement must rely on the active support of the bulk of the peasantry. Models of collective-farm construction in developed areas cannot be mechanically transplanted into undeveloped areas. That would be stupid and reactionary. Such a "policy" would at one stroke debunk the policy of collectivization... To tease the collective farmer by the "socialization" of residential buildings, all dairy cattle, all small livestock, poultry, when the grain problem has not yet been resolved, when the artel form of collective farms has not yet been fixed - Isn't it clear that such a "policy" can be pleasing and beneficial only to our sworn enemies? In order to straighten out the line of our work in the field of collective-farm development, we must put an end to these moods ... "

HUNGER 1932-33

In the early 1930s, grain prices on the world market plummeted. Harvests of 1931 and 1932 in the USSR were below average. However, the sale of bread abroad in order to obtain foreign currency for the purchase industrial equipment continued. The cessation of exports threatened to disrupt the industrialization program. In 1930, 835 million centners of grain were harvested, of which 48.4 million centners were exported. In 1931, accordingly, 695 were collected, and 51.8 million centners were exported.

In 1932, the collective farms in the grain regions were unable to fulfill the tasks of delivering grain. Extraordinary commissions were sent there. The village was swept by a wave of administrative terror. The annual withdrawal of millions of centners of grain from the collective farms for the needs of industrialization soon caused a terrible famine. Often, even the grain that was intended for spring sowing was seized. Sowed little, harvested little. But the supply plan had to be carried out. Then the last products were taken from the collective farmers. Imported machine tools cost the people a very high price, the famine of 1932-1933. Famine broke out in Ukraine, the North Caucasus, Kazakhstan, and Central Russia. Moreover, many starving areas were just the breadbaskets of the country. According to some historians, the famine claimed the lives of more than 5 million people.

RESULTS

After the publication of the Stalinist article "Dizziness from Success", there was a mass exit of peasants from the collective farms. But soon they re-enter them. The rates of agricultural tax on individual farmers were increased by 50% compared to collective farms, which did not allow normal individual farming. In September 1931, the coverage of collectivization reaches 60%. In 1934 - 75%. The entire policy of the Soviet leadership in relation to agriculture was aimed at keeping the peasant within a strict framework: either work on a collective farm, or leave for the city and join the new proletariat. To prevent uncontrolled migration of the population in December 1932, passports and a propiska system were introduced. The peasants did not receive passports. Without them, it was impossible to move to the city and get a job there. It was possible to leave the collective farm only with the permission of the chairman. This situation continued until the 1960s. But at the same time, the so-called organized recruitment of labor from the village to the construction sites of the first five-year plans took place on a massive scale.

Over time, the dissatisfaction of the peasants with collectivization subsided. The poor, by and large, had nothing to lose. The middle peasants got used to the new situation and did not dare to openly oppose the authorities. In addition, the collective farm system, breaking one of the principles of peasant life - individual farming, continued other traditions - the communal spirit of the Russian village, interdependence and joint work. New life did not provide a direct incentive for economic initiative. A good chairman could provide an acceptable standard of living on a collective farm, while a negligent one could bring him to poverty. But gradually the farms got on their feet and began to give the food that the state demanded from them. Collective farmers worked for the so-called "workdays" - a mark for going to work. For "workdays" they also received part of the output produced by the collective farm. At first, it was simply not necessary to dream of prosperity, good prosperity. The resistance of the kulaks, which some called "world-eaters", others - enterprising owners, was broken by repressions and taxes. However, hidden anger and resentment against the Soviet system remained with many of them. All this had an effect already during the Great Patriotic War in the manifestation of cooperation with the enemy of a part of the repressed kulaks.

In 1934, the final stage of collectivization was announced. The division of the peasants into the poor, the middle peasant and the kulak was finished. By 1937, 93% of peasant farms were united into collective farms and state farms. State land was assigned to collective farms for perpetual use. Collective farms had land and labor. The machines were given by state machine and tractor stations (MTS). For their work, MTS took part of the harvest. Collective farms were responsible for handing over to the state at a "fixed price" 25-33% of their products.

Formally, the management of the collective farm was carried out on the basis of self-government: the general meeting of collective farmers elected the chairman, the board and the audit commission. In fact, the kolkhozes were managed by the district committees of the party.

Collectivization solved the problem of free transfer of funds from the agrarian sector to industry, ensured the supply of the army and industrial centers with agricultural products, and also solved the problem of export supplies of bread and raw materials. During the years of the first five-year plan, 40% of export earnings came from grain exports. Instead of 500-600 million poods of marketable grain, which had previously been procured, in the mid-1930s the country was procuring 1200-1400 million poods of marketable grain annually. Collective farms, although not satisfying, still fed the growing population of the state, primarily cities. Organization of large farms and implementation in them machine technology made it possible to withdraw from agriculture a huge number of people who worked on industrialization construction sites, then fought against Nazism and again raised industry in the post-war years. In other words, a huge part of the human and material resources of the village was released.

The main result of collectivization was the industrial leap, carried out with many unjustified costs, but nevertheless carried out.

FROM THE MEMORIES OF W. CHURCHILL

About the conversation with I. Stalin at the negotiations in Moscow in August 1942 (the conversation turned to collectivization in the USSR in the 1930s)

(...) This topic immediately revived Marshal [Stalin].

"Well, no," he said, "the policy of collectivization was a terrible struggle."

“I thought that you consider it difficult,” I [Churchill] said, “after all, you were not dealing with a few tens of thousands of aristocrats or large landowners, but with millions of small people.”

“With ten million,” he said, holding up his hands. - It was something terrible, it lasted four years, but in order to get rid of periodic hunger strikes, it was absolutely necessary for Russia to plow the land with tractors. We must mechanize our agriculture. When we gave tractors to peasants, they fell into disrepair after a few months. Only collective farms with workshops can handle tractors. We tried our best to explain this to the peasants...

[they were talking about wealthy peasants and Churchill asked]: "These were the people you called kulaks?"

“Yes,” he replied without repeating the word. After a pause, he remarked: “It was all very bad and difficult, but necessary.”

"What happened?" I asked.

“Many of them agreed to come with us,” he replied. “Some of them were given land for individual cultivation in the Tomsk region, or in the Irkutsk region, or even further north, but the bulk of them were very unpopular, and they were destroyed by their farmhands.”

There was a rather long pause. Then Stalin continued: “We have not only increased the food supply enormously, but also immeasurably improved the quality of grain. In the past, all sorts of grains were grown. Now, in our entire country, no one is allowed to plant any other varieties besides the standard Soviet grain. Otherwise, they are treated harshly. This means an even greater increase in the food supply.”

I... remember how strongly I was impressed at the time by the news that millions of men and women were being destroyed or permanently displaced. Undoubtedly, a generation will be born that will not know their suffering, but it will certainly have more food and will bless the name of Stalin ...

The radical turn of the countryside towards socialism can be considered already secured.

Right there on concrete examples how collectivization was carried out, he points to a violation of the principle of voluntariness, committed locally in the organization of collective farms. Stalin condemned the actions of local authorities that were not provided for by the plans for accelerated collectivization, in particular, the premature planting of agricultural communes:

Not the commune, but the agricultural artel is the main link in the collective-farm movement, but the following are not socialized in the artel: home gardens (small vegetable gardens, gardens), residential buildings, a certain part of dairy cattle, small livestock, poultry, etc.

Stalin accused the "zealous socializers" of "decomposing and discrediting" the collective farm movement and condemned their actions:

pouring water on the mill of our class enemies.

It should be noted that in order to finally stop the flywheel of repression against the peasantry, Stalin still needed to publish the article “Answer to Comrade Collective Farmers”. There, he unequivocally indicated to the lower party members that "the party line has changed":

They forgot that cavalry attacks, necessary and useful for solving problems of a military nature, are unsuitable and detrimental for solving problems of collective farm construction ... Apparently, the laurels of Don Quixote do not allow our "left" oppressors to sleep.

Shortly after the publication of the article, by the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of March 14 “On the fight against the distortion of the party line in the collective farm movement”, the actions of the party workers in question were qualified as “leftist bends”, as a result of which the collectivization campaign was temporarily suspended, and a number of grass-roots workers were convicted.

The problem of developing domestic agriculture in Russia has become extremely aggravated recently with the introduction of international sanctions against Russian economy. From time to time, the ruling circles of Russia are forced to touch upon this problem. So, in September 2014, the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation D.A. Medvedev announced the need to create favorable conditions for the development of domestic agricultural production, and measures are being taken in the field of import substitution as part of the food security of our country.

In our opinion, the experience of the development of agriculture in other historical periods of our country is interesting in this direction. One of the important measures in the field of agriculture was collectivization.

In this article, we will consider what goals were set during the period of collectivization, what were its results, what were the so-called "excesses" and why and why liberals criticize the Soviet past.

The accelerated industrialization and collectivization of the USSR is sometimes called the "great turning point" or the "second revolution" - their scope, pace and influence on the future fate of society and the state were so huge.

Chronologically, they are most often dated 1928-1940. Most of this period of time falls on the first two five-year plans (1928-1932 and 1933-1937), when the key events of the "great turning point" took place. On this path there were many difficulties and mistakes, exploits and crimes, victories and failures; successes in the development of the national economy and failures in many of its sectors, especially in agriculture.

Industrialization was at first considered the main task of the "great turning point", and the collectivization of the countryside was only its tool, its help. Collectivization was deployed later than industrialization. However, in the first half of the thirties, collectivization emerged as an independent direction in state policy, which required no less close attention than industrialization.

Relations among peasants in pre-revolutionary Russia

Before analyzing the course and real results of collectivization, it is especially important to refute the assertions repeatedly repeated by the liberal bourgeois about the “kulaks” as the most active and hardworking peasants developing the productive forces in agriculture. Attention should be paid to the assessment given to them by those who by no means belonged to the Bolshevik Party and were not its supporters. So, one should refer to the work of A.S. Yermolov "Crop failure and national disaster" 1892.

Marginal notes:History reference

A.S. Yermolov was not only not a revolutionary, he belonged to landowners- in January 1917, he had an estate of 1248 acres in the Voronezh province and 1325 acres in the Ryazan province. Moreover, he was member of the royal government. So, in 1894 he took the post of Minister of Agriculture and State Property, in 1896 he became a real Privy Councilor, Secretary of State (1903), and from May 1905 a member of the State Council.

His idea of ​​the so-called "kulaks" is very interesting.

Note that this concept was actively used in Tsarist Russia with a brightly negative connotation and is not some kind of “invention” of the Soviet era. Yes, he writes that

In close connection with the question of collecting state, zemstvo, and public taxes that fall on the peasant population, and, one might say, mainly on the basis of these penalties, a terrible ulcer of our rural life has developed, which, at the end of it, corrupts and takes away the people's well-being - these are the so-called kulaks and usury. With the urgent need for money that the peasants have - to pay duties, to equip after a fire, to buy a horse after it was stolen, or cattle after a death, these ulcers find the widest field for their development.

With the existing restrictions, established with the best aims and perhaps quite necessary, with regard to the sale for state and private collections of the basic needs of the peasant economy, as well as allotment land, there is no correct credit available to the peasants at all.

Only the rural usurer, who provides himself with enormous interest, which rewards him for the frequent loss of capital itself, comes to his aid in cases of such extreme need, but this aid, of course, is costly to those who are glad to turn to it. Once indebted to such a usurer, the peasant is almost never able to get out of the loop with which he entangles him and which for the most part leads him to complete ruin. Quite often the peasant already plows and sows and gathers grain only for the kulak.

Further A.S. Yermolov writes that it is often almost impossible even for landowners to receive reprimands from peasants if they fail to fulfill their obligations, if they leave work without permission, they even consider going to court as an extreme measure. But the rural usurers act in a completely different way, who return their money "not by those, but by other means, not by money, but in kind, grain, cattle, land, work, etc."

Describing the system of financial enslavement of peasants, he notes that:

It is hard to believe to what extent the interest that is collected from the peasants for the money lent to them, and which is mainly dependent on the degree of people's needs, reaches. As an example, he cites a situation where in summer, especially during a favorable harvest period, “a loan is given no more than 45-50% per annum, in autumn the same lenders demand at least 120%, and sometimes up to 240%, and very often the security is a pledge of peasant shower allotments, which the owners themselves then rent from their own lenders. Sometimes the land taken by the lender for a debt at the rate of 3-4 rubles per tithe is leased back to its owner for 10-12 rubles. However, in most cases even such percentages are recognized as still insufficient, since, in addition, various works, services, payments in kind, in addition to cash, etc., are negotiated. When borrowing bread - for a pood in winter or spring, in the fall two are returned ... ". He writes that “in recent years, a loan secured by property has become especially widespread, and the usurer does not disdain anything - agricultural implements, and wearing clothes, and standing bread, and even a workhorse and cattle are used. When the time comes for retribution and the peasant has nothing to pay his debts with, then all this goes on sale, and more often it is conceded to the same creditor, and he also sets the price at which he accepts the pledged thing in payment of the debt, so that often, having given the pledge, the peasant remains still in debt, sometimes not even less, against the initial figure of the debt.

A.S. Ermolov in his work concludes that resolve the situation in the countryside in order to “put an end to the harmful activities of rural usurers, kulaks and buyers ...” Tsarist Russia failed to do this and the problem was inherited by Soviet Russia.

Collectivization: prerequisites for holding

Collectivization is a profound transformation not only of the countryside and agriculture, but of the entire country. It affected the entire economy as a whole, the social structure of society, demographic processes and urbanization. At the first stage, it caused a severe catastrophe, which was accompanied by massive suffering and loss of life. It was during the first stage of the reform that, apparently, the most fundamental mistakes were made with the most serious consequences for the entire Soviet period (not counting the stage of dismantling the Soviet system after 1988). The fact that the Soviet state survived this catastrophe speaks of its great potential and the reserve of trust that the people placed in it.

In itself, the idea of ​​partnerships for the joint cultivation of the land was not, of course, a Soviet invention. Already in the 19th century, A.N. Engelhardt wrote about it in the Tenth Letter (December 3, 1880):

If peasant lands were cultivated and fertilized jointly, not by cornfields, but entirely by all the owners together, as landowners' lands are cultivated, with the division of the product itself, then the grain yields of the peasants would be no lower than those of the landowners. The peasants themselves agree with this. Narrow cornfields, processed by each owner separately, prevent both good processing and the correct distribution of manure. By cultivating the land together, these shortcomings would be eliminated and the yields would be even better.

During Stolypin's reform, production cooperation was seen as the main way for the rise of poor peasant farms. In 1913, the First All-Russian Agricultural Congress was held in Kiev, the resolution of which ended with such an appeal to the land management authorities and the government:

One of the first places should be occupied by the organization of partnerships for the joint use of land, both own and especially leased, through collective cultivation. The role of land management in relation to these partnerships should be to allocate, during the development of land, small plots to one place and as close as possible to the villages, to which the Congress draws the attention of the government. The role of agronomy will consist in the widest propaganda of the very idea of ​​partnerships and in putting it into practice.

The state of relations between the authorities and the peasantry in such a country as Russia was perhaps the main issue of the state. The middle of the 20s was held under the slogan "Facing the village", which in fact meant economic support wealthy peasants. The liberalization of the electoral right carried out in 1924 was fully used by the kulaks as the most organized and resourceful category of peasants. During the elections to local Soviets in 1925, the share of horseless peasants among the deputies fell to 4%. The acquisition by the kulaks of real political power in the countryside created a dangerous situation in the party as well—the dissatisfaction of the rural party organizations was reinforced by the strengthening of the left opposition in the center.

The change in the political situation also contributed to social stratification. In 1927, 3% of farms classified as kulak had 14-20% of all means of production and about a third of all agricultural machinery in the countryside. The leasing of land to the kulaks, the shadow hiring of farm laborers, loans of seeds and equipment for working off, have expanded. Therefore, obtaining a reliable "social portrait" of the village has become an important state task.

After the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Commission of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was formed on issues of collectivization under the leadership of A.Ya. Yakovlev (Epshtein), which was supposed to recommend the model of the collective farm. On December 7, 1929, by a decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, the People's Commissariat for Agriculture of the USSR was formed (contrary to the Constitution, which did not provide for an allied people's commissariat in this industry). He was entrusted with the conduct of collectivization and the functions of long-term and operational management of agriculture and forestry. A.Ya. Yakovlev was appointed People's Commissar. The Academy of Agricultural Sciences with its network of institutes also came under the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture.

At first, the formation of collective farms was successful, the peasants perceived the collective farm as an artel, a well-known type of production cooperation that did not destroy the peasant household - the main cell of the entire way of the Russian village. Moreover, the idea of ​​joint cultivation of the land, production cooperation existed in the communal peasantry for a long time, long before collectivization and even before the revolution. Collectivization was seen as the revival and strengthening of the community.

The course of collectivization in agriculture

80% of the population of pre-revolutionary Russia were peasants. Of these, 50% were poor, 30% were middle peasants, and 20% were kulaks. Now the kulak is constantly presented as an intelligent, hardworking peasant. There were, of course, some. But, basically, it was a world-eater, a horse dealer using hired labor. The Soviet government could not leave the bulk of the peasantry to the mercy of fate. In addition, it was necessary to feed the city. Where is the exit? I had to introduce a surplus appraisal, a tax in kind. Combats were organised. But these measures did not solve the problem.

In the mid-1920s, supply and marketing cooperation was the main link in cooperative construction. In the second half of the decade, legislation paid much more attention to production cooperatives. The most important normative act in this area was the resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of March 16, 1927 "On Collective Farms", which drew attention to the simplest forms of production cooperation - partnerships for the social cultivation of the land, machine partnerships, proposing to involve in them ever larger masses of the peasantry and primarily the poor. At the same time, higher forms of cooperation—artels and communes—are not forgotten.

IN AND. Lenin formulated his vision of the main tasks for building socialism in our country. He believed that this required:

• creation of a modern industry,
• organization of peasant cooperatives,
• the implementation of the cultural revolution, which will eliminate illiteracy among the peasantry and raise the scientific and technical level of the population.

Lenin emphasized:

The power of the state over all large-scale means of production, political power in the hands of the proletariat, the alliance of this proletariat with small and very small peasants, guaranteed proletarian leadership over the peasantry, etc. Isn't that all that is needed to build a fully socialist society out of cooperatives?...

The question was how to carry out the assigned tasks - in stages or by forced methods. In view of the outwardly imperialist threat looming over the Soviet Union at the end of the 1920s, in the conditions of the still underdeveloped degree of industry inherited from the tsarist period, in order to mobilize all resources for the implementation of a rapid breakthrough vital for the country, the Soviet government was forced to choose the method of forced industrialization, curtail the NEP.

Since our country was agrarian, funds for industrialization had to be taken from the countryside. Collectivization took place in the interests of forced industrialization.

What is "excesses" in collectivization

Contrary to the widespread myth, according to which the authorities immediately launched an attack on the kulaks, the case at the very beginning was limited to relatively evolutionary methods. Thus, in 1927, when the danger of war hung over the USSR, the party sought only to limit the appetites of the rural bourgeoisie. New taxes on kulak incomes were developed. They also had to deliver increased quotas during the grain harvest. The number of workers they hired was limited. However, the authorities faced sabotage of agricultural supplies.

As you know, a similar situation was observed in the period 1914-1917, as a result of which the army and the cities faced food shortages. A.I. wrote about all this in his memoirs. Denikin. Thus, by that time there was a negative experience when the inaction of the authorities to control the mobilization and concentration of resources at a critical moment for the country turned into disastrous consequences ... Under the circumstances, emergency measures had to be resorted to, the so-called "dispossession".

Marginal notes: on the terror of the kulaks

The kulaks tried to harm collective-farm construction, intimidate the poor peasantry, and influence the middle peasants. Everything was used: slander, intimidation, threats and physical reprisals against the activists of the collective farm peasantry. Only within the Amur District in 1928, the kulaks committed 60 terrorist acts.

It is worth noting that we are talking about 1928, when there was no talk of any "repressions" and "dispossession". A real terror was unleashed against the Soviet government and the working people with the fists. Do not be surprised that the authorities were forced to retaliate against criminals. The power was obliged to strike, otherwise it is not power. The carrying out of complete collectivization and dispossession of kulaks (in order to knock out the base from under the criminals) was to a very large extent caused precisely by the attempts of hostile social groups spark another civil war.

By the way, long before any decisions, dispossession of kulaks began on the ground - in provinces and villages. No, not at all because of envy of successful neighbors, but because of the inability of the “economically efficient” rural bourgeois to live humanly in the Russian community.

So, in 1928, 1,307 terrorist attacks were committed on the territory of the RSFSR, including over 400 murders of communists, activists, teachers, policemen and tractor drivers. In 1929, only in the villages and villages of the central regions of Russia, 1002 terrorist attacks were noted, including 384 murders and 141 arson of collective farm buildings. In reality, the situation was much more difficult - a lot of murders, arson and sabotage were not recorded due to the weakness of law enforcement agencies or were framed as accidents.

There was no way to find criminals without a complete "cleansing" of the fist. If this had been carried out, for example, in 1928 with exemplary severity and ruthlessness, many innocent victims would have been avoided and big problems afterwards.

In 1930 (even when most of the dispossessed were sent to Siberia and Kazakhstan), 2391 terrorist attacks and 456 kulak gangs armed with firearms, including machine guns, were recorded in the country. More than 170 policemen, Red Army soldiers and Chekists died in battles with bandits.

Thus, it was necessary to wage an active struggle against the sabotage of the kulaks. Moreover, the local authorities allowed many excesses in the process of collectivization, when a number of party workers tried to artificially force this process, not taking into account the specifics of the place and time, when the principle of voluntary entry into collective farms was violated, not only the main means of production, but also poultry were socialized , small livestock, residential buildings.

All this was condemned by I.V. Stalin in the article "Dizziness from Success", published in the newspaper Pravda on March 2, 1930.

He also introduced the essence complex ambiguous situation in the countryside in response to M.A. Sholokhov to his letter dated April 4, 1933, in which he emphasized many excesses. Stalin thanked him for the letters, as they:

they reveal the sore of our Party and Soviet work, they reveal how sometimes our workers, wanting to curb the enemy, accidentally hit their friends and turn to sadism ... But this is only one side of the matter ... And the other side is that respected grain growers ... carried out ... sabotage and were not averse to leaving the workers, the Red Army - without bread ....

According to Stalin:

Many consider these statements by I.V. Stalin's "smoke screen", which had the goal of removing responsibility for the costs in the course of the collectivization process, to cover up all excesses.

However, the case was not limited to a simple verbal condemnation of the actions of local authorities..

Certain measures aimed at correcting mistakes and at imposing sanctions on workers of the party apparatus who go over the line of the party were taken. So, in the period 1934-1938 31515 people were released as "wrongly expelled" and 33565 were handed over to dependents.

On October 22, 1938, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR issued a resolution "On the Issuance of Passports to the Children of Special Settlers and Exiles", providing for the issuance of passports to those who are not discredited in anything, "on a general basis and not to put obstacles in their way to travel to study or work." In 1935, according to the new Charter of the agricultural artel, the peasants received the right to personal subsidiary plots. On October 1 of the same year, the free sale of meat, fats, fish, sugar and potatoes was restored.

As noted, criminal cases were initiated against a number of republican and local party leaders, for example, against the leadership of the Lepel district of the Byelorussian SSR. Thus, in the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of February 22, 1937 “On the Situation in the Lepel District of the BSSR”, it is emphasized that the local authorities committed:

illegal confiscation of property from peasants, both from collective farmers and individual farmers, carried out under the guise of collecting arrears in cash taxes and deliveries in kind.

In the post-Soviet period, they tried to form an opinion according to which collectivization gave a disastrous result. As the main confirmation of the corresponding thesis, they cited the fact of a famine that broke out in a number of regions of the USSR in 1932-1933.

Tragedy, of course, took place. However, it appears that the statement that the famine was the result of collectivization as such is incorrect. According to historians, the following should be singled out as the main reasons:

• First, this phenomenon has become the result of the excesses allowed by the local party authorities in the course of the implementation of collectivization. Insufficient experience, chaos in orders, the lack of a proper level of preparedness, and the radicalism of a number of workers led to grave consequences.
• Secondly, one cannot ignore the fact that the kulaks, instigated by various counter-revolutionary forces, carried out direct sabotage and destroyed their own cattle and horses.
• Thirdly, we must not close our eyes to the fact that one of the causes of the famine was drought that occurred in Ukraine in 1930-1932. Professor Mikhail Florinsky, who fought against Soviet power during the Civil War, writes about this. According to him, "several droughts in 1930 and 1931, especially in Ukraine, worsened the state of agriculture and created the conditions for famine."

It should also be noted that the assertion that collectivization took place solely with the help of coercion alone is incorrect. As the Belgian historian Ludo Martens writes in his book Forbidden Stalin:

the impetus for the most violent episodes of collectivization came from the oppressed peasant masses themselves.

As an example, he cites the statement of a peasant from the Black Sea region, who said that he had lived all his life in a laboring environment. After the victory of the October Revolution, he received land, annually - loans, but:

"despite the help of the Soviet government, ..., I could not manage my economy and improve it." He saw the way out in "joining the tractor column, helping it and working in it."

The results of the collectivization of agriculture

As the mistakes made in the course of collectivization were corrected, it was possible to achieve lifting Agriculture.

So, the village received new equipment on an increasing scale. By 1932, 22% of arable land was cultivated with the help of tractors, and by the end of the second five-year plan - up to 60%. During the years of the first five-year plan, 154,000 tractors were supplied to agriculture (94,000 of domestic production).

By 1935, 34 thousand trucks, 31 thousand combines and 281 thousand tractors were used in agriculture. During the years of the second five-year plan, 405,000 tractors entered agriculture. During the period under review, the number of machine and tractor stations doubled. In 1932, they served a third of the collective farms of the USSR, and five years later - 78%. American journalists M. Sayers and A. Kahn, assessing the results of collectivization, emphasized that the Soviet people:

whose grandfathers, from time immemorial, bent their backs with primitive scythes, hoes, wooden plows, now harvested rich crops with tractors and combines and fought pests with the help of chemicals thrown from aircraft.

The Belgian historian Ludo Martens in his book “Another Look at Stalin” (1994) cites the following data:

in 1930 the harvest reached 83.5 million tons. In 1931-1932, there was a drop in grain production (69.9 million tons in 1932). In 1933, an increase in yield was recorded - 89.8 million tons, which generally continued in subsequent years. In 1940, the harvest reached 118.8 million tons. The picture is similar with the cost of agricultural production. In 1928 - 13.1 billion rubles, in 1934 - 14.7 billion rubles, and in 1940 it reached 23.2 billion rubles.

To support the collective farm movement and how special mechanism a powerful cooperative movement was launched.

According to (Elyutin, O.N. Cooperation in Russia is an unclaimed experience / O.N. Elyutin // Bulletin of Moscow University. Ser. 8. History. - 1998. - No. 5. - P. 30-53.) in Stalin times there were over 114 thousand workshops and other industrial enterprises, where at least 1.8 million people worked. They produced almost 6% of the gross industrial output of the USSR (depending on the method of assessing the level of market "cooperative" prices, much more), in its composition: 40% of all furniture in the country, 70% of all metal utensils, 35% of knitwear, almost 100% of toys .

On a contractual basis, scientific and engineering works which gave very good results - for example, the system of commercial cooperation included 100 design bureaus, 22 experimental laboratories, and two research institutes.

His data do not take into account cooperative rural artels, in which workers (both collective farmers and individual farmers) were partially employed - in their free time from agricultural work. It is very difficult to accurately estimate their number now, probably, they included up to 20-30 million (!) People in the 30s.

The destruction of Soviet cooperation and the Soviet market began with the Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR "On the reorganization of commercial cooperation" of April 14, 1956. Since 1956, personal subsidiary farming has been destroyed at an accelerated pace, private livestock has been practically eliminated, collective farms have been “enlarged”, which dealt a terrible blow to small villages, the property of cooperatives and individuals was “transferred to state bodies”, that is, confiscated and passed under the control of party bosses. .

And if we analyze the results of collectivization for subsequent periods, then Stalin made such a start that the partyocracy, which seized power after the 1953 coup d'état, was able to “fatten” for more than 40 years.

If, on the eve of the first five-year plan, the country's agriculture consisted of 25 million small peasant farms (households) based on manual labor, then in a few years the largest highly mechanized agricultural production was created.

The gross output of the Soviet countryside, compared with 1913, over 60 years, for example, increased 4.4 times, and labor productivity - 6 times. The USSR took one of the first places in the world in food production: it produced more than any other country in the world of wheat, rye, barley, sugar beet, potatoes, milk. In 1954-1961, the USSR had the highest average annual growth rate of agricultural products in the world - 6%.

Compared with the record year of 1913, when 250 kg of grain per capita was produced, the USSR increased these figures by 3 times. Animal husbandry also developed. On January 10, 1966, for example, in the USSR there were 93.4 million heads of cattle (in 1916 - 58.4 million), including 40.1 million heads of cows (1916 - 28.8 million .), 59.5 million pigs (1916 - 23 million), 135.3 million sheep and goats (1916 - 89.7 million heads). In the early 1980s, the average yield in the USSR was 15 centners per hectare.

In the next part, we will continue talking about collectivization, starting with how liberals distort information about the Soviet past in general and about collectivization in particular ...

 

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