The emergence of the first collective farms, development and changes in legislation. Types of property of the USSR in the field of agriculture, or how a collective farm differs from a state farm Collective farm and collective farm life in art

The word "collective farm" for foreigners has always been one of the symbols of the USSR. Perhaps because they did not understand what it meant (as they understood little about the peculiarities of the Soviet way of life). Today, domestic youth strives to designate with this word everything that does not correspond to their ideas about a “beautiful” life, “modernity” and “progress”. Most likely the reason is the same.

Land for peasants

The Decree on Land became one of the first two decrees of the Soviet government. This document proclaimed the abolition of landownership and the transfer of land to those who work on it.

But this slogan could be understood in different ways. The peasants perceived the norm of the decree as an opportunity for themselves to become owners of the land (and this was downright their crystal dream). For this reason, a significant number of the peasantry supported the Soviet government.

The government itself believed that since it was building a state of workers and peasants, then everything that belonged to it, the state, belonged to them too. Thus it was assumed. That the land in the country is state-owned, only those who themselves begin to work on it, without exploiting others, can simply use it.

Artel economy

In the first years of Soviet power, this principle was quite successfully implemented in practice. No, far from all the lands taken from the “exploiting class” were handed out to the peasants, but such divisions were carried out. At the same time, the Bolsheviks carried out explanatory work in favor of organizing collective farms. This is how the abbreviation "collective farm" (from "collective farm") arose. A collective farm is a peasant association of a cooperative type, in which the participants combine their "production capacities" (land, equipment), jointly perform work, and then distribute the results of labor among themselves. In this way, the collective farm differed from the "state farm" ("Soviet economy"). These were created by the state, usually in landlord farms, and those who worked in them received a fixed salary.

There were a number of peasants who appreciated the benefits of working together. The collective farm is not difficult, if you think about it. So the first associations began to emerge from 1920 on a completely voluntary basis. Depending on the degree of socialization of property, different clarifying names were used for them - artels, communes. More often, only lands and the most important tools (horses, equipment for plowing and sowing) became common, but there were also cases of socialization of all livestock and even small implements.

little by little

The first collective farms for the most part achieved success, albeit not very significant. The state provided them with some assistance (materials, seed, tax breaks, occasionally equipment), but on the whole, an insignificant number of peasant farms united into collective farms. Depending on the region, the figure for the mid-20s could range from 10 to 40%, but more often it was no more than 20%. The rest of the peasants preferred to manage in the old fashioned way, but "on their own".

Machines for the dictatorship of the proletariat

By the mid-1920s, the consequences of the revolution and wars had largely been overcome. According to most economic indicators, the country has reached the level of 1913. But it was catastrophically small. Firstly, even then Russia was technically noticeably inferior to the leading world powers, and during this time they managed to move quite far ahead. Secondly, the "imperialist threat" was by no means the result of the paranoia of the Soviet leadership. She existed in reality western states had nothing against the military destruction of incomprehensible Soviets, and at the same time the robbery of Russian resources.

It was impossible to create a powerful defense without a powerful industry - guns, tanks and aircraft were required. Therefore, in 1926, the party proclaimed the start of a course towards the industrialization of the USSR.

But grandiose (and very timely!) plans required funds. First of all, it was necessary to purchase industrial equipment and technologies - there was nothing like this “at home”. And only the agriculture of the USSR could provide funds.

Wholesale is more convenient

Individual peasants were difficult to control. It was impossible to reliably plan how much "food tax" they could get from them. And it was necessary to know this in order to calculate how much income would be received from the export of agricultural products and how much equipment would have to be purchased as a result. In 1927, there was even a "grain crisis" - 8 times less food tax was received than expected.

In December 1927, the decision of the XV Party Congress on the collectivization of agriculture as a priority appeared. Collective farms in the USSR, where everyone was responsible for everyone, had to provide the country with the necessary amount of export products.

dangerous speed

The collective farm was a good idea. But it was let down by a very tight deadline. It turned out that the Bolsheviks, who criticized the populists for the theories of "peasant socialism", themselves stepped on the same rake. The influence of the community in the countryside was, to put it mildly, exaggerated, and the possessive instinct of the peasant was very strong. In addition, the peasants were illiterate (this legacy of the past had yet to be overcome), they knew how to count poorly and thought in very narrow terms. The benefits of a joint economy and promising state interests were alien to them, and no time was allocated for explanation.

As a result, it turned out that the collective farm is an association into which the peasants were forced to drive. The process was accompanied by repressions against the most prosperous part of the peasantry - the so-called kulaks. The persecution was all the more unfair because the pre-revolutionary "world-eaters" had been dispossessed a long time ago, and now there was a struggle against those who successfully took advantage of the opportunities provided by the revolution and the New Economic Policy. Also, “fists” were often recorded at the denunciation of a malicious neighbor or because of misunderstandings with a representative of the authorities - in some regions, a fifth of the peasantry was repressed!

Comrades Davydov

As a result of the “pedaling” of collectivization in the USSR, it was not only wealthy peasants who suffered. Many victims were also among the grain purveyors, as well as the so-called "twenty-five thousandths" - communist workers sent to the countryside in order to stimulate collective farm construction. Most of them were really true to the cause; the type of such an ascetic was portrayed by M. Sholokhov in the image of Davydov in Virgin Soil Upturned.

But the book also truthfully described the fate of most of these Davydovs. Already in 1929, anti-collective farm riots began in many regions, and twenty-five thousand people were brutally killed (more often with their whole family). Rural communists also died en masse, as well as activists of the "committees of the poor" (Makar Nagulnov from the same novel is also a true image).

I don't um...

The acceleration of collectivization in the USSR led to its most terrible consequence - the famine of the early 30s. It covered precisely those regions where most of all marketable bread was produced: the Volga region, North Caucasus, Saratov region, some areas of Siberia, Central and Southern Ukraine. Kazakhstan suffered greatly, where they tried to force the nomads to grow bread.

The guilt of the government, which set unrealistic tasks for the procurement of grain in conditions of a serious crop failure (an abnormal drought occurred in the summer of 1932), in the death of millions of people from malnutrition, is enormous. But no less fault lies with the possessive instinct. The peasants massively slaughtered cattle, so that it would not become common. It’s terrible, but in 1929-1930 there were frequent cases of death from overeating (again, let’s turn to Sholokhov and remember grandfather Shchukar, who ate his cow in a week, and then the same amount “did not get out of sunflowers”, suffering from a stomach). On the collective farm fields they worked carelessly (not mine - it’s not worth trying), and then they died of starvation, because there was nothing to get for workdays. It should be noted that the cities were also starving - there was also nothing to bring there, everything was exported.

Will grind - there will be flour

But gradually things got better. Industrialization has yielded results in the field Agriculture- the first domestic tractors, combines, threshers and other equipment appeared. It began to be supplied to collective farms, and labor productivity increased. The hunger has receded. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, there were practically no individual peasants in the USSR, but agricultural production was growing.

Yes, just in case, they did not provide for mandatory passportization for rural residents, so that they could not run away to the city solely of their own free will. But mechanization in the countryside reduced the need for workers, and industry demanded them. So leaving the village was quite possible. This caused an increase in the prestige of education in the countryside - the industry did not need illiterates, a Komsomol-excellent student had much more chances to go to the city than a loser who was always busy in his own garden.

The winners are judged

The millions of victims of collectivization should be blamed on the Soviet leadership of the 1930s. But this will be a trial of the winners, since the country's leadership has achieved its goal. Against the backdrop of the world economic crisis, the USSR made an incredible industrial breakthrough and caught up with (and in part even surpassed) the most developed economies in the world. This helped him repel Hitler's aggression. Consequently, the victims of collectivization were at least not in vain - the industrialization of the country took place.

Together with the country

Collective farms were the brainchild of the USSR and died with it. Even in the era of perestroika, criticism of the collective farm system began (sometimes fair, but by no means always), all sorts of “rental farms” appeared, “ family contracts”- the transition to individual management was made again. And after the collapse of the USSR, the elimination of collective farms took place. They became victims of privatization - their property was taken home by new "effective owners". Some of the former collective farmers became "farmers", some - "agricultural holdings", and some - hired laborers in the first two.

But in some places collective farms exist to this day. Only now it is customary to call them "joint-stock companies" and "rural cooperatives."

As if by changing the name, the yield will increase ...

"
State. publishing house of legal literature, M., 1950

1. Collective-farm democracy is the most important principle of collective-farm construction. The organization of the collective farm and its management is the business of the collective farmers themselves, since they alone are the owners of their collective farm.
The party and the government have always emphasized essential the all-round development of amateur activity and activity of the peasant masses, who broke ties with individual farming and united in collective farms.
Democracy in the collective farms is an inseparable part of Soviet socialist democracy. It is a powerful tool for creating new socialist relations in the countryside.
Collective-farm democracy means a combination of state leadership of the collective farms with the widest deployment of the initiative and self-activity of the collective farm masses. Collective-farm democracy serves the cause of the Bolshevik education of collective farmers in the spirit of collectivism; it helps to overcome the vestiges of small proprietorship in the minds of collective farmers and to transform all collective farmers into active and conscious workers of socialist society.
The combination of the Bolshevik leadership with the initiative of the broad collective farm masses ensured the organizational, economic and political strengthening of the collective farms, turning them into Bolshevik ones, and all the collective farmers into prosperous ones.
Fulfillment of the highest functions of managing the affairs of the collective farm by a general meeting of its members, holding production meetings on the collective farm, involving collective farmers in the work of public control over the management of the collective economy by creating a broad core of artel members around the audit commissions, organizing inspections for the quality of agricultural work on the collective farm, socialist emulation , shock work, the Stakhanov movement of agricultural leaders who are fighting for high yields and high productivity in animal husbandry - all this serves as an indicator of the growing activity of the collective farm masses and contributes to the further growth of their creative initiative.
2. The democratic foundations for managing the affairs of collective farms are characterized by the following main provisions: firstly, the supreme governing body of the artel is the general meeting of its members, and secondly, each member of the artel has the right to elect and be elected to the governing bodies of the artel. The general meeting of collective farmers elects the board and chairman of the collective farm, as well as an audit commission to manage the affairs of the collective farm. Appointment by state bodies of anyone to manage the collective farm is not allowed.
The accountability of the chairman and board of the artel to the general meeting of the members of the artel is also one of the main provisions characterizing the democratic foundations for managing the affairs of the collective farm. The exemplary Rules of the agricultural artel require the officials of the collective farm to report regularly on their work to the members of the collective farm.
Democracy in collective farms is also characterized by the right of the general meeting of members of the collective farm to change the board and the chairman of the collective farm, as well as the audit commission before the expiration of their term of office, if they have not justified the trust of the collective farmers and poorly carry out the decisions of the general meeting.
Finally, democracy in the collective farms presupposes, along with the granting of broad powers to the collective farmers, their definite duties in managing the affairs of the collective farm. Participating in the management of the affairs of the collective farm, the collective farmers are obliged to unquestioningly comply with the decisions of the general meetings of the members of the collective farm, the decisions of the board, the instructions and orders of the chairman and other officials appointed by the board.
The most important condition for the correct organization of the management of the affairs of the collective farm is the widespread development of criticism and self-criticism and the eradication of elements of bureaucracy and red tape in all the work of the collective farm administrative bodies.
Collective-farm democracy, as one of the basic principles of collective-farm construction, is strictly protected by the laws of the Soviet state.
The Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of June 25, 1932 "On revolutionary legality" emphasized the inadmissibility of violating collective farm democracy. This resolution suggested that local bodies of Soviet power and bodies of the prosecutor's office bring to strict liability those guilty of violating the election of boards and other bodies on collective farms, in the arbitrary disposal of property, in cash and land of collective farms, as well as in the use of unacceptable methods of command in relation to collective farms.
Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of December 19, 1935 "On the organizational and economic strengthening of collective farms and the rise of agriculture in the regions, territories and republics of the non-chernozem zone" suggested that local party and Soviet organizations stop violating the procedure established by the Charter for the selection and dismissal of chairmen collective farms and foremen and to ensure the regular convocation of general meetings of collective farms and the discussion at them of all the most important questions of the artel economy.
The Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in their resolution of September 19, 1946, “On Measures to Eliminate Violations of the Charter of the Agricultural Artel on Collective Farms,” revealed gross violations of the democratic foundations for managing the affairs of the agricultural artel. These violations were expressed in the fact that in many collective farms they stopped holding general meetings of collective farmers; in this way the collective farmers were excluded from participating in the affairs of the collective farm. All the most important issues of collective farm life, including the distribution of income, economic plans and disposal of material resources, were decided in such collective farms only by the boards and chairmen of the collective farms. The board and chairman of the collective farm ceased to report to the general meeting of collective farmers on their activities. The principle of election of the collective farm management bodies was violated. In many collective farms for several years general meetings of collective farmers were not convened to elect the board, the chairman of the collective farm and the audit commission. The terms established by the Charter for the election of the board and chairman of the collective farm were not respected. It came to the point that the chairmen of the collective farms were appointed and removed by the district party and Soviet organizations - without the knowledge of the collective farmers. This situation led to the fact that the chairmen of collective farms ceased to feel responsibility to the collective farmers, found themselves in a position independent of them, and lost contact with the collective farmers. Democratic relations between the management of the collective farm and the collective farmers were violated, which had the most negative effect on the organizational and economic strengthening of such collective farms.
In order to eliminate violations of the democratic foundations for managing the affairs of the agricultural artel, the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks proposed: “To restore the statutory democratic procedure violated in many collective farms for convening general meetings of collective farmers to discuss and resolve issues of the collective farm, the election of boards and chairmen of collective farms by general meetings, accountability boards and chairmen of collective farms before the collective farmers and the work of audit commissions.
Prohibit, under strict responsibility, district party committees, district councils and land authorities to appoint or remove chairmen of collective farms in addition to general meetings of collective farmers.

A collective farm (collective farm) is a cooperative organization of voluntarily united peasants for the joint conduct of large-scale socialist agricultural production on the basis of social means of production and collective labor. Collective farms in our country were created in accordance with the cooperative plan worked out by V. I. Lenin, in the process of the collectivization of agriculture (see Cooperative plan).

Collective farms in the countryside began to be created immediately after the victory of the October Revolution. The peasants united for the joint production of agricultural products in agricultural communes, partnerships for the joint cultivation of the land (TOZs), and agricultural artels. These were different forms of cooperation, differing in the level of socialization of the means of production and the distribution of income among the participating peasants.

In the early 30s. All-round collectivization was carried out throughout the country, and the agricultural artel (collective farm) became the main form of collective farming. Its advantages are that it socializes the main means of production - land, working and productive livestock, machinery, inventory, outbuildings; the public and private interests of the members of the artel are correctly combined. Collective farmers own residential buildings, part of the productive livestock, etc., they use small household plots. These basic provisions were reflected in the Exemplary Charter of the Agricultural Artel, adopted by the Second All-Union Congress of Collective Farmers-Shock Workers (1935).

During the years of Soviet power, great changes took place in collective-farm life. Collective farms have accumulated rich experience in managing large-scale collective farming. The political consciousness of the peasants increased. The alliance of workers and peasants under the leading role of the working class became even stronger. A new material and technical base of production has been created, which has made it possible to develop agriculture on a modern industrial basis. Increased material and cultural level the lives of collective farmers. They actively participate in the construction of a communist society. The collective farm system not only delivered the working peasantry from exploitation and poverty, but also made it possible to establish in the countryside new system social relations that lead to the complete overcoming of class differences in Soviet society.

The changes that had taken place were taken into account in the new Model Charter of the collective farm, adopted by the Third All-Union Congress of Collective Farmers in November 1969. The name “agricultural artel” was omitted from it, because the word “collective farm” acquired international importance and in any language means a large collective socialist agricultural enterprise.

The collective farm is a large mechanized socialist agricultural enterprise whose main activity is the production of crop and livestock products. The collective farm organizes the production of products on land that is state property and is assigned to the collective farm for free and indefinite use. The collective farm bears full responsibility before the state for the correct use of the land, for raising the level of its fertility in order to increase the production of agricultural products.

The collective farm may create and have auxiliary enterprises and trades, but not to the detriment of agriculture.

There are 25.9 thousand collective farms in the USSR (1981). On average, the collective farm accounts for 6.5 thousand hectares of agricultural land (including 3.8 thousand hectares of arable land), 41 physical tractors, 12 combines, 20 trucks. Many collective farms have built modern greenhouses and livestock complexes, and are organizing production on an industrial basis.

Collective farms are guided in all their activities by the Collective Farm Rules, which are adopted in each farm by the general meeting of collective farmers on the basis of the new Model Collective Farm Rules.

The economic basis of the collective farm is the collective-farm cooperative ownership of the means of production.

The collective farm organizes agricultural production and the labor of collective farmers, using for this various forms- tractor-field-breeding and complex brigades, livestock farms, various links and production sites. The activities of production units are organized on the basis of cost accounting.

As in state farms, a new, progressive form of labor organization is being used more and more widely - according to a single line with lump-sum bonus payment (see State Farm).

Citizens who have reached the age of 16 and who have expressed a desire to participate in social production by their labor can be members of a collective farm. Each member of the collective farm has the right to receive work in the social economy and is obliged to participate in social production. The collective farm has guaranteed wages. In addition, additional payment is applied for the quality of products and work, various forms of material and moral incentives. Collective farmers receive pensions for old age, disability, in case of loss of a breadwinner, vouchers to sanatoriums and rest homes at the expense of social insurance and security funds created in collective farms.

The supreme governing body for all the affairs of the collective farm is the general meeting of collective farmers (in large farms, the meeting of delegates). Collective-farm democracy forms the basis for organizing the management of the collective economy. This means that all production and social issues related to the development of a given collective farm are decided by the members of this farm. General meetings of collective farmers (meetings of representatives) must be held, in accordance with the Model Rules of the collective farm, at least 4 times a year. The governing bodies of the collective farm and its production subdivisions are elected by open or secret ballot.

For the permanent management of the affairs of the collective farm, the general meeting elects the chairman of the collective farm for a period of 3 years and the board of the collective farm. Control over the activities of the board and all officials is carried out by the audit commission of the collective farm, which is also elected at the general meeting and is accountable to it.

In order to further develop collective-farm democracy and collectively discuss the most important questions of the life and activity of collective farms, Soviets of collective farms have been set up - Union, republican, regional and district.

Planned management of collective-farm production is carried out by socialist society by establishing a state plan for the purchase of agricultural products for each collective farm. The state provides collective farms modern technology, fertilizers and other material resources.

The main tasks of the collective farms are: to develop and strengthen the social economy in every possible way, to increase the production and sale of agricultural products to the state, to steadily increase labor productivity and the efficiency of social production, to carry out work on the communist education of collective farmers under the leadership of the party organization, to gradually transform villages and villages into modern comfortable settlements. In many collective farms, modern residential buildings have been built, gasification has been carried out. All collective farmers use electricity from state networks. The modern collective-farm village has excellent cultural centers - clubs, libraries, its own art galleries, museums, etc. are being created here. The difference between a city dweller and a collective farmer in terms of education is practically erased.

At the 26th Congress Communist Party Soviet Union the necessity of further strengthening and developing the material and technical base of the collective farms and improving the cultural and welfare services for their workers was pointed out (see Agriculture).

The Constitution of the USSR states: "The state promotes the development of collective-farm and cooperative property and its convergence with the state."

Sovkhoz (Soviet economy) is a state agricultural enterprise. It, like any industrial enterprise - a plant, a factory, is state property, the property of all the people.

The creation of state farms was an integral part of Lenin's cooperative plan. They were called upon to serve as a school for large-scale collective agricultural production for the working peasantry.

The economic basis of state farms is public, state ownership of land and other means of production. Their economic activity aimed at the production of products for the population and raw materials for industry. All state farms have a charter. They carry out their activities on the basis of the Regulations on the Socialist State Production Enterprise.

There are 21,600 state farms in the system of the Ministry of Agriculture (1981). On average, one state farm has 16.3 thousand hectares of agricultural land, including 5.3 thousand hectares of arable land, 57 tractors.

State farms and other state farms account for up to 60% of grain procurements, up to 33% of raw cotton, up to 59% of vegetables, up to 49% of livestock and poultry, and up to 87% of eggs.

State farms organize their production depending on natural and economic conditions, taking into account state plans, on the basis of cost accounting. Distinctive feature production activity of state farms - more than high level specializations.

When creating any state farm, the main agricultural sector is determined for it, from which it receives its main production direction - grain, poultry, cotton, pig breeding, etc. In order to better use the land of the state farm, agricultural machinery and labor resources, additional agricultural sectors are created - crop production is combined with animal husbandry and vice versa.

State farms play a large role in raising the general culture of agriculture in our country. They produce seeds of high-quality varieties of agricultural crops, highly productive breeds of animals and sell them to collective farms and other farms.

Various auxiliary enterprises and trades can be created on state farms - repair shops, oil mills, cheese-making shops, the production of building materials, etc.

Planned management of state farms is based on the principle of democratic centralism. The higher organizations (trust, association of state farms, etc.) determine for each state farm a state plan for the purchase of agricultural products for a five-year period and distribute it for each year. Production planning (area under crops, number of animals, timing of work) is carried out directly at the state farms themselves. Every year, plans are made here for the economic and social development, which define activities for the coming (planned) year.

The organizational and production structure of the state farm is determined by the specialization of the economy, its size in terms of land area and gross output. The main form of labor organization is the production team (tractor, complex, livestock, etc.) - the team of such a team consists of permanent workers.

Depending on the size of the state farm, various forms of management organization are used. For the most part, this is a three-stage structure: a state farm - a department - a brigade (farm). At the head of each subdivision is the corresponding leader: the director of the state farm - the manager of the department - the foreman.

The development of specialization processes and the increase in production volumes have created conditions on state farms for the application of a sectoral structure for the organization of production and management. In this case, instead of departments, corresponding workshops are created (plant growing, animal husbandry, mechanization, construction, etc.). Then the management structure looks like this: the director of the state farm - the head of the shop - the foreman. Shops are headed, as a rule, by the chief specialists of the state farm. It is also possible to use a mixed (combined) structure for the organization of production and management. This option is used in cases where one branch of the economy has a higher level of development. With such a scheme, an industry division is created for this industry (a greenhouse vegetable growing workshop, a dairy cattle breeding workshop, a fodder production workshop), and all other industries operate in departments.

In all state farms, as well as in industrial enterprises, the work of workers is paid in the form of wages. Its size is determined by the norms of output for a 7-hour working day and the prices for each unit of work and output. In addition to the basic salary, there is a material incentive for overfulfillment of planned targets, for obtaining products. High Quality for cost and material savings.

Increasingly, mechanized units, detachments, brigades and farms are working on a single outfit with lump-sum bonus pay. Such a collective contract is based on cost accounting. Payment does not depend on the total amount of work performed, not on the number of cultivated hectares, but on the final result of the work of the farmer - the harvest. Livestock breeders receive material incentives not for a head of livestock, but for high milk yields and weight gain. This allows you to more closely link the interests of each employee and the entire team, to increase their responsibility for obtaining the final high results with minimal labor and funds.

Collective contracting is being introduced more and more widely on state farms and collective farms. It is successfully used in the Yampolsky district of the Vinnitsa region, regional agro-industrial associations of Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, and other republics.

The Party, trade union, Komsomol organization. The public of the state farm takes part in the discussion and implementation of measures to fulfill the planned targets for the production and sale of products to the state, improve the working and living conditions of all workers of the state farm.

Modern state farms in terms of production are the largest agricultural enterprises in the world. The introduction of the achievements of scientific and technological progress, the transfer of agricultural production to an industrial basis contribute to their transformation into real factories of grain, milk, eggs, meat, fruits, etc.

The widespread use of new methods of organizing production also changes the qualifications of state farm workers, new professions appear, for example: machine milking operator, livestock farm fitter, etc. Among the engineering and technical personnel of state farms are electronic equipment engineers, engineers and technicians. for control and measuring equipment and instruments, heat engineering engineers, process engineers for the processing of agricultural products and many other specialists.

co-op plan- this is a plan for the socialist reorganization of the countryside through the gradual voluntary amalgamation of small private peasant farms into large collective farms, in which the achievements of scientific and technological progress are widely used and wide scope is opened for the socialization of production and labor.

There are 25,900 collective farms in the USSR. Each farm is a large highly mechanized enterprise with qualified personnel. Collective farms annually supply the state with a significant amount of grain, potatoes, raw cotton, milk, meat and other products. Every year the culture of the village grows, the life of collective farmers improves.

Let's remember history. What did the village look like in pre-revolutionary Russia? Before the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia, there were over 20 million small peasant farms, of which 65% were poor, 30% were horseless, and 34% had no inventory. The “equipment” of peasant households consisted of 7.8 million plows and roe deer, 6.4 million plows, and 17.7 million wooden harrows. Need, darkness, ignorance were the lot of millions of peasants. V. I. Lenin, who studied in detail the difficult and disenfranchised situation of the villagers, wrote: “The peasant was brought to a beggarly standard of living: he was placed with cattle, dressed in rags, fed on swan ... The peasants starved chronically and tens of thousands died of starvation and epidemics during crop failures, which returned more and more often.

The socialist transformation of agriculture was the most difficult task after the conquest of power by the working class. V. I. Lenin worked out the principles of the policy of the Communist Party on the agrarian question. The great genius of mankind clearly saw the socialist future of the peasantry and the paths along which it was necessary to go to this future. V. I. Lenin outlined the plan for the socialist reconstruction of the countryside in his articles “On Cooperation”, “On the Food Tax” and some other works. These works entered the history of our state as the cooperative plan of V. I. Lenin. In it, Vladimir Ilyich outlined the basic principles of cooperation: the voluntary entry of peasants into the collective farm; gradual transition from lower to higher forms of cooperation; material interest in joint production cooperation; combination of personal and public interests; the establishment of a strong link between town and country; the strengthening of the fraternal alliance of workers and peasants and the formation of socialist consciousness among the inhabitants of the countryside.

V. I. Lenin believed that at first it was necessary to widely involve the peasants in simple cooperative associations: consumer associations, for the sale of agricultural products, the supply of goods, etc. Later, when the peasants are convinced by experience of their great advantage, it is possible to move on to production co-operation. It was a simple and accessible path for many millions of peasants to move from small individual farms to large socialist enterprises, the path of drawing the peasant masses into the building of socialism.

Great October socialist revolution put an end to the oppression of the capitalists and landlords in our country forever. October 25, 1917 Second All-Russian Congress Councils on the report of V. I. Lenin adopted Decrees on Peace and Land. The decree on land announced the confiscation of all landlord and church land and its transfer to state property. The nationalization of the land and its transformation into public property became an important prerequisite for the further transition of agriculture to the socialist path of development.

In the very first years of Soviet power, societies began to be created for the joint cultivation of the land, agricultural artels. Part of the landowners' estates turned into state Soviet farms - state farms. But all these were only the first steps of collectivization. That is why in 1927, at the XV Congress of the CPSU(b), a program of complete collectivization was adopted. Work on the socialization of agricultural production, unprecedented in its scale, began in the country. Collective farms were organized everywhere, the foundations of a new life in the countryside were laid. The Soviet government took all necessary measures to provide the village with machinery. Already in 1923-1925. the village received about 7 thousand domestic tractors.

In 1927, the first state machine and tractor station (MTS) was organized. Subsequently, their mass construction began. MTS served the collective farms with a variety of equipment. The MTS became the strongholds of the Soviet state in the countryside, active conductors of the Party's policy. With the help of the MTS, the greatest technological revolution in agriculture in the USSR was carried out. At the call of the party, about 35,000 of the best representatives of the working class went to the countryside and headed the collective farms.

Collective farms in the village Soviet Russia began to emerge from 1918. At the same time, there were three forms of such farms:

• · Agricultural commune (unitary enterprise), in which all means of production (buildings, small implements, livestock) and land use were socialized. The consumption and household services of the members of the commune were entirely based on the public economy; distribution was egalitarian: not according to work, but according to consumers. Members of the commune did not have their own personal subsidiary plots. Communes were organized mainly on former landowners and monasteries.
• An agricultural artel (production cooperative), in which land use, labor and the main means of production were socialized - draft animals, machinery, equipment, productive livestock, outbuildings, etc. The dwelling house and subsidiary plots (including including productive livestock), the size of which was limited by the charter of the artel. Incomes were distributed according to the quantity and quality of labor (by workdays).
• · Partnerships for the joint cultivation of the land (TOZ), in which land use and labor were socialized. Cattle, cars, inventory, buildings remained in the private property of the peasants. Incomes were distributed not only according to the amount of labor, but also depending on the size of share contributions and the value of the means of production provided to the partnership by each of its members.

As of June 1929, communes accounted for 6.2% of all collective farms in the country, TOZs - 60.2%, agricultural artels - 33.6%.

In parallel with the collective farms, since 1918, state farms were created on the basis of specialized farms (for example, stud farms). State farm workers were charged wage according to the standards and in monetary terms, they were employees, not co-owners.

Your grandparents, and possibly your parents, had to live in Soviet times and work on a collective farm, if your relatives from They certainly remember this time, knowing firsthand that the collective farm is the place where they spent their youth. The history of the creation of collective farms is very interesting, it is worth getting to know it better.

The first collective farms

After the First World War, around 1918, community farming began to emerge on new basis in our country. The state initiated the creation of collective farms. The collective farms that appeared then were not ubiquitous, rather, they were single. Historians testify that the more prosperous peasants did not need to join the collective farms, they preferred farming within the family. But the layers took the new initiative favorably, because for them, who lived from hand to mouth, the collective farm is a guarantee of a comfortable existence. In those years, joining the agricultural artels was voluntary, not imposed by force.

The course for enlargement

Just a few years passed, and the government decided that the collectivization process should be carried out at an accelerated pace. A course was taken to strengthen joint production. It was decided to reorganize all agricultural activity and give it a new form - a collective farm. This process was not easy, for the people it was more tragic. And the events of the 1920s and 1930s forever overshadowed even the greatest successes of the collective farms. Since the wealthy peasants were not enthusiastic about such an innovation, they were driven there by force. Alienation of all property was carried out, ranging from livestock and buildings, and ending with poultry and small implements. Cases have become widespread when peasant families, opposing collectivization, moved to the cities, leaving all their acquired property in the countryside. This was done mainly by the most successful peasants, it was they who were the best professionals in the field of agriculture. Their relocation will subsequently affect the quality of work in the industry.

dispossession

The saddest page in the history of how collective farms were created in the USSR was the period of mass repression against opponents of the policy of Soviet power. Terrible reprisals against wealthy peasants followed, and a persistent aversion to people who were at least a little better was promoted in society. They were called "fists". As a rule, such peasants with their whole families, together with the elderly and infants, were evicted to the distant lands of Siberia, having previously taken away all their property. In the new territories, the conditions for life and agriculture were extremely unfavorable, and even a large number of the dispossessed simply did not reach the places of exile. At the same time, in order to stop the mass exodus of peasants from the villages, the passport system and what we now call propiska were introduced. Without a corresponding note in the passport, a person could not leave the village without permission. When our grandparents remember what a collective farm is, they do not forget to mention passports and difficulties with moving.

Formation and flourishing

During the Great Patriotic War collective farms invested a considerable share in the Victory. For a very long time there was an opinion that if it were not for the rural workers, the Soviet Union would not have won the war. Be that as it may, the form of collective farming began to justify itself. Literally a few years later, people began to understand that a modern collective farm is an enterprise with millions of turnovers. Such farms-millionaires began to appear in the early fifties. It was prestigious to work at such an agricultural enterprise, the work of a machine operator and a livestock breeder was held in high esteem. Collective farmers received decent money: the earnings of a milkmaid could exceed the salary of an engineer or a doctor. They were also encouraged by state awards and orders. In the Presidiums of the Congresses of the Communist Party, a significant number of collective farmers necessarily sat. Strong prosperous farms built residential houses for workers, maintained houses of culture, brass bands, organized sightseeing tours around the USSR.

Farming, or Kolkhoz in a new way

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the decline of collective Older generation bitterly recalls that the collective farm - which has left the village forever. Yes, they are right in their own way, but in the conditions of the transition to a free market, the collective farms, which focused on activities in a planned economy, were simply unable to survive. A large-scale reform and transformation into farms began. The process is complex and not always effective. Unfortunately, a number of factors, such as insufficient funding, lack of investment, the outflow of young people from villages, have a negative impact on the activities of farms. But still, some of them manage to remain successful.