I am not ignoring collectivization. I am noting that it ended famine in a country that had regular famines. I believe collectivization could have been done better, but industrialization of farming had to be done to stop famine regardless, be it Capitalist or Socialist.
Interestingly enough, what caused Soviet agriculture to produce at first less food than pre-WW1 was (except WW1 and Civil War losses of course) the land reform and thus lack of collectivisation. Of course the land reform was absolutely necessary to forge and maintain the worker-peasant alliance and thus indispensable to revolution, but it lowered the efficiency by parcelation of big organised estates into small plots and by allowing kulaks to exist. Lenin was explaining many times that collectivisation and not individual farming is effective and necessary and Stalin explains in “Problems of Leninism” more indepth that in the 20’s the agriculture was slowly begin to improve by collectivisation and even at the end of decade the individual farming remain ineffective and kulaks still provide major part of food. So the famine struck in the time when Soviet agriculture still wasn’t even very Soviet and in vulnerable transition.
So i wouldn’t really agree with how collectivisation was “botched” (though the problems did arise of course as expected by such huge unprecedented transformation of major part of economy), since the main problem was that they didn’t do it earlier, but again it was probably impossible due to post-civil war fragility of agriculture and necessity of maintaining peasant support.
Actually, similar thing happened in Poland after 1945 - collectivisation of agriculture was impossible due to peasants being in literal slavery for over 300 years and disenfranchised for next 100, the land reform was strictly necessary to build socialism. Difference was, Poland try to collectivise by more slow means which was, well, slow, and would need around of century to collectivise the agriculture. Result was creation of strong rural petty bourgeoisie class that was needed to be constantly placated by privileges and 1989 completely undid any collectivisation by privatisation of PGR’s and plunging the collectivised peasants into abject poverty.
Interestingly enough, what caused Soviet agriculture to produce at first less food than pre-WW1 was (except WW1 and Civil War losses of course) the land reform and thus lack of collectivisation. Of course the land reform was absolutely necessary to forge and maintain the worker-peasant alliance and thus indispensable to revolution, but it lowered the efficiency by parcelation of big organised estates into small plots and by allowing kulaks to exist. Lenin was explaining many times that collectivisation and not individual farming is effective and necessary and Stalin explains in “Problems of Leninism” more indepth that in the 20’s the agriculture was slowly begin to improve by collectivisation and even at the end of decade the individual farming remain ineffective and kulaks still provide major part of food. So the famine struck in the time when Soviet agriculture still wasn’t even very Soviet and in vulnerable transition.
So i wouldn’t really agree with how collectivisation was “botched” (though the problems did arise of course as expected by such huge unprecedented transformation of major part of economy), since the main problem was that they didn’t do it earlier, but again it was probably impossible due to post-civil war fragility of agriculture and necessity of maintaining peasant support.
Actually, similar thing happened in Poland after 1945 - collectivisation of agriculture was impossible due to peasants being in literal slavery for over 300 years and disenfranchised for next 100, the land reform was strictly necessary to build socialism. Difference was, Poland try to collectivise by more slow means which was, well, slow, and would need around of century to collectivise the agriculture. Result was creation of strong rural petty bourgeoisie class that was needed to be constantly placated by privileges and 1989 completely undid any collectivisation by privatisation of PGR’s and plunging the collectivised peasants into abject poverty.
Thanks for the large write-up! I really appreciate it. I know I have a lot more to learn, so this was very helpful, comrade.
No problem, i also very much appreciate your efforts in educating libs and other lurkers, your patience is incredible
Thanks for the kind words!