Concerning Questions of Agrarian Policy in the USS.R.

Stalin’s speech delivered at the Conference of Marxist Students of Agrarian Questions in the Soviet Union on December 27, 1929. It was first published in Pravda issue No. 309, December 27, 1929. The Chinese translation is included in Vol. 12 of the Complete Works of Stalin and Vol. II of the Selected Works of Stalin.

Based on the changes in the rural economy of the Soviet Union at that time, Stalin criticized several prevalent mistaken theories at that time, systematically expounded on the essence of collective farms, class changes in the rural areas and the transformation of the party’s policies, and put forward six questions of the theory of collective-farm movement and socialist contruction in the USS.R..

First theme was the critique of the “equilibrium” theory advocated by Bukharin. The theory of “equilibrium” held that the socialist and non-socialist sectors of economy can develop peacefully and in a balanced way as two parallel lines. Stalin criticized: the advocates of this remarkable theory believe that these parallel lines will meet eventually, and that when they do, we shall have socialism. This theory overlooks the fact that behind these so-called “compartments” there are classes, and that the movement of these compartments takes place by way of a fierce class struggle, a life-and-death struggle, a struggle on the principle of “who will beat whom?” He added: our socialist industry is developing according to the Marxist theory of expanded reproduction, but our small-peasant economy is not developing according to the principle of expanded reproduction, it is seldom able to achieve even simple reproduction. Thus, for Stalin the Soviet power and the work of socialist construction could not rest for any length of time on these two different foundations at the same time: on the most large-scale and concentrated socialist industry, and the most disunited and backward, small-commodity peasant economy. The two sectors together cannot be the economic foundation of the Soviet power, if the current situation is continued it will lead to the complete collapse of the whole national economy. The way out for the Soviet Union is to introduce collective farms and state farms into agriculture, the way which leads to uniting the small peasant farms into large collective farms, employing machinery and scientific methods of farming, and capable of developing further, for such farms can achieve expanded reproduction, this is the socialist way. There is the second capitalist way, which is to make agriculture large-scale by implanting capitalism in agriculture—a way which leads to the impoverishment of the peasantry and to the development of capitalist enterprises in agriculture. There is no other third way. Stalin argued that the theory of “equilibrium” is an attempt to advocate a third way, “and precisely because it is based on a third (non-existent) way, it is utopian and non-Marxist”.

The second mistaken assumption was the “spontaneity” theory in socialist construction. This theory claimed that the countryside would possibly spontaneously and automatically follow the socialist town, can achieve a spontaneous transformation spontaneously in the image of the socialist town, and that all kinds of farms in the countryside can spontaneously adopt the form of state farms or collective farms. Stalin argued that the nature of this theory was anti-Marxist. Under capitalism the countryside automatically followed the town because the capitalist economy of the town and the individual small-commodity economy of the peasant are, basically, economies of the same type. Under the socialist system, because the small-scale peasant economy will engender commodity-capitalist tendency continuously, daily, hourly, spontaneously, the small-peasant countryside will not automatically follow the socialist town, so it is necessary to introduce in the countryside large socialist farms in the form of state farms and collective farms, as bases of socialism, which—headed by the socialist town—will be able to take the lead of the main mass of the peasantry. The socialist town can lead the small-peasant countryside, only by reforming the production in the countryside, carry out agricultural collectivization, thus can we lead the small farmers in the countryside after we can introduce a new, socialist pattern.

The third was the critique of the “stability” theory of small-peasant farming. This theory argued that the small peasant is enduring and patient, that he is ready to bear any privation if only he can hold on to his little plot of land, and that small-peasant economy will display stability in its struggle against large-scale economy in agriculture. Stalin pointed out that the Soviet Union carried out the nationalization of the land, which liberates the small peasant from his slavish attachment to his little plot of land and thereby helps the change from small-scale peasant farming to large-scale collective farming, and in addition, the advantages of collective farms for individual peasant economy made it possible and necessary to facilitate the transition of the individual peasant to collectivist lines.

The fourth was the critique of the “scissors” theory between urban and rural areas. Bourgeois economists alleged that the October Revolution brought the peasantry fewer benefits than the February Revolution, in fact, October Revolution had brought no benefits to the peasantry. Stalin said that this assertion was pure a prejudice, and from the statistical data, it could be seen that the changes in the situation in the countryside, prior to and after the October Revolution was obvious:The peasants were liberated from the yoke of the landlords, and the amount of grain produced by the poor peasants and the middle peasants increased; as a result of the nationalization of land, the peasants have no need to buy land in order to produce grain, and the labor productivity of peasants had seen improvement, thus it can be concluded that the “scissors” between urban and rural areas will be abolished in the near future.

The fifth question Stalin discussed was about the essence of collective farm. Stalin argued that the collective farm, as a type of economy, was one of the forms of socialist economy. Within the collective farms, because the poor and middle peasants are united in collective farms on the basis of the socialization of the principal tools and means of production, there is no exploiting class and exploited class, so the collective farms are a socialist form. Stalin pointed out that some people enlarged the class struggle in the collective farms, confused the class struggle in the collective farms with the class struggle in the absence of collective farms, and thus denied the socialist nature of collective farms.

The sixth question Stalin discussed was the class changes in Soviet Union and the offensive of socialism against the capitalist elements in the countryside, especially the passage from the policy of restricting the exploitative tendencies of the Kulaks to the policy of eliminating the Kulaks as a class. Stalin pointed out that the production of collective farms and state farms provided a material basis for such change in policy towards the Kulaks, while the movement of de-Kulakization movement was being carried out by the masses of poor and middle peasants themselves.

In his conclusive remarks, Stalin proposed to study the economy of the transition period, and clarified the relationship between agricultural collectivization and the New Economic Policy. Stalin pointed out that the New Economic Policy is not only a retreat, but also the preparation for a new, determined offensive against the capitalist elements in town and countryside, therefore, the New Economic Policy cannot be used to block the implementation of the overall collectivization and the elimination of the kulaks. When the New Economic Policy ceases to serve the cause of socialism, we shall get rid of it.

This is an important work of Stalin’s study on the agricultural collectivization in the Soviet Union. This work was of great significance to help people understand the prevalent mistaken economic assumptions at that time, strengthened the research of Marxist theory, and promoted the transformation of ideological and theoretical circles in the field of ideology. At the same time, this article also shows that Stalin had already decided to replace the New Economic Policy with agricultural collectivization.