Overall Agricultural Collectivization

The collective farm was the combination of agricultural labor and the organizational form of socialist agricultural collective economy in the Soviet Union. In the early days of agricultural collectivization in the Soviet Union, there were three forms of agricultural production organization: collective farming community, agricultural labor union and agricultural commune. The 15th Congress of the Communist Party of Soviet Union (B) held in December 1927 adopted a resolution on agricultural collectivization, which determined to combine small farmers to form collective farms with extensive use of agricultural machinery. At the beginning of 1929, there was a mass agricultural collectivization movement in the Soviet Union, and by June 1, 1929, about 1 million farmers had joined the collective farms. On January 5, 1930, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Soviet Union (B) passed the “On the Rate of Collectivization and State Assistance to Kolkhoz Construction”, which determined that the agricultural labor cooperatives, that is, collective farms, was the basic form of agricultural collectivization movement, and the policy of implementing an overall agricultural collectivization, and stipulated that the policy of depriving rich farmers should be used instead of the policy of restricting rich farmers. As a result, the Soviet Union set off an unprecedented agricultural socialist transformation movement in the whole Soviet country. By February 1930, half of the farmers in the country had joined the collective farms. However, while making great achievements, there were serious “Left” mistakes in the process of collectivization in the Soviet Union: violating the principle of typical demonstration and voluntary mutual benefit, forcing farmers to join collective farms over time; blindly pursuing the proportion of collectivization regardless of regional differences and violating the provisions of the basic forms of collective farms. The Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. (Bolshevik) timely recognized its mistakes and immediately began to correct the “Left” mistake of rash advance. Stalin also published his articles “Dizzy with Success” and Reply to Collective-Farm Comrades, which criticized the mistakes caused by the rash advance. However, Stalin also pointed out that the purpose of error correction is not to retreat, but to attack correctly, and the established speed and basic form should remain unchanged. He pointed out that the purpose of correcting the “Left” mistakes was to successfully fight against the right deviation, which was still the main danger. After the 16th Congress of the C.P.S.U. (Bolshevik) was held in June 1930, the Soviet Union set off the second peak of agricultural collectivization. In 1939, Stalin announced at the 18th Congress of the C.P.S.U. (Bolshevik): The collective farms were finally consolidated and established, and the socialist economic system became the only form of agriculture in the Soviet Union.