Russia Under Soviet Role

Twenty Years of Bolshevik Experiment

N. de Basily

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351617178
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Russian History
• Index: History

The author of this book was in a position which allowed him to become thoroughly conversant with the working of the Government machinery in Russia, and in this volume, originally published in 1938, he presents the situation in Soviet Russia as it developed since the Revolution of 1917 and discusses the events which led up to it. Based mainly on information drawn from Soviet sources, which the author acknowledges may not be impartial, the author nevertheless maintains that a clear outline of the real situation may be inferred.

CHAPTER VII

The Results of the Bolshevik Experiment

Fluctuations of Economic Policy and Five-Year Plans

Since, as Stalin declared, “Socialism is neither misery nor privation,” the whole policy of the First Five-Year Plan was condemned both from the moral and the material points of view. This new formula admitted implicitly the obligation of beating a retreat. Coming as it did from the “Master’s” own lips, it was equivalent to a command.

How, then, was this retreat manifested?

In 1919–1920 private trading, the markets, the whole circulation of merchandise were officially suppressed in Russia, and replaced by “direct barter.” By force of arms the Soviet Government carried off the peasants’ grain, to feed the Red Army in the field and to supply, under a card system, the working population in the cities. In the delirium of mirages, this distribution of rations—which became a question of life and death, as in a beleaguered fortress—was taken for Socialism. Lenin was the first to recognize the truth and to point out that this fake Socialism did not contain an atom of real Socialism. “Any attempt to completely suppress private trade,” he said, “would be an absurdity. It would be an absurdity because such a policy is economically unfeasible, and it would be suicidal because a party which attempted it would be doomed to failure.”¹

Nine years later the “absurdity” denounced by Lenin was repeated on a still larger scale. From 1929 onwards all free private trading was “padlocked”; private shops were closed; the markets were put under seal, and all the roads between towns and villages were patrolled by militia. “Direct Socialism barter” was again established. Cereals and other raw materials were taken by the authorities from the kolkhozes and supplied to industry and to construction works, and distributed—by means of supply-cards—to the population. This “direct barter” between socialized industry and agriculture, now organized in “socialist” kolkhozes, was described as Socialism, and even as “developed Socialism” in the same manner as it had been some ten years earlier. “To create an economic basis for Socialism,” said Stalin, “we must merge agriculture and socialized industry into a single economic whole, organize relations between towns and villages on the basis of the direct barter of products; close and suppress all the channels which,” etc. In its turn, this system was destined to end in the “inevitable failure” predicted by Lenin.

General Sketch of Stalin’s Retreat

In May 1932 Stalin was obliged to “unlock” the closed circle of trade channels, that is to say, to reopen the markets in order to preserve the towns from famine.

At that time the peasants no longer grew anything for their own account, except small quantities of potatoes, carrots, beetroot, and cucumbers, which they grew in some corner of their yards; practically everything was in the hands of the kolkhozes. But what little produce the peasants could spare, they would have been willing to take to the market. They had to get at least salt, petroleum, manufactured goods, and clothing. Theoretically speaking, their supply-cards were supposed to enable them to buy these commodities in the village co-operative societies and in the State retail shops, but in reality the needed articles were lacking, and in exchange for their produce the peasants could only obtain such things as eau-de-Cologne, playing cards, chefs’ caps, and other remnants and superfluities. In May and June 1932 the opening of free markets was authorized, where the destitute Soviet citizens were able to buy, at competitive prices, things which had long been unpurchasable in the towns, and whose taste had even been forgotten, such as cabbages, carrots, onions, and beetroot. The Soviet newspapers did not fail to reproduce innumerable photographs of this “abundance” in the markets, as could be seen in any number of the Pravda during this period.

Once broken by the opening of the markets, the “closed circuit” system of trade could not be re-established. The Government even took a further step towards freeing trade, and began to organize “commercial shops” where foodstuffs and other commodities were no longer reserved to holders of supply-cards, but were sold to all those having the necessary money, yet at higher prices than formerly to such holders. The next change permitted the kolkhozes to sell in the free markets—after the State had collected the specified compulsory deliveries in kind—the remainder of their production. The kolkhozian peasants were now also allowed to bring to the markets whatever they could save from the produce distributed to them by the kolkhoze as compensation for the “labour days.”¹ Thus there appeared in the markets wheat, rye, flour, peas, etc., and not only the few onions, carrots, etc., coming from peasants’ kitchen gardens. Unfortunately, the quantities of foodstuffs offered in the markets could not be large, as at least 35 per cent of the crops went to the Government. Out of the remainder, seed and food for the collectivized live stock was first to be put aside. As for the peasants, after having provided for their own needs, not very much was left out of their share of the kolkhoze distribution.

“Plots for Private Use” on Collectivized Farms

In February 1935, with the same intention of “unfettering” private initiative, the kolkhozian peasants were authorized to retain from the collectivized area a small parcel which they could cultivate for their personal consumption or even for private sales.² Unable to cope satisfactorily with the task of supplying food to the great mass of the population, the Government thus transferred a part of its responsibilities to the millions of peasant holders of tiny “plots for private use.”

The history of these “private plots” is an excellent illustration of Soviet economic policy. In the early stages of wholesale collectivization, in December 1929, everything the peasant had was brought into the kolkhoze: farm, land, garden, orchard, large and small live stock. But Stalin had soon to admit that things had gone too far. This is the reason why, in his already mentioned article, “Dizzy with Success,” Stalin tried to throw the responsibility for the complete annihilation of individual peasant-farming upon the excessive zeal of the subordinates entrusted with the application of collectivization.¹ Nevertheless, it was not until two years later that the “one-cow decree” (promulgated in March 1932) authorized in fact the kolkhozian peasants to own a small amount of personal live stock, apart from the collectivized animals of the kolkhozes.² A fairly noticeable development of individualistic farming began only after the promulgation of the new kolkhoze statute, ratified on February 17, 1935, by the Council of the People’s Commissars, and the Central Committee of the Party.³ This statute explicitly accorded to each kolkhoze peasant family the right to a “plot for private use.” As a rule, these lots should not exceed half a hectare (or one and a quarter acres).⁴ In the spring of 1935 the total sown area of these “private plots” amounted to 3,000,000 hectares (or about 7,500,000 acres), averaging less than half an acre per family or household.⁵ In the spring of 1936 it reached 4,000,000 hectares (or about 10,000,000 acres). It is unnecessary to state that the sown area of the “plots for private use” is less than their total surface, as the latter also comprises some unsown land. The same statute also lays down that each family in a kolkhoze can possess at the most one cow, two calves, one sow and her litter, ten sheep, and an unlimited number of poultry and rabbits, and up to twenty bee-hives.¹ Yet, in 1930–1931 peasants possessing half as much personal live stock as this were branded as kulaks, massacred, and sent into concentration camps. It needed the destruction of no fewer than 152,000,000 head of cattle to lead Stalin to change his views.

The reasons for the modest concessions thus granted to the peasants under the kolkhoze statute of 1935 were set forth by Stalin in a speech before the Council of the Congress of Kolkhozian “shock-workers” in February 1935, of which the text was not published until 1936. Among other things he said: “Some of you think that a kolkhozian peasant cannot be allowed to have a cow, and others that he should not have a sow. In fact, you want to make things hard for the kolkhozian peasant. That would be a mistake. If there is not yet abundance of produce in your agricultural collectivities, and you cannot yet give the individual kolkhozian peasants and their families all they need, that means that the kolkhoze is not in a position to satisfy both the requirements of the community at large and the personal needs of its members. Then it is better to say outright that there is a domain of labour for the commonwealth and another of private labour, and it must be made clear what the one is and what the other is. It is better to admit openly and honestly that, besides the collective exploitation of the kolkhoze, every kolkhozian household must possess a private exploitation, small but personal. It is better to start from the point of view that there exists a collective and social exploitation—large, important, and decisive—indispensable for the country’s common needs, and, in addition to ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• I. Russia before the Revolution of 1917
• II. The Revolution of 1917
• III. The Essence of Bolshevism
• IV. The Political and Economic Structure of the U.S.S.R.
• V. The Dictator and his Power
• VI. The March towards Socialism
• VII. The Results of the Bolshevik Experiment
• VIII. Cultural Life in the U.S.S.R.
• IX. Conclusion
• Appendix
• Index of Names
• Index of Subjects