The Measure Of Collectivization In Soviet Russia

Incentives act as a fuel, motivating people to act. While collectivization is a well-oiled machine in theory, in Soviet Russia, collectivization’s lack of incentives, fuel, meant the economy, machine, could not progress. Soviet collectivist policies were idealistic and without incentive yielding little or no material progress. Instead, the policies caused low morale and hardship among the proletariat. The resulting poor economy and conditions lead to a muffled but building dislike of the Soviets among proletariat the which was ultimately unleashed in 1985 by Gorbachev’s Glasnost, openness policy. Collectivist socioeconomic policies such as Lenin’s War Communism and Stalin Kolkhoz and dekulakization were economically inviable and built proletariat
The abolishment of capitalism lead to two primary policies: the expropriation of medium and large factories and the requisition of grain. In regards to the factory sector, workers were put in control of the factories as the Bolsheviks believed “workers would work better if they believed they were working for a cause as opposed to a system made some rich but many poor”. Contrary to the Bolsheviks’ beliefs, the communist cause failed to incentivize people to work harder as evidenced by production totals. Additionally, thousands of factories were placed in control of a single individual known as a glaviki. The extreme centralization lead to chronic inefficiency among the factories. In addition to taking over factories, the state also controlled food. On July 20th, 1918, the Bolsheviks decided all surplus food was to be surrendered to the state. While this caused an increase in grain supply, the requisition largely counteracted itself by disincentivizing extra grain production. The annual grain collection grew by 5 and ¼ tons from 1917 to 1920, but the surplus grain could not meet demand. Furthermore, Lenin had promised the countryside promised “all the land to the people” before the civil war. Lenin’s broken promise grew resentment among the proletariat. Overall, Russia’s economic strength regressed below 1914 levels as a
Stalin believed that machine assisted collectivized farming would be far more efficient and yield greater production than traditional Russian strip farming. The Kulaks, middle class peasants, were opposed to Soviet power in villages and posed a barrier to collectivization. Therefore, dekulakization, a combination of “inducements and coercive measures”, was enacted to incentivize compliance and in doing so, eliminate the Kulaks. Initially, the peasants were skeptical over the benefits of collectivization, chiefly access to mechanized equipment. Even impelled by propaganda and regional party officials, only one million out of some 25 million people had enrolled by June of 1929. However, after the publication of Stalin’s article in Pravda announcing “a great breakthrough” to “winning the vast masses of peasantry to the side of the working class”, enrollment in the kolkhoz system reached 55 percent by March 1930. This figure further grew to 61.5 percent in July 1931. Despite high enrollment in the system, collective farms failed to meet procurement quotas resulting in dire consequence. A poor harvest in Ukraine, the Lower Volga, and the North Caucasus lead to famine conditions from 1932-1933. An estimated 5 million plus people starved to death. The failed production of the Kolhoz system can be attributed to weak incentives of the system and dekulakization. Firstly, a