AHC: "Kibbutz"-style Soviet Russian collective farms

mlp · Dec 1, 2015

Kibbutz is a term used for collective farming communities in Israel. While they never were a dominant form of agricultural or industrial production, they remained a significant minority throughout and always represented the "Zionist Utopia" that Israel sought to become; furthermore many have diversified from agriculture, some going so far as to produce high-end electronics and weapons. Being the "vanguard" of Zionist Socialism of sorts, it is possible to say they have successfully promoted the dogma of socialism.

On the contrary collective farming in OTL Soviet Union was largely a disaster. Government-enforced mass collectivisation without adequate preparation or equipment led to all sorts of travesties, resulting in millions of dead farmers and a complete destruction of a region once known as the "breadbasket of Europe". Even after the official abandonment of collective farming in 1940, the horrors of complete central control over the economy and industry remained, culminating in the fall of Communism by the 1980s and 90s.

The AHC is to lessen the radicalisation of Communism under the Bolsheviks, and allow a more "Kibbutz"-style policy: volunteers work in collectives with minimal levels of government support, the government uses these "vanguard heroes" for propaganda purposes, and the 5-year plans give general orders on which direction the economy should move towards, but the majority of the economy and industry is left on its own accord. With a POD in 1917, either with the Mensheviks successfully drawing an agreement with the Bolsheviks, the Anarchists pursuing a more moderate policy and become stable in power, or in some other miracle, allow the AHC to occur.

Niko Malaka · Dec 1, 2015

zeppelinair said:
Kibbutz is a term used for collective farming communities in Israel. While they never were a dominant form of agricultural or industrial production, they remained a significant minority throughout and always represented the "Zionist Utopia" that Israel sought to become; furthermore many have diversified from agriculture, some going so far as to produce high-end electronics and weapons. Being the "vanguard" of Zionist Socialism of sorts, it is possible to say they have successfully promoted the dogma of socialism.

On the contrary collective farming in OTL Soviet Union was largely a disaster. Government-enforced mass collectivisation without adequate preparation or equipment led to all sorts of travesties, resulting in millions of dead farmers and a complete destruction of a region once known as the "breadbasket of Europe". Even after the official abandonment of collective farming in 1940, the horrors of complete central control over the economy and industry remained, culminating in the fall of Communism by the 1980s and 90s.

The AHC is to lessen the radicalisation of Communism under the Bolsheviks, and allow a more "Kibbutz"-style policy: volunteers work in collectives with minimal levels of government support, the government uses these "vanguard heroes" for propaganda purposes, and the 5-year plans give general orders on which direction the economy should move towards, but the majority of the economy and industry is left on its own accord. With a POD in 1917, either with the Mensheviks successfully drawing an agreement with the Bolsheviks, the Anarchists pursuing a more moderate policy and become stable in power, or in some other miracle, allow the AHC to occur.

I think the doctrinal difference between the kibbutz and the mass soviet colectivizations relies in the importance given to the automanagement of the means of production and decission-making and the centralization of those on the state. The russian revolution "solved" that difference with the suppression of the free soviets and the Ukrainan Insurrectional army. It was alreadyan old debate inside socialist circles. Thus, I think you need changes to the outcome of the revolution or at least the 20's reforms to make possible a political climiate where self-managed initiatives are seen with better eyes.

Kammada · Dec 1, 2015

What you are describing as the AHC is pretty much the thing that Nikolai Bukharin proposed. If he and his circle (Rykov, Tomsky...) had managed to sideline Stalin in the late 20s and to have their way, it would have been a possibility.

mlp · Dec 1, 2015

Kammada said:
What you are describing as the AHC is pretty much the thing that Nikolai Bukharin proposed. If he and his circle (Rykov, Tomsky...) had managed to sideline Stalin in the late 20s and to have their way, it would have been a possibility.

Just saw on his wikipage:

His ideas, especially in economy and question of market-socialism, later became basic idea of Chinese market-socialism and Deng Xiao Ping reforms.

Damn, sounds just about the right guy.

pattersonautobody · Dec 1, 2015

without rapid industrialization, don't the Nazis end up ending the experiment?

mlp · Dec 1, 2015

pattersonautobody said:
without rapid industrialization, don't the Nazis end up ending the experiment?

I'm sorry? Filler

Kammada · Dec 1, 2015

pattersonautobody said:
without rapid industrialization, don't the Nazis end up ending the experiment?

With Stalin and his own brand of industrialization (which ought rather to be called military-industrialization) put out of the picture, there are three possibilities:

1. Everything goes as per OTL, but with the USSR not as highly militarized. Hitler attacks Poland without the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, goes all the way to the Polish-Soviet border, and crosses it after he has defeated the allied forces on the Continent, that is, maybe even earlier than IOTL. The USSR is screwed, indeed.

2. The nazis come to power as per OTL, but there is less red scare in the rest of Europe (the brown scare is bigger), so the WAllies and the USSR are able to act together to contain Germany. If it is done militarily, the USSR only takes a minor part in the fighting but is on the winning side. If Hitler just backs down, the USSR is OK, too.

3. There is less red scare in Germany as well, so the nazis don't perform well enough during the November 1932 elections to convince von Papen, Hugenberg and Hindenburg that Hitler is the right man to protect Germany from communism. Probably, without Stalin, there is no KPD vs SPD standoff either, so they are able to join forces against the nazis on the earlier elections, too. Either way, Germany remains non-nazi, and most probably the most Soviet-friendly of the European powers.

GiantMonkeyMan · Dec 1, 2015

The New Economic Policy, which was deemed vital to the normalisation of the economy during the civil war period, also allowed for a strata of the peasantry to emerge who owned land and exploited workers and were essentially hostile to the soviets. As early as 1923 the people who would go on to become the Left Opposition were highlighting this flaw and suggesting a turn towards collectivisation.

The Joint Opposition, as shown in their Platform, proposed a slow transition to a collective system. They advocated working with the poorest peasants with little land and the agricultural workers with no land at all to slowly begin the collectivisation process. Tax breaks for the poorest peasants and for workers on collective farms would turn the vast majority of the rural population in support of the reforms and the money raised from taxing heavily the richer peasant land owners would fund industrialisation to produce the tools and machines necessary for mechanisation to improve the efficiency of the collective farms.

Stalin played a political juggling match to suppress the influence of the Opposition. Molotov said during the 15th party congress (the congress in which the majority of the opposition were expelled) "We not slip down into poor peasants illusions about the collectivization of the broad peasant masses. In the present circumstances it is no longer possible.” and Stalin said in 1928, less than a year before the rapid turn towards forced collectivisation, “There are people who think that individual farms have exhausted their usefulness, that we should not support them ... These people have nothing in common with the line of our party.”. Yet it was only a year later, once the Opposition had essentially lost all political power, that he was calling on the state to 'liquidate the kulaks as a class'.

Stalin and his bureaucrats opposed collectivisation and did their best to maintain the system of individual land ownership to the detriment of the poorer peasants and to the benefit of the rich peasants until the Opposition had been expelled and then the Stalinists did a complete U-turn towards collectivisation, with none of the groundwork or foundations put in place to ensure that the poorer peasants supported the move and definitely none of the work to reduce the economic power of the richer land owning strata. This is what made it so unpopular and lead to mass killing of livestock in protest.

If similar measures to that which was suggested by the Opposition had taken place you could have seen a more gradualist and careful approach with a clearer propaganda message to bring more peasants and workers on board with the process. You could have seen similar collective farms to kibbutz with the right leadership and a more effective and efficient collectivisation overall with popular support.