WI: No farm collectivization in the Soviet Union

At one time Russia was one of the world's top grain exporters because of it's farming class, the Kulaks. But Collectivization basically killed off all of their good farmers, which eventually lead to the famines. So basically, what if the farms were never collectivized? Would this prevent the famines in the 30's? What effect would this have on Russian farming today?
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
The problem was the urban workers complaining that prices on the private markets were much higher than prices on the state market, and that there hardly were any were enough for everyone on the state market. Also, most Soivet politicians supported collectivization of agriculture. Trotsky wanted it to happen as early as the mid 20s.
 
While Bukharin did, in principle, agree with collectivisation eventually, he spoke for doing it slowly and continuing NEP.

If Stalin lost and Bukharin won, how would late 1920-s, early 1930-s Soviet Union behave?

A problem here is that I do not see a clear PoD for Bukharin victory (Trotsky victory is easy).
 
In Russia 1914, the Tsar and the Imperial Family held 143 million desyatin of land, free peasants 170 million desyatin, the nobility 42 million desyatin. The church also held substantial lands, probably about 30 million desyatin.

A desyatin is a bit over 11 000 square meters.

50% of the free peasants still lived in communes (about as effective as later Soviet kolchoses). Communes worked collectively, as farmers usually owned 1/32 or 1/64 of a field due to split-ups at inheritance. Only about 15% of the free peasants were wealthy enough to use artificial fertilizer (these were the Kulaks), the others barely managed to feed themselves and had no surplus to invest in their farming.

In 1913, 6,5 million wooden ploughs were used, and 4,5 million iron and steel ploughs. That tells quite a bit of how little money the Russian peasantry had to invest in better tools.

The idea of pre-Soviet Russia as a breadbasket is a bit blown-up. The communal agriculture that half the Russian peasants lived on was most likely not very effective either.

The kulaks produced most of the surplus pre-ww1, and their breakup caused a drop in production.

If the Soviets say that only Imperial, noble and church land will be nationalised and that the communes and kulaks can continue to work as before (but encouraged to join collective farms, as only those will be getting new steel plows, tractors etc) things will be better. Also, if you get rid of the policy to appoint the poorest man in a commune its leader (it was usually the one who had drank himself away from his land, been socially ostracised and was bitter and vengeful), the early problems in switching from communes to collective farms will also be lessened.
 
The idea of pre-Soviet Russia as a breadbasket is a bit blown-up. The communal agriculture that half the Russian peasants lived on was most likely not very effective either.

The kulaks produced most of the surplus pre-ww1, and their breakup caused a drop in production.

If the Soviets say that only Imperial, noble and church land will be nationalised and that the communes and kulaks can continue to work as before (but encouraged to join collective farms, as only those will be getting new steel plows, tractors etc) things will be better.
That´s basically what NEP was.

How well had Russian agriculture recovered by 1928 from Ist World War and Civil War?

Suppose Bukharin wins and NEP continues - how would Soviet economy do 1928...1938?
 
I agree with Adler - frankly even a less drastic tranference might have greatly lessened the chaos.

However the problem is treating Soviet peasants like worker's in a factory is flawed logic. Problem is, Marxist-Leninism practically dictates such a system be put in place, when a 'socialised' system with profit incentives would make more sense and output ala Yugoslavia.

Only hope to have a Soviet Union without collectivisation is let the Right win the 1920's leadership battle and keep Stalin out of the picture. That way, you have the precident of Lenin introducing NEP, and a less radical government not under the pressure of Stalinism, which might lead the likes of Bukharin, Rykov etc. to either go with a more cooperative model, or possibly reform a mellower collectivisation at a later date.

Hell, if you look to the kulaks as prospective collective farm managers, rather than evil parasites of noble peasants, they might even do a half-decent job. After all the 'kulaks' by the 1920s were less a class and more the section of peasants lucky and saavy enough to own good land and invest in new equipment.
 
I had a family member who got de-kulakised. In his case, he owned a little bit of land, rented some seasonally, and could hire workers, so he got everything confiscated. He moved to the next village over, got a horse and started working as a postman/delivery guy for the RaiKom.

He (and most of the old RaiKom) eventually got de-kulakised again, and this time sent even further east.

But tellingly, he was considered a well-off man not only by the soviet, but also by his neighbours pre-revolution. Imperial Russia really was very poor.

On the other side of the family, they owned meadows and horses for the post office. The great-grandmother was smart enough to give it up pre-emptively and joined the Kolkhoz as a functionary, but that did not help with the concentration of capital and production, because the land was partitioned into plots for personal housing.

Russia starts out on a fairly low level (the breadbasket thing is definitely overstated; it was ridiculously famine prone for a "breadbasket") and the issue isn't so much collectivisation or not; it's a matter of concentrating capital to improve production to create food surpluses, something only the USSR managed for a part of its existance before the environment got overtaxed and productivity fell again, and Imperial Russia never really managed.

The collectivization-era leadership was aware of the problem, and they had different ideas as to how to implement changes. The bastards that won were of course bastards, but I am not sure if the other option is actually much better in achieving the goal. One thing for sure; the famines are going to be less grotesque, though also perhaps more frequent (the cycle continues as in pre-Soviet Russia since the producton approach does not change?)
 
Didn't many Imperial Russian peasants live in conditions not out of place in the Middle Ages?

They weren't particularly unique in that respect, but yes, it was still 1770 in some parts of Russia, and much more so in the less settled areas.
 
A Bukharin victory is quite plausible. Just have Lenin live to albut 1930. Lenin dismisses Stalin and his conies. A couple of years later he aslo dismisses Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Tomsky and their clique, whose opposition to the NEP has made them insufferable. Bukharin becomes the heir apparent and succeds on Lenin's death
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
A Bukharin victory is quite plausible. Just have Lenin live to albut 1930. Lenin dismisses Stalin and his conies. A couple of years later he aslo dismisses Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Tomsky and their clique, whose opposition to the NEP has made them insufferable. Bukharin becomes the heir apparent and succeds on Lenin's death
But even Bukharin was essentially against NEP existing forever, he just thought it was still needed, but collectivization in the end was inevitable.
 

Old Airman

Banned
So basically, what if the farms were never collectivized?

</p>This one is pretty easy to answer. No Soviet collectivization means Nazi Eurasia from Brest to Yenisei River and from Norway to Persian Gulf. You see, the short-term effect of collectivization was to rob Paul (agriculture) to pay Peter (industrialization) IOTL, and there's absolutely no other source Soviets could draw from. Nada, zip, zilch, zero. No access to world credit market, no markets for Soviet industrial goods to pay for industrialization with contracts to supply industrial products in the future (the way Czarist Russia paid to US companies in 1914-1917 to build small arms factories to produce rifles for Imperial Army), no capital reserves, no export items but raw products. So, by taking collectivization out you pretty much make industrialization an non-starter.

What would "no industrialization" mean for USSR, in military terms. Quite a lot, as you would imagine. Just forget about all those trucks, T-26s, T-28s, BTs, SBs and fighter planes of IOTL. Not gonna happen. Nowhere to produce, no raw materials to produce from (you don't exactly mine iron and aluminium, you smelt it out of ore), no workforce to make the stuff. Polish 1939 army would give you a pretty good idea of "deindustrialized" Red Army. A single tank battallion per an army, with "tanks" being mostly MS-1s (Soviet derivative of FT-17), plus couple of elite regiments on allmighty Vickers 6 ton. What's probably even more important, precious few of those who went through compulsory army training in 1933-1941 (IOTL having a somewhat decent exposure to tanks, trucks and planes) would be familiar with any equipment of post-WWI vintage IOTL. So, no reserves of men in their best fighting age (25-35) being familiar with motorized equipment.Now, let's ask ourselves, would absense of Soviet industrialization prevent Hitler from coming to power? The answer would be "Nope". Nazi weren't allow to became a leading German political force because elites feared Red Invasion. Hitler had been enabled as a tool to prevent the Red Rot, lefts coming to power from within due to internal discontent, through ballot box, militancy or combination thereof. So, industrialization or no industrialization, just by virtue of being there, USSR would inspire far lefts all over the world, Europe included. And that makes Germany-1933 inevitable.

What would change between 1933 and 1940? Not that much, really. Spanish Civil War would start as ot did IOTL, but Franco's victory would be faster (war, without T-26s and I-15s, would end sometimes late 1937-early 1938). In absense of credible Soviet military threat to Poland (more on it later), British and French would be even more inclined to sell Czechs (IOTL they at least had a chance to help Czechs by co-operating with Stalin, ITTL Stalin would not be in a position to do anything about the events) and give Poles guarantees. So, 1938 and 1939 would go as ITTL, with Czechoslovakia eaten alive and Poland spectacularly defeated.

Now, stuff starts to get really interesting. Let us be charitable to Western part of European landmass and assume that Hitler, being a good anticommunist, ignores Alsace question and goes after USSR in summer 1940, instead of France. This is quite likely, actually, as semi-peasant USSR makes extremely tempting target. What resistance would Red Army be able to offer? As I said, I don't count on it being better than IOTL Poles. Pre-industrialization, Poland was considered at least as credible military power as USSR. Soviets spent 15 years (1921-1936) and untold amount of resources, building much-talked-about Stalin Line to defend itself against potential attack of much-feared Polish army. So, there's no reason to assume that Red Army would do any better in 1940 or 1941 then Poles did in 1939. Nothing happened ITTL to boost it's fighting power the way industrialization did IOTL. So, you can assume frontline along somewhere East of Volga to the end of 1st summer of war, and somewhat West of Yenisei by the middle of 2nd year (Nazis, unaware of Big Oil of Tyumen, wouldn't take Siberia, the decision they will come to regret later). Now, how many of you, my readers, do actually believe that "Great Nazi Reich from Yenisei to Rhine" would actually spare France and Benelux with Scandinavia for long? So, whatever you do, you have Nazi-dominated continental Europe and Near East by the end of 1942. Now, taking into account that Nuke would not arrive before it did IOTL, Hitler has 3 years and industrial and resource capacity of half of the world to terror Britain into signing of peace agreement along the lines of OTL "brotherhood agreements" between USSR and it's Eastern European client regimes, with Brits being not allowed to let American bomber deployment (I'm being very modest by not talking about Unmentionnable Sea Mammal, which looks more realistic ITTL, but is not really needed). With FDR dead as per OTL, you can be pretty much sure that Nazi-American peace agreement along the lines "what's yours is yours, what's ours is ours" would be signed before X-mas of 1945.


So, you wanted to talk about Russian farming ITTL? Well, options are limitless. We can talk about positive effect of Jewish and Slavic corpses would have on soil's fertility. We can count on at least couple of million Soviet Jews and several times that of Russians, Ukraininas and Belorussians being killed (see Generalplan Ost for more details). Alternatively, we can discuss permafrost fertility in Yakutia or around Magadan... (Sorry for sounding so "horror movie"-ish in this "agricultural" paragraph, but I'm telling truth, whole truth and nothing but truth, as far as Nazi plans are concerned).
 
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Why not simply impose a grain tax to create exports to pay for industrialization?

Might be less wasteful than OTL's collectivization process in terms of mass famine and hatred for the Nazis to exploit.

And "it was needed to stop TEH NAZI" strikes me as a really good retroactive excuse--domestic tyranny oftentimes needs an outside enemy.
 

Typo

Banned
I feel that Russia wouldn't necessarily be as "de-industrialized" as you claim, also keep in mind that without Stalin's purges, Russia might not have needed that much industry to win in the first place. And keep in mind the Soviets did get major landfalls in terms of resources, such as the gold from the Spanish Civil War.
 

Old Airman

Banned
I feel that Russia wouldn't necessarily be as &quot;de-industrialized&quot; as you claim.
Well, short of ASB intervention, I don't see any other source of capital to pay for industrialization but export of agricultural goods. By "de-industrialized" I didn't mean any reversals, whatever was there in 1929 would be there in 1941. It is just that you would see precious few of toys USSR built in 1929-1941 IOTL.
also keep in mind that without Stalin's purges, Russia might not have needed that much industry to win in the first place.
Could you please clarify? Yes, morale might be a bit higher initially (IOTL Soviets didn't have serious problems with troops' will to fight after 1st half year of war), but materiel would be a whole lot less available.
And keep in mind the Soviets did get major landfalls in terms of resources, such as the gold from the Spanish Civil War.
1. Soviets got this gold IOTL for the stuff their new industrial facilities produced. T-26s, I-15s, I-16s etc. They would not have this stuff ITTL.
2. How much did they got, comparing to their annual grain export? I honestly don't know. Most sources are just really outraged that Soviets got paid for goods they supplied.
 

Typo

Banned
Well, short of ASB intervention, I don't see any other source of capital to pay for industrialization but export of agricultural goods. By "de-industrialized" I didn't mean any reversals, whatever was there in 1929 would be there in 1941. It is just that you would see precious few of toys USSR built in 1929-1941 IOTL.
1. Soviets got this gold IOTL for the stuff their new industrial facilities produced. T-26s, I-15s, I-16s etc. They would not have this stuff ITTL.
2. How much did they got, comparing to their annual grain export? I honestly don't know. Most sources are just really outraged that Soviets got paid for goods they supplied.
I feel that just having heavy taxation alone will give the USSR -some- industry, not nearly as much as OTL of course. I don't remember collective farms being particular more productive than traditional ones.
Could you please clarify? Yes, morale might be a bit higher initially (IOTL Soviets didn't have serious problems with troops' will to fight after 1st half year of war), but materiel would be a whole lot less available.
This is the key point, let's say Stalin lose the post-Lenin political struggle and Bukharin and the NEP faction wins out. This probably means no purge and without the purge the Soviets probably avoid having their entire army destroyed in the summer of 1941, then the Soviets wouldn't need as much industry to rebuild the whole thing, and the Soviets are much much more efficient much earlier in the war so they wouldn't need the overwhelming numbers and equipment as much as they did OTL. Also if the Soviets lose less of their best western territories they might have more industries to work with even if they built less to start with compare to OTL.
 

abc123

Banned
If the Soviets say that only Imperial, noble and church land will be nationalised and that the communes and kulaks can continue to work as before

And it would be even better to give that nationalised land to the poor peasants from communes, but with condition that they become a free peasants.
So, they could get a far bigger share of land and live better.;)
 

abc123

Banned
Why not simply impose a grain tax to create exports to pay for industrialization?

Might be less wasteful than OTL's collectivization process in terms of mass famine and hatred for the Nazis to exploit.

And "it was needed to stop TEH NAZI" strikes me as a really good retroactive excuse--domestic tyranny oftentimes needs an outside enemy.

I agree.
Similar results could be accomplished without collectivisation.
Industrialisation and other things could be funded trough taxes on grain exports, trough forced labour of peasants etc.
 
Quick and Dirty Reply

Stalinization was a double-edged sword in that it got Russia to make giant leaps in "self-sufficiency" investing in heavy industry, scientific research and technical development, and so forth, but it was a blunt instrument built on establishing and maintaining state power, not overall quality of life.
It did create a middle-class to do all of this, but once the fiat to do everything via command economy collapsed, so did the middle class that staffed and ran the various pieces of the puzzle.
It depended on the USSR as an insular echo chamber cut off from the rest of the world doing its own thing, which had its definite political advantages but economic and technical disadvantages.
The thing that seems to boggle me about Soviet economics is how it may have valued things in rubles, but acted like monetary value was largely irrelevant in that the government owned everything and nothing was for sale, so a tax structure as we understand it never flipping existed. It had a fiat economy writ colossally large.

Money makes it easier to count what's worth doing. If NEP or other decentralization schemes allowed enterprises to generate revenue it made sense to tax, a more balanced development model might have become commonplace where smallholders (kulaks and small biz owners) have some incentive to do things autonomously rather than wait for some bureau to make their ukaze, thus accelerating development.
The natural tendency toward oligopoly would concentrate concerns into internationally-competitive firms. (I'm basing this on say, Taiwan's developmental model) where Russian firms end up as subcontractors to foreign firms providing raw materials, refined materials, and basic components and on up the supply chain to finished products by the late 1930's built as much to satisfy the world market as internal needs.

All the issues mentioned above were about being starved for capital and so forth are valid points. I'm just saying that a more open and decentralized model of development would have had vastly more positive outcomes more food production and less famines, capital accumulation, better quality of manufacture, etc.
One thing I felt the collectivization scheme did was neutralize local opposition and concentrate all economic power in the state therefore, no independent actors or interests.
Under the NEP model, you would definitely see different factions promoting industry, others promoting free trade to export grains, various culturally oriented parties emerging agitating for local autonomy, and so forth.
Whether they would have been ready to face Hitler's Wehrmacht depends on a myriad factors.
A more prosperous economy would be able to afford more troops to train better, but the sacrifice in productivity in keeping a huge million-man standing army is a priority is a political issue. Economics just provides the means.
As mentioned above, an NEP USSR without a revolutionary cast wouldn't be seen as near as much of a threat. A more social-democratic regime would have swapped tsarist debts for new credit and freely traded with the world and not been in a series of scraps with the West from the git-go as after WWI. If Russia were accepted into LoN say around 1920-22, this isn't quite as ASB as you might imagine.
 

Old Airman

Banned
Why not simply impose a grain tax to create exports to pay for industrialization?
Wait. I feel that we need to clarify the topic of our discussion. My main point being - USSR needed to find industrialization, and robbing village to pay to city was an only viable way. It does look like you kinda agree with that, just unsure about how to do the robbing. Am I correct? Merits of collectivization for Soviet agriculture or lack thereof is a separate topic to discuss.
Might be less wasteful than OTL's collectivization process in terms of mass famine and hatred for the Nazis to exploit.
Would it be less ill will because those Russian peasants just LOVE being taxed to death? Alternatively, if you swiped a region clean as part of a taxation process as opposed to a collectivization, would it make a famine a bit less severe? On a bit less sarcastic note, heavy grain taxes were, would you believe it or not, more problematic politically than collectivization. Google on "prodrazverstka".
And &quot;it was needed to stop TEH NAZI&quot; strikes me as a really good retroactive excuse--domestic tyranny oftentimes needs an outside enemy.
Not saying that Stalin's wasn't a tyranny (his regime was), but do you have any doubts that DA COOL NAZI with their oh-so-chic Hugo Boss uniforms were really the mortal enemy? In a case like this, we MUST use posterior knowledge and assumption that everything not touched by our POD remains the same. That's what I did.
I feel that just having heavy taxation alone will give the USSR -some- industry, not nearly as much as OTL of course. I don't remember collective farms being particular more productive than traditional ones.
Not going into mucho details about effectiveness of collective farming, it was amazingly effective in grain collection. And that's a whole point. Cruel, heartless. but true
This probably means no purge and without the purge the Soviets probably avoid having their entire army destroyed in the summer of 1941
Wait, purge and collectivization are distinctly different events. We were talking about latter. And purge COULD happen in a world without collectivization. Speaking about "avoiding the destruction", Soviets actually did in 1941 at par with French and British in 1940, who had both industrial capacity and highly skilled personnel. So, how would same people fight better with worse equipment at their disposal. Don't overestimate the impact of "the memory of Holodomor". An average Soviet grunt was 10 yo during Holodomor, and average fighter pilot or company commander - 15 yo. With heavy brainwashing they were subjected to in those 10 years by the totalitarian regime, they were not antisoviet, to put it mildly.
then the Soviets wouldn't need as much industry to rebuild the whole thing
If I remember correctly, Soviets produced several times the amount of their pre-war production during WWII. So, a bit smaller losses (I'm cutting you some slack here, assuming they will be smaller) are almost irrelevant, if the trade-of iss lack of facilities to produce stuff.
so they wouldn't need the overwhelming numbers and equipment as much as they did OTL.
We're going deeper into ASB territory with every passing second. Now, not having collectivization means that average Soviet soldier has as much capacity as 5 Americans. I mean, US Army felt the need to create numerical superiority for assaults, and you think that Red Army would not need it :) (end sarcasm). Get real, buddy.
Industrialisation and other things could be funded trough forced labour of peasants etc.
Yeah, GULAG camp in Kolyma is better than a kolkhoz :) Guys, I'm sorry but you almost torture me into being sarcastic.
Stalinization was a double-edged sword in that it got Russia to make giant leaps in &quot;self-sufficiency&quot; investing in heavy industry, scientific research and technical development, and so forth, but it was a blunt instrument built on establishing and maintaining state power, not overall quality of life.
This is IMHO the best reply, but you have too many PODs here. Just "no collectivization" doesn't describe it. Yours is closer to "SR USSR", with Tchernov and Kamkov types being in charge and POD being in 1910-1918, not in 1929.
 
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