Collectivization: What are they trying to hide from us?
Once upon a time, MTS were completely new, just built.
Now it's time to talk about scope and scale. Stalin's plan for the radical restructuring of agriculture, undertaken with the beginning of total collectivization in 1930. In my opinion, this entire zealous and passionate campaign to denigrate Stalin and his agrarian program, all sorts of hand-wringing on the topic of the “harsh drama of the people” pursues the goal of concealing precisely this scale and scope, and concealing it in such a way that no one remembers or even guesses that such a thing happened. Because the presence or absence of this fact in stories Russia is radically changing its understanding of this very history, of the possibilities and potential of the people and the state.
So, what are they trying to hide from us?
First, some well-known statistics.
Organization
Collective farms. In 1929 there were 57 thousand, in 1934 there were 233,3 thousand. 176,3 thousand new collective farms were created. At the same time, 23,7% of collective farms were formed in 1930, and 40,6% in 1931. In other words, 64% of collective farms were created in just two years.
Machine and tractor stations (MTS). In 1929 there were none, in 1930 1400 were created, in 1934 – 3533.
State farms. In 1929 there were 3042. At their peak in 1931 there were 5383, and in 1934 there were 4742. 1700 new state farms were created and continued to operate compared to 1929.
Tractorization
Collective farms. In 1929, there were 26,2 thousand tractors in collective farms, in 1930 there were 44,3 thousand, and in 1934 - 185,1 thousand. Thus, although the balance, of course, is inaccurate, collective farms received 158,9 thousand tractors during the years of collectivization. This refers to the tractors that were on the balance sheet of the collective farms themselves.
MTS. In 1929 there were none. In 1930 there were 31,1 thousand tractors, in 1934 there were 177,3 thousand tractors. MTS served collective farms that did not have their own equipment. In 1931, MTS served 51,7 thousand collective farms or 37,1% of their number, and in 1934 - 107 thousand collective farms or 63% of their number.
Thus, for collectivization, collective farms received a total of 336,2 thousand tractors, which they could use themselves or rent. Plus, we need to add to them 15,2 thousand combines and 19,5 thousand trucks in the MTS in 1934.
State farms. In 1929 there were 9,7 thousand tractors. In 1934 — 82,7 thousand tractors.
Interesting statistics are that collective farms had twice as many tractors of their own as state farms, and collective farms had almost exactly four times as many tractors as state farms. The surprising conclusion is that tractorization primarily envisaged the provision of tractors to collective farms, i.e., collectivized peasants.
Land management
During collectivization, land in the USSR, especially in grain-growing regions, was re-divided in the most radical way.
In total, the land fund in the USSR amounted to 2206,8 million hectares, including 223,9 million hectares of arable land, 53,2 million hectares of hayfields and 344 million hectares of pastures, both used and unused. There was a special term for unused arable land - arable.
Land surveying was carried out using the simplest and most accessible means.
In 1934, the collective farm-peasant sector used 441,4 million hectares, and state farms - 84,2 million hectares.
In 1930, according to the land management plan accompanying collectivization and the creation of state farms, it was planned to allocate 31 million hectares to state farms by land allocation and 12,5 million hectares by internal land management. In the same year, collective farms were allocated 92,5 million hectares by land indication and 27 million hectares by in-depth land management. In just one year, 31% of the used agricultural lands were re-marked. In subsequent years, large-scale land management work was also carried out with the redistribution of land between collective farms and state farms.
During land management work, individual peasant "strips" were mercilessly destroyed, and the lands were reduced to large plots suitable for tractor cultivation. In 1934, the average kolkhoz had 1891 hectares (including 452 hectares of crops), while the average state farm had 17,7 thousand hectares (including 2973 hectares of crops). At the same time, improved crop rotation with grassland and row crops was often introduced, that is, the structure of field cultivation was radically changed.
Peasant "strips" plagued land surveyors even before the revolution. Here is an example of the original peasant division of land.
The same lands after land management. During collectivization, land management was carried out in a similar way, only much larger plots were allocated for collective and state farms.
There must be a big map
Are these numbers not making your eyes water? The plan for reorganizing agriculture on a national scale, which included collectivization, was so grandiose that it is difficult to grasp even in general terms. And they implemented it in a very short time.
The overthrowers can make fun of the collective farms or criticize them as much as they want. Let them try to create at least one collective farm that would survive until the next harvest. And they created them by the thousands.
The detractors keep quiet about the MTS, because they understand that it is difficult to organize an enterprise in an almost open field, in which there are on average 50 tractors, to provide them with personnel, fuel and lubricants, spare parts, repairs, to build premises, and also to organize field work. But they created 3,5 thousand such enterprises.
Workshop in MTS. Even if it's like this, it's needed.
Land management is not mentioned at all by the overthrowers, which is understandable. It is difficult to go around 525 million hectares, let alone survey them with the primitive means available at that time, like a land compass, a typical surveyor's tool. But they surveyed them. They can say that there was a General Survey according to the manifesto of Empress Catherine II from September 19, 1765. This is also a great achievement, but we must remember that this surveying took a hundred years.
Finally, state farms. Before this whole epic began, it was impossible to even imagine a farm of 100, 200, 300-500 thousand hectares. The state farm plan failed to a large extent due to a lack of resources, but the scale there was difficult to imagine as grandiose.
Moreover, all of the above was done simultaneously and in a very short time. I came to the conclusion that the implementation of such a large-scale program for the reorganization of agriculture was impossible without a preliminary plan drawn up and drawn on a map. On a ten-verst map (ten versts to an inch or 4,2 km to 1 cm) it is quite possible to draw not only the lands allocated for groups of collective farms, for large collective farms and for state farms, but also to plan in rough the internal land management of the largest farms. For example, the land in the Gigant state farm, created in 1928, was divided into 330 "cells" representing a square of 2 x 2 km.
This is a later version of the internal land management of the same state farm "Giant" with larger plots.
With such a large-scale land re-division, it was necessary to solve many issues related to the placement of settlements, the placement of the created MTS, central estates of state farms, collective farm-commodity farms, road construction, construction of dumping points and elevators, and in general the relationship of the created farm with the existing objects and land plots. Of course, such a task is easier to solve on a fairly large map, and then, based on what was planned and drawn, give instructions to the lower bodies and demand a report from them. Using this map, it was possible to roughly calculate the harvests and grain flows, link them with the existing transport infrastructure and plan the construction of new objects. Without a map, it will not work - you will get confused.
It should be a large map, just like the General Staff map of the fronts. If it has survived, it should be somewhere in the archive.
A historic achievement, one of the most significant
The history of Russia with and without this plan are two very different things. Such a grandiose plan, even partially successful, is an outstanding organizational achievement. In this, Soviet agrarians were pioneers; before them, no one had done anything like this, nor even thought about it.
It becomes clear that Stalin's famous plan for the transformation of nature also stood on this plan for the reorganization of agriculture as its foundation. Indeed, if the land was radically redistributed to allocate large areas for collective and state farms, then it is quite logical to add forest belts to them in order to moderate the climate and prevent drought.
The very appearance of such a plan is evidence of high potential, intellectual daring. From here it becomes clear why dreams of space were developed in the USSR. If they have already redistributed the land over an area of 5 million square kilometers, which is 3,7% of the area of the earth's land without Antarctica, then yes, you can dream about space and apple trees on Mars.
In short, the agricultural reorganization plan of the 1930s is our historical achievement, one of the most significant.
All theories of the "Holodomor" and "the harsh drama of the people" are primarily aimed at depriving us of this achievement, erasing it from our memory. Note that the adherents of these theories reduce everything to stupidity and violence. Why? So that we would be dumber and more stupid, so that it would be easier to subjugate and exploit us.
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