Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T01:06:07.489Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Collectivization and Economic Development*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Zbigniew M. Fallenbuchl
Zbigniew M. Fallenbuchl*
Affiliation:
University of Windsor
Get access

Extract

According to Marxism-Leninism the “socialist reconstruction of agriculture,” or collectivization, is a necessary step in the process of building socialism and, subsequently, communism. The communists realize, however, that in a country where the peasantry constitutes the overwhelming majority of the population the process may require some time and they admit that in such cases “the socialist reconstruction of agriculture is, after the seizure of power by the working class, the most difficult task of the revolution.”

Lenin was aware of the danger inherent in collectivization and he was planning it as a gradual process. The communist leaders in Eastern Europe and in China, keeping in mind the catastrophic results of the Soviet collectivization drive in the years 1928–33, were even more convinced that they should proceed slowly, gradually, and carefully, without antagonizing the majority of peasants. They tried, as the Bolsheviks had done during the 1920's, to reduce the power of the “kulaks” (the better-off peasants who were still rather poor by Western standards) and to enlist against them the support of the poor peasants and of the rest of the society. Neither the Bolsheviks in the late 1920's nor the communists in Eastern Europe in the late 1940's and in China in the 1950's could tolerate independent producers who represented a political menace and created economic complications for the administrators and the planners. Moreover, the land reforms, which were introduced by the communists for tactical reasons although regarded by them as a retrogressive step, increased the number of small holdings below the optimum size and destroyed larger farms which had been producing the majority of marketable output. The “class struggle in the countryside” had adverse effects on productivity, even when it was limited to discrimination in taxation, in delivery quotas, in availability of credit and producers' goods, and the administrative pressure and chicanery. In many instances it went, however, far beyond these measures.

Deux arguments contradictoires sont prônés en faveur de la collectivisation. Aucun ne s'avère en accord avec les faits observés à date. Selon le premier argument, la collectivisation est nécessaire pour que l'agriculture soit temporairement sacrifiée au bénéfice de l'industrie en expansion. Elle aide à accroître l'épargne forcée et à la diriger vers l'industrie. Elle favorise aussi le passage de la main-d'oeuvre de l'agriculture à l'industrie et elle accroît la proportion de la production qui doit être mise en marché. Cependant, l'épargne des paysans provient du travail additionnel de toute la famille et d'une réduction volontaire de la consommation à un niveau qui ne peut être imposé. Cette addition nette aux fonds disponibles pour fin d'investissement disparaît lorsque le processus d'accumulation tombe aux mains de l'Etat. Comme l'établissement du collectivisme requiert du capital, le transfert n'est pas très considérable. Le transfert de la main-d'oeuvre dépend d'autres facteurs: le stimulant n'était pas nécessaire et a eu des résultats excessifs; la productivité du travail est demeurée faible; même si des campagnes de recrutement furent facilitées, d'autres mesures eurent été suffisantes. Même si la collectivisation accroît la proportion de la production qui est mise en marché, son volume absolu ne doit pas nécessairement être plus considérable. La « décollectivisation » en Pologne n'a pas réduit la part destinée au marché, mais la production a augmenté. Le volume de la production destinée au marché dépend des incitations et delà stabilité.

Selon le second argument, la collectivisation est une mesure visant à la modernisation et à l'expansion immédiates de Vagriculture. Les faits révèlent cependant que la stagnation et même le déclin de la production en constituent le résultat en courte période. Même les pays relativement développés ont éprouvé des difficultés dans leurs efforts tendant simultanément à la collectivisation et à Vindustrialisation et n'ont pu allier collectivisation et modernisation de Vagriculture. Les conditions en Europe, en Chine et, jusqu'à un certain point, en Union Soviétique ne sont pas propices à la culture extensive. Les grandes unités ne sont pas un pré-requis à la modernisation et la collectivisation ne crée pas nécessairement des fermes de dimension optimale. Toujours dangereuse en courte période, la collectivisation n'accélère pas le taux de croissance en longue période.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , February 1967 , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1967

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This paper is an abbreviated part of a larger study. It is based on research which has been made possible by several Canada Council grants.

References

1 Political Economy—A Textbook. (Moscow, 1963)Google Scholar, Polish edition, (Warsaw, 1963), 356; cf. Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, English language edition (Moscow, 1961), 678.Google Scholar

2 “Rural Economy and Problems in the Agricultural Co-operative Movement,” in New China Advances to Socialism (Peking, 1956), 125.Google Scholar

3 Volin, L., “Agricultural Policy of the Soviet Union,” in Bornstein, M. and Fusfeld, D. R., The Soviet Economy (Homewood, Ill., 1962)Google Scholar; Durgin, F. A., “Monetization and Policy in Soviet Agriculture since 1962,” Soviet Studies, 04 1964.Google Scholar

4 For example, the attitude of the peasants in Poland to the “agricultural circles” has been negative for this reason. Tepicht, J., “Kolka rolnicze w swietle ogolnych spraw rolnictwa” (“The Agricultural Circles in the Light of the General Problems of Agriculture”), Ekonomista (Warsaw), no. 5 (1964), 1089–92.Google Scholar

5 B. Galeski, “Kierunki zmian spolecznych wsi i jej perspektywy” (“The Directions of the Socialist Changes in the Countryside and Their Prospects”) in Brus, W. et al., eds., Materialy do studiowania ekonomii politycznej socjalizmu (Sources for the Study of the Political Economy of Socialism) (Warsaw, 1964), 144–5.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as (Sources).

6 For example; Ames, E., Soviet Economic Processes (Homewood, Ill., 1965), 125–6.Google Scholar

7 Preobrazhensky, E., The New Economics, English language ed. (Oxford, 1965), 77 ff. and 360 ff.Google Scholar

8 Yugoslavia's Way. The Program of the League of the Communists of Yugoslavia, English language ed. (New York, 1958), 210–11Google Scholar; Mieszczankowski, M., “Stopniowa socjalizacja rolnictwa polskiego” (“The Gradual Socialization of Polish Agriculture”), in Brus, et al. (Sources), 169.Google Scholar

9 Tepicht, J., “Ekonomiczne warunki socjalistycznego rozwoju wsi” (“The Economic Conditions of the Socialist Development of the Countryside”), Ekonomista, no. 6 (1962), 1324.Google Scholar

10 Tepicht, J., “Doswiadczenia a perspektywy rolnictwa” (“The Experience and the Prospects For Agriculture”), Brus, et al. (Sources), 102–3.Google Scholar

11 Mieszczankowski, (Sources), 150.Google Scholar

12 Herer, W., “Niektore problemy wzajemnych proporcji miedzy rolnictwem i przemyslem” (“Some Problems of the Mutual Relations Between Agriculture and Industry”), in Lange, O., ed., Zagadnienia ekonomii politycznej soqalizmu (Problems of the Political Economy of Socialism) (Warsaw, 1958), 113.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as (Problems).

l3 Tepicht, , “Ekonomiczne warunki …,” 1334–5.Google Scholar

14 Fulfilling the First Five Year Plan for the Economic Development of the U.S.S.R. (Moscow, 1933), 253 Google Scholar; Lorimer, F., The Population of the Soviet Union: History and Prospects (Geneva, 1946), 149.Google Scholar

15 Marx, K., Capital, I (Moscow, 1959), 732–3.Google Scholar

16 Free Europe Press, Trends in the Czechoslovak Economy in 1954 (New York), 16 Google Scholar; Tepicht, , “Kolka rolnicze wswietle …,” 1087.Google Scholar

17 The Economic Council at the Council of Ministers, Przeglad sytuacji gospodarczej krafu i zadania stojace przed polityka gospodarcza (A Survey of the Economic Situation of the Country and the Tasks of the Economic Polity) (Warsaw, 1957), 26.Google Scholar

18 Lipinski, E., Rewizje (The Revisions) (Warsaw, 1958), 109.Google Scholar

19 The Polish State farms had losses in all years between 1951 and 1959/60. Cf. Tepicht, J., and Rychlik, T., “Problemy rozwoju i przebudowy rolnictwa” (“The Problems of the Development and Reconstruction of Agriculture”), in Polityka gospodarcza Polski Ludowej (The Economic Policy of the People's Poland) (Warsaw, 1961), 325.Google Scholar

20 Congress of the United States, Annual Economic Indicators For the USSR (Washington DC, 1964), 29.Google Scholar

21 Volin, L., A Survey of Soviet Russian Agriculture (Washington, DC, 1951), 35–36.Google Scholar

22 Lange, O., “Podstawowe zagadnienia okresu budowy socjalizmu,” (“The Basic Problems of the Period of Building Socialism”) in Lange, , ed. (Problems), 50.Google Scholar

23 The Central Statistical Office, Statystyka Polski (Statistics of Poland), vol. 46 (Warsaw, 1961), 274 Google Scholar; Tepicht, , “Ekonomiczne warunki …,” 1332.Google Scholar

24 Nagy, I., On Communism (New York, 1957), 155.Google Scholar

25 Herer, (Problems), 123.Google Scholar

26 The articles by Vergner, Z., Komeda, B., and Kuzusnik, C., Dupal, V., Hvorecky, J., in “La Tchécoslovaquie affronte les problèmes actuels du socialisme dans un pays développé,” Democratie nouvelle (Paris, 05 1964)Google Scholar; Struzek, B., “W sprawie drog przebudowy wsi” (“The Ways of Reconstructing the Countryside”), Brus, et al. (Sources), 77.Google Scholar

27 Tepicht, , “Doswiadczenia …,” 108.Google Scholar

28 The Soviet wheat yields (bushels per acre) were 12.0 average for 1955–59, 12.3 in 1961, and 11.9 in 1962. The corresponding yields in the United States were: 22.3, 24.0, and 25.1; in Canada: 20.5, 11.2, and 20.7; in South America (total): 17.4, 16.5, and 16.7; in Asia (total): 13.3, 13.5, and 13.9; in Oceania (total): 16.1, 16.2, and 17.2; in Africa (total): 11.1, 9.5, and 12.7; in Eastern Europe: 21.4, 24.9, and 23.1; and in the rest of Europe: 28.2, 29.8, and 34.3. The comparison of rye yields reveals a similar pattern. US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics (Washington, DC, 1963), 5, 6, 18.Google Scholar

29 The wheat yields (bushels per acre) in Netherlands were 57.8 average for 1955–59, 57.4 in 1961, and 70.6 in 1962; in Belgium 53.6, 52.0, and 59.4; and in Denmark 58.8, 61.3, and 63.0. The corresponding yields in Eastern Europe were as follows: in Bulgaria: 19:6, 19.5, and 19.9; in Czechoslovakia: 30.0, 37.8, 35.3; in East Germany: 41.1, 41.0, and 42.8; in Hungary: 22.0, 28.4, and 25.4; in Poland: 23.4, 29.6 and 26.1; in Rumania: 16.2, 19.8, and 18.6; in Yugoslavia: 21.5, 24.1, and 21.6.

30 Brzoza, A., “Reserwy produkcyjne rolnictwa a tempo i formy jego socjalizacji” (“The Production Reserves of Agriculture and the Pace and Forms of Its Socialization”), in Brus, et al. (Sources), 170–1.Google Scholar

31 Tepicht, , “Kolka rolnicze …” 1081.Google Scholar

32 0.19 hectares per capita in 1953 as compared, for example, with 0.52 in Czechoslovakia, 0.66 in Poland, 1.03 in the Soviet Union, 2.36 in the United States, or 3.37 in Canada. Ibid., 1079, and Ta-lin, Tung, Agricultural Co-operatives in China (Peking, 1959), 12.Google Scholar

33 Tepicht, , “Doswiadczenia …“ (Sources), 96–103 Google Scholar; and Herer, W., “Planowa nie rozwoju rolnicrwa chlopskiego w panstwie socjalistycznym” (“Planning of the Development of Peasant Agriculture in a Socialist Country”), Ekonomista, no. 5 (1962), 1004.Google Scholar

34 Tepicht, , “Kolka rolnicze …,” 1078.Google Scholar