The collective farm is the basis of the Soviet agrarian sector and the economy as a whole

Your grandfathers and grandmothers, and possibly your parents, had to live in Soviet times and work on the collective farm, if your relatives are from the countryside. They probably remember this time, knowing firsthand that the collective farm is the place where their youth passed. The history of the creation of collective farms is very interesting, it is worth to get acquainted with her more closely.

The first collective farms

After the First World War, approximately in 1918, began to emerge social farming on a new basis in our country. The state initiated the creation of collective farms. The collective farms that appeared at that time were not universally distributed, rather, they were isolated. Historians show that the more prosperous peasants did not need to join the collective farms, they preferred the management of the economy within the family. But the less well-off strata of the rural population took a new initiative favorably, because for them, living in starvation, the collective farm is a guarantee of a comfortable existence. In those years, the entry into the agricultural farms was voluntary, not enforced by force.

Enlargement course

It took literally several years, and the government decided that the process of collectivization should be accelerated. A course was taken to strengthen joint production. All agricultural activity was decided to reorganize and give it a new form - collective farming. This process was not easy, for the people it was more tragic. And the events of the 1920s and 1930s overshadowed even the greatest successes of the collective farms. As well-to-do peasants were not enthusiastic about such innovation, they were forcibly driven there. All property was alienated from cattle and buildings, to birds and small items. Mass emerged when peasant families, against collectivization, moved to cities, abandoning all their property in the countryside. This was done mainly by the most successful peasants, they were the best professionals in the field of agriculture. Their relocation will later affect the quality of work in the industry.

Dekulakization

The most sad page in history about how collective farms were created in the USSR was a period of mass repression against opponents of the policy of the Soviet government. The terrible massacre of wealthy peasants followed, and the society advocated a strong aversion to people whose standard of living was slightly better. They were called "fists". As a rule, such peasants, whole families, together with the elderly and nursing children, were evicted to distant lands of Siberia, having previously selected all the property. In the new territories, conditions for life and agriculture were extremely unfavorable, and a large number of the dekulakized simply did not reach the places of exile. At the same time, in order to stop the mass exodus of peasants from the villages, a passport system was introduced and what we now call a residence permit. Without an appropriate mark in the passport, a person could not leave the village voluntarily. When our grandmothers and grandfathers remember what a collective farm is, they do not forget to mention both passports and difficulties with moving.

Becoming and flourishing

During the Great Patriotic War the collective farms invested a considerable share in the Victory. For a long time there was an opinion that if it were not for rural workers, the Soviet Union would not have won the war. Whatever it was, the form of collective farming began to justify itself. Literally in a few years people began to understand that a modern collective farm is an enterprise with millions of turns. Such farms-millionaires began to appear in the early fifties. It was prestigious to work at such an agricultural enterprise, the work of a mechanic and a stockbreeder was in high esteem. Collective farmers received decent money: the milkmaids' earnings could exceed the salary of an engineer or doctor. They were also encouraged by state awards and orders. In the Presidiums of the congresses of the Communist Party, a significant number of collective farmers met without fail. Strong prosperous farms built houses for workers, kept houses of culture, brass bands, organized excursion tours around the USSR.

Farm, or the collective farm in a new way

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the decline of collective agricultural enterprises began. The older generation bitterly recalls that the collective farm is a stability that has forever left the village. Yes, they are right in their own way, but in the conditions of transition to a free market, the collective farms, which were guided by activity in a planned economy, simply could not survive. Large-scale reforming and transformation into farms began. The process is complex and not always effective. Unfortunately, a number of factors, such as insufficient funding, lack of investment, outflow of young able-bodied population from villages, negatively affect the activities of farms. But still some of them manage to remain successful.