Modernization «From the Wooden Plow»: the Experience of Agrarian Reform in Smolensk Village in the 1920–1930s

Abstract

The article deals with the mechanism of agrarian transformation in the 1920s–1930s on the example of Smolensk region. In the 1920s the NEP modernization processes in the region have been continued by the Stolypin agrarian
 reforms. Khutors (farms) creation, mass cooperation, an exit from the peasant community happened due to peasants’ aspiration started «below» and the «above» support of the Soviet authorities. The agrarian impasse in the mid 1920s, that was caused by extensive development, raised the question of finding the best option for agricultural transformation.
 In Smolensk Governorate it was shown in the choice of «Danish»
 way of development when the high-value farms united in various agricultural cooperatives on the dairy-grass-flax-growing bias that would give a large number
 of export products for which the Soviet government could receive good money for industrialization. However, the enrichment of the peasantry, the fear of economic growth in the political NEP led to the termination of this program. The remains of the agrarian experiment were curtailed during the process of
 «Smolensk abscess». Further development was forced to follow the socialist way
 of modernization with its usual costs.
 There was «Chayanov’s» alternative in the course of collectivization. It
 provided for the combination of individual economic functions due to cooperation. The defeat of «Chayanov’s» group in the political struggle of 1929 led to the choice of a more forced model – agricultural cartels, communes. It was supposed to create
 large agro-industrial complexes (according to the best practices of the USA). But
 failures in leadership, dispossession, resistance of the peasantry and mass cattle
 slaughter prevented socialist modernization. But the large and technically equipped forms of agricultural production were created, which effectively resolved the task of
 ensuring food stability and security of the country. On the other hand, these progressive changes were achieved largely due
 to the deterioration of the rural population’s living standards, a return to the elements of the pre-revolutionary past (alienation of workers from the means of production, non-economic coercion, attachment to the collective farm).