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Resolution of the CC of the VKP(b) on the pace of collectivization and state assistance to collective-farm construction

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By Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik), Bolshevik Party, Bolshevik Center, Central Committee, RKP(b), Members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Executive Commission of the Bolshevik Party, Executive Committee of Bolsheviks, Provincial and Regional Party Committees of the RKP(b), Communist Party of the Soviet Union, CPSU, All-Union Communist Party, VKP(b), CC and CCC of the VKP(b), Central Control Commission of the VKP(b), Republic and Territorial (Regional) Control Commissions, Conference of the Russian Communist Party, Plenium of the Central Committee VKP(b) (Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party), RK VKP(b), Congress of the Communist Party, Central Committee of the VKP(b) (All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

The War Against the Peasantry, 1927–1930: The Tragedy of the Soviet Countryside

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DOCUMENT 52

Decree of the CC of the VKP(b) on the pace of collectivization and state assistance to collective-farm construction, 5 January 1930. KPSS v rezoliutsiiakh i resbeniiakb s'ezdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK, vol. 5, pp. 72–75.

5 January 1930

1. In recent months the collective movement has taken a new step forward, encompassing not only groups of individual farms but also entire

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raions, okrugs, and even oblasts and krais. The movement is based on the collectivization of the means of production of poor and middle peasant farms.

All of the planned rates of development set for the collective movement have been surpassed. In the spring of 1930 already the crop area cultivated on a socialized basis will substantially exceed 30 million hectares, i.e., the five-year plan for collectivization, which was to make it possible by the end of the five-year plan period to incorporate 22–24 million hectares into collectives, will be substantially overfulfilled already this year.

As a result, we have the material basis to replace large-scale kulak production with large-scale production by collective farms and for major progress in the establishment of socialist agriculture, not to mention state farms, whose growth is substantially outstripping all planning assumptions.

This fact, which is of decisive importance for the entire USSR national economy, has given the party a solid basis for moving in its practical work from a policy of restricting the kulaks' exploitative tendencies to a policy of liquidating the kulaks as a class.

2. On the basis of all this it can be established beyond a doubt that within five years, instead of collectivizing 20 percent of the crop area as assigned by the five-year plan, we will be able to collectivize the vast majority of peasant farms, in fact the collectivization of such highly important grain areas as the Lower Volga, the Middle Volga, and the Northern Caucasus can be completed for the most part in the fall of 1930 or, at the latest, in the spring of 1931; the collectivization of other grain areas can be completed for the most part in the fall of 1931 or, at the latest, in the spring of 1932.

3. In accordance with the accelerating pace of collectivization, it is imperative to intensify work even more in the construction of plants manufacturing tractors, combines, and other tractor and towed equipment, so that the deadlines set by VsNKh for completion of the construction of new plants are not delayed under any circumstances. At the same time, the CC instructs VsNKh to report to the CC, no later than 15 March, on measures that will ensure as soon as next year both a further increase in the overall scale of production of complex agricultural machinery at old plants and an especially significant increase in the production of tractor-drawn and complex horse-drawn equipment rather than simple implements.

4. Since the task of totally replacing horse-drawn equipment with machine-drawn equipment cannot be completed in a short period and will take a number of years, the CC of the VKP(b) demands that a decisive rebuff

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be delivered to tendencies to underestimate the role of draft horses at this stage of the collective-farm movement, tendencies that lead to the squandering and sell-off of horses. The CC of the VKP(b) stresses the extreme importance in the present circumstances, as a transitional measure, of establishing on collective farms horse-and-machine depots and mixed tractor-and-horse depots that combine tractors and draft horses.

5. In connection with the accelerating pace of the collective-farm movement, the CC instructs the Union Commissariat of Agriculture to regroup land-reorganization resources and funds in such a way as to fully meet the land-reorganization needs of areas of wholesale collectivization, while postponing individual land reorganization, except for certain national [non-Russian—trans.] areas and certain areas in the grain-consuming zone, where the collective movement has not yet been widely developed.

6. Pursuant to the foregoing, the CC deems it absolutely essential to increase the total amount of credit for 1929–30 [economic year] in the collective-farm sector from 270 million rubles to 500 million rubles, while reducing credit for other sectors accordingly.

7. In accordance with the change in conditions in raions of wholesale collectivization, the machine-tractor stations covered by the All-Union Tractor Center must reorganize their work on the basis of: a. contracts primarily, if not exclusively, with collectives; b. peasants' obligations to defray the cost of the stations within three years.

Concurrently, a type of combined enterprise should be tested in practice in areas where state farms are widespread (such as the Middle Volga and certain areas of the Northern Caucasus)—basically a state farm operating under contract and for fees and providing assistance to contracting collective farms primarily in the area of tractor plowing and machine harvesting.

8. In view of the special importance of cadres, the CC instructs the Union Commissariat of Agriculture, Kolkhoztsentr, and oblast party committees to speed up work in developing collective-farm cadres and supplying them to collective farms by creating a broad network of accelerated courses for this purpose. Those who should be recruited above all for the accelerated courses are practical experts from the peasantry who have excelled in the collective-farm movement and organizers of the collective-farm movement from workers' brigades who have distinguished themselves.

9. Since the experience of wholesale collectivization at this stage of collective-farm development pushes to the fore the agricultural artel, in

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which the principal means of production (implements, draft animals, farm buildings, and marketable commercial livestock) are collectivized, as the most common form of collective farms rather than the association for socialized land cultivation, which has socialized labor but retains private ownership of means of production, the Central Committee of the VKP(b) directs the Union Commissariat of Agriculture, with the broad enlistment of collective-farm organizations, to draw up as soon as possible a model Charter of the Agricultural Collective-Farm Artel, as a form of collective farm that is transitional to a commune, while bearing in mind that the admission of kulaks to collective farms is not permitted.

10. Party organizations must take charge and give shape to the collective-farm movement that is spontaneously growing from below, so that genuinely collective production is organized on collective farms and the plan for expansion of crop area and crop-yield increases is not only totally fulfilled but that the current sowing campaign is also transformed, in accordance with the decision of the November plenum of the CC, into a starting point for a new surge of the collective-farm movement.

11. The CC of the VKP(b) stresses the necessity of a resolute struggle against any attempts to hold back the development of the collective-farm movement due to a shortage of tractors and complex machinery. At the same time, the CC seriously warns party organizations against any “ruling by decree” from above whatsoever with regard to the collective-farm movement that could pose the danger of changing a genuinely socialist competition for the establishment of collective farms into a game of collectivization.

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Document TitleResolution of the CC of the VKP(b) on the pace of collectivization and state assistance to collective-farm construction

AuthorRussian Communist Party (Bolshevik), Bolshevik Party, Bolshevik Center, Central Committee, RKP(b), Members of the Central Committee of the; Communist Party, Executive Commission of the Bolshevik; Party, Executive Committee of Bolsheviks, Provincial and Regional Party Committees of; the RKP(b), Communist Party of the Soviet Union,; CPSU, All-Union Communist Party, VKP(b), CC and CCC of the VKP(b), Central Control Commission of the; VKP(b), Republic and Territorial (Regional) Control; Commissions, Conference of the Russian Communist; Party, Plenium of the Central Committee VKP(b); (Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party), RK VKP(b), Congress of the Communist Party, Central Committee of the VKP(b) (All-Union; Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

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Date1930 Jan 5

AOC VolumeThe War Against the Peasantry, 1927–1930: The Tragedy of the Soviet Countryside

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