According to Carr, the reason the VKP(B) accelerated collectivization exactly the moment it did was one of simple lack of time: by the end of 1926, the Bolsheviks knew WWII would happen soon. In this, everybody agreed, not just Stalin. The only difference was that, at the time, they believed the main belligerent and invader would be the British Empire, not a still very weak and submissive Germany.
If memory doesn't fail me, Trotsky, Zinoviev et al believed the British would invade not later than 1934. The Soviets started a frantic pro-war, anti-imperialist diplomatic campaign, led by Litvinov, in the international arena. It was very successful, but historians still debate to this day if it was the main factor that delayed WWII.
It is important to highlight that, by then, the Bolsheviks already were a serious entity with serious power: they had full access to the diplomatic channels of the Soviet State and had inherited all of the defunct Russian Empire's obligations and privileges. Those were not hysterical gibbering from some random crazy leftists: they knew they would be invaded and knew that it would mean WWII for a fact.
The Bolsheviks always knew forced collectivization was in the cards. Bukharin refuted it precisely because they had calculated how many lives it would have cost: some 23 million (not necessarily dead, but displaced). That's why he defended the “industrialization at a snail's pace”. Forced collectivization was definitely not Stalin's invention.
Everybody in Europe knew WWII would happen as soon as the Treaty of Versailles was signed. Liberals like to point out Keynes, but he was far from being a visionary: from documents of the time, it feels like it was written on the wall. We can attest that by the fact that all the major European powers started to rearm and modernize right after WWI. The big question was which side against which and exactly when and where it would be triggered. The British had a trigger in its hands: Poland. With Germany's acceptance to the League of Nations in 1926, the final piece of the puzzle for an invasion of the USSR led by the British was obtained.
In my opinion, the decisive factor that avoided an earlier WWII fought between a British Coalition and the USSR was a mix of economic and doctrinaire: from French and British documents, we know that they were not nearly rebuilt from WWI by the end of the 1920s or even the first half of the 1930s; France was specially traumatized by War and didn't want to fight another one. On the doctrinaire front -- and we know that because Neville Chamberlain's letters are published in full -- we have that the British elites, personified by the Conservative Party then in power, believed in the thesis that another world war would finish what the October Revolution started, i.e. complete the World Revolution, or at least the Revolution in Europe. Some of them believed that, was WWI prolonged by a few more years, World Revolution would have happened.
Things continued to get worse from the point of view of the Soviets through the 1930s, for obvious reasons. The Soviets knew and did read Hitler's Mein Kampf from the very beginning, and knew his ultimate plan was to invade and destroy the USSR and, more importantly, communism. By the end of the 1930s, things got desperate because the British and French continued to refuse an alliance with the USSR against Germany. This period coincided with the most accelerated and brutal phase of forced collectivization; it was also during this phase that the great purge of the Party and Red Army happened. The accelerated conclusion of forced collectivization catapulted Molotov to the de facto post of second most powerful man of the USSR.
Litvinov was sacked (if memory doesn't fail me, in 1937) and Molotov assumed his place. Molotov was not a diplomat and many people in the West use this episode as a demonstration of Stalin's anti-intellectualism and Asiatic ignorance, but they miss the point: Molotov wasn't there to make diplomacy, but only to “close shop” and formally start the processes of waging what would be WWII.
So, long story short, if you don't want to read this long comment: the Bolsheviks enforced collectivization simply because they lacked the time to do it by more peaceful, “organic” means.
Thank you for the comment. These are very good & detailed points. They go much beyond what I discussed in the blog, i.e they deal with the First Five-Year Plan and obviously with the international relations. This book by R W Davies is also very good.
Very insightful comment! Any reading material on this you’d recommend? Specifically internal politics of the Soviet Union in the 1930s, and European diplomacy in the same period
There is this Stalin speech, for example. It is widely known and quoted in Russia, part of the psyche if you will. The relevant piece google translated below.
Sometimes people ask if it is possible to slow down the pace a little, to hold the movement. No, you can't, comrades! You can't slow down! On the contrary, they should be increased as much as possible. This is what our obligations to the workers and peasants of the USSR require of us. This is what our obligations to the working class of the world require of us.
To slow down means to fall behind. And the retards are beaten. But we don't want to be beaten. No, we don't! The history of old Russia consisted, among other things, in the fact that she was constantly beaten for her backwardness. Beat the Mongol khans. Turkish beks beat. Beat the Swedish feudal lords. They beat the Polish-Lithuanian pans. The Anglo-French capitalists fought. Beat the Japanese barons. They beat everyone - for backwardness. For military backwardness, for cultural backwardness, for state backwardness, for industrial backwardness, for agricultural backwardness. They beat me because it [c.38] was profitable and got away with impunity. Remember the words of the pre-revolutionary poet: “You are poor, you are rich, you are powerful, you are powerless, Mother Rus'”[17]. These gentlemen have memorized these words of the old poet well. They beat and said: “you are abundant” - therefore, you can profit at your expense. They beat and said: "You are miserable, powerless" - therefore, you can beat and rob you with impunity. Such is the law of the exploiters - to beat the backward and weak. Wolf law of capitalism. You are behind, you are weak - it means you are wrong, therefore, you can be beaten and enslaved. You are powerful - it means you are right, therefore, you must beware.
That's why we can't fall further behind.
In the past, we did not and could not have a fatherland. But now that we have overthrown capitalism, and the power is with us, with the people, we have a fatherland and we will defend its independence. Do you want our socialist fatherland to be beaten and to lose its independence? But if this is not what you want, you must eliminate its backwardness in the shortest possible time and develop real Bolshevik rates in building its socialist economy. There are no other ways. That is why Lenin said on the eve of October: "Either death, or overtake and overtake the advanced capitalist countries."
We are 50-100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it or we will be crushed.
t is sometimes asked whether it is not possible to slow down the tempo somewhat, to put a check on the movement. No, comrades, it is not possible! The tempo must not be reduced! On the contrary, we must increase it as much as is within our powers and possibilities. This is dictated to us by our obligations to the workers and peasants of the U.S.S.R. This is dictated to us by our obligations to the working class of the whole world.
To slacken the tempo would mean falling behind. And those who fall behind get beaten. But we do not want to be beaten. No, we refuse to be beaten! One feature of the history of old Russia was the continual beatings she suffered because of her backwardness. She was beaten by the Mongol khans. She was beaten by the Turkish beys. She was beaten by the Swedish feudal lords. She was beaten by the Polish and Lithuanian gentry. She was beaten by the British and French capitalists. She was beaten by the Japanese barons. All beat her — because of her backwardness, because of her military backwardness, cultural backwardness, political backwardness, industrial backwardness, agricultural backwardness. They beat her because it was profitable and could be done with impunity. You remember the words of the pre-revolutionary poet: "You are poor and abundant, mighty and impotent, Mother Russia." 4 Those gentlemen were quite familiar with the verses of the old poet. They beat her, saying: "You are abundant," so one can enrich oneself at your expense. They beat her, saying: "You are poor and impotent," so you can be beaten and plundered with impunity. Such is the law of the exploiters — to beat the backward and the weak. It is the jungle law of capitalism. You are backward, you are weak — therefore you are wrong; hence you can be beaten and enslaved. You are mighty — therefore you are right; hence we must be wary of you.
That is why we must no longer lag behind.
In the past we had no fatherland, nor could we have had one. But now that we have overthrown capitalism and power is in our hands, in the hands of the people, we have a fatherland, and we will uphold its independence. Do you want our socialist fatherland to be beaten and to lose its independence? If you do not want this, you must put an end to its backwardness in the shortest possible time and develop a genuine Bolshevik tempo in building up its socialist economy. There is no other way. That is why Lenin said on the eve of the October Revolution: "Either perish, or overtake and outstrip the advanced capitalist countries."
We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall go under.
Thanks. The punchline in the end loses an important connotation though. He uses the verb смять (crush, crumple) in passive, which in this context is usually used in military description, as in "they were taken in the flank and their battle order was crushed". Go under is something you do by yourself, being crushed is what others do to you.
I agree. My main problem was with the translation of the lines "Beat the Mongol khans. Turkish beks beat. Beat the Swedish feudal lords. They beat the Polish-Lithuanian pans. The Anglo-French capitalists fought. Beat the Japanese barons." This is at least confusing.
Litvinov was replaced by Molotov in 1939, when it became clear (after München and the invasion of Czechoslovakia) that France and Great-Britain were not ready to enter into a serious anti-Hitler security arrangement with the USSR.
"Stasis, or equilibrium of sorts, ensues" -- only until population growth did it's work. At some point all the land suitable for giving to landless farmers as homesteads would have been occupied-- no more free homesteads for landless laborers. Then extra children on existing homesteads would have felt strong pressure to go to the cities.
countries in East Asia did huge land reform programmes and managed to industrialize just fine. Indeed, the increased productivity from small landholdings increased exports, which then made it possible to import capital goods.
But Branko is obsessed with making inane justifications for eastern bloc lunacies.
I should not respond to insulting comments--but I will make one exception, simply by noting that the blog deals with 19th C Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece and that these counties options then cannot at all be compared with export-driven growth of Taiwan (and to some extent S Korea), one century later. So it has nothing to do with the "Eastern bloc". Secondly, that the article focuses on countries where small holders were politically powerful through parties that represented them. Thus, it presupposes democracy and not authoritarian development.
“The question is, how do you industrialize under such conditions? Reluctance of peasants, whenever they had their own land, to become industrial workers has been discussed (Gerschenkron, Polanyi). In England they had to be literally chased from land through enclosures; in France, the process was much more overdrawn and took a century; in Germany, Poland and Hungary, large estates owned by nobility and consequent landlessness did the job. In Russia, it was bloody and occurred through forced collectivization.”
The obvious implication here is that succesful industrialization stories throughout the world involved immiserating the peasants in one way or another. It is perfectly reasonable to assume a broader point is being made here. The addendum also reinforces this point.
But it’s wrong. The USA and Japan, both reasonably democratic, exist. The USA and Japan both had widespread land ownership at the moment of their industrial takeoffs and it definitely did not prove to be an impediment to increasing productivity.
Mexico, too, did huge land redistribution and it is one of the manufacturing powerhouses of the American continent. Redistributed land, protected under the legal figure of the “ejido”, was effectively taken off the market for close to a century --when Mexico City became one of the largest cities on earth--.
I’m even being kind enough not to litigate the Enclosures debate but (spoiler alert) Polanyi’s writings from half a century ago are not the final word.
So, yes, in the absence of Bolshevik murder sprees, Russia would have industrialized fine; obviously.
I have no knowledge, but may be, industrialisation in Eastern Europe happened through promoting more fancy jobs, man in blue or white collars (mashine worker), instead of dirty, primitive, hard farming jobs. May be, winter was best season to lock people to work in the city for some extra income. And I suppose the people were dressing nicer and looked more fancy in the city hlwhichbwas a good advertisment by itself. Additionally to this trains were available already from the 19th century so transportation between farm and job wasn't a big problem. I think locking people with low pension age 40 for woman, 50 for man sounded better than working in your dad's farm from kid until you die
I am not sure you read Russian, and don't think this book has been translated into English, unfortunately.
OSTROVSKY A.V. “RUSSIAN VILLAGE AT THE HISTORICAL CROSSROADS”
This is what I would call a "closing" book in the eternal discussion of the "land problem" in Russia. Closing in the sense that it gives answers to the main points of that discussion.
Based on local statistics (very important difference, countrywide stats average out, which for a country like Russia just doesn't make sense) he shows that by 1914 Russia was sitting in the Malthusian trap up to it's nostrils. A very large proportion of population, located in the Northern European part of the country (majority, in fact) faced literal starvation risk year in, year out, with a negative trend even without plunging into WW1. And the author argues, very pursuasively, that the last chance to change course was in 1861. Once the government botched the emancipation of serfdom, violent breakdown was baked in.
As the saying goes, if something can't go on, it stops. SOMETHING had to change in the way things were run. That SOMETHING turned out to be the October revolution and then collectivisation. Collectivisation by the way wasn't anything new really, first projects started to percolate in the Duma since 1910, once it became clear that Stolypins reforms are a dud, almost in exactly the same form as it later happened, minus repressions against the kulaki.
As for famines: a) your numbers are hugely exaggerated b) real numbers are roughly in line with the "normal" famine deaths trendline of the Russian empire, i.e. nothing new (if you exclude the famine of 1922 which was more about a breakdown of the entire economy rather than bolshevik rule/misrule or mother nature playing up). But famines are a different issue.
Thanks a lot for the reference. I do read Russian. The book's topic goes much beyond my EHR article. As I mentioned. we just noticed that wages offered in Serbian towns were not higher than net income farmers could get on their own land. And then, why would somebody move into the city and work under quasi-military conditions when he can be his own master? Secondly, further fragmentation of plots through partable inheritance reduced any likelihood of mechanization Thus farmers were able to produce for or own needs only. Serbia never experienced famine, but it could never develop either (under such conditions.).
Thank you. Sorry, I went after a tangetianl comment, not the main article, this one
>>Which introduces the following interesting topic. Suppose as a counterfactual that the October Revolution never took place, as it seemed most likely until the very day when it occurred, and that Russia, after the March revolution, became a democracy.
My point I guess is that October revolution is not a fluke in substance, it's form might have been different, and that fiddling with taxes wouldn't have solved the issue in RUssian case, the problem was more fundamental, as in life and death issue.
Newer apartments in nice clean brand new buidings and free health care looked more promising for the parents whoch wanted better future for their kids. Taking the property rights from the people and allocating of their estate in social economic cooperations paid back. Industrialisation was painful but fast and necessary even if some people couldn't survive it.. But the inequality between property owners and those who don't have property was falling. On the contrary inequality between entrepreneurs and normal people was perhaps not growing as much as in western Europe because Soviet Union had its grib on price manipulations, production planning etc.
Jean-Baptiste Say already pointed this out in his Cours d'Economie Politique (see below).
France was a country of many small landowners with few children; England was the opposite -> It was much more difficult to find workers for factories in France.
Before the Revolution, landowners numbers: 4 million in France vs. 30,000 in England.
Before 1830, total fertility rate <4 in France vs. > 5 in UK
Say was a textile entrepreneur around 1810: “ J'ai été forcé une fois de faire venir des ouvriers du département de l’Oise dans celui du Pas-de-Calais : ces deux départemens ne sont pas séparés par une fort grande distance ; j'avais eu soin de faire marcher ces ouvriers en famille, conséquemment avec ce qu'ils avaient de plus cher, de leur procurer des gains assurés, de faciliter leurs arrangemens, de leur rendre la vie douce. Cependant aucun ne résista à l'ennui, au malaise qu'on éprouve loin du pays natal. Au bout d'un certain nombre d'années, ils étaient tous , sans exception , retournés dans leur canton. Un canton différent, pour la classe laborieuse, est un pays étranger. »
(…) « dans les cantons cultivés par de grands entrepreneurs de culture , il y a moins de population rurale et plus de villes industrieuses et peuplées or, c'est dans les villes que se perfectionne la civilisation. »
There are two topics Dr M does not address in this argument:
(a) As DLR quote accurately notes, Malthusian squeeze should have still pushed significant numbers of peasants into industrial work. Those small farmers in Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria were not landless. But those smallholdings could not support an infinitely expanding population. Dr M, do you have population demographic facts to go along with the landholding facts?
(b) What were the inheritance rules in Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria? Did all children of these smallholders inherit equally? All male children? Only the first-born son? If the inheritance system is too equal, those smallholdings will become too small to support a family, and the too-small holder has to give it up and either move to the city or go to work as hired labor for someone with enough land to support the family and additional labor.
It was fascinating to reflect on how this mirrors the horrifying history of land dispossession in South Africa, particularly the 1913 Land Act which made it illegal for Black South Africans to buy or rent land in 93% of the country, which forced the majority of people into the service of white industrialists and farmers. There's a good summary of it on SA History Online: https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/natives-land-act-1913
How did Serbia industrialize then? During the interwar period? What did Tito do to industrialize Serbia and the rest of the former Yugoslavia? Sorry I don't know this history. I know about Tito, the horrible regime set-up by the Third Reich, and that is about it...
"The process whereby agricultural economies industrialized was wrenching. The displacement and unhappiness of the population dragged into industrial centers through either empty stomachs or outright terror.." except in China, where Mao decentralized industrialization, after eschewing the centralized, Soviet model and relying on peasants' innate intelligence to learn manufacturing.
The enclosure acts in England and the idea that everyone, starting with 4 years of age had to earn their keep and stop living of the commons land was forced industrialization.
Several factors led to starvation and death during Soviet industrialization, many of them not controlled by the soviets...
Sven Beckert discusses this issue in The Empire of Cotton to explain how countries like India, previously a world leader in the field, initially failed to industrialize cotton production.
Fascinating topic - would be interesting to look at how this sort of dynamic played out in Mexico. I understand that a big issue that contributed to the Mexican revolution was landgrabbing by powerful interests that was partly motivated / justified by the desire to turn small land holders into wage labourers either on large land holdings or by moving to cities.
According to Carr, the reason the VKP(B) accelerated collectivization exactly the moment it did was one of simple lack of time: by the end of 1926, the Bolsheviks knew WWII would happen soon. In this, everybody agreed, not just Stalin. The only difference was that, at the time, they believed the main belligerent and invader would be the British Empire, not a still very weak and submissive Germany.
If memory doesn't fail me, Trotsky, Zinoviev et al believed the British would invade not later than 1934. The Soviets started a frantic pro-war, anti-imperialist diplomatic campaign, led by Litvinov, in the international arena. It was very successful, but historians still debate to this day if it was the main factor that delayed WWII.
It is important to highlight that, by then, the Bolsheviks already were a serious entity with serious power: they had full access to the diplomatic channels of the Soviet State and had inherited all of the defunct Russian Empire's obligations and privileges. Those were not hysterical gibbering from some random crazy leftists: they knew they would be invaded and knew that it would mean WWII for a fact.
The Bolsheviks always knew forced collectivization was in the cards. Bukharin refuted it precisely because they had calculated how many lives it would have cost: some 23 million (not necessarily dead, but displaced). That's why he defended the “industrialization at a snail's pace”. Forced collectivization was definitely not Stalin's invention.
Everybody in Europe knew WWII would happen as soon as the Treaty of Versailles was signed. Liberals like to point out Keynes, but he was far from being a visionary: from documents of the time, it feels like it was written on the wall. We can attest that by the fact that all the major European powers started to rearm and modernize right after WWI. The big question was which side against which and exactly when and where it would be triggered. The British had a trigger in its hands: Poland. With Germany's acceptance to the League of Nations in 1926, the final piece of the puzzle for an invasion of the USSR led by the British was obtained.
In my opinion, the decisive factor that avoided an earlier WWII fought between a British Coalition and the USSR was a mix of economic and doctrinaire: from French and British documents, we know that they were not nearly rebuilt from WWI by the end of the 1920s or even the first half of the 1930s; France was specially traumatized by War and didn't want to fight another one. On the doctrinaire front -- and we know that because Neville Chamberlain's letters are published in full -- we have that the British elites, personified by the Conservative Party then in power, believed in the thesis that another world war would finish what the October Revolution started, i.e. complete the World Revolution, or at least the Revolution in Europe. Some of them believed that, was WWI prolonged by a few more years, World Revolution would have happened.
Things continued to get worse from the point of view of the Soviets through the 1930s, for obvious reasons. The Soviets knew and did read Hitler's Mein Kampf from the very beginning, and knew his ultimate plan was to invade and destroy the USSR and, more importantly, communism. By the end of the 1930s, things got desperate because the British and French continued to refuse an alliance with the USSR against Germany. This period coincided with the most accelerated and brutal phase of forced collectivization; it was also during this phase that the great purge of the Party and Red Army happened. The accelerated conclusion of forced collectivization catapulted Molotov to the de facto post of second most powerful man of the USSR.
Litvinov was sacked (if memory doesn't fail me, in 1937) and Molotov assumed his place. Molotov was not a diplomat and many people in the West use this episode as a demonstration of Stalin's anti-intellectualism and Asiatic ignorance, but they miss the point: Molotov wasn't there to make diplomacy, but only to “close shop” and formally start the processes of waging what would be WWII.
So, long story short, if you don't want to read this long comment: the Bolsheviks enforced collectivization simply because they lacked the time to do it by more peaceful, “organic” means.
Thank you for the comment. These are very good & detailed points. They go much beyond what I discussed in the blog, i.e they deal with the First Five-Year Plan and obviously with the international relations. This book by R W Davies is also very good.
https://www.amazon.com/Industrialisation-Soviet-Russia-Progress-1931-1933/dp/0333311051
Very insightful comment! Any reading material on this you’d recommend? Specifically internal politics of the Soviet Union in the 1930s, and European diplomacy in the same period
There is this Stalin speech, for example. It is widely known and quoted in Russia, part of the psyche if you will. The relevant piece google translated below.
https://www.marxists.org/russkij/stalin/t13/t13_06.htm
Last line is the usually quoted punchline.
Sometimes people ask if it is possible to slow down the pace a little, to hold the movement. No, you can't, comrades! You can't slow down! On the contrary, they should be increased as much as possible. This is what our obligations to the workers and peasants of the USSR require of us. This is what our obligations to the working class of the world require of us.
To slow down means to fall behind. And the retards are beaten. But we don't want to be beaten. No, we don't! The history of old Russia consisted, among other things, in the fact that she was constantly beaten for her backwardness. Beat the Mongol khans. Turkish beks beat. Beat the Swedish feudal lords. They beat the Polish-Lithuanian pans. The Anglo-French capitalists fought. Beat the Japanese barons. They beat everyone - for backwardness. For military backwardness, for cultural backwardness, for state backwardness, for industrial backwardness, for agricultural backwardness. They beat me because it [c.38] was profitable and got away with impunity. Remember the words of the pre-revolutionary poet: “You are poor, you are rich, you are powerful, you are powerless, Mother Rus'”[17]. These gentlemen have memorized these words of the old poet well. They beat and said: “you are abundant” - therefore, you can profit at your expense. They beat and said: "You are miserable, powerless" - therefore, you can beat and rob you with impunity. Such is the law of the exploiters - to beat the backward and weak. Wolf law of capitalism. You are behind, you are weak - it means you are wrong, therefore, you can be beaten and enslaved. You are powerful - it means you are right, therefore, you must beware.
That's why we can't fall further behind.
In the past, we did not and could not have a fatherland. But now that we have overthrown capitalism, and the power is with us, with the people, we have a fatherland and we will defend its independence. Do you want our socialist fatherland to be beaten and to lose its independence? But if this is not what you want, you must eliminate its backwardness in the shortest possible time and develop real Bolshevik rates in building its socialist economy. There are no other ways. That is why Lenin said on the eve of October: "Either death, or overtake and overtake the advanced capitalist countries."
We are 50-100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it or we will be crushed.
A better translation:
t is sometimes asked whether it is not possible to slow down the tempo somewhat, to put a check on the movement. No, comrades, it is not possible! The tempo must not be reduced! On the contrary, we must increase it as much as is within our powers and possibilities. This is dictated to us by our obligations to the workers and peasants of the U.S.S.R. This is dictated to us by our obligations to the working class of the whole world.
To slacken the tempo would mean falling behind. And those who fall behind get beaten. But we do not want to be beaten. No, we refuse to be beaten! One feature of the history of old Russia was the continual beatings she suffered because of her backwardness. She was beaten by the Mongol khans. She was beaten by the Turkish beys. She was beaten by the Swedish feudal lords. She was beaten by the Polish and Lithuanian gentry. She was beaten by the British and French capitalists. She was beaten by the Japanese barons. All beat her — because of her backwardness, because of her military backwardness, cultural backwardness, political backwardness, industrial backwardness, agricultural backwardness. They beat her because it was profitable and could be done with impunity. You remember the words of the pre-revolutionary poet: "You are poor and abundant, mighty and impotent, Mother Russia." 4 Those gentlemen were quite familiar with the verses of the old poet. They beat her, saying: "You are abundant," so one can enrich oneself at your expense. They beat her, saying: "You are poor and impotent," so you can be beaten and plundered with impunity. Such is the law of the exploiters — to beat the backward and the weak. It is the jungle law of capitalism. You are backward, you are weak — therefore you are wrong; hence you can be beaten and enslaved. You are mighty — therefore you are right; hence we must be wary of you.
That is why we must no longer lag behind.
In the past we had no fatherland, nor could we have had one. But now that we have overthrown capitalism and power is in our hands, in the hands of the people, we have a fatherland, and we will uphold its independence. Do you want our socialist fatherland to be beaten and to lose its independence? If you do not want this, you must put an end to its backwardness in the shortest possible time and develop a genuine Bolshevik tempo in building up its socialist economy. There is no other way. That is why Lenin said on the eve of the October Revolution: "Either perish, or overtake and outstrip the advanced capitalist countries."
We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall go under.
Thanks. The punchline in the end loses an important connotation though. He uses the verb смять (crush, crumple) in passive, which in this context is usually used in military description, as in "they were taken in the flank and their battle order was crushed". Go under is something you do by yourself, being crushed is what others do to you.
I agree. My main problem was with the translation of the lines "Beat the Mongol khans. Turkish beks beat. Beat the Swedish feudal lords. They beat the Polish-Lithuanian pans. The Anglo-French capitalists fought. Beat the Japanese barons." This is at least confusing.
Litvinov was replaced by Molotov in 1939, when it became clear (after München and the invasion of Czechoslovakia) that France and Great-Britain were not ready to enter into a serious anti-Hitler security arrangement with the USSR.
"Stasis, or equilibrium of sorts, ensues" -- only until population growth did it's work. At some point all the land suitable for giving to landless farmers as homesteads would have been occupied-- no more free homesteads for landless laborers. Then extra children on existing homesteads would have felt strong pressure to go to the cities.
Yes, obviously. As pointed out on Twitter,
countries in East Asia did huge land reform programmes and managed to industrialize just fine. Indeed, the increased productivity from small landholdings increased exports, which then made it possible to import capital goods.
But Branko is obsessed with making inane justifications for eastern bloc lunacies.
I should not respond to insulting comments--but I will make one exception, simply by noting that the blog deals with 19th C Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece and that these counties options then cannot at all be compared with export-driven growth of Taiwan (and to some extent S Korea), one century later. So it has nothing to do with the "Eastern bloc". Secondly, that the article focuses on countries where small holders were politically powerful through parties that represented them. Thus, it presupposes democracy and not authoritarian development.
“The question is, how do you industrialize under such conditions? Reluctance of peasants, whenever they had their own land, to become industrial workers has been discussed (Gerschenkron, Polanyi). In England they had to be literally chased from land through enclosures; in France, the process was much more overdrawn and took a century; in Germany, Poland and Hungary, large estates owned by nobility and consequent landlessness did the job. In Russia, it was bloody and occurred through forced collectivization.”
The obvious implication here is that succesful industrialization stories throughout the world involved immiserating the peasants in one way or another. It is perfectly reasonable to assume a broader point is being made here. The addendum also reinforces this point.
But it’s wrong. The USA and Japan, both reasonably democratic, exist. The USA and Japan both had widespread land ownership at the moment of their industrial takeoffs and it definitely did not prove to be an impediment to increasing productivity.
Mexico, too, did huge land redistribution and it is one of the manufacturing powerhouses of the American continent. Redistributed land, protected under the legal figure of the “ejido”, was effectively taken off the market for close to a century --when Mexico City became one of the largest cities on earth--.
I’m even being kind enough not to litigate the Enclosures debate but (spoiler alert) Polanyi’s writings from half a century ago are not the final word.
So, yes, in the absence of Bolshevik murder sprees, Russia would have industrialized fine; obviously.
I have no knowledge, but may be, industrialisation in Eastern Europe happened through promoting more fancy jobs, man in blue or white collars (mashine worker), instead of dirty, primitive, hard farming jobs. May be, winter was best season to lock people to work in the city for some extra income. And I suppose the people were dressing nicer and looked more fancy in the city hlwhichbwas a good advertisment by itself. Additionally to this trains were available already from the 19th century so transportation between farm and job wasn't a big problem. I think locking people with low pension age 40 for woman, 50 for man sounded better than working in your dad's farm from kid until you die
Dear Branco,
I am not sure you read Russian, and don't think this book has been translated into English, unfortunately.
OSTROVSKY A.V. “RUSSIAN VILLAGE AT THE HISTORICAL CROSSROADS”
This is what I would call a "closing" book in the eternal discussion of the "land problem" in Russia. Closing in the sense that it gives answers to the main points of that discussion.
The book can be found in Russian here
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://istmat.org/files/uploads/62087/ostrovskiy_a.v._rossiyskaya_derevnya.pdf
or here
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://istmat.org/files/uploads/62087/ostrovskiy_a.v._rossiyskaya_derevnya.pdf
By this gentleman.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9E%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9,_%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B4%D1%80_%D0%92%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87_(%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BA)
Based on local statistics (very important difference, countrywide stats average out, which for a country like Russia just doesn't make sense) he shows that by 1914 Russia was sitting in the Malthusian trap up to it's nostrils. A very large proportion of population, located in the Northern European part of the country (majority, in fact) faced literal starvation risk year in, year out, with a negative trend even without plunging into WW1. And the author argues, very pursuasively, that the last chance to change course was in 1861. Once the government botched the emancipation of serfdom, violent breakdown was baked in.
As the saying goes, if something can't go on, it stops. SOMETHING had to change in the way things were run. That SOMETHING turned out to be the October revolution and then collectivisation. Collectivisation by the way wasn't anything new really, first projects started to percolate in the Duma since 1910, once it became clear that Stolypins reforms are a dud, almost in exactly the same form as it later happened, minus repressions against the kulaki.
As for famines: a) your numbers are hugely exaggerated b) real numbers are roughly in line with the "normal" famine deaths trendline of the Russian empire, i.e. nothing new (if you exclude the famine of 1922 which was more about a breakdown of the entire economy rather than bolshevik rule/misrule or mother nature playing up). But famines are a different issue.
Thanks a lot for the reference. I do read Russian. The book's topic goes much beyond my EHR article. As I mentioned. we just noticed that wages offered in Serbian towns were not higher than net income farmers could get on their own land. And then, why would somebody move into the city and work under quasi-military conditions when he can be his own master? Secondly, further fragmentation of plots through partable inheritance reduced any likelihood of mechanization Thus farmers were able to produce for or own needs only. Serbia never experienced famine, but it could never develop either (under such conditions.).
Thank you. Sorry, I went after a tangetianl comment, not the main article, this one
>>Which introduces the following interesting topic. Suppose as a counterfactual that the October Revolution never took place, as it seemed most likely until the very day when it occurred, and that Russia, after the March revolution, became a democracy.
My point I guess is that October revolution is not a fluke in substance, it's form might have been different, and that fiddling with taxes wouldn't have solved the issue in RUssian case, the problem was more fundamental, as in life and death issue.
Newer apartments in nice clean brand new buidings and free health care looked more promising for the parents whoch wanted better future for their kids. Taking the property rights from the people and allocating of their estate in social economic cooperations paid back. Industrialisation was painful but fast and necessary even if some people couldn't survive it.. But the inequality between property owners and those who don't have property was falling. On the contrary inequality between entrepreneurs and normal people was perhaps not growing as much as in western Europe because Soviet Union had its grib on price manipulations, production planning etc.
Is this mechanism affecting African development? What are the data with respect to landlessness in Africa?
As far as I understand, land transfer after 1917 was not that drastic. Majority of land was already in peasants' hands by the end of Tsarist Russia.
Nope, simply not the case.
Jean-Baptiste Say already pointed this out in his Cours d'Economie Politique (see below).
France was a country of many small landowners with few children; England was the opposite -> It was much more difficult to find workers for factories in France.
Before the Revolution, landowners numbers: 4 million in France vs. 30,000 in England.
Before 1830, total fertility rate <4 in France vs. > 5 in UK
Say was a textile entrepreneur around 1810: “ J'ai été forcé une fois de faire venir des ouvriers du département de l’Oise dans celui du Pas-de-Calais : ces deux départemens ne sont pas séparés par une fort grande distance ; j'avais eu soin de faire marcher ces ouvriers en famille, conséquemment avec ce qu'ils avaient de plus cher, de leur procurer des gains assurés, de faciliter leurs arrangemens, de leur rendre la vie douce. Cependant aucun ne résista à l'ennui, au malaise qu'on éprouve loin du pays natal. Au bout d'un certain nombre d'années, ils étaient tous , sans exception , retournés dans leur canton. Un canton différent, pour la classe laborieuse, est un pays étranger. »
(…) « dans les cantons cultivés par de grands entrepreneurs de culture , il y a moins de population rurale et plus de villes industrieuses et peuplées or, c'est dans les villes que se perfectionne la civilisation. »
Very nice example. (China experienced a similar problem, in areas where small holders were dominant.)
There are two topics Dr M does not address in this argument:
(a) As DLR quote accurately notes, Malthusian squeeze should have still pushed significant numbers of peasants into industrial work. Those small farmers in Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria were not landless. But those smallholdings could not support an infinitely expanding population. Dr M, do you have population demographic facts to go along with the landholding facts?
(b) What were the inheritance rules in Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria? Did all children of these smallholders inherit equally? All male children? Only the first-born son? If the inheritance system is too equal, those smallholdings will become too small to support a family, and the too-small holder has to give it up and either move to the city or go to work as hired labor for someone with enough land to support the family and additional labor.
It was fascinating to reflect on how this mirrors the horrifying history of land dispossession in South Africa, particularly the 1913 Land Act which made it illegal for Black South Africans to buy or rent land in 93% of the country, which forced the majority of people into the service of white industrialists and farmers. There's a good summary of it on SA History Online: https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/natives-land-act-1913
How did Serbia industrialize then? During the interwar period? What did Tito do to industrialize Serbia and the rest of the former Yugoslavia? Sorry I don't know this history. I know about Tito, the horrible regime set-up by the Third Reich, and that is about it...
"The process whereby agricultural economies industrialized was wrenching. The displacement and unhappiness of the population dragged into industrial centers through either empty stomachs or outright terror.." except in China, where Mao decentralized industrialization, after eschewing the centralized, Soviet model and relying on peasants' innate intelligence to learn manufacturing.
The enclosure acts in England and the idea that everyone, starting with 4 years of age had to earn their keep and stop living of the commons land was forced industrialization.
Several factors led to starvation and death during Soviet industrialization, many of them not controlled by the soviets...
Sven Beckert discusses this issue in The Empire of Cotton to explain how countries like India, previously a world leader in the field, initially failed to industrialize cotton production.
Sure, capitalism is devlopment by violence !
Fascinating topic - would be interesting to look at how this sort of dynamic played out in Mexico. I understand that a big issue that contributed to the Mexican revolution was landgrabbing by powerful interests that was partly motivated / justified by the desire to turn small land holders into wage labourers either on large land holdings or by moving to cities.