Party, peasants and power in a Russian district: The winning of peasant support for collectivization in Sychevka raion, 1928--1931.

摘要

This dissertation argues that collectivization was accomplished in Sychevka raion, Smolensk guberniia/Western oblast , USSR, mainly through employing a variety of techniques which attracted peasants to voluntarily join collective farms. Contrary to widely held expectations, most peasants did not prosper after the 1917 Revolutions. Although peasants increased their landholdings from expropriated noble land, peasant productivity remained low because the poverty of peasants prevented efficiency gains. About two-thirds of peasants in Sychevka were "middle peasants," but their average incomes were very close to those of "poor peasants." Peasant dissatisfaction on this account was reinforced by a conviction on the part of many peasants that the new communist administrators in the countryside had formed an alliance ("smychka") with well-to-do peasants and favored their interests over those of the less wealthy. Such dissatisfaction created the possibility that many peasants were open to supporting Party initiatives to reorganize rural life.; At first the Party put forth a "class line" policy, favoring poorer peasants. However, the well-to-do peasants who composed the leaderships of the rural institutions, such as village skhody, sel'sovety and rural cooperatives, largely sabotaged this initiative. Rural Party cadres often supported these actions. To overcome this, the Party leadership turned to a "class empowerment" policy in which they encouraged poor peasants (bednoty) in the various rural institutions to form "bednot groups," which were then assigned oversight roles in these institutions. As these roles politicized poor peasants and taught them the skills of management and political organizing, bednoty emerged as a political force in the countryside capable of attracting middle peasants to collectivization. Along with purges and new recruitment practices, the changed political practices required of local cadres in order to create bednot groups helped reorganize the rural Party as collectivization proceeded.