Please think about these questions prior to class on Thursday. Feel free to provide input in the comments below. Make sure to read the following sources as well for discussion.
The Silent Steppe details the life of a Kazakhstan village and its residents amidst the chaos that is the Soviet push for collectivization, confiscation, and class restructuring.
Dizzy with Success was published by Stalin in 1930 and highlights what is needed for what he claims is the ultimate success of farm collectivization in light of what has been accomplished so far. He also warns of the issues and factors that could prevent the perceived continuation of this success.
Questions:
- The beginning of the collective farm system proved to be very tumultuous, particularly with the crackdown on the so-called “kulaks.” We see in The Silent Steppe (Chapter 2) that such individuals were frequently made examples of. What does it say about the nature of Stalin’s leadership that rather than understand the plight of farmers who needed to rapidly change, many of such individuals were singled out and punished quite severely given their circumstances?
- In Dizzy with Success, Stalin says that people “are often intoxicated by success,” and that this makes the USSR more vulnerable to its enemies. Was Stalin referring to enemies within the Soviet Union (class enemies), or threats from Western nations abroad?
- Does the the beginning of the collective farm movement show similarities with the grain requisitioning that occurred during the Civil War? Think about how a party member would justify this policy and the perspective of the farmers across the USSR.
To reflect on question #2, in reference to Stalin’s “Dizzy with Success”, I think that he is speaking about class enemies within the Soviet Union. Stalin emphasizes that one main goal of the Party is to expose and eradicate this “anti-Leninist frame of mind” and that “if this frame of mind acquires the rights of citizenship among us, there can be no doubt that the cause of the collective-farm movement will be considerably weakened and the danger of that movement being disrupted may become real.” Stalin explains that this blockhead mentality only benefits the class-enemies and distorts the leadership within the USSR, saying how the new immediate task must aim to correct this broken leadership. He continuous to describe how in regions where conditions are less than favorable for the formation of collective-farms at the present time, blockhead exercises in “socialization” are at the hands of leaders or the “superior” class of the region, such as the kulaks. He remarks that these poor attempts “could occur only as a result of the fact that certain of our comrades became dizzy with success, and for a moment lost the capacity of clear thinking and sober vision.” I found this a bit problematic after reading Shayakhmetov’s account of her family’s classification as kulaks, where he explains that “the peasants were not joining the collectives. The authorities put all the blame for this on the well-off peasants and decided that the best way of removing this obstacle was to destroy them” (Shayakhmetov 12). This goes to show that this class distortion was implemented on the upper peasantry, and this class division was not something already established in all of the territories. I do think that Stalin is targeting this class division in this article, however, I think he is altering the facts surrounding it to be a more appealing propaganda.
Regarding “Dizzy with Success” in question #3, I believe the best argument that a party member could provide in favor of collective farming would be no argument. As Stalin expressed, “it is in these districts that we have the largest number of firmly established state farms and collective farms, thanks to which the peasants have been able to convince themselves of the power and importance of the new technique, of the power and importance of the new, collective organization of farming” (Stalin par. 8). The root of collective farming is theft because peasants are not properly compensated and are left with little to no food. No amount of rhetoric could force a competent adult into that situation. As we know from lecture, however, forceful measures were taken against peasants who resisted change. Aside from the force that was used, Stalin is correct in stating that the peasants should have agreed to the collective farming on their own accord. The justification of the collective farming policy relies heavily on the idea of a common good/goal. With Stalin insisting that the country is disallowed from boasting about their accomplishments, the attitude in the party remains that more work is to be done and continued support is required by all members of the USSR. It is evident that the perception of collective farming relies heavily on your social status.
I’ll reflect on the first question. We see clearly see conflicting stories between Chapter two of “The Silent Steppe” as the question addresses and “Dizzy with Success” (or as I like to call it “Sick of Winning”) as a propaganda piece. Stalin must have known that the Collective-farm Movement was not voluntary as propaganda would leave one to believe. In “Dizzy with Success” Stalin relates the so-called “success” of the Collective-farm Movement “to the fact that this policy rests on the voluntary character of the collective-farm movement, and that it allows for the diversity of conditions existing in the various parts of the USSR Collective farms cannot be set up by force (Stalin).” Shayakhmetov gives a different perspective of cooperative Kulaks (or wealthy peasants) who were accused and tried falsely of various minor crimes against the state in order for the state to obtain their assests. Collective-farming was by no means voluntary–but to respond to the question more directly, I think that Stalin had no intention of empathizing with the Kulak’s, though I think he was entirely capable. He had a food shortage problem in the effort to industrialize the Soviet Union through the funding of grain sales and would have benefited from not only the assets of wealthy peasants but also to paint an internal enemy in the Kulaks. If they were villanized, the state was not at fault for the mishandling of public goods, the Kulaks were the issue. This could have led also to a fear factor that potentially could have driven up productivity.