Comrades,
For a primary source that I have to present and write a paper on for one of my classes, I chose out of the options available the following document containing a very negative account of the collectivization efforts in the Soviet Union.
https://www.docdroid.net/e0VIbIT/8c-a-peasants-view-of-soviet-collectivization.pdf
I've done some cursory research on the document so far and haven't been finding much. Any help as well as sources to show that, assuming this document is accurate, that this was not the experience of the majority of peasants. I'm aiming to disprove this source as being indicative of what most peasants went through during the 30s, so, again, any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.
Found this in the chapotraphouse reddit a month or so ago and just now remembered to ask here:
Some guy up above said I’m casually responsible for “millions of deaths.” What do you think of the historical millions of deaths that occurred under leaders like Mao and Stalin?
The "millions of deaths" under Mao and Stalin happened during a process called collectivization, which is not unique to communism. Collectivization is the transition from individualized subsistence farming to integrated, large scale agricultural production. This process is a necessary precursor to the large, dense and high-population density cities necessary to sustain modern industrial production. The process of collectivization had already happened in the West by the 1930s, but it hadn't happened yet in China or Russia.
Of course, in both the West and the East, collectivization was "forced". The process by which collective agricultural production was achieved in Europe was called the Enclosure, whereby individual subsistence peasants were forced off their ancestral lands in a long, laborious process that involved all sorts of political and rhetorical justification. It included witch-hunts against land-owning peasant women, anti-semitic pogroms, campaigns of mass butchery against peasant resistance (such as the butchering of 100,000 peasants in 1525 by the ruling classes in response to their uprising in Germany). It took three centuries to complete the process of collectivization of agriculture in Europe and undoubtedly cost many tens of of millions of lives.
Of course, the collectivization of land was not limited to Europe. To fuel the growth of early capitalist industry, colonial policy forced people off their land too. The majority of excess deaths in India, Ireland, North America and South America can be clearly attributed to the seizure and enclosure of land for collective farming, with the early United States alone responsible for many tens of millions of deaths via the slave trade, which was the most brutal possible form of collectivization: literally buying people and forcing them, by whip and gun, to work on collective farms (plantations).
All told, the process of Western agricultural collectivization cost HUNDREDS of millions of lives and took THREE CENTURIES. It spanned several continents and was mediated by absolute butchery on levels that literally defy comprehension. It staggers the mind the brutality by which the West was built.
Let us consider, briefly,
... keep reading on reddit ➡I am writing an essay on the causes of collectivization and am looking for qualified historian quotes for my response. I already have my points, and I am only looking for quotes on what historians argue would be the leading causes of collectivization in the USSR. The reason being, I am having immense trouble finding historian arguments on this topic, although I can find a lot of information. Orlando Figes' "The Whispers" is mainly narration, but I am looking for something along the lines of
"The primary cause of collectivization was ........ "
"Collectivisation was a result of ................."
Thanks for any suggestions
Part of it was crop destruction by frustrated peasants, but similar schemes have worked in capitalist societies like the US. Many large agricultural companies are buying out small family farms to make fewer large farms, which essentially collectivization, but the US hasn’t suffered any food shortages. Why didn’t the collectivization efforts conducted in the USSR in the 1930s and in the early Cold War era in the eastern bloc work?
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-12-14-me-3083-story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/10/14/refugees-pour-out-of-laos-seeking-new-life/0b4780cb-d5e9-4a57-a8ae-fcb143a2232a/
I need assistance comrades. I’m in an argument with a chud and he keeps talking about how collectivization of agriculture under Stalin was a massive failure. I’m not familiar with the topic and I can’t find any articles online to help my argument. Any ideas are greatly appreciated!
My perception prior to coming to understand communist theory was that collectivization is inefficient without the profit motive and the invisible hand to allocate resources, which is true in a capitalist sense but usually false for general population welfare. What are some concrete examples where collectivization exceeded expectations outside of farming and agriculture? I’m looking for specific accounts where the means of production were handed to the proletariat and the industry boomed or unexpected efficiency was achieved. The more modern the industry the better.
Bonus question:
I was an Econ minor in college, which is obviously 100% capitalism in America. What resources are there for communist economic theory? One of the characteristics I see with the introductory level of communist reading, such as the communist manifesto, is that it makes a lot of big claims without backing them up. And that’s totally fine in that scenario because the average reader doesn’t need citations and formulas and proofs—they just want an overview of theory. But as you get deeper, it would be nice to see how communist economics works by going into the same level of math I did for capitalist economic theory. I’m sure this must exist, but I haven’t uncovered anything useful. Could someone point me in that direction?
Many texts talk about the farm collectivization process in stages. There is stage 1, stage 2, and stage 3. Stage 1 has to do with increasing mutual aid, stage 2 is the creation of labor exchanges in the countryside, and stage 3 is full collectivization. But authors always seem to gloss over it and provide frustratingly little information about what each stage entails. Some countries (like Vietnam) only opted to go the stage 1 without proceeding further. Is anyone here competent to explain more fully what these stages mean?
Hi all
I have been looking for this one book for couple of months now without luck. Every once in a while I try and search it on Google or on some other sites hoping that it will be uploaded one day. I just now read a post about it here on Reddit and I decided to give it another try and try to search it. To my surprise I found this subreddit and through here, seeing that a lot of links to lead to JSTOR, I found out that this book I am looking for is also on the site.I sadly don't have access to it, but I would be really grateful if someone could help me out get that book.
As per the rules here, this is the ISBN code for it. Below is the link that leads to the JSTOR website.
ISBN-10: 0300092849
Kiev Reports
News
General Rostovski has announced the collectivization of 20% of Ukrainian Farms, the people will be paid per government employees. This is an effort to combat food shortages and riots after Marshal law.
In other news Kiev announces the implementation of rationing of any material containing Petroleum materials, this includes all types of fuels, plastics, and certain types of cleaners, as well as food, this includes any type of fresh produce and meat. People will be issued books to keep track and have stamps once they reach their monthly limits of rationed supplies.
In a speech today General Rostovski said,
«Из-за неопровержимого факта, что глобальная ситуация не улучшается, мы будем внедрять Rationing и хранилище продуктов питания в случае нападения на нас, чтобы мы могли продолжить плавно, спасибо.»
English translation
“Due to the incontrovertible fact, that the global situation is not improving, we will be implementing Rationing and food storage, in the event that we are attacked, so we can continue smoothly, thank you.”
The roll will be to determine public reaction to the implementation of rationing. (1-5 major riots and delays of implementation, 6-15 minor protests and small delays with implementation, 16-20 public approval and no delays on implementation).
[M] Rollme pls.
Unsure if this is a linguistics question or a history question; hope it's okay to post it here first. Also, standard disclaimer that I know relatively little about Romanian.
Anyway, at its greatest extent, the Roman Empire included what is now Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, and North Macedonia, so presumably this entire area was Latin-speaking to some degree, right? (I won't ask about Hungary and Albania, since clearly they have a more complicated situation going on.) Why did only Romania/Moldova maintain a thriving national Romance language into the modern era? How did this happen given that it's mostly surrounded by Slavic languages, and completely cut off geographically from all the other Romance languages apart from a few minority languages in Greece and the Balkans? Is this a matter of Latin not really catching on in these other territories, Slavic languages being introduced more effectively in certain places, or Romania refusing to let go? Or something else entirely?
