Kolkhoz System and Re-Feudalization of Soviet Economy in 1930s — Early 1950s: Limits and Scope of Source Studies Analysis
| 20 August 2026
Posted in
Anniversaries
УДК 94(47)+093
DOI 10.28995/2073-0101-2018-4-1020-1037
Olga A. Sukhova
Penza State University, Penza, Russian Federation
Kolkhoz System and Re-Feudalization of Soviet Economy in 1930s — Early 1950s: Limits and Scope of Source Studies Analysis
Abstract
The article reveals specifics of formation and interpretation of еру document collections that bespeak of a return to the methods of non-economic coercion and optimization of surplus product during the collectivization in the USSR. The article is to offer a source study analysis of problems of studying kolkhoz system as an instrument of re-feudalization of Soviet economy in the period of forced industrialization. Development of application methodology for systematic study of the history of agrarian system in the USSR of 1930s-1950s is the most important achievement of the author. In her opinion, the creation of kolkhozes opened before Soviet state a short and radical way of transit to modernity (i.e. commodification, intensification of production, and transformation of the social structure) and secured resources for mobilization economy, which became a model for adapting Soviet system to global challenges. Adaptation mechanism was based on restoration of archaic administrative practices, which had been characteristic for the period of formation of Russian absolutism. Sources corpus is formed by documents collections: normative documents and record keeping documentation, mass sources and letters. They show two sides of the social experience: practice of decision-making and their implementation, on the one hand, and ‘depot’ of social reactions, perception of policies, dynamics and nature of peasant resistance to agrarian despotism, assimilation of new meanings, and innovations in the system of kolkhoz social images, on the other hand. After the research, the author concludes that drawing on the experience of traditionalization can only be partially effective for solving problems of modernity. Although the Russian state had successfully approbated similar tools in the past, in 1930s – early 1950s administrative pressure, disparity of repressive practices and social resistance they fought, and high social cost of the project outweighed all its institutional merits and turned the history of Soviet peasants a national tragedy and made agriculture a major factor in crisis and collapse of Soviet economic model.
Keywords
Sources, kolkhoz system, USSR, 1930s — early 1950s, agrarian policy, re-feudalization, peasant resistance, source analysis.
Download the article: pdf
About author
Sukhova Olga Aleksandrovna, PhD in History, Professor, penza State University, Dean of the Faculty of History and Languages, Penza, Russian Federation, +7927-2-89-20-41, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Grant information
The article has been prepared with the financial support of the RFBR (project no. 18-09-00125/18) ‘Economics and practices of social interaction in the Soviet village in the context of the mobilization economy of the USSR in 1930s — early 1950s.’