Anton Aleksandrovich Plyasulya,
Archivist, State Archive of the Novosibirsk Region, Novosibirsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Forced State Farm Construction in Western Siberia in 1928–1931
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2022-4-10
In this article the author reconstructs the course of forced state farm construction on the territory of Western Siberia in the late 1920s and early 1930s. During this period, the state was faced with the urgent task of resolving food and raw material problems. The grain procurement crisis of 1927/1928 required the construction of new grain state farms as a priority, but the worsening supply of meat products to the urban population created the conditions for the active creation of new livestock state farms from 1929. There has also been a territorial enlargement of existing state farms since 1928. At the end of the 1920s the higher authorities (Narkomzem of the RSFSR, Rosselsindikat, the Siberian Regional Land Administration) gave strict instructions related to the optimal location and territorial arrangement of new state farms, but they were often violated and ignored. In practice their fulfilment depended on whose side in land disputes between collective and state farms the party authorities would take. Since 1930 the forced collectivisation led to an intensification of state farm construction, which resulted in a permanent escalation of its planned indicators. The programmes for the construction of new state farms, the expansion of the area under crops and the number of cattle were constantly changing in the direction of increasing. The plan to expand the state farm network in Western Siberia was successfully implemented, and in some trusts even over-implemented. However, the programme of enlarged state farms construction consimplemented in the early 1930s did not meet the expectations placed on it. The main problem with the activity of state farms in the early 1930s was their low profitability and productivity with a high cost price of state farm production. Production and delivery plans have not been systematically were not fulfilled. Much more mechanised state farms were expected to perform better than collective farms. However, the specialised state farms, designed to show the peasants the advantages of large ’socialist’ production, were either marginally ahead of the collective farms or lagging behind them. As a result, in 1931 the programme of state farms construction began to wind down and gave way to the reorganisation and optimisation of the state farm network.
Publishing: 28/08/2022
The article has been received by the editor on 12/04/2022
How to cite: Plyasulya A.A. Forced State Farm Construction in Western Siberia in 1928–1931 // Historical Courier, 2022, No. 4 (24), pp. 111–122. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2022/ISTKURIER-2022-4-10.pdf]
Links: Issue 4 2022
Keywords: agrarian policy of the Soviet state; аgriculture; Socialist Modernization; state farms; Siberia