How far did Stalin manage to modernize Russia by 1938?
It is doubtless that Russia had made huge strides in developing industry by the end of the ‘30s. However, this progress had not been followed by the society, and therefore despite achieving an industrialized society, the rest of the elements in the society had not achieved that standard.
A modernized country is one which has of course a developed, efficient economy, and this economy functions to serve its people. It can be said therefore, that although Stalin had managed to modernize Russia’s economy by 1938 (which is in fact also quite questionable when the imbalance between the industrial sectors is taken into account), he did not provide for the society as a whole, having actually trampled all over the traditional structure of Russian society. From this perspective, Russia’s “modernization” can be seen as a failure, both in the sense of the human cost involved but also in the sense that Stalinist tactics were terribly inefficient – there need not have been such huge suffering to achieve what Russia had in the industrial sector. Failure exceeded success, something that we can see from the fact that grain production levels after collectivization took decades to reach the same levels as before collectivization. Essentially, the problem with Stalinist tactics was that despite their good intentions, the way they were carried out led to more harm than good.
Collectivisation is something that displays this clearly. It was a great plan, one that would evidently help transform the peasants into socialists and prospering components of the society. However, the lack of careful planning and the megalomania of the state led to unrealistic expectations which eventually led to more backwardness than modernization. Bad planning meant that the entire system did not function smoothly, as there were no specialists to guide the process. Russia did not have the capacity to carry out reform on such a scale, leading to destructive results. Party fanatics such as the Twenty-Five Thousanders were placed in charge of collective farms, but as they were not specialized in agricultural methods, they only led to more inefficiency, and wrong moves, making matters worse. An example is how the theories of one “scientist” were applied to farming, but because they were absolutely fantastical, destroyed several crops. To add to this, the tactics that Bolsheviks officials used to quench peasant resistance were quite medieval – anyone who reacted was sent to the Gulag for slave labour, while class warfare, with the extinction of the “kulak” as main focus, raged over the countryside. However, the kulaks were the most entrepreneurial farmers who had managed to make something more for themselves out of agriculture. In search for a scapegoat, therefore, the government had chosen to purge the only class that had the ability to bring them out of this predicament. Fifteen million kulaks were killed, a huge loss not only because of their specialized knowledge which would make collectivization work, but also as a percentage of the class that produced food. We can see their importance from the fact that the poorer peasants (who were supposedly being exploited by kulaks and therefore meant to hate them) and local party officials (who were meant to see the harm they were doing) were completely unwilling to turn such entrepreneurial farmers in as kulaks, because they knew exactly how essential they were. This total annihilation of the traditional practice of agriculture meant that despite the (remaining) population being collectivized, there was still resistance in the form of the peasants not trying very hard to do any better. In a country where food levels were always quite low, and were now even lower, this was catastrophic, and goes to show how collectivization had not achieved any of its goals – there was less food than before, and the peasants were not “happy socialists”. In fact, looking at the figures, despite the falling grain harvests, state procurement was only rising and at a very steep rate. In 1928, 73.3 million tones were produced, and 10.8 of them were seized by the state, while in1932 69.6 were produced, and 22.6 – more than double – was exported. What we conclude, is that the state was letting the peasants starve, to complete the industrialization process they had in mind. As Roy Medvedev estimated, about 10 million people were victimized during collectivization, with 3 million losing their lives. What is greatly ironic is that the Great Socialist State had seized all that grain away from the peasants at a time of famine – 1932 was the start of a terrible famine that lasted until 1934. About 7 million people are estimated to have died from this famine and it was unquestionably brought on by the excessive grain requisitioning. The fact that the Law of the Seventh-Eighths was applied in the worst of the famine goes to show exactly how “modern” the government’s way of thinking was. In the end, the effect of collectivization was a failure on a huge scale. Production fell dramatically in all sectors – grain, cattle, and pigs – and more than 50% of food was supplied by the private plots of the farmers, not the collective farm, with the long queues and food scarcity not growing any less. The fact that there was not enough food to go around, and that it was still decreasing so the state was going to war with the peasants goes exactly to show how collectivization had completely failed in playing its part in modernizing the society.
