THE YEAR 1928 TO THE PRESENT Industrialization and Collectivization.—The year 1929, which Stalin described as "the year of great change," marked the beginning of a definite new phase in Soviet history. The drive for speeding up the industrialization of the country and for plac ing agriculture on a collectivized basis had the most far-reaching political, social and economic consequences and brought about the abandonment or drastic modification of many of the policies which the Soviet Government had pursued during the period of the New Economic Policy, from 1921 until 1928.
The chart by which the Soviet Government endeavoured to steer its course during this period was the Five Year Plan of na tional economic development, which was formally ratified by the All-Union Congress of Soviets on May 28, 1929. This Plan en deavoured to forecast and regulate the entire course of Soviet economic life, prescribing, among other things, how much coal should be mined, how many factories should be built, how much food the population should consume, how much currency should be in circulation. The original specifications of the Plan were repeatedly modified, and in practice it became a four and a quarter years plan, being officially regarded as terminated in 1932. During the period of the Plan all the energies of the ruling Corn munist Party were concentrated on the achievement of its two main objectives : the rapid building up of Russia's industries, especially of the heavy industries, iron, steel, coal, chemical, machine-building, electrical power, and the transformation of the Russian peasant from an individual small holder into a member of a collective farm. The system of collective farming under went several experimental modifications.
The collective farm at present is an organization of some tens or hundreds of peasant families which till the land in common under the direction of a manager who is usually appointed by the Party or Soviet authorities. Working animals and large machines, under the new system, are socialized. Tractors, harvesting corn bines, threshing machines and similar large machines are supplied, as a general rule, by machine-tractor stations, state controlled agricultural service and machinery centres which are established all over the countryside and which carry out planting and har vesting operations on the neighbouring collective farms in re turn for a fixed payment, usually in kind. The peasants retain
individual possession of their homes, garden patches and smaller farm animals.
The rapid pace at which industrialization was pushed forward made inevitable a number of difficulties and obstacles. Since no foreign loans or long term investments were available the large amount of capital required for extensive new building had to be extracted from the population, exports had to be forced, even at the cost of domestic privation, and imports, except of machinery and essential raw materials, were most rigidly cur tailed through the state monopoly of foreign trade. Lack of a sufficient number of adequately trained executives, engineers and skilled mechanics enhanced the cost and difficulties of build ing the new enterprises.
These difficulties could be and were to a considerable extent overcome at the expense of several years of severe privation and acute shortage of food and manufactured goods. In the case of agriculture the obstacles were even greater; they were psy chological as well as technical. Not only was there a conspicuous lack of trained managers for the large new farm units which were suddenly brought into existence, but there was a strongly rooted unwillingness on the part of the peasants to surrender their small private holdings. This unwillingness was enhanced because the state, in order to carry out its ambitious programme of industrial building, was obliged to demand from the peasants large quantities of foodstuffs and agricultural products, while it was unable to give them a normal supply of city products in exchange, primary attention being concentrated on the heavy industries which did not minister to the immediate needs of the consumer.