Your grandfathers and grandmothers, and possibly parents, had to live in Soviet times and work on a collective farm, if your relatives are from the countryside. They probably remember this time, knowing firsthand that the collective farm is the place where their youth passed. The history of creating collective farms is very interesting, it is worth getting to know it better.
First collective farms
After the First World War, around 1918, public agriculture began to emerge on a new basis in our country. The state was the initiator of the creation of collective farms. Collective farms that appeared then were not universally distributed, but rather isolated. Historians testify that the more affluent peasants did not need to join the collective farms; they liked farming within the family as their preference. But the less affluent sections of the rural population favorably accepted the new initiative, because for them who were starving, the collective farm was a guarantee of a comfortable life. In those years, joining agricultural cartels was voluntary, not forcibly planted.
Consolidation Course
Literally several years passed, and the government decided that the process of collectivization should be carried out at an accelerated pace. A course was taken to strengthen joint production. It was decided to reorganize all agricultural activity and give it a new form - collective farming. This process was not easy, for the people it was more tragic. And the events of the 1920s and 30s forever overshadowed even the greatest successes of collective farms. Since prosperous peasants were not enthusiastic about such an innovation, they were driven there forcibly. All property was alienated, from livestock and buildings to birds and small equipment. Cases became widespread when peasant families, opposing collectivization, moved to cities, abandoning all their acquired property in the village. So basically the most successful peasants did, they were the best professionals in the field of agriculture. Their relocation will subsequently affect the quality of work in the industry.
Dispossession
The saddest page in the history of how collective farms were created in the USSR was the period of mass repressions against opponents of Soviet policy. Terrible reprisals followed by wealthy peasants; a persistent aversion to people whose standard of living was even slightly better was propagated in society. They were called "fists." As a rule, such peasants with whole families, together with old people and infants, were evicted to the distant lands of Siberia, having previously selected all the property. In the new territories, living and farming conditions were extremely unfavorable, and a large number of dispossessed simply did not reach the places of exile. At the same time, in order to stop the mass exodus of peasants from the villages, a passport system was introduced and what we now call a residence permit. Without the appropriate mark in the passport, a person could not leave the village without permission. When our grandparents remember what a collective farm is, they do not forget to mention both passports and difficulties with moving.
The rise and flowering
During the Great Patriotic War, collective farms invested a considerable share in the Victory. For a very long time there was an opinion that if it weren’t for rural workers, the Soviet Union would not have won the war. Be that as it may, the form of collective farming began to justify itself. Just a few years later, people began to realize that a modern collective farm is an enterprise with millions of turnover. Such millionaire farms began to appear in the early fifties. It was prestigious to work at such an agricultural enterprise, the work of the machine operator and the breeder was held in high esteem. Collective farmers received decent money: the milkmaid's earnings could exceed the salary of an engineer or a doctor. They were also encouraged with state awards and orders. A significant number of collective farmers met in the Presidiums of the Congresses of the Communist Party. Strong, prosperous farms built houses for workers, maintained cultural houses, brass bands, and organized excursion tours around the USSR.
Farming, or Collective Farm in a New Way
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the decline of collective agricultural enterprises began. The older generation bitterly recalls that the collective farm is a stability that has forever left the village. Yes, they are right in their own way, but in the conditions of the transition to a free market, collective farms that focused on activities in a planned economy simply could not survive. Large-scale reform and transformation into farms began. The process is complex and not always effective. Unfortunately, a number of factors, such as insufficient funding, lack of investment, the outflow of young working-age population from villages, negatively affect the activities of farms. But still, some of them manage to remain successful.