Bednot groups
Bednot groups were groups of poor peasants, classified as bednot[lower-alpha 1] (Russian: Бедно, IPA: [bɛdˈnot]), whom Soviet state officials sought to convince to join the collective farms. At the high point of the NEP in 1925, the Soviet Union began an effort to create and empower bednot groups to redress the ostensible shift in the equilibrium point that favored market forces over class-based policies.[1] Once established, bednot groups allowed the central government to propagate the state line on collectivization and thus augment in-migration into the collectives. They also gave the state a channel through which information could be gathered regarding the progress of collectivization in the countryside.[2] Thus, creating bednot groups was a political strategy to increase the political power of poor peasants, not an administrative strategy. [3]
Soviet planners sought to create a context in which poor peasants could articulate their grievances and formulate policies that benefited them. In so doing, it was hoped, bednota could seize the political opportunity to remake the village in the mold of the "ideal kolkhoz." The central idea behind this was that forming groups allowed peasants to coalesce around collective values and be able to push for policy initiatives more effectively as a group than as isolated individuals. Stalin, Molotov, and Kaganovich thought that the most politically active poor peasants would form into groups attached to sel'sovety, cooperatives, and krestkomy; and that party cadres would inculcate fundamental socialist orthodoxy and help them develop political skills.[4]
Justifications for Bednot Groups
Party leaders supported the establishment of bednot groups for a number of reasons. First, the empowerment of the poorer peasants came at the expense of the village upper strata, who largely opposed the changes the state was putting forward. Hollowing out the kulak class while promoting a union between seredniaki and bedniaki[5] enhanced the party's ability to transform the countryside. Second, the organization of bednot groups created agents in the countryside to carry out collectivization, especially crucial because the party lacked sufficient avenues of power in the countryside. Third, the practice of mobilizing bednot groups provided a medium by which an alternative vision of rural development could penetrate into the activities and choices of the poorest peasants. Lastly, bednot groups served as means through which the rural party could be educated and won over to a different policy than that of the NEP. [6] Outside of these justifications, Soviet leaders also thought that bednota could rise through the ranks and advance themselves economically, and that "only collective agriculture [could] save the bednot from poverty."[7]
Chronology
Early Beginnings
Beginning in June 1918, the Communist party promoted the formation of kombedy, which shared some similar characteristics with bednot groups. Kombedy, however, were composed mostly of workers returning to their native villages after Civil-War-era factory closings. Like bednot groups, kombedy were channels through which Soviet party leaders could disseminate the communist party line. Kombedy were also supposed to facilitate grain requisitioning during the Civil War. But kombedy were short-lived, and the party stopped promoting them in December 1918.[8] The shortcomings of the kombedy influenced the Soviets' later efforts to promote the formation of bednot groups. The fact that villagers perceived returning workers as intrusive led Soviet policymakers to sculpt bednot groups into regions to which workers and rural party cadres could cooperatively and non-intrusively assist peasants with land consolidation and kolkhoz formation.[9]
Operation and Application of Class-Based Policy
The policy of forming bednot groups was first thought of as a primarily pragmatic consideration. Soviet leaders sought to use the groups to solve the problems local governments faced in their change to a class-based policy. They also intended the groups to help formulate plans for sowing campaigns. Bednot groups were created and attached to the sel'sovet committees which formulated and carried out their agricultural plans.[10] In this way and others, the party viewed the creation and fostering of bednot groups as the linchpin of collectivization. Komsomol cells and bednot groups were to discuss the raion plan for collectivization, after which they would send that plan to the sel'sovet plenums, existing kolkhozy, and cooperatives. [11] Bednot groups were to meet regularly to discuss the results of previous sowing campaigns, the campaigns for the individual agricultural tax, and collecting industrial loans, etc. [12] The typical topics of discussion at these meetings included self-taxation and improving cultural life. [13] To these ends, the party created bednot funds to foster poor peasant organization and kolkhoz building. These funds were often mismanaged by lower echelons of the party apparatus in the countryside. [14]
Reform and Expansion
The 15th Congress in December 1927 evaluated the work with bednot groups as being weak and called for improved work in this area.[15]The Congress promoted the idea of forming these groups around a project in which decisions were made - in zemleustroistvo, machine societies, distribution of loans, etc. The party sought to rein in what it perceived as rural cadre neglect of bednot groups through this and other measures. Large numbers of peasants also agreed with the state and remarked that the party cells had been neglectful.[16] It placed high priority on the issue of organizing bednot groups, encouraging criticism of slipshod state workers towards bednot groups in the press. The party periodically gave the creation of bednot groups added impetus through inspecting bednot groups, usually concluding that local cells were not giving these groups adequate attention. [17] These measures were largely ineffective at first, for local cells still failed to galvanize bednota around the goals of collectivization well into 1928. [18]
Most local cadres were much worse at creating and nurturing bednot groups than at holding bednot meetings. In response to this, Soviet policymakers issued a directive to "keep an eye on the work of all the organizations to which they are attached to make sure they carry out the policy of the party and Soviet Power directed at the defense of bednota."[19]
Again in 1929, in response to the low weight given by the local party apparatus to the creation of bednot groups, the obkom ordered an inspection of bednot groups, followed by conferences at the lower levels of the party bureaucracy. This was a way the obkom could force the local party cadres to pay attention to working with bednot groups. One objective of this effort was to strengthen ties between the party and bednot groups. Another was to document the kinds of services that societal and governmental organizations offered to poorer peasants. Krestkomy, sel'sovety, and cooperative networks were to draw peasants into their activities for the socialist reconstruction of the countryside and into the kolkhozy.[20]
Given the perceived lack of control the central state held over the rural cadre apparatus, the party sought to involve other segments of the population to animate the work of bednot groups, and to employ publicity to persuade people to join this effort. It also wanted to strengthen its range of organizations in the countryside, including the lower echelons of party power. Party workers, while hoping to create and strengthen bednot groups, were also expected to improve the party cells which had rarely received much hands-on leadership by the higher party organizations. Despite much of the party's energy being expended towards reforming bednot groups, a conference of bednot groups held in October 1929 revealed that organizing bednot groups had not yet become central to party workers' practice, and that poor peasants had consequently not yet been motivated to challenge the village upper strata. Later investigations corroborated this view.[21]
The party tried, for a third time, to bring the formation of bednot groups to the foreground of local party leaders' concerns. Solgov and others promoted a number of solutions: attaching "resolute party members" to bednot groups; and "periodically calling together all those [party members] attached to bednot groups together with representatives from bednot groups for exchanging work experience and for working out the current issues of the party and government."[22] Later, on October 16, 1929, a directive from the obkom stressed the Party leadership's concern with bednot groups. The Party Central Committee had sent out instructions on how to organize bednot groups, but local Party cadres had misinterpreted the instructions. They had created bednot groups from poor peasants, some of whom lived several kilometers away from each other. The directive opined that such large distances would inhibit the effectiveness of the bednot groups.[23] The directive also advised Party organizers to promote the election of socially active poor peasants only who lived near the cooperative and could attend meetings. It also advised keeping the size of the groups small enough - a maximum of about seven - so that they could be more effective. [24] Nevertheless, reports from central officials continued to hold that bednot groups had not been formed correctly and that many had only existed "on paper" (i.e., were never organized into meetings, bednota were not mobilized, etc.). [25] These concerns, and others concerning the creation and management of bednot groups, persisted well into 1930. [26]
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Results
Many peasants present at the bednot meetings asked questions like "How is it possible to distinguish classes?" or "How do the well-to-do look upon bednot groups?," suggesting that Soviet leaders had disseminated socialist ideals to the peasantry to one extent or another.[27] The significant voluntary creation of kolkhozy on the part of bednota is another indication that the Party's views were being disseminated. Several large kolkhozy had names such as "Death to Capitalism," again a sign of regime impact on the ideology of the poor peasantry. [28] The sowing campaigns in which bednot groups had significant input also improved land usage. [29]
Notes
- ↑ Russian plural: bednota; anglicized plural: bednots.
References
- ↑ Hier, C. (2004). Party, Peasants and Power in a Russian District: the winning of peasant support for collectivization in Sychevka raion, 1928-1931. Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, pp. 93, 172.
- ↑ Hier 2004, 136.
- ↑ Hier 2004, pp. 200-201 and passim.
- ↑ Hier 2004, pp. 171-72.
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 203.
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 174.
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 180.
- ↑ Lih, Lars T. (1990). Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914-1921. University of California Press. pp. 136–37, 147, 149, 158, and passim. Search this book on
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 172.
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 181.
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 209.
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 188.
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 191.
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 201.
- ↑ Hughes 1996, p. 34.
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 181
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 173.
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 174-75.
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 178.
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 181-83.
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 185-86.
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 187.
- ↑ Hier 2004, pp. 188-89.
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 189.
- ↑ Hier 2004, pp. 190, 193-95, 199.
- ↑ Hier 2004, pp. 203, 206.
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 178
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 197.
- ↑ Hier 2004, p. 181
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