The peasantry of the Volga German Republic in the Period of the New Economic Policy

• Main Author: Ekaterina L. Furman
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Volgograd State University 2017-09-01
• Series: Vestnik Volgogradskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta. Seriâ 4. Istoriâ, Regionovedenie, Meždunarodnye Otnošeniâ
• Subjects: German peasantry; agricultural production; land management activities; lean years; council of states
• Online Access: http://hfrir.jvolsu.com/index.php/en/component/attachments/download/1418

This article focuses on the main directions of governmental policy on the peasant question and also the peculiarities of its implementation on the example of the peasantry of Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Volga Germans. Archival documents and statistics show the position of the peasantry during the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War. It has been found that the collective farms (cooperatives, communes and associations for the joint cultivation of the land) were the most acceptable form of association under conditions of poverty in villages in the lean years. They allowed accumulating joint efforts and waiting for the next harvest even under the lack of inventory. The author comes to the conclusion that governmental interventions in the agricultural sector (land management, the introduction of the Unified Agricultural Tax, the distribution of breeding seed loan, the implementation of credit policy, etc.) was adapted to the interests, primarily to the poorest ones in villages. In conjunction with a very meager budget of the Republic allocated for the development of agriculture, state power sought to solve the problems of the peasant population at the expense of redistribution from the rich peasants to the poorest ones. In this case the main tax burden laid on the proactive and strong part of the village (peasants of average means and substantial farmers) that as a result neutralized all attempts to eradicate peasant debt and to generate financial flows for technical re-equipment of the village and intensification of the agricultural production.