11
Great Turn, 1927-29
Overview
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Main Themes
Why the “Great Turn”?
Industrial Miracles
Agricultural Crisis
Culture: Revolution and “CounterRevolution”
F. Conclusions
A. Main Themes
1. Industrial miracle: phenomenal early gains of
first five-year plan raised expectations
2. Agricultural crisis: grain delivery shortfalls as
economic and political threat
3. Party radicalized, frightened, but holds little
power over village
4. “Intensification of the class struggle”:
perception, policy, Stalinist rationale
5. “Cultural Front”: conflict and confrontation
B. Why the “Great Turn”?
1. Structural: Fundamental contradictions of
NEP
2. Triggers:
a. Grain crises of 1927-8, 1928-9
b. Party transformation
c. War scare of 1927
3. The Great Turn: Denials
C. Industrial Miracles
1. Toward a planned economy
2. Growth problems: low labor productivity,
inept party management, rural crisis
3. Miracles on the “industrial front”
4. Western counter-model: from prosperity
to depression
D. Agricultural Crisis
1. Causes
a. Land settlement of 1917-8
b. Family partition (semeinyi razdel)
c. Market: productivity disincentives
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Village Power
Marxist sociology of the village
State: Policy Shifts
Grain crises, 1927-29
Great leap: “Ural-Siberian Method,” selftaxation, production campaigns
7. Peasant resistance
Stalin, 14 January 1928 Telegram
to Kosior
“Many communists think that one cannot
touch speculators and kulaks, since this
will alienate the middle peasant. This is a
rotten way of thinking up the rotten thought
that some communists have in their
heads. It is just the opposite. In order to
establish our price policy and achieve a
decisive turnaround in procurements, it is
necessary to strike a blow at speculators
and kulaks right away.”
Stalin, 18 January 1928: Telegram
to Novosibirsk Party Committee
• “The only way one can make up for lost time is
with brutal pressure. . . . We want to kill the
seredniak’s faith in the prospect of a rise in grain
prices. How? Article 107 [on speculation and
hoarding]. . . . How does the middle peasant
think? He thinks: ‘It would be good if they paid
more, but here is a murky business. Petrushka is
in jail; Vanushka is in jail; they’ll put me in jail
too. No, it’s better to sell the grain. You can’t
ignore Soviet power.’”
Kulaks and Speculators Arrested
(January-June 1928)
Category
Number Arrested
Speculators (art. 107)
8,685
Kulak hoarders (art. 107)
6,211
Kulak counter-revolutionaries
3,383
Total
18,279
Peasant Protests: Proclamations
and Resolutions
Year
Number of Proclamations and
Resolutions
1928
945
1929
2,391
Peasant Protest Proclamation
(1928)
• Comrade Party Members! You are torturing the
people, the Cossacks, and now the poor and
middle peasants—they are NOT kulaks. Soviet
power was created for proletarians. But you
don’t see this, and you rob the unhappy poor
and force them to pick up stakes and take back
the bread and money from your pockets. You
don’t treat us well; you rob us. If you don’t stop
treating the poor this way, you’ll not rule for
long…. If you don’t stop the requisitions, we’ll
have to pick up our stakes and fall upon the
Communists.
Forms of Peasant Resistance
Year
Mass
Disorder
Arson
1925
Terrorist
Act
902
Total
902
1926
31
71
640
742
1927
32
78
823
933
1928
709
307
1,153
2,169
1929
1,307
1,604
4,458
7,469
1930
13,793
6,324
7,469
27,586
E. Culture: Revolution and
“Counter-Revolution”
1. Cultural “Construction”: Books, Press,
Kino (film)
2. War on specialists
3. Anti-religious campaigns
4. Indigenization (korenizatsiia) and
Nationalism
Shakhty Trial Defendants
May 1928
Shakhty Tribunal: Announces
Sentences (1928)
Enemies of the Five-Year Plan
1929 Poster
Sergeiev-Posad: Destruction of
Church Bells (1930)
Protests against Church Closings
Year
Protest Resolutions Khodoki (Reps sent to
Moscow)
1925
1,506
500
1926
1,248
600
1927
2,840
616
1928
2,861
946
1929
5,242
1,800
1930
17,637
6,029
F. Conclusions
1. Industrial surge: gains of first five-year plan
and higher expectations
2. Agricultural crisis: grain delivery shortfalls as
economic and political threat
3. Party radicalized, frightened, but little power
over village
4. “Intensification of the class struggle”:
perception, policy, and Stalin’s mantra
5. “Cultural Front”: construction, anti-religious
campaigns, and nationalism