Inventing a Soviet Countryside

by Heinzen, James W.

• ISBN13: 9780822942153
• ISBN10: 0822942151
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-01-01
• Publisher: Univ of Pittsburgh Pr

Summary

Following the largest peasant revolution in history, Russia's urban-based Bolshevik regime was faced with a monumental task: to peacefully ;modernize ; and eventually ;socialize ; the peasants in the countryside surrounding Russia's cities. To accomplish this, the Bolshevik leadership created the People's Commissariat of Agriculture (Narkomzem), which would eventually employ 70,000 workers. This commissariat was particularly important, both because of massive famine and because peasants composed the majority of Russia's population; it was also regarded as one of the most moderate state agencies because of its nonviolent approach to rural transformation. Working from recently opened historical archives, James Heinzen presents a balanced, thorough examination of the political, social, and cultural dilemmas present in the Bolsheviks' strategy for modernizing of the peasantry. He especially focuses on the state employees charged with no less than a complete transformation of an entire class of people. Heinzen ultimately shows how disputes among those involved in this plan-from the government, to Communist leaders, to the peasants themselves-led to the shuttering of the Commissariat of Agriculture and to Stalin's cataclysmic 1929 collectivization of agriculture.

Author Biography

James W. Heinzen is assistant professor of history at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(10)
1. A False Start: The Birth and Early Activities of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, 1917-1920	11	(36)
2. A Struggle for Identity: The Uncertain Transition to the New Economic Policy, 1921-1923	47	(44)
3. "Too Many Comrades Misunderstand the Countryside": A Commissariat Comes of Age, 1923-1926	91	(45)
4. Socialism in One Countryside: Architects of a New Rural Russia, 1923-1926	136	(35)
5. Professional Identity and the Vision of the Modern Soviet Countryside: Local Agricultural Specialists, 1927-1929	171	(14)
6. Better Red than Bread?	185	(35)
Purge, Collectivization, and the Defeat of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, 1927-1929
Conclusion	220	(9)
Glossary and Abbreviations	229	(2)
Notes	231	(49)
Bibliography	280	(11)
Index	291