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“Лучше перегнуть, чем недогнуть”: “Dekulakization” as a Facet of Stalin's Social Revolution (The Case of Perm Region)
Author(s) -
SUSLOV ANDREI
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the russian review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.136
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1467-9434
pISSN - 0036-0341
DOI - 10.1111/russ.12236
Subject(s) - peasant , property (philosophy) , class (philosophy) , political science , political economy , action (physics) , facet (psychology) , sociology , law , economic system , economics , social psychology , psychology , philosophy , epistemology , personality , big five personality traits , physics , quantum mechanics
This article explores the process of seizure of peasants’ property during the course of the campaign to “liquidate the kulaks as a class” at the beginning of the 1930s. It describes in detail the manifestation of arbitrary rule in the Perm region, analyzes directives emanating from regional party bodies, and reveals the links between arbitrary rule in the localities during the course of “dekulakization” and Stalin's policy aimed at changing the social structure of the Soviet society. The author examines numerous local cases and argues that the seizure of peasants’ property led directly to the destruction of an entire social group: peasant‐owners. Official prompting of “kulak liquidation” without legal regulations and accurate instructions, in fact, stimulated local leaders to take radical action. The campaign to “liquidate the kulaks as a class” constituted the main part of Stalin's social engineering policies in the early 1930s.