Spring 1930. At a meeting on the village square, an agitator from town announces that from today the plough, the ox, the seed and the land are common property. An old man asks: “And whose is the land we sow?” — instead of an answer a list is read out, and some families are already written on it as “kulaks”. The scene is imagined, not the story of one village, but in many Azerbaijani villages life changed exactly this way; the lesson explains why, and why the years of fear followed.
Why was the village driven into the kolkhoz?
In the lesson “War communism, NEP and industrialisation” we saw that under the NEP the peasant lived by small individual farming. But for industrialisation the Soviet leadership needed a great deal of grain, cotton and raw materials, and hard currency to sell them abroad and buy machinery. Collecting produce from small farms was hard, and the state wanted full control of the countryside. So in 1927 the 15th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), VKP(b), announced a course towards collectivising agriculture, and 1929 was called the “Year of the Great Turn”.
CollectivisationDefinition
The forced merging of individual peasant farms into large collective farms — kolkhozes. Land, tools and livestock were pooled, and the state bought most of the produce according to a plan.
KulakDefinition
Soviet propaganda’s label for well-off peasants. Those branded “kulaks” had their property confiscated and were exiled with their families; the label was sometimes stuck even on a peasant who simply refused to join a kolkhoz.
In Azerbaijan, besides kolkhozes, state-owned sovkhozes and machine-tractor stations (MTS) that supplied equipment to farms were set up. The sowing plan came from the centre; cotton growing was expanded in particular, and the state bought it at a price it fixed itself.
The exile of the “kulaks” and the uprisings of 1930
At the end of 1929 Stalin gave the slogan of “liquidating the kulaks as a class”. The campaign began in Azerbaijan too: the property of those declared “kulaks” was confiscated, and families were exiled out of the republic. The farming layer of the village was destroyed in this way.
The peasants resisted: they slaughtered livestock and sowed less. In 1930 mass protests and uprisings broke out in a number of districts. The authorities crushed them with armed forces and the security organs, and participants were arrested.
On 2 March 1930, in his article “Dizzy with Success”, Stalin put the “excesses” on local officials, and a number of peasants left the kolkhozes. But the course did not change: by the mid-1930s most peasants were already in kolkhozes.
| Cause | Measure and result |
|---|---|
| Industrialisation needed grain, cotton and currency | Small farms were merged into kolkhozes, produce was bought by plan |
| The well-off peasant was seen as an obstacle to the kolkhoz | The “kulak” label, confiscation and exile |
| The peasant was deprived of land and livestock | Slaughter of animals, less sowing, the uprisings of 1930 |
| Mass discontent | The “excesses” were criticised in an article, but collectivisation went on |
| Feature | Prodrazvyorstka (war communism) | Collectivisation (en masse from 1929) |
|---|---|---|
| Aim | To feed the towns and the army | To supply industrialisation with grain and raw materials, to control the village |
| Method | Compulsory seizure of the peasant’s surplus | Produce bought by plan, and in addition abolition of the individual farm, land and tools handed to the kolkhoz |
| The peasants’ answer | Discontent | Slaughter of livestock, the uprisings of 1930 |
| Outcome | Replaced by the NEP | The kolkhoz system lasted for decades |
What they share: both were carried out by force, against the peasants’ will. The difference: prodrazvyorstka took the peasant’s produce, while collectivisation took not only the produce but the farm itself out of his hands.
The building of the totalitarian regime
Totalitarian regimeDefinition
A form of rule in which the state and a single party control every sphere of society — the economy, culture, ideology, even people’s private lives — and tolerate no opposition.
In Azerbaijan this regime took full shape in the 1930s. Its marks were these:
- the monopoly of power of one party — the Communist (Bolshevik) Party of Azerbaijan;
- the whole economy under state control;
- a single ideology, censorship of the press and literature;
- the cult of Stalin;
- the security organs (NKVD) watching society and hunting “enemies of the people”;
- the closing of mosques and persecution of the clergy.
From 1933 to 1953 the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan was Mir Jafar Baghirov, regarded as the regime’s chief executor in the republic. After the murder of Kirov on 1 December 1934, used as a pretext, the hunt for “enemies” grew harsher across the country. The “Stalin Constitution” of 1936 promised rights and freedoms, but real power stayed in the party’s hands.
Mass repressions: 1937–1938
Repressions had begun in the 1920s but reached their peak in 1937–1938. Labelled “enemy of the people”, “spy”, “nationalist”, “pan-Turkist” or “Musavatist”, tens of thousands were arrested and tortured in interrogation, and many cases were decided by extrajudicial “troikas”. The punishment was execution, long imprisonment in the Gulag camps, or exile.
The victims were not only intellectuals: former figures of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, clergymen, peasants, and also party and state leaders — even the builders of the regime themselves were arrested. The aim was to spread fear, remove any chance of opposition and find “culprits” for failures.
| Person | Role | Fate |
|---|---|---|
| Huseyn Javid | playwright, poet | arrested in 1937, died in exile in 1941 |
| Ahmad Javad | poet, author of the words of the “Azerbaijan March” | shot in 1937 |
| Mikayil Mushfig | young poet | shot in 1938 |
| Bakir Chobanzade | Turkologist, delegate of the First Turkological Congress (1926) | shot during the repressions of 1937–1938 |
| Mir Jafar Baghirov | first secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party (1933–1953) | removed from office in 1953 (for his later fate see the lesson “Attempts at national revival: Imam Mustafayev and Vali Akhundov”) |
RehabilitationDefinition
Clearing the name and restoring the rights of a person unjustly convicted. After Stalin’s death (1953) and the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR (1956), part of the victims of repression were exonerated.
At midnight there was a knock at the door. The poet was at home; an unfinished poem lay on the table. The visitors searched the house and took away books and manuscripts. At the interrogation he was accused of being an “enemy of the people” and a “pan-Turkist”. The poems he had written in the years of the independent republic had once been loved by the people; now they counted as a “crime against the state”. This was happening one year after the adoption of the Stalin Constitution. His family could not learn his fate for a long time.
Source tasks
Problem
1) Identify the year of the events, the name of the period, and the former state in whose years the poet’s poems were written.
2) Explain one political and one social cause of arrests like this.
3) Write two consequences that the text does not state.
Show solutionHide solution
Solution
2) Political: the Stalin regime wanted to consolidate its power, remove independent-minded intellectuals who recalled the ADR period and cut off any chance of opposition. Social: to spread fear in society and to find “culprits” for the hardships of industrialisation and collectivisation. Marks: one political and one social — 1; only one — ½.
3) A heavy loss to the intelligentsia and the cultural heritage; an atmosphere of fear and silence; persecution of the victims’ relatives as a “family of an enemy of the people”; rehabilitation after 1953–1956. Marks: two consequences — 1; one — ½. “The poet was arrested” is in the text and earns nothing.
The tragedy of our compatriots from the south
Many Azerbaijanis who had come from Southern Azerbaijan worked in Baku, and some of them had kept Iranian citizenship. The totalitarian regime’s hunt for a “foreign enemy” struck them too: in 1937–1938 some Iranian subjects were accused of spying and arrested, and in 1938 Iranian subjects were deported to Iran. Sources differ on the stages, dates and destinations of this campaign; the lesson takes 1938 as the main date.
Cut off from their work and their homes, these people faced a hard life in Iran too. The event entered history as “the tragedy of our compatriots from the south”.
Interactive
Results: achievement and cost
Soviet propaganda called these years “socialist reconstruction”. Industry and towns grew and illiteracy fell (see the lessons “War communism, NEP and industrialisation” and “Cultural change in the 1920s–1930s”). But the cost was heavy.
| What the regime achieved | The cost |
|---|---|
| The kolkhoz and sovkhoz system, more cotton | Peasants lost their property; “kulak” exile |
| Falling illiteracy, expanding education | Censorship, the suppression of free thought |
| Growth of industry and towns | Tens of thousands arrested, shot or exiled; loss of the intelligentsia |
- 1927
The 15th Party Congress announces the course of collectivisation
- 1929
The “Year of the Great Turn”: mass collectivisation begins
- 1929
Stalin gives the slogan of liquidating the kulaks as a class (end of the year)
- 1930
Peasant uprisings
- 2 March 1930
The article “Dizzy with Success”
- 1933
M. J. Baghirov becomes first secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party
- 1 December 1934
Kirov is murdered; the hunt for “enemies” hardens
- 1936
The “Stalin Constitution”
- 1937–1938
Mass repressions
- 1938
Deportation of Iranian subjects to Iran
- 1941
Huseyn Javid dies in exile
- 1956
The 20th Congress of the CPSU; rehabilitation widens
Exam-style tasks
Identify the period
Problem
The mass merging into kolkhozes, the exile of “kulaks” and peasant uprisings are typical of which years?
A) 1920–1921 B) 1925–1927 C) 1929–1930 D) 1941–1945 E) 1946–1948
Show solutionHide solution
Solution
2) The turn was 1929 and the uprisings 1930 — “29–30”.
3) Eliminate: 1920–1921 is war communism and the move to the NEP; 1925–1927 the NEP years; 1941–1945 the war; 1946–1948 the post-war years. Answer: C.
“Like the first, unlike the second”
Problem
Choose the features in which collectivisation is similar to prodrazvyorstka and different from the NEP:
1. It was carried out against the peasants’ will
2. The peasant was allowed to sell surplus produce freely
3. A large share of the produce was taken from the peasant by compulsion, leaving no room for free sale
4. It aimed to abolish the individual farm altogether
A) 1, 2 B) 1, 3 C) 2, 4 D) 3, 4 E) 1, 4
Show solutionHide solution
Solution
1 — yes / yes / no → fits.
2 — no / no / yes → a mark of the NEP, does not fit.
3 — yes / yes / no (under the NEP the produce above the food tax was sold freely) → fits.
4 — yes / no / no → not shared with prodrazvyorstka.
Answer: 1, 3 — option B.
Remember
- In 1927 the course of collectivisation was announced and 1929 became the “Year of the Great Turn”; individual farms were forcibly merged into kolkhozes.
- The property of those declared “kulaks” was confiscated and families were exiled; the peasants answered by slaughtering livestock and by the uprisings of 1930.
- The totalitarian regime: one party, a single ideology, censorship, a leader cult, control by the security organs. In Azerbaijan the head in 1933–1953 was M. J. Baghirov.
- In 1937–1938 tens of thousands were repressed under the label “enemy of the people”; the victims include H. Javid, A. Javad and M. Mushfig.
- In 1937–1938 some of our compatriots from the south who held Iranian citizenship were accused of spying and arrested, and in 1938 Iranian subjects were deported to Iran (sources differ on stages and dates); after Stalin’s death the victims began to be rehabilitated.