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New class differentiation
In 1927, after the spontaneous evolution of the free market, 7 per cent of peasants, i.e. 2,700,000 peasants, were once again without land. Each year, one quarter of a million poor lost their land. Furthermore, the landless men were no longer accepted in the traditional village commune. In 1927, there were still 27 million peasants who had neither horse nor cart. These poor peasants formed 35 per cent of the peasant population.
The great majority were formed of middle peasants: 51 to 53 per cent. But they still worked with their primitive instruments. In 1929, 60 per cent of families in the Ukraine had no form of machinery; 71 per cent of the families in the North Caucasus, 87.5 per cent in the Lower Volga and 92.5 per cent in the Central Black-Earth Region were in the same situation. These were the grain-producing regions.
In the whole of the Soviet Union, between 5 and 7 per cent of peasants succeeded in enriching themselves: these were the kulaks.
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Jean Elleinstein, Le socialisme dans un seul pays (Paris: Éditions Sociales, 1973), vol. 2, pp. 67--69. Davies, opcit, pp. 9, 171.
After the 1927 census, 3.2 per cent of families had on average 2.3 draft animals and 2.5 cows, compared to an average of between 1 and 1.1. There was a total of 950,000 families (3.8 per cent) who hired agricultural workers or rented out means of production.
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Davies, op. cit. , pp. 25--26.
Fri Aug 25 09:03:42 PDT 1995