The Establishment of The Soviet Regime In Northern Azerbaijan. Resistance Against The Invaders

The Policy of Enforced Collectivization In The Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic And The Struggle Against It. The Azerbaijan Revolutionary Committee’s degree on 5 May 1920 considered confiscation of all land-holdings of khans, beks, waqfs and others, and distribution these lands to the peasants. However, the Azerbaijani Soviet government, much later, adopted the “Regulations on the lands”, which was to determine the rules for the implementation of this decree in 1923. Part of Azerbaijani peasants got the land, in the size, determined by the Soviet leadership and the others remained without land or in a shortage of land. Some peasants have abandoned their shares, considering unacceptable, “haram”, from a religious point of view to accept someone else's land.

In the late 1920s, the Soviet Union began an entirely new policy in dealing with the peasant and land issues. The 15th Congress of the CPSU (b), in December 1927, declared the whole territory of the USSR the course on the collectivization of agriculture. The collectivization, called for the unification of individual farms into collective farms, "kolkhoz", considered the elimination of the kulak farms, the socialization of all land in the country and the establishment of a socialist economy here. The leader of the Soviet Union Stalin prepared the concept of kolkhoz (collective-farm) construction, envisaged the creation of three forms of collective farming: TOZ, communes and artels. The TOZ provided the joint processing of land by peasants. The Commune was a high degree of socialization of production, and considered even the collectivization the birds, household items and etc., while completely eliminating individual peasant farming. In these barrack-style households, peasants worked together, lived and ate. Artel intended unification of the main means of production - lands, labor tools and livestock animals. Unlike the commune, in the pets and household items were not in common use. Along with the general collective farms, the peasants were allowed to have a yard area. During collectivization, primarily the Artels were chosen to be the superior form; in fact, in many places the communes were created forcibly, and all property of the peasants was turned into common property.

The decision, taken at the 15th Congress of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, in March 1929, in connection with collectivization, considered uniting into collective farms for five years at least 20% of all agricultural farms, and in the cotton growing areas of up to 50% of farms. However, disregard this decision, the Azerbaijani leadership in the summer of 1929 announced the course for complete of mass collectivization in a very short period of time, whereas the Soviet leadership recommended a collectivization in four years. As a result of the administrative measures, more than 16 thousands qolchomaqs and middle-income peasants were murdered in 1929. In the majority of regions of Azerbaijan, the principle of voluntary joining to the collective farms were not taken into account. On the contrary, acts of violence were core in the process of creation of collective farms, often, only on paper, to create the artificial ones. The local, party and government organizations, during the collectivization, did not respect national features and traditions, specific for Azerbaijani village. In contrast, to the Russian peasants, accustomed to live and work in the community, the Azerbaijani peasant was more focused on the individual economy and preferred more private way of life. Therefore, in Azerbaijan absolutely wrong politics of the Soviet government on the rural issue led to the fact that peasants were forced just by administrative and violent methods to join kolkhoz.

In the 1930s, in Azerbaijan, the basic principles of collective farming were the slogans: “Whoever didn't join the kolkhoz, is the enemy of Soviet power” and “To the kolkhoz or to the Emergency Committee” (to be shot_Ed).

During the collectivization, the peasantry Azerbaijan consisted of three layers: the poor, the middle-income peasants, and the qolchomaqs. In connection with the transition since 1930 to the mass collectivization, the task was to rely on the poor, take the people back to their side, and abolish the barrow as a class. Wealthy peasants, qolchomaqs, were disenfranchised; all of their land and other property were confiscated. Being good organizers and business executives, qolchomaqs mercilessly persecuted by the Soviet punitive organs. Some of them were shot and the other part together with their families exiled to the Urals, Siberia and the regions of Kazakhstan, with the severe climate. The Soviet leadership for the individual regions even introduced a plan for the liquidation of the qolchomaqs. If it was not possible to fulfill the plan, the middle-income peasants ranked as qolchomaqs and harshly suppressed.

During collectivization under the slogan of “dispossession” in Azerbaijan were shot or deported over 200 thousand of farmers. For the governing bodies of Azerbaijani SSR, collectivization turned into a kind of competition. Quba and Zagatala were named areas of complete mass collectivization. Ganja and Quba districts in 1931 entered into a competition for the completion of general collectivization. In accordance recognition of the Azerbaijani leadership itself, in the number of errors and the arbitrariness during the process of collectivization, Azerbaijan ranked the first place in the USSR. In 1937, the complete victory of the kolkhoz system was officially announced in the Azerbaijani village. According to

the reports, in 1937 the kolkhozs covered 86.5% of all farms and 93.5% of all arable land. Creation of the kolkhozs has enabled the Soviet leadership in droves to exploit the toiling peasants. In 1930, the Machine and Tractor Stations (MTS) have been established in the Azerbaijani rural districts, which played a major role in ensuring the kolkhozs with new equipment (tractors, seeders, etc.), and have become strongholds of collectivization. Combined into collective farms the peasants were deprived of their rights. Until the late 1950s, the Soviet government did not issue passports to the peasants that actually put them into a serfdom of state. Peasant farmers were not allowed to leave the residence, to move to city, even to move to neighboring kolkhoz. Collective farms resembled labor camps.

The collectivization of 1930s is the most tragic event in the history of the Soviet Union. As a result of collectivization, a terrible famine (holodomor) broke in all grain regions of the USSR, because of liquidation the middle-income peasants and the qolchomaqs and socialization of the economy, in the process of creating kolkhozs, violated all the agricultural works.