Social Mobility of Collective Farmers in the 1930s

Abstract

The author carries out a retrospective analysis of social mobility elevators and channels functioning within the collective farm system in the USSR in the 1930s. The subject of research is the collective farm peasantry and its border social groups (machine operators, administrative staff of collective farms, and machine and tractor station workers). It is concluded that multidirectional channels and lifts of intergroup and intragroup social mobility operated in Soviet rural areas in the 1930s. The most widespread channel of social mobility was collectivisation. Intensive social processes took place inside collective farms, which resembled social elevators that had an internal corporate character. A professional career in collective farms could be used as a mechanism of mobility: external elevators, institutionalised state practices, “positive” behavioural practices, and “positive” socio-political record. Channels of social and professional mobility functioned within the collective farm system. The most socially significant of them was the transition of workers engaged in horse and manual labour to machine operators. The collective farm system was integrated into the system of social elevators and channels operating in the USSR, but transition to them from collective farms was limited. Administrative, educational, professional, gender, and age barriers were in place for the social mobility of collective farmers. Chance to go beyond collective farms was given to young people receiving education and conscription. Being sentenced to prison meant the collective farmer’s descent to the bottom of the Soviet social ladder. The mechanisms of social descent could be: “negative” behavioural practices, illegal actions, and “negative” socio-political record.

Keywords

• социальная мобильность
• каналы и лифты социальной мобильности
• крестьянство
• коллективизация
• колхозы
• машинно-тракторные станции
• механизаторы