Kolkhoz - The Disappearance of The Kolkhoz After 1991

The Disappearance of The Kolkhoz After 1991

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the former Soviet republics became independent states that pursued, with varying degrees of vigor and resolve, a general policy of transition from the Soviet centrally planned economy to a market economy. Farm restructuring was one of the components of the transition agenda in the New Independent States, all of which adopted laws (typically called "Law on Enterprises and Entrepreneurship" in the various native languages) that allowed new corporate forms of farming to emerge (in addition to family farms).

These corporate farms could organize as partnerships, limited-liability companies, joint-stock societies, or agricultural cooperatives, and the traditional kolkhozy and sovkhozy — collective and state farms — were generally required to re-register in one of the new corporate forms as chosen by the general assembly of their members or workers. This legal requirement led to massive "external restructuring" of kolkhozy and sovkhozy through re-registration in new corporate forms. The number of kolkhozy and sovkhozy declined rapidly after 1992, while other corporate forms gained in prominence.

Still, field surveys conducted in CIS countries in the 1990s generally indicated that, in the opinion of the members and the managers, many of the new corporate farms behaved and functioned for all practical reasons like the old kolkhozy. Formal re-registration only "changed the sign on the door" and did not produce radical internal restructuring of the traditional Soviet farm, although this was badly needed for improving productivity and efficiency of the former Soviet farms.

Number of kolkhozy and all corporate farms in Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova 1990-2005

Sources:

• For Russia, Agriculture in Russia, statistical yearbook, State Statistical Committee, Moscow, various years.
• For Ukraine, Rethinking Agricultural Reform in Ukraine, IAMO, Halle, Germany.
• For Moldova, land balance tables, State Land Cadastre Agency, Chisinau, various years.

Kolkhozy have disappeared completely in Transcaucasian and Central Asian states. In Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan the disappearance of the kolkhoz was part of an overall individualization of agriculture, with family farms displacing corporate farms in general. In Central Asian countries, corporate farms persist, but no kolkhozy remain. Thus, in Turkmenistan, a presidential decree of June 1995 summarily "reorganized" all kolkhozy into "peasant associations" (Turkmen: daikhan berleshik). In Tajikistan, a presidential decree of October 1995 initiated a process of conversion of kolkhozy into share-based farms operating on leased land, agricultural production cooperatives, and dehkan (peasant) farms. However, contrary to the practice in all other CIS countries, one-third of the 30,000 peasant farms in Tajikistan are organized as collective dehkan farms and not family farms. These collective dehkan farms are often referred to as "kolkhozy" in the vernacular, although legally they are a different organizational form and the number of "true" kolkhozy in Tajikistan today is less than 50. Similarly in Uzbekistan the 1998 Land Code renamed all kolkhozy and sovkhozy shirkats (Uzbek for agricultural cooperatives) and just five years later, in October 2003, the government's new strategy for land reform prescribed a sweeping reorientation from shirkats to peasant farms, which since then have virtually replaced all corporate farms.