Soviet Collectivization, Capitalist Dreams 311A Soviet-American Fetish: Industrial Farming
Before plunging into a discussion of the practice and logic of Soviet collectiviza-
tion, we should recognize that the rationalization of farming on a huge, even
national, scale was part of a faith shared by social engineers and agricultural plan-
ners throughout the world.^14 And they were conscious of being engaged in a com-
mon endeavour. Like the architects of the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture
Moderne, they kept in touch through journals, professional conferences and exhi-
bitions. The connections were strongest between US agronomists and their Rus-
sian colleagues – connections that were not entirely broken even during the Cold
War. Working in vastly different economic and political environments, the Rus-
sians tended to be envious of the level of capitalization, particularly in mechaniza-
tion, of US farms while the Americans were envious of the political scope of Soviet
planning. The degree to which they were working together to create a new world
of large-scale, rational, industrial agriculture can be judged by this brief account of
their relationship.
The high tide of enthusiasm for applying industrial methods to agriculture in
the US stretched roughly from 1910 to the end of the 1930s. Agricultural engi-
neers, a new specialty, were the main carriers of this enthusiasm; influenced by
currents in their parent discipline, industrial engineering, and most particularly by
the doctrines of the prophet of time–motion studies, Frederick Taylor, they recon-
ceptualized the farm as a ‘food and fiber factory’.^15 Taylorist principles of scientifi-
cally measuring work processes in order to break them down into simple, repetitive
motions that an unskilled worker could learn quickly might work well enough on
the factory floor,^16 but their application to the variegated and nonrepetitive require-
ments of growing crops was questionable. Agricultural engineers therefore turned
to those aspects of farm operation that might be more easily standardized. They
tried to rationalize the layout of farm buildings, to standardize machinery and
tools, and to promote the mechanization of major grain crops.
The professional instincts of the agricultural engineers led them to try to rep-
licate as much as possible the features of the modern factory. This impelled them
to insist on enlarging the scale of the typical small farm so that it could mass-
produce standard agricultural commodities, mechanize its operation, and thereby,
it was thought, greatly reduce the unit cost of production.^17
As we shall see later, the industrial model was applicable to some, but not all,
of agriculture. It was nonetheless applied indiscriminately as a creed rather than a
scientific hypothesis to be examined sceptically. The modernist confidence in huge
scale, centralization of production, standardized mass commodities and mechani-
zation was so hegemonic in the leading sector of industry that it became an article
of faith that the same principles would work, pari passu, in agriculture.
Many efforts were made to put this faith to the test. Perhaps the most auda-
cious was the Thomas Campbell ‘farm’ in Montana, begun – or, perhaps I should
say, founded – in 1918.^18 It was an industrial farm in more than one respect. Shares
were sold by prospectuses describing the enterprise as an ‘industrial opportunity’;