Аgricultural cooperation from a historical perspective

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to show that cooperation conducted in a «voluntary-compulsory» manner only discredits the idea of cooperation in rural areas and leads to food crises in society. The research uses the method of historical analogies. The article examines the processes of agricultural concentration, including in the form of cooperation, from a historical perspective; an assessment of current trends is given by comparing them with similar processes that took place in the Soviet era in the conditions of the administrative economy. Statistical materials from official sources, party-Soviet documents were used for the analysis. The content of V.I. Lenin's article «On Cooperation», to which the former and current ideologists of the cooperation of the peasantry refer, allows for a very twofold interpretation of the ideas of the leader of the revolution. On the one hand, Lenin's position presupposes a link between the city and the countryside on the basis of a new economic policy. On the other hand, his remark that «the system of civilized cooperators with public ownership of the means of production... – this is the system of socialism,» clearly indicates that Lenin considered the collective farm form as the highest form of peasant cooperation. This form of cooperation objectively leads to the use of the state coercive apparatus with all the ensuing consequences. This form of cooperation objectively leads to the use of the state coercive apparatus with all the ensuing consequences. It is shown that the basis of failures in the development of cooperation in modern agriculture of Kazakhstan is the prevalence of administrative and bureaucratic methods of solving the problem. Author summarizes that only reliance on the initiative of the peasants themselves, their personal interests and motivation are the main condition for the successful promotion of ideas of cooperation in rural areas.