Etatism as a Principle of Soviet Agrarian Legislation

Introduction. Etatism as a principle of agrarian legislation had been establishing in Russia throughout the Soviet period, and its leading trends had been formed under the influence of total collectivization of agriculture that took place in the 1930s. Eventually, in the frame of collectivization, collective farm law was formed into a separate branch of Soviet legislation and was attributed with a quite interesting collision: the norms declaring the cooperative status of collective farms, as the farms created with the peasants’ own funds and based on the public ownership of the means of production and self-government, served an ideological facade. Whereas in reality, the primary concern of the legislators was adhering to provisions of etatism, which enshrined the supremacy of the state interests over the social ones. This approach had led to the loss of economic initiative by the farmers and, eventually, to the decay of the Soviet village. In the up-to-date literature this particular aspect of the collective farm law has hardly been studied, whereas the reflective understanding of historical experience is essential for the efficient regulation of agricultural production in the Russian Federation. The aim of this study is to analyse etatism as a principle of Soviet agrarian legislation, its manifestation in the fundamental regulatory documents of the 1930s and its impact on the collective farm system of the USSR.
Materials and Methods. The source material for this study consisted of various regulatory legal acts adopted in the USSR in the 1930s, as well as historical materials, including the archival documents from the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (РГАСПИ/RGASPI), the Center for Documentation of Contemporary History of the Rostov Region (ЦДНИРО/TsDNIRO), and the State Archives of the Rostov Region (ГАРО/GARO). The research methodology implied using the general scientific and specific juridical methods, including the comparative historical, historical-legal, dogmaticlegal (legalistic), and content analysis methods.
Results. It has been proved that initially in the Soviet Union the favorable conditions for strengthening etatism were created, which formed the basis for the collective farm legislation. Collective farms created in the frame of total collectivization were formally considered by the party and state leadership as cooperative farms, whereas in reality, they were completely controlled by the state and deprived of autonomy. The objective set forth the Soviet legal system was to enshrine this status of collective farms in the law. During 1930s, a wide range of normative legal acts regulating the structure and functioning of the collective farms were developed in the USSR. In addition to the fundamental documents (such as the Model Charters of Agricultural Cooperatives of 1930 and 1935), this range included numerous other legal acts adopted by the government bodies at various times and for various reasons. All of them aimed to subordinate the collective farms to the state and prioritize state interests. Moreover, over time, the desire of the state to consolidate its control did not weaken, but intensified. As a result of this policy, the collective farms had practically no cooperative independence, and turned into the state-owned agricultural enterprises.
Discussion and Conclusion. In the 1930s, the juristic theory and legislative practices in the USSR were based on the principles of etatism. However, the legislators had to respect the ideological postulates of collectivization in building socialism in the vilage, therefore the declaratory provisions about collective farm democracy were foregrounded. Such declarations served a kind of legal facade, intended to confirm the existence of socialist relationships in Soviet Russia. However, essentially the regime of state capitalism dominated in the country, because the leading legislative trends were legitimization of government intervention in the activities of collective farms and total subordination of the collective farm system to the state.

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