Primitive Soviet Accumulation and the Zhenotdel Collectivization Campaign: A Social Reproduction Analysis

• In Event: Left Perspectives on State Socialism IV: Land, Soil, Communes, and the Rural

Abstract

This paper adopts a novel Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) approach to re-evaluate the Soviet experience of industrialization within the context of global research on primitive accumulation. I analyze the first Five-Year Plan as a unique process of 'primitive Soviet accumulation,' focusing on the Zhenotdel collectivization campaign and the often-overlooked role of Zhenotdel peasant women delegates [krestyanki delegatki]. The study explores their involvement in peasant women's revolts against collectivization, emphasizing the significance of these events for the Zhenotdel's emancipatory program in the village. Considering class as a social relation to the conditions of life’s reproduction, I demonstrate: 1) how primitive Soviet accumulation reshaped the gendered metabolic relationship between land and labour during the first Five-Year Plan and 2) yet, the allocation of surplus into the expanded Soviet state apparatus laid the foundation for the distinctive Soviet mother-worker gender contract and social citizenship model.

Author

• Olena Lyubchenko, York U (Canada)