DID THE PEASANTS BECOME SOCIALIST?
During the times of the Soviet Union, it was believed that the collective farm peasants were a class of the soviet society that formatted its social basis together with the working class and the people’s intellectuals. There was also an opinion that the collective farm peasants took an active part in construction of the communism and in ever more intensive development of productive forces in the agricultural sector. Evolution of the peasants was interpreted as follows: in course of preparation and actual realization of the social revolution along with subsequent reforms, the poorest peasants acting as ally of the proletariat became stronger in their revolutionary mood and gradually mastered certain elements of the proletarian ideology. Revolutionary enthusiasm and mood of the poorest peasants changed the consciousness of most working peasants for the benefit of collectivization. The latter created in its turn an objective basis of all peasants’ transformation to a quite new social class and formation of its socialist psychology. At the same time, the peasants were always under suspicion, which related to their petty-bourgeois nature. It should be mentioned that there was not any voluntary move of peasants from individualistic sentiments to collectivism. The transition to industrial methods in agriculture and to integration of peasants to collective farms was not caused by some abstract class feeling of the peasants but by the economic necessity and expedience for the country. Therefore, we can observe a substitution of sense platforms regarding this matter, which is ascertained and reasoned in this publication