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From the Central Intelligence Agency, this is a declassified intelligence report, "The Soviet Attitude Toward 'Communes'", dated June twelfth, nineteen-fifty-nine. It discusses the historical context and ideological differences in agricultural collectivization between the Soviet Union and Communist China. This document is available at documents2.theblackvault.com. This record was approved for release in May two-thousand-seven. It is a product of the Office of Current Intelligence, designed to contribute to discussions on Communist China's "communes" program and to initiate a new series on Sino-Soviet relations. This study is a working paper, reflecting information received through May nineteen-fifty-nine. It is intended to serve as a contribution to current discussion of the "communes" program in Communist China, and to introduce a new series of papers, designated E-S-A-U, on aspects of the Sino-Soviet relationship. This paper will later be refined as a chapter in a comprehensive discussion of the "communes" program, its origins, its early development, its modification under various pressures, and its present character. Since this preliminary discussion of the Soviet attitude has not been coordinated outside O-C-I, the E-S-A-U group would welcome comment from interested parties. The analyst to whom either written or oral comment should be addressed is Donald Zagoria. Summary and Conclusions. The Bolsheviks experimented with agricultural communes as the "highest" of three forms of agricultural cooperatives in the early period after the Russian revolution. All three types of cooperatives were unpopular with the Russian peasantry but the communes, involving the highest degree of socialization, were the least successful. In the early communes, all property was pooled; produce was divided up on egalitarian principles; members lived in community dormitories; food was cooked and served in community kitchens. In the artel, a less "advanced" form of cooperative, most production was carried on collectively and most means of production were owned by the artel but each family was allowed to retain individual garden plots, dwellings, some cattle, small livestock and poultry; the family thus received both a collective and private income. The "lowest" form of cooperative, the T-O-Z, was simply a production cooperative in which the peasants joined together to work their land during the time of field work. The communes, which numbered two-thousand-one-hundred by mid-nineteen-nineteen, began to decline in number in the early nineteen-twenties, particularly after the introduction of the New Economic Policy in nineteen-twenty-one which made important concessions to private farmers. On the eve of forced collectivization in nineteen-twenty-nine, they represented nine percent of the total of all cooperatives. Aware that the peasantry would not accept full communalization, Stalin did not attempt to establish the commune as the dominant form of agricultural enterprise…

Why was this case declassified?

This material entered the public record through the U.S. declassification and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process. The originating source document is linked on this page so the citation chain is auditable.

Case File · ARCHIVE-379Declassified

Filed SEP 19 · 2026Runtime 1 min

From The Central Intelligence Agency, This Is A Declassified Intelligence

U.S. public record · FOIAUpdated September 19, 2026

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◆ BLUF — The short version

From the Central Intelligence Agency, this is a declassified intelligence report, "The Soviet Attitude Toward 'Communes'", dated June twelfth, nineteen-fifty-nine. It discusses the historical context and ideological differences in agricultural collectivization between the Soviet Union and Communist China. com. This record was approved for release in May two-thousand-seven.

Date: SEP 19 · 2026
Release: Declassified · U.S. public record (FOIA)
Source document: View the primary source document

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What was From The Central Intelligence Agency, This Is A Declassified Intelligence about?: From the Central Intelligence Agency, this is a declassified intelligence report, "The Soviet Attitude Toward 'Communes'", dated June twelfth, nineteen-fifty-nine. It discusses the historical context and ideological differences in agricultural collectivization between the Soviet Union and Communist China. com. This record was approved for release in May two-thousand-seven.
Why was this case declassified?: This material entered the public record through the U.S. declassification and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process. Storyflo narrates it directly from the public release.

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