kolkhoz

/kɔl'kɔ:z/

Thân thiện

A farmer drives a tractor across a vast kolkhoz field.

Definition

Noun: A kolkhoz is a type of collective farm that was owned and operated by the state in the former Soviet Union and other communist countries. It was a fundamental unit of agricultural production where farmers pooled their land, labor, and resources.

Usage

The word kolkhoz is a historical and political term. It is used when discussing the economic and agricultural systems of the Soviet Union and similar communist states. It is a specific, proper noun for this type of farm.

Examples

• The government required all peasants to join the kolkhoz.
• Life on a kolkhoz was often difficult, with farmers having to meet state production quotas.
• Historians study the kolkhoz system to understand Soviet agricultural policy.

Advanced Usage

• The term is often contrasted with sovkhoz (a state-owned farm where workers were paid wages, unlike the collective model of the kolkhoz).
• It can be used metaphorically to describe any rigidly collective or state-controlled enterprise.
  • The new corporate policy turned the creative department into a bureaucratic kolkhoz.

Variants and Related Words

• Kolkhoznik (noun): A member or worker on a kolkhoz.
  • The kolkhozniks gathered for a meeting.

Synonyms

• Collective farm
• Cooperative farm (though this is a more general, non-communist specific term)

Antonyms

• Private farm
• Sovkhoz (in the specific Soviet context, as a different model of state farm)

Notes

• Kolkhoz is a loanword from Russian (колхоз), which is itself a contraction of "коллективное хозяйство" (), meaning "collective farm."
• The plural form is kolkhozes or kolkhozy.

Học thuật

Noun

1. a collective farm owned by the communist state