organiser 11 - collectivisation impacts

What was the great turn

the policy of rapid industrialisation and the collectivisation of agriculture

what were sovkhoz

• state run farms

• usually larger

• paid a wage by government and seen as workers

• movement was restricted

what were kolkhoz

• collective farms run by an elected committee

• farmed as one unit and set a quota of produce to be given to the state at a low price

• each family had a private plot up to one acre

Meeting Stalin’s ideological and political aims (positive)

• private farming and class differences abolished, 77% by 1935, 99% 1941

• Dekulakisation - 5 - 7 mil affected, 4 - 5 mil died

• Bigger urban proletariat - by 1939 19 million peasants migrated to cities advance communism

• state control achieved - MTS political departments and kolkhoz chairmen, peasantry could never resist again (1921 Tambov, 1923 Scissors, 1927/28 GPC)

• Ukrainian nationalism suppressed

• cemented Stalin’s control over party - right opposition expelled

ideological and political negative

• private plots on Kolkhoz, ‘neo NEP’, remnants of capitalism - 50 % veg and 70% of meat produced by private plots

• ideological aims achieved through coercion - 25,000ers/GPU, ‘dizzy with success’, not voluntary and left peasants embittered

economic success

• procurement doubled 1928 - 1933

• exports increased tenfold 1929 - 1933

• labour for industry - 1 in 4 peasants left for towns. more cheap labour, Gulags filled with Kulaks for projects e.g white sea canal

• Figes - incalculable contribution, inhospitable regions where no one would go (materials e.g gold, nickel)

• industrialisation of agriculture - MTS, ploughing and sowing

Economic failures

• grain production fell - 1934 harvest < 68 mil tonnes, didn’t reach pre collectivisation levels until 1935

• 25 - 30 % livestock killed 1929 - 1933, didn’t recover until 1953

• most skilled farmers (produced most) were eradicated

• poorly managed/organised by party activists who knew little about farming

• only 1 in 40 farms had MTS, tasks e.g weeding still done by hand

• 196,000 lorries compared to 1 mil in USA

• peasants worked harder on private plots

Social positives

very slight increase in literacy in peasants

negative social impacts

• OGPU deported kulaks to labour camps, uprooted form homes'

• violent opposition, burning crops, killing livestock

• deaths in Gulags, 700 died each day in White sea canal

• 1932 - 33 famine, killed 5 - 8.5 million

• Holodomor, 3.9 mil victims were Ukrainian

• 1932 Politburo decisions - no fleeing for food, policemen raided houses, food from oven, decided not to release grain stores or end requisition

• slander + repression against Ukrainian intellectuals and political elites

• Ex Kulaks faced persecution throughout their lives

• Kazakh traditions and nomad lifestyle died out

conclusions

Political: never held ransom by countryside again, cemented control, cemented Stalin’s power

Economic: kickstarted industrialization, prestige projects, more labour, doubled procurement, long term failure and agricultural disaster

Social: catastrophe, horrific impacts on Ukraine and Kazakhstan and peasantry as a whole

Conclusion from essay

collectivisation was Stalin’s ill thought through policy that brought him great personal success within the party and gave him a sense of pride through a ‘second revolution’, but was a public disaster. Collectivisation and the elimination of the Kulak class led to a significant decline in agricultural productivity. The significant successes of industrialization and prestige projects kickstarted by collectivisation were contrasted with immense human loss and the persecution of an entire class of people, which Stalin refused to acknowledge and was hidden from archives for many years. on the whole, it is clear that collectivisation caused extensive economic repercussions that took years to recover from and led to a colossal death toll, therefore collectivisation must be considered a failure.