Collectivisation

why was collectivisation introduced? - LINKS W INDUSTRY

• Fear of invasion convinced party members of need to industrialise. Modern economic base seen as essential to defend USSR, against Capitalist powers

• Industrialisation would lead to population increase in cities relying on imported food supplies so agricultural productivity would need to increase

• Soviet Union would need food surpluses as foreign exports to import new tech

• Mechanisation of agriculture to support industry- labour needed in industrial centres

• Stalin saw forced collectivisation as a solution to increase food production

why introduced? ECONOMIC ARGUEMENTS

• Peasant-plot agriculture was inefficient compared to rest of Europe. Most farms owned by peasant households, piecemeal distribution

• Collective farms = larger economic scale- larger units make use of machinery more viable

• Use of machinery increases food production

• Reduce labour requirements release labour onto growing industrial plants

Why introduced? POLITICAL MOTIVES

• Extend socialism to the countryside, ensure survival of the revolution. Party control in rural areas was weak- support had declined since Tambov 1921

• NEP and Land decree 1917 unintentionally gave peasants private property

• Provided opportunity to get rid of richer ‘kulaks’. In eyes of communists, they hoarded food, preventing industrial revolution

• Pressure on govt to ride countryside of ‘Capitalist’ class

• By 1928, Stalin was convinced that peasants were holding back industrial progress

• Ideologically - abolish private property

process of collectivisation

• Dec 1927- 15th party congress decided on programme of voluntary collectivisation

• 1928- Food shortages led govt to carry out forced requisitioning of grain as a temporary measure

• 1929- Stalin began to talk of ‘liquidating’ kulaks as a class

• Local party officials went into villages to persuade peasants of the advantages of collective farms ‘Kolkhoz’ with promises of increased mechanisation (MTS- Machine and tractor stations) & advice on farming methods

• Once enough peasants signed up for a collective they could seize animals, grain supplies and buildings as the property of the collective

Collectivisation

• Introduced in 1929.

• Farms forcibly merged

• Equipment taken away from richer peasants and given to the poorer.

• Peasants who worked in collective farms were allowed to keep a small proportion of grain to live off of.

• Rest of the food used to feed workers in the city or sold abroad to fund industrialisation

Reaction to collectivisation

• Violent opposition e.g Ukraine and Caucasus region

• Kulaks set fire to farms and slaughtered animsals

• party officials murdered on arrival

• De-kulakisation squads were sent in

• Party members were sent from the cities to forcibly organise collectives

• OGPU and Red Army used to quell unrest

• 1930- Stalin temporarily backed down with his article ‘DIZZY WITH SUCCESS’ which blamed overzealous party officials for excesses and concessions give to peasants e.g own garden plot

• Only temporary- long enough to allow next harvest

• by 1932- 62% of peasant households had been collectivised rising to 93% in 1937

• Peasants responded to requisitioning/Collectivisation by destroying their crops, animals and machinery.

• Many peasants would prefer to destroy over help the government.

• Stalin’s policies led to the destruction of:

• 17 Million horses

• 26 Million cattle

• 11 Million pigs

• 60 Million Sheep and goats.

Liquidation of Kulaks- squads

• ‘de-kulakisation’ squads - so called ‘Twenty-five thousands’ sent into countryside to force the peasants into collectives. In this way, kulaks would be eliminated. In practice, dekulakisation covered a range of methods for eliminating the Kulaks, including murder. ‘Active’ kulaks most violently persecuted

Famine 1932-33

• Collectivisation led to famine in the Ukraine

• Ukrainian farmers were often unable to meet government targets for farm production

• Resistance to collectivisation had been at it’s fiercest in the Ukraine.

• Stalin punished the farmers by seizing their grain and livestock.

• Used famine to end resistance in the Ukraine- 4-5million died

• Although he was offered support internationally, declined.
  

Grain procurement

• Collectivisation allowed the government to procure more grain than the NEP in 1928.

• In 1928, the government procured 10.8 million tons of grain from the peasants.

• Which rose to 22.6 million by 1933

• Grain export rose too from 1 million – 4.7 million from 1928-1930.

Economic consequences

• Supply of machinery to collectives was slow and many were without tractors until mid 1930s

• Removal of the kulaks was damaging as often most productive farmers

• Slaughtering of animals by the kulaks caused a serious reduction in livestock leading to a shortage of meat and milk

• Grain production fell declining from 7.3million in 1928 to 67.6 million in 1934

• Give seized food for export to gain foreign exchange

• Widespread famine 32-33 particularly affecting the Ukraine, Kazhakhstan and the Caucasus

Political consquences

• Stalin achieved his aim of ‘liquidating the kulak class

• Party control was imposed over a reluctant peasant population

• in 1930, the mir was abolished and replaced by the Kolkhoz administration , headed by a chairman who was a party member from the town

• Party control usually extended by use of teenagers, members of communist youth organisation, who used wooden watchtowers to spy on peasants in the fields to ensure they did not steal food to feed their families

• Ideologically socialist- ended private ownership within peasantry

Social consequences

• peasants started to move into the towns in search of food, until the govt introduced a passport system to prevent peasants from leaving the collectives

• They became tied to the collective in a system that began to partly resemble serfdom

• Unable to move from the collective, some peasants resorted to eating their own children in order to survive

• Roy Medvedev estimates around 10 million peasants dispossessed 1929-32