Chapter 13: Agricultural and social developments in the countryside

Five-Year Plans required surplus grain to fund industrialisation, assert control over the peasantry who had resisted Bolshevik rule since 1917, private farming seen as capitalist whilst collective farms represented true socialism, Grain Procurement Crisis (1927-28)

Reasons for collectivisation

Peasants were hoarding grain, forcing the state to seize supplies by force.

What causes the Grain Procurement crisis(1927-28)?

• Stalin initially encouraged voluntary collectivisation, but peasants resisted.

• December 1929 – Stalin announced "the liquidation of the kulaks as a class."

• Peasants were forced into collectives

• March 1930: 58% of peasant households had been collectivised.

Stage 1: Forced Collectivisation (1929-30)

Propaganda, state terror (OGPU secret police, Red Army), forced grain requisitioning, ural-siberian method

Methods of collectivisation

ural-siberian method

grain requisitioning involving forcible seizure of grain and the closing down of private markets had brought unrest in rural areas

“Dizzy with success”, March 1930

• Temporary halt in collecitivsation

• Stalin temporarily stopped forced collectivisation, blaming over-zealous officials.

• Peasants left the collectives, reducing the collectivisation rate to 20% by October 1930