Collectivisation

Question 1

What was collectivisation?

Answer 1

1. Moving agriculture to large
   farms where peasants
   worked together to meet
   quotas.
2. There were three types of
   collecvtive farm Kolkhoz,
   Sovkhoz and Toz

Question 2

Why did Stalin force peasants into collectivisation?

Answer 2

1. Larger units of land would
   allow machinery and more
   modern methods.
2. Machines meant fewer
   peasants needed so rest
   could more to towns.
3. Easier to procure grain
4. It fitted with socialist
   ideology.

Question 3

What problems did Russian agriculture face?

Answer 3

1. Scissors crisis of 1928-9
   highlighted the ability of
   peasantry to disrupt food
   supply to towns and cities.
2. Peasantry was seen as
   backward and out of
   control of Communists

Question 4

Who carried out collectivisation?

Answer 4

1. Stalin enlisted an army of
   25,000 urban party
   activists.
2. OGPU and the military
   were used to suppress any
   resistance

Question 5

What methods were used?

Answer 5

1. Force – Villages were
   ‘persuaded’ to sign a
   register demanding to be
   collectivized.
2. Terror – ‘Kulaks’ or those
   who resisted were
   rounded up and shot,
   imprisoned or deported.
3. Propaganda – Anti-kulak
   and promoting collectives

Question 6

How did peasants resist?

Answer 6

1. Riots and armed resistance: Large numbers of party officials were
   killed
2. Sabotage: Burned crops, tools and houses. Slaughtered animals and
   gorged on them (25-30%)
3. Women’s revolts: All-female revolts were more successful as soldiers
   were less likely to take action
4. Flight: By 1939 about 19 million peasants had migrated to towns (1 in
   4)

Question 7

How were rebels and Kulaks dealt with?

Answer 7

1. In 1929-1930 alone about 15% of peasant households were destroyed
2. An estimated 10 million peasants died as a result of resistance or
   effects of deportation

Question 8

Why was there a famine from 1932 to 1934?

Answer 8

1. Despite poor harvests in 1931 and 1932 state procured more than
   double 1928 levels of grain and continued to export.
2. Huge amounts of animals had been slaughtered as part of resistance
3. There was a drought in 1931
4. Some have claimed Stalin/Communists deliberately caused the famine
   to punish areas of resistance like Ukraine

Question 9

How severe was the famine?

Answer 9

1. Robert Conquest has estimated that as many as 7 million died as
   result of the famine.
2. Areas which were usually the best for grain producing such as
   Ukraine, and Kazakhstan were particularly badly hit, highlighting the
   man-made nature of the famine.

Question 10

How was output affected?

Answer 10

1. Grain output did not achieve pre-collectivisation levels until 1935
2. Livestock took until 1953 to reach pre-collectivisation levels

Question 11

What impacted output?

Answer 11

1. Sabotage by peasants
2. Too few tractors and animals to pull ploughs
3. Collectives were poorly organised
4. Party activists had poor knowledge of farming
5. Many of best farmers were killed during dekulakisation

Question 12

How quickly were farms collectivised?

Answer 12

1. By March 1930 58% of peasant households were collectivised but
   this reduced to just 20% by October after Stalin relaxed measures
   on the back of complaints and resistance.
2. Once crops had been sown in 1931 collectivisation was brutally
   enforced again so that by 1934 70% of households were in
   collective farms.
3. 100% of peasant households were collectivised by 1941

Question 13

How was it a success economically?

Answer 13

1. It allowed the government to
   procure much more grain than the
   NEP
2. The government procured 10.8
   million tonnes of grain in 1928
3. This rose to 22.6 million tonnes in
   1933
4. Exports also rose from less than 1
   million tonnes to 5 million tonnes
   from 1928 to 1931

Question 14

How was it a failure economically?

Answer 14

1. Soviet agriculture recovered
   slowly from the disruption of
   collectivisation
2. Grain harvests were regularly
   smaller than they had been in the
   best years of the NEP
3. Collective farms were generally
   less productive than private farms

Question 15

How did it benefit Stalin politically?

Answer 15

1. Stalin was able to gain control over
   the countryside
2. The party didn’t want a sizeable
   sector of the economy to be
   dominated by a private market of
   peasants
3. The party didn’t have to bargain
   with peasants anymore
4. They established a system of
   controlling the countryside and
   making agriculture serve the
   towns and workers