How
was Collectivisation carried out? |
in 1930 bands of Party activists and officials backed up by
the OGPU (state police) went into the countryside to organise
peasants into collective farms
the activists ‘persuaded’ peasants to sign a register
demanding to be collectivised
animals, implements and buildings were taken from the Kulaks
to form the basis for the new farm
if peasants refused to join the collective they would be labelled
as Kulaks and shot, deported or sent to labour camps (a process
called ‘dekulakisation’)
Stalin set up two
types of farm unit
Sovkhozy (state farm) and
Kolkhozy (collective farm) |
Sovkhozy
land was owned by the state - felt to be closest to the
Communist ideal
peasants worked on the land as paid labourers receiving
wages no matter how badly the farm did
the goods produced on a Sovkhozy were simply delivered to
the state
farm workers bought goods out of their wages
since these farms were expensive to run not many of them
were set up |
Kolkhozy
these were more common
by 1940 there were approximately 240,000 farms of this type
the average Kolkhozy contained 76 peasant families farming
476 hectares of land. - peasants also enjoyed the use of
small private plots
peasants had to deliver a fixed quota of food to the state
at low prices even if the they went hungry
any surplus was kept by the peasants |
What
impact did collectivisation have? |
there was fierce resistance to
collectivisation (riots and armed resistance).
Peasants burnt their farms, crops and cattle rather than give
them to the state.
Approx 6m+ Kulaks were killed, thereby destroying the most productive
sections of peasant society.
so much disruption was caused to agriculture that there were
severe food shortages, and this, combined with bad harvests
in 1932, led to famine 1932-3 and cannibalism in some areas.
5-7m dead in Ukraine alone and as much as 1/4 of the population
of Kazakhstan
requisition squads still took full quotas; export to other countries
still went ahead; cities were fed but peasants starved
Did
collectivisation work? |
Stalin thought it did:
he achieved what he set out to do - to destroy the Kulaks
this gave him complete control over the peasants who made up
more than half the population of the Soviet Union
he had succeeded in obtaining the grain he needed for industrialisation
By 1932 62% of farms were collectivised
By 1937 grain production was up by one third on the 1928 figure
By 1940 400,000 farms had been set up
But
the problem of food shortages was never solved
because produce had to be given to the state at a fixed price
there was no incentive for peasants to increase productivity
they worked harder on their own private plots of land
By 1937 52% of vegetables were produced on the private plots
of land and
70% of the meat and milk
|