In 1931 Stalin said, "We are 50 or 100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this lag in ten years or be crushed."

Soviet Industrialisation under the Five Year Plans, 1928-41

The scale and speed of industrial development in this period was enormous. Western economists reckoned the average annual growth rate was 13-14%, with 3-fold increase in oil output, 4-fold in iron and steel and 5-fold in coal. Of significance in the SWW was the catching up with Germany: 1928 - USSR produced 25% as much steel as Germany; in 1940 - 90%. New industries were developed - aircraft, aluminium, new industrial centres, e.g. Magnitogorsk, and new skilled workforce.

Development was difficult because of the USSR’s poor international position and weak level of foreign capital from exports such as timber, because of the Depression. But the USSR had a useful infrastructure of railways (50,000 miles in 1928), education (more university entrants p.c. than in Britain), health services (twice as many doctors as in 1913) and housing.

The key factor in Soviet growth, however, was determined leadership. Stalin had just defeated the Right Opposition, accusing Bukharin of promoting development at a snail’s pace. There was powerful state control over many sectors of the economy (collectivisation provided control over food supplies, retail trade was taken over in 1931, and control was established over public institutions - media, education, police, health). 

Central planning - under Gosplan. 

The First 5YP was not entirely rational when devised in 1928 but was even less so after Stalin had changed it, mainly to increase targets, before it began in April 1929. Gosplan economists who doubted his wisdom lost their lives in the purges later. Half way through the plan it was decided to finish it 9 months early. The oil target was not reached until 1953, suggesting a lack of realism. On the other hand, some targets were exceeded. Lack of care and co-ordination over vast investment plans led to waste. E.g. the largest iron and steel complex in Europe was built at Magnitogorsk, but found to be uneconomic when finished because trains used 40% of the coal they carried on the 1500 mile journey east.

Wage differentials greatly increased as an incentive to skilled workers. Coercion was also deployed broadly: labour law was very severe to discourage absence, slow working, moving between jobs. Where no incentives existed - i.e. areas no one wanted to work - there was forced labour. Coercion and hope for the future and patriotism led to great sacrifice. Wages fell by about 50% between 1928 and 1936 as did living standards.

Thus massive industrial growth was achieved more by coercion and the sacrifice of people believing in the Party and hoping for future wealth, rather than by immediate material incentives.  

Collectivisation of Agriculture

'Get rid of kulaks'

This was the most sweeping part of Stalin’s revolution. 
Its aims were:
- elimination of kulak class

- imposition of new farming system on 100 million peasants

- extremely violent; Stalin referred to it as a ‘war’

It was:
- accompanied by the worst famine in Russian history

- an increase in repression - led to the Great Purges?

 Stalin seems to have been carried away with the success of state farms in the Caucasus where peasants were employed as in a factory. The state farm or sovkhoz, where peasants earned a wage, was the Party’s preferred new farm, but the collective farm or kolkhoz, where peasants were joint owners under firm Party and state control, became the most common farm as collectivisation proceeded.

In November 1929 in Pravda, Stalin wrote, ‘By the spring of 1930 we shall have 60,000 tractors in the field’. He envisaged ‘miracles of growth’. Yet such numbers of tractors did not exist, nor even the factories to build them. In 1929 under 3% of Soviet agriculture was mechanised.

Collectivisation began with the first 5YP, affecting southern Russia where mechanisation was expected to have the most dramatic impact. Stalin intended the majority of peasants to be affected after a few months. By 1933, when the first 5YP ended, 23% of peasants were affected by collectivisation (18% of the land).

So why was mass collectivisation attempted and not phased collectivisation?

The strongest reason for a policy of mass collectivisation was probably the crisis in food supply. Grain procurement in 1929 was 20% down on 1928, resulting in bread rationing and then rationing of animal products, despite severe penalties to force peasants to sell to the state. These resulted in attacks on officials, slaughter of livestock to avoid taxes and even the burning of government grain stores. In 1929 less grain was sown, there were 1 m. cattle and 5 m. pigs fewer than in 1928. The peasants had ceased entirely to trust the government. Since the market price for produce was 2-3 times the state shop price, the government could not afford to offer higher prices as an incentive to peasant co-operation. The trend among peasants to cut production continued in 1929. Mass collectivisation was seen by the government, arguably, as the only way to feed the country, to sustain industrialisation and to survive.

The process of collectivisation.

The first stage: expropriation of the kulaks - ‘dekulakisation’ - ‘an integral part’, according to Stalin, of the process. Kulak land and equipment formed the basis of many kolkhozy. Done with great brutality, in winter 1929-30. Families were removed in slow cattle trucks with the minimum of possessions to camps where they were often left with almost nothing and had to dig their own shelters. It is hard not to conclude this was deliberate murder. Officially 1 m. kulaks were expropriated. Research suggests that 10 m. is a minimum number, but this included many who were not kulaks. There was great propaganda against the class enemy and the class was to be liquidated. But the mass removal of ‘kulaks’ went far beyond sensible economic definitions of the kulak. A great many died, possibly 6.5 million.

The remaining peasants were coerced into kolkhozy as quickly as possible.

Bolshevik teachers instruct a less-than-enthusiastic group of peasants about the benefits of collectivisation

In 1929 the government promoted the kommuna (a kolkhoz with full collective ownership). From January 1930 the cartel was favoured by the government, with collectivised livestock. In March 1930 Stalin condemned the policy, saying that some livestock should be kept by peasants.   In an article called ‘Dizzy with success’ he blamed problems experienced by peasants on over enthusiastic local officials. Coercion into kolkhozy was relaxed only to encourage the harvest. There was a sharp but temporary decline in the number of peasants in collectives. Some areas became almost decollectivised. In the autumn collectivisation was continued and over 90% of peasants were collectivised by 1937.

The results of collectivisation.

The official view of collectivisation was that it had been a success that other communist parties should follow, though one or two mistakes early on were identified. The Party could point to the scale of change - 26 million peasant families were collectivised. Grain procurement rose, as intended:

Grain procurement (million tonnes)

1929 10.8

1933 23.3

1937 31.8

There were increases in all other products except meat, which only began to increase after 1933.

The state procured the grain and other products very cheaply. On average the peasant was paid for the grain quota (40% of output) at only 8% of the free market price. Another 45% was paid in kind to the MTS. The remaining 15% was paid for at a higher price than the procured grain, but still below market price. In 1939 Stalin declared the grain problem was solved. There was some success in sugar beet and cotton output.

Was collectivisation really a success?

There were Soviet critics of collectivisation during Khrushchev’s leadership, including - in his dubious memoirs, published after his death - Khrushchev himself: ‘Stalin’s brand of collectivisation brought nothing but brutality and misery’. Under Gorbachev there was a renewed freedom to criticise Stalin and his era. Since the end of communism, freedom of speech for historians has reached western levels, though Russian historians often have a different perspective and opening of the archives is far from complete.

Many western historians have concentrated on the mishandling of collectivisation. Others have debated whether or not collectivisation contributed to industrialisation as the Soviet government intended. According to Millar, ‘collectivisation was not necessary for the industrial drive. No one gained from collectivisation’.

Grain was procured so cheaply from the peasants because they were forced to sell to the state under the conditions outlined above. Harvest yields barely increased in the 1930s, so the growth in procurement meant a greater level of extraction from the countryside than before. This was possible because the state firm control over collective farms.

The kolkhoz was in theory self-governing, but it was obliged to meet state orders, including how much each farm had to produce and what supplies it would receive. In 1932 internal passports were introduced in the USSR, but not issued to peasants who were, therefore, tied to their home areas. Theft of kolkhoz property was met with the death penalty. Other practices seen as against state interests were dealt with harshly. The most powerful instrument of state control was the MTS. The machine tractor station held all machinery needed by the kolkhoz, but it was a separate organisation under firm Party control and in a powerful position to instruct the peasants. MTSs were formed under a decree of June 1929.

Procurement was calculated ruthlessly on the ‘biological yield’, meaning the crop was counted as area sown, from 1933. This was meant to force peasants to gather and declare the entire harvest, but there was bound to be loss between growing and final grain yield. The real harvest in 1933 is reckoned to have been 25% less than the official harvest. The result for many peasants in that year was starvation, as the state took more than they could afford to give. (The biological yield system was used until after Stalin’s death, so it was not the only cause of the great famine).

Between 1929 and 1933 meat production fell because peasants slaughtered their livestock for their own consumption in advance of collectivisation, knowing livestock were to be collectively owned. The situation improved after 1933 because the rules were relaxed to allow peasants to own a small number of animals privately.

What had gone wrong?

Peasants were hostile to the system, most seeing no advantage in collective ownership, especially under control from outside. The main gain of the revolution from the peasant’s point of view was land ownership and control over one’s land. Peasants were not protected by labour laws as industrial workers were. Material incentives disappeared with the free market. It now became more likely that investment in the land would result in higher losses since state payments were unlikely to cover costs of production.

Where private plots were allowed - and they became increasingly common - the peasants put far more effort into them than into the collective farm. In the late 1930s private plots comprised 4% of arable land, but produced 22% of arable output. Peasant hostility to the state or collective system meant inefficient labour.

Although the state was able to control procurement firmly, it was much weaker in directing production. The pace of collectivisation meant there was no time to plan properly or to acquire the machinery to make use of the economies of scale. In the early years 17 million horses were lost. It was not until the late 1930s that the horsepower available to Soviet agriculture regained 1920s levels. In the early 1930s there was only one agricultural scientist to every 50 kolkhozy on average. Kolkhoz chairmen received a 3-week crash course in management and decision making. Those farmers who had managed their own land had been removed in the dekulakisation. Decisions about what to sow, how much, where and when were taken without the necessary field knowledge.

The peasants’ way of life was radically changed . The church had been central to village life. The Orthodox Church was attacked under Stalin. It was deemed a class enemy, faith was condemned as shameful, priests were persecuted and the number of churches halved in the 1930s. Peasant craft industries were condemned as useless and outdated. There was no time or place for them on the kolkhoz and no market to sell them in.

Peasant living standards declined during collectivisation. The worst phase was the famine of 1932-1933. in 1931 and 1932 there were severe harvest failures in parts of the Ukraine, southern Russia and the northern Caucasus. State procurements continued. There was no official recognition of a problem, but the most severe famine in Russian history was developing. Journalists were banned from the famine areas. Although rumours leaked out, many people - even in the west - were prepared to believe the official propaganda that it was not serious. Conquest (1986) estimated that 7 million died in the famine of 1932-1933. The deaths can be blamed on the state procurement agency and on political decisions from the top. Not until the 1950s did peasant food consumption reach the level of 1926.

Peasants celebrating on a collectivised farm – a propaganda painting from 1937

Collectivisation led, in Solzhenitsyn’s words, to the "reign of the lie", as statistics were fabricated. For example, after the census of 1937 was delivered to the government Stalin had the chief of the census office arrested for trying to diminish the Soviet population. In fact it was Stalin’s agricultural policies that were responsible for a lower outcome than propaganda had led people to expect. The census was suppressed. Those who had to carry out dekulakisation and mass collectivisation had to be brutal. This brutality left tensions in the Party that contributed to the purges.

Many historians believe that collectivisation was as much about establishing Stalin's power as it was about increasing production.