• Old-fashioned, inefficient, no machinery, too small, subsistence farming.
2. Workers needed for industry
• USSR needed to become modern/ → peasants had to move to towns.
3. NEP not working
• By 1928, USSR was 20m tons short of grain for towns.
4. Cash crops needed
• Grain needed to buy foreign machinery/ expertise for industrialisation.
5. Food needed for workers
• Essential for success of Five-Year Plans.
6. Ideology
• Bolsheviks saw peasants as backward, hostile to true → needed re-education or force to impose socialism. Lenin had been ‘defeated’ in 1921; unfinished business.
7. Kulaks opposed Communism
• Kulaks liked private wealth, hid food, led peasant resistance → Stalin wanted to destroy them.
What was 'Collectivisation’?
1929 order: farmers had to land/ equipment, work under collective farm (controlled by Communist Party). No clear pay system.
1930: Stalin allowed small private plots (many farmers withdrew). Later rules included:
• % of produce went to state (only 10% left for collective).
• ‘Enemies of the collective farms’ (kulaks) punished.
• Stations provided mechanisation.
Collectivisation Timeline 1927–1939
1927: Stalin announced collectivisation – voluntary, ignored.
2. Famine: Millions died (1932–33), inc. the Holodomor.
3. Kulaks: Kulak class destroyed → human suffering.
Why did Stalin do it?
1. Soviet agriculture was backward
• Old-fashioned, inefficient, no machinery, too small, subsistence farming.
2. Workers needed for industry
• USSR needed to become modern/INDUSTRIAL → peasants had to move to towns.
3. NEP not working
• By 1928, USSR was 20m tons short of grain for towns.
4. Cash crops needed
• Grain EXPORTS needed to buy foreign machinery/ expertise for industrialisation.
5. Food needed for workers
• Essential for success of Five-Year Plans.
6. Ideology
• Bolsheviks saw peasants as backward, hostile to true SOCIALISM → needed re-education or force to impose socialism. Lenin had been ‘defeated’ in 1921; unfinished business.
7. Kulaks opposed Communism
• Kulaks liked private wealth, hid food, led peasant resistance → Stalin wanted to destroy them.
What was 'Collectivisation’?
1929 order: farmers had to POOL land/ equipment, work under collective farm COMMITTEE (controlled by Communist Party). No clear pay system.
1930: Stalin allowed small private plots (many farmers withdrew). Later rules included:
• 90% of produce went to state (only 10% left for collective).
• ‘Enemies of the collective farms’ (kulaks) punished.
• MOTOR TRACTOR Stations provided mechanisation.
Collectivisation Timeline 1927–1939
1927: Stalin announced collectivisation – voluntary, ignored.
1928: Food shortages → police CONFISCATED food for towns.
1930: Famine. Stalin paused collectivisation. Peasants allowed small plots.
1931: Collectivisation restarted → by 1932, ⅔ of villages collectivised. Resistance continued. Govt took more food
1932-33: → Famine (esp. Ukraine Holodomor, 5m dead). Stalin blamed kulaks → declared WAR on them (land taken, executed, exiled to Siberia, whole villages massacred).
1934: All 7m kulaks ‘eliminated’.
1939: 99% of land collectivised; 90% of peasants on ¼m KOLKHOZY; 4k state farms. Farming run by govt officials.
Successes
1. ¼m kolkhozy: 99% of land collectivised.
2. More modern methods: Tractors, fertilisers, large-scale production, efficiency focus.
3. Grain production: By 1937: 97m tons (up from 73m in 1928) → more food to towns + cash crops for export.
4. Town workers: 1928–37: 17m peasants moved to towns for industry.
5. Communist control: OFFICIALS ran farms → peasants obeyed Party (fear/ enthusiasm). Stalin had total power.
