Economy and society
Developments in the countryside
Voluntary and forced collectivisation:
- Stalin committed the USSR to collective farming because of the
Great Turn of 1928
- Originally focused on voluntary collectivisation through portraying
the benefits in posters, leaflets and films, then progressed to grain
requisitioning and ‘annihilating the kulaks as a class’ (December
1929)
Collectivisation stage 1: 1929-1930
- Government began to issue new procurement quotas and peasants
who did not meet those quotas were punished
- A propaganda campaign was issued against the kulaks, creating a
conflict between poorer and wealthier peasants
- By the end of 1929, forced collectivisation had begun
- Peasants were driving into collectives by Party members, with the
help of the OGPU and the Red Army
- Kulaks were not permitted to join the collectives
- The Red Army and OGPU used to execute and deport kulaks, who
were said to represent 4% of peasant households
- In practice, 15% of peasant households were destroyed and 150,000
peasants were forced to migrate to poorer lands
- In January 1930, Stalin announced that 25% of grain farming areas
were to be collectivised
- By March 1930, through propaganda and fear, 58% of peasant
households were collectivised
- The speed of collectivisation brough Stalin to state that Party
members were becoming ‘dizzy with success’ and had become too
rigorous and confrontational
- A brief return to voluntary collectivisation was therefore permitted,
peasants were allowed to leave collectives and have livestock
returned to them
- In October, only 20% of households remained collectivised
, Collectivisation stage 2: 1930 –1941
year Percentage of households
collectivised
1931 50%
1934 70%
1935 75%
1937 90%
1941 100%
Kolkhozes:
- Combined small individual farms together
- Many were like a single village, in which peasants lived in the same
houses as before and had their own plot of land to work on
- The average kolkhoz had around 75 families
- In some, schools and clinics were also established
- Each kolkhoz had to provide a quota to the State – these were up to
40% of crops and any goods left after were shared among the
collective, according to the number of ‘labour days’ that person had
contributed
- From 1932, kolkhozes were able to sell any left-over produce in a
collective farm market
- Under the control of a Party member
- Internal passport system from 1932 forbade peasants from leaving
Sovkhoz:
- An example of ‘socialist agriculture of the highest order’
- Labourers were classified as workers rather than as peasants and
they were paid a wage directly by the state
- Larger than kolkhozes and created on land confiscated from former
large estates
- Workers recruited from landless rural residents and farms were
organised for specialised large-scale production
- Deemed suited to the grain-growing areas of Ukraine and southern
Russia
- Peasant opposition to being a wage-labourer forced Stalin to permit
most state farms to be kolkhozes
- Official expectation was that all kolkhozes would turn into sovkhozes
in the long term
Developments in the countryside
Voluntary and forced collectivisation:
- Stalin committed the USSR to collective farming because of the
Great Turn of 1928
- Originally focused on voluntary collectivisation through portraying
the benefits in posters, leaflets and films, then progressed to grain
requisitioning and ‘annihilating the kulaks as a class’ (December
1929)
Collectivisation stage 1: 1929-1930
- Government began to issue new procurement quotas and peasants
who did not meet those quotas were punished
- A propaganda campaign was issued against the kulaks, creating a
conflict between poorer and wealthier peasants
- By the end of 1929, forced collectivisation had begun
- Peasants were driving into collectives by Party members, with the
help of the OGPU and the Red Army
- Kulaks were not permitted to join the collectives
- The Red Army and OGPU used to execute and deport kulaks, who
were said to represent 4% of peasant households
- In practice, 15% of peasant households were destroyed and 150,000
peasants were forced to migrate to poorer lands
- In January 1930, Stalin announced that 25% of grain farming areas
were to be collectivised
- By March 1930, through propaganda and fear, 58% of peasant
households were collectivised
- The speed of collectivisation brough Stalin to state that Party
members were becoming ‘dizzy with success’ and had become too
rigorous and confrontational
- A brief return to voluntary collectivisation was therefore permitted,
peasants were allowed to leave collectives and have livestock
returned to them
- In October, only 20% of households remained collectivised
, Collectivisation stage 2: 1930 –1941
year Percentage of households
collectivised
1931 50%
1934 70%
1935 75%
1937 90%
1941 100%
Kolkhozes:
- Combined small individual farms together
- Many were like a single village, in which peasants lived in the same
houses as before and had their own plot of land to work on
- The average kolkhoz had around 75 families
- In some, schools and clinics were also established
- Each kolkhoz had to provide a quota to the State – these were up to
40% of crops and any goods left after were shared among the
collective, according to the number of ‘labour days’ that person had
contributed
- From 1932, kolkhozes were able to sell any left-over produce in a
collective farm market
- Under the control of a Party member
- Internal passport system from 1932 forbade peasants from leaving
Sovkhoz:
- An example of ‘socialist agriculture of the highest order’
- Labourers were classified as workers rather than as peasants and
they were paid a wage directly by the state
- Larger than kolkhozes and created on land confiscated from former
large estates
- Workers recruited from landless rural residents and farms were
organised for specialised large-scale production
- Deemed suited to the grain-growing areas of Ukraine and southern
Russia
- Peasant opposition to being a wage-labourer forced Stalin to permit
most state farms to be kolkhozes
- Official expectation was that all kolkhozes would turn into sovkhozes
in the long term
