A2 FP1 : Collectivisation, key facts and statistics (Process, impact, success)

Question 1

What were the main methods for carrying out collectivisation?

Answer 1

Force - twentyfive thousanders
Terror - OGPU
Propaganda - “Blood Sucker Kulaks”

Question 2

When was collectivisation introduced?

Answer 2

1928

Question 3

After seeing that voluntary collectivisation had failed, in 1929, what did Stalin do to try and speed up the process?

Answer 3

In December of 1929 he announced the “liquidation of the Kulaks as a class”. He ignited class warfare against them, deeming any peasant that opposed him a “kulak” - subjecting them to deportation, execution or arrest.

Question 4

Who were the “twenty-five thousanders” and what did they do?

Answer 4

They were urban activists who were given the objective of “dekulakisation”, they recieved training alongside the military and OGPU.
- Each region was given a number of kulaks to find “whether they existed or not” (C+F), counter-revolutionaries were to be shot or sent to forced labour camps, and active opponents to collectivisation were to be deported to siberia and other parts of the USSR.

Question 5

How many “kulaks” had been deported by the end of the collectivisation process?

Answer 5

10 million.

Question 6

How many households were collectivised by 1934?

Answer 6

70%

Question 7

How many households were collectivised by 1941?

Answer 7

100%

Question 8

How many households were collectivised in Ukraine by 1932?

Answer 8

70%, 20% higher than the rest of the USSR.

Question 9

What was resistance like to collectivisation?

Answer 9

Bitter and fierce opposition.
Peasants burned crops rather than hand them over to the state. Raids were carried out to recapture animals that had already been taken to collectives. One of the main forms of resistance was to slaughter animals and eat or sell meat rather than hand over the animals to the Kolkhoz.

Question 10

What percentage of all animals in the USSR were slaughtered by peasants in opposition to collectivisation by 1930?

Answer 10

25%

Question 11

What did Stalin do in reaction to peasant opposition in March 1930? What did he do afterwards?

Answer 11

Knowing that opposition could cause a collapse in grain production, Stalin wrote an article called “Dizzy with Success” that criticised the rapid process of collectivisation. There was a return to voluntary collectivisation, a huge number of peasants abandoned collectivisation and went back to harvesting. However, once the harvest had been collected there was a rapid return to forced collectivisation, resulting in a rise to 50% of households being collectivised from 20%.

Question 12

What number does Robert Conquest put the death toll of the Great Famine at?

Answer 12

7 million.

Question 13

When was the Great Famine?

Answer 13

1532-1534

Question 14

Where was the Great Famine?

Answer 14

Ukraine.

Question 15

How much grain had the State collected by the end of 1931, why was this a problem?

Answer 15

22.8 million, enough to feed the cities but this was riding on the back of a drop in agricultural production and a drought in Ukraine.

Question 16

What was Ukraine known as?

Answer 16

The Breadbasket of Europe.

Question 17

How many tons of grain was Ukraine expected to produce annually between 1931 and 1932?

Answer 17

7 million. Much higher than the rest of the USSR.

Question 18

Stalin continued to export grain during the famine, how much did he export during the worst year of the famine (1932)?

Answer 18

1.73 million tons

Question 19

What and when was the “Law of Seven-Eighths”

Answer 19

7 August 1932.
Prescribed a 10 year sentence for stealing “socialised” property from the collectives, even if this was just an ear of corn. This was later changed to the death sentence .

Question 20

What did decrees passed in December and August of 1932 do?

Answer 20

They lay down prison sentences of up to ten years for peasants selling meat or grain before quotas were fulfilled.

Question 21

What did the Soviet Government do to stop peasants emmigrating away from the famine?

Answer 21

They introduced internal passports to control the mass movement of people.

Question 22

Overall, what caused the famine?

Answer 22

1. The purging of peasants who had the best farming expertise,
2. the poor organisation of new collective farms,
3. the lack of machinery and fertilisers,
4. the lack of know how,
5. the resistance of peasants who slaughtered animals and refused to work on the collectivised land.
6. compounded by government policy which continued to take excessive amounts of grain from the worst-hit areas and export it abroad to pay for industrial equipment.

Question 23

When did grain production recover to pre-collectivisation levels?

Answer 23

1935

Question 24

When did meat production pass pre-collectivisation levels?

Answer 24

1953

Question 25

What was a main problem for collectivisation?

Answer 25

There was a lack of incentive for peasants.

Question 26

Explain the role of private plots of land on collectives.

Answer 26

They were the only way peasants could earn money and sell their products on the local market. The state did not stop them because they desperately needed food.

Question 27

What percent of vegetables and fruit did private plots provide?

Answer 27

52% and 57% respectively.

Question 28

What percent of meat, milk, butter, honey, and wool were produced by private plots? What does this reflect?

Answer 28

70% and 71%. It reflects a lack of focus on consumer goods by the state in the drive for industrialisation.

Question 29

How many million tons of grain were harvested in 1935?

Answer 29

75.0

Question 30

How many million tons of grain did production drop by at the start of the 1930s?

Answer 30

In 1930 grain production was at 83.5 million tons, in 1931 it was 69.5 million. A drop of 14 million tons.

Question 31

In what ways was collectivisation a success?

Answer 31

The state did collect the grain it needed to feed the rapidly growing workforce and to sell abroad to pay for industrial equipment. Dispossed peasants also emmigrated to the cities and provided labour for the factories. It succeeded in providing the resources needed for industrialisation.
Modernisation and gave the State political control of the peasants.

Question 32

What were some of the main failures of collectivisation?

Answer 32

Large proportions of resources had to be diverted to agriculture, to build tractors for example and many activists and the secret police were preoccupied by peasant resistance. Furthermore, the USSR did not get as much money as it wanted for grain because the Great Depression forced fown world grain prices.

Question 33

What was the total human cost of collectivisation?

Answer 33

Ten million peasants were dispossed between 1929 and 1932, of whom around 3 million lost their lives. Of the 7 million who died in the famine, 5 million of them died in Ukraine alone.

Question 34

What percentage of peasant households were destroyed in dukulakisation?

Answer 34

15%

Question 35

How many Machine Tractor Stations were established?

Answer 35

2500

Question 36

What percent of threshing, ploughing, sowing, and harvesting where done mechanically by 1938?

Answer 36

Threshing : 95%
Ploughing : 72%
Sowing : 57%
Harvesting : 48%

Question 37

How many lorries were being used in soviet agriculture by 1938? Was there a problem with this?

Answer 37

196,000 lorries, but this was limitied compared with over a million being used in the US.