chapter 13- agricultural developments Flashcards
Initial plan of collectivisation
- was a part of stalins great turn in 1928
- initially emphasis was put on voluntary collectivisation - promoting through posters leaflets ect
- Had little effect
- by 1929 less than 5% of farms had been collectivised
why did stalin think voluntary collectivisation didn’t work
- he believed richer kulaks had been holding back supplies
- in december 1929 stalin announced he would ‘annihilate the kulaks as a class’
how did collectivisation begin properly 1929
-the government issues new procurement quotas with punishments for peasants who didn’t achieve these
- by the end of 1929 the gov had began full force collectivisation
- peasants were driven to collectives by local party members, OGPU and the Red Army
how did liquidation of the kulaks begin
- propaganda campaigns were waged against the class in an attempt to turn the poorer peasants against them
- kulaks we’re not allowed to join collectives
- OGPU and the Red Army were used to round up execute or deport the kulaks
how did peasants respond to the dekulakistaion
- some tried to stop themselves being labelled as kulaks by killing their livestock which only added to the rural problems
- non kulak peasants were scared into joining collective farms
dekulakisation statistics
15% of peasant were forced to migrate
150,000 peasants forced to migrate north
collectivisation statistics (1930)
-in january 1930 stalin announced that 25% of grain farming areas were to be collectivised that year
-by march 1930 58% of peasant households had been collectivised
- by october 1930 only 20% of farms had been collectivised still
why did collectivisation decrease again in late 1930
stalin said that local officials were being too rigorous and confrontational in methods therefore a voluntary collectivisation was permitted until after harvest had been collected that year.
(this was only temporary and once harvest was collected in spring 1931 it sped up again)
how much did collectivisation increase 1930-1941
1931- 50%
1935- 75%
1941- 100%
what was a kolkhoz
-a collective farm created by combining small individual farms together- many compromised a single village
- all peasants lived in the same houses and had their own plot of land as well as communal ones
- comprised of c75 families
rules of kolkoz
-had to deliver a set quota of produce to the state- could be up to 40% of crops
-shared any profit after procurement among the collectives members according to the number of labour days they had contributed
-under control of the communist party
what were sovkoz
state farms where the workers were not classes as peasants and were payed a wage by the state
usually larger than kolkhoz farms
what were machine tractor stations (MTS)
-set up in 1931 to provide seed and to hire out tractors and machinery to collective farms- 2500 were established
- state farms generally received better machinery
how effective were machine tractor stations
by 1938 over half of all threading ploughing and sowing and almost half of all harvesting was done by machines
- other farming operations were less mechanised such as weeding
why was there civil war in the countryside 1932 - 1934
-violent opposition to the process of collectivisation
- some poorer peasants joined collectives voluntarily but many did not
how was the unrest dealt with
-the armed forces dealt with it brutally sometimes burning down whole villages
- any peasants who resisted would be classified as a kulak and treated as such
- millions were deported and sent to siberian work camps
- estimated over 10 million peasants died as a result
the famine of 1932-1934
- in october 1931 drought hit many agricultural areas
- there was severe drop in food production and by spring 1932 famine had appeared in ukraine
- in 1932-1934 the famine spread to Kazakhstan and Northern Caucasus
- one of the worst famine in russian history
was collectivisation overall sucessful
-collectivisation achieved its purpose
- the industrial workforce was fed and grain exports increased
- these achievements however were at the expense of the peasants themselves
what were the limitations of collectivisation
- poorly organised in the early years
- party activists who helped set it up knew nothing about farms
- few tractors and insufficient animals to pull ploughs
what were the gains of collectivisation for stalin
the state for the first time had control over the countryside and peasants could no longer resist the regime
- those who disagreed with stalin’s collectivisation such as Bulkharin and Rykov lost power in the USSR
