Collectivisation

Question 1

What were the economic reasons for collectivisation?
(3 reasons)

Answer 1

• bigger farms mean more and more modern machinery
• there was constant food shortages at the time
• fewer people needed so more could work in factories

Question 2

What were the ideological reasons for collectivisation?
(2 reasons)

Answer 2

• more communist values after NEP failure
• building communism across the USSR

Question 3

What were the political reasons for collectivisation?
(2 reasons)

Answer 3

• opposing the NEP + Bukharin
• could enforce authority in the countryside

Question 4

What were kulaks? + Stalin’s opinion

Answer 4

richer peasants seen as class enemies, Stalin said “we must liquidate them as a class”

Question 5

The reality of the kulaks?

Answer 5

they were only slightly better off, 2 million were rounded up by dekulakisation squads and deported to Siberia

Question 6

Short term cause of collectivisation

Answer 6

The grain procurement crisis 1927-28
- peasants reduced grain production to try raise the low prices
- but the gov didn’t have enough grain and needed to feed the urban workers

Question 7

What is a kolkhoz and how many were there?

Answer 7

it’s a collective farm and by 1940 there was 240,000

Question 8

Features of a kolkhoz?
(3 points)

Answer 8

• peasants couldn’t leave to work in the towns
• produce sold to the state for a fixed price
• peasants were poorly paid

Question 9

What is a MTS and how many were there?

Answer 9

A motor tractor station which was a place that peasants went to rent out farming machinery for the day, there was 1 MTS for every 40 farms

Question 10

What were the weaknesses of MTS’s?
(2 points)

Answer 10

• poor quality machinery
• not enough tractors

Question 11

What was the real use of MTS’s?
(2 points)

Answer 11

• communist party stronghold in the countryside
• used to spy on peasants and distribute propaganda

Question 12

Successes of collectivisation?
(7 points)

Answer 12

• stalin increased political power
• guaranteed grain supply + bread rationing ended by 1934
• class divisions removed
• exported grain paid for industrialisation
• 19 million peasants moved to cities
• private land ownership abolished
• increased communism in the countryside

Question 13

Failures of collectivisation?
(6 points)

Answer 13

• 1928-33 grain harvest fell 7%
• cattle numbers almost halved
• after 1935 took 20 years for animal numbers to regain their pre-collectivisation numbers
• MTS’s didn’t have enough machinery
• dekulakisation removed the most skilled workers
• peasants did the bare minimum as they didn’t own the farm + instead worked hard on their private plot

Question 14

The Great Famine, when + cause?

Answer 14

• 1932-33
• caused by collectivisation + long droughts

Question 15

How many died during the great famine?

Answer 15

4-5 million

Question 16

Communist party response?

Answer 16

took what little grain was left and exported it

Question 17

Why did the communist party do this?

Answer 17

could be a deliberate policy to punish peasants + destroy ukrainian independence

Question 18

What area was worst hit by the great famine + what did they call it?

Answer 18

• ukraine
• ‘holodomor’ which means extermination by hunger