Decision to collectivise Flashcards
Did collective farming already exist before the 5 year plan?
yes they were already a feature of soviet agriculture before 1927 but there were few of them
Between late 1927 and December 1929 what were intense debates within the party about?
in the decisions to push through a massive acceleration of collectivisation imposed by force
What were the disadvantages of collectivisation?
Existing state farms were unproductive and very unpopular with the peasantry
Who thought that helping the peasantry was the key to success through allowing prices to rise to encourage peasants to sell more?
Bukharin and his allies
Who were Bukharin’s allies?
-some academic experts in the Institute of Red Professors
What were the 3 interrelated factors which were behind the drive towards collectivisation?
- the grain procurement crisis in the winter 1927-1928
- the need for increased food supplies to support the expansion of the industrial workers for the 5 years plan
- an ideological conviction that collectivisation was the right socialist path to follow, ‘rich peasants’ were an obstacle
Following the grain procurement crisis, which 2 places did Stalin focus on where the harvest had been generally good?
- Siberia
- Urals
What was Article 107?
This was Stalins criminal law to stop ‘speculation’ and pressuring local officials and police to seize grain by force
What is ‘speculation’?
the buying up of grain and hoarding it while hoping for the price to rise
In the summer of 1928 how was Bukharin’s political position weakening?
he was outvoted more and more by both the Politburo and the Central Committee
When did the Bukharinists lose the majority they had previously held in the Moscow party?
October 1928
When did Stalin charge Bukharin with ‘Right deviation’?
November 1928
What party member was particularly active in issuing central directives in the summer of 1929 to push for collectivisation?
Molotov
What policy in 1929 did the Central Committee introduce to accelerate the development of collective farms?
sent 25,000 industrial workers into the countryside
What did Stalin announce in December 1929 to the Party congress?
to impose forced collectivisation without any restraint; to ‘smash up the kulaks as a class’
