End of NEP and Start of Collectivisation

Question 1

What was urban unemployment in 1922? 1929?

Answer 1

1922 - 160,000

1929 - 1,741,000

Question 2

Were wages higher or lower than 1913 levels in 1926?

Answer 2

Still lower

Question 3

When was rationing stopped for the workers? Where was it reintroduced in 1928?

Answer 3

1923

Reintroduced in Leingrad and Moscow in 1928

Question 4

What measures were introduced against Nepmen/private traders in 1926? Which article of the criminal code made private traders liable to arrest and imprisonment?

Answer 4

• Tax introduced on “superprofits”
• High rail tariffs on private traders
• Three year prison sentence for “evil intentioned increases in price”
• Article 107 of the criminal code made private traders liable to arrest and imprisonment

Question 5

Why was tax in kind changed to monetary tax payments for peasants in 1923?

Answer 5

To solve the scissor crisis - use the cash to artificially bring down the price of industrial goods

Question 6

What proportion of farms by 1927 were collectivised? What measures had been introduced in 1925 to the benefit of the richer peasants?

Answer 6

1927 - 0.6% of farms collectivised 
1925:
- Allowed to rent and lease land
- Allowed to hire labour 
- Reduced agricultural taxes for richer peasants

Question 7

How much of the harvest was still cut by hand by 1928? What was the dominant farming method?

Answer 7

50% of harvest still cut by hand in 1928. Strip farming was the dominant method.

Question 8

What was the GDP of Russia in 1928 compared to 1913? How did this compare to the rest of the world?

Answer 8

It was $900 per capita by 1928 which equalled the same level as 1913. The main other European countries and the USA had however managed to exceed their 1913 GDP levels.

Question 9

How much grain had the government secured in December 1927 compared to the year previously despite a good harvest? What were the causes of this?

Answer 9

Only 50% of December 1926 levels.
Caused by the state lowering the price they were willing to pay for the grain and the shortage of goods for farmers to buy in the towns and cities (partly caused by lowering numbers of Nepmen following harsher regulation). This gave peasants few incentives to sell grain.

Question 10

What did the State do to tempt farmers to sell their grain in 1928? Why was this ineffective?

Answer 10

They raised the price they were willing to pay for grain by 20%. However, private traders were still willing to pay peasants more than the state. The lack of industrial goods still prevailed - this meant the peasants still lacked an incentive to sell grain in the first place.

Question 11

How did the grain crisis have an impact on industrial development?

Answer 11

It meant that grain could not be sold abroad to raise foreign capital so as to fund industrialisation in the USSR. Likewise, it meant that workers suffered food shortages, which shrunk their productivity.

Question 12

What events abroad culminated to the war scare in the Soviet Union? Why did this prompt a questioning of the NEP?

Answer 12

1926:

• Germany joined the LON, meaning the USSR became even more isolated in Europe
• Marshal Pilsudski seized power in Poland in 1926. He was the person who led the Polish forces against the Red Army in the civil war and was strongly anti-Communist.

1926:

• Chinese Communists were defeated by the Kuomintang
• Britain broke off diplomatic relations with the USSR in 1927 after the MET police found incriminating evidence of the USSR working secretly to bring about a Marxist revolution.

NEP was thus questioned since it did not put the USSR in a strong enough economic position to sustain a war effort, both in terms of industrial and agricultural capacity.

Question 13

What were the fundamental aims of collectivisation?

Answer 13

• Instill socialist ideals in the peasantry
• Increase state control of the countryside
• Increase grain production and ensure provision for the cities
• Modernise the peasantry
• Show off the merits of communism
• Also helped Stalin come to power against the rightest elements of the party

Question 14

How many farmers were in collective farms by 1928? What was the target set by congress for 1933?

Answer 14

1928 - 2%

Target for 1933 was 20%

Question 15

Which enemy within would collectivisation deal with?

Answer 15

Kulaks

Question 16

How many communists were there in the peasant households/countryside?

Answer 16

Only 1 communist per 125 peasant housholds

Question 17

What was the benefit of collectivised farms in comparison to strip farms?

Answer 17

They provided economies of scale, which allowed for larger grain production and the use of more modern farming techniques

Question 18

What did the emergency measures of January 1928 mean?

Answer 18

Emergency measures meant that the state was allowed to take grain forcefully and some 100,000 party workers, factory workers and Komsomol members entered farms that summer to help with their harvest.

Question 19

What was the Urals Siberian method and when was it approved by the Central Committee?

Answer 19

The use of force to encourage peasants to produce grain surpluses. It had been used in Siberia from 1918.
Approved by the CC in November 1928

Question 20

What incentive was provided to peasants to expose Kulak families in the villages?

Answer 20

Peasants were to be given 25% of the confiscated grain if they denounced a kulak family

Question 21

What occurred in November 1929 which accelerated the collectivisation drive?

Answer 21

The Central Committee agreed to speed up the process of collectivisation and sent 25,000 more factory workers into the villages to organise them into collective farms

Question 22

What proportion of farms were collectivised between November 1929 and March 1930?

Answer 22

60%

Question 23

What was set up to make recommendations about the Kulaks? What category system did they make up to deal with kulaks? How many Kulaks were affected by these measures? What proportion of them were transported according to L. Viola?

Answer 23

A separate Politburo committee created a three tier system:

• The most dangerous Kulaks were to be imprisoned or shot
• The dangerous Kulaks were to be transported to the North or beyond the Urals
• The least dangerous Kulaks were to be given marginal land outside the collective farms

Over 1 million Kulak families affected by these measures. 1/3 of them were probably transported according to L. Viola

Question 24

Why did lots of non-Kulak families still get treated as Kulaks by collectivisation squads?

Answer 24

Since the collectivisation squads had quotas to fill but identifying Kulaks was extremely difficult in the countryside. Lots of the villagers didn’t consider the richer peasants to be Kulaks since they all worked together.

Question 25

How was peasant culture destroyed during the collectivisation process?

Answer 25

Churches were often destroyed or turned into socialist centres by the League of Militant Godless. Religious icons were burned and priests deported. Christian holidays were renamed e.g. Easter became the “Day of the Furrow”. Even some villages were provided with more socialist names e.g. “The Red Ploughman”

Question 26

What was the response to the brutal collectivisation in the countryside?

Answer 26

There was much opposition from the peasants. The committed acts of terror and murder and tried to rescue Kulak families being punished by the squads. Many ate and killed their animals rather than hand them over to the collective farms. According to L Viola, March 1930 saw “a massive peasant rebellion”

Question 27

What article did Stalin write in March 1930 in response to the opposition? What did it discuss? What was the impact of it?

Answer 27

“Dizzy with Success”
It apologised for the Collectivisation Squads who got carried away with their task. Stalin criticised the collectivisation of village livestock and closing of churches. He called for the dismissal of overzealous officials and the return of unjustly non-kulak peasants.
This led to mass de-collectivisation (only 20% collectivised by August 1930)

Question 28

When was collectivisation resumed? How many peasants were collectivised by 1931? 1937?

Answer 28

1931
1931 = 50%
1937 = 93%

Question 29

What were set up to control the collective farms? What did they do?

Answer 29

Motor Tractor Stations
They each oversaw 40 farms. They provided the seed and fertilisers to the farms. They also set the quotas for grain to be requisitioned and decided how much peasants could keep for subsistence. Likewise, they determined the size of the payment to collective farmers.

Question 30

What was the name for the showcase villages which received extra government support? Which western visitor described the Soviet harvest as “splendid” during his visit in 1934?

Answer 30

Potemkin Villages

Walter Durranty

Question 31

When did famine strike the USSR? What caused this?

Answer 31

1932-34

Caused by poor weather but exacerbated by the state’s collectivisation measures.

Question 32

How many died during the famine?

Answer 32

4-5million

Question 33

What happened to state grain procurement during 1933-35?

Answer 33

Continually increased

Question 34

What was introduced to enforce famine denial?

Answer 34

Referring to the famine became a liable punishment for arrest and imprisonment of 5 years.
Measures were taken to prevent peasants reaching the cities. For example, OGPU carried out checks on the trains.

Question 35

How many millions of horses were there in 1929 and 1933? (a trend observed by all animal numbers)

Answer 35

1929 - 34 million horses

1933 - 17 million horses

Question 36

When did animal numbers begin increasing again from their low?

Answer 36

1933

Question 37

What proportion of tractors did peasants have out of what was needed?

Answer 37

4%

Question 38

What did the model charter for collective farms agreed by a special Party Congress in 1935 prescribe?

Answer 38

Laid down rules for payment of kolkhozniks (peasants in the Kolkhoz) and for relations between the Kolkhoz and MTS. It formally legalised private plots of half a hectare or less for each kolkhoznik household and recognised the right for each of them to possess a certain number of their own animals.

Question 39

In 1928, what proportion of Russia’s labour force were self-employed farmers and craftspeople? What proportion were manual workers?

Answer 39

Self-employed farmers and craftspeople = 75%

Manual workers = 18%

Question 40

By 1939, what proportion of the work force were farmers in the Kolkhoz? What proportion were manual workers?

Answer 40

47% of work force were in the Kolkhoz

50% of the work force were manual workers