RUSSIA Agriculture Flashcards
Why did Soviet agriculture need to be far more efficient and productive?
To support industrialisation
How would the improvement of agriculture help the industrialisation of the Soviet Union?
Food surpluses needed for growing population and foreign exchange; mechanisation of agriculture would provide labour for the new industrial centres
What was the political case for collectivisation?
Would help extend socialism to countryside
Since when had support for the Party in the countryside been declining?
Tambov Rising 1921
How much of farmland was collectivised by 1925?
Less than 1%
Kulaks
Richer peasants who seemed to benefit from the NEP; started to be applied to any peasant who refused to join the collectives
What appealing opportunity did collectivisation provide for the Party?
To get rid of the kulaks
When did arguments in the Party over agricultural production come to a head?
1928
When did the Party decide on a programme of voluntary collectivisation?
Fifteenth Party Congress December 1927
When was forced requisitioning of grain carried out as a temporary emergency measure due to food shortages?
1928
‘Ural-Siberian’ method
Forced requisitioning of grain as a temporary emergency measure; used increasingly as the pace of collectivisation accelerated
Russian name for a collective farm
Kolkhoz
Machine and Tractor Stations (MTS)
Government-run centres that supplied farm machinery to the collectives; provided advice on farming techniques and political lectures
What happened once enough peasants had signed up to join the collectives?
Collective could seize animals, grain supplies and buildings in the village as its property
What happened to the kulaks once they had been classed as ‘class enemies’?
Deported to Siberia and the Urals
Which areas of Russia in particular protested violently about the implementation of collectivisation?
Ukraine; Caucasus region
What did many kulaks do rather than hand over their property to the state?
Set fire to their farms; slaughtered their animals
Dekulakisation squads
Sent into the countryside to force the peasants into collectives, eliminating the kulaks in practice
Which organisation was also used to round up the kulaks and other refusers, deporting them to remote regions of the USSR, often labour camps?
OGPU
Which organisation was used occasionally to deal with extreme opposition to collectivisation?
Red Army- some troublesome villages were bombed out of existence
What did the peasant opposition to collectivisation result in temporarily?
A backing down by Stalin, who in March 1930 issued his article, ‘Dizzy with Success’, blaming overzealous local Party officials for ‘excesses’
How long did Stalin’s slowdown in the process of collectivisation last?
Only long enough to ensure that the peasants sowed the new year’s crop
What concessions were offered to the peasantry?
Members of the collectives were allowed to have some animals and a small garden plot for their own use
How many peasant households had been collectivised by 1932?
62%
How many peasant households had been collectivised by 1937?
93%
Up until when where many collectives without tractors?
Mid-1930s
Why was the removal of the kulaks so damaging?
Often the most productive farmers
How was the number of cattle affected between 1928-33?
Halved; wasn’t fully recovered until 1953- shortage of meat/milk
How much did grain production fall under collectivisation?
From 73.3 million tonnes in 1928 to 67.6 million in 1934
When did widespread famine occur as a result of collectivisation?
1932-33
Which areas did the famine particularly affect?
Ukraine; Kazakhstan; Caucasus region
How did the government prevent the peasants from leaving the countryside in search of food?
Introduced a passport system
When had the peasants supposedly been liberated from serfdom?
1861
How many famine-related deaths were there in 1933?
4 million
When did a slow recovery in agriculture begin after collectivisation?
After a relatively good harvest in 1933, but grain production rose very sluggishly
What helped the 1937 harvest?
Good weather; fall in demand for animal fodder meant more grain could be used for human consumption
What was agricultural recovery hampered by?
Continual government interference and hare-brained schemes
Who was giving the orders to the collectives?
Party officials in Moscow- took little account of conditions on the ground
How many people were estimated to have been kulaks in 1928?
About 15 million
What do historians’ estimates of the number of deaths caused by collectivisation vary between?
5-10 million
Holodomor
Murder by starvation- it’s applied to Stalin’s actions against Ukraine during the process of enforced collectivisation
Which region bore the brunt of the food shortage?
Ukraine- chief grain-growing region of the country
Why do historians today believe that Ukraine suffered the worst of the famine?
Ukrainian nationalism had been a worry to the Soviet government in the civil war
Which nomadic group was forced into the collectives against their will?
Kazakhs
When was the mir abolished and what was it replaced by?
1930; kolkhoz administration- headed by a Party member
How was Party control extended?
By the use of teenagers in Communist youth organisations
When did the German invasion of the USSR begin?
22 June 1941
What proved to be effective in mobilising the resources of the Soviet Union for WW2?
Centralisation of the economy
What was set up at a local level to co-ordinate war production?
Defence Committees
What was a children’s bicycle factory converted to in Moscow during WW2?
Flame-thrower factory
Where were whole factories evacuated to during WW2?
Safer areas of the USSR in the east, away from the invading Germans
What happened to industry in the immediate aftermath of the German invasion?
Initial collapse in industrial output- after 1941, Soviet production rose impressively, if unevenly
How many tanks and aircraft were were produced between 1943-45?
Over 73,000 tanks; 94,000 aircraft
What is an example of a product the Russian economy found beyond its capability during WW2?
Tinned meat was imported from Britain under the Lend-Lease scheme, whereby supplies were provided with payment deferred
What was the production of consumer goods like during WW2?
Virtually non-existent
By the end of the war, what had Nazi-occupied areas done to the country’s overall production?
Steel production had fallen to 12 million tonnes in 1945 compared with 18 million tonnes produced in 1940; oil production was less than 2/3; wool production less than 1/2 of that produced in 1940