why

• Goals of Collectivization

  • Reliable Grain Supply
  • Socialized Countryside
  • Labor Release
  • State Versus Peasant
  • Rapid Implementation
• Reliable Grain Supply

  Ensured a steady and affordable supply of grain
• Socialized Countryside

  Replaced small-scale ownership with large, collective farms and agricultural factories, ending centuries-old habits seen as barriers to socialism
• Labor Release

  Freed up labor for work in new factory towns
• State Versus Peasant

  By 1928, only 1% of arable land was voluntarily collectivized, so coercion was necessary. It was either the peasant or the state in the face of "capitalist encirclement."
• Rapid Implementation

  In January 1930, Stalin aimed to collectivize 25% of grain-producing areas by year's end. By mid-1929, less than 5% of peasants were on collective or state farms.
• Types of Collective Farms

  • Toz
  • Sovkhoz
  • Kolkhoz
• Toz

  Peasants owned their land but shared machinery and cooperated on activities like sowing and harvesting
• Sovkhoz


  State-owned and operated; peasants received wages like factory workers
• Kolkhoz

  All land held in common, managed by an elected committee; grouped 50-100 households into one larger unit
• Efficiency and Mechanization

  • Large farms were expected to be more efficient and use agricultural machinery effectively
  • Before the Great Turn, traditional farming methods prevailed, such as using over 5 million wooden ploughs in 1927
  • Collectivization brought the introduction of motorized tractors, symbolizing Soviet farming's mechanization
• In 1928-29, the state struggled to procure grain despite a good harvest in 1929
• Stalin blamed the grain procurement crisis

  On the (largely imagined) kulak class for hoarding grain
• De-Kulakization


  Stalin argued that kulaks monopolized land and exploited labor, holding back the workers' revolution. In December 1929, the Soviet policy officially became the liquidation of the kulak class.