Collectivisation

• Collectivisation


  Moving agriculture to large farms where peasants worked together to meet quotas
• Types of collective farms


  • Kolkhoz
  • Sovkhoz
  • Toz
• Kolkhoz


  Most common type of collective farm where 50-100 households farmed land as one unit
• Sovkhoz


  State run collective farms where workers received a wage
• Toz


  Sometimes voluntary, peasants owned their own land but shared machinery
• Kulak


  A wealthy/ successful peasant
• The scissors crisis of 1928-9 highlighted the ability of peasantry to disrupt food supply to towns and cities
• The peasantry was seen as backward and out of control of Communists
• Stalin's methods for collectivisation


  • Enlisted an army of 25,000 urban party activists
  • Used OGPU and the military to suppress resistance
• Methods used for collectivisation


  1. Force - Villages 'persuaded' to sign up

  2. Terror - Kulaks rounded up, shot, imprisoned or deported

  3. Propaganda - Anti-kulak and promoting collectives
• Grain output did not achieve pre-collectivisation levels until 1935
• Livestock took until 1953 to reach pre-collectivisation levels
• Factors that impacted agricultural output


  • Sabotage by peasants
  • Too few tractors and animals
  • Collectives were poorly organised
  • Party activists had poor farming knowledge
  • Many best farmers killed during dekulakisation
• Pace of collectivisation


  1. 58% of peasant households by March 1930, reduced to 20% by October

  2. 70% of households by 1934

  3. 100% by 1941
• Economic successes of collectivisation


  • Allowed government to procure much more grain than the NEP
  • Grain procurements rose from 10.8 million tonnes in 1928 to 22.6 million tonnes in 1933
  • Grain exports rose from less than 1 million tonnes to 5 million tonnes from 1928 to 1931
• Economic failures of collectivisation


  • Soviet agriculture recovered slowly from disruption
  • Grain harvests regularly smaller than best NEP years
  • Collective farms less productive than private farms
• Political benefits of collectivisation for Stalin


  • Gained control over the countryside
  • Party didn't have to bargain with peasants anymore
  • Established system of controlling countryside and making agriculture serve towns and workers
• Peasant resistance to collectivisation


  • Riots and armed resistance
  • Sabotage - burned crops, tools, slaughtered animals
  • Women's revolts
  • Flight - 19 million peasants migrated to towns by 1939
• In 1929-1930 alone about 15% of peasant households were destroyed
• An estimated 10 million peasants died as a result of resistance or effects of deportation
• Despite poor harvests in 1931 and 1932, state procured more than double 1928 levels of grain and continued to export
• There was a drought in 1931
• Some have claimed Stalin/Communists deliberately caused the famine to punish areas of resistance like Ukraine
• Robert Conquest has estimated that as many as 7 million died as result of the famine
• Five Year Plans


  A government initiative designed to increase industrial production
• Organisation of the Five Year Plans


  • Gosplan formulated production targets
  • Soviet workers and managers responsible for meeting targets
• Gosplan


  The State General Planning commission from 1921
• Stakhanovite


  A committed worker – named after Anton Stakhanov
• Wrecking


  Acts perceived as economic or industrial sabotage
• Aims of the 1st Five Year Plan 1928-32

  • Develop heavy industry
  • Boost electricity production
  • Double output for light industry
• Aims of the 2nd Five Year Plan 1933-37


  • Continue growth of heavy industry
  • Boost light industry: chemicals, electricals and consumer goods
  • Develop communications
• Aims of the 3rd Five Year Plan 1938-41


  • Renewed emphasis on heavy industry
  • Promote rapid rearmament
  • Complete transition to communism
• Successes of the Five Year Plans


  • Electricity output trebled
  • Coal & Iron doubled
  • Huge industrial complexes built
  • Engineering industry developed & increased output of machine tools
• Weaknesses of the Five Year Plans


  • Little growth in consumer industries such as house-building
  • Chemical targets not fulfilled
  • Lack of skilled workers created major problems
• Further successes of the Five Year Plans


  • Heavy industries benefitted from plants set up in 1st 5YP
  • USSR virtually self-sufficient in machine making and metal working by 1937
  • Minerals such as copper, zinc and tin mined for the first time
• Further weaknesses of the Five Year Plans


  • Consumer goods industries still lagging
  • Food processing growth insufficient
  • Oil production did not make expected advances
• Successes of the 3rd Five Year Plan


  • Heavy industry continued to grow, although unevenly
  • Defence and armaments grew rapidly as resources diverted to them
• Weaknesses of the 3rd Five Year Plan


  • Steel output grew insignificantly
  • Poor oil production led to fuel crisis
  • Many factories ran short of materials
  • Consumer goods once again took a back seat
• Dnieprostroi Dam


  • A large hydro-electric power station opened in Oct 1932
  • Generating 560MW, it was one of the largest powerplants in the world
• The Turksib Railway


  • Connected Central Asia with Siberia from 1931
  • Facilitated the transport of cotton and grain
  • Took nearly 50,000 workers