Collectivisation
Stalin's Russia
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- Created by: Rebecca_Jayne
- Created on: 13-01-14 19:05
Advantages for the Soviet Union
- Production would be more efficient
- Mechanisation
- Fewer workers needed on farms - more people to work on developing industry
- Increase in production - government could sell more overseas and provide more resources and higher living standards for urban workers
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Economic aims
Aims
- Production increase
- Larger farms increase efficiency
- More workers for developing industry
Failures
- Production decreased
- Produce prices rose
- Living standards fell
- Money fell short
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Ideological aims
Aims
- Grain would be produced for community benefit
- Capitalists would embrace socialism
Failures
- Peasants lacked revolutionary spirit
- Traditional farming techniques were still used
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Political aims
Aims
- Stop grain import
- More money to spend on industry development
Failures
- Peasants refused to co-operate
- Simplistic agricultural view
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Emergency measures
- Stalin increased government's power over economy
- Rationing was reintroduced
- State resumed grain requisitioning in 1928
- Grain hoarding could be punished (Soviet Criminal Code - Article 107)
- Poor peasants were rewarded for informing on neighbours - they were given land belonging to the kulaks
- Policies caused resentment
- Party was persuaded by Bukharin to abandon policy
- Policy was brought back as Stalin gained more power
- Government began requisitioning meat in 1929
- Article 61 from Criminal Code was revised - police were given power to send kulaks to the labour camps for up to two years as punishment for 'failure to carry out general state instructions'
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Liquidation of the kulaks
- December 1929 saw mass collectivisation
- Stalin instructed to 'liquidate the kulaks as a class'
- 'Dekulakisation' - marked the end of Capitalism and independent countryside farming
- Vastly increased collectivisation speed by 1934
- Immediate colectivisation was caused by the call to liquidate the kulaks
- Poorest peasants were appealed to to lead
- Collective farms would control local land and peasants would pool resources
- Poor peasants could use kulaks' resources and share in greater harvest
- Poor peasants were a minority
- Collectivisation was independence and financial loss
- Peasants rebelled by destroying grain and livestock
- 18 million horses and 100 million sheep and goats were destroyed
- Kulaks destroyed machinery instead of handing it to Communists
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Twenty-five-thousanders
- Stalin initiated a new policy at the start of forced collectivisation
- Communists disagreed with plans and refused to implement them
- Stalin issued a decree to get around it
- 25,000 'socially conscious' industrial workers were sent to the countryside
- 27,000 workers volunteered
- Hoped to revolutionise countryside and take part in building socialism
- Became known as the 'Twenty-five-thousanders'
- Took a two-week course and offered technical help to peasants and instruct them on use of new machinery
- Twenty-five-thousanders were really used to enforce dekulakisation
- Volunteers were expected to find and confiscate secret supplies of grain, round up and organise kulaks' exile and force remaining peasants into collective farms
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'Dizzy with Success'
- First wave of forced collectivisation caused 'untold human suffering'
- Majority of kulaks and their families were shot or exiled to Siberia
- Those who survived their journey to Siberia were imprisoned in forced labour camps run by secret police
- Many died of disease or hunger
- Stalin announced that 'Moscow does not believe in tears' and was unmoved
- Collectivisation caused chaos in agricultural economy
- Wholesale livestock slaughter, destruction of tractors and burning of crops were results of resistance to forced collectivisation
- Progress created surge of hostility towards government
- Economic and political reality forced Stalin to stop collectivisation in 1930
- Stalin defended policy in Pravda article 'Dizzy with Success'
- Claimed local officials had been 'overenthusiastic'
- Argued that target had been met and programme would be suspended
- Never admitted that it had caused problems
- By August 1930, many had gone back to their own farms
- Only a quarter of Russian farms remained collectivised
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How did Stalin's policies lead to the famine of 19
- Food was extremely scarce and a lot of it was also banned
- By confiscating grain, problems arose for the entire community because it was such a valued and important crop - if anyone was found in possession of any amount of grain, it would be seized and the person shot or exiled - this meant less farm workers
- Seized grain would be sent to cities in order to provide industrialisation resources - but the policy was in such a bad state that the grain went to waste and rotted away
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Consequences of collectivisation
Rural areas
- Many peasants were exiled or shot
- Remaining peasants endured extreme hardship
- Farms could barely cover production costs
- Received little reward
- Failed to raise production
Urban areas
- Goal was to produce more grain
- Standards of living fell
- Failed to deliver unity
- Wages fell
- No spirit amoungst kulaks and peasants
Communist Party
- Created feeling of crisis
- Party remained loyal to Stalin and he came out stronger and was viewed as heroic
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