Collectivisation

Under collectivisation peasants were forced to work to government targets and share resources. Any profits after state demands were met were shared equally among members of the kolkhoz.

Initial problems with collectivisation

Both richer and poorer peasants resented the government interference in their lives. It was not only kulaks who opposed the change.
Peasants frequently destroyed their crops to avoid handing it over to the communists.

Collectivisation paused

Because of this, collectivisation was paused in 1930.
Stalin accused party officials of being overzealous (too forceful) in their attempts to force peasants to give up their produce (even though they were just following orders). This slowed down the collectivisation campaign.

Starvation

By 1933, at the end of the campaign, a famine led to 2.3 million deaths in Kazakhstan.
- 5.7 million died across the whole country during the collectivisation years.
Yet the Communist Party now controlled the countryside.

Oppression

Ukraine was a nation with rich farmland that was part of the Soviet Union. Lots of Ukrainians refused to join collective farms.
The people who resisted were brutally oppressed. Stalin wanted to smash Ukrainian nationalism and culture.

The Successes and Failures of Collectivisation

Though collectivisation led to widespread famine and oppression, Stalin saw some successes.

Successes

Stalin saw the policy as a political success because it meant he was now in control of the countryside.
Each Machine Tractor Station had a secret police officer to control the area.
Grain which could be sold abroad was used to pay for the Five-Year Plans, which Stalin sold as an economic success.

Failures

Overall yields saw no significant increases during collectivisation, and only small amounts of grain could be sold overseas.
Russia’s agricultural technology did not improve, the policy was hugely unpopular, and resulted in a huge loss of life.
Food supplies to the cities remained poor because of the chaos in the countryside.

Holodomor

The starvation which happened in the Ukraine was known as ‘Holodomor’. This means ‘extermination by hunger’.
Stalin refused foreign assistance, and denied that the famine existed.
Some historians have suggested that the death toll was as high as 3.3 million people. By June 1933, 28,000 people were dying each day.

1The End of Tsardom

1.1Russia's Economy & Society

1.1.1Industrialisation

1.1.2Living & Working Conditions

1.2Nicholas II's Autocracy & the Court

1.2.1Growth of Revolutionary Opposition

1.2.2The 1905 Revolution & the October Manifesto

1.2.3Reforming Russia Before 1914 - Stolypin

1.2.4The Duma & Political Stalemate

1.3The First World War

1.3.1The Impact of Military Defeats

1.3.2Social & Economic Effects of WW1

1.3.3Romanov Unpopularity

1.3.4The Tsar's Abdication

1.3.5Top Grade AO2/3 - The End of Tsardom

2Lenin's New Society

2.1The Provisional Government

2.1.1The Failure of the Government

2.1.2Social & Economic Problems

2.1.3Lenin & Trotsky

2.1.4The Growth of the Bolsheviks

2.1.5The October / November Revolution

2.1.6Top Grade AO2/3 - The Provisional Government

2.2The Impact of Lenin's Dictatorship

2.2.1The End of the First World War

2.2.2The Cheka

2.2.3Red Terror & Centralisation

2.2.4The Civil War & The Red Army

2.2.5Propaganda

2.2.6Top Grade AO2/3 - Early Bolshevism & the Civil War

2.3Social & Economic Developments

2.3.1War Communism

2.3.2The Kronstadt Rising

2.3.3The New Economic Policy (NEP)

2.3.4The Achievements of Lenin & Trotsky

2.3.5Top Grade AO2/3 - Social & Economic Developments

3Stalin's USSR

3.1Stalin the Dictator

3.1.1The Power Struggle to Succeed Lenin

3.1.2The Communist Party & Government

3.1.3The Terror & the Purges

3.1.4The Secret Police

3.1.5Cult of Personality

3.1.6Propaganda & Censorship under Stalin

3.1.7Top Grade AO2/3 - Stalin's Dictatorship

3.2Stalin's Modernisation of the USSR

3.2.1Collectivisation

3.2.2Five Year Plans

3.2.3Social & Economic Consequences

3.2.4Social & Economic Consequences 2

3.2.5The Extent of Modernisation

3.3Impact of the Second World War

3.3.1Stalin's Wartime Leadership

3.3.2Political, Economic & Social Consequences of War

3.3.3Top Grade AO2/3 - Modernisation of the USSR

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