Agricultural collectivisation and its impact - Stalin

Question 1

Collectivisation

Answer 1

Small farms were merged into large farms of anything between 20 and 150 families.
Ownership of farms was taken over by the state.

Question 2

Causes of collectivisation

Answer 2

Ideology: wanted to abolish capitalism by ending private ownership of farms.
Economics: allowed the government to take much more wealth from farms.
Failure of the NEP: agricultural production fell in 1927 leading to food shortages in the cities.
Political: allowed Stalin to win support from the left-wing.

Question 3

The process of collectivisation

Answer 3

Introduced in the late 1929.
Farms were forcible merged and equipment was taken from richer peasants and given to poorer peasants.

Question 4

How did peasants respond to collectivisation?

Answer 4

Many peasants responded by destroying their crops, animals and machinery.

Question 5

What did the government do to those who resisted collectivisation?

Answer 5

Executed or deported the kulaks who resisted.

Question 6

Falling production

Answer 6

Led to the destruction of:
- 17 million horses
- 26 million cattle
- 11 million pigs
- 60 million sheep and goats
Grain production also decreased from 73.3 million tons in 1928 to 68.4 tons in 1933.

Question 7

Famine

Answer 7

Collectivisation led to famine (5 million deaths) in Ukraine - collectivisation was intense.
Stalin punished Ukraine by seizing its grain and livestock.

Question 8

Modernisation

Answer 8

The government allowed farms to hire tractors from Machine Tractor Stations (MTS), which were set up across the country.
The 75,000 tractors they provided had little impact on Soviet farming.

Question 9

Grain procurement

Answer 9

Collectivisation allowed the government to procure more grain than the NEP.
1928 - 10.8 million tons procured.
1933 - 22.6 million tons procured.
Grain exports also rose from less than 1 million tons to 5 million tons.

Question 10

Slow recovery

Answer 10

Grain harvests were regularly smaller than they had been in the best years of the NEP.
Low grain harvests were a result of collective farms.
On average private farms produced around 410 kilos of grain per hectare where collective farms produced around 320 kilos per hectare.