Collectivisation

By 1928 the peasants were refusing to supply grain in the quantities necessary to feed the towns because they could not buy goods in exchange.

Stalin sent out requisitioning squads in a return to the practices of War Communism. This made the problem worse and effectively ending the NEP. He did this because:

• he saw the peasantry as an opposition group; they had never joined the Communist Party in large numbers
• he blamed profiteering by peasants for their refusal to supply grain, specifically the Kulaks (prosperous peasants)
• he needed to confiscate capital to pay for industrial change and the beginning of the Five-Year Plan

He wanted to:

• destroy private agriculture, forcibly establish collective farms and reduce peasants to tied agricultural workers
• destroy the Kulaks as a class

By taking over all agriculture he thought he would be able to run it more efficiently, supply grain to the towns more steadily and export grain in exchange for agricultural machinery. The government would dominate the countryside as never before.

This policy was unplanned, ill-informed and carried out in a confused way. In January 1930 the Central Committee said collectivisation had to be completed in major grain-producing areas by autumn 1930 or spring 1931. In other areas the deadline was autumn 1931 or spring 1932 at the latest.

Results of Collectivisation

There was a myth of popular enthusiasm for the policy. In fact, it met resentment and even armed opposition.

• Collectivisation was carried out forcibly: village buildings were destroyed and Kulaks arrested.
• The chaos was so great that, in March 1930, Stalin had to call a temporary halt. This meant that the proportion of the peasantry in the new collective farms fell by 60 per cent in three months. The process was restarted after the harvest.
• Peasants destroyed livestock, produce and tools rather than surrender them to the state.
• Extensive grain procurements and a reduction in production led to famine in the Ukraine and North Caucasus in 1933. As many as 10 million people may have died.
• Party control over the countryside was established and private ownership destroyed. Internal passports were reintroduced in 1932.
• Land was nationalised and production targets and delivery quotas set by the state. Never again would the peasantry hold the state to ransom.
• From 1935 private plots of land were allowed. By 1937 these produced 50 per cent to 70 per cent of marketable vegetables, fruit, meat and milk.