Transcript What was collectivisation and how did it work?

1. How, according to Sources 1 and 3, are
the Communists defining the idea of
‘building socialism’?
• Source 1 defines ‘building socialism’ as
‘industrialisation and economic modernisation’,
achieved by building factories and towns.
• Source 3 describes how Communists saw building
socialism as ‘rapid industrialisation and forcible
collectivisation of peasant agriculture’.
2. Using Sources 2 and 4, find at least three
reasons why Stalin wanted to transform
Soviet society.
• Didn’t want Russia to be ‘beaten’ by other
countries
• Wanted to reform Russia into a modern
country by improving military, culture, politics,
industry and agriculture.
• Modernisation of countryside
• Wanted to compete with capitalism
Study the pictorial Sources 5-8. Explain, referring to the
detail in the source, what message each is conveying
about the way Soviet society is going to change.
• Modernisation through
mechanisation – tractor
represents the future of
farming
• Modernisation through
education – peasants are
being educated in latest
farming methods
Study the pictorial Sources 5-8. Explain, referring to the
detail in the source, what message each is conveying
about the way Soviet society is going to change.
•Society will
become more
efficient and
productive
through better
planning and
organisation
Study the pictorial Sources 5-8. Explain, referring to the
detail in the source, what message each is conveying
about the way Soviet society is going to change.
•Society will
industrialise
through the
efforts of all
workers
Study the pictorial Sources 5-8. Explain, referring to the
detail in the source, what message each is conveying
about the way Soviet society is going to change.
•Society will
become more
equal – all
will work to
build
socialism
1. Fill in the table below to show how different sections
of society reacted to the problem of grain procurement:
Bureaucrat
Government
Official
Peasant
Why is more
grain needed
and why isn’t it
reaching the
markets?
More grain is needed in order to export abroad to make
foreign currency which is used to pay for foreign
technology and machines in order to industrialise.
How would you
persuade more
peasants to get
more grain to
market?
Use propaganda to persuade peasants to sell more grain
How and why
would you avoid
sending more
grain to the
markets?
Hide grain, feed grain to animals and then sell them, sell
on black market
Grain isn’t reaching markets because: a) farming is
inefficient and doesn’t produce enough b) the revolution
destroyed old, efficient farms c) peasants are holding
onto grain
Raise the price of grain at market?
Threaten/force peasants to sell more grain?
Why? Government doesn’t pay as high enough for grain,
if we hold onto grain, they will be forced to raise price
2.Decide which policy you think is the better one for Stalin to follow. Give
your reasons for choosing that policy and identify three criticisms you
could make of the other policy.
Policy 1 – Carry on with the NEP
Policy 2 – Rapid
industrialisation
• Increasing the price of grain will
encourage peasants to sell food • Rapid industrialisation is
to government. This will give
needed to defend Russia.
peasants more money to spend
Forced industrialisation is
on better equipment like
quick and collectives means
tractors to produce even more
we can monitor peasants
food.
better.
• Using force will anger peasants • NEP allows peasants to
who might hid more grain.
remain as landowners – not
communism!
• Collectivisation provides no
incentive for peasants to work
• Russia is too backward – it
hard
will take to long to
industrialise unless
• Poor peasants means inefficient
something is done soon
farming
• Russia doesn’t have time to
industrialise naturally – too
many enemies!
4. Reasons for the Great Turn
1. Increase military strength – factories were needed for this
2. Achieve self-sufficiency – resulting in long-term security
for communism in a hostile world
3. Increase grain supplies – necessary to pay for
industrialisation
4. Achieving Socialism – rapid industrialisation and
collectivisation will help socialise people into good
communists
5. Establish his credentials – his credibility as leader rested
on his promise to ‘build socialism in one country’. Stalin
needed the modernise Russia in order to secure his own
hold on power.
6. Standards of Living – this needed to improve in order to
improve for Stalin to gain support amongst people, and to
help spread communism abroad
What was collectivisation and
how did it work?
L/O – To identify the key features of
collectivisation
The following sources are
examples of propaganda
published to persuade peasants of
the advantages of collectivisation.
Consider what messages each
source contains about why the
Communists thought
collectivisation was a good thing.
Source A – A mechanised harvester at work
Source B – Outdoor Nursery on a collective
farm
Source C – A literacy class on a collective
farm
Source D – The slogan reads, ‘Come and join
our kolkhoz, comrade!’
Why Collectivise?
• At the 15th Party Congress in December 1927,
Stalin announced the First Five-Year Plan
which called for rapid industrialisation and he
announced that a programme of
collectivisation would be enforced in farming.
• In mid-1929, less than 5% of peasants were on
collective farms but in January 1930, Stalin
announced that around 25% would be
collectivised by the end of the year.
• Some were horrified by the rapid pace of
forced collectivisation which would result in a
famine in which millions died.
What was a collective farm?
• Three main types of collective farm:
1. The toz, where peasants owned their land but shared
machinery and co-operated in activities like sowing and
harvesting. Common before 1930.
2. The sovkhoz, which was owned and run by the state. The
peasants on this state farm were paid a regular wage, very
much like factory workers.
3. The kolkhoz, where all land was held in common and run
by an elected committee. 50-100 households were put
together. All land, tools and livestock was shared. All
farmed the land as one unit but families were allowed to
keep on acre of land to grow vegetables and keep an
animal.
Why was collectivisation the solution?
1. More efficient farming through the use of mechanisation,
supplied by the machine and tractor stations (MTS).
Experts could help educate peasants to use metal ploughs
and chemical fertilisers. Result would be increased food
production.
2. Mechanised farming would require less workers thereby
releasing workers for new factories.
3. Easier for government to procure grain as fewer collection
points and each farm would have Communist Party
members to record production.
4. The peasantry would be ‘socialised’. You could not build a
socialist state when the majority of the population were
private landholders who sold their produce for profit.
Why was it carried out
so rapidly?
• Read the worksheet and answer
the questions attached to work out
why Stalin carried out
collectivisation so rapidly.
• Remember that it is difficult to
explain the actions of politicians as
they have to cope with a range of
interrelated issues at any given
time.
• The table on the right highlights
the various political and economic
pressures Stalin was under.
• Trying to push forward
rapid industrialisation plans
on which his credibility as
leader was staked.
• Dealing with the problem of
feeding workers, his natural
supporters.
• Engaged in a power struggle
to become leader of the
party
• Fighting a political battle
with Bukharin and the right
about the pace of
industrialisation and how
they should handle the
peasants
• Thinking about a long-term
solution to allow the
development of agriculture.
• Had enough of peasants?
How was it carried out?
• Force, terror and propaganda were the
main methods employed in carrying
through collectivisation. Stalin used the
ideological weapon of ‘class enemy’ as
the mechanism to achieve his ends.
• The enemy in the countryside – the Kulak!
• In December 1929, he announced the
‘liquidation of the kulaks as a class’.
Molotov said they would hit the kulaks so
hard that the so-called ‘middle peasants’
would ‘snap to attention before us’.
How was it carried out?
• The aim of identifying the kulak as a class
enemy was to frighten the middle and
poor peasants into joining the kolkhozes.
• Villagers were often unwilling to identify
kulaks, many of whom were relatives or
friends.
• Kulaks were part of a village community
in which the ties to fellow peasants were
much stronger than those to the
Communist state. Poor peasants often
wrote letters in defence of ‘kulaks’.
How was it carried out?
• Many local party officials opposed forced
collectivisation, believing it was
unworkable. They were unwilling to
identify good farmers as kulaks. They also
knew it would tear the countryside apart.
• So Stalin enlisted an army of 25,000 urban
party activists to help revolutionise the
countryside.
• After a two-week course, they were sent
out in brigades to oversee collectivisation,
backed by local police, the OGPU/NKVD
and the military.
How was it carried out?
• Their task was to root out the kulaks
and persuade the middle and poor
peasants to sign a register demanding
to be collectivised.
• The land, animals, tools, equipment
and buildings would be taken from the
kulaks and used as a basis for the new
collective farm.
• The ‘Twenty-five Thousanders’ had no
real knowledge of how to organise or
run a collective farm, but they did
know how to wage class warfare.
How was it carried out?
• ‘Dekulakisation’ went ahead at full speed.
• Each region was given a quota of kulaks to
find and they found them whether they
existed or not.
• Kulaks were divided into 3 categories:
• Counter-revolutionaries who were to be shot
or sent to the Gulag
• Active opponents of collectivisation, who were
deported to other areas of the USSR
• Those expelled from farms and settled on
poor land
How was it carried out?
• A decree of 1st February 1930 gave
local party organisations the power to
use ‘necessary measures’ against the
kulaks.
• Whole families and whole villages were
rounded up and deported. People were
shot and their families deported.
• Up to 10 million people had been
deported to Siberia or labour camps by
the end of the collectivisation process.
How was it carried out?
• Communists also mounted huge
propaganda campaigns to extol the
advantages of collective farms and
to inflame class hatred.
• This was effective as some poorer
peasants did denounce their
neighbours as kulaks – often as
revenge for past grievances.
• Children was also encouraged to
inform on their neighbours. One 13year-old girl even denounced her
mother for stealing grain.
Peasant Resistance
• Peasants resisted collectivisation
bitterly despite the mass deportations.
There were riots and armed resistance.
• One riot lasted for 5 days and
armoured cars had to be brought in to
restore order. Peasants burned crops,
tools and houses rather than hand
them over to the state.
• Raids were mounted to recapture
animals that had already been taken
into the collective.
Peasant Resistance
• Women often played the most
advanced role in the reaction against
the collective farm.
• Women’s protests were carefully
organised, with specific goals such as
stopping grain requisitioning or
retrieving collectivised horses.
• The government found their tactics
difficult as troops were unwilling to
take action against women.
Peasant Resistance
• Another form of resistance was to slaughter animals and eat
or sell the meat rather than hand over the beasts to the
kolkhoz:
‘Kill, it’s not ours any more… Kill, they’ll take it for meat
anyway… Kill, you won’t get meat on the collective farm…
And they killed. They ate until they could eat no more.
Young and old suffered from stomach ache. At dinner-time
tables groaned under boiled and roasted meat. At dinnertime every one had a greasy mouth… everyone blinked like
an owl, as if drunk from eating.’
Mikhail Sholokhov, Virgin Soil Upturned (1935)
Summary Questions
2.
3.
6.
7.
1. What were the 3 types of collective farm?
Why was collectivisation seen as the solution to the
agricultural problems in Russia?
Why did Stalin carry out collectivisation so rapidly?
4. Who were kulaks?
5. Who were the ‘Twenty-Five Thousanders’?
What methods were used to ‘liquidate the kulaks’?
How and why did peasants resist collectivisation?
Did we meet our learning objective?
L/O – To identify the key features of
collectivisation