Soviet Collectivization

Soviet Collectivization is a policy that was pursued by the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin to centralize land ownership under collective farms.

Fast Facts:

1. Began as a voluntary process in 1927
2. Changed to a compulsory process in 1929
3. Collective farm: Kolkhoz
4. State farm: Sovkhoz
5. Considered a cause of the famine in the Ukraine in 1932

Obshchina

Russia had a feudal economy prior to 1861, in which serfs farmed land for aristocratic landowners. This feudal system was replaced by obshchina, or peasant communities, that controlled the common land. The obschina were also responsible for distributing individual parcels of land to peasants based on factors such as family size.

Stolypin Reforms

Peter Stolypin, prime minister under Tsar Nicholas II, instituted a series of land reforms between 1906 and 1914. He eliminated the obshchina system, replacing it with an opportunity for peasants to develop larger individual farms and generate a profit. The new system created an upper class of peasants called kulaks. By 1912, the kulaks represented 16% of Russian farmers.

Bolsheviks

Lenin helped rally the peasants to the Bolshevik cause in 1917 by promising "Peace, Bread, and Land". His government, however, was never able to fulfill their promise of land redistribution. Additionally, during the civil war that followed the revolution, the government required the peasants to sell their crops to the government at a fixed price. After the war, a food tax was instituted. It became very difficult for the peasants to make a profit from their crops. Tensions between the government and the farmers increased during the famine of 1921.

Stalin

The inefficiencies of the system resulted in the peasants consuming their own crops rather than selling them. This resulted in food shortages in the cities and towns. Stalin first tried voluntary collectivization, then confiscation of crops and ultimately took control of the farms, forcing collectivization on the country with the goal of industrializing large scale agricultural production. The kulaks resisted, burning their crops and slaughtering their farm animals so that the government couldn't take them. The chaos that ensued resulted in the elimination of the kulaks and is viewed as a contributing factor to the great famine of 1932 in the Ukraine.

Quotes

"Agriculture is developing slowly, comrades. This is because we have about 25 million individually owned farms. They are the most primitive and undeveloped form of economy We must do our utmost to develop large farms and to convert them into grain factories for the country organized on a modern scientific basis."—Joseph Stalin ¹

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