Stalin was convinced that the needs of Soviet Russia could only be met by modernisation.

        Collectivisation was an important stage for modernising Russia and its economy. Collectivisation is taking the land from the peasants and giving it all to the State. The peasants would no longer farm the land for their own individual profit which meant a regular and equal wage. Stalin thought that the only way to raise money was through land and so collectivisation of the Russia agriculture was the first step towards this. Moreover, this also allowed the Soviet Union to use the profits from land to finance a massive industrialisation programme.

        First of all, there were two types of farms which were collective and state farms. The plan was to group between 50 and 150 holdings in one unit because large farms would be more efficient and develop the effective use of agricultural machinery. Consequently, two vital results appeared: surplus food supplies which were to be sold abroad to raise capital for Soviet industry and a decrease in the number of rural workers needed and so a release for the new factories.

        Secondly, the Kulaks played a very important role as collectivisation was forced on them and they were a very reluctant peasantry. Stalin identified a class of Kulaks who were holding back the workers revolution by monopolising the best land and employing cheap peasant labour. By hoarding, they kept food prices high thus making themselves rich at the expense of other people so this group had to be broken because they were preventing modernisation. However, this was a Bolshevik definition of the Kulaks as they were really a hard-working group of peasants who had proved more efficient that others. In no sense they were like the people Stalin described. Nevertheless, because of Russian History, this term “kulak” was a powerful notion and provided the grounds for the coercion of the peasantry as a whole.