Robert Bentham
11.1R
How Much Benefit was Stalin’s Collectivisation Policy to Russia?
Stalin’s collectivisation policy was designed to help out Russia’s economic situation. Stalin needed to increase his grain production for exports so as to increase vital currency influx, so that Stalin could set about his modernisation of industry. He set about with an agricultural policy to set up collective farms where a fixed percentage of produce would have to be handed over to the government. He also wanted to get rid of the Kulaks who would be very much against this idea.
Before Stalin Lenin had introduced the NEP, where farms were kept private and a fixed amount of produce had to be given to the government and any surplus produced was kept by the peasants. This encouraged the farmers to work harder so as to have more for themselves. However with Russia’s ever increasing population farmland had to be divided giving smaller and smaller farms. This is why Stalin chose to set up collective farms. The NEP was a success, and the grain production did increase, but did not reach total recovery from before the revolutions and war, it maintained a steady input though.
