To what extent can forced collectivisation be described as a 'success'?

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Name: Kerry Norman

Module Title: Stalin’s Russia

Module Code: HIS2045

Module Leader: Dr G Ford

Question 4

To what extent can forced collectivisation be described as a ‘success’?

Stalin proposed two economic initiatives they were the collectivisation of agriculture and a five-year plan for rapid industrialisation.  Stalin believed that the answer to the NEP crisis was collectivisation; his goal was to erase all traces of Capitalism that had entered the Soviet Union and transform it into an industrialised and completely Socialist state.  Efficient agriculture was pivotal to the Communist regime, they needed to feed the urban population, the industrial economy depended upon agriculture, the military also needed feeding, finally the grain being exported would generate the currency required in order to trade with foreign countries.

The year 1927 and industry was at maximum capacity, in the countryside there was a grain procurement crisis.  The Kulaks were accused of withholding the grain, or trying to “...sabotage the state’s industrialisation program and to undermine the dictatorship of the proletariat”.    The party were in an uncomfortable position as they did not want the peasantry to withdraw from the market, as the industrialisation programme would then be threatened.  Peasants were emphasised to join the collective farm (kolkhoz) voluntarily.

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Stalin implemented the Ural-Siberian method, “The method, sometimes called Self Taxation, involved the use of social pressure against kulaks”. This was the start of dekulakisation, this campaign was the crucial weapon in the collectivisation process.  Dekulakisation was divided into three classes; category one: kulaks were forced into labour camps or killed; category two: the kulaks were exiled; category three: the least dangerous were removed to a smaller patch.  Dekulakisation had at least three functions, ideologically, it was an attack on the enemy; politically, it provided terror in the countryside and peasants were afraid of the consequences; economically, it supplied the ...

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