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‘The Collectivization of Agriculture’ - Coggle Diagram
‘The Collectivization of Agriculture’
Collectivization was adopted for 2 reasons : 1) to bring the peasants under control and 2) to raise capital.
1) The USSR needed industrial investment and manpower, 2) The land could provide both, 3) Surplus grain would be sold abroad to raise investment funds for industry and 4) Surplus peasants would become factory workers.
The State would own the land and the farmers would no longer farm the land for their own individual profit.
THE KULAKS
The Kulaks were holding back the workers' revolution by hoarding their produce and keeping food prices high, and that increased their wealth.
They had to be broken up, thus 'de-Kulakization' became a state-enforced campaign. The Kulaks did not constitute in exploiting landowners described in Stalinist propaganda.
DE-KULAKIZATION
Land and property were seized from the minority of better-off peasants, and they and their families were physically attacked.
Such treatment was often the prelude to arrest and deportation by OGPU anti-Kulak squads.
The destruction of the Kulaks was an integral part of whole collectivization process.
RESISTANCE TO COLLECTIVIZATION
Between December 1929 and Marc 1930, nearly a quarter of the peasants farms in the USSR were collectivized.
During 1929-30, there were 30,000 arson attacks, and the number of organized rural mass disturbances increased from 172 to 229.
By the end of the 1930s, virtually the whole of the peasants had been collectivized.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF COLLECTIVIZATION
Collectivization created a massive social upheaval. The peasants became disorientated by the deliberate destruction of their traditional way of life. There was no crop left to reap or animals to rear.
Starvation, which in many parts of the USSR persisted throughout the 1930s, was at its worst in the years 1932-33, when a national famine occurred. 6 to 8 million people died.
Desperate peasants moved to towns in huge numbers. Internal passports had to introduced in an effort to control the flow.
There were only two oblique references to the tragedy that had overtaken the USSR. The conspiracy of silence protected the image of Stalin and it prevented the introduction of measures to ease the distress.
The enforced migration relieved the pressure on the land and provided the workforce that enabled the industrialization programme to be started.
PEASANTS TO PROLETARIAT
Many of the peasants that had no passports, moved and seeked work illegally. Children were often abandoned (their parents were sent to the gulags and they were abandoned by parents who could not feed them)..
Between 1934 and 1935, more than 840,000 homeless children were brought to the 'reception centers' and then sent to orphanages or the camps.
In December 1934 Stalin passed a law stating that children over 12 could be treated as criminals and subject to the same punishments as adults.