1. Collectivisation in Russia

2. Objectives
• How to implement collectivisation
• Forced collectivisation
• Impact of collectivisation
Riots and resistance
Getting rid of people who opposed
collectivisation
Famine
• Achievement of Stalin’s aims

3. What is Collectivisation?
• Definition: Grouping of farms into a unit
(collective farm).
• Collective farm (kolkhoz): A farm whereby
farmers in a particular area would combine
their land together to form a single large
unit.

4. Stalin’s Objectives for
Collectivisation
• To increase agricultural output from large
scale mechanized farms, to bring the
peasantry under more direct political
control.
• Make food production efficient.
• Tax collection more efficient.
• Lesser farmers needed for agricultural, the
rest can work in the cities.

5. However Collectivisation was
met with…
• Resistance from the kulaks (rich land
owning farmers).
- Refusal to hand in crops
- Kulaks would rather be killed and destroy
farm produce than give them to
Communist officials

6. Stalin’s reaction to
collectivisation
• Serious measures were taken.
• The NKVD was especially harsh to the
kulaks – thousands were either killed or
sent to labour camps.

7. Impact of Collectivisation
• Riots and resistance
• Getting rid of people who opposed
collectivisation
• Famine

8. Riots and resistance
• Farmers rioted and engaged in armed
resistance.
• Stalin ordered 17 million horses used in
farming to be killed and
• Replaced by tractors.
• However, there were not enough tractors.

9. Getting rid of people who
opposed collectivisation
• Villagers who did not co-operate were sent
to the gulags (labour camps) north of the
Soviet Union and made to work on Stalin’s
ambitious construction projects.

10. Famine
• Farmers burnt their crops and grew less
food, causing severe food shortages.
• Made worse by natural disasters such as
droughts and floods.
• Worst of famines in Soviet Republic of
Ukraine in 1931.
• More than 10 million peasants and their
families died in the famine.

11. Achievement of Stalin’s aims
• Stalin had a cheap and regular supply of
crops.
• Estimated 25 million farmers were forced
to join huge collective farms.
• Five-Year Plans allowed rapid expansion
of heavy industries which are protected by
the Ural Mountains.