Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union: Rapid Modernization at a Cost

...

The collectivization of agriculture was the second aim of Stalin’s domestic policies. Collectivization was introduced as one of the features of the first Five Year Plan. Collectivization involved two main features: the liquidation of the Kulaks as a social class within the Soviet Union and a complete overhaul of the previous system of agricultural production in order to create more efficient, modernized farming. Prior to the implementation of the collectivization plans, agriculture in the Soviet Union was still backwards and inefficient, much like industrial production was as well. The Kulaks were wealthier peasants within the USSR that had prospered under Lenin’s New Economic Policy, which came to power in 1921 and allowed peasants to sell some of their grain for profit. Stalin overturned the New Economic Policy in 1928. He viewed the Kulak class as a threat to the Soviet Union’s communist values. During the purge, approximately five million Kulaks were exiled, generally to Central Asia or Siberia[14]. Approximately twenty-five percent died before they reached their final destination, through starvation, extreme conditions, or execution[15]. After this, the Kulak class became virtually nonexistent within the USSR. The second aim of collectivization was to procure all of the grain and agricultural product within the USSR and sell it for profit abroad in order to fund the industrialization plans and feed the workers in booming urban regions. Individual farms would join together with neighbouring ones in order to form larger, state collective farms that would share materials in order to produce higher yields. Whatever output was produced would be taken by the state. Stalin believed that this method of agriculture would significantly increase grain reserves for workers in the cities[16]. Through this program as well, Stalin expected peasants from the countryside to move to the cities and industrial centres to join the working class and help the industrialization effort[17]. Despite enormous setbacks and societal costs, the collectivization of agriculture had some remarkable accomplishments that fulfilled Stalin’s expectations of his plan. As part of the first Five Year Plan, twenty-five percent of farms across the Soviet Union were to be collectivized; however, by 1936, 89.6% of all farms were collectivized[18]. According to Stalin in his report delivered on the results of the first Five Year Plan, he states, “The Party has succeeded in the course of some three years in organising more than 200,000 collective farms and about 5,000 state farms devoted to grain growing and livestock raising, and at the same time it has succeeded during four years in expanding the crop area by 21,000,000 hectares.”[19] Between 1926 and 1939, the industrial working class grew from 11.2 million to 31.4 million, with a growth rate of nine percent per year[20]. At the end of 1929, 13.5 million tonnes of grain had been collected[21]. Between 1928 and 1932, grain stocks for internal use increased from 8.4 million tonnes to 16.3 million tonnes[22]. As a benefit of industrialization as well, more farms were equipped with tractors and modern farming technology, which helped modernize agriculture and increase efficiency. By the end of 1939, there were 531,000 tractors for use on collective farms. Stalin’s aims for the collectivization of agriculture were generally achieved. Agriculture was modernized and increased in efficiency, and more grain was collected by the government in order to be sold abroad and fed to workers. The size of the working class increased as peasants left the countryside in order to seek better conditions and standard of living. Despite Stalin’s perceived achievements in his collectivization plans, famine was widespread across many regions of the Soviet Union and millions of peasants died as a consequence.

However, despite the increases in overall industrial production, there were high costs associated with such rapid modernization. Due to the first plan’s focus on heavy industry, production of consumer goods was left to perish. The consumer goods that were available were of generally poor quality[23]. Working conditions in mining and factories were extremely grim, consisting of long hours and dangerous tasks[24]. If workers were underperforming or resisted commands from their superiors, they could be arrested and sent to the Gulags, which were prison-like work and concentration camps[25]. In 1933, an estimated 11.2 million people were imprisoned in Gulag camps and forced into compulsory physical labour[26]. Up to 4.3 million people died in the Gulags between 1929 and 1939[27]. Due to massive increases in urban populations in extremely short amounts of time, living conditions in the cities were poor. While the urban population doubled during the time of the first Five Year Plan, city infrastructure was not prepared to handle this level of change. Multiple families occupied single apartments and much of the urban housing lacked running water and basic sanitation. One of the most significant consequences of Stalin’s domestic policies was widespread famine across the U.S.S.R that led to the deaths of millions of peasants. The majority of the deaths occurred in the dominant agricultural region of Ukraine. In response to forced collectivization, many peasants hid their grain stocks or slaughtered their livestock in order to avoid turning it over to the government. If the quotas set out by the government for each farm were not met, the peasants could be arrested or killed. Scholarly sources have estimated that seven million peasants died across all regions of the Soviet Union due to the famine, and four million collectivization deaths between 1930 and 1936[28]. Three to five million of these deaths occurred in Ukraine alone[29]. Sheep and goat populations decreased by 40 percent, hogs by 50 percent, and goats and cattle by one third[30]. The losses of livestock would not recover until the 1950s[31]. It has also been estimated that up to two million deaths could have gone unreported in this time as well. While millions of people were starving to death across many Soviet controlled areas, Stalin continued to export grain in order to fund his rapid industrialization plans[32]. Between 1932 and 1933, which were the peak years of the famine, the Soviet Union exported 1.8 million tonnes of grain and had 4.53 million tonnes stockpiled in reserves[33]. Grain and food reserves were poorly distributed, with the majority of grain used for exports and the remainder often given exclusively to workers in the cities and executives within the Communist Party. The costs associated with rapid industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture were extremely high in terms of human loss. While the USSR was able to industrialize faster than any country in history, and was able to fund such plans through the collectivization