Sign up to access the complete lesson and track your progress!
Unlock This CourseRemember, Communists saw the richer peasants as class enemies. Officially, a kulak was a peasant who was better off than his neighbours. He might own two or three horses and a few cows, and hire a worker at harvest time. By any normal standard he was not rich. In practice, the label was put on anyone who spoke out against the collective farm. Poorer peasants who resisted were called 'sub-kulaks'.
Key terms:
Many peasants, not only kulaks, hated giving up their land and animals. They had no legal way to say no, so they resisted in other ways.
Rather than hand their animals to the kolkhoz, peasants killed and ate them. The number of cattle fell from about 70 million in 1928 to about 38 million in 1933. Horses fell from about 34 million to about 17 million, and sheep and goats fell by about two-thirds. Some peasants also burned crops, barns and tools.
In 1930 the secret police recorded more than 13,000 riots and protests in the villages, involving over 2 million peasants. Women often led them. Officials were attacked and some were killed. This opposition was one reason why Stalin paused the drive in March 1930.
In December 1929 Stalin announced a policy of 'liquidating the kulaks as a class'. Kulaks were not allowed to join the collective farms. On 30 January 1930 the Politburo ordered them to be divided into three groups:
Each region was told how many kulaks to find, and local officials chose families to fill the number. Their houses, animals and tools were given to the kolkhoz. In 1930 and 1931 about 1.8 million people were deported in goods trains to special settlements, where they worked in forests and mines. Many died from cold, hunger and disease.
Dekulakisation had two big results. It removed many of the most skilled and hard-working farmers from the villages. It also frightened everyone else. A peasant who refused to join the kolkhoz risked being called a kulak, so most gave in.
Why it happened. Collectivisation threw farming into chaos. There were fewer horses to pull ploughs and not yet enough tractors to replace them. The grain harvest fell from about 83 million tonnes in 1930 to about 70 million tonnes in 1931 and again in 1932. Yet the state took more. Its grain collections rose from about 11 million tonnes in 1928 to nearly 23 million tonnes in 1931, and about 5 million tonnes were sold abroad in that year. When farms could not meet their quotas, search teams took the seed grain and the families' own food.
New laws made things worse. A law of 7 August 1932 punished the theft of collective farm property, even a few ears of grain, with ten years in a labour camp or death. In December 1932 internal passports were brought in for town dwellers, but peasants were not given them. In January 1933 police blocked roads and stations to stop starving peasants leaving Ukraine and the North Caucasus.
Its effects. Historians estimate that between 5 and 8 million people died across the USSR. The worst-hit areas were Ukraine, the North Caucasus, the Volga region and Kazakhstan. The Soviet government denied that there was any famine. It refused help from abroad and went on exporting grain.
Ukraine was the richest grain region, so its quotas were very high. Villages that failed to deliver were put on blacklists and cut off from all supplies. Most historians think between 3.5 and 5 million people died there. Ukraine and many other countries now recognise the Holodomor as a genocide. Historians still debate whether Stalin meant to destroy Ukrainians as a nation or to break the resistance of peasants everywhere.
Most Kazakhs were herders who moved with their animals. They were forced to settle on collective farms and most of their herds were lost. About 1.5 million people died there between 1930 and 1933.
The state now controlled the grain. Its collections doubled, so the towns and the Red Army were fed and grain exports helped to pay for foreign machinery. Peasants could never again hold grain back. The party controlled the countryside for the first time. Millions of peasants left for the towns and became the workers that industry needed. Farming slowly recovered, and the 1937 harvest, about 97 million tonnes, was the biggest so far.
Collectivisation did not grow more food. After the good harvest of 1930, the grain harvest fell below its 1928 level of about 73 million tonnes from 1931 to 1934. It only passed that level again in 1935. The number of cattle did not get back to its 1928 level until the 1950s. The best farmers had gone, and kolkhoz peasants put little effort into the shared fields. They worked hardest on their private plots, which produced a large share of the country's vegetables, milk and meat. Above all, millions of people had died.
So collectivisation was a political success for Stalin, an economic failure for farming and a human disaster.
Don't describe kulaks as rich landowners. Most owned only a few animals. Don't say the famine was caused by bad weather alone: the state went on taking and exporting grain while people starved. And don't write that collectivisation simply 'failed'. It gave Stalin the grain and the control he wanted, so always say who it failed.
(c) 'The main effect of collectivisation in the years 1929-41 was the Great Famine (1932-33).'
How far do you agree? Explain your answer.
You may use the following in your answer:
You must also use information of your own. [16 marks]
I partly agree. The famine was the worst effect of collectivisation, but the longest-lasting effect was the state's control over grain and over the peasants.
The Great Famine was a huge effect. Collectivisation disrupted farming, and the harvest fell to about 70 million tonnes in 1931 and 1932. Even so, the state took nearly 23 million tonnes in 1931 and went on exporting grain. Search teams seized seed grain and food, and in January 1933 peasants were stopped from leaving Ukraine. As a result between 5 and 8 million people died, including between 3.5 and 5 million in Ukraine. No other effect cost so many lives.
However, state control of grain was also a major effect, and it was the one Stalin wanted. Before 1929 peasants could hold grain back. On the kolkhoz the state took its quota first, so its collections rose from about 11 million tonnes in 1928 to nearly 23 million in 1931. This fed the growing towns and the Red Army, and exports helped to pay for foreign machinery. Collective farms also gave the party control of the villages for the first time. This control lasted for the whole period to 1941, while the famine lasted about two years.
A third effect was the destruction of the kulaks. Under the order of January 1930, about 1.8 million people were deported to special settlements in 1930 and 1931. This removed many of the most skilled farmers and frightened other peasants into joining. Peasants also killed their animals in protest, so cattle fell from about 70 million to about 38 million by 1933. These effects damaged farming for years and helped to cause the famine itself.
Overall, I agree only partly. Judged by the number of lives lost, the famine was the main effect. Judged by how long the effect lasted and how far it changed the USSR, state control mattered more: it was still in place in 1941 and it made rapid industrialisation possible. The famine was the price of that control, not a separate result. So the main effect was the state's control of the countryside, with the famine as its most terrible consequence.
What lifts this to the top level: it covers three effects, including one that is not in the bullet points, supports each with precise facts, and reaches a judgement by using two clear tests, lives lost and how long the effect lasted.
An answer that uses only the two bullet points cannot reach the top level, so always plan a third effect of your own before you start. Here the removal of the kulaks or the loss of animals would work. Then pick a test for your judgement, such as 'which effect lasted longest?', and use it in your conclusion.