Assess the Impact of Collectivised Farms on the Russian Peasantry Essay Example

been eaten. We fight over it. '' [V. Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom, 1947]. The author, Kravchenko, became a senior Communist Party official.

This strengthens the evidence from the source because as a communist official he would not be likely to be against the idea of collectivisation but still admits there food shortages that followed. The source shows the extremes people would go to in order to survive from starvation which emphasizes the severity of the famine, however 1947 was long after collectivisation was introduced therefore there could be other factors which affected the levels of food in that area.

On the other hand, some people believed the famine to be non-existent. W. Durranty, a westerner visiting the Soviet Union reported in September 1933, "the harvest is splendid and all talk of famine is ridiculous". Furthermore in January 1933 Stalin spoke to the Central Committee and was reported saying, "The collective farm regime has destroyed pauperism and poverty in the village". Stalin certainly wouldn't admit if his policy of collectivisation caused a food shortage and a famine therefore the strength of this source can be questioned, as it is very likely to be partial. There was a widespread famine in the years 1932-1933 with Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Caucasus being heavily affected.

Peasants attempted to move into towns in order to search for food however the Soviet government introduced a passport system which made it near impossible for peasants to escape, recent searches have predicted the number of deaths in the Soviet union caused by famine alone in 1933 was around 4 million. Stalin identified the richer peasants as 'Kulaks' and believed they were trying

to defeat the Communist revolution and therefore needed to be destroyed. This was one of the impacts that followed collectivisation as he believed the destruction of Kulaks and collectivisation could not be achieved without the other.

Identifying 'Kulaks' as a class proved to be a problem, initially they were defined by a farmer who owned between 25 and 40 sown acres but there were not enough peasants owning this amount (3. 9% of the total peasants), therefore he also targeted farmers who owned between 5 and 25 acres, this accounted to approximately 60% of the total peasant population. In December 1929, Stalin was quoted, "We must break down the resistance of the kulaks and deprive the class of its existence. We must eliminate the kulaks as a class. We must smash the kulaks... e must strike at the kulaks so hard as to prevent them rising to their feet again. "

This source shows how passionate Stalin was in his aim to eliminate the kulaks as a class, the use of strong language such as 'smash' and 'strike' emphasizes the hatred Stalin had towards the kulaks and how he wishes them to be treated. This source can be seen as fairly strong evidence towards how big of an issue this was in 1929 as it is a contemporary source from Stalin himself to the Party Congress. When the peasants were asked to sign up to join a collective farm, the poorer of the peasants would usually agree hilst the richer would hesitate and it was these who hesitated who would be identified as kulaks.

They would be arrested and then liquidated (either

shot or deported). There is said to be around 10 million kulaks that were killed or deported, these who were killed were often the most able and skilled of the farmers, which is one of the reasons as to why production initially fell after collectivisation was introduced. ''The world has seemed simple to me. The worker was the ideal, the repository of the highest morality. The kulak was a beast, an evil-doer, a criminal. '

This is an extract from the memoirs of General P. Grigorenko who was exiled to the USA after the death of Stalin. The kulak here is descirbed as a 'beast', 'evil-doer' and a 'criminal', this again shows the hatred towards the kulaks by the Soviet government. A final impact is the opposition that was created as a result of Stalin imposing collectivisation. A lot of the peasants were completely against the idea of collectivisation as it limited the amount of profit they could personally earn and enjoyed the freedom they used to possess in comparison to being on collectivised land.

Halfway through 1929, fewer than 5% of the country's peasants were in collective farms. In January 1930 Stalin announced his plans to have 25% of farms producing grain to be collectivised by the end of the year but the Central Committee doubled this prediction which came as a surprise as collectivisation was meant to be voluntary and gradually introduced. ''Oh Brothers! Oh sisters! Don't go into the collective farm. Antichrist will lay his mark upon you three times, once on the hand, the second on the forehead for all to see, and the third on the breast.