How did the rule of Stalin affect the Soviet Union Essay Example

food, and Russia's problem worsened.

When Stalin came to power he believed that the N.E.P. should be abandoned and industry and agriculture should be taken under direct government control. He wanted to have complete control of everything. Stalin wanted to turn Russia from a backwards agriculture country to a heavy industrialised super power.

Stalin said 'we are 50 to 100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in 10 years. Either we do it or shall be crushed'.Stalin believed that the New Economic Policy should be abandoned and industry and agriculture should be taken under direct government control.Stalin wanted a great increase in industrial production. To do this it was essential for Stalin to supply food to his workforce.

Also he wanted to sell grain abroad in order to earn foreign currency to buy modern machinery. Stalin didn't want to be in a position that the peasants could threaten Russia's food supply. Like when in the late 1920s the peasants under the NEP stopped growing food because money, which they gained, was of no use to them since there was nothing to buy. So most of the peasants just grew enough for themselves. The government responded to this action by seizing the peasant's grain, this was called the 'Urals-Siberian method'.

Stalin wanted to have complete control over the peasants, make farming more efficient and increase production.The solution to this problem was that peasants should be persuaded to join their small farms to create large farms where modern machinery and advanced agricultural techniques are used. Therefore more food would be produced. The government encouraged the peasants to join and later forced them to

join the Kolkhoz (the collective farms). In the beginning the government persuaded the peasants by offering them incentives, such as free housing and seeds. Also local hospitals were provided to them.

However the peasants still resisted collectivisation. Eventually the government became more ruthless. The government then began killing the richer peasants, who resisted collectivisation. Many of the kulaks slaughtered their livestock so they wouldn't go to the collective farms.The kulaks were the richer peasants.

The kulaks owned their own land. They often employed the poorer peasants to work on their land for them. The kulaks didn't suffer as much as poorer peasants, if a bad harvest happened. Many peasants envied the kulaks.

The kulaks had the most to lose under collectivisation, so they rejected it. They even slaughtered their own livestock instead of giving it to the collective farms.Stalin despised the kulaks and described them as 'enemies of the collective farm'. The communists would gather groups of bedniak (poor peasants) and used them to drive out the kulaks in the villages.About 1.5 million kulaks were sent to Siberia and central Asia, many were worked to death.

The kulaks that refused to go were shot or imprisoned. It is believed that in 1929 there were 4.5 million people in kulak families and 3 million of them died because they were deported. The rest probably died as well. The mass slaughter of livestock had a devastating affect on Soviet agriculture. In 1928 there was a population of 70 million cattle in Russia, in 1933 it was 38 million.

The pig population fell from 26 million to 12 million and the sheep population fell from 146 million to

50 million. The Soviet Union was unable to get over these tremendous losses until the 1950s.