{"id":4869,"date":"2015-02-15T14:27:54","date_gmt":"2015-02-15T19:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/?p=4869"},"modified":"2016-02-01T14:14:46","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T19:14:46","slug":"the-realities-of-collectivization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/2015\/02\/15\/the-realities-of-collectivization\/","title":{"rendered":"The Realities of Collectivization"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1928, Joseph Stalin addressed the need for collectivization of grain farms and the procurement of grain from villages throughout the Soviet countryside. His speech, \u201cGrain Procurements and Prospects for Development of Agriculture,\u201d attacks villages throughout Siberia who refused to relinquish their surplus grain to the State. He cites the grain shortage occurring throughout the country, and states, \u201cThe effect will be that our towns and industrial centres, as well as our Red Army, will be in grave difficulties; they will be poorly supplied and will be threatened with hunger. Obviously, we cannot allow that.\u201d[1]<\/a> This statement highlights the fragility of the Soviet Union at the beginning of Stalin\u2019s time in office. It also demonstrates his fears of an unnecessary war that the Soviet Union could not withstand, as Lynne Viola mentions in her chapter on collectivization.[2]<\/a> In an attempt to motivate the local masses, Stalin accuses the local Party organizations and kulak<\/em>, or local gentry, of hoarding the surplus grain, and implores the peasants to force the kulak<\/em> to give the grain to the State. However, as his subsequent speeches and the legislation of the Central Committee in the following years indicates, this call to action led the collectivization efforts to spin out of control and away from the State\u2019s expectations.<\/p>\n

Viola notes in her chapter the violence that resulted from Stalin\u2019s collectivization plans and his anti-kulak<\/em> statements. The cadres placed in the countryside, wishing to prove themselves to the State, forced peasants and workers to collectivize in order to reach their quotas. They also attacked the kulak<\/em> in order to force them to give up their capitalistic system of grain management. Such actions led to Stalin\u2019s \u201cDizzy with Success\u201d speech in March of 1930 and the Central Committee\u2019s On Forced<\/em> Collectivization of Livestock <\/em>legislation in March of 1932. After mentioning the success of completely socializing the countryside, Stalin attempts to reprimand the country peasants and quell the attacks on the kulak<\/em>. He states, \u201cThey [successful people] show a tendency to overrate their own strength and to underrate the strength of the enemy.\u201d[3]<\/a> The success of collectivization is and should be the voluntary nature of collective-farm movement, he reminds the populous.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the Central Committee calls the forced collectivization of the countryside a \u201cflagrant violation of repeatedly issued directives.\u201d[4]<\/a> However, this resolution remained ineffective given the soft language used when telling the party how to address the problem on the ground. \u201cThe TsK of the VKP (b) proposes to all party, Soviet and kolkhoz organizations\u2026\u201d[5]<\/a> The word \u201cproposes\u201d is not nearly as definitive or intimidating enough to force the party officials along the countryside to adhere to the Committee\u2019s suggestions, when they gained popularity and success administering collectivization their own ways through pressure and fear.<\/p>\n

As Viola demonstrates in her chapter, due to Stalin\u2019s insufficient intervention and the Committee\u2019s ineffective, unenforceable legislation, party officials throughout the countryside developed their own system of collectivization that nearly destroyed the government\u2019s mission as well as the country.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> J.V. Stalin, Grain Procurements and the Prospects for the Development of Agriculture, <\/em>http:\/\/www.marx2mao.com\/Stalin\/GPPDA28.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Lynne Viola, \u201cCollectivization as a Revolution,\u201d in Robert V. Daniels (ed.) The Stalin Revolution: Foundations of the Totalitarian Era.<\/em> Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994: 108-126.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> J.V. Stalin,<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> TsK VKP (b), On Forced Collectivization of Livestock, <\/em>http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/expo\/soviet.exhibit\/e2livest.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1928, Joseph Stalin addressed the need for collectivization of grain farms and the procurement of grain from villages throughout the Soviet countryside. His speech, \u201cGrain Procurements and Prospects for Development of Agriculture,\u201d attacks villages throughout Siberia who refused to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2522,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[110561],"tags":[22757,85673,85572,110659],"class_list":["post-4869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hist254-archive","tag-collectivization","tag-joseph-stalin","tag-kulak","tag-lynne-viola"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2522"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}