Collectivisation+in+the+USSR

From the mid-1920s the Soviet Union faced a chronic and growing crisis in feeding its urban population. Stalin embarked on a massive and brutal programme to collectivise agriculture against the stubborn resistance of the peasants, more particularly the richer peasants, the K|Kulaks, whom the New Economic Policy had notably advantaged. Class warfare was encouraged in the countryside. The poorer peasants who had something to gain from collectivisation were incited against the richer ones, who had everything to lose from it. By the outbreak of the Second World War about 95% of the Soviet Union's farms had been collectivised. Apart from the economic aim -the urgent need to achieve greater productivity from the land- there was in Stalin's mind a clear political objective. The conquest and consolidation of political power in a backward country whose peasants clung to private ownership, dictated collectivisation. Lenin had hoped that the peasantry might gradually come to accept the modernisation of agriculture. But when this expectation failed, and when the NEP did not resolve the crisis of food shortages, Stalin pressed full speed ahead with collectivisation, regardless of the human consquences.(1)

(1) Weigall, D. & Murphy, M. //A Level European History. Study Guide.// Letts Educational, London, 1998. Chapter 10: "Russia, 1917-41", pages 136 to 149.