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Joseph Stalin, leader of Russia (1928 - 1953), created a Five-Year Plan that included methods and goals which were detrimental to Russian agriculture in 1928. Stalin wanted to transform individual farms into large collective farms because he saw that the government was losing money to private traders. This required that the majority of farmers would have to work and live together on large state-run farms. Through these farms Stalin hoped to increase agricultural productivity, to create grain reserves for Russia, and to free many peasants for industrial work in the cities. In order to begin collectivization Stalin had about 5 million wealthier peasants, or kulaks, deported and / or killed and their equipment and livestock sent to collective farms. Many of the remaining peasants were forced into collective farms to work where they faced disease, starvation, and death.
The effects of Stalin's collectivization resulted in mass disruption of agricultural productivity and incalculable human losses. The decision to collectivize the farming sector had its origins in the grain crisis of 1928. Private traders offered better grain prices than the government did. It was calculated that the prices of agricultural products in private trade, which in 1927 - 1928 exceeded the official prices by about 40 per cent, were almost double the official prices in the following year. Due to the increase in private trade, the government began providing bread cards to workers only. Stalin realized a new system had to be devised in order to protect the governments interests.
One problem that was suppose to be solved through the Five-Year Plan was the methods of farming. Only two methods of farming were recognized in the Plan, the state farms and the co-operative farms. The state farm, also known as solkhozes, contained the state-employed peasants, whose produce was directly destined for the State. The co-operative farms, otherwise known as kolkhozes, were where the peasants held in common their land, their livestock, their agricultural implements and their work. Stalin's belief in the kolkhozes and solkhozys increased when he discovered that the marketing potential was four times greater that that of private peasants.
He set a quantitative target that the state should have 250 million pounds of grain at its disposal at any given time. The collectivized farms were also used to ensure that the farmers would sell the grain, Sovkhozy, kolkhoz y and contracts signed with peasants associations would produce this quantity, and the state would thus be able to supply the key sectors of the economy and the army, and to operate on the national (and international) markets, thereby forcing the peasants to sell their surpluses to the state because of competition due to the reserves it had in hand. Soon after the goals were set in the Five-Year Plan the collectivization began with force. In order to begin collectivization Stalin needed equipment and livestock. He looked toward the kulaks for the equipment and livestock because they were the wealthier peasants. Word went out that the kulaks, ie. , the most successful peasants and all other recalcitrant peasants who sided with them, were to be liquidated as a class Much hostility was felt between the government and the kulaks when the collectivization process began, but bitterness between the kulaks and the government began years before collectivization.
Lenin, leader of Russia in 1918, wrote a hanging order that called for the execution of a minimum one hundred kulaks, Comrades! The revolt by the five kulak volost's must be suppressed without mercy. The interest of the entire revolution demands this, because we have now before us our final decisive battle with the kulaks. We need to set an example. (1) You need to hang (hang without fail, so that the public sees) at least 100 notorious kulaks, the rich, and the bloodsuckers. (2) Publish their names. (3) Take away all of their grain. (4) Execute the hostages in accordance with yesterdays telegram. The desire for domination over the peasantry held by the Bolshevik party, allies to Stalin, is seen in this letter, and co-relates to Stalin's affect toward the kulaks. Stalin's hostility toward the kulaks was even more intense than that of Lenin.
The authorities that Stalin sent to collect the equipment and livestock owned by the kulaks used violence to obtain the means necessary to begin collectivization, which resulted in detrimental human and animal losses, the peasants slaughtered their livestock and gorged themselves to prevent their animals from falling into the hands of the Party. The kulaks ejected from their houses in the dead of night, in long despairing cohorts, half-naked in the Russian winter, left their dead strewn along the road to exile. The violence used by the authorities continued with the rest of the peasantry, and was used because they did not have the consent of the peasantry to make changes to the structure of farm life. Once the remaining peasants were sent to collective farms they faced shortages of food, seed, livestock and equipment. Stalin made promises to farmers that they would see an increase in the machinery available because they did not receive enough from the kulaks. A factory that built only farm equipment was established in Stalingrad.
Stalin argued that a crash program to produce more tractors and synthetic fertilizer would be required in order to modernize the agricultural sector promptly. Once the collectivization began in 1929 Stalin announced that all the machinery need would be met by 1932. In 1928, the USSR possessed 27, 000 tractors, whereas it needed more than 200, 000. In reality the collective farms were short of mechanical equipment right from the beginning. Due to the shortage the peasants living within the communal farms were faced with a number of severe consequences. Stalin's knowledge of the devastating effects of collectivization is an undeniable fact.
Two letters about the effects were written to Ordzhonikidze, otherwise known as Serve, a close friend of Stalin. Feigin, who went to the farms in 1932 and made recommendations for improvement, wrote the first letter. His first issue related to livestock, which he claimed were underfed and would not be able to produce enough butter and milk to meet the needs of the country. Milk production has reached extremely low levels of 1, 2 or 3 litres per day instead of the 5 - 7 litres normal for this region in a high-yield year. Feigin wrote, I think we should undertake all measures to increase private ownership of livestock by the kolkhoz nik or else there is no way out of the present periodic shortage of products. Feigin's recommendation was completely opposite of the Bolshevik Party view, who believed that there should be no private ownership of livestock.
Due to the conditions in the collective farms Feigin included a doctors report on the physical health of the people living within the farms. Doctor Kiselev was sent to Kartsovskii village in Western Siberia to report on the health of the people. Only one man was found by Kiselev to be in relatively good health, the rest of the people were starving and ill. One family that he saw had 5 children between the ages of one-and-a-half and nine, along with both parents. The father, Filipp Borodin, had worked 650 days total since arriving at the camp, which was approximately two years. In summer Filipp tended to grazing cows, and in winter he took care of the bulls.
Kiselev questioned Filipp's mental health because he continuously wanted his children to die, In the Borodin home there is unbelievable filth, dampness, and stench, mixed with the smell of tobacco. Borodin swears at his children: The devils dont die, I wish I didnt have to look at you! Having objectively investigated the condition of Borodin himself I ascertain that he (Borodin) is starting to slip into psychosis due to starvation, which can lead to eating his own children. This family, along with others, was malnourished due to the diet they were receiving from the Bolshevik government. One portion of Kiselev's letter focused on the amount of nourishment the people received, along with the unsanitary conditions in which they lived. According to Kiselev, they themselves prepare food in the following manner: they grind sunflower stems, flax and hemp seeds, chaff, dreg, colza, goosefoot, and dried potato peelings, and they bake flat cakes.
Of the food substitutes listed above, the oily seed are nutritious, which are healthy in combined foods since they contain vitamins, by themselves the vegetable oils do not contain vitamins and by not com-being them with other food products of more equal nourishment and caloric value they are found to be toxic and will harm the body. The lack of sustenance in the kolkhoz e made it very difficult for people to stay alive because they were starving. Filth in and around the homes of the people did not help to control disease in the farms. The homes are filthy, the area around the homes is polluted by human waste, by diarrhea caused by these substitutes. The letter, written on March 25, 1932 is reflective of life in the majority of collective farms, except for the ones that were shown to visitors interested in collectivization. Valentin Berezhkov worked close to Stalin during his leadership.
Berezhkov wrote about his experiences while working with Stalin, and claimed that Stalin maintained model kolkhozes in order to please foreigners. Berezhkov took two Americans to a kolkhoz e that was maintained as a model kolkhoz e. He wrote that Even though I was familiar with the way things were on ordinary, not model, farms, the state of that kolkhoz seemed to suggest that a kolkhoz could be run as a profitable venture. The livestock at the model kolkhoz were in good health, along with the people, who ate well and lived in cleanliness.
The Americans who visited the kolkhoz were shocked because they had read about the atrocities within the farms. As Bill was saying goodbye to the manager of the cattle-breeding farm, he said excitedly, I never expected to see this here! The stories we read in our newspapers are lies. Now I do believe that collective labor is good We will have things to learn from you. Berezhkov lived within the lies of the USSR, along with the remaining Bolshevik Party members. He knew, along with others, that the truth about collective farming in Russia was that people and animals were dying because of the conditions they were forced to live in.
Stalin's Five-Year Plan for agriculture failed in a number of ways. Millions of people died of starvation and disease, or the Bolsheviks murdered them. An uncountable number of animals were killed unnecessarily, and / or starved because of lack of feed on the farms. Russias agricultural sector suffered because there was not enough equipment, seed, livestock and manpower to meet the countrys needs. Reports from eyewitnesses confirmed the horrendous conditions that the people and animals lived in. If Stalin had treated the farmers with decency and provided them with equipment, livestock, seed, and food the collective farms could have been more productive.
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