History of Russian Agriculture

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History of Russian Agriculture

• By Jillian King

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The Situation

• Lenin in power from 1917-1923
• Instated the New Economic Policy (NEP)
• Private ownership restored
• Farmers could now sell surplus yields
• Kulaks (rich peasant farmers) given an advantage
• State still controlled banking, transportation,
  heavy industry and public utilities
• Revived the economy
• People were uneducated
• Industry was behind by 100 years

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The Great Terror

• Born December 21, 1879 in Gori Georia
• Real name Joseph Vissarionvich Djvugashvili
• Changed to Stalin
• Member of the Bolshevik party, which seized power
  in 1917
• Stalin began his rise in the party by becoming
  appointed General Secretary of the Communist
  party
• Upon the death of Lenin in 1924 an inter-party
  struggle began between Stalin and Trotsky which
  Stalin inevitably won.
• Trotsky was banished from the Soviet Union and
  was later murdered in Mexico City in 1940 by a
  political agent.
• We are fifty or a hundred years behind the
  advanced countries. We must make good this
  distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they
  will crush us.
• -Stalin
• And with that the 5 Year Plans began

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The revolution from above

• 5 year plans
• - established in 1929
• A list of economic goals designed to strengthen
  the USSR economy from 1928-1932
• Purpose-
• Fast accumulation of capital resources through
  the build up of heavy industry, the restricted
  manufacturing of consumer goods, and the
  collectivization of agriculture
• Abolishment of the NEP
• Update Soviet agriculture which was old fashioned
  and inefficient
• Russia to become self sufficient in industry and
  military
• Reverse the grain crisis
• Essentially destroy the capitalist Kulaki as a
  class

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HOW?

• Targets set for every industry, region, factory,
  mine, and worker
• Finned if targets were not met
• Focus on heavy industry
• Kulaks used for labor
• Propaganda and fear
• Wholesale and collectivization of agriculture

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Wholesale collectivization

• February 1930- 1 million peasants forced off land
• Pooled all of the land/machinery and peasants no
  longer owned individual livestock
• Forced to live in kolkhozes
• Serfdom

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Dekulakizaton

• NKVP arrested Kulaki, and they were either
  deported or executed.
• 18 million people passed through gulag system
• Mostly in Siberia
• 3 million shot or died in camps

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Response

• Major revolts-
• Slaughtered cows and other livestock, burned down
  buildings
• 1934- 1/2 cattle, sheep, horses and pigs had been
  killed due to peasant uprisings
• Urban populations doubled from 26-gt 52 million
  from 1926-1937
• Causing population to raise from 147 to 162
  million

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As reported by Stalins statisticians
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Successes

• Note Historians found that Stalins
  statisticians overstated numbers by about 1/3

• In actual
• coal production rose from 10-72 million tons/year
• Iron ore- 1-5 million tons
• Steele 2-9 million
• 560 million tons of gas produced by 1932
• New cities formed
• Many dams/hydro electric facilities built
• Improvements in medicine and medical training
• Education
• By 1937 USSR was a modern industrialized state
• Great successes in every industry.. Except
  agriculture..

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Failures

• Loss of 26.6 million head of cattle and 63.4
  million sheep by 1934
• Incredible resentment toward government
• Over 5 million people dead
• Of those still alive..
• Fear of secret police
• Slave labor
• Population in East Siberia alone increased 331
• Horrible living conditions
• Very few consumer goods
• Peasants were producing more on their tiny plots
  of private land

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http//www.youtube.com/watch?vRsIJwoJLYQw