Collective farms developed in Russia during Stalin’s rule.

When Stalin took over the Russian government in 1920, he realized that he needed a stable amount of money every year if he wanted to set his communist regime.

First, Joseph Stalin accused the land owning peasants that had become wealthy, or kulaks; claiming that their first priority wasn’t the Soviet Union, and that they weren’t supplying the industrial workers with enough food, therefore, they were not doing their work correctly.

To “improve” the production, Stalin decided to forced people to set up collective farms that were owned by the government. Collectivization was basically about grouping small farms in one single area called collective. The peasants who were part of the collective joint their animals, tools and labor to work for the benefit of the whole community.

For example, major grain-producing areas were collectivized by 1931, and each collective had a quote of grain it had to send to the estate in a determined date, regardless of the aim of the populace, even if communism is supposedly the government for the people.

This collectivization was fully implemented around 1928, and it was supposed to be applied with a relative pace and calmness, but the following year the dictator sped up the process because the peasants rather kill their crops and animals than handling them to the government. So they were forced by the regime to join the collectives.

With the intention of increasing collective membership, peasants were given motivations such as the machinery tractor station in Russia, where peasants that were part of the collectives could borrow machinery in order to increase their production in return for crops.

But Stalin also had a plan for the wealthy land-owners, he ask them to hand over their lands, houses and everything they owned to the government, and to distribute their machinery and crops among the collectives. Around 5 million kulaks were exiled because they refused to give in their lands.

But not every peasant or land-owner was even allowed to join the collectives, and the ones that didn’t fit the demands were sending into labor camps or executed right away.

However, the collective farms did not increase the production, or the food supply; they were, in fact, the source of great food shortages, causing millions to die in famine after this crazy experiment.

Written by: Analucia Castagnino