Collective Farms
Collective farming was a system of agriculture in which several farms join together as one unit and produce together. This agricultural system was used widely in the Soviet State during Stalin’s rule during the mid 1900’s. The type of collective farming used by Stalin was called forced collectivism. This meant that the state made it mandatory for people to work on collective farms. Stalin thought having large-scale farms would lead to an increase agricultural production in urban areas, the supply of raw materials for processing industry, and agricultural exports. The practice of collective farming or collectivization was hoped to be the solution for scarce food supply and the critical agriculture distribution that began in 1927. Previously, before Stalin’s rule, the Bolsheviks supported privately owned farms. This led to food shortages because they were not interested in sharing their food with the population. This problem increased but once Stalin came to power, he took peasants farms away and turned them into collective farms. This seemed to be the only cure for the food shortages in the urban populations. However, there were many downfalls to collectivism. Peasants were very upset with this new plan because their land was being taken away and they were forced to cooperate with one another. Also, collective farming was used at the time when the command economy was also present. This meant that the government could control where all of the produce was being sent to. The government, in most cases would distribute all of the peasants produce, leaving none for the poor peasants to eat. The peasants could no longer supply themselves with their own food and faced famines. This form of government led to many peasant revolts and uprisings. Peasants went on strike and stopped farming. This led to less produce for the urban population and also the bad harvest of 1932-1933 promised little food for the people. Individuals all over the Soviet State were aggravated by the collectivism. Peasants as well as people that lived in urban areas were suffering from food shortages. Although collective farming at first promised increase in production for urban populations, it soon backfired when peasants stopped producing food to a certain extent. Collectivism was soon abandoned by the Soviet Union and new reforms were made for an improved state.