The Soviet Union under Stalin 1037
The deportation of prosperous peasants (kulaks) from a Russian village during land
collectivization, 1930.
crop systems. In 1929, 30,000 fires were reported set in Russia. Peasants
slaughtered livestock rather than allowing them to be taken by the collec
tive farm. The number of horses fell from 36 million in 1929 to 15 million
four years later, cattle from 67 million to 34 million.
Small plots were forcibly consolidated into collective farms. Peasants had
to work a certain number of days each year for the collective farm; the state
supplied machinery, seed, and clothing. The free market disappeared and
the state set production quotas and prices. One of the primary goals of the
collectivization of agriculture was to force peasants into industrial labor.
During the first Five-Year Plan, the Soviet Union’s industrial and urban pop
ulations doubled, as 9 million peasants were conscripted to work in factories.
In March 1930, Stalin signed an article in Pravda entitled “Dizzy with
Success.” He announced that his Five-Year Plan was succeeding beyond
his wildest expectations and that the time had come for a pause. In fact,
forced collectivization had catastrophically reduced Soviet agricultural pro
duction. Indeed, Stalin ordered officials to return expropriated animals to
their owners. But he viewed this as a lull, not a change in theory.
When the Five-Year Plan ended in 1932 after four years and three months
(in part because of the effects of peasant resistance), 62 percent of peas
ants now worked for the state on collective farms. Peasants were allowed
to retain small private plots; the vegetables and fruits that they grew pro
vided almost half of the produce reaching markets.
