1. Why was collectivization necessary?
Collectivization was necessary because the USSR needed to be a socialist state and collectivization was a socialist type of solution for their agricultural problems. Also, they believed that a socialist state couldn't be made if the majority of the Russiam population were peasants who were private landowners, sold their crops in the market, and sold their grain to the government for a low price. The low price hurt the Russian government badly because the government wasn't getting enough enough from the exports and buying the grain, as a profit.
2. What is a kolkhoz?
A kolkhoz is a collective farm, where many private farms of peasants are forced to bring all their farms together, about twenty, and make them into one farm where they all work on it together.
3. Who is a kulak?
A Kulak is a person who is a really good farmer, he or she is innovative and works very hard. Kulaks were the most successful ones to make enough grain or the crop or livestock they needed to grow. They found innovative ways to more easily collect the crop or crops because they saw how inneffective the old tools were. Unfortunately the Kulaks were wiped out by Stalin because they didn't want to join collectives since they already had enough money, therefore Stalin saw these type of people as a huge threat.
4. How were the kulaks dealt with by the government?
The Kulaks were killed or exiled by the government in order to get rid of them. There were three major classes of Kulaks. The "first class" was handed to the political police and they were sent to far away regions like Siberia. The "second class" was deported to other regions of the country, and the "third class" was able to stay in the region but were given the worst land. Since they didn't have the greatest land and weren't able to be as successful in farming most of them died. Some kulaks had to fight for land and for survival, which lead to death sometimes. The government saw the Kulaks as a huge threat because they didn't want to join collectives and would probably rebel, which would cause the communist downfall or the USSR.
5. How did the peasants resist collectivization? What happened as a result?
The peasants resisted collectivization by not giving any of their livestock or crops to the government. Instead they ate all of what they could so as to not waste all of it, and they burned or killed the rest. They did this because they didn't want the government to take all of their hard work growing the crops and raising the livestock and in the end have it taken away from them. As a result there was a huge famine and many, millions, of people died.
Examine the collective farm as illustrated in the reading, "A plan of a collective farm." Answer the following question:
6. What is a MTS Station?
A MTS station is where huge machines and tractors stayed on a collective farm.
7. What were the dual purposes of the MTS Stations?
The dual purposes of the MTS stations were to maintain and hire out machinery and to control the countryside. The stations maintained and hired out machinery by the peasants having to hand over twenty percent of their produce for the service. Each MTS station had its own political department, which took out any anti-soviet problems and people, and it made political parties in local areas.
8. How did a kolkhoz work and what was its relationship with the nearby town and its MTS?
A kolkhoz worked by the peasants farming together, sharing everything like the tractors, seeds and livestock, to make the specific quota made by the state. The quota would have to be made and then sent to the government. However, the state would pay extremely low for the quota and then sell the produce to the towns at higher prices than they had payed. When the quota was met the peasants were able to sell any extra crops or livestock in the market for their personal profit, which the surplus mostly came from their private plots.
