So Stallin's collectivisation was a failure in that it did not produce enough grain but....?

Question

therefor creating the famine, but through collectivisation, didn't allot of the peasant farmers move to industry, thus creating a larger work force and contributing to the rapid industrialization of the USSR during the first 5 year plan? So really, it was bad that it created the famine but 'good' in that it allowed for more people in the industry? True or false, thank you.

Answer 1

The collective farm had a political goal as its objective. One great consequence that lead to the famine in Ukraine was the deliberate targeting and imprisonment/execution of the "rich" farmer. In the closed circle of Leninist reasoning, the rich possessed property wrongfully acquired, and therefore the rich should be deprived of their property, as well as their lives. Hence the brutal policy of seizing all stores of food, and thereby beggaring the populace.

Soviet agriculture never worked, and the USSR could not feed itself adequately regardless of the efforts or exhortations or punishments. So too in China, until the first liberalization after Mao's death to allow farmers a private plot of land for their own use and right to trade their plot's produce.

Answer 2

True and False.

True:  The majority of the industrial workforce in the first FYP period were indeed former peasants.

False:  But most peasants were tied into the collective - they were employed by it and through the internal passport system they were not allowed to leave the region where they were from.  The numbers of people moving into the cities was strictly controlled, and they tended not to come from famine areas - because they were needed to tend the land - as many farmers had died, and they may ferment unrest in the cities.

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