Stolypin believed that the encouragement of a class such as the Kulaks would make them hostile to further change therefore more conservative and loyal to the Tsar as the Tsar had made them wealthy. Furthermore, peasants made up 85% of the population of Russia and a majority relied on agriculture for their income. Reforms that would please the ‘dark masses’ would strengthen the tsarist regime. Another reason for reforming agriculture was to oppress peasant unrest. In Poltava and Kharkov provinces, mass impoverishment of the peasants, which was exacerbated by the poor harvests of 1901 led to 40,000 peasants took part in an uprising where they also ransacked 150 landlord properties.
Though collectivisation may have had short term boosts to the economy but the effects of collectivisation were disastrous. For that the harvest of 1933 was nine million tons less than that of 1926 and the number of pigs dropped by 65%. These are the results of the peasants rebelling against the soviets forced collectivization. These peasant rebellions were damaging to the economy as its effects emanates to the city
However the failures of collectivisation may contradict the theory of Stalin’s economic policy being a success; whereby this is in relation to how collectivisation resulted in both economic failure and human cost. In terms of economic failure collectivisation resulted in a great harvest drops dramatically in the early of 1930s and also a huge decline in Russia’s animal population furthermore in reference to human cost collectivisation had resulted in seven million deaths due to famine and ten million peasants being reposed which often resulted in much of the effected being sent to prison camps. This concludes that Stalin’s economic policy was not a great success in relation to collectivisation. In
The Five Year Plan tried to eradicate free trade which meant that people could not afford what they wanted. Furthermore, there were shortages of consumer goods because of the state control of private industries. As a result it encouraged an illegal trade in products such as vodka, cigarettes, footwear and food. Furthermore, the black market was so widely spread that it was difficult t police effectively. This illustrates that the economy worsened in terms of consumer goods.
On the other hand, the growth in population compared with national output shows less production per head, and therefore less efficient production. His policies did little for agriculture considering 80% of the population were rural peasants. It is thought he focused too much on heavy industry, neglecting others like light engineering. Finally, Russia became overly dependent on foreign loans (never good if a financial crisis were to occur and foreign loans have to be repaid). Tariffs making goods scarce and heavy taxation meant prices for Russian consumers increased, whilst their wages stayed low.
From a women’s perspective, Stalin made positive changes, giving women more economical and social independence, however there were also some problems with that. It can be said that Stalin made some successful social and economic changes in Russia, however failed drastically in others, causing more failures than successes during his government. Collectivization was a disastrous failure both in social and economic point of view. There were very few economic successes, however there were much more failures than successes. Stalin forced all peasants to leave their farms in order for them to be collectivized, and their suffering was horrendous.
Over-production – Fewer products such as cars, consumer good etc were not being sold as factories were making more goods than Americans needed or could afford to buy. As the number of sells went down, the prices of goods also went down which meant that wages had to be kept low. When this did not work, industrialists had to resort to sacking workers, and because the workers did not have any more money, they could not afford luxury so factories continued to
The freight trains were in fact a problem for the farmers. Raising the rates threw the farmers off and with the depression of their business they didn’t have the money to spend to get their produce to markets anyhow. There was practically no competition with the railroad so prices could fluctuate almost however the man in charge wanted them to. When this happened, the little guy would reach an impasse. “That ruins me, do you understand?
The lack of usable land in Russia and the subdivison of land between families both resulted in an incredibly low income, especially for larger families. This combined with the illiteracy of the people and refusal of the Tsar to provide basic education meant that there was no way to escape the misfortunes of life as a peasant. The poor harvests of 1900 and 1902 worsened matters even further and fuelled the peasants anger. The famines and starvation that followed provided sufficient evidence that the Tsar was not a born leader, “gifted and sent from God” as they had been taught to believe, but a weak and incompetent leader, incapable of making decisions or change. Another issue was that whilst the Tsar encouraged the industrial growth of Russia, and was keen for the country to become an industrial power, when peasants then left the land to work in the developing enterprises, they discovered that their living conditions did not improve.
There were economic factors that led to collectivisation. The autumn of 1926 saw a record grain harvests for the USSR, however, the harvests of 1927, 1928 and 1929 were all poorer due to the peasants keeping hold of the grain. This decrease in production forced the price of agricultural products up. Consequently, the standard of living amongst urban worked declined. The decrease in agricultural production also affected the soviet government.