Peasant farmers killed or sent to gulags (3 million)
1931 Reports on Collectivisation
The poor peasants of the village get together in a meeting and decide: ‘So-and-so has 6 horses; we couldn’t get along without those in the collective farm; besides, he hired a man to help him in the harvest.’ They notify the secret police, and there you are. So-and-so gets 5 years [in the gulag]. They confiscate [take over] his property and give it to the new collective farm. Sometimes they ship the whole family out.
Oleska Voitsyskhovsky saved his and his family’s lives by consuming the meat of horses that had died of diseases. He dug them up at night and brought the meat home in a sack.
Based on accounts from villagers in the 1930s Assessing Your Learning
1. Why did Stalin plan to industrialise the Soviet Union? 2. What were the Five Year Plans? 3. List two changes made to the Soviet Union as a result of the Five Year Plans. 4. What was collectivisation? 5. How were kulaks treated during collectivisation? 6. Explain one effect of collectivisation.
How Did Women’s Lives Change in Soviet Russia?
Describe how women’s lives changed in Soviet Russia
Women’s lives changed very much under the communist system. In the workplace they were put on a more equal footing with the men. They worked in many jobs that were regarded at the same time as men’s jobs in the West such as engineering, construction and labouring.
of farms collectivised
How do these accounts show that people suffered during collectivisation?