1. Why was collectivization necessary?
- Collectivization was necessary in order to grow more corps and farm land more efficiently, and free up the amount of workers who could go from being rural workers, to become city workers. Collectivization also made it easier for the government to collect their crops and distribute them to cities for export. This was also necessary because they were able to find a 'socialist' solution to the agriculture problems of the USSR.
2. What is kolkhoz?
- A kolkhoz is a collective farm where the Russian people would be forced to work and live. On the kolkhoz's everyone lived, worked, and harvested together. This is the same word as collective. These farms were acreage of land where they were farmed as a collective effort.
3.Who is a kulak?
- A kulak was a 'better-off' peasant, one who during the times of the NEP did well for themselves, the may own more than one horse, and during good times they might even hire out help of their own. They were typically the more enterprising of the farmers, and the ones with more animals, and better skills.
4.How were the kulaks dealt with by the government?
- The kulaks were essentially eliminated by the government, they were killed off if they would not go quietly, or they were sent far away from their wealth to different collectives. They were the class enemy and in 1929 Stalin called for the liquidation of the kulaks.
5.How did the peasants resist collectivization? What happened as a result?
- The peasants burned crops, slaughtered their animals, and ate gluttonous amounts of food in order to keep it from going to the government. This eventually lead to famine, the people on the collectives ended up starving and the people of Russia inevitably starved as well, they did all of this to insure that they would not have to give up their grain to the government.
6.What is a MTS station?
- A MTS station was a machine and tractor station. These were used to supply and maintain the machinery used on the collectives, and in the cities.
7.What were the dual purposes of the MTS's?
-One purpose of the MTS was to give the USSR the giant leap it needed into the 20th century, having mechanized labor, they would be able to keep more laborers in the cities, also this was a way for the government to keep tabs up on their farmers and collectives.
8.How did a kolkhoz work and what was its relationship with the nearby town and its MTS?
- A kolkhoz worked with everyone farming the largest portion of the land together, with an acre for themselves to do with it as they pleased. All the food that was farmed in the collective portion of the land had to be given up to the government. The relationship with the nearby town was that this is where the food would be sold off, the MTS would monitor the amount of food produced as well as the use of the machinery.
