One of the most important tasks of the party-state leadership at the turn of the 20-30s. was the involvement in the process of industrialization of the rural population of the country. This implied saturation of the market with industrial goods, which the peasantry needed, and the production of necessary raw materials and bread in exchange for them.

Stalin and his entourage took the path more simple for him, but through the difficult and painful for the village. It was decided to force collectivization in order to get bread free of charge, but not by way of a through tax, but through mandatory deliveries.

In December 1927, the XV Congress of the CPSU (b) was held, for which the name of the "Congress of Collectivization" was assigned to literature for many years. In fact, the congress talked about the development of all forms of cooperation, that the promising task of "gradual transition" to collective cultivation of the land will be carried out "on the basis of new technology (electrification)", and not vice versa. The congress did not establish any deadlines, much less the only forms and ways of cooperating peasant farms. Similarly, the decision of the congress on the transition to an offensive policy against the kulaks was meant to have a consistent restriction of the exploiting capabilities and aspirations of the kulak farms, their active ousting by economic methods, and not by methods of ruin or compulsory liquidation.

The most significant and obvious evidence of the correctness of the “course of collectivization” and the need for its accelerated implementation was considered the grain procurement crisis that arose in the winter of 1927/1928 and was overcome only as a result of collectivization. For Stalin, the crisis of bread making and cooking was explained by the "kulak strike" —the performance of the kulakry that had grown up and strengthened under the conditions of NEP against Soviet power. In fact, the grain harvest crisis arose as a result of market fluctuations. The reduction in state grain procurement posed a threat to industrial construction plans, complicated the economic situation, exacerbated social conflicts in the city and in the countryside. The situation of the beginning of 1928 required a balanced approach. However, at that time, the Stalinist group had already achieved a majority in the political leadership and went on scrapping NEP. The use of emergency measures of violence against the peasant masses has become widely practiced. From the center of the places followed the directives signed by Stalin with threats against the party leaders.

The tone of this campaign was set by the Stalinist trip to Siberia in January-February 1928. During his inspection, dozens of local workers were removed from the party for "softness", "reconciliation", "merging with the fist", etc. The “Theoretical” rationale for forcing collectivization was Stalin’s article “The Year of the Great Change”, published on November 7, 1929. It stated that the main, middle peasant masses allegedly went to collective farms, that in the socialist transformation of agriculture the “decisive cb food "(in fact, the collective farms then consisted of 6-7% of peasant farms, despite the fact that more than 1/3 of the village was the poor).

Violations of law, arbitrariness, violence during the course of collectivization caused open protests of the peasants right up to armed uprisings. In 1929, up to 1,300 "kulak" revolts were registered.

The next step towards strengthening the race for the "pace of collectivization" was made at the November plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) 1929. The task of "complete collectivization" was set before the whole oblast. The leaders of the party organizations of the North Caucasus, the Lower and Middle Volga, Ukraine began to take a kind of “commitment” to conduct collectivization for a “year and a half”, by the summer of 1931. But even these “commitments” were deemed insufficient. As a result, some of the leaders proclaimed the slogan of "mad collectivization rates" on the ground.

After the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) adopted the resolution “On the pace of collectivization and measures of state support for collective farm construction” on January 5, 1930, the level of collectivization began to grow rapidly: in early January 1930, collective farms numbered over 20% of peasant farms, 50%.

The forced collectivization was carried out simultaneously with the dispossession of kulaks - an unprecedented repressive campaign. According to the commission of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on the severity of taxation, in 1927 there were 3.9% of kulak farms in the country (about 900 thousand farms in absolute terms); 62.7% accounted for middle peasants; 22.1% are poor and 11.3% are proletarian organizations. In the course of forced collectivization, not only the kulaks, but also middle peasants — those who did not want to join the collective farms — began to dekulakize. The number of "dispossessed" in many areas reached 10-15% of peasant farms.

January 30, 1930 The Politburo approved the decree "On measures to eliminate kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization," according to which it was ordered to confiscate property from the kulaks, and divide them into three categories - "counter-revolutionary activists", "big fists and former semi-landlords", "the rest". Depending on the category, the kulaks were to be arrested, expelled with their families to remote areas or settled in special villages within the territory of their previous residence. Artificial division into groups, the uncertainty of their characteristics created the ground for local arbitrariness.

Only for 1930-1931 381 thousand peasant families were sent to the North, the Urals, Siberia and Kazakhstan. Approximately 200-250 thousand families managed to “self-scam”, i.e., they sold off or abandoned their property, went to the cities and to construction sites. Another 400-500 thousand families were to be settled in separate villages. But in the mass after the confiscation of property and various ordeals, they also left the village, merging with the population of construction projects and cities. Thus, in the course of dispossession, over 1 million peasant farms were liquidated, which amounted to 4-6 million people.

The main consequence of the creation of collective farms was the mass discontent and open protests of the peasants. Since the beginning of 1930, over 2.5 months (until mid-March), more than 2 thousand peasant uprisings have been recorded.

On March 2, 1930, Stalin's article "Dizzy with Success" appeared in Pravda. All responsibility for “excesses,” “distortions,” and “bureaucratic decreeing” was shifted in it to local workers who were accused of “bungling”, “self-conceit, and conceit.” Nevertheless, the 50% level of collectivization was declared a success and it was required to consolidate it.

In the spring of 1930, a number of provisions were adopted aimed at overcoming the distortions in collectivization. The “tide” in collective farms was replaced by “separation” of them in August 1930. Only 21.4% of peasant farms united the collective farms. But at the end of the year, the party leadership indicated new benchmarks on collectivization for all regions of the country.

1932 was declared the "year of completion of complete collectivization." In the fall, 62.4% of peasant farms were in collective farms. Thus, a large collective economy became one of the foundations of the Soviet economy and the entire social system.

The most tragic page in the history of collectivization was the famine of 1932-1933. In general, the yards of these years were only slightly lower than the average perennial and in themselves did not threaten with hunger. But for the purchase of industrial equipment required currency. It was possible to receive it only in exchange for bread. The grain procurements of 1931 doomed the peasants to starvation. By the summer of 1932, the village of the grain strip of Russia and Ukraine after a half-starved winter was weakened and exhausted. "Hairdressers" appeared on the not yet mature fields - peasants who cut off the ears of scissors; when the cleaning began, the nesuns appeared. The grain was carried from the currents in the pockets and in the bosom.

On August 7, 1932, a law on the protection of socialist property was passed, written personally by Stalin. He introduced as a measure of judicial repression for the theft of collective farm and cooperative property the highest measure of social protection - shooting with confiscation of all property. "The law of the five spikelets" - so called him in the village. By the beginning of 1933, 54,645 people were convicted under the law in the RSFSR, of which 2,110 were sentenced to capital punishment. Sentences were carried out in approximately 1000 cases.

A special place in the tragedy of 1932-1933. takes Kazakhstan disaster. Since 1934, the Stalinist leadership began to carry out the harvesting of meat in the cattle-breeding districts of the republic by the same methods that were used for grain procurement. Depriving the livelihoods of the majority of the Kazakh population doomed him to hunger. About 1.5 million people died of starvation, an even greater number of Kazakhs migrated, fleeing him and collectivization outside the Soviet Union . The total number of victims of famine in 1932-1933. in the USSR, according to objective estimates of historians and demographers, amounted to more than 5 million people.

The completion of collectivization fell on the years of the second five-year plan. In 1937 there were 243.7 thousand collective farms in the country, uniting 93% of peasant farms. By this time, the collective farm system was fully established in the USSR.