In 1929, Stalin announced the collectivization of all farms in the country. This meant that hundreds of small farms were forced to unite into larger ones, and the peasants had to work together in order to make the bigger farms successful. The new farms were supposed to receive new tractors and other modern equipment to help modernize and increase the production of food.
Stalin wanted all of the country’s roughly 100 million peasants to join his planned collectivization program, although he realized that they would not necessarily like the new system. The people most likely to resist the change would be the ones with the most to lose. In the USSR, the kulaks were the richest farmers. For collectivization to succeed, the poor and middle peasants had to be convinced of the superiority of collective work of the soil, which would allow the wide-scale introduction of machinery. Furthermore, socialist industry had to be capable of producing the tractors and machines that would constitute the material support for collectivization. Finally, a correct attitude had to be defined for the kulaks, the irreconcilable adversaries of socialism in the countryside. Many peasants showed their displeasure with collectivization by not planting crops or by killing all of their animals. Production remained low because of the peasants’ resistance to collectivization. Stalin was forced to send the police into the countryside to raid farms for food. Ultimately, the army was used to force the peasants to work and send food to the cities. Furthermore, as punishment for not collectivizing, the farmers were given little or no food. Mass starvation occurred during this period, with close to 30 million peasants starving to death.
Kulaks were to be liquidated as a social class. By using his powerful secret police, Stalin murdered, exiled to Siberia and robbed countless kulaks who resisted collectivization of their property.“Famine Genocide”
Consulted Works:
Dekulakization: A Socialist Plague?
Stalin’s Reluctant Soldiers: A Social History of the Red Army, 1925-1941 (Modern War Studies) by Roger R. Reese
Stalin: A Biography by Robert Service
The following is what would be said, on behalf of the Kulaks, had the U.N. prosecuted Stalin for his crimes and unjustifiable acts that left Russia is a wretch
I am a Kulak and I represent the prosperous peasants of our Soviet nation, men and women alike. I represent they who have and will always believe in our nation’s greatness. I am here to be heard. I stand before you today to discuss the faults of Stalin’s regime and the many injustices done to our great nation.
We gather here, in the assembly of the UN, because the Charter of the United Nations sets forth the purposes of the UN as: the maintenance of international peace, and cooperation in solving economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian problems. It expresses a strong hope for the equality of all people and the expansion of basic freedoms. However, I am a Kulak. I am one of the many Russian people who has felt the wave of angst in our nation and will not stand idly by while the man who is our leader, represents none of said principles.
We have seen a great many injustices done to the Russian people. Many of these wrongs have been made because of the actions and policies implemented by our Russian leader, Stalin.
Stalinism is flawed. Its internal contradictions will lead to the destruction of the Soviet Union, as we know it. This man has seduced us into believing that we would become one of the most prominent nations—to make Russia a force to be reckoned with on the world stage. Despite the icons, this cult has left us to question. Question all. We have yet to see the fruits of our labor. We all have toiled and we all have suffered. Stalin is on trial this day because he has not fulfilled his promise to our nation. Essentially, he has followed his own standards of economic, political and social policies, but has not kept the promises of change. We have seen little to no improvement from the days of Lenin. I have become ashamed to sit and watch such injustices enacted against my fellow Russian, as well as myself. We are all appalled.
We disdain the agricultural policies of collectivization and dekulakization. We disdain the concept that to meet a quota, you must erase any outliers. We are the farmers that find necessary the regular usage of hired labor, we are the farmers that own equipment and acres of land to help provide for our agrarian economy, we are the farmers that rent our facilities so that others might benefit from agricultural lettings, we are the farmers that have every ounce of our lives tied to Russian commerce, brokerage, money lending, etc. And this is how we are treated?
To liquidate our class, he has deported many of the men I spent my whole life getting to know, the men I called friends, to foreign lands, or has incarcerated them, has arrested them and has confiscated their lands.
All is because in 1928, there was a food shortage in the cities and in the army.
I know that at first, most of us were attracted to collectivisation because we believed we would be in a position to afford tractors and would enjoy increased production. However, most was forced. Stalin’s goals to establish higher levels of production and his attempts at sympathizing with our situation soon faded. In revolt, we resisted expropriation, exile and such obstacles of collectivization. Stalin tried to prove we were foolish enough to become subservient to his beliefs in Communism, by our obedience and acts of servitude. We retaliated against the state by smashing implements and killing animals. Of course we chose to slaughter livestock, even horses, rather than to pass them into common property. They were our sources of wealth. Agriculture was what we knew and it was going to be ripped away and we were to lie down and take such abuse? I think not.
To brunt our retaliation, he has agreed to the use of force in the collectivisation and ‘dekulakization’ efforts. Liquidated as a class, we are subject to one of three fates: death sentence, labor settlements, or deportation “out of regions of total collectivisation of the agriculture”. On these labor settlements, known as collective farms, local officials are assigned to identify us, regardless the measure. We are not animals. How can you say there is no problem here when we are supposed to be the men that form the backbone of our nation yet are hunted like vermin, to be forced to “help” our economy—to “consent” to bettering our nation.
And that is not the end of the suffering!
Any who help us are also condemned by association. Humanitarian acts are frowned upon yet we are all meant to be equal. We are not the cancer to Communism that Stalin claims we are. We have all been turned away from those in the city because Stalin has threatened them that aiding and abedding us will result in harsh consequences or a similar fate as that which we have come to know. I have suffered the loss of my family because as we had no land and nothing to claim as our own, they starved. We were separated and dissociated from each other and our former standard of living. I went for food, for work, in some hopes I would find some kindness. Yet circumstance has stolen such opportunities. I came back with 2 potatoes and my children had frozen to death. I cannot get such images out of my mind. If I do not speak out against such injustice and my pain, then all those who have died and still suffer, are a lost cause.
These, ladies and gentlemen, have become the scapegoats for equality of results. These policies have been implemented to adjust our Russian State in accordance for anti-capitalist motives. I call these excuses. We are people too. So, why must we be stepped on to prove a point? And when we disagree… we become the enemy. We have been starved out of our homes and displaced from our lives. All we have known has been ripped away. We are the great proletariats. We have been disgraced to accept the fact that this country is no longer ours. We have been scarred by the famine, the man made famine, that Stalin hoped for and created, all in retaliation to our disapproval to his belief that we must be eliminated to excite the Russian people into a frenzy of terror. We want our lives back.
How much must we be run over to protect the good of our nation? Now all is Stalin’s; our strength is his feat. We have nothing to show for the advancement except our common state of disillusionment. Stalinism has given our nation false hopes. We have stilts to walk among giants because we work together yet we have broken the legs of our brothers to grow so tall. I ask you. How much more blood must we give and how many more tears must we shed before we can reap what we have already sewn? The political dynamic has left us a starving nation. What reform has been made? Terror is what we have come to know! Is this not barbaric? How can we be an advanced nation when we proclaim the doctrines of a leader, who we exalt, which in reality is a ravenous wolf with words to intoxicate and leave us blindsided from truth? This State has become his not ours. We starve for the good of our children, our wives, our sisters, our brothers, our mothers, our fathers; we starve for Stalin. He has become bloodthirsty and we have only fueled his desire. We bring Stalin to trial because he has deviled our nation’s principles. In action and philosophy, he debases all that we stand for. Stalin must be charged with defamation of the Russian State. We want reprieve ladies and gentlemen.
This organization cannot go without reprimanding Stalin’s many crimes to the members of the Soviet State. We want him prosecuted him for his crimes against humanity.
He has done little to promote any state of peace in our country. Rather, what we have come to know is a growing sense of hostility and animosity among our society. A great many concerns have overwhelmed us all. Furthermore, we beg you to listen, understand and accept the truths of his unethical and immoral acts as we have come to a state of danger—we fear for our families, for our lives. We feel such crimes must come to light, be recognized and be dealt with immediately
We hereby motion that Stalin, when found guilty for these inequitable acts, be hung.
