I'll provide a breakdown of two events, hopefully these are sufficient and allow for a better understanding of Soviet collectivization across Stalin's regime:

Collectivization was established during the first five year plan (1928-1932) and the principle is repeated across Soviet history. Beginning with Holodomor the motives and devastation from forced collectivization is introduced and explored.

Holodomor: Ukraine 1932-1933

Soviet agriculture was radically altered by the efforts of collectivization across countrysides to counter grain shortages across the Soviet Union. Stalin rushed headfirst into rapidly collectivizing the peasantry, a task he deemed necessary to ensure grain production across the USSR would increase. By 1929 the Communist party decided that, “All Soviet agriculture should be collectivized.”[1] This move altered the countryside, as many farms were stripped of the autonomy they once held. The socialization of rural Soviet Union allowed for production to reach an all time high. The peasants did not “voluntarily join the collective farms”[2] instead “everything was taken from them; their land, their cattle, their homes.”[3] This collective restructure was not seen as successful or necessary for the peasantry, who likened the effort to being a serf. They expressed upset with the government taking their “last few pounds of flour and meat.”[4] As the peasants revolted dekulakization was introduced as a means of class warfare. Successful non-collectivized farmers (kulaks) became the enemy and a tactic used to scare individuals into collective work. By 1929 the collective peasantry, who “accounted for 5 percent of the [overall] peasantry, accounted for 14 percent of the marketable grain.” [5] While the Soviet Union had rectified their falling grain supply they had decimated their rural communities. The collectivization effort had economically paid off, and by March 2, 1930, Stalin had halted the rush into collectivization due to revolts and general unrest in the countryside. Before the call to end collectivization more than “15 million households collectivized.”[6] Soviet farms ended up producing excess grain that was then pushed into an already overwhelmed global grain market. As this excess food was offered for sale, many areas were forced to ration food while facing starvation, including the 64 percent of collective households (by the end of 1930) within Ukraine.[7]

The 1930s brought the rise Ukraine collectivization. While the majority of the Soviet Union had slowed down in collectivization efforts, energy was diverted into Ukraine. The transition was violent, rapid, and wildly successful.[8] The initial Ukrainian response to collectivization was resistant, with several violent cases across the Soviet Socialist Republic. The idea that, “Bolshevism has abolished private life”[9] had completely overtaken Ukraine, as 70 percent of households[10] were collectivized. The collectivization process had succeeded, and Ukraine’s collectivized farms were producing 27 percent of the Soviet grain harvest.[11] This success eventually prompted the government to seize one-third of Ukraine’s harvest, with the eventual demands of half the overall harvest for the Union rather than Ukraine alone.

The simultaneous Soviet Union famines of 1932 and 1933 swept across the USSR in Kazakhstan, Northern Caucasus Ukraine, and other regions who strongly resisted collectivization. As a large agriculture producer, Ukraine seemed unlikely to be hit by a food security issue. While collectivized farms produced grain, they were unable to hold onto food for themselves. A majority of the crop yield went to the government, at the time of harvest in 1932 Ukrainians were unable to produce anything outside of government grain. By this point “Comrades took the last food of starving people,”[12] despite Ukraine being the largest producer of grain the population plunged into a state produced famine. Thus, the term Holodomor is born, meaning “to kill by starvation.” Emphasizing the man made nature of this famine. While Ukraine lacked food, there was no ecological factor to this famine, rather it was a move of political power.[13]

This event redefined Stalin’s regime, he became a man with the power to kill millions upon choice. The Soviet Union maintains that Ukraine’s famine was not intentional, rather, it was an event that happened within the greater Soviet famines of 1932-1933. While there were multiple famines across the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s food production could have substance the population had the majority of food stayed within the republic. Soviet food production was boosted but at cost to citizens living with these rural communities, “Though collectivization was supposed to end social polarization in the countryside..the village became more stratified than ever.”[14]