In this deck, we'll explore the monumental economic and social changes that occurred in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin between 1924 and 1941. We will examine his two great policies: the collectivisation of agriculture and the rapid industrialisation of the Five-Year Plans. We'll also look at what life was really like for people living through this turbulent period.

By the late 1920s, Stalin decided to abandon Lenin's New Economic Policy, or NEP. He believed it was holding back the Soviet Union's progress towards a truly communist state. The NEP allowed for too much private enterprise, especially in the countryside, and it wasn't producing enough grain to feed the growing cities or to export for cash. This decision to move to a command economy is often called 'The Great Turn'.

Stalin had several reasons for forcing the peasants onto collective farms. Economically, he wanted to increase grain production by introducing modern machinery like tractors and combining small peasant plots into huge, efficient farms. Politically, he wanted to destroy the independent, land-owning peasant class and impose socialist control over the countryside. This would also allow the state to seize grain to feed industrial workers.

Collectivisation involved merging individual peasant farms into two main types of collective. The most common was the 'Kolkhoz', where land was owned and farmed collectively by the peasants. The other type was the 'Sovkhoz', which was a large farm owned and run directly by the state, with peasants working as paid employees. To provide machinery, the government set up Machine Tractor Stations, which also served as a means of state control.