What affect did collectivization have on Stalins first five year plans?
Collectivisation was the method by which the USSR was able to afford the first Five Year Plan, without it the FYPs would not have been nearly so ambitious in the scope and range. The mechanisation of agriculture which was hoped to produce a surplus of grain and other exportable crops was also designed to increase agricultural productivity. In the first of its aims it was successful, it did provide the capital necessary to buy the machinery from Germany, Britain and the US, but it had three huge drawbacks; firstly it was bitterly resisted in many areas, secondly the mechanisation needed to implement it properly was not put in place for several years and finally it squeezed any remaining surpluses from the peasants. These factors contributed, along with political indifference – if not political willing – to cause a famine of terrible proportions in Ukraine. In its second aim it was, and continued to be, a failure, the private plots of the peasants (just 5% of the arable land) contributed
