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Soviet Union Case Study

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Some underlying failures of the Soviet Union’s five year plans were well hidden from outsiders. The main failure was the forced collectivization of farms throughout the country. The primary issue with collectivization was that if a group failed to meet a quota set out by the government they would not be provided with adequate means to survive. The government barely provide enough for those who achieve the unrealistic quotas set out by them so failing to hit said quota would essentially cause for starvation. “Peasants under Stalin” documents experiences of farmers found in these collective settings. The structure of the farms was that farmers would be paid a low rate for all grain until they reached the quota and everything above that would …show more content…

Disobedience to the state included fighting the new farming system and talking out against the state. This style of leadership allowed for all accused of these ‘crimes’ to be used as prison labourers. The use of labour camps as discussed earlier helped to finish enormous government projects. Stalin’s implementation of this law also succeeded in placing fear into farmers causing them to have no further ability or options to fight the governments oppressive changes. The fear-filled rural population of the Soviet Union would as a result do anything possible to achieve goals set out by the government.

Collective farms and the peasant population of the Soviet Union was often found in the worst living conditions and faced with the most detrimental expectation of the government. The collective farms were forced to produce millions of more pounds of crops such as cotton on a yearly basis. This was all required with a smaller wage being offered to an ever increasing amount of households in each collective farm. The number of households found on a collective farm was 6.0 in 1930 and by 1933 that number had increased to 15.2. This increasing amount of peasants would share the same land and be required to split the earnings of the crop between the more than double workers at one site. In 1930 the percent of peasant farm

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