eased by ten times.4 Prices continued to fall into 1931, compulsory and wide spread collectivization were combined with rationing. Millions of peasants starved to death as exports were forced on the world in the face of surplus elsewhere.5 The central committee affirmed that the peasants were willingly moving into collectives. In secret, Stalin had ordered local officials to force the peasants to collectivize or be executed or sent to labor camps. Entire villages had to deliver grain to the state at low prices. Kulaks, or former wealthy farmers, were deliberately over assessed for grain deliveries, and expropriated for failure to obey. The party did not have a specific outline of how to go about collectivization, so initial attempts were confusing, ill prepared, and met with severe resistance. Within seven weeks, about half the peasantry had been herded into collectives, but bringing in as little as possible. They slaughtered more than half their livestock in a protest. In March 1930, Russia was faced with a grain seed shortage. Stalin called for a temporary halt to the collectivization methods and blamed over zealous local officials for misunderstanding his initial request for collectivization. After a brief pause, peasants were lured into collectives by persuasion and unfair taxation. This practice was however not such a success. Peasants became unmotivated, crops were left unharvested, and farm animals died of neglect. Large grain exports in 1930-1931 depleted reserves and increased quotas. By 1932, amid widespread concealment of grain, collectivization hung by a thread, and was maintained by force.6 In the Ukraine and north Caucasus, the state seized nearly all the grain, creating for the first time in history a man made famine.** The Great Famine** Although this famine appears to have resulted in the death of approximately five million people,7 it is scarcely known today. The Soviet Union never admitted that the ...
