Stalin Speech Agrarian Policy Kulaks 1929

Stalin, speech on kulaks, 1929 Joseph Stalin, Speech on Agrarian Policy Dec. 27, 1929 Excerpted from the Original Electronic Text at "From Marx to Mao." Food shortages were a serious problem in the early days of the Soviet Union, and in 1921 Lenin instituted the New Economic Plan (NEP) as a means of improving agricultural production. The NEP allowed peasants to farm for profit. A few (5% or so) became prosperous in the following decade. However the kulaks (prosperous farmers) were dissatisfied, in part because there were no manufactured goods available for them to buy with the profits of their farms. Sometimes they refused to sell their crops as a form of political protest. As illustrated by the speech excerpted below, Stalin blamed them for food shortages and ordered the collectivization of their farms. In theory only the kulaks were to be targeted, but in practice the government took over the farms belonging to any peasants who opposed collectivization. Angry farmers slaughtered their livestock and wrecked their farm machinery rather than turn them over to the state. A virtual civil war developed between the Russian military and the peasants, and by 1931 millions of peasants had died. -smv N.B. Stalin cites grain statistics in terms of the Russian pood, which is about 36 pounds. {1} The characteristic feature in the work of our Party during the past year is that we, as a Party, as the Soviet power: a) have developed an offensive along the whole front against the capitalist elements in the countryside; b) that this offensive, as you know, has yielded and continues to yield very appreciable, positive results. {2} What does this mean? It means that we have passed from the policy of restricting the exploiting tendencies of the kulaks to the policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class. It means that we have carried out, and are continuing to carry out, one of the decisive turns in our whole policy. {3} Until recently the Party adhered to the policy of restricting