Joseph Stalin's policy to collect private farms into cooperatives and wholly state-owned farms across the USSR began in 1928. Stalin hoped the process of collectivisation would modernise Soviet agriculture, provide a surplus of foodstuffs that could fuel the industrialisation of towns and cities, and greatly increase state control in the countryside where the Communist Party had hitherto struggled to exert its authority. One of the largest experiments in social engineering ever undertaken, collectivisation did achieve some of Stalin's aims but also resulted in massive inefficiencies and widespread opposition, which in turn led to famines, brutal state oppression – particularly against wealthier farmers, and the deaths of from 5 to 8 million civilians.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original article at https://www.worldhistory.org/article/3018/stalins-collectivisation-of-agriculture/.
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