Week 4 Blogpost – Lack of Soviet Sustenance

Collectivization

The reason why I chose this topic is my interest in how the proletariat class reacted to the decrees of Stalin. Stalin’s plan was to industrialize and improve the way of life for everyone by government mandating the collecting of crops and agriculture in general for the people. The interesting part about this is that though he had these positive intentions for him and his people, they did not turn out so well for them. Famine ensued with the push to turn agriculture into something that the government had watch over.

What I learned was that the peasants did not want at all to work on these “collectivized” farmlands. They rioted and violently protested by slaughtering their livestock, destroying and vandalizing farmland property (government property) and working at a very slow and unproductive pace. Their slow pace of work made it impossible for government overseer’s or  the Kolkhoz administration to make their quotas. (Info is from the website listed below).

The cultural artifact that I examined was a piece of propaganda (shock workers). This piece of propaganda was meant to make known of the demand for shock workers (or workers who had an especially difficult and arduous task)  and their task to meet and exceed the quotas for the government run agriculture (sources from http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1929-2/shock-workers/). The environment for these workers was not pleasant at all, and the pay was so minimal it did not support the workers or their families. The harsh conditions and lack of pay made for reluctant workers and a lack of productivity. This lack of productivity caused a massive famine.

http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1929-2/shock-workers/shock-workers-images/#bwg70/499

http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1929-2/collectivization/