In 1921 Lenin introduced the NEP, this allowed the peasants to own their land and sell any surplus food. This allowed peasants to become quite well off , these peasants were known as “kulaks”. Gradually these peasants were doing well enough for themselves they had other peasants working for them. Despite the food production increasing in the 1920’s there was very little industrial development leaving the USSR vulnerable to attack from Europe. The country was in desperate need of more industry to produce weapons and this would require more workers in factories which would lead to many more people migrating to the city on leaving the country with a higher demand on food, in addition to that the USSR would need to buy machinery for industrialisation from aboard and this process would only be possible through the exportation of food. In 1929 Stalin was determined to make sure the USSR would be able to withstand any invasion and to do this he decided to abandon the NEP. The state was now in control of agriculture and industry. This would ensure that much higher levels of production and strengthen the position of the USSR.
Collectivisation was theory put into process and showed good results. This theory was that large farms would be more productive than small plots of land the reason for this was that large farms known as collective farms would be able to use large machinery such as tractors and combine harvesters. This process began in 1929 resulting in twenty-five million peasant farms to be combined to form 240,000 collective farms called “kolkhoz”. This did not run well with the peasants whom preferred to kill their livestock rather than hand them over to the State.
In 1928 Stalin