Stalin’s economic policy primarily consisted of two factors, collectivisation and the five year plans. The aim of collectivisation was to destroy private ownership that had been allowed whilst the NEP was in effect. The reason for this is that private ownership was a capitalist idea and therefore it went against Marx’s theory of communism. Another aim of collectivisation was to make the state a proletariate; this was needed because in order to reach the communism stage and make a Utopia in society the state should have been led by a proletariate government during the socialist stage. In addition to this collectivisation was introduced because the state needed to acquire grain so it could be exported and used in the growing cities as food.
Collectivisation was successful in a number of ways, one of which is that the targets that the government had set- so that there would be enough food to sell to other countries and to feed the people within the USSR- were met. It was essential that the state had money because Stalin felt that the state had to industrialise and be armed so that it could protect itself if any other countries attacked. Another reason why collectivisation was a success, on an ideological basis, is that it gave the state control of the grain and therefore this meant that everyone could be given an amount of food that would be equal to everyone else, due to this everyone would be seen as equals and as a result of this the USSR would be moving towards its ultimate goal of communism. Finally collectivisation was a success as it got rid of a majority of the private ownerships in the countryside. Instead collective farms were used; this meant that the peasants that had once owned the farms instead worked on them as the government took control of them.
However, there were also ways in which collectivisation was not successful. One example of this is that it resulted in a ‘man made’ famine. This famine was