Nowhere was this propensity for deceit more clearly displayed than during his article of March 2, 1930, Dizzy With Success. Stalin, in addition to passing responsibility for his mistakes on to "some of our comrades," deliberately lied to the peasants by insisting that the organized terror and theft that had hitherto characterised the collectivisation was completely contrary to his wishes. This was a crucial tactical retreat in Stalin's attempts to crush and collectivise the Soviet peasantry.
A brief chronology of the preceding years is necessary to place all this in context. From 1918-20 the Bolsheviks were engaged in a bloody civil war. The ravaged state of the country at the end of this struggle, combined with foreign opposition and further internal unrest in 1921, illustrated that their grip on power was uncertain. Lenin, seeing the need to rebuild the economy and appease the people, instigated the New Economic Policy (or NEP), which allowed for the limited reintroduction of capitalism.
This measure worked, but most Bolsheviks regarded the NEP as only a temporary piece of pragmatism. They longed to introduce proper Communism- in particular collectivisation, although there were sharp disagreements as to the timing and extent of this collectivisation.
In 1929, Stalin set about collectivising Soviet agriculture. The results were disastrous. The peasants, angry at being forced to join collective farms, slaughtered their cattle en masse, rather than surrender it to the State. The government later admitted- and these figures are probably understated- that 42.6% of the cattle and 65.1% of the sheep were lost. When this was coupled with virtually non-existent planning and the removal of incentives to work, it can be imagined how devastating Stalin's policies were to the Soviet countryside.
The unjust and brutal nature of the collectivisation only further exacerbated the situation. Peasants, seeing that many of their number were being deported and that much of their grain and property were being stolen, were obviously less inclined to join the collective farms, less inclined to work and more inclined to slaughter their animals and hinder production. The cruel nature of Stalin's policy can be seen in a speech given by one of his henchmen, Khatayevich, to a group of activists.
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