The massive swing towards collectivized agriculture during the 1930s was one of the Soviet Union's most defining moments. Where the state had been previously weak in the countryside, the movement of the peasants onto the collective farms (the kolkhoz) changed that for the rest of the USSR's history. It also created dislocations and conflicts that will be at the heart of the next few weeks' worth of episodes. 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Allen, Robert C. Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution Princeton University Press 2003
2. Fitzpatrick, Sheila Stalin's Peasants: Resistance & Survival in the Russian Village After Collectivization Oxford University Press 1994
3. Lewin, Moshe Making the Soviet System: Essays in the Social History of Interwar Russia Pantheon Books 1985
4. Lewin, Moshe The Soviet Century Verso 2016
5. Kotkin, Stephen Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 Penguin Press 2017
6. Suny, Ronald Grigor The Cambridge History of Russia Volume III: The Twentieth Century Cambridge University Press 2006
7. Kenez, Peter A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End, 2nd Edition Cambridge University Press 2006

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