Collectivization

[Drace]

Just what is it and how does it work?

[Q]

Just what is it and how does it work?

It's a progressive economic step in agriculture by scaling things up a lot. Large farms are way more efficient then small ones. This is only really an issue in underdeveloped nations still dealing with tiny farms.

That being said, collectivisation as was done in the USSR was done quite stupidly and murderously. As opposed to introducing a policy which would let farmers voluntarily merge into larger collectives, the Stalin clique first adopted (until the late 1920's) a policy of nurging so called "kulaks" or rich farmers which acted in much the same fashion as happened in Tsarist Russia before the revolution. Once the Kulaks became too powerful and thusly an immediate threat to the revolution and bureaucracy, Stalin & co once again radically changed policy and started forced collectivisation, killing many in the process.

For more info on this I'd suggest chapter two of The Revolution Betrayed (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch02.htm).