How Successful was Stalin's Policy of Collectivisation?

Question: How Successful was Stalin's Policy of Collectivisation!?
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

The success or otherwise depends upon how one views collectivisation!. If you consider that it was designed to modernise agriculture and to increase agricultural yields, then it was a partial success!. But, the human cost was enormous, millions died in the Holodomor - the Ukrainian famine caused as a direct result of the policy!. Livestock levels fell to pre-WWI levels and took about 5 years to recover - this was because many peasants slaughtered their animals and preserved or sold the meat rather than hand them over to the collective!. But, yields did rise, and the initial investment in agricultural machinery did increase the amount of land under the plough!. Overall, however, it was an economic and social failure!. The private plots that all peasants were allowed to work on provided something like 60% of all agricultural produce in the USSR - not bad for under 5% of all agricultural land!.
But if one considers that the true purpose of the policy was to break the political will of the peasants, who had been advocates of the rival Socialist Revolutionary Party before the Revolution, and who were traditionally conservative, religious and loyal to the Tsar !. And if you consider that the policy was designed to create an agricultural working class - rather than a peasantry - then it was a huge success!. The Communists never faced a rural population as hostile to them as they had faced during the Civil War!.
See:
http://www!.historylearningsite!.co!.uk/col!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com