A Soviet propaganda poster about collective farming
Collectivization was a policy of Stalinist Soviet Union-era Russia which was enforced from 1927 to 1933 under Joseph Stalin. The policy sought to put an end to the starvation of the Russian people by turning peasant farms into community-owned farms, in which the community would grow its own food supply. However, many peasants resisted the process, as they were treated like serfs. In addition, the Soviets had churches closed, schools secularized, icons burned down, and Orthodox Christian priests arrested. By the early 1930s, 91% of Russian farmland had been collectivized, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill claimed that 10,000,000 people had died during the process of collectivization, as famine led to whole communities starving to death.