Why did people not want to live on a collective farm?

Answer 1

An interesting question, but I'm not sure what region(s) you are referring to. In the United States, consumerism and governmental Propaganda caused people to view the collective farming system with distaste- it was considered "un-American" to have no profit motive. In the Soviet Union, this question would greatly depend on the time period. During the Stalin era, collective farmers were put under enormous pressure to produce more crops than was actually possible. If the collective farmers failed to report massive increases in crop production, they (and possibly their families) would be killed, tortured indefinitely, or sent to the Gulag (slave labor camps, similar to concentration camps, in Siberia). However, following Premier Khrushchev's de-Stalinization campaigns, collective farms became much more hospitable. Although life on the collective farm was not exactly a Socialist paradise, it was far better than life under Stalin. Some people loved their lives on the collective farms in the 1960s; others did not enjoy the lifestyle. There are many examples of utopian attempts to create a collective farming system; however, many failed because of greed, which proves to be a very hard drive to erase completely. Following the Cuban Revolution, many people wanted to live on collective farms to help one another; others did not, because they simply were not interested by agriculture. Thus, the answer to your question varies depending on time period and region. Some people did want to live on collective farms, and others did not. I hope this helped.