IRL 6 - November 2, 2009

URL ; http://www.katardat.org/russia/pictures/photos-collectivisation.html

This source contains a collection of photos of collective farms and farmers that were forced to work on them, with most of the photos dated between 1930 and 1935. The photos are labeled by date and what they are of. This is pertinent to what we are studying in class because we have been studying collective farming in Soviet Russia in the 1930s and its successes and failures. This source adds value to what we've been studying because I can actually get a visual image of the farms, the farmers, and the materials that they had. For instance, one of the photographs is from 1931 and is labeled "Kolkhoz Field" and it depicts a line of tractors farming a giant field. The tractors all look the same and don't look to be the best quality either. Another photograph shows a woman driving a tractor, smiling, and the photograph appears to be posed. I am convinced a lot of these pictures were posed because another shows a peasant girl holding a rake, smiling. What I learned in class would go against this, because the peasants as far as I know did not like the idea of collective farming and put much more effort into their own private plots of land. Yet in these photographs, the peasants appear to be working hard and even enjoying their work. What I can deduce from this is that the photographs that were taken were posed, to hide the reality about how collective farming made the peasants feel and to make it look more successful than it was, because from these photographs, one would never know that the peasants had a problem with the collective farming or didn't give the farming their all. I can sense that these photos were initially used as propaganda. That is one of the limitations of this source - I do not know who compiled the pictures, or if the labels and dates are necessarily correct since they are typed BELOW the pictures and not stamped on them. However the photographs do depict large areas of land being farmed by many peasants who appear to be from that part of the world, so I can safely assume these photos do depict collective farming.