collectivization
Americannoun
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the act or process of organizing a people, industry, enterprise, etc., according to collectivism, an economic system in which control, especially of the means of production, is shared cooperatively or centralized.
After World War I Russia introduced a full-scale command economy, including the collectivization of agriculture and the nationalization of almost all industrial capital.
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the act of making something apply to a group of people as a whole rather than as individuals.
The collectivization of guilt is a tool used to show that the community in which the crimes occurred has yet to become a community that can guarantee they will not be repeated.
Etymology
Origin of collectivization
Explanation
When an industry is controlled by a collaborative group, instead of by individual private owners, it's called collectivization. The Soviet Union's 1930s policy of agricultural collectivization transformed many small farms into one enormous shared farm. In economics, collectivization means forming collectives, or cooperative organizations, instead of allowing separate businesses to compete against each other. It's an important concept in communism, and Stalin's unsuccessful attempt at using collectivization to free peasants from poverty is often used as proof it can't work. Other kinds of collectivization have been more successful, though, from cooperative living situations to artist and worker collectives that give groups of people more support and bargaining power than they had as individuals.
Vocabulary lists containing collectivization
Chapter 25: World War II and the Cold War
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Government and the Economy, Sections 1–2
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Ukrainian villages have bounced back before, from war, famine and collectivization.
From New York Times ● Apr. 24, 2023
Stalin speeded the drive to collectivization, and local officials did what they could to comply with the new targets for grain collection.
From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022
No, China is probably not headed for another famine like the one that killed millions as a result of Mao’s insistence on a disruptive bid for simultaneous industrialization and agriculture collectivization between 1958 and 1962.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 18, 2022
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was born to a peasant family on March 2, 1931, amid one of dictator Josef Stalin’s most savage endeavors, the forced collectivization of agriculture that left millions of rural Russians to starve.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 30, 2022
In addition to the collectivization of farms, the Five-Year Plans also aimed to industrialize the USSR.
From "A Thousand Sisters" by Elizabeth Wein
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
