Collective farm meeting, near Kiev, USSR, 1930s. Group of farmers at a meeting to discuss harvesting on a collective farm near Kiev, Ukraine, USSR. Between 1928 and 1933, the Soviet Union followed a policy known as collectivization. This was intended to consolidate land and labour into collective farms. Instead of being paid wages, the labourers were given a share of the farm's products after the state had taken its portion. In the Ukraine, Stalin imposed collectivization and this resulted in a reduction in output and disastrous famines in 1932 and 1933 that killed millions. Agriculture did not recover to pre-collectivization levels until the 1940s.