 During the Central Committee plenum of 19 December 1930 , Alexey Rykov , the Chairman of the Council of People 's Commissars ( the equivalent of a Western head of government ) was succeeded by Molotov . In this post , Molotov oversaw the Stalin regime 's collectivisation of agriculture . He followed Stalin 's line by using a combination of force and propaganda to crush peasant resistance to collectivisation , including the deportation of millions of kulaks ( peasants with property ) to labour camps . An enormous number of the deportees died from exposure and overwork . He signed the Law of Spikelets and personally led the Extraordinary Commission for Grain Delivery in Ukraine , which seized a reported 4 @.@ 2 million tonnes of grain from the peasants during a widespread manmade famine ( known in Ukraine as Holodomor ) . Contemporary historians estimate that between seven and eleven million people died , either of starvation or in labour camps , in the process of farm collectivization . Molotov also oversaw the implementation of the First Five @-@ Year Plan for rapid industrialisation . 
