Collectivisation was an action organised in the Soviet Union with the aim of liquidating private property and concentrating peasants in collective farms and cooperatives.

The declaration of the Baltic states as Soviet republics was followed by political, economic and social restructuring, including land reform, accompanied by mass terror. The private sector in industry was abolished in 1945, in trade in 1947 and land reform was carried out again between 1944 and 1946.

The peasantry was put under pressure with obligations to sell agricultural products, taxes and labour obligations. The formation of collective farms began in 1947 after the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of 21 May "On the formation of collective farms in the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian SSRs". On 25 March 1949, mass deportations were carried out. Fear of deportation ensured the success of the establishment of collective farms. Economically, the establishment of collective farms was devastating: state sales obligations with symbolic purchase prices and extremely high service fees paid to machine-tractor stations absorbed practically all the income of collective farms. The collective farmers lived only on their yard, animal husbandry, the work of the collective farm, lost its meaning and the collective farm workers lost their will to work.