The term came from the title of Joseph Stalin's article "Year of the Great Turn" ("Год великого перелома: к XII годовщине Октября", literally: "Year of the Great Break: Toward the 12th Anniversary of October") published on November 7, 1929, the 12th anniversary of the October Revolution.
[2]: 98 Part of the reason for his change was that the peasants in the years before 1928 started hoarding grain in response to low domestic and international prices for their produce.
[4]: 44 The Soviet state was slow to provide the necessary tractors and other machinery to the collective farms and this delay caused a reduction in agricultural output.
[4]: 47 Kulaks also resisted the collectivization process by slaughtering their livestock and hiding harvested grain in protest, reducing output even more.
[4]: 47 These three factors coupled with a severe drought and a slow response from the soviet administration led to a famine in parts of the countryside in 1932–33 including Kazakhstan, Ukraine and southern Russia.
Examples of well-publicized construction projects at the time are the completion in June 1930 of a huge tractor factory in Stalingrad and the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station.