The larger collective farms that could afford the modern machinery were urged to act against the kulaks (rich peasant farmers). The kulaks refused to sell their excess grain were forced to hand over their land to the government. Most of them burned their crops, killed their livestock, and destroyed the machinery in attempts to defy the government. The kulaks caused famine to sweep over the country during 1931 and 1932, since they had destroyed most of their crops, livestock, and machinery. This caused the USSR"s economy to slow even more because it needed the agricultural produce to pay for needed industrial machinery. There was a brief recovery of the economy during 1933,1934 and 1935 because of great harvest in those years, and for the moment, the Soviet agriculture had been made more efficient. However, the Soviets economy would soon start to decay again in the 1980"s. The war against Afghanistan in 1979 had depleted the nation"s resources and treasury; there was also increased strain on the economy due to increased military expenditures. An aging political leadership also contributed to the decay of the economy since it was unable to sole agricultural mismanagement problems and the inability of inspiring the work force. In an attempt to encourage the productivity of the workers, Yuri Andropov tried to scare the workers into increasing productivity. After Andropov"s death, Chernenko failed to keep up Andropov"s scare tactic. After Chernenko"s death Gorbachev, the new ruler of the Soviet Union, introduce perestroika in attempts to save the USSR"s economy. However Gorbachev"s perestroika reforms only complicated USSR"s economy, this was due to contradictory policies, as the economy was still slowly declining. After two failed reforms, of Gorbachev and Stalin, the economy of the soviet Union failed in 1991, after sever sacrifices had been made by the people of the Soviet Union.