But there's one problem. Unlike the early 1930s, by 1933 the Soviet Union was experiencing the effects of the worldwide Great Depression, a brutal famine, and it simply lacked the resources and supplies to support such an endeavor. Still Stalin approved the plan, but he did reduce the number of resettlers to a million. What a nice guy. Now the first years of this program, most of the resettlers were true kulaks and they knew how to settle virgin land. They were skilled in agricultural practices like clearing and cultivation. The skills learned and mastered over generations in their family.