" Since they believed that this revolutionary transformation was in the long-term interests of the people, they were willing to force it through, even when, as with collectivization, a majority of the relevant population clearly opposed it. They explained popular resistance as a result of the backwardness, prejudices, and fears of the unenlightened masses. "

― Sheila Fitzpatrick , Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s