In 1929 general collectivization was declared. Machine and tractor stations were set up to support the collective farms in Polotsk, and in the beginning of 1930 half-year courses on the preparation of tractor operators were opened. The city party organization sent communists to the neighboring collective farms to work. Workers of Polotsk collected money for the purchase of tractors for collective farms.
Since the late 1920s, industrialization was carried out in the republic. In the border area of Polotsk, small-scale commodity production developed primarily to meet local needs. In the years of the First Five-Year Plan, new buildings and the reconstruction of old enterprises were built. By the mid-1930s a brick factory, a timber mill, a poultry factory, a meat-packing plant, a bakery, dozens of cooperatives, crafts and agricultural workshops were working in the city.
Polotsk gradually became a major economic center, providing the needs of the regions of the north-western part of the BSSR. To accelerate the pace of industrialization, a movement for socialist competition and striking began.