Stalin: The Five-Year Plans and the Purges

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Stalin The Five-Year Plans and the Purges

• McKay Chapter 29 (957-963) Palmer 18.95

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Todays Agenda

• Finish Stalin Revolution
• Objective Test on WWI to Russian Revolution
  Thursday
• Corrected DBQs due tomorrow

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Totalitarian dictatorships

• Emerged in Soviet Union, Germany, and Italy
• Rejected parliamentary and liberal values
  (including rationality, peaceful progress,
  economic freedom, and a strong middle class)
• State regulates nearly every aspect of public and
  private behavior
• Characterized by
• secret police
• propaganda disseminated through the
  state-controlled mass media
• personality cults
• regulation and restriction of free discussion and
  criticism
• single-party states
• use of mass surveillance
• terror tactics
• Extreme nationalism
• sought full control mobilize over the masses
• believed in will power, conflict, the worship of
  violence
• USSR was totalitarianism of the left
• Nazi Germany was totalitarianism of the right

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Review

• 1860s- Era of Reform
• Fundamental Institutions altered
• Serfdom ended
• Zemstvos
• 1890s
• Reactionary period (Alexander III)
• Stolypin Policies
• Industrialization
• Kulaks supported
• Political Parties Form
• Kadets
• Populists
• Social Democratic Party
• Mensheviks
• Bolsheviks
• Marxists-Leninists
• 1905
• Russo Japanese War
• Bloody Sunday

• 1914 (WWI)
• 1917
• February Rev. (March)
• Petrograd Food Riots
• Provisional Gov v PetroSov
• May
• Army Order 1
• October Rev. (Nov)
• Peace, Land and Bread
• 1918-Brest Litovsk
• 1918-1922- Civil War
• Red Army
• War Communism
• Cheka
• Red Terror
• 1921-1927
• New Economic Policy (NEP) (1924
• Stalin v Trotsky

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Crane Brinton The Anatomy of Revolution

• Moderate Period
• Feb-Oct 1917
• Age of Montesquieu
• Constitution
• Liberal moderates Kadets (nobles bourgeoisie)
  in control
• Provisional Gov.
• Duma
• Limited Change
• Limited enfranchise-ment
• Legal equality, not social

• Radical
• Revolution Reignited
• 1921-1953
• Stalins Revolution
• 5 Year Plans
• Collectivization
• Forced Industrialization
• Great Purges
• Liquidation of Counter- Revolutionaries

• Radical Period
• Oct 1917-1921
• Age of Rousseau
• Republic
• Strong central government
• Radicals in control
• Bolshevik Rev.
• Radical Revolutionary Change
• Total enfranchise- ment
• Terror (Cheka)
• Regicide
• Command economy (War Communism)
• Utopian/ idealized vision

• Thermidorian Period
• 1921-1927
• Age of Smith
• Oligarchy
• Gov. pro Bourgeoisie (Kulak)
• New Economic Policy
• Idealized visions of Rev forgotten
• Period of decadence
• Free Market economy
• High Inflation

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Stalins Soviet Union
Great Purges
Russian Revolution
Collectivization Begins
Lenin Dies
Operation Barbarossa
1917 1921 1924 1927 1929 1936
1939 1941
-Red Army defeats White Army -NEP begins
First Five Year Plan (1928)
Molotov Ribbentropp Pact
Stalin Emerges as the Leader
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The New Economic Policy, 1921 1927

• A strategic retreat
• By 1920 the country is in ruins
• War Communism had antagonized peasants
• Produced only 62 of pre-Revolution land
• Also dealing with drought, famine, transportation
  problems, WWI, Revolution, Civil War, The Terror,
  war communism
• 50-90 in 17 provinces starving
• Steel textile production only 4 of 1913 levels
• Millions died
• Lenin
• believed that revolution (socialism) was going to
  fast
• ordered a compromise with capitalism (a strategic
  retreat)

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The New Economic Policy, 1921 1927

• A relaxation of the Terror and tempo of the
  socialist movement
• State still controlled the commanding heights
  of the economy
• Banks, RR, heavy industry
• But allowed private trading for private profit
• Effort was intended to increase trade between
  town and country
• Peasants could sell excess produce for
  manufactured goods
• NEP was pro Kulak
• Led to the growth of a Neo-bourgeois
• Nouveau riches in a classless society
• Reached 1913 level of production by 1926
• A thermidorian period?

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Stalin and Trotsky

• Lenin died in 1924 Lenin after series of strokes
  (54 years old)
• Had been incapacitated for 2 years before death
• Trotsky and Stalin were top two candidates for
  position
• Stalin (background)
• Expelled from theological seminary
• Joined Bolsheviks in 1903
• Poor speaker, writer
• Appointed General Secretary of Communist Party
• Not viewed as very influential post (at first)
• Used it to appoint allies
• Good organizer, palm greaser

Click for Clip (0-6min)
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Stalin and Trotsky

• Trotsky
• Colorful and bombastic ideologue
• Called for permanent revolution
• Communism must spread
• Girondistic weltanschauung
• Called for forceful industrialization and
  collectivization of agriculture
• Demanded the adoption of an overall Plan
• Stalin
• Covert, subtle, politically practical
• Called for socialism in one country
• Montagnardic weltanschauung
• 95 percent of the party delegates voted for
  Stalin at the party congress (1927)
• Trotsky was exiled and banished to Siberia
• Lived in Turkey, France, and Mexico
• Organized an underground against Stalin
• Was murdered in Mexico in 1940
• Name not mentioned in Russian textbooks until
  1980s

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The First Five-Year Plan (1928-32)

• Known as second revolution Revolution from
  above
• Aim was to make nation militarily and
  industrially self-sufficient
• Stalin (1929)-We are becoming a country of
  metal, a country of automobiles, a country of
  tractors
• Declared fulfilled in 1932
• Second 5 Year Plan (32-37)
• Third 5 Year Plan (38- WWII)
• Plan listed economic goals
• 250 increase in industrial output
• 150 increase in agricultural output

"The Victory of the Five Year Plan is a Strike
Against Capitalism"
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The First Five-Year Plan (1928-32)

• Gosplan
• Planned the economy
• Answered all economic questions
• how much to produce
• amount of capital to produce
• amount of consumer goods
• wages, prices
• Created a command planned economy
• Why?
• Stalin feared Thermidorian (capitalism)
• Wanted to catch up to the West
• Feared establishment of conservative land-owning
  peasantry

This poster from 1929 attacks eight groups that
were frequently scapegoated (clockwise from top
left) landlords, kulaks, journalists,
capitalists, White Russians, Mensheviks, priests,
and drunkards
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Goals of the First Five Year Plan

• Main goal of 1st 5
• Build up heavy industry without foreign loans
• Make USSR self sufficient
• History offered no paradigm of going from
  agriculture to industrial based economy without
  borrowing capital
• GB industrialization aided by Dutch investment
• GB first had agricultural revolution (land
  enclosure, scientific cultivation)
• This released rural population to find employment
  in factories
• 1st Five attempted similar feat without
  landowning class
• How?

"Long live the international socialist
revolution!"
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The Collectivization of Agriculture

• Collectivization (1928-1940)
• Part of 1st 5 Year Plan to convert small,
  privately owned farms into large, collectively
  owned farms
• peasantry would become proletariat (owned no
  capital, employed no labor individually)
• Goals
• Increase food supply
• Free up labor for factory work
• Collective farms
• a few thousand acres each
• Kolkhozy
• owned by peasants themselves (the collective)
• Paid tax in produce
• Mir paradigm
• Sovkhozy
• State owned
• Mass produced one product

Soviet Collectivization Propaganda (1930). The
poster reads "Hey Friend, Come with us into the
Collective!" 
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Effects of Collectivization

• Before 1928
• average peasant was too poor to afford a tractor,
  fields too small and dispersed
• After Collectivization
• Machine Tractors Stations
• organized throughout country with expert
  agronomist, a fleet of tractors, combines
• Each collective was assigned a quota
• Almost whole nation was collectivized by 1939
• Was Collectivization successful?
• Did free up labor (20 million) to work in cities
  (industrialization)
• Did not increase food production
• Denied peasants freedom to make their own
  economic decision, killed incentive to improve
  land, passing land to offspring

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Collectivization in Soviet Union 1927-1940
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Human Costs of Collectivization
Click for clip (834-15

• Kulaks (large landowning peasants) resistance
• Viewed collectivization as the Second Serfdom
• Stalin said liquidate them as a class
• Kulaks slaughtered horses, cattle, pigs, rather
  than give them up (50)
• Loss of animals was worst unforeseen calamity
• Stalin still refused to cut back on cereal and
  food exports because they were needed to pay for
  industrial imports (under 1st 5 Year Plan)
• millions were killed/others transported to labor
  camps in Siberia
• Many of the most capable farmers perished
• Led to deadly famine in southeast Russia and
  Ukraine in 32-33
• 6 Millions died

Soviet Collectivization Village Propaganda(1929)
The Poster Reads "On our collective there is no
room for priests or kulaks"
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The Growth of Industry

• Greatest industrial growth in 10 year period in
  history
• GB growth was gradual, Germany and US it was
  rapid (USSR was light speed)
• 1928-38 USSR increased production of iron and
  steel 4xs, coal 3.5xs, became largest producer of
  farm tractors, RR locomotives
• Plants of Magnitogorsk in the Urals and Stalinsk
  in Siberia produced as much iron and steel as the
  whole Russia empire did in 1914
• Only the US and Germany had greater gross
  industrial output in 1939
• Plans called for development of industry east of
  Urals (Asia)
• Copper mines near Lake Balkhash, lead mines in
  Altai Mountains were developed
• Grain producing regions developed in Siberia and
  Kazakh
• Tashkent (formerly remote village in Uzbek) grew
  to city of .5 million and a hub of cotton, copper
  mining, electrical industries
• RR of 38 carried 5xs that of 1913

Early Soviet poster The Smoke of chimneys is the
breath of Soviet Russia
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Changes Brought by Modernization

• Incredibly inner Asia was turning industrial
• USSR was carrying on more trade with its Asian
  neighbors (although less foreign trade than in
  1914)
• Industrialization in the Urals and Asia saved
  Russia in 41 (Barbarossa)
• BUT
• its easy to exaggerate USSRs industrialization
• Started from almost nothing
• Low standards of production (shoddy work)
• Low efficiency and output compared to West
• Produced less coal, electricity, cotton, woolens,
  leather shoes, and steel per capita than almost
  all Western nations
• Paper is good indicator (index) of
  industrialization, civilizing activities
• 1937 US 103 pounds per person
• Germany and GB 92
• Japan 17
• Russia 11

Let's make stronger industrial power of Soviet
Union ! 1932
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Social Costs and Effects of the Plans

• Soviet citizens had to forgo consumer goods
• Lack of quality food, housing,
• Kulaks and others who resisted were killed
• 1/3rd of national income was reinvested in
  industry every year
• Hard work for low wages
• Morale sustained by propaganda

• Late 1930s life began to ease
• food rationing abolished (1935)
• More products (dishes, pens) began to appear
• Living standards 1927 levels
• Threat of war and need for preparation kyboshed
  the utopian dream
• Socialism did eliminate some of capitalisms evils
• No acknowledged unemployment
• No cycle of boom and depression
• No exploitation of children, women
• No extremely wealthy class
• But no economic equality (actually great
  difference in income)
• Govern officials, managers, engineers, artists,
  and intellectuals of the Party were rewarded

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Competition

• Alexey Stakhanov
• Coal miner who was propagandized as a Hero of
  Socialist Labor
• mined a record 102 tons of coal in under 6 hours
• 14 times his quota
• Greatly increased his wages (piece rate)
• Led to increased competition as other workers
  began to set production records
• Stakhanovites (labor heroes) were held up by
  government (IE. A production line speed up)
• Factory managers who failed to reach their quota
  (profit) could lose job, status, or life
• Poor management was viewed as sabotage or a
  betrayal of Soviet society
• Press denounced those who didnt meet the plan

Soviet Medal for Labor Valor
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The Price of Solidarity

• Feeling of building a socialist motherland was
  prevalent
• Became national pastime to watch the mounting
  statistics, fulfilling of quotas
• Instead of sports, readers read about the economy
• This solidarity came with totalitarianism
• Gov supervised everything
• No room for skeptics, independence of thought
• No one could leave country without permission
  (given rarely)
• No free labor union, no free press, association,
  only slight toleration of religion
• Jews harassed
• Untold millions perished, were imprisoned, forced
  labor camps in Stalins juggernaut

Shaming Winners of the "infamous banner for a
tortoise's pace."
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Socialist Realism

• Officially approved art of the Communist Party
• Loaded with propaganda
• A reaction against decadent bourgeois art of
  impressionism and cubism
• purpose was to elevate the common worker
• Factory and agricultural worker
• presenting his life, work, and recreation as
  admirable
• ultimate aim was to create New Soviet Man
• Man will make it his purpose to master his own
  feelings, to raise his instincts to the heights
  of consciousness, to make them transparent, to
  extend the wires of his will into hidden
  recesses, and thereby to raise himself to a new
  plain plane, to create a higher social biologic
  type, or, if you please, a superman.

Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky Who needs a
"1"?The voice of a "1" is thinner than a
squeak.Who will hear it? Only the wife...A "1" is
nonsense. A "1" is zero.
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Constitution of 1936

• New constitution proclaimed in 1936 (because
  socialism was so successful)
• Gave rights
• employment, rest, leisure, economic security,
  social security
• Condemned racism, gave equal and universal
  suffrage
• At first applauded in the west
• Communist Party remained sole governing group
• Diverging opinions within the Party led to
  conspiracy (since one could not question Stalin
  himself)

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The Great Purges

• Series of Show Trials between 1936-38 of Old
  Bolsheviks accused of traitorous activities
• Trying to assassinate Stalin
• Restore capitalism
• Dismember Soviet Union
• Being part of "Trotskyite Terrorist Centre"
• Verdicts predetermined
• Confessed their crimes after torture threats
  to family members and promptly executed by firing
  squad

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The Great Purges

• Began when Serge Kirov, old friend of Stalin and
  head of Lenigrad party apparatus, Politburo
  member was assassinated in his office
• Actually murdered by Stalins men for showing
  signs of dissention
• Stalin used this assassination as excuse for
  further terror
• Over 100 Bolsheviks executed
• KGB later disclosed that from 1930-1953 3,778,334
  persons had been tried for crimes against the
  state
• Most of them during Great Terror of 1934-38
• 786,098 were executed
• Unknown others died in labor/prison camps
• Gulag Archipelago
• Soviet forced labor and concentration camp system

Click for Stalin Documentary
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(No Transcript)
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Reinforcing the Dictatorship

• Stalin rid himself of the Old Bols who knew Lenin
  and potential rivals
• Young revolutionaries were products of the new
  order
• Didnt question Stalins dictatorship

Click for Clip 650 (5 Year Plan)