Stalinist Russia

1
Stalinist Russia

• Domestic Policies
• Economic Policies

2
Did Stalin start something new or carry on what
was started by Lenin?

• Soviet Historiography
• Stalin ordered a compulsory History book to be
  published (1938) this claims Stalin has only
  done what Lenin intended.
• Trotsky Claiming that Stalin ruined the rev.
  allowing the bureaucracy to grow stronger and
  taking power from the workers ideals of rev.
• During Khrushchev (53-64) Stalin was to blame.
  Stalin is scapegoat for everything that went
  wrong.
• Brezhnev-Gorbachev (64-85) Brezhnev erased
  Stalin.
• Gorbachev Back to Lenin not just Stalin,
  whole period regarded as a mistake.
• Fall of Soviet Union Historians criticise whole
  period.

3
Did Stalin start something new or carry on what
was started by Lenin?

• Western Historiography
• Reporters visited Stalins Russia Seen as a
  great experiment. Many Western communists saw the
  USSR as the Saviour against Hitlers Germany.
• COLD WAR LEADS TO NEW APPROACH
• Liberal School (post 45)
• Focussed on Stalins personal desire for
  totalitarian state.
• Determinist School
• Criticises Liberal approach, arguing role of
  Stalin is less important.
• Revisionist School
• Focussed on role played by the people of the
  Soviet Union. They show that many supported
  Collectivisation.

4
How popular was Stalin?

• Liberals
• Focus on negative side of Stalinism. Argue that
  Stalin was v. unpopular. They focus on citizens
  lack of freedom.
• Revisionists
• Stalin was popular among certain sectors of
  society. Hanna Arendts Origins of
  Totalitarianism points out that cruel dictators
  usually get support from many groups of society.

5
Personal Dictatorship

• Control over the Communist Party
• Soviet Constitution of 1936 (known as the Stalin
  Constitution)
• - Redesigned the govt. of the Soviet Union.
• - Basically focused power in Stalins hands.
• ? Gave right to vote (but only for Communist
  Party ?)
• Use of Terror.

6
Control over Communist Party

• Power centralised in the hands of party
  leadership by Lenin
• Situation enhanced by Stalin in his role as
  General Secretary
• Seeds of Stalinism sown by Lenincheck out
  historiography for debate on this!
• Politburo witnessed removal of members and
  replaced by Stalins cronies.
• ALL PARTY AND STATE INSTITUTIONS REMAINED
  MECHANISMS FOR RUBBER-STAMPING DECISIONS MADE BY
  STALIN

7
1936 CONSTITUTION ?

• Appeared highly democratic
• All citizens given the vote as classes no longer
  existed
• Civil Right provisions
• Guarantee of employment

8
1936 CONSTITUTION ?

• Restrictions on rights
• Only Communist Party members could stand for
  election
• Other political parties regarded as product of
  class conflict that no longer existed
• Constitution not taken seriously at home or
  abroad
• THE GREAT TERROR FOLLOWED IN 1937

9
Failure of Political Institutions

• Not caused by Stalins actions alone
• Weak political bodies inherited from Lenin
• Stalin simply continued to hold back
  decision-making outside the leadership
• By 1924 State organisations already subordinate
  to Party
• Election rigged by leadership
• Institutions such as Politburo met less
  frequently as Stalin increased his control from
  once a week to 9 times a year by mid 1930s

10
USE OF TERROR

• Terror was used to keep control over the Party
• Opposition saw more than demotion
• Local Party officials purged as well as former
  leadership
• Terrorists themselves kept in line
• TERROR WAS AN INTEGRAL PART OF STALINS METHOD OF
  CONTROL but not knew to the communist Party (but
  wrong to see it as direct continuation Of Lenin
  who used it when faced with counter-revolutionary
  threat)
• Stalin justified it because of threat from class
  enemies

11
GREAT TERROR

• Launched when Party was secure indicating Stalin
  was securing his own position ( so differing from
  Lenin again but Lenin made use of terror an
  acceptable policy)
• STALINS PERSONAL DICTATORSHIP NOT AN INEVITABLE
  DEVELOPMENT FROM LENINISM but trends under Lenin
  helped it to develop growth of bureaucracy,
  failure of political institutions to develop, use
  of terror

12
LIMITS TO STALINS POWER

• Limited ability of any individual to control all
  activity
• (minor) Limitations from within leadership
  despite presence of yes men- Ryutin Affair,
• Revising down of 2nd 5 Year Plan targets,
  Kuibyshev and Ordzhonikidze opposition to
  brutality of regime
• In carrying out Stalins will, party leaders
  developed their own power base
• LIMITS FROM BELOW- demands for rapid
  industrialisation
• Debate over Terror illustrates degree of control
  Stalin had

13
DOMESTIC POLICIES

• EDUCATION
• Newspapers available at low prices
• Newspapers provided to factory workers
• Publishers printed the Russian classis and
  foreign literature at low prices thus making
  books accessible to most people
• Youth groups such as Young Pioneers and
  Komosomols compulsory for students and future
  members of the party were drawn from these
  groups.
• Creation of stereotypical role models

14
RESULTS

• 96 literacy for males in USSR by 1939
• 82 literacy for females in 1939
• Changes in the form and structure of schools
• Emphasis on narrow specialist courses
• Preferences to proletarian background was
  withdrawn

15
Control of the Arts and Culture

• Media
• Broadcasts
• Films
• Publications

16
RADIO

• Set up in every village , every hamlet across
  the country to hear the voice of StalinThe
  Soviet Radio carries to the masses the inspired
  words of Bolshevik truth, aids the people in tis
  struggle for the full victory of Communism in our
  country, summons them to heroic deeds in the name
  of the further strengthening of the power of the
  economic and cultural prosperity of the USSR

17
Cinema
18
Cinema

• Patriotic themes
• End of experimentation that had been so much a
  part of the Proletkult
• References to historical past to create the myth
  of the Soviet state
• From 1930s the tone was intensely patriotic

19
Socialist realism

• It was the new approved style for books ,creative
  art and media.
• The aim was to glorify the worker, the
  Stakhanovite, the Kolhozes in short to show what
  it should be rather what it really was

20
RAPP and Union of Russian Writers

• Membership to RAPP was compulsory for writers
• Censorship of works by RAPP
• Eventually RAPP disbanded because it was too
  avant garde
• Maxim Gorky came back to head RUW
• Writers , composers artists were supposed to toe
  the ideological line but what was it?

21
Face lift Projects

• Moscow given a face lift
• Tall gigantic buildings became the norm an
  expression of the gigantomania that was so
  characteristic of Stalins economic policies
• Buildings tall and soaring
• Decorated with stained glass and huge gigantic
  murals and themes that reflected Soviet socialist
  realism
• Metro, the Hermitage, Sports stadia all a part
  of the grand scheme

22
Impact on families and family life?

• Under Stalin there was a reversal of many of the
  policies that had been formulated under Lenin
• Why?
• Part of the change was necessary because of the
  huge disruptions caused by migration to cities or
  deportations of families to labour camps
• In some cases families left in the care of
  relatives or brought up on Collective farms

23
Family life

• Life in the cities was harsh
• Livng conditions claustrophobic
• Housing shortage
• Sharing of facilities
• Enormous strain on family life
• Abandonment of families was common
• Rise of street gangs and juvenile crime a serious
  problem
• Hooliganism
• Falling birth rate

24
Solutions

• Death penalty for juvenile delinquents over the
  age of 12
• Juvenile delinquents to be held under state
  custody and parents to pay for upkeep
• Abortion illegal and doctors punished
• Divorce very difficult
• Homosexuality banned
• Rewards to mothers for having numerous children
• Childcare in factories to allow women to work

25
Five Year Plans

• Private trades banned
• Coal, Oil gas, engineering
• GOSPLAN State Planning Committee Responsible
  for economic planning.
• Individual target setting for factories
• New cities Magnitogorsk
• KOMSOMOL Youth organisation political organ
  for spreading Communist teachings.
• Gulag Forced labour camps
• Stakhanovites Reward individuals achievements
  in production.

26

• Success?

• Failure?

• Huge public work schemes
• Education programme
• Industrial output expanded
• Russia survived WWII

• Human cost 10 to 40 million deaths
• Overcrowding in cities
• Production focused on heavy industry and military
• Figures were unreliable
• Quantity not quality
• No criticism allowed

27
Collectivism

• Small farms were joined together (Sovkhozes and
  Kolkhozes)
• To improve efficiency
• Destroy Kulaks
• Increase Stalins control of countryside
• Increase grain productions to sell abroad for
  foreign currencies.

28

• Success?

• Failure?

• By 1940, 99 of land collectivised
• Production did increase (Wheat up 33)
• New modern equipment and chemicals
• Education programmes in collectives
• Red Army was fed up during WWI
• Kulaks were destroyed

• 1932-33 famine (5 million dead)
• Human cost 10 million peasants deported
• Sovkhozes were a failure
• Unpopular

29
Types of Questions

• 2012 Purges promotes by social economic
  factors?
• 2011 Stalins industrialisation policy
• 2010 Everyday life source
• 2009 Collectivisation
• 2009 Purges source
• 2008 Purges terror
• 2008 Stalins industrialisation
• 2007 5 Year Plans
• 2007 Stalins foreign policy post WWII
• 2007 Stalinist State source

30
Were Stalins economic policies effective?

• Some argue that Stalins policies were a product
  of their time and its changing circumstance.
• War was on the way and Russia was depending on a
  backward agricultural system.
• This was a means of discarding NEP an its
  supporters (the right) and providing stable
  footing for the war. Soviet propaganda emphasised
  Russias need to industrialise and to use
  collectivisation as a means to create
  self-sufficiency.

31
Were Stalins economic policies effective?

• Philips It is possible to see the policies as no
  different from the path either Trotsky or Lenin
  would have undertaken.
• Revisionists Concentrate on the importance of
  rank and files push for industrialisation. This
  challenges Bukharins notion of the economic
  policies as an instrument for personal
  dictatorship.
• Lavar notes that the need for industrialisation
  was recognised by all levels of society but it
  was the sheer size of the task that would startle
  the majority. He argues that industrialisation
  would not occur without collectivisation and this
  enabled Stalin to perform the Great Turn where he
  defeated his rivals.

32
Collectivisation

• Would allow larger areas to be farmed.
• New technology meant fewer peasants were needed.
• Oxley in theory the state would manage
  agriculture thereby guaranteeing a future food
  supply.
• Corin Fiehn Socialism in the countryside would
  be achieved and the peasantry would learn to work
  cooperatively and live communally.
• Phillips Initially, the process of
  collectivisation was carried out on a voluntary
  basis but by 1929, with the right defeated,
  forced grain requisitions escalated into a
  full-blown attack on the peasantry which
  collectivisation constituted.

33
Collectivisation

• By the end of 1929, Stalin announced liquidation
  of the Kulaks as a class.
• Phillips highlights the 25000 urban party
  activists sent to the countryside in an attempt
  to root out Kulaks, seizing land and animals for
  the new collective farms.
• As the Kulaks were deported the Twenty-five
  thousanders were left to run the farms with no
  real knowledge of organisation (CF).

34
Collectivisation

• Lee highlights the speed with which
  collectivisation was implemented and the level of
  peasant resistance.
• Stalin then tried to say that the centre had lost
  the initiative to the localities, local officials
  becoming dizzy with success however
• Liberals argue against his excuse saying it was
  an explanation of the side-effects before
  launching into a repeat of the process.
• Most likely is the revisionist argument who refer
  to the idea that far from being part of a
  pre-meditated plan, Stalin was in fact struggling
  to retain control of a situation that was
  slipping beyond him.
• As Lee suggests, the localities enforced
  collectivisation with excessive zeal, but equally
  so did they halt collectivisation with as much
  pressure.
• The end result was for Stalin to react to the
  circumstance and start the process again from the
  centre (1931), this time with even more dramatic
  repercussions.

35
Famine, 1932-34

• This was, a CF argue, man made. It was a direct
  result of the upheavel and social change of
  collectivisation the purging of the Kulaks, the
  poorly organised collectives, lack of machinery
  and fertilisers and the peasant resistance
  through slaughtering animals.
• Conquests comments that matters were worsened by
  the governments insistence on continuing to
  export grain and bluntly ignoring the famine.
  Requisitioned grain was left rotting in railway
  sidings.
• Gill refers to the high number of deaths
  (unknown) due to the famine.
• Laver states that politically it had been a
  success as for the first time since the
  revolution the party had a hold over the
  countryside, with over a quarter of a million
  collective units replacing 25 million farms.
• Although grain harvests had dropped, grain
  procurement had not, meaning the workforce and
  exports were still being provided for.

36
Above or below?

• Lee writes that it is possible to see the process
  of industrialisation as a dictation from above or
  Stalin being influenced by below.
• CF state that party members were inspired by the
  idea of socialism rivalling capitalism through
  rapid industrialisation.
• As Oxley writes, in theory industrialisation
  would be instigated through propaganda, forced
  labour, socialist competition, low wages, fear
  and education.
• According to CF, each plan had a specific target
  and would be declared finished a year ahead of
  schedule.
• Spectacular projects would be conceived to
  demonstrate the might of the soviet machine to
  the western world and huge industrial projects
  were constructed east of the Ural mountains
  leaving them less vulnerable to attack.

37
Reality

• In the first five year plan many targets were
  not met.
• Fitzpatrick comments that the unrealistic
  planning acted as a propaganda device, spurring
  people towards greater achievements.
• Lack of materials prompted fierce rivalry amongst
  managers as bribery and corruption was rife.
• The fear of not meeting targets meant that (as
  CF suggest) overproduction in areas was
  sub-standard whilst scarce materials contributed
  to underproduction in other areas.
• Stalins response was to identify a scapegoat as
  Oxley states, the main target being the bourgeois
  specialists.
• At the start of the 2nd five year plan everything
  was on the verge of collapse as shortages,
  disruption and lack of skilled workers were all
  too prominent.
• Although the 2nd Five year plan envisaged
  improvements in consumer commodities, CF observe
  that resources were often diverted into other
  areas.

38
Summary

• Getty writes that Stalin, whilst being officially
  responsible for collectivisation, he was strongly
  influenced by the social, economic and political
  environment that he did not create.
• With the failure of NEP, forced collectivisation
  was a means to defeat his rivals and maintain
  Russias path to socialism thus satisfying the
  workers.
• Despite the horrific manner with which
  collectivisation was inflicted, it did provide
  the means for Stalins visions of
  industrialisation.
• According to Laver, Stalin achieved on a massive
  scale what Peter the Great and Witte had begun
  the difference being quantity and quality.
• There were massive mistakes and disasters but as
  Nove says, when set against the context of the
  time when capitalism was in crisis, Stalins
  efforts should not be underestimated.
• Certainly the human cost was appalling, however,
  ultimately without this crude leap forward, as
  Nove concludes, Russia would not have created the
  sort of industrial base that helped them win
  WWII.

39
For next week

• Read and prepare for discussion on Stalins
  purges.
• 1st place to look? Information in the Advanced
  Higher folder on pupil network.
• Very basic website (starter) http//www.johndclar
  e.net/Russ12.htm
• Better website (Yale University Press)
  http//www.yale.edu/annals/siegelbaum/
• I expect detail, historiography and for you to
• demonstrate an understanding of how you
• would use both in an essay source answer!