Evidence: Joseph Stalin was the son of a poor shoemaker from a backward province with a significantly minimum amount of education. Stalin had always had a place for faith in the destiny of the Russian social revolution and an incredible amount of determination to play a role in it. Stalin’s rise to power was remarkable and deadly, yet in an unexplainable twenty-nine years of leadership he turned Russia into a highly industrialized nation. Stalin was a tyrannical ruler who played the most significant role in shaping the direct of Europe at the end of World War II in 1945. He went from a young revolutionist to an absolute leader of Soviet Russia. His involvement with domestic and foreign policies cast his shadow upon the world at the end of World War II with his radical ideals. The policy of socialism, the Five Year Plans, and the collectivization of Agriculture were all of Stalin’s key methods of casting this impactful shadow on the world. Socialism was designed to strengthen the gains of the social revolution. By the ideals of Orthodox Marxism, it claims that a socialist revolution in a country must by followed by similar revolutions in the advanced industrial countries to survive. The Five Year Plans built vast factories in places such as Stalingrad, Leningrad, and several others across the Soviet Union. The plans also built hydro-electric dams, railways, canals, and other industrial developments. The aim of the Five Year plans was to modernize the Soviet Union’s industry and to try and fill the gap between the Western Democracies and Nazi Germany. Before the Stalin, the Soviet Union was backward, medieval type country full of unmade roads and people who lived without electricity in wooden homes. The Five Year Plans changed thi... ... middle of paper ... ...inherited Vladimir Lenin’s Marxism in the background of it all. As a result of these events, Bukharin had been falsely tried by Stalin and thereafter executed by him and the government mainly because of the serious political rivalry between the two for leadership especially because of his moral viewpoint and accuracies in approach to it all. One thing which all three men, Stalin, Trotsky, and Bukharin, all shared was a common error. After Vladimir Lenin’s death, they contributed to the wishes which Lenin had not wished for which were to build a personality cult around Lenin for his consistent Marxism. This process which the men did became sanctifying communist leadership which Lenin had not done and instead examined the reality of facts instead of what the powerful, overshadowing leader proclaimed. The Marx theory laid the foundation to the science of socialists.
Stalin’s five-year plans and policies affected people in all different ways some farmers were in the midst of famine, others were treated negatively, and some had an optimistic view of Stalin’s plans. Stalin’s five-year plan largely helped out the growing economy, but at the same time it hurt the farmers. Although Stalin was extremely supportive to the publics faces, his reign, starting in the 1920’s, led to the most killings in European history. The Soviet Union ended up surviving another thirty years.
The First Five-Year Plan. The first five-year plan, approved in 1929, proposed that state and collective farms provide 15 percent of agriculture output. The predominance of private farming seemed assured, as many farmers resisted collectivization. By late 1929, Stalin moved abruptly to break peasant resistance and secure the resources required for industrialization. He saw that voluntary collectivism had failed, and many “Soviet economists doubted that the first plan could even be implemented.
It has been noted, “This ‘reshaping’ had three main aspects: the elimination of all dissent; the liquidation of all forms of democracy and of working class organisation; the slashing of the living standards of the working class and the physical annihilation of millions of peasants” (Text 5). This quote explains how Stalin wanted to industrialize Russia, which includes the deaths of several peasants of Russia. The Russians did not just die from The Great Purge, but also from Stalin’s Five-Year Plan. The Five-Year Plan was an attempt to industrialize the Soviet Union. It was also a plan to increase the output of steel, coal, oil, and electricity.
Harper, Samuel N. "The Soviet Five-Year Plan." Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science 14.3 (1931): 83-96. Print.
Stalin’s rule lasted almost thirty years, from the middle of the 1920’s until his death in 1953. His rule deeply transformed the USSR and destalinization is still not fully achieved today. While Stalinism and Nazism are often compared because they were the two totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, the Stalinist regime lasted for decades while Nazism collapsed after 12 years, thus raising several questions concerning the particular nature of the Stalinist Society. What were the key features of Stalinism, thus differentiating Stalin’s policy from Lenin’s and Marx’s theory? Was Stalinism a logical outcome of the Marxist theory or a betrayal of communism? In this perspective, one must analyze Stalin’s key policies, collectivization, industrialization and Cultural Revolution in comparison with Marxism and Leninism and within the framework of Communism in one country. Indeed, unlike Lenin who envisioned to spread the Socialist Revolution worldwide, Stalin believed that in its primary states, Communism should stay contained within the USSR.
For most people that know who Joseph Stalin was, they can agree on one thing: Stalin was one of the most brutal and ruthless leaders that mankind has ever seen. He is known as the instigator and leader of the Reign of Terror, which incorporated extremely horrifying purges. These purges have been estimated to have killed five times as many people as the Holocaust. The purges also helped him establish his power base, which allowed him to build one of the most powerful countries in its day and age. But he was not born evil, in fact, when he was a child, family and friends said he was shy. This does not mean he didn’t have a bad childhood, which happened quite often in rural Georgia. The pain of his childhood built as the years went by. Growing up admiring people like Karl Marx, Machiavelli, and Ivan the Terrible only stoked the fire even more. I believe that Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror can be traced directly back to his brutal childhood and complete belief in Marxist principles.
Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin were similar in what they claimed to be, but in actuality they were very different people. Although Stalin claimed that he followed Leninism, the philosophy that Lenin developed from Marxism, he often distorted it to follow what he wanted to do. While Lenin wanted to make a unified society without classes, with production in the hands of the people, while Stalin wanted to make Russia into a modern industrial powerhouse by using the government to control production. Lenin accomplished his goals through violence, because he thought achieving Communist revolution was worth using violence, with a ‘The ends justify the means’ mentality. Stalin also used violence to accomplish his goals, however Stalin used much more violence than was often necessary to accomplish his goals. Stalin continued even once he was successful in accomplishing those goals, as he did not stop hurting people, but if anything it gave him more power to hurt people even more. But, at the end of the day, although Lenin ruled for only a very short time, he did raise the standard of living, though there maintained a large amount of hardship. Stalin, however, transformed the USSR from a peasantry to an industrialized nation in less than a decade, he did it on the backs of his millions of victims, who died because of his harsh policies and many purges.
Realizing that the Soviet Union was fifty to one hundred years behind the advanced countries, Stalin devised a Five-Year Plan to industrialize the nation. Modernization was expensive, and in order to fund his new project, Stalin knew that the Soviet Union needed to increase its agricultural exports. To accomplish this he outlawed the private ownership of land and organized collective farms. Stalin demanded collective workers give a huge majority of their crops to the government.
In the beginning Josef Stalin was a worshiper of his beloved Vladimir Lenin. He followed his every move and did as he said to help establish and lead the Bolshevik party. Much of the early part of his political career was lost due to his exile to Siberia for most of World War I. It wasn’t until 1928, when he assumed complete control of the country were he made most of his success. After Lenin’s death in January 1924, Stalin promoted his own cult followings along with the cult followings of the deceased leader. He took over the majority of the Socialists now, and immediately began to change agriculture and industry. He believed that the Soviet Union was one hundred years behind the West and had to catch up as quickly as possible. First though he had to seal up complete alliance to himself and his cause.
Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, arguably the world’s most powerful, but lethal leader, was Russia’s turning point from agriculture and failed westernization to a world superpower and rapid industrialization. The power struggle and chaos in Russia from 1914 to the 1920’s made it easy for him to win power. In World War I, there was a sharp decrease in every aspect of Russia which led to many riots triggering a revolution in 1917. Nicholas II, the czar of Russia later abdicated and was killed. Alexander Kerensky took over Russia and as turmoil escalated, Vladimir Lenin replaced him by promising three simple things: peace, bread and land. Lenin led the path to communism but died in 1924 of typhus. In 1929, Stalin took absolute power of Russia, later becoming the U.S.S.R or the Soviet Union. Joseph Stalin had complete totalitarian control of Russia, making it a world superpower by industrializing fast. Joseph Stalin ultimately did more good in Russia/U.S.S.R than harm because of his economic technique of industrializing the country in a short time and his politically stable control of the U.S.S.R although he murdered many for the expansion of the country.
Although it is said that Stalin was one of the men who greatly influenced the 20th century, it is also agreed that his contributions to the world and his country came at an appalling cost. Stalin’s ruthless ambition, consuming paranoia, and callous disregard for human life will mark him down as one of the most inhumane, savage leaders in history.
Among the first policies enacted toward economic prosperity and industrialization were the Five Year Plans. The first Five Year Plan included rapid collectivization of the villages in the countryside in order to make enough agricultural profit to fund industrialization efforts. This period was plagued with violence, unattainable production targets and the destruction of traditional village life. The Second Five year plan began in 1933, in 1935 the term stakhanovite began to be used to identify those workers who developed new innovation that allowed them to greatly surpass average production. The term was named after Aleksei Stakhanov who was a miner.(Fitzpatrick and Slezkine 2000) “Speeches of Stakhanovites” is comprised of several speeches given at national Stakhanovite meetings that included member of the Politburo and Stalin himself. From these speeches we can see that there was a very positive image of Stalin among the Stakhanovites.They all begin and conclude by praising Stalin and the party. This shows that they clearly supported the policies of the Five Year Plans even though they demanded overoptimistic goals of produ...
...en.wikipedia.org). The successes of the Five Year Plan included the Soviet Union was turned into a modern state, and there were huge achievements in areas including new cities, transportations, communication, coal, etc. (www.johnandclare.net). Politically the Five Year plan was a success; they consolidated Stalin’s position as supreme leader.
Joseph Stalin ruled the USSR from 1929 until his death in 1953. His rule was one of tyranny, and great change from the society that his predecessor, Lenin, had envisioned (Seton, 34). Stalin put into effect two self proclaimed "five-year plans" over the course of his rule. Both were very similar in that they were intended to improve production in the nation. The first of these plans began collectivization, in which harvests and industrial products were seized by the government and distributed as needed. The government eliminated most private businesses and the state became the leader in commerce. Stalin also initiated a process called "Russification". (Great Events, 119)"
In the United States, socialism is widely viewed as ‘bad word’, as an insult of sorts. There is no better example of this than in the last presidential election, when the right would routinely use the term to criticize president Obama and his peers. Despite the fact that many Americans still place a taboo on the term, socialist ideals such as universal healthcare, a merit based university system and stopping the greed of the upper class are becoming increasingly popular. Over the past few hundred years, capitalists have destroyed our planet and our people in search of a profit, and the need for change has never been greater than now. Thus, in order to guarantee fair treatment to all individuals and be able to live sustainably on our planet for many more generations, socialism must become the dominant economic system on our planet.