Joseph Stalin was one of the Soviet Union’s most influencial leaders. When he came to power after Lenin’s death he began suppressing opposition to his rule and sought to create an economy that was based on command. This resulted in the Soviet Union being able to withstand the invasion of the Germans in the Second World War. It also enabled them to come out of the war as a Superpower. This paper will look at Stalin’s new society and how it effected the citizens of the Soviet Union before the war.
In 1929 Stalin and his supporters abandoned the market after shortages of grain caused the peasants to lead several protests. To counter the issue Stalin decided that creating a collective society where grain and other plants would be grown on collectives
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and state sanctioned farms and distributed amongst the populace to be a long-term solution to the grain shortage issue. He referred to this as his Five-Year Plan which was supposed to take Russia from being an agricultural society to being an industrialized one so that they could complete with Europe and American economically. He felt that by industrializing the grain industry and using mechanized equipment the collectives and state farms would be able to extract more grain then the peasants could by using traditional strip farming. Stalin also felt that these collectives would help to eliminate the Kulaks, who were the middle-class peasants. This was because the Kulaks were wavering in their support and it was thought that if they could be won over or coerced into supporting Stalin’s collectivism then the lower-class peasants would follow. Stalin was hoping that the new system would eliminate the Kulak class once everyone was equal. The peasants resisted the idea of collectivism and refused to enroll in the program. The Kulaks had their property and lands confiscated and the government went from only wanting twenty percent of the land but the majority of farms in the most profitable grain growing areas. In response to this the peasants led numerous riots in which they killed livestock to make it impossible for kolhozes to fulfill their daily quota for dairy and meat. Therefore, people were not able to be paid. This along with famines in a few areas resulted in at least five million people dying from starvation. In the new Socialist landscape, there was a lack of privacy and everything that a person did was under the scrutiny of the other members of the collective. However, the literacy rates rose and new homes and jobs were created. The Social intervention of the government made it possible to eliminate the welfare program, However, despite any positive changes that may have been made as a result of Socialism most of the people were still living in poverty. In 1934, the Russian government held the Seventeenth Party Congress at the Kremlin. The gathering was a celebration of the country’s ability to weather the problems of industrialization, collectivism, professional upheaval, the purging of power within the country as well as the growing power of the Nazi Party in Germany, which was in the process of trying to conquer all of Europe. Still there was a lot to celebrate at the gathering. The economy was improving which was evidenced by the harvest the preceding year and several construction projects had been completed and those who had been opposed to Stalin in the past were now praising him for his improvements to the country. It is believed by scholars that several people who were not happy with Stalin’s popularity met to speak about replacing him as General Secretary. This would later lead to the Great Terror that took place in the Soviet Union between 1936-38. In 1936, the Eighth Extraordinary Congress of Soviets created the second federal constitution of the United Soviet Socialist Republic. The new constitution may have been intended to make Socialism more palatable to the West and Europe. The Constitution gave rights back to people and groups that had previously spoken against the regime such as the kulaks, the church, members of the Tsarist regime and those who had sought to exploit the system. The new law made all Soviet citizens equal and entitled to equal protection, rights, and allowed everyone the right to hold public office. The Constitution was the result of a commission that was headed by Stalin which had been appointed by the Seventh All-Union Congress of Soviets. The commission spent a year working on a draft that was put up for national discussion. In the course of the national discussion there were over 600,000 meetings held, with over forty-million people attending them. The draft had over 160,000 comments, proposals and possible amendments put forth. The Stalin Constitution did nothing to stop the bloodshed that encompassed Soviet life from 1936-38 during what is referred to as the Great Terror.
The Great Terror which is also known as the Great Purge was the execution and arrests of state and party personnel by the Soviet government. The situation began with members of the Communist Party challenged Stalin’s control of the country. The Great Terror consisted of three show trials in which high-ranking members of the Communist party were tried for such crimes as the assassination of Sergei Kirov in 1934, there was another trial in 1937 which put leaders of the industrialization movement on trial and later in 1937 the leaders of the Rightist Fraction were accused of collaborating with terrorists and foreign intelligence. All were convicted and sentenced to death. . High ranking members of the Communist party were not the only ones that suffered under the Great Purge. High-ranking members of the Red Army, party secretaries, industrial managers, and state personnel were also arrested and executed. This was mostly because people under severe physical and psychological torture began naming anyone and confessing to whatever they had to, to alleviate their pain. This resulted in millions of innocent people being accused of being “enemies of the people” Eventually, the frenzy surrounding the government’s desire to eliminate those that they felt were working against them in the Communist Party and the government extending into the general populace as they began persecuting anyone that they felt were anti-Socialists like former Kulaks, and petty criminals. At the end of the trials over 177,000 members of the general populace were exiled and over 72,000 were
executed. In conclusion, there was a lot to be admired regarding Stalin’s Five-Year Plans to industrialize the Soviet Union. He sought to take the country from agricultural obscurity and to make it a worthy competitor in the global economy. Despite the many setbacks that the Soviets and Stalin endured such as famine, starvation, corruption, conspiracies to over throw the government, and the Great Terror. Stalin and his Five-Year Plans made it possible for the Soviet Union to come out of the Second World War as the only other Superpower besides the United States.
Around the early 1920’s, Stalin took power and became leader of Russia. As a result Russians either became fond of Stalin’s policies or absolutely despised them. Stalin’s five-year plans lured many into focusing on the thriving economy rather than the fact that the five year plan hurt the military. The experience of many lives lost, forced labor camps, little supply of food, influenced the Russians negative opinion about Stalin. Having different classes in society, many Russians had different points of views. For the Peasants, times were rough mainly because of the famine, so they were not in favor of Stalin and his policies; where as the upper classes had a more optimistic view of everything that was occurring. Stalin’s policies affected the Russian people and the Soviet Union positively and also had a negative affect causing famine for the Russian people.
Tucker, Robert C. "Stalinism as Revolution from Above". Stalinism. Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York: American Council of Learned Societies, 1999.
In order to establish whether Lenin did, indeed lay the foundation for Stalinism, two questions need to be answered; what were Lenin’s plans for the future of Russia and what exactly gave rise to Stalinism? Official Soviet historians of the time at which Stalin was in power would have argued that each one answers the other. Similarly, Western historians saw Lenin as an important figure in the establishment of Stalin’s socialist state. This can be partly attributed to the prevailing current of pro-Stalin anti-Hitler sentiments amongst westerners until the outbreak of the cold war.
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 implimented.”1 Stalin may have viewed collectivization as a means to win support from younger party leaders, rather than from the peasants and Lenin’s men. “Privately he advocated, industrializing the country with the help of internal accumulation” 2 Once the peasantry had been split, Stalin believed that the rural proletarians would embrace collectivization . Before this idea had a chance to work, a grain shortage induced the Politburo to support Stalin’s sudden decision for immediate, massive collectivization.
Stalin’s hunger for power and paranoia impacted the Soviet society severely, having devastating effects on the Communist Party, leaving it weak and shattering the framework of the party, the people of Russia, by stunting the growth of technology and progress through the purges of many educated civilians, as well as affecting The Red Army, a powerful military depleted of it’s force. The impact of the purges, ‘show trials’ and the Terror on Soviet society were rigorously negative. By purging all his challengers and opponents, Stalin created a blanket of fear over the whole society, and therefore, was able to stay in power, creating an empire that he could find more dependable.
Joseph Stalin was a realist dictator of the early 20th century in Russia. Before he rose to power and became the leader of Soviet Union, he joined the Bolsheviks and was part of many illegal activities that got him convicted and he was sent to Siberia (Wood, 5, 10). In the late 1920s, Stalin was determined to take over the Soviet Union (Wiener & Arnold 199). The main aspects of his worldview was “socialism
"Stalin, Joseph." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Ed. William A. Darity, Jr. 2nd ed. Vol. 8. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008. 86-87. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
People say that the Stalin’s Great Purges could otherwise be translated as Stalin’s Terror. They grew from his paranoia and his desire to be absolute autocrat, and were enforced the NKVD and public show trials. When someone went against him, he didn’t really take any time in doing something about it. He would “get rid of” the people that went against industrialization and the kulaks. Kulaks were farmers in the later Russian Empire. (“Of Russian Origin: Stalin’s Purges). There were many reasons as to what caused the Great Purges but the main one seems to be Stalin. He believed that the country had to be united under the circumstances that he becomes the leader if it was to be strong. The Soviet Union was industry was weal and in the decline, obviously lacking the capacity to produce enough meal and heavy machinery for the imminent war.
In order to conclude the extent to which the Great Terror strengthened or weakened the USSR, the question is essentially whether totalitarianism strengthened or weakened the Soviet Union? Perhaps under the circumstances of the 1930s in the approach to war a dictatorship may have benefited the country in some way through strong leadership, the unifying effect of reintroducing Russian nationalism and increased party obedience. The effects of the purges on the political structure and community of the USSR can be described (as Peter Kenez asserts) as an overall change from a party led dictatorship to the dictatorship of a single individual; Stalin. Overall power was centred on Stalin, under whom an increasingly bureaucratic hierarchy of party officials worked. During the purges Stalin's personal power can be seen to increase at the cost of the party.
When most people hear the name Joseph Stalin, they usually associate the name with a man who was part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. He was willingly to do anything to improve the power of the Soviet Union’s economy and military, even if it meant executing tens of millions of innocent people (Frankforter, A. Daniel., and W. M. Spellman 655). In chapter three of Sheila Fitzpatrick’s book, Everyday Stalinism, she argues that since citizens believed the propaganda of “a radiant future” (67), they were able to be manipulated by the Party in the transformation of the Soviet Union. This allowed the Soviet government to expand its power, which ultimately was very disastrous for the people.
Son of a poverty-stricken shoemaker, raised in a backward province, Joseph Stalin had only a minimum of education. However, he had a burning faith in the destiny of social revolution and an iron determination to play a prominent role in it. His rise to power was bloody and bold, yet under his leadership, in an unexplainable twenty-nine years, Russia because a highly industrialized nation. Stalin was a despotic ruler who more than any other individual molded the features that characterized the Soviet regime and shaped the direction of Europe after World War II ended in 1945. From a young revolutionist to an absolute master of Soviet Russia, Joseph Stalin cast his shadow over the entire globe through his provocative affair in Domestic and Foreign policy.
The Development of Totalitarianism Under Stalin By 1928, Stalin had become the undisputed successor to Lenin, and leader of the CPSU. Stalin’s power of appointment had filled the aisles of the Party Congress and Politburo with Stalinist supporters. Political discussion slowly faded away from the Party, and this led to the development of the totalitarian state of the USSR. Stalin, through.
Following the death of Josef Stalin in 1953, the harsh policies he implemented in not only the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but also its many satellite nations began to break down. There was a movement to distance all of the socialist nations from Stalin?s sadistic rule. In the Peoples? Republic of Hungary, there was much disillusionment with this Stalinist absolutism (Felkay 50). This disillusionment with the Soviet ideal of socialism lead the people of the fledgeling socialist state of Hungary to rise up in revolt, but ill-preparedness and the strength of the Soviet Red Army put down the insurrection within several days.
The Great Terror that occurred from 1934 to 1940 greatly impacted Soviet society due to the enforcement of the Stalinist policy by the NKVD. The implementation of the policy through the purges of innocent individuals and government members, the forced convictions of the innocent during the show trials from 1936 to 1938 and the effects this all had on groups in society such as the intelligentsia, greatly affected the lives of Soviet people making them fearful for their safety and their future. The Terror not only removed dissent from society but also made people fearful.
Stalins rise as a dictator over the USSR in 1929, was a struggle for power. It was set by Lenin, in his testament, that Stalin was not to takeover control as the party leader, and to be removed from his position as General Secretary, as Stalin in Lenins eyes had lack of loyalty, tolerance, and politeness. However, different factors, such as Lenins funeral, Stalins position as General Secretary and the rise of bureaucracy, and Stalins relationship to Kamenev and Zinoviev, made it possible for Stalin to become the undisputed leader over the USSR in 1929. This essay will discuss the methods and the conditions, which helped Joseph Stalin rise to power.