Слайд 1Russia Under Stalin
Part II: Stalin’s Rule
Слайд 2Background
By 1928 production in the USSR once again reached 1914
levels.
The NEP had served a useful purpose.
Why did Stalin decide
to change course?
Слайд 3Background
Was it ideological?
A vast increase in production was needed for
the transition from Socialism to Communism.
Was Stalin trying to rush
the process?
Слайд 4Background
Was Stalin trying to turn the population into a vast
proletariat that would form the social base necessary for this
transition?
Слайд 5Background
In 1931 Stalin said: “We must cover this distance in
ten years. Either we do this or they will crush
us.”
But in 1931, there was no substantial outside threat.
Слайд 6Background
Perhaps its roots in the political infighting that continued even
after Stalin had come to dominate the party.
The strongest proponents
of the NEP were, after all, Rykov and Bukharin – Stalin’s most recent adversaries.
Слайд 7Two Goals
Whatever the case, 1928 was a pivotal year. Stalin
announced two goals:
Collectivization of Agriculture – Stalin wanted to destroy
the private farm and impose an industrial model on the countryside.
Massive Industrialization – Production would be stepped up enormously and, in doing so, he would destroy the power and influence of the Nepmen and their supporters within the Party.
The Vehicle for change in the countryside and the cities would be the First Five Year Plan. Centralized planning would determine everything.
Слайд 8How did the Five Year Plans build up the USSR’s
Industry?
Five-Year Plans introduced to make USSR self sufficient, not relying
on trade with other countries
Stalin’s economic committee, GOSPLAN
Drew up the plans
Set targets for industrial and agricultural growth
Created a command economy – the state told factories what to produce and farmers what to grow
Слайд 9Three Five Year Plans
Three Five-Year Plans
First plan (1928 to 1932)
Concentrated on expanding industry, transport and the power supply
Second
plan (1933 to 1938)
Focused on more manufactured goods, in addition to first plan
Third plan (began in 1939 but interrupted by outbreak of war)
Production of ‘luxuries’ like bicycles and radios
Слайд 10What was Collectivisation?
Collectivisation
Stalin took all farmland and set up huge
state-run farms called collectives (kolkhozy)
Peasants kept enough for themselves and
sold the rest to the state
Could not own land or sell food privately
Had fixed hours and wages
State provided homes, food, fuel, and clothing for the peasants
Слайд 16Problems of Collectivisation
Resistance
Many peasants resisted collectivisation
As a result,
food production went down, leading to another famine in 1932.
Stalin
sent soldiers to force collectivisation on the people
Land was taken from the kulaks (people with the biggest farms) and millions were sent to labour camps.
By 1930, the kolkhozy had been changed
No longer huge state-run farms, but smaller collectives run by the local CP.
Слайд 17Collectivization
Collectivization sometimes resembled civil war.
One OGPU (security police) colonel told
a foreign journalist:
“I am an old Bolshevik. I worked
in the underground against the Tsar and then I fought in the Civil War. Did I do all that in order that I should now surround villages with machine guns and order my men to fire indiscriminately into crowds of peasants? Oh, no, no.”
Слайд 18Collectivization
Historian JP Nettle, The Soviet Achievement, notes:
“…the squeeze and the
Five Year Plan based on it were not relaxed. Agricultural
production fell substantially in the early period of collectivization, but the quota of compulsory food deliveries to the state was maintained almost intact – the first commandment – as Stalin called it. The difference was made up in the kitchens and hearths of the collective households.”
The Farmers of the Soviet Union would be made to pay the vast cost of industrializing the country. The money could not be raised voluntarily within the USSR, nor could it be borrowed abroad. It was plied from the pockets of the peasants.
Слайд 19Did Collectivisation Work?
Did collectivisation work?
By 1940,almost all farms were collectives
Some
collectives had good production figures and were used as model
examples
On the whole, collectives were producing enough food to feed peasants and workers in the industrial towns
Thus, Stalin’s main aim of keeping the industry going was met
YET
kollhozes were used as source cows to milk all their resources to boost industry
Слайд 23Negative impacts of
Collectivization –
Starving child in the
arms of
his mother
Слайд 24Industrialization
The first five year plan was adopted in April,
1929.
Priority was given to heavy industrial, not consumer goods.
Total output
was to increase 250%.
Heavy Industrial output was to grow 330%.
Pig iron output was to increase 300%.
Coal production – 200%.
Electrical productionn – 400%.
Слайд 25Industrialization
When some party leaders challenged the figures, Stalin had them
raised – eventually calling for the completion of the plan
in four, not five years.
Слайд 26Industrialization
Targets were impossible.
Supply and distribution problems arose.
Buildings were put up
and no equipment provided.
Equipment rusted because it was delivered to
a place with no building to house it.
Слайд 27Industrialization
Shoddy products were produced that could not function – just
to reach production targets.
Sometimes transportation facilities didn’t move products to
their final destinations.
Слайд 28Industrialization
Despite the problems, Stalin remained unmoved.
Economic goals must have been
secondary to Stalin.
What he wanted was a transformation of Soviet
society.
All were to be made subservient to the state.
It worked.
Слайд 29Excavating for the
building of a steel plant in
Magnitogorsk, 1930s
Слайд 33The First Five Year Plan
When it ended, after 4 years,
the 1st 5 year Plan was a failure in terms
of reaching its targets – in agriculture and industry.
It did produce a new society.
The Soviet pattern of big enterprises was established.
All workers were subservient to the state.
Money for foreign purchases was expropriated from nepmen and farmers.
Central Asia and Siberia were opened for development.
Слайд 34Achievements & Failures
There were huge achievements in the following areas:
new cities
dams/ hydroelectric power
transport & communications
the
Moscow Underground
farm machinery
electricity
coal
steel
fertilizers
plastic
no unemployment
doctors & medicine
education.
The USSR was also transformed into a modern state and was able to resist Hitler’s invasion in the 1940s
Poorly organised – inefficiency, duplication of effort and waste.
Appalling human cost:
discipline (sacked if late)
secret police
slave labour
labour camps (for those who made mistakes)
accidents & deaths (100,000 workers died building the Belomor Canal)
few consumer goods
poor housing
wages FELL
no human rights
Слайд 35Volga Canal – Wikipedia.com
The Moscow Canal (Russian: Кана́л и́мени Москвы́),
named the Moscow-Volga Canal until the year 1947, is a
canal that connects the Moskva River with the main transportation artery of European Russia, the Volga River. It is located in Moscow itself and in the Moscow Oblast. The canal connects to the Moskva River 191 kilometers from its estuary in Tushino (an area in the north-west of Moscow), and to the Volga River in the town of Dubna, just upstream of the dam of the Ivankovo Reservoir. Length of the canal is 128 km.
It was constructed from the year 1932 to the year 1937 by gulag prisoners during the early to mid Stalin era.
Thanks to the Moscow Canal, Moscow has access to five seas: the White Sea, Baltic Sea, Caspian Sea, Sea of Azov, and the Black Sea. This is why Moscow is sometimes called the "port of the five seas" (порт пяти морей). Apart from transportation the canal also provides for about half of Moscow's water consumption, and the shores of its numerous reservoirs are used as recreation zones.
Слайд 42Problems with the Five Year Plans
Problems with the Five-Year Plans
Problem
1: the quality of goods suffered
Rapid production led to
poor quality of goods
Workers were not trained properly
Stalin desperately sought help from Western experts
Problem 2: human cost
People were crowded into new industrial towns to live and work in appalling conditions
Living conditions were cramped with little running water or sanitation
Слайд 43Controlling the Workers
Controlling the workers
Local party workers set up committees
and supervised all levels of industry
Food was rationed by the
state. Ration cards, wages and housing were allocated by committee
Workers who met targets were rewarded in the form of extra rations. Those who were thought to not be working hard enough had their rations cut
Food was in very short supply – an effective way to control workers
Слайд 44How did Stalin use propaganda to control people?
Propaganda: the
deliberate spreading of ideas and information for the purpose of
promoting a specific cause
The Bolsheviks used propaganda to start the Revolution
Stalin used propaganda to convince people he was a closer friend of Lenin than he really was
Stalin increasingly used extreme propaganda and censorship to control the people
Слайд 45Control over Russians
When we examine how Stalin controlled the Russian
people, there are TWO MAIN FACTORS RESPONSIBLE:
Fear
Establishment of a Dictatorship
Development
of a Terror State
Propaganda
The use of Propaganda to Control
Control over the Education System & Arts
Cult of Personality
Слайд 46Control over Russians
1) Establishment of a Dictatorship
Stalin established an authoritarian
regime where he was a dictator and held all the
political power in his hands.
As a dictator, Stalin could make laws without consulting other members of the government or the people of Russia.
He banned other political parties from the Soviet Union and anyone who opposed Stalin was beaten, jailed or even killed.
Слайд 50Control over Russians
2) The Use of Propaganda to Control
Stalin used
propaganda to persuade people to accept and obey him as
the rightful leader of the country.
Stalin often exaggerated his achievements and made writers and journalists portray him as a hero of the people.
Слайд 51The Use of Propaganda to Control
False information
In his rise to
power, Stalin lied to make Trotsky look like a bad
person
During the Five-Year Plans, published statistics were made up to make the economic situation look good
Newspapers, radios and posters gave out state-controlled information
There was state censorship of everything
Writing, art, music and plays were censored
School textbooks were changed on a regular basis
Слайд 52The Use of Propaganda in Industrial Production
How did propaganda increase
industrial production?
The Five-Year Plans encouraged everyone to exceed their targets
Alexei
Stakhanov
A coalminer who mined 102 tons of coal with his work gang in one shift in 1935
Posters, newspapers and radio reports presented him as a hero, urging Russians to follow his example
Later, Stalin admitted that Stakhanov had been working on an easy seam of coal with the best equipment
Слайд 55Control over Russians
5) The Cult of Personality (Cult of Stalin)
Stalin
tried to make the Russian people worship him as a
leader.
He often portrayed himself as a cheerful, fatherly and popular man.
Statues, pictures and paintings of him were placed prominently all over Russia from government offices to factories to schools to humble homes.
Successes of Russia were also attributed to Stalin.
Слайд 67Control over Russians
3) Control Over the Education System & Arts
Stalin
also controlled the education system by centralizing it and controlling
it through the government.
Schools had to teach Marxist and Leninist ideas and instill complete loyalty to the state among the students.
Stalin’s role in important events such as the October 1917 Revolution was increased and those of his enemies or opponents unfairly represented or ignored.
Слайд 68Control over Russians
3) Control Over the Education System & Arts
Strict
discipline was enforced for teachers and students who would be
purged if they were anti-Stalin.
Authors and artists were forced to portray Stalin in good light.
Emphasis was placed on highlighting and promoting Stalin’s industrialization success and as a result there was a lack of variety in Soviet culture at the time.
Слайд 69Control over Russians
4) Stalin’s Purges (Development of a Terror State)
Used
the high-profile murder of one of his supporters to purge
his opponents in the Communist Party over the years 1934 to 1938.
Arrested by the NKVD (secret police), the opponents were sent to jail, tortured, sent to labour camps or simply executed.
Intellectuals, politicians, teachers, writers, workers, armed forces personnel, scientists, ordinary Russians and anyone perceived as a threat to Stalin was not spared.
Слайд 70Control over Russians
4) Stalin’s Purges (Development of a Terror State)
Those
arrested were put on “show trials” where they were made
to admit to ridiculous crimes and sign confessions before being jailed or executed.
People lived in an atmosphere of fear and suspicion. People were encouraged to inform on one another and no evidence was necessary for persecution.
Mass executions were carried out and the victims buried in mass graves. Over 20 million Russians lost their lives to the purges.
Слайд 71Stalin probably perfected
the art of ‘air-brushing’
Слайд 76Control over Russians
5) The Cult of Personality (Cult of Stalin)
Stalin
tried to make the Russian people worship him as a
leader.
He often portrayed himself as a cheerful, fatherly and popular man.
Statues, pictures and paintings of him were placed prominently all over Russia from government offices to factories to schools to humble homes.
Successes of Russia were also attributed to Stalin.
Слайд 77Summary: Using Fear to Control People
Stalin’s policies were hard
on the people
Despite state propaganda convincing people to make sacrifices,
opposition grew in the 1930s
Hardships due to his policies were worsened by the 1932 famine, increasing opposition
Stalin stamped out opposition ruthlessly through the use of fear
Слайд 78Summary: Oppression of the People
Finding the opposition
Opponents of Stalin
Arrested, tried, sent off to labour camps (gulags) or just
‘disappeared’
Stalin used the secret police to hunt down his opposition
Arrested, questioned and shot people to order
People were encouraged to inform against friends, neighbours and family.
People were arrested for even trivial examples of opposition.
E.g. telling anti-Stalin jokes warranted an arrest