5.2 - Communism/USSR

what is communism

• According to Marx- an ideology based on the belief that the oppressed working class must overcome its property owning oppressors through a revolution.

• GOAL : A classless society in which property is owned by the community and all share in the production of goods and services.

• Believed a communist society would foster creativity and self awareness because people were not worried about mundane things

• argued democracy is based on EQUALITY not FREEDOM

different kinds of communism

MARXIST/LENINISM:

• Early, revolutionary USSR under Lenin.

STALINISM:

• Absolute control through fear and oppression.

MAOISM

• Peasant- led, armed struggle and a permanent revolution

Conditions before the rise of communism in Russia

• 80% of the population were peasants- about half of these were serfs.

• Russia’s population doubled to 127 million between 1860 and 1900

• Agriculture was mostly subsistence- peasants mostly sowed grain by hand.

• Industry was wildly underdeveloped and incredibly inefficient. 

• Peasants who migrated to the cities for work lived in conditions worse than those in England during the Industrial Revolution

• The economy lagged far behind every other European country

• and then crap leadership

alexander II

• one of the Tsar’s we know, implemented some liberal reforms,

  • including “freeing“ the serfs

  • Legal reforms, including independent judges

  • Abolished Capital punishment.

  • Created local governments with representatives from all classes who had input on issues like taxation and education. 

  • compulsory military service

  • reduced censorship

  • relaxation of official anti-Semitism

• was assassinated as people felt he didn’t do enough

• this led to his son, Alexander III being very reactionary, and undoing many of the reforms

Tsar Nicholas II overview

• the Only true autocracy left in Europe

• No type of representative political institutions (people dissatisfied)

• Believed he was the absolute ruler anointed by God

• Russo-Japanese War (1904) (thought he’d gain public favour by beating up on japan, got his ass handed to him, political instability ensues

• Nicholas was personally a very weak man; he became increasingly remote as a ruler

the socialist democratic labour party (SDLP)

• group of Marxist Socialists who wanted revolutionary change for Russia. They were inspired by Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto

• Czar Nicholas banned the group and many were forced into exile. They were able to continue their fight  through an underground newspaper. 

• KEY FIGURES: LENIN, TROTSKY AND STALIN.

Bloody Sunday

• growing socialist unrest led to a protest outside of Nicholas II’s winter palace. guards opened fire on the protesters

• killed a bunch of people who were protesting to just show the Tsar how bad their lives were

• helped inspire revolutions

revolution 1: 1905

• revolution breaks out, but is suppressed, under the conditions that Nicholas II makes some reforms

  • basic human rights,

  • universal suffrage

  • creation of an elected legislative assembly called the Duma 

• these weren’t enough, especially as the Tsar would limit the power of the Duma before it even sat

• WWI broke out in 1914, making things worse. Russia was ill-prepared and ate curb

  • Food shortages, strikes and general disorganization were common in Russia. The poorly led and poorly fed troops suffered massive losses

Nicholas II family matters making things worse after rev. 1

• his one heir, Alexis, was a hemophiliac (cuz the family line was lwk inbred), and therefore would also suck if he even makes it to rule

• so, when celebrity magic healer (rasputin) comes to the capital and “heals“ Alexis (takes him off of blood-thinning meds), he let him stick around the palace, but gets seen as this random guy is influencing him. also rumours hes sleeping with Alexandria

the debacle of WWI

• War revealed the ineptitude and arrogance of the country’s aristocratic elite

• Corrupt military leadership had contempt for ordinary Russian people

• Average peasant had very little invested in the War- historically, they were super loyal to the Tsar, but this tested their limits.

Nicholas II makes things worse during WWI

• Nicholas left for the Front—September, 1915

• Alexandra and Rasputin throw the government into chaos (were left in power)

• Alexandra and other high government officials accused of treason. Rasputin assassinated in December of 1916

• Complete mismanagement of the wartime economy

• everybody ready to revolt

revolution 2: 1917

• The Russian Revolution took off in 1917 during the last stages of WWI.

• Nicholas and his family were first arrested and held under house arrest and eventually assassinated.

• A provisional government- a liberal democracy- was set up under Kerensky, but it struggled to have real power in Russia

Vladmir Lenin

• Gained political popularity by campaigning for “Peace, Land and Bread”.  He wanted Russia out of  WWI and for government to focus on meeting the needs of the people. 

• Very charismatic- unpleasant one on one but a fantastic speaker

• Germany helped smuggle him back into Russia to force the Russian withdrawal from WWI

• Used Marx’s ideas to transform the Soviet Union to a communist state.  He found it necessary to modify communism to suit the USSR’s conditions.

Leninism

• with the help of Trotsky, Lenin established a new, Marxist style of government

• he believed that the revolution was necessary, but it had to be followed by an authoritarian state. 

  • Marx’s theories were based on western European democracies- and Lenin argued that in Russia, things had to be done differently

• Lenin initially abolished all private property and nationalized large industrial enterprises. True to his promise, he removed Russia from WWI(Treaty of Brest-Litovsk), at a great loss of territory and population.
  

• instituted the NEP, or new economic policy, which used some aspects of capitalism to stimulate the economy. the state maintained control over banking, large industry, transportation, etc.

the red terror

There were still many Russians who did not share Lenin’s views.  In 1918, he was shot in an assassination atttempt. As a result, he attempted to eliminate his opponents in a campaign called The Red Terror

• Lenin authorized the shooting of 25 Tsarist ministers and civil servants, 765 White Guards; 70 000 people sent to labour camps; had the Tsar’s family assassinated.

• This marked the beginning of fear and coercion in Communist Russia

The Communist Party was the only legal party allowed.

In 1922, order was restored under the USSR with Lenin as the leader

the USSR

• Russia renamed after Lenin’s Red Terror

• Land redistributed to the people

• Factories were turned over to the workers

• Women and men were considered equal

• The poor and working classes had more power than they had every had before. 

• 1924:  Lenin dies of a stroke.  Russia would experience a new form of communism under Stalin.

Joseph Stalin (not very necessary)

After Lenin’s death a power struggle took place between Trotsky and Stalin during the civil war

• During the Russian Civil War, Stalin was put in the Politburo (the executive committee for the Communist Party). He opposed many of Leon Trotsky’s policies (Trotsky was a Bolshevik Revolutionary and Marxist Theorist).

• He was sent to Tsaristyn where he ordered the killings of former tsarist military leaders and counter-revolutionaries and burned villages to intimidate peasants. (Un-fun fact- he later renamed this city after himself- Stalingrad)

• In 1919, to stem mass desertions on the Western front, he had deserters and renegades publicly executed

1922, he is made General Secretary.

• Lenin had a stroke in 1922. Stalin visits him frequently and serves as his link to the outside world. They argued a lot.

• Lenin did not like Stalin’s rude manners, ambition, politics, or excessive power. Lenin wanted Stalin removed. Stalin did not let this out.

By 1928, Stalin emerged as the leader.  Trotsky was exiled and eventually assassinated by Stalin’s agents in 1940

• born in Georgia, in an area characterized by street brawls and general lawlessness

• first wife died of typhus in 1907

• organized bank robberies, arms deals, assassination attempts and was imprisoned in 1908 and 1911 created Pravda in 1912, for which he was exiled

Stalinism

• refers to communism that is extremely repressive and nationalistic

• Stalin’s interpretation of Marxism included himself as an absolute ruler. 

• Other policies involved fear and oppression rather than revolution and freedom.

• He rejected all liberal values and turned the USSR into a dictatorship.  Millions would die under his rule.. 

how did Staln

• a large secret police force

• 5 year plans

  • The Goal of the plans were to lead the USSR  to increased industrialization and to collectivize the country. as well as prepare for the war against Nazi Germany. During these terms many were purged, terrorized and “disappeared”.

• Created the Gulags for those who opposed him.

• Secret police used to control through terror 

• Rewriting of history to display a Stalinist view of history. 

• Private farms were taken by force for collective use.

stalin collectivizing farms

• The Collective farms were essential for Stalin to make agriculture the focus of the nation..  Private ownership had to be banned and everyone was expected to voluntarily give up their farms

• Stalin responded with brute force to those who resisted

• “Kulaks” were some wealthier peasants who resisted the collectivization of farms.  Through state propaganda, they were portrayed as greedy and uncaring and labelled as anti- Soviet.  Five million were sent to the gulags

stalin and education

• The 1935 Education Law undid most of the revolutionary ideas introduced in the early 1920s; 

• it reasserted discipline by restoring the authority of teachers

• Schools could only use texts prescribed by the state

• The Short Course history of the Communist Party became the standard text; it presented Stalin’s view of the party and the Revolution.

Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed. - quote from Stalin himself

Stalin’s cult of personality

• after Lenin’s death, a cult of personality was created around him. he was embalmed, featured in many posters/propaganda\

• Stalin was an active promoter of this cult so as to link his name with that of Lenin

• The Lenin personality cult made it easier for Stalin to create one around himself. (“Stalin is the Lenin of today”)

Stalin and the media

• All media were controlled by the government

• Pravda was the paper of the Communist Party

• Izvestiya was the paper of the Soviets

• Radio stations conveyed the official party view

Stalin and indoctrination

• Party youth organizations

• Young people were encouraged to report members of their own families to the authorities for ‘anti-Soviet’ views

  • One boy, Morozov, reported his father who was then jailed.  When the boy was murdered by members of his own family, he was made a martyr and hero by the state.

the Great Purge

• Purges were conducted by the secret police (NKVB)

• Anyone thought to be an opponent to Stalin was dealt with violently.  

• Between 1934-38, around 10 million people were deported to concentration camps and/or executed 

• During his rule, one million direct killings & 12 million deaths in Soviet prisons & slave labor camps.

• These purges were driven by Stalin’s paranoia but had the effect of creating a vacuum of leadership.  Those that replaced the old guard were fiercely loyal to Stalin (fear?)

Stalin and controlled participation

• Only one party – CPSU

  • voters handed ballot with approved candidates name on it

  • If you wanted to vote for someone else, you had to scratch out the name and write another: with everyone watching you

  • 6% of population members of CPSU (start at young age)

  • Perks: bigger apartment, better food, special medical services, nice vacation, better education for children (approx. 1% also had rights to overseas travel, foreign currency and personal servants)

Arts/Culture under Stalin

• Soviet art was used to praise the noble factory worker and to convey pro Soviet messages(work harder, love the leader, etc.)

• Atheism was the official religion under Stalin.  Churches were seized and turned into offices and museums,  religious leaders were killed and the Hebrew language was banned

The Holodomor

USSR’s Most productive farmland was in Ukraine.

• Stalin needed to crush Ukrainian nationalism to consolidate his power so he used famine as a tool to break the Ukrainians.

• The famine (Holodomor, 1932-33) left Ukraine in a disaster and destroyed any last will to resist collectivization.

• It’s estimated 6-7 million people died in what is now considered an act of genocide

Legacy of the Holodomor

• Ukraine’s opposition to Russia was crushed, but the tension , and how Ukraine would orient itself between East and West, would remain

• when the USSR collapsed in 1991, Ukraine declared independence.  However, the Russia- Ukraine tension remained unresolved in Russian-backed political candidates

• Russia continued to insert itself into Ukraine’s affairs, meddling in elections, annexing the Crimea, stoking insurgency in Donbas, and Russia’s 2022  invasion

successes of communism in Russia/USSR

• Rapid industrialization

• avoided the Great Depression

• Ability to defeat the Nazis

• Greater equality between genders; no race riots or protests

• Literacy and health care were better than in many liberal nations