Part 4 - The Rule of Stalin

Why did stalin emerge as leader by 1929?

• Stalins personal qualities and political skills - stalin frequently sits on the fence and is described as a ‘grey blur’. he says just enough to maintain his role. Eg on the NEP he expressed no view until 1924 and later in 1925 when he can use it to defeat bukharin.

• Stalin wanted socialism in one country which made him seem patriotic and majorly discredits trotsky.

• He tricks trotsky after the death of Lenin by telling him he wouldnt make it back for the funeral. Stalin acts as a pollberer and delivers a speech to make it seem like he was lenins disiple.

• Kamenev and zinoviev were tricked into thinking stalin posed no real threat and were more concerned with trotsky so they were keen to bury lenins testiment.

• Stalin stays in the background at the 15th party conference in 1924 while the left tore themselves apart while stralin continues to bring in more supporters.

• Stalin also develops the lenin cult

Stalins positions in the party

• invited on the central committee as they were low on wc members

• commisar for nationalities in may 1919 and in charge of the orgburo

• elected to the politburo

• 1922 elected as general secretary of the Communist Party, which gave him significant influence over party appointments and decisions. He was then able to able to recruit and elect loyal supporters so he gains a support base within the party

• he has major sectors that he has support from which means he has lots of power and influence over the party decisions.

• Failure to reveal lenins testament due to stalin being in the politburo

• At 13th party conference 1924, trotsky is defeated due to the congress being packed with stalinist delegates

• 14th party conference, stalins control of party was complete so the united opposition is defeated and accused of factionalism. They get expelled in 1927

• 1928 stalin turns against the nep and bukharin is outvoted by stalins support base and he is expelled

Weaknesses of the opposition (left)

• zinoviev and kamenev urge that lenins testament not be released.

• they are also too trusting of stalin.

• They ally with stalin in 1924 against trotsky at the 13th party conference

• trotsky is unpopular and seen as arrogant and aloof. he fails to build a significant power base. when trotsky b and k speakout as the united opposition in 1926, they are accused of factionalism and expelled from the party

weakness of the opposition (right)

• Bukharin trusted stalin in 1925 when he allied with him and stalin then turns against him and in 1928 he advocaqtes for an end to nep.

• Bukharin is ourvoted and is then expelled

• bukharin is not politially cunning and had a limited power base

what were the economic aims of collectivisation?

• Modernise agriculture making it more efficient to increase grain production - peasants were not producing enough grain. there was not enough food to fed urban workers, agricultural methods remained backwards, stalin wanted to modernise. larger units of land would also be easier to collect grain from

• Overcome peasant inertia to increase grain production - most peasants content with producing enough for themself, peasants reluctant to produce more grain at low prices, Motor Tractor Station (MTS) would force them into working harder

what were the political aims of collectivisation?

• Create socialism in the countryside - stalin wanted to get rid of the nep, wanted to socialise the peasantry by teaching them how to work cooperatively

• To gain control of the countryside - The USSR was a huge country and had a predominantly rural population and the bolsheviks had never gained support of control of the peasants. MTS would ensure peasantry were under control

What were the social aims of collectivisation?

• To destroy class enemies known as the kulaks - stalin saw collectivisation as a chance to eradicate the kulaks, stalin regarded them as enemies of communism, in reality the kulaks were not a class nor were they against the state

Key features of collectivisation

• Sovkhoz - state owned farms, paid a regular wage

• Kolkhoz - farms run by an elected committee, 50-11 households and peasants pooled their livestocks and tools. Allowed small p-lot to grow own produce and surplus was sold. no wages and credited by hard working. had to meet grain quotas

• first priority of farms were to deliver quotas and state paid very low prices

• MTS established by state and hiring out and maintaining machinery

• 2500 MTS across USSR

• Creche looked after babies and given literacy classes.

what was the attack on kulaks?

• December 1929 stalin announced the liquidation of the kulaks as a class

• Frighten the middle class and poor peasants into joining the kolkhozes. villages were unwilling to denounce kulaks

• some sold animals so they looked poorer

what were the 25 thousanders?

• army of 25,000 enlisted an army to help revolutionise

• after a 2 week course they were sent out in brigades to oversee collectivisation and root out kulaks

• kulaks divided into 3 - counter revpolutionaries that were shot or forced to labour camps, -active opponents of collectivisation who were deported, -expelled from farms and made to settle on poor land

what happened with deportation and labour camps?

• whole families were rounded up and deported (sometimes whole villages)

• gulag and labour camps made to work in brigade buildings

• up to 10m people had been deported to siberia or labour camps

what was the use of proaganda and encouragement of denunciation during collectivisation?

• many peasants denounced their neighbourhood

• children encouraged to enform on neighbours

what was the peasant resistance to collectivisation?

• riots in which peasants burnt crops, tools and houses

• animals killed or eaten

what was stalins backtrack and restart 1930-1?

• wrote an article for pravda in march 1930 where he said that his officials had moved too far too fast

• stalin called voluntary principle- many collectives were abandoned

• once harvests had been gathered stalin restarted the campaign

what was the famine during collectivisation?

• state continued to grain requisition

• not enough animals to pull the ploughs and tractors had not arrived in sufficient numbers

• as high as 7m peasant died

• ukraine suffered the most

• grain still exported

• 718th law scared peasants - 10 year sentence

• internal passports

impact of collectivisation after 1934

• 70% of peasants households were in collectives, this rose to 90% in 1936

• lack of incentives

• private plots kept peasants alive

what were the aims of the fyp?

• preparing for war against capitalist foes abroad

• main priority was on heavy industry and also to show off to weastern countries who were in the depression

what was the focus of the fyp

• gosplan were required to draw out list of quotas across soviet industry

• it was unplanned and quotas only said what had to be achieved

what were the successes of the first fyp?

• electricity production x3

• coal and iron output doubled and steel production inc by 1/3

• new industrial complexes like the magnitogorsk in urals - the urals is significant as its in the west which was important in case of an invasion

• big projects like the dnieprostroi dam and the moscow metro

• 1500 new enterprises

• new tractor works to mechanise agriculture

• unemployment fell

failures of the first fyp

• decline in consumer industries and small workshops were squeezed out as fuel and materials were diverted to heavy industries

• wool production fell

• chemical targets were unfulfilled

• grain exports did not pay for all machinery

• poor quality goods produced and not enough raw materials

• lack of workers

• attacks on bourgeois specialists led to loss of valuable and skilled personnel

• illegal deals and bribery and hijacking of scarce resources to meet targets and avoid trial

• had to keep training new workers

• fear and falsify figures

use of propaganda during the fyps

• trying to persuade the soviet people that they were engaged in an industrial experience

• young people mainly

• depicting the new soviet man - showing a collective responsibility

how was terror used during the fyps?

• stalin claimed to discover a group of antisoviets among the mining engineers in the shakhty in donbass region

• they are used as scapegoats and to show public that they had to stay in line

• use of the OGPU agents and party cadres to terrorise the workforce

what was the stakhanovite movement?

• 1935

• alexi stakhanovite was a miner in the donbass region

• he managed to mine 100 tonnes of coal in one 5 hour shift

• this inspired others but let to a falsification of figures

what was gigantomania?

• hydroelectric dams

• moscow metro

• large showy projects

successes for the 2nd fyp?

• expansion of electricity and new industrial plants

• 4500 new enterprises

• growth of chemical industry and metallurgy

• more investments in transport

• new training schemes for workers to become red specialists

• food rationing was ended and more disposable income

• by 1937 almost self sufficient in metals / machine tools

failures of the 2nd fyp?

• consumer goods still lagged

• oil production did not reach it’s targets

• problems of over and under production

• machinery poorly maintained

• economy deprived of key personnel and specialists as purge reached peak in 1936

what did the 3rd fyp focus on?

• heavy industry but was cut short due to ww2

problems with the fyps

• women paid less than men

• textiles only 17/328 bosses were female

• ordinary workers had long hours

• monotonous

• hard labour

• low pay and food shortages

• bourgeois specialists ore 1917 managers were accused of sabotage

• forced labour

• coercion and fear

What was the cult of personality?

• Stalins use of propaganda to promote a positive image of himself and his economic policies

• aim to reduce opposition and encourage russians to worship and be obedient to stalin

• his image dominated the USSR

How was the cult of personality carried out?

• Paintings and posters - appeared everywhere to inspire people to work hard. some offer general messages and some target promoting initiatives

• Stakhanovite movement - example of a model worker

• some propaganda stressed stalins humanity and active participation in lives of ordinary people

• Newspapers - izvetiya primarily a propaganda outlet

• The arts - present a popular culture that emphasised the role of the worker community and power of stalin

• Operas and the films - gloficied stalins role in the revolution

• exhibitions - such as ‘the great soviet exhibition’ and ‘stalin and the soviet people’

• Youth groups - komsomol for 14-28 year olds, promoted members swore an oath of loyalty to stalin and provided a route to full membership of the communist party

• History was rewritten and stalin was added to photographs

how did censorship change during the cult of personality?

• increased as all literacy groups were closed down and anyone wanting to write had to jooin the union of soviet writers

• during 1st congress group in 1934 it was announced that members had to produce ‘socialist realism’

what was a police state in the cult of personality?

• The government used its authority with very strict law enforcement rights, alongside the monitoring of the general behaviour of the population

what was the OGPU?

• Created 1924, the GPU was renamed

• takes unsuspecting people from the streets for no obvious reason other than the fact they looked suspicious

What was the NKVD?

• Formed 1934 to combat opposition

• created a permanent terror and mass graves were formed

• gathered evidence against mass ranking bolsheviks

• stalin suspected the NKVD of conspiracy and a number of its leaders were executed during the purges

• Yagoda 1934-1936 demoted and arrested in 1937, executed after being forced to confess to ‘wrecking, espionage and tortskyism’

• Yezhov blamed for an antipurge campaign and is replaced by Beria in 1938

• The NKVD itself purged 20,000 of its own members

What were gulags?

• Network of labour and prison camps

• forced labour and 40 million sent to its most inhospitable areas

• Hard labour and unsanitary conditions

• women brutally treated and raped

• at the end of the great terror, the death rate was 91 per thousand

• white sea canal project using the gulag labour - 100,000 died

What were the reasons for the purges starting?

• Growing opposition to stalin

• Suicide of stalins wife in november 1932

• events of the 17th party congress february 1934

• Kirovs murder december 1934

What was the growing opposition to stalin 1929-34

• Peasantry - violence of forced collectivisation and famine

• workers - antagonised by the low wages and strict controls with harsh punishments

• farmers - continuously targeted and persecuted as class enemies (kulaks)

• local / regional party officials - horrified by the virtual war against peasants and some unwilling to identify kulaks

• high ranking officials - 1932 ryutin issued a document criticising the personal dictatorship of stalin called the ‘ryutin platform. urged his removal, stalin wanted death penalty for ryutin but the politbure opposed him.

• smirnov an old bolshevik opposed the rapid pace of industrialisation and stalin wanted him imprisoned - again poliburo dont agree

• many commit suicide

What were the events at the 17th party conference?

• February 1934

• Named as the ‘congress of victors’ there were declarations that socialism in one country had been achieved

• many now wanted to slow down and stabilise

• Kirov (popular head of the leningrad party) talked about increasing rations for workers and stopping grain requisitioning

• kirov received standing ovations

• stalin wanted to go ahead with industrialisation but no one agreed with him

• title of general secretary was done away with, stalin and kirov become secretary of equal rank

What happened with Kirvos murder?

• In february 1934 stalin and kirov fall out and kirvor was murdered in december 1934

• very shortly after stalin made a number of arrests and thousands in the leningrad party were purged

• stalin said that kirvovs murder was evidence that there was widespread conspiracy against the soviet state

what are the different elements of the purges?

• The show trials june 1936 - march 1939

• Purge of the wider party

• Purge of the people

• Purge of the millitary

• Yezhovchina and the great terror

• Stalins constitution

Why did the show trials start?

• After math of Kirovs murder december 1934 led to extensive purge of the leningrad party. Apparent ‘Leningrad centre’ had been discovered and accused of plotting murder. Led to the show trials because trotsky had also been writing articles against stalin and communicating with left wing opponents while in exile

What happened at the first show trial?

• June 1936, Zinoviev and Kamenev accused of opposition and found guilty, executed

what happened at the second show trial?

• January 1937, Karl Redek, a well known trotskyite, and Pyatakov, a deputy of the commisariat for heavy industry, accused of working with foreign parties. found guilty.

• Ordzhanikidze critised stalin and he was shot

what happened at the third show trial?

• March 1938, Bukharin and Yagoda accused of conspiracy and plotting lenins murder

• they were shot within a few hours

What was the significance of the show trials?

• By 1940, most old bolsheviks had disappeared and 80% membership in 1939 had been members since 1930

What was the purge of the wider party - what happened?

• Spring 1937 stalin made it clear that he thought traitors and spies had infiltrated the party. He encouraged low level bolsheviks to denounce high ranking ones

• Floods of members were unmasked

• Party members invited to congress Infront of mass meetings and were arrested.

• 70% members from central committee from the 1th congress were arrested and shot

what was the purge of the people - what happened?

• From spring 1937 terror accelerated - 800,000 were arrested during yezhochina and 23,000 NKVD members were purged

• Terror accelerated and arrests increase.

• July 1937 politburo pass a resolution condemning antisoviet elements =.

• Yezhov issues order 00447 which was a list of over 250,000 antisoviet elements. quota system applied and in July 1937 proportion of arrests to be shot was 28%

• Hugh media campaign encouraging denunciation

• August 1937 national minority campaign - ethnic cleansing

What was the purge of the military - what happened?

• Millitary keadership viewed as a threat by stalin, leaders were tough and hard to intimidate

• Stalin came into conflict with marshall tukhachevsky and may 1939 he declared that the army was plotting to overthrow him

• 40% of the top echleon had disappeared

• 35,000 officers either imprisoned or killed - 11,000 return by 1940 due to war

what was yezhovchina?

• September 1936 yezhov replaced yagoda as leader of the NKVD

• Yagoda criticised for not finding enemies of the state fast enough

• Yezhov initiated a period of mass terror

What was stalins constitution?

• December 1936, democratic said freedom of speech, press, right to demonstrate and free election

• it was propaganda

How did the purges end ?

• Ended 1938

• purges were destabilising russian society

• administrative systems falling apart and stalin blamed yezhov and the NKVD

• Yezhov was then replaced by Beria

• In 1940 trotsky was killed by hitman hired by stalin