Russia

  • After Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin rose to power

  • Contrary to what Karl Marx predicted (that the state would wither away after the Revolution), the opposite occurs and Russia turns into a totalitarian state

  • The Soviet Union under Stalin became a totalitarian state controlled by a powerful and complex bureaucracy.

  • Command economy:  Stalin brought all economic activity under government control

Between 1928 and 1939, the Soviet Union experienced tremendous growth in industry.


The government:

  • Built large factories, hydroelectric power stations, railroads, and industrial complexes

  • Improved oil, coal, and steel production

Although Stalin’s five-year plans built industry, overall standard of living stayed low.

Collectives created:  


  • Peasants had to farm on state-owned land

  • Could keep houses and belongings but livestock and tools belonged to the state

  • State set prices and controlled supplies

  • Kulaks (wealthy farmers) resisted

    • Land taken, sent to labor camps, thousands killed or died

Stalin’s goal in Ukraine:

  • Destroy Ukrainian nationalism (had been incorporated into Soviet Union in 1922)

  • Break the will of the peasants to accept collectivization and Soviet rule


Resulted in the Holodomor (Hunger extermination)...act of genocide:  3-5 million Ukrainians died

Stalin’s goal in Ukraine:

  • Destroy Ukrainian nationalism (had been incorporated into Soviet Union in 1922)

  • Break the will of the peasants to accept collectivization and Soviet rule


Resulted in the Holodomor (Hunger extermination)...act of genocide:  3-5 million Ukrainians died

  • Police spies opened private letters

  • No free press

  • Protests were forbidden

  • Critics sent to the Gulag (system of brutal labor camps)

At least 4 million people purged between 1934 and 1938