L9: Economic Life Under Stalin

AgendaObjective: To understand…1. Stalin’s economic program:

The Five Year Plan & Collectivization

2. How these plans:1. Are representative of

Soviet totalitarianism2. Invoke a “war” mentality

in the USSR3. Serve as political

programs4. Function to exert

panoptic control over the Soviet people.

Schedule: 1. Lecture, Video Clips, and

Discussion

•

Homework

1. Work on prewriting check-in. Rolling Deadline.

Guiding Questions• Where do you see characteristics of

totalitarianism in Stalin’s regime?• How was the Soviet Union a “nation at war”

under the economic policies of Stalin? • In what ways were the Five Year Plan and

Collectivization actually political programs?• In what ways were the Five Year Plan and

Collectivization designed to exert panoptic control over the Soviet people?– Think about why people went along with the

economic programs.

Stalin’s Vision for the Soviet Union• To Stalin, the primary goal of the Soviet Union was to industrialize in order

to first catch up with the west, and then to surpass it. Moreover, he wanted to do so at break-neck speed.– “…Now that we have overthrown capitalism and power is in our hands, in the

hands of the people, we have a fatherland, and we must uphold its independence. Do you want our socialist fatherland to be beaten and to lose its independence? If you do not want this, you must put an end to the backwardness in the shortest possible time and develop a genuine Bolshevik tempo in building up its socialist economy.”

• From: Stalin, Joseph. J. Stalin: Works July 1930-1934, vol. 13. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1955.

• This was a matter of absolute urgency, for the pace of Soviet industrialization determined whether the U.S.S.R. would excel internationally or crumble before its enemies.– “To slacken the tempo would mean falling behind. And those who fall behind get

beaten…We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it or we shall go under.”

• From: Stalin, Joseph. J. Stalin: Works July 1930-1934, vol. 13. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1955.

Stalin’s Economic Program

• Two Components:– Industrial Revolution

• The Five Year Plan– The First Five Year Plan

(1928-1932)– The Second Five Year

Plan (1933-1937)– The Third Five Year Plan

(1938-1941)

– Agricultural Revolution • Collectivization of

Farms

The Five Year Plan• Stalin’s plan for industrializing the Soviet Union• The top priority of the Soviet government • Repealed private ownership permitted under the NEP • Instituted a command economy into the Soviet Union

– Command economy• All industry owned by the state• All industrial development planned by the state• The state decides what is produced, how much is produced, and where it

should be produced.

• Emphasis was on heavy industries such as coal, oil, iron, steel, and electricity• Emphasis was on exports, not consumption• Few consumer goods

The Five Year Plan• Step One: Consolidate all industry in the hands of the

state– No private ownership, no personal surplus, no personal profits.– By the early 1930s even small shopkeepers and local artisans had

been forced into state-supervised cooperatives. • Step Two: Build giant plants, mines, and factories

– Massive industrial complex were constructed throughout the USSR , epitome of which was Magnitogorsk (Magnetic Mountain)

• Step Three: Develop production targets for the USSR– Each plan set a production target which industries had to meet.– Within that industry target, each factory had a production target to

meet.– These targets were largely unrealistic, hence the need for more and

more 5 year plans.

• “Anatolii Skurikhin: Magnitka Under Construction” (1932) Source: Grigori Chudakov, Olga Suslova, and Lilya Ukhtomskaya, eds.: Pioneers of Soviet photography. New York: Thames and Hudson. 1983.

• Dmitrii Debabov: Construction of Magnitogorsk (1930)Source: Leah Bendavid-Val, editor: Propaganda & Dreams: Photographing the 1930s in the USSR and the US. Zurich and New York: Stemmle Publishers GmbH. 1999.

The Five Year Plan• The Five Year Plan demanded worker

productivity.• Three campaigns were designed to

ensure high-rates of productivity– Socialist Competitions– Shock workers– Stakhanovite Movement (1935)

Socialist Competitions

• Competitions between factories for who could most exceed their production targets

• Workers who signed up for these competitions and who then went on to help their factories secure victory were known as shock workers

Shock Workers• Workers and employees

who exceeded their quotas.

• Received public honor in newspapers and at meetings, received privileged treatment in dining facilities and in the allocation of scarce goods, accommodation, and vacation vouchers.

Stakhanovite Movement• On August 31, 1935 Aleksei Stakhanov, a 33 year old miner, mined 102

tons of coals during a 6 hour shift. This amount represented 14 times his quota.

• The Soviet government capitalized on this achievement and launched the Stakhanovite movement.

• Stakhanovite: title given to workers or peasants who set production records that superceded that of shock worker.

• Stakhanovites were given increased earnings, cars, and praise at national meetings.

• They were also featured in newspapers and advertisements.• They were idealized in all areas (manners, culture, aptitude, and skills)--

held up as ideal citizens--not just ideal workers.• Designed to demonstrate the prosperity that communism was said to

bring to Russia.• Video Clip: http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?

page=subject&show=video&SubjectID=1936stakhanov&Year=1936&navi=byYear

When all else fails, humiliation, labor camp, and/or death…

• Every factory had large display boards erected that showed the output of workers. Those that failed to reach the required targets were publicity criticized and humiliated.

• Records were kept of workers' lateness, absenteeism and bad workmanship. If the worker's record was poor, he was accused of trying to sabotage the Five Year Plan and if found guilty could be shot or sent to work as forced labor.

Effects of the Five Year Plan: Industrial Outputs

• The Five year plans were successful at modernizing/industrializing Russia

• By 1935, the USSR had a 13% share of the world’s manufacturing, surpassing Great Britain, France, and Germany.

• In the 1930s, while the rest of Europe and the United States suffered a Great Depression, the Soviet Union had an unemployment rate of 0%.

Effects of the Five Year Plan: Workers

• Pay was poor• Few consumer

goods to purchase with what little money they had

• Working conditions were dangerous

• Hours were long• Rationing of food

Video Clips!

• http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&show=video&SubjectID=1929magnitogorsk&Year=1929&navi=byYear

Agricultural Revolution: Collectivization

• Stalin believed that if the 5 Year Plan was going to succeed, the factory workers in the urban areas needed to be well-fed.

• Stalin believed that Russia needed to undergo an Agricultural Revolution in order to achieve three goals:– Increase crop yields and thus better feed the industrial workers– Mechanize agricultural production– Eliminate the kulaks

• Richer farmers who had made money under the privatization allowed by the NEP• Represented a counterweight to Soviet power in the villages and had to be eliminated.

Collectivization• The program Stalin introduced to achieve these goals was collectivization.• Collectivization:

– All small farms would be gathered together to form one large massive farm, called collectives. – These collectives would use science and machinery to increase the amount of crops they produced.

• By 1930, 50% of all farms in the USSR had been collectivized• By 1938, 90% of all farms in the USSR had been collectivized.

Arkadii Shishkin: We are for the Kolkhoz! (1929)Source: Grigori Chudakov, Olga Suslova, and Lilya Ukhtomskaya, eds.: Pioneers of Soviet photography. New York: Thames and Hudson. 1983.

Reaction to the Collectives• Kulaks were strongly opposed to

collectivization.• Many kulaks resisted collectivization by

killing their animals and destroying their grain so that they could not be taken by Stalin’s secret police.

• This began an era of almost unparalleled slaughter of farm animals and the systematic destruction of grain.1928 1934

Grain 73.3 million tons 67.6 million tons

Cattle 70.5 million 42.4 million

Pigs 26 million 22.6 million

Sheep and Goats 146.7 million 51.9 million

Reaction to the Collectives• Stalin called for the “liquidation [of the kulaks] as a class.” • Stalin tried to turn the poorer peasants against the kulaks.

– "Look at the kulaks farms : their barns and sheds are crammed with grain. And yet they are holding onto this grain because they are demanding three times the price offered by the government.”

• Joseph Stalin, speech, 1928• Much was made in propagandistic newsreels of “kulak resistance”

and successful searches and confiscations carried out by the police and party officials.

• Those identified as kulaks were subjected to confiscation, deportation, incarceration in labor camps, or execution. – Thousands were executed and an estimated 5 million were sent into

exile.• Video Clips (1 &2): http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?

page=subject&show=video&SubjectID=1929collectivization&Year=1929&navi=byYear

Effects of Collectivization: Famine• Stalin also viewed collectivization as an opportunity to rid

Russia of “undesirable” peasant populations such as those living in the Ukraine

• Between 1932 and 1933, Stalin ordered the secret police to take all food from Ukrainian peasants and to leave them nothing.

• The result was a Great Famine (Ukrainian Genocide) in which nearly 5 million Ukrainians died

• Meanwhile the government was exporting millions of tons of grain to earn money for industrialization.

• In total it is estimated that 9 million people died as a result of various famines brought on by collectivization

Further Discussion• Where do you see characteristics of

totalitarianism in Stalin’s regime?• How was the Soviet Union a “nation at war”

under the economic policies of Stalin? • In what ways were the Five Year Plan and

Collectivization actually political programs?• In what ways were the Five Year Plan and

Collectivization designed to exert panoptic control over the Soviet people?– Think about why people went along with the economic

programs.