Questions for StalinBIG PICTURE(Paper 2 style Qs)

• For what reasons and by what methods was Stalin able to rise to power?

• How did the ideology of Trotsky & Lenin’s revolution differ from the reality of Stalin’s Russia (1924-1953)?

Unit specific Qs(Helpful in document analysis)

• How did Stalin view the USSR?

• Was Stalin revered by the Russian people?

• Did Stalin have total control over the Russian people?

• To what extent was Stalin a Marxist?

• To what extent was Stalin a Leninist?

Everyday Stalinism – week of 21st

• Key Factors in Stalin’s SPS Totalitarian domination of the USSR– Forced Collectivization– Rapid Industrialization (5 Year Plans)– Cult of Personality– Use of Terror (Purges, Show Trials)

Collectivization: 1928-1940

• No more private farms– Take land away from KULAKS

• Turned into collectives– People (forced to) work on collectives

Propaganda Reality

CollectivizationForced Collectivization• 1930-1931: 400,000 households (2

mill ppl) deported to Siberia

• 1930: 2 month period of opting out– 6 mill families out of 14 mill left– By 1932: 60% re-collectivized

• Resistance– Destruction of farmland, tools,

animals…• By 1933:

– ½ horses– ½ sheep and goats– 1/3 cattle

Voluntary Collectivization?• Optional Kolkhoz• Divide time between state

farms and private plots– 60-100 days on collective land

• Low productivity, low quality – Saved energy for private plots

• 3% of land = 1/3 food for USSR

Revolution from AboveHow to counter the consequences of the NEP?

Radical restructuring of economy

• Collectivization– Threat of Kulaks:

• 3.9% of pop = 13% grain production

• Orthodox, popular, organizers

– Abolish private property• All Pop = employees of

the state• Only poor peasants stood

to benefit (20% pop)

• Rapid Industrial Development– Total production = up 235.9%

• Electrical power x4• Coal x2• Pig iron x3

• Industrial production costs -35%• Prices -24%

– 11% difference applied to investments in heavy industry

– Labor force required 50% increase in food supply

"The USSR transformed itself from an agrarian country into

an industrial country."

Each circle represents 10% of GNP

Sickle – agriculture

Hammer -- industry

CollectivizationForced Collectivization• 1930-1931: 400,000 households (2

mill ppl) deported to Siberia

• 1930: 2 month period of opting out– 6 mill families out of 14 mill left– By 1932: 60% re-collectivized

• Resistance– Destruction of farmland, tools,

animals…• By 1933:

– ½ horses– ½ sheep and goats– 1/3 cattle

Voluntary Collectivization?• Optional Kolkhoz• Divide time between state

farms and private plots– 60-100 days on collective land

• Low productivity, low quality – Saved energy for private plots

• 3% of land = 1/3 food for USSR

famine as a political weapon

• 1932: 75% forced collectivization

• Increased mandatory shipments of foodstuffs - - No food left for Ukraine

• Soviet troops seized food – house by house

• 1933: 25% of population killed

Holodomor“death by starvation”

Genocide:The deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group

Source A: An extract from an article in Pravda on 2 March 1930, in which Stalin appears to condemn forcible collectivisation

Grain growing districts

Turkestan = Unfavorable conditions (aka desert)

“The party’s policy rests on the voluntary principle, not force.”

A selection of the official economic planning regions of the USSR4-10 year averages 1954-1965

http://pages.uoregon.edu/kimball/Field.ggr.htm

Source B: A Report by a Reuter [international news agency] correspondent, 29 March 1932.

Russia today is in the grip of famine.

…a Communist denied to me that there was a famine.

The government’s policy of collectivisation and the peasants’

resistance to it have brought Russia to the worst catastrophe

since the famine of 1921

Source C: An extract from The Hinge of Fate, by Winston Churchill, London 1950, in which Churchill

records his conversation with Stalin in 1943.

It was absolutely necessary

It was bad, but necessary

We increased the food supply, and the quality of the grain.

Some of them were given land oftheir own to cultivate in the province of Tomsk,

but most of them were very unpopular, and were wiped out by their labourers.”

Tomsk: One of the oldest towns in Siberia

Average annual temperature: 33.57 °F

Source D: An extract from A History of Twentieth-Century Russia by Robert Service, London, 1997

Source E: A photograph of roll-call at the New Life collective, a farm near Moscow, in the 1930s. The man on the left is a party official

checking that the female agricultural workers have arrived for work.

Public Letter to a Slacker from Record-breaking Collective Farmers (1933)

Kolkhozniks (1934)Every peasant, kolkhozniks or private farmer (edinolichnik) now has the opportunity to live like a human being, if only he wants to work honestly and not slack off, not bum around and not steal kolkhoz property." Iosif Stalin

Opposing View: Counter

Argument

Answer the Q:Argument

Justify the two arguments:Think like a revisionist…

Question 4

Question 4: PurgesUsing these sources and your own knowledge, explain to what extent you agree with the verdict of Source D,

“the purges were successful in eliminating possible alternative leaders and terrorizing the masses into

obedience, but the consequences were serious”

Opposing View: Terrible consequences,

terrorized masses

Answer the Q:Purges successfully eliminated

opposition

Justify the two arguments:Think like a revisionist…

Eliminated opposition, but also terrorized people

Short term effect – long term impact

Opposing View: Terrible consequences,

terrorized masses

Answer the Q:Purges successfully eliminated

opposition

Justify the two arguments:Think like a revisionist…

Eliminated opposition, but also terrorized people

Short term effect – long term impact

Document support:

Outside info:

Historiography:

Document support:

Outside info:

Historiography:

Document support:

Outside info:

Historiography:

Answer the Q – Opposing View – Justify the twoCan be as simple as: Agree-Disagree-Revise

Opposing View: Counter Argument

Answer the Q:Argument

Justify the two arguments:Think like a revisionist…

Answer the Q – Opposing View – Justify the twoCan be as simple as: Agree-Disagree-Revise

The Price was justified in the “big picture” of USSR stability

& IR development

The Price Was Awful & Unjustified…

Unsuccessful…

It was awful, though justifications were made…

-IR successes-Not effective agricultural

strategy

Opposing View: Answer the Q:

Justify the two arguments:Think like a revisionist…

Document support:

Outside info:

Historiography:

Document support:

Outside info:

Historiography:

Document support:

Outside info:

Historiography:

1936: Second Kolkhoz Charter• Drafted in 1935 to replace 1930

charter

• Distributed to delegates to the Second All-Union Congress of Kolkhoz Shock Workers– 1,433 delegates

• Issues:– size of garden

("private") plots for kolkhoz households

– maternity benefits– conditions for

admission to and expulsion from kolkhozes?http://englishrussia.com/2010/12/23/hard-life-in-kolkhoz/2/

Collectivization represented only a partial victory for the state over the peasantry

Successes?• It did bring peasants under

the administrative control of the state

• Made them technologically dependent

Failures?• combination of

administrative incompetence, under-investment, and peasant alienation/ resistance

• Long term: extremely low levels of productivity and an agricultural sector– Net drain on economic growth

http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1936kolkhoz&Year=1936&navi=byYear

Down with the ancientGrandfather's village

The Sectarian is the Kulak's Puppet

http://pmeyer.web.wesleyan.edu/206/206history.html

Collectivization of Farms Map

http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/webexhibits/sovietchildrensbooks/industrialization.html

"Adventures in the Soviet Imaginary: children’s Books and Graphic Art"