Russia and Stalin Man of Steel

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Russia and StalinMan of Steel
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The Beginning of the Soviet Project

• The Bolsheviks had consolidated power by early
  1920s.
• Party membership did not exceeded 1 of the
  population
• Some opposition still remained.
• They viewed their revolution as internationally
  significant

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War Communism

• Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) organized the Red Army
  to suppress both internal and foreign opposition.
• White Russian opposition could not get properly
  organized.
• The nation was run by Lenin from the top,
  undemocratically.
• The government ran the banks, the transport
  system and heavy industry.
• All opposition was repressed.
• War Communism generated opposition.
• Peasants resisted the requisition of grain
• Strikes in 1920 and 1921
• Baltic fleet mutiny in March 1921.

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Russian revolutionaries and leaders Joseph
Stalin, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and Mikhail
Ivanovich Kalinin at the Congress of the Russian
Communist Party. (March 23, 1919)
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The New Economic Plan (NEP)

• Outlined by Lenin in March 1921
• Private industry would be tolerated except for
  in
• Banking
• Heavy Industry
• Transportation
• International Commerce
• Peasant farming for profit was legalized.
• The countryside stabilized.

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The Soviet Model

• Third International (Comintern) held in Moscow
• Established Soviet Union as model for
  revolutionary Marxism
• Devised 21 rules for nations wanting to engage in
  Marxist revolution - required acknowledgement of
  Soviet leadership - use of name Communist Party
• Sought to end democratic socialism
• Created fear - drove some to right wing regimes.

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The Stalin/Trotsky Rivalry

• After Lenins stroke in 1922 and his subsequent
  death in 1924, a power vacuum was left.
• Two factions emerged
• Trotsky Faction
• Joseph Stalin (1879-1953), general secretary of
  the party, Faction.
• Lenin had criticized both before his death, but
  especially Stalin.

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Stalin Timeline

• 1878 1953
• Joseph Dzhugashvili
• Gori, Georgia
• Peasant Father Bootmaker
• 1899 expelled from Seminary School
• 1902 imprisoned exiled to Siberia
• 1904 Escaped Siberia
• 1905 met Lenin
• 1911 editor of Pravda
• 1917 Commissar of Nationalities
• General Secretary of the Communist Party (1922)

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Trotskys Position

• Urged rapid industrialization financed by state
  control of farm production.
• Collectivization of agriculture
• The Soviet Union should encourage worldwide
  Socialist revolution

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Stalins Rise

• His position of general secretary allowed him to
  amass bureaucratic and administrative power.
• Manipulated intraparty rivalries
• Backed Nikolai Bukharin (1888-1938) in his battle
  with Trotsky over rapid industrialization
• Also opposed Trotskys position on worldwide
  revolution
• He was thus able to eventually have Trotsky
  humiliated and exiled by 1929.

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Russia Rapid Industrialization

• the slowing down of economic production, leads
  Soviet Communist leader Joseph Stalin to abandon
  Lenins New Economic Policy (NEP) and reject free
  market operations
• series of Five-Year Plans would rapidly increase
  government run heavy industries
• The State Planning Commission or Gosplan oversaw
  every aspect the economy
• economy grows 400 between 1928 and 1940

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WE ARE FIFTY OR ONE HUNDRED YEARS BEHIND THE
ADVANCE COUNTRIES. WE MUST MAKE GOOD THIS
DISTANCE IN TEN YEARS- Stalin
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FIVE-YEAR PLANS

• Economic Growth Heavy Industry
• 111 coal, 200 iron, 335 electric production

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FIVE-YEAR PLANS

• 25 million migrated to cities
• Hired Foreign Engineers
• Unemployment unknown
• Women worked in factories

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FIVE-YEAR PLANS

• 1928-1937
• - Production of capital goods and armaments
• Quadrupled production of heavy machinery
• Doubled oil production
• Weapons increase tenfold or more
• Real wages declined 43 b/w 1928-1940
• Housing and consumer goods declined
• Human cost?

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Collectivization

• Stalin forces Russian peasants to give up their
  private farms and work collectively on farms
  owned by the state collectives
• Stalin felt this policy would end the hoarding of
  grain and produce enough domestic food and for
  foreign export
• dekulakization the removal of any peasants,
  especially those who were well off, who resisted
  collectivization
• millions of peasants are killed, imprisoned,
  exiled to Siberia or starve to death
• religious leaders of many faiths are attacked and
  their places of worship closed
• by 1937, 90 of the countrys grain is
  collectivized
• 10 million people died

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Consumer Shortages in the Russian Cities

• shortages of the basics housing, food, and
  clothing
• cities lacked proper transportation, sewer
  systems, paved streets and lighting
• crime and disease widespread

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TERROR

• Secret Police (NKDV), Purge Trials (1936-1939)
  accused of disloyalty enemies
• 1937-1938 Great Terror
• Shot 1500 people a day
• Eliminate opposition - - high Soviet leaders,
  civilian party members, major party leaders, army
  officers, diplomats, intellectuals, Old Bolsheviks

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The Purges

• Stalin, starting in 1933, gets rid of his enemies
  and opponents, both real and imagined in the
  Great Purges
• the assassination of party chief Sergei Kirov
  leads to the first purges
• Kirovs death still a mystery
• Killed either by party opponents or perhaps by
  Stalin himself
• Ex-high Soviet leader Bukharin along with other
  members of the Politburo are executed
• millions of people (family members of government
  leaders, ordinary Soviet citizens, members of the
  military) are either executed or sent to labor
  camps
• Stalins thirst for power and his paranoia caused
  the purges
• Communist Party moves away from the philosophies
  of Lenin and other early Communist leaders

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GULAG

• Soviet system of forced labor camps
• Origins 1917 Revolution
• Height during the reign of Stalin
• White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal (1931-33) 141 mile
  canal
• 100,000 prisoners pickaxes, shovels, wheel
  barrels created in just 20 months SUCCESS?
• Kolyma - harshest of all the camps means death
• Arctic region harsh temperatures, insufficient
  rations, sleep, and clothing 12-16 hour work
  day

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GULAG

• More people passed through the GULAG than the
  Nazi concentration camps yet, the GULAG is still
  not nearly as well know. WHY?
• Nazi camps used to exterminate
• GULAG weapon of ongoing political control over
  one country
• trials 5 minutes sentences 8-10 years
• Article 58 (1928) anti-Soviet activity
• 25 political prisoners
• Mining, rail construction, arms chemical
  factories, electricity plants, fish canning,
  airport, apartment, and sewage construction

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CULT OF PERSONALITY

• Single leader
• Revolutionary transformation
• Treated as a benevolent "guide" for the nation
• Transformation to a better future cannot occur
  without him
• Superman
• Propaganda
• Hero Worship Uncle Joe

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Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't
allow our enemies to have guns, why should we
allow them to have ideas? - STALIN
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20 Million Deaths Starvation, Forced Labor
Camps, Purges
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STALIN TODAY

• What role did Stalin play in the history of our
  country?
• POSITIVE 53
• NEGATIVE 33
• Had difficulty answering the question 14
• BBC World News Service