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Title: AQA A Level History Notes: Revolution and dictatorship: Russia, 7042/2N
Description: A/A* A level History Notes: AQA A Level History: Revolution and dictatorship: Russia, 7042/2N
Description: A/A* A level History Notes: AQA A Level History: Revolution and dictatorship: Russia, 7042/2N
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1) DISSENT AND REVOLUTION 1917 ***
CAUSES OF THE DOWNFALL OF THE TSAR NICHOLAS II/ THE FEBRUARY
REVOLUTION 1917?
POLITICAL
1
...
He made poor decisions that led to worsening
relations with the government and increased hardship for civilians and soldiers alike
...
• He was detached from the plight of the Russian people and his policies also alienated ethnic
minorities
...
This group wanted to have more control over the war
...
This alienated
many liberals and arguably the Progressive Bloc could have saved his position
...
• However, Nicholas was not well educated in the tactics of war
...
• Graham Darby stated that Nicholas II was removed by his own class
...
2
...
Alexandra
was not hugely popular
...
• Alexandra influenced appointment of ministers to the government
...
She appointed less threatening, incompetent ministers to replace those who knew
how to govern
...
• Rasputin was a monk from Siberia, who was rumoured to be a member of an extreme
underground sect that had split from the Orthodox Church
...
• To the Russian people, Rasputin symbolised everything that was wrong with imperial
government
...
Rasputin's murder by royalists at the end of 1916, came too late to undo the damage he had
caused
...
Revolutionary groups
• The membership and influence of revolutionary groups had been severely reduced by 1914,
mainly through the repressive tactics of Stolypin and the Okhrana
...
• Revolutionaries managed to assassinate Stolypin in 1911
...
Despite the Bolsheviks holding influence over many workers, Lenin had no part in bringing
about the February Revolution
...
IMPACT OF WW1
• ‘The war was the most divisive issue for the Provisional Government
...
Military defeats
• World War One was a total disaster for Russia
...
• In 1915, Germany turned the full weight of its power against Russia and launched a series of
onslaughts, including the Gorlice-‐Tarnow Offensive and the 2nd Battle of the Masurian Lakes
...
The Russians were forced into retreat
...
• The Russian people looked for someone to hold to account for their suffering
...
This made him a suitable target for
discontent
...
The series of defeats
and humiliations continued
...
• The War brought terrible suffering for soldiers and civilians alike
...
Morale during this time was very low and
the myth of the army as the Russian ‘steamroller’ was no longer
...
The supply of rifles and artillery shells to the Eastern Front
was vastly improved, and in the Brusilov Offensive of June 1916, Russia achieved significant
victories over the Austrians
...
Economic impact
• Russian industry moved into crisis during the war
...
This resulted in shortages of raw materials and finished goods
...
• Russia had an underdeveloped railway system
...
This made it more difficult to keep
the cities supplied with food
...
E
...
They used wooden ploughs
...
This led to a major shortage of
manpower on the farms and a corresponding fall in production
...
The price of even the most basic foods
was rising steeply
...
This made life increasingly difficult, particularly for poorer
people
...
1
...
By 1916 a third
had been injured
...
Peasant livelihoods were
obliterated
...
2
...
City administrations
faced added pressure to provide housing and services
...
• Living conditions deteriorated, especially as a result of shortages in the shops
...
• There was a severe lack of food in Moscow
...
g
...
• In January 1917, in commemoration of Bloody Sunday, 140 000 workers went on strike in
Petrograd
...
• In the following days, strikes and demonstrations took place
...
• As the number of people on the streets of Petrograd increased, soldiers refused orders to fire
on the crowds
...
• The Petrograd Soviet was established and issued Order #1, announcing that soldiers had the
right to elect their own officers
...
REASONS FOR THE FALL OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT/ WHY DID THE
BOLSHEVIKS SEIZE POWER IN OCTOBER?
FAILURES OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
1) The establishment of Dual Authority
• They never really ruled Russia from the start as they shared power with the Petrograd Soviet
...
• Shown through Order No
...
Its members should only obey the Provisional Government if the
Soviet agreed with it
...
• There were divisions within the Government, particularly between socialists and liberals
...
2) No change
• It did not really carry out any major reforms
...
This gave opponents like the Bolsheviks the freedom to attack
the government for the problems that they were not solving
...
For example, the delay to the promised land reform
and the delay in calling a constituent assembly
...
• Did not deal with opponents and thus they allowed Lenin to preach “all power to the Soviets”
...
3) Mismanagement of WW1
• ‘The war was the most divisive issue for the Provisional Government
...
Enough troops scraped together to form an
offensive but inevitably failed
...
Morale declined and
desertions increased
...
• The government underestimated the Bolsheviks as the Kerensky Offensive actually pushed
them to Revolution
...
’ (Service)
• April 1917 Lenin returns from exile in Switzerland
...
• April Theses distinguished the Bolsheviks from the other parties
...
He won
masses of support through his speeches and propaganda
...
He persuaded
followers not to cooperate with the Provisional Government and pursue a revolutionary path
...
‘History will not forgive us if we do not assume power now’
...
He took careful steps and was hostile to uncontrolled action
such as the premature July Days and his fleeing to Finland to preserve his authority
...
He returned at a personal risk to force the Committee into action in October
...
Lenin had a programme for political takeover, which was essential for the takeover of
power (beyond the military action led by Trotsky on 24/25th October)
2) Trotsky
• Trotsky had more direct experience of leadership than Lenin
...
Became
Chairman of Petrograd Soviet (September) turning it into the instrument of the Bolsheviks
...
He dominated the All-‐Russian Congress
of Soviets (June 1917) after his return (May)
...
• He was an expert strategist and won the loyalty of the capital’s troops and created the ‘Military
Revolutionary Committee’, which he personally supervised
...
He also supported Lenin’s side against
Kamenev and Zinoviev’s Revolution
...
Russian General made an attempt to seize power and the
Provisional Government was powerless under Kerensky
...
This resulted in a big increase in support for the
Bolsheviks and by September they gained control of the Petrograd Soviet
...
POPULAR ASPIRATIONS
“Peace, bread and land”
• Peasants wanted land, workers wanted bread and soldiers wanted peace
...
• (Kenez) ‘The Bolsheviks seized power because the country was in the throes of anarchy
...
Relatively few people were actively involved
...
They
went from 75,000 (11%) of the votes in July to 198,000 (51%) of the votes in October
...
• Reactions to the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly
...
• The response of foreign powers to the Revolution
...
• The continued shortages in the economy
...
g
...
• The Whites are supported by foreign powers and the Czech Legion
...
Life during the civil war
Life during the Civil War was described as a ‘almost in ruins, as if a hurricane had swept over it’
(Goldman) and a ‘madhouse’ (Robien)
...
They moved their
capital to Moscow, at the hub of the railway network
...
• This area also contained the main armament factories in Russia, so the Bolsheviks could carry
on producing war materials
...
• The central area was heavily populated (much more than White-‐held areas) so the Bolsheviks
were able to conscript large numbers to fight
...
• Whites were scattered around the edges of this central area, separated by large distances
...
They had no telephone links so they had to use officers on
horseback to convey messages
...
• Trotsky organised the Red Army into an effective fighting force
...
• The Whites were made up of different groups who had entirely different aims and beliefs
...
This made it hard for them to cooperate and impossible to develop a
political strategy
...
There was little chance that the Whites could develop a military strategy
...
For example,
other generals were suspicious of Kolchak’s motives and intentions
...
Personally brave, he took his special forces to the
parts of the Front where the fighting was fiercest
...
• Discipline was very tough in the Red Army; the death penalty was used frequently
...
They
would be machine-‐gunned by their own side
...
They reminded the soldiers of
the worst aspects of the Russian army and tsarist rule
...
Many soldiers deserted
...
• Denikin: ‘I can do nothing with my army
...
• In Omsk (Kolchak’s base) uniforms and munitions supplied by foreign interventionist
governments were sold on the black market and officers lived in brothels in a haze of cocaine
and vodka
...
4) SUPPORT
Peasants
• The support of the peasants was crucial since they supplied the main body of soldiers for both
sides
...
• Lenin had legitimized their right to land while the Whites made it clear that land would be
restored to its formed owners
...
• As a result, peasants were inclined to support the Reds
...
This
antagonised national groups (separists) such as the Ukrainians and Georgians who were looking
for more autonomy in their affairs or complete independence
...
Urban Workers
• The Bolsheviks had a core support group of some workers and soldiers but did not have
widespread popular support
...
• But urban workers and peasants wanted to protect the gains of 1917 and the Reds seemed to
offer them their best chance of doing this
...
5) PROPAGANDA
•
•
Foreign intervention should have worked in the Whites’ favour and it did bring them supplies
and weapons, but it was half-‐hearted and ineffective
...
The Whites did not see how valuable it was
...
HOW DID THE BOLSHEVIKS CONSILDATE THEIR POWER BY 1921?
POPULAR POLICIES (PRAGMATIC DECISIONS TO ENSURE SURVIVAL)
1) Ending involvement in WW1
• The Treaty of Brest-‐Litovsk (March 1918) was eventually signed as Germany advanced into
Russia
...
2 million soldiers and a
similar number of civilians died
...
”
2) Lenin’s Decrees
• Lenin’s state capitalism was a pragmatic response to problems facing Russia in 1918
...
• Initial profit from enthusiasm for a better society from ‘Peace, Land, Bread
...
The period is known as the ‘utopian phase’ as optimism was high with the Bolshevik rule
...
(Both October)
• They initially gave peasants what they wanted, to get their support in the first months after the
October Revolution
...
3) War Communism and NEP
• War Communism was unpopular as it brought mass unrest
...
Tambov Revolt and Kronstadt Rising (the largest peasant rebellion since the 18th century)
...
• The NEP introduced because of the Kronstadt Uprising
...
• Bukharin: ‘The NEP will transform the Russian economy and rebuild a broken nation
...
• The NEP was an economic concession to achieve political survival
...
Lenin wanted a peace agreement, as he
knew that the Russian army could not defeat the Germans and he ideologically believed that
the revolution would engulf Germany so it would only be ‘temporary’
...
His approach was ‘neither peace nor war’, which
angered Germany
...
Russia lost lots of that amounted to 1/6th of the
Russian population (62 million people) and 2 million square km of land that produced 1/3 of
Russia’s agricultural produce
...
• Lenin agreed that it was a ‘robber peace’ but Russia had to accept the ‘naked truth’
...
The left SRs argued strongly and much of the
population was against the acceptance of the treaty and its harsh terms
...
• The Left SRs resigned from the Government in protest at the treaty
...
Seen in the Bolsheviks losing the elections to the soviets across Russia in April and
May 1918
...
3) War Communism and NEP
• The tough regime of War Communism helped keep the regime afloat by seizing the grain from
the peasantry and applied tough measures to keep workers in cities to run industries for war
effort
...
USE OF FORCE
• Figes stated that ‘terror was an integral element of the Bolshevik regime from the start
...
• They set up the Cheka (December 1917) as an instrument of terror to deal with opposition and
enforce Communist ideals into their local Guberniya (area)
...
They were outlawed as political
organisations
...
• The Cheka was a formidable force that constantly supported the Bolsheviks and helped them
win the war against ‘internal enemies’
...
This played well
with workers and soldiers and made it difficult for people to criticise the new government
...
This included systematic
censorship, attacks on political rivals, show trials, attacks on the Church and crushing of peasant
revolts
...
GPU periodically harassed Nepmen
...
’ (Service)
• Lenin supported ‘democratic centralism’
...
The very nature of the Civil War meant there was little time to carry out consultation with the
•
•
•
•
•
soviets and other bodies
...
The Politburo took precedent over the Sovnarkom as the decision-‐
making body
...
The collapse of industry became critical by 1918
...
Workers begged for their workplaces to be nationalized to keep
their jobs
...
The peasants became obstinate and unwilling to supply cities with food
...
The ban of factions in 1921 passed by the Tenth Party Congress meant once party policy had
been agreed then it had to be accepted and not challenged, otherwise they would be expelled
...
This tightened the one-‐state party
internally
...
• The victory in the Civil War was a key factor
...
• The weakness of the Whites, as seen through the abandonment of the foreign allies, further
strengthened the Bolshevik consolidation
...
They reminded the soldiers of
the worst aspects of the Russian army and tsarist rule
...
Denikin said: ‘I can do
nothing with my army
...
• Whites were separated by large distances
...
They had no
telephone links so they had to use officers on horseback to convey messages
...
WEAK OPPOSITION
• The opposition was unable to co-‐ordinate action against the government
...
• The SRs and Mensheviks did not take action because they thought that the Bolshevik
government would collapse quickly and the Constituent Assembly would triumph
...
• The army collapsed
...
STALIN’S RISE TO POWER 1924 -‐ 1929
•
•
•
•
WHY WAS THERE NO CLEAR SUCCESOR?
Lenin’s death early in 1924 should not have been unexpected
...
Yet his death still came as a great shock to most Russians
...
He had led Russia through revolution,
the chaos of civil war and the beginnings of recovery from 1921 onwards, leading the Party
towards the promised ‘socialist utopia’
...
The Politburo (mainly Stalin against the wishes of Lenin’s wife) decided to preserve his
body and place it in a mausoleum on Red Square
...
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PARTY
• Although some maneuvering had been going on within the upper ranks of the Party before
1924, it was also difficult for anyone to present themselves as an obvious successor to Lenin
because there was no clear mechanism to elect a new leader
...
• The party had a ‘top-‐down’ structure: power emanated from the top downwards
...
However, the Politburo, the Orgburo and the Secretariat were the key
organisations
...
• Strongly influenced by the ‘ban on factions’ (which Lenin had introduced during NEP in 1921)
...
Once
policy was agreed, it had to be followed by everyone
...
It could be seen as going
against Lenin’s ban on factions if a Party member seemed intent on leading a particular group
...
In this
way it was more difficult for his opponents to challenge him directly for fear of appearing to go
against Lenin’s will
...
When Lenin died, his widow
Krupskaya handed the testament to the Politburo with the intention that it would be made
public in the Party Congress in May 1924
...
If it were to be published, they would all be damaged by its contents
...
• On 22 December 1922, Lenin began writing his testament, on the very same day Stalin had
argued with Lenin’s wife, Krupskaya
...
He also questions the ‘stability’ of Trotsky and expressed doubts about his ability to take the
Party in the ‘right’ direction
...
•
DIVISIONS WITHIN THE PARTY
• Many party members did not want to see one person running the party and the government
...
This was seen as a more socialist way
of running the state
...
• This fear affected the decisions party members took between 1924 and 1926
...
His
arrogant manner and conviction that he knew the direction the party should take seemed to
confirm such fears
...
The
divisions concerned both policy and personality
...
Divisions over NEP and industrialisation
...
• The left of the party, led by Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev, wanted to end NEP and focus on
rapid industrialisation
...
• By 1928, Stalin, who had previously supported the NEP, abandoned his alliance with Bukharin
and came out in favour of rapid industrialisation
...
Russian communism could
not survive alone as it didn’t have the economic resources and the proletariat was too small and
underdeveloped
...
They
reasoned that a world revolution was unlikely, as revolutions had failed in Germany and
Hungary
...
It appealed to Russian patriotism, portraying
Trotsky’s ideas as out of touch
...
He was described as a ”grey blur”
(Sukhanov) and (Westwood) ‘He could stand back and watch his rivals dig their own graves,
occasionally offering his spade to one or other of them
...
Trotsky was ill and on rest holiday
...
In contrast, Stalin was a pallbearer and made a speech, where he promised
to continue Lenin’s legacy
...
• He was well known as a revolutionary hero due to the role he played in the October Revolution
and the civil war
...
Zinoviev and Kamenev
• Zinoviev had a base of support in Leningrad and Kamenev had a base of support in Moscow
...
Bukharin
• A popular figure that was renown as an outstanding theorist and known as Lenin’s ‘golden boy’
...
Lenin and Bukharin were close, and Lenin entrusted
Bukharin with a series of important jobs, including the editorship of the Soviet newspaper
Pravda
...
• He was one of the original 5 members when Lenin set up the Politburo in 1918
...
• When he was Party Secretary he had some control over the business of the Politburo, including
drawing up agendas and papers for the Politburo meetings giving him control over what was
discussed and what information other members received
...
This was a powerful position as Stalin could appoint or
remove 5,500 party officials
...
This was seen
during the Lenin Enrolments of 1924/5, in which the party almost doubled its membership to
one million
...
Stalin’s
practical polices based on nationalism appealed to them
...
Bullock states that the new members were “ready…to accept what they were told”
...
This explains why Trotsky received a hostile reception from 1924 onwards and the
number of delegates who voted the way Stalin wanted
...
POPULAR POLICIES
• ‘Socialism in One Country’ appealed to the party over Trotsky’s ‘Permanent Revolution
...
• It was also very flexible and allowed the leaders to say what was the best way to achieve
socialism at any time
...
This
became the majority of his loyal power base
...
He firstly favored the NEP as this
appealed to many, as it was a continuation of Lenin’s policy and also won over the peasants
...
However, when the NEP became unpopular after 1927, so Stalin changed his stance
...
He allied with the Left and so defeated the Right
...
Lenin describes Stalin as ‘too coarse’ and suggests he
should be removed from his position
...
• It was given to the central committee in 1924 and intended to be read to the Party Congress,
however, the Party agree to not make it public as it would damage all their reputations
(especially Stalin)
...
• This was seen in Lenin’s funeral in 1924:
• Trotsky was ill and on rest holiday
...
In contrast,
Stalin was a pallbearer and made a speech, where he promised to continue Lenin’s legacy
...
He was intelligent in his approach and managed to trick his opponents and
weakening their position whilst strengthening their own
...
• (Deutscher) “He carefully followed the course of debate to see what way the wind was
blowing and invariably voted with the majority… he was therefore always agreeable to the
majority
...
He was described as a ”grey blur”
(Sukhanov)
...
Trotsky who
was the hero of 1905, October and the Civil War – a courageous man of action
...
’
MISTAKES AND WEAKNESSES OF THE OPPONENTS
Trotsky
• One of the Bolsheviks’ greatest orators had a strong power base built from the Red Army and
younger members, especially students
...
• Bolsheviks did not see him as a loyal member of the party, with him only joining in August 1917
...
He did not take advantage of Stalin’s shortcomings
...
’
Boris Bazhanov, Stalin’s secretary during the mid-‐twenties, said that ‘Trotsky felt it beneath his
dignity to cross swords with a man as intellectually undistinguished and personally
contemptible as Stalin’
...
Both cities were well represented at the Party Congress
...
• They feared Trotsky more than Stalin
...
• E
...
Bukharin
• A popular figure that was renown as an outstanding theorist and known as Lenin’s ‘golden boy’
...
•
•
•
ECONOMIC CHANGE ***
(1918-‐21) WAR COMMUNISM/ WHAT LEAD TO THE NEP?
•
There were not only economic problems that Lenin faced in the summer of 1918
...
The whole economy of the Red-‐held part of
Russia was geared towards the needs of the army
...
ECONOMIC PROBLEMS
• Food crisis of 1921 and shortages of foods and goods e
...
reduction of 1/3 in the bread ration
saw riots and strikes in cities such as Moscow and Petrograd
...
The labour force was given priority along
with Red Army soldiers
...
The smallest rations (barely enough to live on) were given to the middle classes who were
named ‘the former people’
...
However, the state-‐trading organisation was
chaotic and industry was not producing enough consumer goods
...
• Industrial production fell well below 1913 levels
...
Moscow declined by 44
...
• The abolition of money
...
Money
became worthless, leading to workers being paid through their rations and public services being
provided freely
...
5 million died from starvation
...
Wheat harvests
went into decline
...
• Robert Service states that evidence from the Russian archives confirmed that the situation
between 1918 and 1920 was ‘extremely chaotic’ and the Bolshevik control was limited
...
(May 1918) Food Supplies Dictatorship was set up to establish the forcible requisitioning
of grain
...
They made sure quotas were
filled even if peasants were starving
...
For example, one Cheka man had his stomach split open and was stuffed with grain
...
• 155 risings across Russia in Feb 1921
...
100,000 Red army troops deployed in response
...
It was the largest peasant rebellion since 18th century
...
They were angry at
their economic plight, low food rations and state violence
...
There were fines for lateness and
absenteeism
...
Piece-‐work rates were bought back along with bonuses and a work book that was needed to
get rations
...
• Martial Law declared in Jan 1921 and the Cheka had to be used as the soldiers refused
...
The Kronstadt sailors sent a manifesto to Lenin demanding
an end to one-‐party Communist rule
...
Kronstadt
Naval base had been a hub of political opposition to the Provisional Government and loyal
supporters of Lenin during the October Revolution, however, now in 1921, they are the key
opponents of the Bolsheviks
...
15,000 rebels
imprisoned and leaders shot
...
This
marked a crisis for the Bolshevik Party and made Lenin realise that it was time for radical
change
...
Petersburg
...
• The Terror was supposed to terrify all hostile groups
...
This was because no one was really
certain who the counter-‐revolutionaries were
...
• Official death records of the Cheka (1918-‐20) were 13,000 but the real figure was nearer
300,000
...
The Bolsheviks did not want to take
responsibility for the shooting of Tsar Nicholas and his family and servants
...
• Figes stated that ‘terror was an integral element of the Bolshevik regime from the start’
• Also ‘each local Cheka had its speciality
...
’
HOW THE NEP DEALT WITH THIS:
• Grain requisitioning was abolished and was replaced by a ‘tax in kind’ so only a fixed proportion
and smaller amount of their grain went to the state
...
• Ban on private removed this meant food and goods could flow more easily between the
countryside and towns
...
PARTY DIVISIONS/ POLITICAL
• The workers’ opposition group set up by Alexander Shlyapknikov and Aleksandra Kollontai
argues for greater worker control, removal of managers and military discipline in factories
...
g
...
They wanted an alternative to war communism
...
• Left-‐wing SRs protested the Treaty of Brest-‐Litovsk
...
For example,
shooting the German ambassador (July 1918), to try wreck the Russian relationship with the
Germans
...
2 other Bolshevik Party leaders were murdered
...
• From June onwards the SRs were arrested in large numbers, as well as other groups of
opposition
...
HOW THE NEP DEALT WITH THIS:
• It caused more division that it solved; however, these were papered over by the ‘Ban on
Factions’
...
HOW SUCCESSFUL WAS THE NEP (1921-‐27)?
FEATURES OF THE NEP
• Grain requisitioning was abolished and was replaced by a ‘tax in kind’ so only a fixed proportion
and smaller amount of grain went to the state
...
• Ban on private removed this meant food and goods could flow more easily between the
countryside and towns
...
• State kept control of heavy industry
...
’
• By 1922 the results of the NEP were better than anyone expected
...
• Agricultural production recovered from 37
...
8 million tonnes in
1926
...
• Industrial production made a rapid recovery
...
Larger-‐scale industry took longer to recover but recovery was well under way by 1924
...
There were around 25,000 of
these private traders in Moscow alone in 1925
...
They
were hated as they were seen as representatives of capitalism, openly flaunting their wealth
...
They were generally tolerated
as long as taxes were paid
...
• Scissors Crisis in 1923, there was an imbalance as the large quantities of foods that entered
cities causing food prices to drop
...
This gap widened rapidly
...
Consequently, the government capped the industrial prices
and gave peasants money taxes, forcing them to sell
...
’
• NEP did not solve the fundamental problems of the Soviet economy, which still had many
backward features compared to other advanced countries
...
They found there was not much point in
having surplus money because there was little they could buy with it
...
As a
result, the grain procured by the state at the end on 1927 was about three-‐quarters of what it
had been in 1926
...
Urban workers
• They were better off at any time before the revolution
...
• Most industrial organisations were still hierarchical and the trade unions tended to support
government-‐appointed managers rather than their own members
...
High-‐unemployment persisted throughout the
NEP
...
So large numbers of jobless,
unsupported women ended up on the streets
...
For example, in Smolensk in 1929, the factory committee of a cement works reported
‘many workers have families of six and seven people, and live in one room
...
• It was not the workers paradise and ‘socialist utopia’ that the revolution had promised
...
The secret police grew in importance during the
NEP
...
• The GPU periodically harassed and arrested Nepmen as speculators and class enemies in order
to assure left Communists and the urban workers were keeping capitalist tendencies under
control
...
100,000 Red army troops deployed in response
...
It was the largest peasant rebellion since 18th century
...
• Villages that supported the Reds were supported with salt (a vital commodity in food
preservation) and manufactured goods
...
Attacks on the Church
• The Church enjoyed a revival at the beginning of the NEP and was seen as a rival to Communist
power
...
• The Union of the Militant Godless was established in 1921 to challenge the Church directly
...
When clergy and local people tried to protect their churches there were violent clashes
...
Censorship
• This became much more systematic
...
In the same year, prepublication censorship was introduced
...
POLITICAL
Attacks on political rivals
• The Mensheviks and SRs had become much more popular during the strikes and revolts
...
• The Mensheviks and SRs were outlawed as political organisations
...
They accused old
colleagues of heinous crimes including a claim that the Central Committee of the SRs authorized
assassination attempts on Lenin or collaborated with Denikin
...
Party Divisions
• To many Bolsheviks the NEP was regarded as a retreat back into capitalism
...
• Zinoviev tried to appease the discontent by calling only ‘temporary’ and ‘a tactical retreat’
• The ban on factions 1921 introduced to avoid movements like the Workers’ Opposition
...
In 1921 the Tenth Party Congress passed a
‘ban on factions’
...
• In 1923 the nomenklatura system was introduced
...
The central party bodies could only
appoint the holders of these posts
...
People
who wanted promotion did what they were told
...
Always fear over security
...
’
• Need for security started at the beginning of the Russian Civil War 1918 when the French, USA
and British all supported the Whites, the Bolsheviks expected the possibility of invasion at any
time
...
Stalin believed this was supposed to unite Europe against the Communist threat
...
• Further, neighbours China continued the persecution of Communists and Poland had a new
anti-‐Bolshevik leader
...
• Sought a level of industrialisation that would support the USSR in attempts to rapidly construct
a modern military capable of defending them from foreign invasion
...
• To fight a modern war, a country had to have a well-‐developed industrial base to manufacture
the huge quantities of weapons and munitions that would be required
...
Economic improvements
additionally helped interests of national security, as a largely self-‐supporting nation then it
would provide stability during wartime
...
• The USSR economy in 1928 had shown clear recovery since its near collapse in 1921, but it was
barely exceeding 1916 levels of industrial production
...
Even Japan surpassed
this
...
• The grain crisis 1927-‐28 was a result of an abundance of cheap grain to be sold to the city, but
nothing for the peasants to buy as Russia was producing so little
...
• He did not want the new socialist state to be at the mercy of the peasantry
...
This would make it self-‐sufficient and more independent in the world
...
• Overall, the desire to industrialise and frustration towards the NEP was born out of fear of
immanent invasion
...
IDEOLOGICAL
• According to Marxist theoreticians, socialism could only be created in a highly industrialised
state where the overwhelming majority of the population were workers
...
• Ideological issue of NEP allowing small level of private trade, characterised by Bukharin saying
to the peasantry “enrich yourselves”
...
• The NEP failed to create a true proletariat class that was needed to support a Socialist Utopia,
increasing the desire for industrialisation
...
• The Communist life should be a good life and people in other parts of the world should
appreciate what it had to offer working people
...
• The ideological beliefs of many of the Bolsheviks, such as Stalin, were influential voices in
encouraging rapid industrialisation
...
• His economic policies were central to this
...
The ‘revolution from above’
...
This was
intended to increase his powerbase, so he could outflank Bukharin
...
WAS COLLECTIVISATION A SUCCESS (1929-‐41)?
ECONOMIC SUCCESS
Efficiency
• Larger units of lands could be farmed more efficiently though the use of mechanization
...
• Experts helped peasants farm in modern ways i
...
using metal ploughs and fertilisers
...
• Allowed private land on the kolkhoz thus there was private property for individuals
...
• Peasant taught skills of cooperation, community and literacy
...
03 million tonnes in 1928 to 1
...
Urban workers
• Urban population increased to 12 million
...
• 1934 – 70% of peasant households collectivised
• 1941 – 100% of peasant households collectivised
...
• 1953 – meat production reaches pre-‐collectivisation levels
...
But by mid-‐1929 only 5% of peasant farms had been collectivised
...
The activists who ran collectives knew nothing of farming
...
The collection of grain from countryside Jan
1928/ first introduced in Urals and Siberia = return to drastic policies that characterised War
Communism
...
• Peasants burned crops, tools and houses rather than hand them over to the state
...
The animal
population did not recover until after WW2
...
Their protests were well organised with goals
...
’
Dizzy with success
• Even Stalin believed collectivisation was getting out of hand
...
He says officials were too rigorous and ‘dizzy with success’
...
The Stalin called halt was only
temporary
...
It would socialise the peasantry so they would live in
‘socialist agrotowns’
...
• Soviet regime extended their control over the countryside thus peasants would never be able to
fully resist the regime
...
This strengthened his
credibility by following Marxism
...
Law of seventh-‐eights (Aug 1932) disobedience resulted in prison time or forced labour
...
2
...
HUMAN COST
• Industrialisation not a great enough benefit to justify such a great human cost
...
’
• December 1929 Stalin announces ‘liquidisation of kulaks as a class’ and in February 1930 ‘all
necessary measures’ could be used against the kulaks in a decree
...
• This was seen as the start Stalin spoke of 5-‐6 million kulaks and later 10 million
...
• By the mid 1930s kulaks had disappeared as a class
...
Famine in late 1932
• Robert Conquest in ‘Harvest of Sorrow’ said 7 million died
...
• Holodomor (the terror famine in Ukraine) in spring 1932
...
It was remembered as a genocide by some in Ukraine as it was a man made famine
...
• (Ward) ‘cannot be grasped merely by reciting statistics…the whirlwind which swept across the
countryside destroyed the way of life of the vast majority of the Soviet people
...
Industries such as coal mines
and steelworks were particularly targeted by this plan in order to kick start the Soviet economy
...
• Despite this apparent success, the first plan contained targets for industry that were viewed as
'hopelessly unachievable' by industrial leaders
...
• Because of these increments, two revisions of the plan were made in 1929: the basic plan and
the optimum plan
...
The latter was chosen
...
• Additionally, the plan itself was considered much better prepared than the first, whilst its
organisation was less chaotic and more ambitious
...
• A larger share of investment was given to the production of consumer goods and led to a boost
in worker morale
...
Workers were now driven by financial and
material incentives rather than fear
...
Moreover, the targets were still hopelessly optimistic and were not met, particularly in
consumer goods and housing development
...
The Third Five Year Plan: 1938 -‐ 1941
• By the late 1930s and the consequent outbreak of the WW2, Stalin turned the attention of his
plans to focus almost entirely on defence; they were now preparing for war with Germany
...
• Stalin himself oversaw the defence aspects of the plan, ending Gosplan's control over the
military economy and took complete control for himself
...
• With no moderates to solve the issues of productivity and worker satisfaction, the third plan
was not challenged
...
The plan itself was cut short on June 22nd 1941 when Hitler announced his declaration
of war on Russia
...
• The changes would be administered from a ‘command economy’, which relied on centralised
planning and control by government commissariats overseen by the Party
...
Socio-‐Political
• Stalin wanted urbanization and thus the Soviet Union would become an urban economy, with
secure and loyal control of the proletariat
...
Stalin went against Bukharin who wanted to continue the NEP and stated that
Russia should be industrialised
...
• But the improvements in production between 1928 and 1937 were phenomenal:
Coal from 36 million tonnes to 130 million tonnes
Iron from 3 million tonnes to 15 million tonnes
Oil from 2 million tonnes to 29 million tonnes
Electricity from 5,000 million to 36,000 million kilowatts
• Metallurgy developed so minerals such as copper, zinc and tin were mined for the first time
...
• Stalin emphasised heavy industry, helping lay a foundation for victory in WW2
...
4% but by 1940 it increased to 32
...
•
•
•
•
By 1940 the USSR had overtaken Britain in iron and steel production
...
The rapid development of Magnitogorsk was at the forefront of Stalin’s FYPs in the 1930s as it
acted as a showpiece of Soviet achievement
...
Huge new industrial complexes were built or were in the process of being built
...
C
...
(Ward) ‘In these four and five years, the Soviet economy was fundamentally transformed
...
• Consumer production scarcer than before the NEP
...
The 2FYP
targets were still hopelessly optimistic and were not met, particularly in consumer goods and
housing development
...
• The economy was not geared for imminent war in 1941
...
• The lack of skilled workers created major problems
...
This was described as a ‘Quicksand society’
(Lewin)
...
Statistics were fabricated as managers manipulated paperwork to cover up their failures
...
They wanted to appear
successful to Stalin
...
John Scott records that there were different
levels of housing in Magnitogorsk
...
25% lived in the mud huts that they built themselves
...
However living standards were poor
...
There was a shortage of water, shops and
catering facilities
...
By the 3FYP many planners had been purged so the system was
thrown into confusion
...
• Eugene Zaleski in ‘Planning for Economic Growth in the Soviet Union’ later described them as
no more than ‘visions of growth’
...
’
SOCIO-‐POLITICAL SUCCESS
• Stalin had carried through a highly successful economic programme and in doing so had
furthered communist ideology
...
Communist control strengthened in the
countryside
...
In the cities, workers were kept in strict order through
labour books and internal passports and the threat of denial of rail cards, eviction from lodgings
and even sentences for misdemeanors
...
10 million women entered the workforce, although they
were likely to be paid less and fount it more difficult to gain advancement
...
They were still expected to be ‘ideal
mothers’ and were encouraged to continue with their duties at home
...
For example,
the Stakhanovite movement
...
He received money and goods (like furniture, cinema, holiday)
...
Propaganda also tried to teach a new mentality
...
Stalin told a group of
Soviet writers that they should regard themselves as ‘directing the reconstruction of the human
soul’
...
The first lines of the Moscow Metro were opened
to improve transport in the cities
...
SOCIO-‐POLITICAL FAILURES
• Rations provided a significantly poor diet compared to that under the NEP
...
• Labour discipline was harsh
...
Strikes were outlawed
...
Absenteeism and
low productivity increased under the plans
...
Stalin sacrificed the people in the interest of his economic vision
...
They also had access to ‘secret shops’ that sold goods not available to the general
public
...
Peasants who had only recently moved to the cities and had little experience of
industry periled quickly and this left Stalin at a loss of workers
...
• Stalin also introduced a seven-‐day working week, so there wasn’t a ‘day of rest’
...
WHAT WAS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LENIN?
LENIN’S FUNERAL
• The unexpected news of Lenin’s death led to widespread displays of public grief
...
• However much they hated the regime the people seemed to have a genuine affection for Lenin
...
• No one else in the party had the prestige and standing to see them through these difficult
periods
...
• He was flexible and pragmatic and found solutions to the problems that arose when buildings a
government from scratch in 1917-‐18
...
Theorist
• He was a brilliant theorist
...
His developments of Marxism had two important implications for the Russian
Revolution
...
His concept of a small, disciplined revolutionary party that could seize power, as a vanguard
on behalf of the working class was crucial in 1917
...
His development, along with Trotsky, of the notion that the proletariat could carry through a
socialist revolution without going through the ‘bourgeois-‐democratic state’ (because the
bourgeoisie was too weak) led to the April Theses, Bolshevik opposition to the Provisional
Government and the October uprising
...
• The Lenin cult was a sort of quasi-‐religion in which Lenin’s words were carried out just like the
Bible is used to justify actions
...
• Lenin’s wife Krupskaya publicly asked that there should be no ‘external reverence for his
person’ but under pressure from Stalin, Lenin was embalmed and his tomb turned into a shrine
...
• All sorts of Lenin memorabilia from posters to matchboxes were produced
...
Petrograd was renamed Leningrad and many streets and
institutions were named after him
...
HE CHANGED THE COURSE OF HISTORY
NEP
• He persuaded a very reluctant party to accept the economic compromises of the NEP, based on
his record and standing in the party
...
TREATY OF BREST-‐LITOVSK AND THE RED ARMY
• Lenin pushed through the signing of the Treaty of Brest Litovsk despite the opposition of the left
Communists
...
He supported Trotsky in
creating a traditional hierarchical Red Army using ex-‐tsarist officers, against serious opposition
in the party from leading Bolsheviks such as Stalin
...
ISSUE OF SOCIALIST COALTION
• Lenin insisted that the Bolsheviks rule as a one-‐party state
...
If this had happened a very
different Russia would have emerged and the Civil War would have taken a very different form,
if it had taken place at all
...
OCTOBER UPRISING
• Lenin pressurised the unwilling Bolshevik Central Committee into staging the October uprising
...
It was very likely that the Bolsheviks would not have got into power if they had not
acted when they did
...
The April Thesis became the basis of party policy, uncompromising
opposition to war; and the handling over of power to soviets, which brought the Bolsheviks
much support and made them the only credible opposition party to the Provisional
Government
...
STALINISM IN THE 1930s ***
WHAT EXPLAINS THE START AND GREAT EXTENT OF THE PURGES/GREAT TERROR?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
There has been great historiographical debate over the cause of the purges
...
However, whether Stalin was
involved in orchestrating Kirov’s death, he used it as a way to gain control
...
Purges were not unheard of in Soviet society, as regular mass expulsions from the party had
happened since the Revolution
...
This reflects Totalitarian/Intenionalist argument that the purges were deliberate and organised
from Stalin
...
They grew beyond his control and escalated from chaos within society, with the purges taking
place alongside war and famine
...
Stalin called an end to the purges at the end of 1938 as they were destabilizing society
...
There was a difference between the earlier purges (chistki), which were non-‐violent and Stalin’s
Great Purges
...
• Prospect of war seemed likely when Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, his anti-‐
communist stance and states foreign policy aim of ‘lebensraum’ (living space) suggested to
Stalin that he would fight
...
• Marxist thinking anticipated a general war as ‘the last phase of capitalism
...
• Stalin feared a ‘fifth column’, which was confirmed by his speech to the plenum, saying only ‘a
few spies’ would ‘subvert’ war victory
...
’
• Stalin’s fear of ethnic minorities caused the ‘national sweeps’ of 1937-‐38
...
Further, in 1930 he expelled some of
his former supporters from the Party for criticizing collectivisation
...
• The growing opposition is seen with the hostility that followed collectivisation and
industrialisation
...
’ Sympathisers within the Politburo, such as Kirov, then protected Ryutin
...
Stalin
called for further industrialisation but Kirov argued for slowing down as ‘the fundamental
difficulties are behind us’
...
• He got rid of anyone who posed a threat to his leadership, such as the Old Bolsheviks in June
1936, as they knew his political weakness
...
He
was completely unrivalled and surrounded by loyalists
...
This is emphasised in the nomenklatura, where
lieutenants were kept guessing about who he would adopt as ‘his people’
...
He was the sole
architect of the purges, using them as a mechanism to control the populace and the Party
...
’
• (Service) ‘The Great Terror would not have taken place but for Stalin’s personality and ideas
...
He could use this money
in foreign exports
...
He encouraged criticism from below, which meant the terror spiraled out
of control
...
• Stalin encouraged lower-‐ranking party members to denounce those above them, resulting in
impatient, young party members accusing those in higher positions, so they could replace them
...
• Terror was the work of over-‐zealous officials in the provinces which acted off their own
agendas
...
• Terror was self-‐escalating
...
It was better to prove loyalty by denouncing
someone before you yourself were denounced
...
The loss of control due to the ‘quicksand society’ (Lewin) meant the purges began
to grow out of control
...
NKVD
• Some units used the terror to their own advantage as it raised their profile and allowed them to
become the leading institution in the Soviet system
...
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The forced confessions brought about by the NKVD caused the terror to spread as
denunciations became habitual
...
However, they also suffered during the purges, with more than 23,000 men purged by end of
1930s
...
Within a month, they had arrested over 100,000 and
14,000 sent to gulags
...
(Fitzpatrick – Revisionist) Purges/terror snowballed due to ‘popular participation’ and fear led
to ‘scapegoating, hysterical accusations and bullying
...
IMPACT OF THE GREAT TERROR/ READY FOR WAR?
ECONOMIC FAILURE
• Loss of experienced workers as Stalin encouraged lower-‐ranking party members to denounce
those above them, resulting in impatient, young party members accusing those in higher
positions, so they could replace them
...
• Peasants were disillusioned, as seen by them putting more effort into their small private plots
than on Collective and state farms
...
Nobody really knows how many prisoners died in the process of breaking into
the granite under the grim circumstances
...
However, this canal proved entirely useless
...
For example, the White Sea
Canal and Moscow Metro
...
Around 23,000 were shot or dismissed
during the Terror, so many new officers had to be recruited to match the increasing size of the
Red Army
...
• Military weakness shown in the Winter War in 1939 to 1940, when he tried to take over
Finland
...
SOCIAL FAILURE
• Fear and distrust became built into society
...
This was seen with Pavlik Morozov, a 13-‐year-‐old boy who denounced his father to the
authorities and was in turn killed by his family
...
• A population of over-‐optimistic, strident propaganda and all the paraphernalia of a totalitarian
state were not prepared for the shock invasion of 1941
...
A knock at the door in the middle
of the night inspired fear, as many arrests came between 11pm and 3am
...
Public actions and private actions were now completely separated
...
Purges taking place alongside a war and a famine was psychologically traumatic for society
...
SOCIAL SUCCESS
• By the end of the purges, Stalin was in a position of supreme power
...
By 1939 less than 10% of Party
membership had joined before 1920 and less than ¼ of recruits since 1920 survived the
purges
...
However, it must be remembered that these high-‐profile victims had lost
their power and influence already
...
For example, the Central Committee had controlled
membership through expulsions before 1936, but they lost this power
...
• The terror had imposed unity and thus Stalin could determine and implement policies without
the dissenting voices or obstructionism
...
• The Terror had instilled a ‘siege mentality’, which psychologically prepared them for the harsh
times ahead
...
• By 1941 the economy was growing considerably and they were highly industrialised
...
• The independent-‐minded military leaders were purged and this meant the armed services were
under Stalin’s control
...
WHAT EXPLAINS THE SURVIVAL OF STALIN’S REGIME IN 1930s?
•
•
•
•
There was actually no organised opposition during the 1930s, as this had been previously dealt
with
...
Outside the Party refers to the peasant
resistance of 1930 to 1932 and the war threat
...
Stalin’s paranoia fuels his use of terror and propaganda
...
Also,
wreckers, saboteurs and Trotskyists are punished, but in fact these do not really exist
...
USE OF TERROR
• An integral part of the communist system and indeed of the earlier Russian regimes
...
• However, when the terror was at its height, it was against imagined opposition
...
Conquest said that there were 7-‐8 million arrests
...
Zinoviev strangely confessed ‘I am fully
and utterly guilty’
...
The Trial of the 17 (January 1937) saw 13 of the ‘Trotskyists’ executed
...
The Trial of 21
(Old Bolsheviks) (March 1938) saw a group of prominent communists, such as Bukharin, Rykov,
Yagoda (replaced as head of secret police for not being active enough in uncovering the
‘conspiracy’) and Tomsky
...
Bukharin held out for 3
months, sending 34 personal letters to Stalin, but threats to his young wife and infant son saw
him confess to the ‘sum total of crimes
...
Further, death penalty extended to anyone just aware of
subversive activity, leaving a low threshold for execution (June)
...
The ‘conveyer belt’ system saw
Tukhachevky’s signed confession ‘splattered with blood from a moving body’
...
About 120,000 to
130,000 prisoners are estimated to have died in Kolyma alone
...
It was remembered as genocide by some in Ukraine as it was a man made famine
...
• There was a tradition in Russian culture, linking back to the Tsars, for obedience
...
However, 55% of the peasantry were still
active Christians
...
• It led to the ‘Year of Crisis’ when Stalin’s wife committed suicide
...
The terror was
generated from above as well as below
...
PROPAGANDA
• Used as a method of indoctrination and the overall impact of propaganda is difficult to
measure, due to the difficulty to think outside of this
...
• It was necessary to promote their legitimacy, as they never had a popular mandate for taking
power
...
• It was a useful way of covering up of ‘santising’ dreadful events, such as the suffering of the
purges
...
His image came reassurance; paintings, poems, posters and sculptures were produced to glorify
Stalin’s role as the ‘mighty leader’, ‘father of the nation’, ‘universal genius’ and ‘shining sun of
humanity
...
For example, ‘October’
...
It intended to mark the
progress towards socialism
...
Stalin said the constitution was ‘the most democratic in the
world’
...
It was a paper propaganda exercise
...
The Pioneers were set up for children under 25
...
Komsomol membership was seen as preparation for
entry into the Party and was a serious tool in the Cultural Revolution
...
The style was
monumental, with Lenin’s mausoleum ‘shrine’ on the Red Square ‘parade ground’ and on the
Kremlin, in 1935; five red stars replaced the imperial eagles
...
The cult of personality
...
’ It was fully established in the years 1933 to 1939, although it reached its height after
WW2
...
This was seen with Dekulakisation and the later
denouncing of ‘saboteurs’ and ‘wreckers’
...
’
Limitations
• Propaganda was over used and became ineffective in the end
...
SUCCESS OF POLICIES
• In 1928 the regime did not have a stable food supply from the countryside, but by 1941
Collectivisation had ensures that the industrial towns and army were fed reasonably regularly
...
• This meant there was a certain degree of security, nevertheless because of the draconian
discipline imposed in society
...
• The enthusiasm was genuine from some and the propaganda was based on real industrial
success
...
• He managed to abolish the family and replace it with love for society and the state
...
• He wanted to free them from their domestic role and this requires large-‐scale facilities like
canteens, laundries and kindergartens
...
There would be equality
between the sexes and sexual liberation, with people freer to choose their partners
...
• In 1919 the USSR had the highest marriage rate but by the mid 1920s it had the highest divorce
rate in Europe
...
In the 1927, 2/3 of marriage in Moscow ended in divorce
...
• The government was neither willing nor able to fund the large-‐scale facilities, when added up it
totaled over the entire national budget
...
Contemporaries estimated than in the 1920s there were around 9 million orphans, most were
under the age of 13
...
But after the Civil War,
when 5 million men were discharged from the military, women suffered as men were preferred
...
There were all-‐woman gangs of thieves and
39% of proletarian men used prostitutes in the 1920s
...
Traditional attitudes to
women excluded them from party activities
...
• Alexandra Kollontai was the leading woman in the Bolshevik party
...
She was increasingly associated with the corruption of
youth, rather than the liberation of women
...
The Arts
• The government set up the Commissariat of Popular Enlightenment led by Lunacharsky to
control the move away from ‘high art’ (ballet/opera/museums) which was viewed a bourgeois
and elitist, to ‘popular culture’ directed as the mass audience
...
• By 1920, there were 400,000 Proletkult members
...
These artists
were excited by the revolution and embraced it, as they wanted to communicate directly to the
masses
...
They made ‘agitprop art’ which was reproduced on
‘agitprop trains’
...
There were statues of ‘great figures of social and revolutionary activity’ and
he provided 66 names and personally unveiled the joint statue of Marx and Engels
...
The best example of mass street theatre was the great re-‐enactment of the
storming of the Winter palace (November 1920), involving 10,000 people and the Palace itself
...
The most outstanding filmmaker of the time was Eisenstein, who produced a film of
the Bolshevik Revolution, named ‘October’
...
Youth and Education
• Lenin thought education was essential to building a socialist society, so he gave each child 9
free years of universal education
...
Even learning the alphabet conveyed a political message
...
• Lunacharsky was interested in progressive Western teaching ideas, such as John Dewey and
‘learning by doing’
...
The authority of teachers was reduced and they could not
discipline or set homework
...
But financial issues under the NEP
meant the idea of universal schooling was abandoned and many children left school
...
There was general education and practical
education, which helped industrial skills
...
• In December 1919, the ‘liquidation of illiteracy’ was decreed for all citizens between the ages
of 8 and 50
...
• 2 youth organisations were set up
...
The
Komsomol was from 14/15 to early 20s
...
Religion
• The Bolsheviks were aggressively atheistic and saw religion as a sign of backwardness
...
This
declared that the Church could not own property, church buildings had to be rented and
religion in school was outlawed
...
This meant they weren’t allowed to vote and did not receive ration cards or got the lowest
category
...
Rituals were Bolshevised
...
• Lenin used the famine of 1921-‐22 to make the Church surrender valuables for famine relief
...
More than 8000 were
killed in the anti-‐church campaign
...
The Orthodox religion was not destroyed and surveys of the peasantry revealed that in the
1920s 55% were still active Christians
...
WAS THERE A SOCIAL/CULTURAL REVOLUTION IN THE 1930s?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
CULTURAL REVOLUTION
The regime took culture very seriously, since for Marxists cultural and intellectual life had to be
changed as well as economic and political structures if Socialist man and woman were to
emerge as true citizens of the ‘socialist utopia’
...
Socialist Realism became the basis of all Soviet art and other cultural forms
...
It was a form of ‘truthfulness’ with the task
of ‘ideological transformation and education of workers in the spirit of socialism
...
It
created a totally imaginary universe
...
They were
supposed to show what Soviet life was going to be like in the future
...
The Cultural Revolution was part of the ‘socialist offensive’, which began with the 1FYP
...
1917-‐1921 Civil War – idealistic and ambitious with aims to abandon family and bourgeoisie
values
...
1921-‐1928 NEP – not as radical with aims to relax social terms, such as Nepmen and
prostitution
...
1928-‐1932 – ‘Cultural Revolution’ and creation of ‘Homo Sovieticus’
...
Mid 1930s – ‘The Great Retreat’ saw a return to traditional values, which was a
social/cultural counter-‐revolution
...
There was a clear attempt for a revolution but this
fails and produces ‘The Great Retreat’ – a counter-‐revolution
...
Literature
• Many famous writers were imprisoned or shot, such as Isaac Babel
...
• The classic novel of Socialist Realism was How The Steel Was Tempered (1932-‐34) with its
working class hero
...
• Functional literature was evidenced with Kataev’s ‘Time forward’ by who lived in Magnitogorsk
to make his work more ‘authentic’
...
• Non-‐conformists were persecuted
...
Poet Mayakovsky was thought to be
•
murdered by the state
...
He died 4 years later in a gulag
...
Music and Theatre
• Stalin rejected ‘bourgeois and formalistic’ music and demanded folksong
...
• In 1937-‐1938 60 plays were banned and 10 theatres in Moscow and 10 in Leningrad were
closed
...
This was seen with Shostakovich
...
We must have freedom, yes
freedom
...
Film
• From 1936-‐1937, 68 films had to be withdrawn mid-‐production
...
• Cinema produced propaganda, specially the Chronicle Cinema in Moscow
...
They also
created enthusiasm for purges by showing them the trials of the ‘enemies of the state’
...
Landscape art became popular, where Soviet man
tamed nature
...
• Art magazine Iskusstvo describes a painting of Stalin as ‘the symbol of the Soviet people’s
glory, calling for new heroic exploits for the benefit of our motherland’
...
Architecture
• The transformation of Moscow epitomized socialist realism in architecture
...
On the
Kremlin (1935), five red stars replaced the imperial eagles
...
• The grandest design, although not completed, was the ‘Palace of the Soviets’
...
Religion
• Marxist ideology:
• Religion was seen as ‘opiate of the masses’
...
• A minority of atheist CPSU was seeking to impose its will on a majority of the population who
remained ‘believers’
...
Religious
leaders were arrested and exiled
...
By 1940, only 1% of the churches
in 1917 were still open, despite 55% of the population being active Christians
...
• Stalin’s policies marked a ‘Great Retreat’ as under Lenin, women had enjoyed state-‐provided
childcare, the right to abortion on demand and the right to divorce their husbands
...
Due to
concerns over a falling birth rate, family breakdowns and juvenile delinquency, there was a
renewed emphasis on discipline
...
This was part of ‘The Great Retreat’
...
In June 1936
he passed a decree, the Family Code, which reversed many of Lenin’s changes
...
• During Great Patriotic War in 1944 Stalin introduced new family laws
...
Propaganda hailed ‘Mother-‐heroines’ who had large
families
...
Women who had 7 children
received 2,000 roubles a year for 5 years, while mothers with 11 children received 5,000
roubles a year for 5 years
...
However, at the same time, he encouraged women
into paid employment
...
Similarly, by
1945, 80% of collective farm workers were women
...
Youth and Education
• Education had the role of indoctrination since 1917 and it was a critical tool for building a
socialist society
...
A core curriculum
was established, emphasizing reading, writing, history and Russian and Marxist theory
...
The results were impressive as literacy rates
increased from 51% (1926) to 88% by 1939
...
He believed that schools should be directly attached to factories
...
Many older, non-‐Party teachers were driven out and called ‘bourgeois specialists’ and
replaced by ‘red specialists’
...
Young people between the
ages 10 and 28 were invited to attend and by 1940 it had 10 million members
...
In this Stalin assumed the major role in the October/November revolution and Civil
War, while Trotsky and other old Bolsheviks were portrayed as ‘enemies of the people’
...
The
book sold 34 million copies by 1948
...
However, some youth were attracted
to Western culture in cinema, fashion and jazz music
...
This means a conviction so powerful it has the
intensity of a religious believe, they worshiped him
...
’ It was fully
established in the years 1933 to 1939, although it reached its height after WW2
...
• The ‘worker hero’ became a common propagandist theme and young men who accomplished
heroic endeavors appeared on the front page of Pravda more than Stalin himself in the years
1937 to 1938
...
• Stalin’s social revolution aimed to create a new society, modeling people to be ‘new’ Soviet
citizens
...
Artists and intellectuals had much more freedom to experiment at first
...
Women were granted
full ‘equality’ and there was an attack on the ‘bourgeois’ family and traditional education
...
Social freedoms were considered dangerous and ‘unmarxist’
...
The proportion of women in the Party
fell
...
Laws against ‘capitalist
vices’, like prostitution and homosexuality, were tightened up
...
HOW SUCCESSFULLY DID STALIN CREATE A ‘NEW SOVIET MAN’ – ‘HOMO
SOVIETICUS’ IN 1930s?
INTRO
• Socialist construction involved not only building structures of the socialist state but the right
sort of citizens to live in it
...
• He would be a willing servant of the state, who was far removed from the illiterate, uneducated
peasant who exemplified the backwardness that cursed the USSR in the past
...
The changes of the Cultural Revolution were aimed mainly at young people through the
education system and Komsomol youth organisations
...
The idea that people could be programmed in this way drew support from the Soviet scientist
Lysenko
...
Stalin was influenced by Lysenko’s thinking and he claimed that socialist characteristics could be
passed on if they were taught the right habits and attitudes
...
If a new many were created it would be at a place like Magnitogorsk, where a great steel plant
and a town of 150,000 people were created from nothing between 1929 and 1939
...
Zinoviev coined ‘Homo Sovieticus’ and the ‘New Soviet Man’
...
It was
largely communal and in every barracks there was a ‘Red corner’ with the barracks wall
newspaper, shock-‐worker banners and pictures of Lenin and Stalin
...
Lenin wanted to take arts to the streets, which included posters and banners with slogans to
educate citizens
...
There were
also street processions, such as May Day and the October Revolutionary anniversary, which
became rituals
...
The cult of personality meant paintings, poems, posters and sculptures were produced to
glorify Stalin’s role as the ‘mighty leader’, ‘father of the nation’, ‘universal genius’ and ‘shining
sun of humanity
...
Peasants and workers even created their own ‘red corner’ of the great
leaders in their homes, such as the ‘saints’ corner’ of tsarist times
...
Primary education was made compulsory for 4 years in 1930
...
A core curriculum was established, emphasizing reading, writing, history and Russian and
Marxist theory
...
The results were impressive as
literacy rates increased from 51% (1926) to 88% by 1939
...
He believed that schools should be directly attached to factories
...
Young people between the
ages 10 and 28 were invited to attend and by 1940 it had 10 million members
...
Abstraction in art was replaced with realism
...
Images of peasant and worker harmony were also central, such as
Vera Mukhina’s steel sculpture ‘Worker and Kolkhoz Woman’, made for the 1937 World Trade
Fair in Paris
...
The style was
monumental, with Lenin’s mausoleum ‘shrine’ on the Red Square ‘parade ground’ and on the
Kremlin, in 1935; five red stars replaced the imperial eagles
...
Cinema produced propaganda, specially the Chronicle Cinema in Moscow
...
They also
created enthusiasm for purges by showing them the trials of the ‘enemies of the state’
...
Pavel Korchagin, the hero of Nikolai Ostrovsky’s novel
How the Steel was Tempered, was the archetypal new man who puts the interests of his
comrades and the revolution before his own
...
Shows how there had been significant changes for certain areas of the population from the
relative artistic freedom of the Leninist period and directly showed the
Impact on the people of Russia
...
Privately owned mud huts, which had no ‘Red corners’, made up 17
...
In the late 1930s there was a shift away from barracks to providing apartments
for families, as part of the pro-‐family policies
...
Attempts were made to use the circus at Magnitogorsk as a vehicle for propaganda about the
FYPs but these attempts failed
...
The campaign to improve men’s behaviour towards women and to discourage alcohol was
limited
...
In Magnitogorsk one worker remarked that
Stakhanovism was an attempt to enslave the working class
...
There was a perpetual labour shortage
...
Magnitogorsk was seen as a revolving door
...
• Phase 2: 1918-‐1920: The Civil War – Spreading Communism
...
• Phase 4: 1928-‐1933: The left turn of the Comintern
...
• Phase 6: 1939: The Nazi-‐Soviet Pact
...
• Phase 8: 1945-‐1953: Early Cold War – Collective Security
...
The leadership of the Comintern reflected the situation in the Soviet Union
...
Bukharin succeeded him when the ‘United Opposition’ (Trotsky,
Zinoviev and Kamenev) was defeated
...
SPREADING COMMUNISM/DRIVEN BY IDEOLOGY
• Hopes of a world revolution were put on hold as Bolsheviks fought for survival in the Civil War
...
He told the first meeting of the
Comintern that ‘the founding of an international Soviet republic is on the way
...
• In 1920 the Poles wanted to gain territory and invaded Russia, but the Red Army drove the
Polish army back
...
They
decided to Push the Poles to Warsaw but the Poles blocked the advance in the ‘Miracle on the
Vitsula’
...
• The Cominterm was formed in March 1919 after Lenin called for a meeting of a motley
collective of 35 revolutionary socialist groups
...
• This fueled fear in Western Europe
...
’
• The second international congress organised by Comintern in 1920 was much larger
...
It was highly state-‐managed and was designed to
impress delegates from 41 countries
...
• These policies had an impact
...
They ruined the chance of stable and diplomatic relations with the European countries
because of the threating language and aggressive ideology and providing financial support
...
He threatened to cancel the Anglo-‐Soviet trade agreement of
1921 unless they abandoned these activities
...
The 1924 ‘Zinoviev letter’, from Comintern to the British Communist Party, instructed them to
conduct propaganda in the armed forces and elsewhere
...
The new Conservative government suspended all dealings with
the Soviets
...
The Russian Central Council of Trade Unions sent a cheque for £26,000 to TUC, but
they sent it back
...
It
was suspected to be the centre of a Soviet spy ring
...
However, revolutionary attempts in Berlin and Munich and of Bela Kun’s Soviet Republic in
Hungary (only lasted less than 4 months) were less than successful
...
When he made his ‘left turn’ against
Bukharin and the right, so did Comintern
...
The most damaging impact of this policy
was felt in Germany, where the KPD (Communist Party) was instructed to attack the SPD (Social
Democrats), which divided the left, just as fascism and the Nazis grew stronger
...
DIPLOMATIC ENGAGEMENT AND PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE
• This began when Trotsky was made Commissar for Foreign Affairs in the early Bolshevik
Government
...
He had to take Russia out of WW1, a major Bolshevik pledge, they issued
the Decree of Peace, but no major powers responded to this
...
This Treaty showed that Lenin had
a much more practical FP than Trotsky’s ‘neither peace nor war’ and Bukharin’s idea of
transforming the war into a revolutionary war
...
However, this had
little impact on the actual income and in fact helped the Bolsheviks brand the Whites as agents
of foreign imperialists
...
He identified that the Soviet Union were venerable to attack
...
• While diplomats and the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (Narkomindel) took steps to
secure formal relations with foreign powers
...
These two strains of Soviet
foreign affairs were at odds with one another, to the point of being mutually exclusive
...
Chicherin petitioned the Politburo to separate Cominterm from the government
...
The major diplomatic aim of the 1920s for the Soviets was to achieve ‘de jure’ diplomatic
recognition by foreign powers
...
This was encouraged by the New Economic Policy (NEP), which promoted the use
of market mechanisms and internal trade in order to modernize and industrialize Russia in the
1920
...
The
Soviet state saw the trade agreement as being of a ‘temporary and insufficient character’ but it
presented itself as an opportunity for Soviets to develop with the leading capitalist power
...
Alexandra Kollontai recalled a conversation with General Secretary Stalin in 1922, in which he
told her to pursue trade relations with Norway in order that Britain might be brought to an
agreement with the Soviet Union
...
Photographs show them with top hats and frock coats
...
On 16 April 1922 they secretly signed the Treaty of Rapallo with Weimar Germany, which
effectively brought the Genoa conference to a close
...
They had resumed full diplomatic and
economic relations on a basis of mutual cooperation
...
In May 1923, the British government made the accusation that the first condition of the Soviet
Trade Agreement had been ‘systematically violated’
...
Suspicion was an almost constant
factor in the relationship between Russia and Britain
...
Rapallo and
Genoa demonstrated that Soviet diplomacy was practical and goal-‐orientated
...
SECURITY
• It was said that Germany and the USSR were natural allies in the 1920s, as outcast nations
...
It ended the isolation that
both countries were facing
...
• The Locarno Treaties (1925) between the Western powers indicated better relations between
Germany, Britain and France, which worried Russia
...
•
•
•
•
Germany was the only country to make long-‐term loans to the USSR
...
In return the USSR supplied markets for heavy industry
...
Stalin was not internationally minded like Lenin and he was not particularly interested in
activities of Comintern
...
Instead, Stalin was committed to ‘Socialism in One County’
...
Many sided with Trotsky’s
‘Permanent Revolution’ and they were alarmed by the way Stalin was sidelining Comintern
...
Stalin was changing the focus of Comintern from promoting world revolution to protecting
the interests of the Soviet state
...
In 1911 there had been a revolution in China that resulted in the overthrow of the Manchu
dynasty
...
The CPC was to join the Guomindang (Chinese Nationalists) as a ‘bloc within’
...
However, Stalin continued to give him military support, thinking there were too few Chinese
Communists to achieve anything on their own and a Nationalist government would be a friend
to Soviet Russia
...
Just
a week earlier Stalin had boasted that they would use the Chinese bourgeoisie and ‘throw it
away like a squeezed lemon’
...
1930s FOREIGN POLICY
•
•
•
By 1933 the world situation was changing
...
Also, expansionist Japan
was a threat, after invading Manchuria in 1931 and 1933
...
Nowhere was this better demonstrated than during the 1939-‐41 period
...
Also, the Comintern
switched from a hard-‐line policy against ‘social fascists’ to participation with the ‘Popular Front’
strategy
...
COLLECTIVE SECURITY
• Whilst his aim of spreading Soviet influence remained the same, to keep the Grand Alliance
Stalin could not openly impose revolution through murders and deportation as he had done
previously
...
We have found it not so easy to set up a Communist
society’
...
From 1934 through 1937, the Soviet Union tried to restrain German
militarism by building coalitions hostile to fascism
...
The ‘Popular Front’ strategy (1934-‐39) was implemented across Europe to draw the masses
towards communism without antagonising the West
...
In order to please his new prospective allies, the ever-‐flexible Stalin even ordered a reversal in
the formerly stringent policies of the Comintern in August 1935, to support Popular Fronts
...
In 1934 they joined the League of Nations, where Litvinov, the Commissar of Foreign Affairs,
advocated disarmament and ‘collective security’ against fascist aggression
...
From 1936 to 1939 it gave assistance to the Republican anti-‐fascists in the Spanish Civil War
...
EVENTS OUTSIDE AGAINST THE SOVIET UNION
• Events outside the Soviet Union, however, would not permit a policy of peaceful coexistence for
long
...
• Expansionist Japan had invaded Manchuria in 1931 and 1933
...
The
possibility of a two-‐front war was a Russian nightmare
...
• Britain would not allow Russia to annex Finland and the Baltic states
• Hitler sent powerful air and armoured units to Franco and his Nationalist forces in the Spanish
Civil War (1936-‐39), whilst Britain and France stayed neutral, so Stalin could not trust anyone
...
The pursue a policy of appeasement to avoid a war
...
Stalin was
suspicious of British and French motives, fearing they would ally with Germany
...
Stalin believed that to maintain peace in the short-‐term a treaty with Germany was preferable
as they were increasing isolated and needed an ally
...
This was
important during the NEP and the 1FYP
...
By 1932, 47% of total Russian imports came from Germany
...
This was
accepted as truth by the British government as multiple attempts for alliance were proposed by
Litvinov to Allied Powers and each were rejected, for example the military Triple Alliance was
rejected by Britain and France
...
This was largely due to the attitude of Britain preventing Russian
foreign policy from advancing
...
‘By summer 1939 Stalin’s options had virtually disappeared’ (Ward)
...
THE NAZI-‐SOVIET PACT 1939
• The open provisions of the agreement pledged absolute neutrality in the event one of the
parties should become involved in war and a secret protocol partitioned Poland between them
and assigned Romanian territory as well as Estonia and Latvia (and later Lithuania) to the Soviet
sphere of influence
...
Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later
...
• In June 1941, however, the Nazi ‘friends’ proved to be even more Machiavellian than Stalin,
and he had no other option than to seek help from the democracies after the Axis invasion of
the USSR, Operation Barbarossa
...
• The paranoid and untrusting Stalin strangely trusted Hitler
...
I can guarantee on my word of honour that the
Soviet Union will not betray her partner
...
• Therefore although the Nazi-‐Soviet Pact was initially viewed by Russia as the biggest
achievement in Soviet foreign policy, it was in reality what lured Russia into a false sense of
security, possibly the most dangerous of all situations to be in at the outbreak of World War
...
The European alliance that should have secured Russia
instead left it exposed and without anticipation of attack
...
WHY DID STALIN WIN THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR (1941-‐53)?
The Germans launched Operation Barbarossa and invaded the USSR in June 1941 and they
swept all before them
...
Between June and December the Red Army lost 2,663,000 in action
...
Furthermore, throughout the war he pursued policies that were
unacceptable to the Allies, significantly leaving the Polish Home Army to be slaughtered by the
Germans in Warsaw (1944), despite the Red Army being only ten kilometres away
...
•
SOVIET STRENTGHS:
STALIN’S LEADERSHIP
• Pravda described Stalin as the ‘genius organiser’ and ‘the great captain of the Soviet people’
...
• He became a national figure of unity, and encouraged the USSR to continue in its struggle
...
The Russian Orthodox Church was also allowed to re-‐establish its Patriarchate
...
These beliefs and the motivation for a better Russia led to the strong national unity and
determination to win
...
When Stalin finally addressed the Soviet people (July 1941), he implored them to fight for ‘the
Motherland’
...
The opening words were ‘Comrades, citizens, brother and sisters, men of
our Army and Navy
...
’ This speech was said to
‘move [us] to tears’ (Simonov)
...
Stalin was able to draw on their patriotism but also on the years of the personality cult; he was
one of the people, asking for the people's help
...
His finest hour is described as October/November 1941 when he stayed put in Moscow during
the panic
...
He learned from his early mistakes, when he saw that his purges of the military in 1937
affected the strength of the army, as seen in the Winter War
...
He
established a successful relationship with his able Generals; Vasilevsky, Antonov and Zhukov
...
Propaganda was intense in the armed forces
...
Also, everything was monitored by the
Sovinformburo for ideological mistakes
...
Ehrenburg
wrote that the soldiers ‘feverently believed in him
...
Those at the front
and those at home expected huge losses and the Terror put discipline in place
...
This
meant that the Soviets' loss of more than 1 million soldiers in the Battle of Stalingrad was less
devastating than the Germans' loss of 200,000
...
• The USSR had to pay a high price for the war
...
There were
food shortages that lead to greatly inflated prices
...
Overall 8
...
Russia was badly bruised, with 1,700 towns and many more villages
destroyed, along with 30,000 factories and 65,000 km of railway
...
By 1953, it
was a member of the security council of the United Nation, a nuclear power and the dominant
power in a powerful military alliance, which in 1955 became the Warsaw Pact
...
• Scapegoats were found for failures
...
• Stalin enforced the Orders 270 and 227 to all fighting units in the army
...
These sanctions encouraged discipline and people to
heroism
...
• Over 1 million women served in the armed forced and although their contribution was
ignored, they helped the ultimate success
...
This had little to do with Stalin, rather a ‘pure
burst of love for the fatherland’
...
• Only 3% of male soldiers born in 1923 survived until 1945
...
• There was a successful reaction to the early German attack and 1523 factories were moved in
response
...
• Throughout the war the Soviet Union was clearly ahead of Germany industrially
...
Between
1943 and 1945 factories produced over 73,000 tanks and self propelled guns, 82,000 aircraft
and 324,000 artillery pieces
...
There had been inefficiency,
injustice and judicial murder
...
• Stalin's peacetime decision to prioritise heavy industry and military spending meant that the
economic plan didn't need extensive rewriting to match wartime conditions
...
By 1943,
the Soviet Union had recovered from the 1941 loss of industrial capacity
...
This allowed
Russian troops to be supplied more quickly and more fully than the Germans could match
...
Peasants had to
consume most of what they produced to stay alive
...
• However, Lend Lease largely kept the Soviet economy buoyant
...
The war
would have gone on for much longer were it not for their help
...
They sent crucial supplies, such as tanks and aircraft,
petroleum, zinc, copper, aluminium and chemicals
...
The delivery of these supplies greatly speeded up the war, however it
also showed that alone the USSR was not as strong as it may have appeared, and that it needed
help from western allies
...
Stalin was suspicious of Lend Lease throughout the
war, especially because the Western goods were of higher quality than those produced in the
USSR and the Russians noticed this
...
• Soviet statistics play down the importance of Lend Lease and suggest that the percentage
contribution to industrial production and military materiel was small: Gosplan declared that the
scheme accounted for 4% of goods used by the Red Army
...
The
undeniable fact is that the supply allowed Soviet industry to continue making armaments, as
well as helping clothe the army and feed the population
...
GERMAN MISTAKES
• An example of Russian strength during the war is the German attack on Stalingrad
...
Eventually Soviet forces led by General Zhukov
surrounded the Germans and forced them to surrender in February 1943
...
After Stalingrad, the Soviet Union was in a much better position than
Germany until the end of the war
...
Unlike Hitler, Stalin encouraged
strategic debate, and was willing to listen to suggestions
...
Although the Germans were often welcomed as liberators by villagers weary of Stalin’s
rule, this changed after the way Russian citizens were treated
...
Sending
Russians away to work also left labour shortages in areas of which Germany had control
...
Accordingly, the local people found that the forcible requisitioning of grain continued, only the
quotas demanded by the Nazis were higher than those under the Soviets
...
That would have made occupation
easier to maintain and created national disunity, Stalin couldn't have led a disunited country to
victory
...
Such diversity might have been a weakness as certain regions, such as the
Ukraine, welcomed the Nazis as liberators
...
Hitler had
defined all Slavs as ‘sub-‐human’
...
There was a desperate need for warm
clothing, over and above what could be looted from the Russians and the Poles
...
• In some areas, the Germans were well prepared for Barbarossa; they had printed a German-‐
Russian phrasebook, for example, with questions such as "Where is the collective farm
chairman?
• The results of this were horrific and journalists recounted seeing the frozen troops having lost
their hair and eyelids and even limbs
...
•
•
EARLY COLD WAR FOREIGN POLICY (NOT LIKELY)
Stalin’s more immediate objectives at the beginning of the war was to secure the agreement of
economic aid and to get a second front launched in France]
...
Stalin’s ideologically warped mind, security was more likely to be achieved through the
creation of a sphere of influence than it was through the continued friendly relations of the
other world powers
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
• The impact of WW2 devastating
...
This led to abrupt end of the Lend-‐lease and transition away from a war
economy
...
• In a speech in 1945, Stalin promised that by the following year that the USSR would be a leading
industrial power
...
In August, Gosplan was
instructed to prepare a new Plan that focused on economic recovery
...
This was seen in Ukraine, which received 1/3 of total
expenditure, due to its importance
...
’
• He also insisted in war reparation payments from enemy countries, under the terms of the
Treaty of Versailles (signed in June 1919), even though many of them had pro-‐Soviet
governments
...
• This meant a huge amount of equipment and materials were transported to the USSR,
sometimes entire factories and their workforce were transported
...
The Council of Mutual Economic
Assistance was not very successful as all countries were committed to Communist economic
theory, such as state-‐ownership and planning
...
Important to ensure sure the bloc countries wouldn’t fall under Western influenced
...
• Stalin’s paranoia is also a principle reason why security was so important to him
...
• Events exacerbated Stalin’s paranoia, he was particularly anxious following the ‘Hess Affair’ in
1941 and the ‘Bern negotiations’ in 1945
...
In a cable to Ivan Maisky (the Russian ambassador to Britain),
October 1941, Stalin wrote ‘Churchill is aiming at the defeat of the USSR, in order to come to
terms with Germany’
...
’
• Stalin asked the British Foreign Secretary in 1941 for an agreement as to where the Soviet
borders should be when the war was won, Stalin insisting they should return to where they
were in 1941
...
• Territory of the USSR was extended and neighbouring states quickly became ‘satellite states’
due to Soviet military and political influence
...
The Berlin Blockage (June 1948) enforced this safety buffer
...
FP
was conditioned for the expensive battle to produce the moist advanced weaponry
...
Stalin declared Marshall Aid to be ‘dollar imperialism’ and forbade
the Eastern bloc countries to apply for it
...
Comecon (1949) was in response to the
Marshall Plan
...
• Stalin was beginning to commit himself to achieving security through the continuation of the
alliance in peace
...
• After Yalta, to satisfy his paranoid security concerns, Stalin brought the ‘iron veil’ down over
Poland, much to British chagrin
...
IDEOLOGICAL/ SPREAD COMMUNISM
• Ideological differences were evidenced with Yalta and Potsdam Conferenced ending in disputes
...
Its effectiveness was limited, as seen when Tito’s Yugoslavia left
in June 1948
...
Stalin responded
to this in Pravda, seeing it as ‘a dangerous act’
...
• This ideological aim had deep roots in the Nazi-‐Soviet Pact (1939), where the USSR invaded
Eastern Poland and later the Baltic States
...
• In several states ‘friendly’ communist regimes were set up
...
• Communist regimes also controlled Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia and the Eastern regions of
Germany
...
Communists were thought to have murdered the pro-‐Western Czech Minister, Jan
Masaryk
...
Stalin immediately met them and agreed an alliance
...
Living standards needed to increase, as seen in the 4th5YP’s
focus on consumer goods
...
He thus ordered the Comintern not to push for revolution, but rather to stress the
common threat of fascism
...
Furthermore, throughout the war he pursued policies that were often utterly
unacceptable to the Allies, importantly leaving the Polish Home Army to be slaughtered by the
Germans in Warsaw (1944), despite the Red Army being only ten kilometres away
...
• Stalin’s inconsistent behaviour such as over Warsaw in 1944, his constant demand for the 1941
borders and his feeling that Russia had been badly treated, made the Allies feel threatened and
concerned
...
The
American diplomat Kennen called Stalin’s FP ‘more dangerous and insidious than ever before’
...
• The official Soviet interpretation is that the USSR pursued a clear and unambiguous police of
building a European shield of collective security against Nazi aggression
...
•
•
The ‘German’ school interpretation is that Stalin preferred co-‐operation with Germany for
collective security
...
The ‘collective security’ school of thought views that this arose from a perceived need for a
common cause with the other states in opposition to Hitler’s expansionism
...
’
BY 1953 WAS THE USSR A GLOBAL SUPERPOWER?
YES
• Before 1941 the Soviet Union had not wanted to be a superpower and Stalin’s main ambition
was for the Soviet Union to be left alone to allow the transformation of the Soviet economy
...
• By 1945 the armed forces of the USSR consisted of 7
...
• The European great powers had all been seriously weakened by the war
...
• The rise of the USSR was reflected in the diplomacy of the Grand Alliance between the USSr,
Britain and the US
...
The first summit to include Stalin was Tehran (November 1943)
...
The ‘Big Three’ met at Yalta (February 1945)
and the 3 Allies met at Potsdam (July 1945) after Germany had been defeated and at this point
it was clear that Britain was exhausted and bankrupted and an empire in decline that would be
overshadowed by the 2 ‘superpowers’
...
• The USSR gained the status of a super power when they produced their own atomic bomb in
1949 to rival the US and keeping up in the nuclear arms race by having the capability to
manufacture hydrogen bombs by 1953
...
FP was conditioned for the expensive battle to
produce the moist advanced weaponry
...
The Red Army remained in control of the nation states in east central Europe it had
liberated (such as Romania, Hungary and Poland)
...
By 1953 the borders of the USSR extended deep into central and Eastern
Europe after the takeover Poland and Hungary (1947), Romania, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia
(1948) and East Germany (1949)
...
Once in power, nationalist
communist parties were kept loyal to the USSR through regular purges
...
•
•
•
•
•
The war had destroyed a quarter of the country’s resources and although industry recovered,
the production of consumer good and foodstuffs was still lower than it had been in the late
1920s
...
Economic poverty blighted the Eastern Bloc and the relative prosperity of Western Europe
compared to the East continued to embarrass communist authorities
No matter how powerful he and the Soviet Union became, Stalin never ceased to regard the
Soviet Union as vulnerable, as such the international Marxist revolution was abandoned and
policy was dedicated to safeguarding national security
...
Stalin’s paranoia fuels his
use of terror and propaganda
...
Also, wreckers, saboteurs and
Trotskyists are punished, but in fact these do not really exist
...
Control of the Eastern Bloc and relations with other communist nations were not always
straightforward
...
HIGH STALINISM AND SYNOPTIC QUESTIONS
•
•
•
WAS RUSSIA A TOTALITARIAN STATE?
‘Totalitarian’ means a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires
complete subservience to the state
...
CHANGE OVER TIME
•
USE OF TERROR
• That Stalin ruled by terror, and used it to exert control over all aspects of Soviet life, is beyond a
doubt
...
This was seen in Show Trials
...
They were proven guilty of spying for foreign powers
...
• Stalin had extended the use of terror in his rise to power, as seen in 1929 when Trotsky was
expelled from the USSR and Bukharin from the Politburo
...
In 1931 he put a group of
former Mensheviks and SRs on trial
...
Stalin spoke of 5-‐6
million kulaks and later 10 million
...
By the mid 1930s kulaks had disappeared as a class
...
It killed 4-‐5 million
...
Later, in 1934, internal security was
passed to the NKVD
...
• The Kolyma camps were some of the most brutal in the entire Gulag system
...
• The spread of ‘Red Terror’ coincided with a series of national show trials, called the Great
Purges
...
The Military
Purge (May-‐June 1937) saw several Generals, including war hero Tukhachevsky, accused of
espionage and around 50% of the officer corps were imprisoned or executed
...
Bukharin held out for 3 months, sending 34 personal letters to
Stalin, but threats to his young wife and infant son saw him confess to the ‘sum total of crimes
...
The ‘conveyer belt’ system saw
Tukhachevky’s signed confession ‘splattered with blood from a moving body’
...
Consequently, it is clear that Stalin’s instruments of control over the party and armed force
constitute a totalitarian society
...
All other political beliefs were prohibited and
under the operation of democratic centralism, members were obliged to uncritically obey all
orders handed down by Stalin and party leaders
...
• Even aspects of life that were deemed to be separate from politics and economics, such as film,
theatre, painting and writing, had to be conforming to a set of guidelines
...
• Used as a method of indoctrination and the overall impact of propaganda is difficult to
measure, due to the difficulty to think outside of this
...
• Two youth organisations were set up
...
The
Komsomol was from 14/15 to early 20s
...
• The transformation of Moscow epitomized socialist realism in culture
...
The new Moscow Metro opened in
1935, which included mosaic designs, marble floors and stained glass to inspire pride
...
Paintings, poems, posters and sculptures were produced to glorify
Stalin’s role as the ‘mighty leader’, ‘father of the nation’, ‘universal genius’ and ‘shining sun of
humanity
...
ECONOMIC CONTROL
• Stalin also exerted centralised control over the economy, another fundamental principle of
Friedrich’s totalitarian model
...
• Stalin’s model of collectivisation provided the capital and labour force to enable a rapid
industrialisation process, as Stalin understood the importance and power of an industrialised
state
...
To begin industrialisation, Stalin set
•
•
up Five Year Plans, which saw rapid industrial expansion
...
However, the Five Year Plans’ exuberant targets were never met, which was a key trait of
totalitarian governments, as pursuit of a goal, regardless of the cost, was the only ideological
foundation for a totalitarian state, so achievement of the goal can never be acknowledged
...
PROPAGANDA AND CULT OF PERSONALITY
• Finally, Stalin exercised control over the media, particularly to create glorification of his own
cult, which further supported his ability to lead a government under totalitarian control
...
• Communism was no longer a set of theories; it was no longer Leninism, it was whatever Stalin
said and did
...
• Roy Medvedev, a Soviet historian states ‘Stalin did not rely on terror alone, but also on the
majority of the people, who were deceived by cunning propaganda’
...
• The actual extent of Stalin’s popularity is difficult to judge in real terms, however, it is clear that
his presence was glorified through his total control of the media, stressing the complete
totalitarian regime he operated
...
For example,
the Stakhanovite movement
...
• Propaganda also tried to teach a new mentality
...
Stalin told a group of
Soviet writers that they should regard themselves as ‘directing the reconstruction of the human
soul’
...
• Dizzy with Success
• Great Retreat
• Uprisings during Collectivisation
• War priority appeals to patriotism
• After Stalin’s death, Khrushchev’s speech
WAS STALINISM A CONTINUATION OF LENINISM?
•
Stephen Cohen, a revisionist, said Bolshevism contained the ‘seeds’ of Stalinism
...
USE OF FORCE AND TERROR
• Right wing western historians often emphasise the importance of the fact that it was under
Lenin that terror was first used
Title: AQA A Level History Notes: Revolution and dictatorship: Russia, 7042/2N
Description: A/A* A level History Notes: AQA A Level History: Revolution and dictatorship: Russia, 7042/2N
Description: A/A* A level History Notes: AQA A Level History: Revolution and dictatorship: Russia, 7042/2N