Stalin and the USSR
History 12
Ms Leslie
Who to Lead the USSR?
1. Moderates - wanted to continue NEP
and slowly build up the communist
state - Stalin pretended to be on
their team to gain support
2. The Left opposition - impatient;
wanted communism now. Led by
Trotsky and Zinoviev and Kamenev
The contenders
Trotsky
 His high opinion of himself annoyed many but
was valid.
 Many distrusted him due to his late conversion to
Bolshevism.
 Was President of Worker’s and Soldier’s soviet,
Minister of War and Minister of Foreign Affairs
 Was Jewish and From a well off family - facts that
Stalin will use against him
Kamenev and Zinoviev.
 They were influential in the party. Viewed
Trotsky as their rival, not Stalin.
 Moderates
 Always a duo - like Clinton and Gore
Stalin.
 Was a Georgian who had turned to Marxism
after aiming for a career in the Georgian
Orthodox Church
 He was tough. He was an organizer.
 He inserted his supporters in key positions
of the party while General Secretary of the
Central Committee.
Weaseling his way to the top
 Stalin knows he needs to get rid of
Trotsky so he points out that:
 Trotsky is Jewish, Rich and a late
converter to communism.
(Trotsky had only been a party member
since 1917)
 Stalin got Zinoviev and
Kamenev on his side
and the three of them
persuaded the Central
Committee to ignore
Lenin’s last will and
testament which
recommended Stalin’s
removal for office.
 Stalin starts promoting ‘Socialism in
One Country’
This means ignoring Lenin and Trotsky’s
dreams of helping revolutions start in
other countries
 It appealed to people’s patriotism
while Trotsky’s vision was one of more
struggle and hardship.
 Had to rebuild Russia - no money to
spare spreading Communism globally
 Stalin removed Trotsky from
his post in 1925.
 By 1926 Stalin had enough
supporters in the Central
Committee that he no
longer needed Zinoviev and
Kamenev, they were
dismissed in 1927.
What Happened to Trotsky?
 Trotsky fled in exile and traveled to many
places until settling in Mexico.
 There he wrote many Socialists texts and
reviews of the Russian Revolution and even
had an affair with the famous Mexican
Painter Frida
 1930 Trotsky is put on trial in abstention and
sentenced to death
 In 1940 Stalin felt threatened by Trotsky’s
voice of dissent and sent a Secret police
assassin to Mexico
 The assassin stabbed Trotsky in the
head with an ice pick
 the blow did not kill Trotsky at first
and Trotsky wrestled his assassin to the
ground
 When his guards burst in to the room
to kill the assassin Trotsky told them
not to as the man ‘had a story to tell’
 Trotsky was rushed to the hospital
where he under went surgery but
succumbed to his injuries the next day.
Stalin, Industrialization and
Collectivization
 Despite NEP keeping peasants happy,
Stalin turns things down another path
 Need to increase production to go from
socialism to communism
1928 - a big year for change
 Collectivization of agriculture. Stalin
wanted to get rid of all private farms
and impose an industrial model on the
country side.
 Massive Industrialization. Industry was
to be speeded up enormously. In doing
so he would destroy the power of the
Nepmen and their supporters in the
party.
1928- The First 5 Year Plan
1. Command Economy
 Economics would be driven
by state planning and not
the free market.
 The government sets
production levels,
distribution and
consumption
 What to make, where to
sell it who can buy it.
2. Collectivization
 Stalin reversed Lenin’s NEP policy of
giving the land to the peasants by
forcing them to become workers on
collective farms
 Collective farms were called Kolkhoz
and would be run by a Collective Farm
Committee which would be under
control of party officials
 By January, 1930 there were 4 million peasants on
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collective farms.
March, 1930 there were 14 million (55% of all
farmers).
The result was a disaster, not the predicted
improvement.
By 1931 it was only 53% due to the chaos and harsh
process.
By July, 1932 62% of peasant families were on
collective farms.
 Some farmers would resist, which
meant starvation as their grain would
be seized to feed the cities or sell to
foreign markets to pay for heavy
industry.
 Stalin focused on the wealthier farmers,
called Kulaks.
 Kulaks had machinery, employees and
surplus to sell.
 In reality, there were only a few Kulaks But
Stalin decided to eliminate this whole class
as they represented free enterprise
 Any farmer could be labeled a Kulak, Entire
villages even!
 Once they had this label they were
considered class enemies and could be killed
or sent to the gulag.
 In 1937 agricultural production was
below to 1928 level.
 In 1933 there were less then half as
many horses then the 1928 figure.
 The number of cattle fell by 1/3 and
the number of sheep by 1/2
 Horses were supposed to be replaced by
tractors, but not enough were produced.
 About 5 million peasants died in the
collectivization process and the famine the
followed in 1932.
 Stalin would not admit the famine existed
and would not allowed a famine relief
program
 It was the farmers who paid for the
industrialization of the USSR.
 It was pried out of their cold dead
hands.
3. Industrialization
 The First Five Year Plan came into
effect in April 1929. Production was to
focus on industrial goods, not
consumer goods. The goals were sky
high:
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Total output to increase by 250%
Heavy industry to grow 330%
Pig Iron output by 300%
Coal production to double
Electrical out put to quadruple
 When party members challenged these
figures Stalin raised them and changed
the deadline to 4 years instead of 5.
 Would often say that the USSR had to
do in 15 years what the West did in
150.
Problems with
industrialization
 Supplies and distribution means not
there
 Factories did not have the right
equipment, or equipment did not have
factories to house them
 Products were made that did not work
just to fill quotas
 Once product was made, there was no
transportation to get the goods to
markets
 Stalin would not let up on the targets
Stalin and Unions
 The NEP had encouraged the growth and
independence of unions.
 Stalin crushed them.
 In 1932 workers guilty of one day’s voluntary
absence from work would cost them their
job and housing.
 In 1931 and 32 legislation was passed to
force workers to go where ever the
authorities told them
Papers please
 In 1932 the old Czarist system on
internal passports was revived.
 Now people could only move with
police consent.
Wages
 Piece rate wages were introduced to
replace fixed salaries. Meaning people
were paid for each item produced not
an hourly rate
 Skilled workers were paid more.
 There was also ‘material incentives’ to
increase production such as better
housing, holidays and consumer goods.
 To fail at achieving one’s production
quota was to fail the party as well.
 The government used propaganda to
create industrial heroes and provide a
model for the New Soviet Man.
 The media was full of Shock Workers
and Stakhanovites.
 Stakhanov was a coal
worker; he and his
crew were given an
easy coal seam and the
best equipment to
break up 102 tons of
coal in 1 shift. Over
filling their quote by
1400%. The media
spread this story all
over an expectations
for normal workers was
heightened.
Results of 1st-5yp
 Ended 1932, was a failure
 Successful in making a new society
 Production of Oil, Peat, sugar, coal,
electrical fixtures, automobiles, tractors all
reached their goals. But reliable figures
stopped in 1931.
 Gulag system grew (3 million zuks) and now
a permanent fixture in Russia society.
Second 5 year Plan
 The Second 5 year plan was announced in
1933, to be completed in 1937.
 Deemed to severe and was modified in 1934
 Its aim was to eliminated all capitalist
elements in the USSR.
 Private business and trade had already been
eliminated, except for Farmer’s markets and
the black market.
 focused on improving the quality of
goods.
 Wage differences increased.
 Collectivization continued to have
problems.
 Overshadowing the Second Five year
Plan which makes its achievements not
too important was the Great Purge.
Why did the the Purges
happen?
 Paranoia
due to Syphilis?
 Deep inferiority complex?
 German Gestapo creating havoc?
 5 year plans creating too much
dissent?
 Afraid of loosing power?
When did he make the
decision?
 Suicide of his 2nd wife in 1932 effecting him
deeply
 She had criticized his terror and he yelled at
her a stream of vulgar abuse and she shot
herself
 He was visibly shaken, tried the resign from
the party but they wouldn’t let him
 No longer trusts people close to him
 By 1934 Stalin announced there is no
one left to fight as all the peasants and
workers had been beaten into
submission.
 Now going to focus on cleaning up the
party
It Begins
 Party officials began to think Stalin not a
good person to lead USSR and promoted
Kirov (2nd in command) as a replacement
 Stalin sends Kirov to Leningrad to clean up
the rest of Zinoviev supporters there.
 On Dec 1st he is assassinated by one of Z’s
supporters (under Stalin’s command)
 Stalin uses this as an excuse to hunt
opposision - Within months hundreds of
‘Kirov’s murderers’ are sent to Siberia
 Z and K are given prison sentences for
 Kamenev and Zinoviev were put on ‘show
trial’. These were public trials were the
accused were forced into confession with
various tactics.
 K and Z were forced to confess to plotting
against Stalin with Trotsky to take over the
USSR. People would confess after torture or
threats to the safety of their family. K and Z
were shot in 1936.
 It was later revealed in 1956 by Khruschev
that Stalin had ordered Kirov’s murder
Show trials
 dramatic and bizarre
 Has high-ranking communists
 All on Lenin’s original Politburo except
Stalin
Rykov- an ex premier
Ztukhachevsky - chief of staff
Tomsky - ex-chief of trade unions
Trotsky (who is in Mexico)
 The world was astounded to how
everyone would confess to the most
wildest accusations
 There was little truth to the claims
EG meetings in hotels that no longer exists
or non existing flights landing in airports
 No one was safe from the Purge.
 The Army, air force and navy all had
casualties in the top ranks.
 1/5 of the officer corps was lost.
Stalin even shot the leader of the NKVD
to prove that no one was safe.
 Nikolai Yezhov, an NKVD leader
photographed alongside Stalin in at least one
photograph, was shot in 1940 and
subsequently edited out of the photograph.
Who carried out the purges?
 Stalin had created his own secret
police. The NKVD (People's
Commissariat for Internal Affairs) was
the public and secret police
organization of the Soviet Union that
directly executed the rule of terror,
including political repression, during
the Stalinist era.
Who’s the NKVD?
 The NKVD contained the regular,
public police force of Soviet Russia and
the USSR (including traffic police,
firefighting, border guards and
archives) but is better known for the
activities of the Gulag and eventually
becoming the Committee for State
Security (KGB).
But what did they do?
 conducted mass extrajudicial executions,
 ran the Gulag system of forced labor,
 suppressed underground resistance,
 conducted mass deportations of nationalities
and "Kulaks" to unpopulated regions of the
country,
 guarded state borders,
 conducted espionage and political
assassinations abroad,
 was responsible for influencing foreign
governments,
 and enforced Stalinist policy within
Communist movements in other
countries
 Millions of ordinary citizens also
accused
 Orders sent out to the NKVD to arrest a
certain percentage of the population
 As many as 8 million were arrested
Why Confess?
 Confessions made through torture - physical
and mental.
 Thought confessing would bring a lighter
sentence
 Save their families
 End the torture
 Final service to the party - be the last to die
for the party to stop the bloodshed
And if you didn’t confess?
 Secret trials… or just simply an
execution with out trial
 Fate of all military leaders
Was there any truth to the
confessions?
 Not really
What did the Great Purge
Accomplish?
 Stalin is unchallenged totalitarian
master
 A whole lot of slave labour
How did Stalin get away with it?
 Cult of Personality. A cult of
personality arises when a country's
leader uses mass media to create a
heroic public image, often through
unquestioning flattery and praise.
 strong and vivid personality
 Knew how to charm people
 Name linked with Lenin
 May 5, 1920, Lenin gave a speech to a crowd of
Soviet troops in Sverdlov Square, Moscow. In the
foreground was Leon Trotsky and Lev Kamenev. The
photo was later altered and both were removed by
censors.
 Stalin knew how popular Lenin was and
saw to it that history was rewritten in
such a way as to make his own
relations with Lenin seem much more
friendly than they had been in fact.
 The rewriting was so thorough that
perhaps Stalin himself believed his own
version in the end.