1 / 20

History Essays

History Essays. Reminder Due Monday 9 th October, 5pm Next discussion block will be dedicated to working on your essays – PLEASE BRING your primary source and work to do I will be available to help you during the discussion block It is NOT a free block for you to do work at home. STALIN

kura
Download Presentation

History Essays

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. History Essays Reminder Due Monday 9th October, 5pm • Next discussion block will be dedicated to working on your essays – PLEASE BRING your primary source and work to do • I will be available to help you during the discussion block • It is NOT a free block for you to do work at home

  2. STALIN Industrialisation 1933-1946

  3. 2nd Five Year Plan • 1934: After delays, the third draft of the 2nd Five Year Plan is announced • In this the mirage of a full socialist economy fades in the light of economic reality BUT • the more realistic plans results in…

  4. The Three Good Years 1934-36 • 4500 new enterprises become operational in comparison with 1500 in the whole of the first FYP • Labour productivity rises • Some success in sorting out the chaos on the railways

  5. However… • Still uncoordinated: • Over-production in some areas • Under-production in others • Fierce competition between regions and sectors of industry – want to avoid government blaming for failure • Complaints of ‘poor standards’ to avoid appearing critical of Stalin and the Plans • Search for scapegoats: purges worst during 2nd and 3rd FYPs

  6. Social strains • Alec Nove “Everywhere there were said to be spies, wreckers, diversionists. There was a grave shortage of qualified personnel, so the deportation of many thousands of engineers and technologists to distant concentration camps represented a severe loss.” (Michael Lynch, p.45) • Heavy industry successes not increase living standard of the workers

  7. 1934

  8. Purpose of the FYPs? • “Anything good in the Soviet Union was thought of as a wonderful achievement, anything bad as a wonderful sacrifice.” (Robert Conquest, p.190) • Primarily concerned with vast projects vs. more economically viable small ones • Some, like White Sea Canal, waste of investment • Other, like Dnieper Dam, were of great use

  9. “The Giants of the Five Year Plan” 1933

  10. 3rd Five Year Plan • 1937 brings stagnation partly because of a very hard winter causing major fuel shortages • 1937 Stalin announces in the notorious February-March plenum that widespread wrecking and sabotage is holding back development

  11. Purges • By mid-1938 ½ the party membership arrested • 70% Central Committee died • By 1938 had killed or imprisoned great majority of 1934 Central Committee • At lower level Byelorussian railway could not support large numbers prisoners • Autumn 1938 commission investigated NKVD (secret police) and reported adversely • Majority NKVD (many hundreds of thousands) killed in 1930s

  12. Results of Purges • Big factories lost almost all properly qualified engineers • Economy heading downhill • Population projected to be 16-17 million people larger than it was – problems with plan • The third plan is in chaos before it can be announced because of the planners purged

  13. Who to blame? • Stalin free from blame • Many assumed he did not know what was happening at lower levels • Subordinates blamed • Stalin’s image as benevolent leader remained untainted • However, the purges were conducted on such a large scale it impossible for him to be unaware • He also signed many execution warrants

  14. “Long live the Great Stalin!” 1938

  15. World War Two • The 3rd FYP does not even come to a conclusion • In 1941 Hitler invades the Soviet Union, and all economic activity changed to meet the demands of the military • Because of industrialisation Soviet Union had power to defend herself (is this one of the great outcomes of Stalin’s industrialisation programme?)

  16. New boost for FYPs • Stalin’s predictions coming true… • Able to exhort population to new levels of productivity as real threat (not just perceived) • “The issue is one of life and death for the soviet State, of life and death for the peoples of the USSR. We must mobilise ourselves and reorganise all our work on a new wartime footing, where there can be no mercy to the enemy.” Stalin, War speech (Michael Lynch, p.48)

  17. War Years • Hardships during FYPs meant Soviet population prepared for conditions during war • Resilience proved priceless asset • Best example was victory at Stalingrad (see dramatised version in ‘Enemy at the Gates’!). Battle occupied winter months 1942-43, killed over 1 million soldiers, life expectancy of a soldier at the front was 24 hours. But, consider the turning point in the war on the Eastern Front

  18. War Years • Arms production top priority • Women and children worked the land • Conscription for all men not involved in essential war work • By 1942 over half national income to war effort (highest proportion compared with other countries in WWII) • As improvement on military front, improvement in economy – new factories in Urals, supplies from USA bolstered aid, significant expansion railways

  19. Conditions of the people… • Privations of war intensified in Soviet Union • German occupation of the most fertile land reduced productivity • Shortage agricultural labour • Re-imposition State grain and livestock requisitions • = chronic Russian food shortage resulting in famine • Over ¼ of 25 million war fatalities attributed to starvation

  20. Stalin’s summary • May 1945: “We have survived the most cruel and hardest of all wars ever experience in the history of our Motherland. The point is that the Soviet social system has proved to be more capable of life and more stable than a non-Soviet system.” (Michael Lynch, p.50)

More Related