Aim: How did Stalin and the Communist Party build a modern totalitarian state in the Soviet Union?

1. Aim: How did Stalin and the Communist Party build a modern totalitarian state in the Soviet Union? April 22, 2013

2. Rise of Totalitarianism • Political and economic instability led to the rise of totalitarianism throughout Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. This is a dictatorship where government regulates every aspect of a citizens’ public and private life (Business/jobs, family life, religion, education, the arts), uses repression, censorship and propaganda to achieve its goals. • Two major forms of totalitarianism on both sides of the spectrum: • Communism (Stalin’s Soviet Union): To create a classless society free of capitalist inequality. • Fascism (Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Hungary and Romania): To unite the population around extreme nationalism and militarism.

3. Russia After the Civil War • In 1921, Lenin and the Bolsheviks (now officially renamed the Communist Party) finally win the Civil War against the Whites. They now face major challenges: • 15 million are dead • Farms are destroyed, food supplies exhausted (terrible famines in southern Russia) • Industry is at a standstill • Both peasants and workers are rioting in protest

4. Lenin Restores Order • New Economic Policy (NEP) - March 1921: Lenin’s plan to revive the economy. Involved a combination of capitalism and communism: • Peasants can buy and sell extra crops for profit in free markets instead of turning them over to the government. Individuals can make money by owning small private factories and businesses. • Government still controls major industries, banks, railroads and means of communication (newspapers, radio, etc.) • Slight betrayal of Marxist values, but it stimulates rapid economic recovery. • 1922: Russia is renamed Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), also known as The Soviet Union.

5. Lenin dies in 1924, sparking a power struggle within the Communist Party: • Joseph Stalin • Leon Trotsky • Became General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1922. Could provide jobs and make promises to those who were loyal to him. • Believed in “socialism in one country”- Soviet Union had the ability to build a great socialist state on its own. • Planned the 1917 Communist takeover, became leader of the Red Army. Inspiring speaker and leader. • Believed in “permanent revolution” – Socialism in the Soviet Union could only succeed if socialist revolutions swept throughout Europe.

6. Stalin Takes Control of the Economy • Stalin wins, cements his consolidation of power at the party Congress of 1927. • Stalin ends up being as oppressive as the tsarist rulers who preceded him. As a result, his cruel actions are very much in line with what the Russian people have come to expect from their government. • Stalin wants the Soviet Union to eliminate the NEP and have a true command economy – a system in which the government made all economic decisions. This command economy would allow Stalin to introduce five year plans that would increase industrial and agricultural output in the Soviet Union. “ We are fifty to a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall go under”

7. Stalin Takes Control of the Economy • Industry Under the Five Year Plans: • Plan to promote industrial growth in Russia by increasing the output in heavy industry (steel, coal, oil and electricity) over five years. • Government controls every aspect of workers lives. It could assign workers to a job anywhere in the country, and determined how much they would be paid. • Soviet industry produced four times as much in 1937 as it had in 1928. Turned the Soviet Union into a major industrial power with a strong military on the eve of World War II If the entire Russian economy is devoted to producing oil, coal and steel, what is the economy probably NOT producing?

8. Stalin Takes Control of the Economy • Negatives for Workers • Paid very low wages (workers in 1937 could buy 60 percent of what they could in 1928, and less then they could in 1913!). Standard of living remains low for workers. • Government places no emphasis on producing consumer goods or new housing for workers. • Positives for Workers: • Command economy means there is virtually no unemployment. • Receive important social benefits (old-age pensions, free medical service, free education). • People with specialized skills and technical education could become skilled workers or engineers and gain higher salaries. • Greater rights and equality for women.

9. Stalin Takes Control of the Economy • Agriculture under the Five Year Plans (policy of collectivization): • Stalin takes over 25 million privately owned farms and turns them large, government-owned farms called collective farms. Thousands of families work on these farms, producing food for the state. • Many peasants resist by killing their animals and burning their crops before going to the collective farms. As a result, agricultural production actually drops. • Wealthy peasants (Kulaks) were stripped of their land and livestock and were deported or left to starve. Ukrainian collective farms were forced to provide very high grain quotas, leading to a man-made famine between 1932-1933. Ultimately, 5-10 million peasants died because of Stalin’s agricultural revolution! • Peasants were clearly subdued, which eliminated them as a threat.

10. The Great Purge (1936-1938) • Stalin turned against other members of his own Communist Party. He wanted to eliminate people who he thought might threaten his power. • Thousands of Communists who had helped lead the 1917 Revolution were given public show trials, convicted using false evidence, and executed for “crimes against the Soviet state.” • Why did Stalin do this: • He is paranoid! • He recognizes that in a totalitarian society, constant conflict and fear is needed to justify the continuation of a repressive dictatorship.