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Modernizing Russia

Modernizing Russia. Stalin took over a country in which: Almost all industry was in a few cities Workers were unskilled & uneducated Many regions were as backward as they were 100 years before. The Situation. S ended L’s NEP. Each region was told its target.

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Modernizing Russia

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  1. Modernizing Russia

  2. Stalin took over a country in which: Almost all industry was in a few cities Workers were unskilled & uneducated Many regions were as backward as they were 100 years before The Situation

  3. S ended L’s NEP Each region was told its target Region set target for each mine, factory, etc. Manager of site set target for each foreman Foremen set target for shifts, each worker Industry & the Five-Year Plans • Created 5-Year Plans to modernize (R) • Plans created by GOSPLAN (State planning org set up by L in 1921) • Set ambitious production targets in vital industries (coal, iron, oil, electricity) • Detailed, down to the individual worker Stalin and the Railway GOSPLAN set overall target for an industry

  4. Focused on major industries Targets not met, but still impressive Created industrial foundation for further 5-Year plans Whole cities built in remote areas where resources were Workers moved into new cities to work New steel mills, dams, & hydro-electric power fed industry/energy requirements New industries in previously undeveloped regions (Uzbekistan & Kazakhstan) First Five-Year Plan (1928-1933) With shock labor we will ensure prompt delivery of the giants of the Five Year Plan Workers in supply companies, pictured below, have to speed up production in order to finish the large factories above in time.

  5. Built on achievements of 1st 5-Years Heavy industry still priority Second Five-Year Plan (1933-1937) • Other industries developed • Lead, tin, zinc mines in Siberia • Transport & communication • Railways & canals • Moscow underground railway (Impressive) • In agriculture production of tractors & other farm machinery increased dramatically We do like Stachanov! • Third Five-Year Plan launched in 1938 • Some factories were to switch consumer goods (radios, refrigerators, cars, etc.) • WWII interrupted this plan • Communist (R) would never produce large #s of consumer goods

  6. Criticisms A lot of inefficiency Duplication of effort & waste Enormous human cost (you’ll see!) Were the Five-Year Plans A Success? • Positives • 2nd & 3rd 5-Y Plans learned from errors in 1st 5-Y Plan • By 1937 USSR was a modern industrialized state • W/o this industry (G) defeats USSR in WWII

  7. Were the Five-Year Plans A Success?

  8. Electricity (billion Kw hours) Actual 13.4 Target 17.0 Actual 36.2 Target 38.0 5.05 Coal (million tons) Actual 64.3 Target 68.0 Actual 128.0 Target 152.5 35.4 Oil (million tons) Actual 21.4 Target 19.0 Actual 28.5 Target 46.8 11.7 Pig Iron (million tons) Actual 6.2 Target 8.0 Actual 14.5 Target 16.0 3.3 Steel (million tons) Actual 5.9 Actual 17.7 Target 8.3 Target 17.0 4.0 Were the Five-Year Plans A Success? Production in 1927-28 Five-Year Plan 1933 Five-Year Plan 1937

  9. Were the Five-Year Plans A Success?

  10. Every increase in production used for propaganda S wanted USSR to be beacon of socialism Propaganda • There is evidence that he [Stalin] exaggerated Russia’s industrial deficiency in 1929. The Tsars had developed a considerable industrial capacity … in a sense the spadework had already been done and is not altogether surprising that Stalin should have achieved such rapid results. • Historian S J Lee, The European Dictatorships: 1918-1945, published in 1987

  11. Under Lenin's banner for the second Five Year Plan! Stalin is holding PRAVDA (The Truth) - main communist newspaper. Hint: did you read one lately? ... 'cause the chief is reading it?

  12. All extreme programs have costs: The workers paid the price Foreign experts & engineers marveled @ (R) workers for their toughness Workers bombarded w/ propaganda (posters, slogans, radio broadcasts, etc) All had strict targets to meet (fined if missed) Cover of Time magazine Dec 16, 1935 How Was Industrialization Achieved? • Most famous worker: Alexei Stakhanov • Mined 102 tons/coal in one shift (14x avg!) • Became ‘Hero of Socialist Labor’ • Propaganda told workers to be ‘Stakhanovites’ • From 1930 gov’t drafted women workers • 1000s of day-care facilities set up • By 1937 women 40% of industrial workers • Between 1932-37 80% of new workers were women

  13. By late 1930 many workers’ lives better Some had well-paid skilled jobs Some earned bonuses for meeting targets Unemployment almost nonexistent By 1940 USSR had more doctors than (E) Education free for all Training programs in colleges & work places Nothing strikes the visitor to the Soviet Union more forcibly than the lack of fear. No fear of not having enough money at the birth of a child. No fear for doctor’s fees, school fees or university fees. No fear of underwork, no fear of overwork. No fear of wage reduction in a land where none are unemployed Dr Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, visiting USSR in 1939 Workers: The Good

  14. On other hand, life was harsh under S Factory discipline harsh, punishment severe Lateness, absences punished by sacking Sacking meant losing apartment/home Internal passports/Checka prevented free movement of workers within USSR Half a billion cubic feet of excavation work … 25,000 tons of structural steel … without sufficient labor, without necessary quantities of the most rudimentary materials. Brigades of young enthusiasts arrived in the summer of 1930 and did the groundwork of the railroad and dam … Later groups of peasants came … Many were completely unfamiliar with industrial tools and processes … J Scott, Behind the Urals, 1943 Workers: The Bad

  15. Prison labor used for Massive projects Dams & canals built by soviet citizens imprisoned for being political opponents, suspected political opponents, kulaks, Jews, workers who had accidents or made mistakes on the job (charged w/ sabotage) Estimated 100,000 died on Belomor Canal Workers: The Ugly

  16. Few comforts: Almost no consumer goods Severe overcrowding in apartments Families of ten typically had two rooms Wages actually fell between 1928 & 1937 In 1932 a husband & wife working made what just one worker made in 1928 S destroyed ways of life Islam prevalent in Central Asia Between 1928 & 1932 Islam repressed Muslim leaders imprisoned Mosques closed Pilgrimages to Mecca forbidden Industrialization Comes at a Cost

  17. ‘The Five-Year Plans brought glory to Stalin and misery to his people.’ Is that a fair view of Stalin’s industrialization program? In pairs discuss this question. Make sure you look at all the evidence and information before you make up you mind. Activity • Let’s vote (something you couldn’t do in the USSR) • True statement! • False statement!

  18. Fact File: Peasants were to put their lands together to form large joint farms (kolkhoz) but keep small plots for personal use Animals & tools to be pooled together Motor Tractor Stations (MTS), provided by gov’t, made tractors available 90% of kolkhoz produce to be sold to state 10% kolkhoz produce kept to feed peasants Modernizing Agriculture: Collectivization

  19. S needed to modernize agriculture By 1928 USSR 2 million tons short of grain needed to feed workers S needed foreign cash and got it by selling grain abroad Modernizing Agriculture: Collectivization • NEP system not geared for S’s needs • Most peasants either laborers w/o land or rich kulaks • Farms too small to afford/make use of tractors, fertilizers, economies of scale • Most peasants were content to grow enough food for themselves, not enough to feed all citizens of USSR • 1929: Stalin announces collectivization

  20. The govt’s hard sell: Offered free seeds & perks Peasants always suspicious of gov’t (what had (R) gov’t ever done to build trust?) Peasants disliked farms being under control of local Communist official Peasants told to grow cash crops instead of grain to feed themselves S was telling peasants to abandon the one way of life they and their ancestors had known for over 1000 years Modernizing Agriculture: Collectivization • What is the way out [of the food problem]?The way out is to turn the small and scattered peasant farms, gradually but surely, into large farms based on common, co-operative, collective cultivation of the land. There is no other way out. • Stalin in a speech in 1927

  21. Kulaks resisted Simply refused to hand over their land & produce Soviet propaganda tried to turn Russians against Kulaks Requisition parties took all food>starvation 1000s arrested & sent to labor camps where they were worked to death Kulaks retaliated by burning crops & slaughtering all their animals (If we can’t have it, nobody can!) 1932-33: Food production fell Millions starved in Ukraine (best farm land in USSR!) When (G) first reached Ukraine in 1941 they were welcomed as liberating heroes! Despite famine S did not ease off. By 1934 there were no more kulaks. By 1941 almost all farm land was collectivized. S had achieved his aim of collectivization. Forced Collectivization

  22. ‘How are things with you?’ I asked one old man. He looked around anxiously to see that no soldiers were about. ‘We have nothing, absolutely nothing. They have taken everything away.’ It was true. The famine is an organized one. Some of the food that has been taken away from them is being exported to foreign countries. It is literally true that whole villages have been exiled. I saw myself a group of some twenty peasants being marched off under escort. This is so common a sight it no longer arouses even curiosity. Reporter writing for the British newspaper Manchester Guardian, 1933 Why do you think the reports of the famine came only from Western journalists? Stalin, ignoring the great cost in human life and misery, claimed that collectivization was a success; for, after the great famines caused at the time … no more famines came to haunt the Russian people. The collective farms, despite their inefficiencies, did grow more food that the tiny, privately owned holdings had done. For example, 30 to 40 million tons of grain were produced every year. Collectivization also meant the introduction of machines into the countryside. Now 2 million previously backward peasants learned how to drive a tractor. New methods of farming were taught by agricultural experts. The countryside was transformed. Historian E Roberts, Stalin, Man of Steel, published in 1989 According to Roberts, what advantages did collectivization bring? Do you agree that these advantages outweighed the human cost? Why did Stalin need to change farming in the USSR? Why did the peasants resist? Forced Collectivization

  23. Focus Task: Stalin’s economic policies: success or failure? Working w/ a partner, fill out the table w/ details from your notes.

  24. Quotes of Stalin’s 5 Year Plan • Throughout history Russia has been beaten again and again because she was backward … All have beaten her because of her military, industrial and agricultural backwardness. She was beaten because people have been able to get away with it. If you are backward and weak, then you are in the wrong and may be beaten and enslaved. But if you are powerful, people must beware of you. It is sometimes asked whether it is not possible to slow down industrialization a bit. No, comrades, it is not possible … To slacken would mean falling behind. And those who fall behind get beaten … That is why Lenin said during the October Revolution: ‘Either perish, or overtake and outstrip the advanced capitalist countries.’ We are 50 to 100 years behind the advance countries. Either we make good the difference in ten years or they crush us. • Stalin, speaking in 1931 • What are the results of the Five-Year Plan in four years? We did not have an iron and steel industry. Now we have one. We did not have a machine tool industry. Now we have one. We did not have a modern chemicals industry. Now we have one. We did not have a big industry for producing agricultural machinery. Now we have one. • Stalin speaking about the first Five-Year Plan in 1932

  25. Quotes of Stalin’s 5 Year Plan • We got so dirty and we were such young things, small, slender, fragile. But we had our orders to build the metro and we wanted to do it more than anything else. We wore our workers’ overalls with such style. My feet were size four and the boots were elevens. But there was such enthusiasm. • Tatyana Fyodorova, interviewed as an old lady in 1990, remembers building the Moscow underground • As usual, at five o’clock that first morning call was sounded by the blows of a hammer on a length of rail … the sound penetrated the window panes on which the frost lay two inches thick … [Sukhov] remembered that this morning his fate hung in the balance: they wanted to shift the 104th from the building shops to a new site, the ‘Socialist Way of Life’ settlement. It lay in open country covered with snowdrifts, and before anything else could be done there they would have to dig pits and put up posts and attach barbed wire to them. Wire themselves in, so they couldn’t run away … • Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, published in 1962. Solzhenitsyn was probably the most famous dissident in Stalin’s USSR. He spent many years in labor camps. He was exiled in 1974. He lived for the next 20 years in the USA but in 1994 returned to Russia after the fall of Communism.

  26. Quotes of Stalin’s 5 Year Plan • We were led down to the communal kitchen in the basement … ‘My’ section consisted of a packing case and two reeking kerosene stoves. On these I was expected to cook, boil up washing and heat water for an occasional bath taken in a basin in the room above … The room was good for Moscow we were assured. At least we would not have to share with another family. • Betty Rowland, Caviar for Breakfast. The novelist describes her experiences of Russia in the 1930s. • In order to turn peasant society into an industrialized country, countless material and human sacrifices were necessary. The people had to accept this, but it would not be achieved by enthusiasm alone … If a few million people had to perish in the process, history would forgive Comrade Stalin … The great aim demanded great energy that could be drawn from a backward people only by great harshness. • Anatoli Rybakov, Children of the Arbat, 1988. A Russian writer presents Stalin’s viewpoint on the modernization of Russia

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