Questions for Stalin

1. Questions for Stalin BIG PICTURE (Paper 2 style Qs) Unit specific Qs (Helpful in document analysis) How did Stalin view the USSR? Was Stalin revered by the Russian people? Did Stalin have total control over the Russian people? To what extent was Stalin a Marxist? To what extent was Stalin a Leninist? • For what reasons and by what methods was Stalin able to rise to power? • How did the ideology of Trotsky & Lenin’s revolution differ from the reality of Stalin’s Russia (1924-1953)?

2. Everyday Stalinism – week of 21st • Key Factors in Stalin’s SPS Totalitarian domination of the USSR • Forced Collectivization • Rapid Industrialization (5 Year Plans) • Cult of Personality • Use of Terror (Purges, Show Trials)

3. Collectivization: 1928-1940 • No more private farms • Take land away from KULAKS • Turned into collectives • People (forced to) work on collectives Propaganda Reality

4. Collectivization Forced Collectivization Voluntary Collectivization? Optional Kolkhoz Divide time between state farms and private plots 60-100 days on collective land Low productivity, low quality Saved energy for private plots 3% of land = 1/3 food for USSR • 1930-1931: 400,000 households (2 mill ppl) deported to Siberia • 1930: 2 month period of opting out • 6 mill families out of 14 mill left • By 1932: 60% re-collectivized • Resistance • Destruction of farmland, tools, animals… • By 1933: • ½ horses • ½ sheep and goats • 1/3 cattle

5. Revolution from AboveHow to counter the consequences of the NEP?Radical restructuring of economy • Collectivization • Threat of Kulaks: • 3.9% of pop = 13% grain production • Orthodox, popular, organizers • Abolish private property • All Pop = employees of the state • Only poor peasants stood to benefit (20% pop) • Rapid Industrial Development • Total production = up 235.9% • Electrical power x4 • Coal x2 • Pig iron x3 • Industrial production costs -35% • Prices -24% • 11% difference applied to investments in heavy industry • Labor force required 50% increase in food supply

6. "The USSR transformed itself from an agrarian country into an industrial country." Each circle represents 10% of GNP Sickle – agriculture Hammer -- industry

7. Collectivization Forced Collectivization Voluntary Collectivization? Optional Kolkhoz Divide time between state farms and private plots 60-100 days on collective land Low productivity, low quality Saved energy for private plots 3% of land = 1/3 food for USSR • 1930-1931: 400,000 households (2 mill ppl) deported to Siberia • 1930: 2 month period of opting out • 6 mill families out of 14 mill left • By 1932: 60% re-collectivized • Resistance • Destruction of farmland, tools, animals… • By 1933: • ½ horses • ½ sheep and goats • 1/3 cattle

8. Holodomor“death by starvation” famine as a political weapon • 1932: 75% forced collectivization • Increased mandatory shipments of foodstuffs - - No food left for Ukraine • Soviet troops seized food – house by house • 1933: 25% of population killed

9. Genocide: The deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group

12. Source A: An extract from an article in Pravda on 2 March 1930, in which Stalin appears to condemn forcible collectivisation “The party’s policy rests on the voluntary principle, not force.” Grain growing districts Turkestan = Unfavorable conditions (aka desert)

13. A selection of the official economic planning regions of the USSR4-10 year averages 1954-1965 http://pages.uoregon.edu/kimball/Field.ggr.htm

14. Source B: A Report by a Reuter [international news agency] correspondent, 29 March 1932. Russia today is in the grip of famine. …a Communist denied to me that there was a famine. The government’s policy of collectivisation and the peasants’ resistance to it have brought Russia to the worst catastrophe since the famine of 1921

15. Source C: An extract from The Hinge of Fate, by Winston Churchill, London 1950, in which Churchill records his conversation with Stalin in 1943. Some of them were given land of their own to cultivate in the province of Tomsk, but most of them were very unpopular, and were wiped out by their labourers.” It was absolutely necessary It was bad, but necessary We increased the food supply, and the quality of the grain. Tomsk: One of the oldest towns in Siberia Average annual temperature: 33.57 °F

16. Source D: An extract from A History of Twentieth-Century Russia by Robert Service, London, 1997

17. Source E: A photograph of roll-call at the New Life collective, a farm near Moscow, in the 1930s. The man on the left is a party official checking that the female agricultural workers have arrived for work.

18. Public Letter to a Slacker from Record-breaking Collective Farmers (1933)

19. Kolkhozniks (1934)Every peasant, kolkhozniks or private farmer (edinolichnik) now has the opportunity to live like a human being, if only he wants to work honestly and not slack off, not bum around and not steal kolkhoz property." Iosif Stalin

20. Question 4 Opposing View: Counter Argument Answer the Q: Argument Justify the two arguments: Think like a revisionist…

21. Question 4: PurgesUsing these sources and your own knowledge, explain to what extent you agree with the verdict of Source D, “the purges were successful in eliminating possible alternative leaders and terrorizing the masses into obedience, but the consequences were serious” Opposing View: Terrible consequences, terrorized masses Answer the Q: Purges successfully eliminated opposition Justify the two arguments: Think like a revisionist… Eliminated opposition, but also terrorized people Short term effect – long term impact

22. Opposing View: Terrible consequences, terrorized masses Answer the Q: Purges successfully eliminated opposition Justify the two arguments: Think like a revisionist… Eliminated opposition, but also terrorized people Short term effect – long term impact Document support: Outside info: Historiography: Document support: Outside info: Historiography: Document support: Outside info: Historiography:

23. Answer the Q – Opposing View – Justify the two Can be as simple as: Agree-Disagree-Revise Opposing View: Counter Argument Answer the Q: Argument Justify the two arguments: Think like a revisionist…

24. Answer the Q – Opposing View – Justify the two Can be as simple as: Agree-Disagree-Revise The Price was justified in the “big picture” of USSR stability & IR development The Price Was Awful & Unjustified… Unsuccessful… It was awful, though justifications were made… -IR successes -Not effective agricultural strategy

25. Opposing View: Answer the Q: Justify the two arguments: Think like a revisionist… Document support: Outside info: Historiography: Document support: Outside info: Historiography: Document support: Outside info: Historiography:

26. 1936: Second Kolkhoz Charter • Drafted in 1935 to replace 1930 charter • Distributed to delegates to the Second All-Union Congress of Kolkhoz Shock Workers • 1,433 delegates • Issues: • size of garden ("private") plots for kolkhoz households • maternity benefits • conditions for admission to and expulsion from kolkhozes ? http://englishrussia.com/2010/12/23/hard-life-in-kolkhoz/2/

27. Collectivization represented only a partial victory for the state over the peasantry Successes? Failures? combination of administrative incompetence, under-investment, and peasant alienation/ resistance Long term: extremely low levels of productivity and an agricultural sector Net drain on economic growth • It did bring peasants under the administrative control of the state • Made them technologically dependent http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1936kolkhoz&Year=1936&navi=byYear

28. The Sectarian is the Kulak's Puppet Down with the ancient Grandfather's village http://pmeyer.web.wesleyan.edu/206/206history.html

29. Collectivization of Farms Map "Adventures in the Soviet Imaginary: children’s Books and Graphic Art" http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/webexhibits/sovietchildrensbooks/industrialization.html