STALINISM

Once his power was firmly established, Stalin worked to put the idea of "communism in one country" into practice. He believed that in order to stand alone, the Soviet Union needed to quickly develop into an industrial power. To that end, Stalin introduced the First Soviet Five­Year Plan in 1928.

FIVE-YEAR PLAN. Stalin's First Five-Year Plan had two

primary objectives - to modernize agriculture and to improve industry. Stalin believed that if the Soviets achieved those goals. They could produce their own food and develop a strong independent economy.

The agriculture modernization plan centered on the collectivization of Soviet farms. Collectivization required small farmers to join forces to form large-scale units. Stalin believed th}s policy would lead to increased production. The large agricultural production could be sold internationally to pay for modern equipment and help the country industrialize quickly. However, the peasants liked farming their own land and were reluctant to form themselves into state collectives . Under Lenin's New Economic Policy, many wealthy peasants called kulaks had refused to give a share of their crops to the government. Stalin aimed to force all Soviet farmers to participate in a new system that would be completely controlled by the government.

The kulaks and other peasants fiercely resisted the collectivization effort. They killed about half of all the livestock in the country, burned the i r crops, and destroyed mach i nery and tools.

Nevertheless, Stalin succeeded in establishing complete control over rural life. Poor peasants were forced onto farms run by the state. The kulaks were eliminated as a class. By 1939 more that 96% of Russian farms were collectivized.

Industrialization proceeded at the same time as collectivization. Stalin threw all available resources into developing the Soviet Union's industrial base. Soviet workers were forced to work long hours at low pay.

As a result, industry developed at an amazingly rapid rate. Between 1928 and 1940, production in the steel, electric power, cement, coal, and oil industries more that doubled . Production of electricity increased more that eight times. The Soviet Union became an industrial power virtually overnight. What had taken the rest of European nearly a century, the Soviets accomplished in a little more that ten years.

To enforce his collectivization and industrialization policies and crush all opposition to his power Stalin turned the Cheka (a Communist Secret Police force that had been established in 1917) into a huge organization known as the Government Political Administration (GPU). [Note: In 1934 the Communist Secret Police became known as the Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD).

One result of Stalin's forced collectivization was the Ukraine Famine Genocide when starvation raged through the Soviet republic of Ukraine in 1932-1933. The main goal of this artificial famine was to break the spirit of the Ukrainian farmer/peasant resistance to collectivization by forcing them to participate. In 1932, the Soviets increased the grain production quota for Ukraine by 44%. Stalin was aware that this extraordinarily high quota would result in the inability of the Ukrainian peasants to feed themselves. According to Soviet law, no grain could be given to feed the peasants until the quota was met . Between 7 and 10 million people died during this time and at the height of the Genocide, Ukrainians were dying at a rate of 25,000 per day (17 per minute, 1,000 per hour). Nearly I in 4 rural Ukrainians perished as a direct result and over 3 million children born between 1932-1933 died of hunger. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union exported 1.7 million tons of grain to Western markets (nearly a fifth of a ton of grain was exported for each person who died of starvation).

NKYO officers played a major role in enforcing collectivization and in capturing Soviet citizens who did not support Stalin's regime. After opponents of the government

were identified, they were either executed or sent to labor camps called gulags. Millions of Soviet people were killed or imprisoned under Stalin's rule.

THE GREAT PURGES. In the summer of 1932 Stalin became

aware that opposition to his policies (from within the party) was growing. Some party members were publicly criticizing Stalin and calling for the readmission of Leon Trotsky to the party. Stalin began a series of actions, known as the Great Purges, to remove all opposition in the Communist party. Of the 1,966 delegates that attended the Communist Party Congress in 1934, I, I08 were arrested over the next five years. Only seventy were tried in public. The rest were tried in secret ("mock") trials before being executed.

The NKVD broke prisoners down by intense interrogation, which included the threat arrest and execute mem bers of a prisoner's family if they did not confess. The interrogations went on for several days and nights and eventually the prisoners became so exhausted and disoriented that they signed confessions agreeing that they had been attempting to overthrow the government.

Later, the army and the navy were also

purged of non-Stalinists . In June of 1837, several Red Army commanders were convicted of conspiracy and executed. All told, 30,000 members of the armed forces were executed including 50% of all army officers.

Official figures suggest that between January 1935 and June 1941, the NKVD

arrested 19.8 million people and an estimated seven million of these prisoners were executed.

The last stage of the terror was the

purging of the NKVD itself. Stalin wanted to make sure that those who knew too much about the purges would also be killed. By the end of the 1930x, Stalin had eliminated all resistance to

his rule and become dictator of the Soviet Union. [Note : After the Second World War the

Communist Secret Police was renamed the Committee for State Security; popularly known as the KGB.]

Little by little, Stalin lessened the harshness of his ru Ie in the late 1930s. He knew that unless he provided the Soviet people with some freedoms, they would rebel against the purges and the actions of the Secret Po I ice.

As a result, small luxury goods were made available to Soviet consumers and educational facilities in the country were improved . Advancement through the ranks of the alms was made easier. The Soviets even relaxed some of their restrictions against religious groups.

These efforts settled the country and softened the reaction of the Soviet people to the establishment of Stalin's dictatorship. As Europe move toward World War II, the Soviet Union was as stable as could be expected of a nation that had changed so much in so short a time.

STALINISM QUESTIONS

Directions: Answer each of the following items on a separate sheet of notebook paper. Be sure to either write the question or answer them in com p I ete sentences.

I. What did Stalin believe the Soviet Union needed to do to "stand alone" as a world power?

2. What was Stalin's plan for achieving this goal? Describe the plan.

3. What role did collectivization of agriculture play in Stalin's plan?

4. Who were the kulaks? How did the kulaks react to collectivization? Were they successful?

5. Was the Five-Year-Plan a success? Explain.

6. Who were the Cheka/NKVD. What was their job?

7 What caused the Ukraine Famine-Genocide? What was the goal ofthe "artificial famine"? What were the results of the actual famine?

8. What were gulags? Who was sent there?

9. What were The Great Purges? Who was purged? What role did the NKVD play? What was the result of the purges?