Revision cards - units 4-5 (industrialisation, collectivisation, culture and society, terror) Flashcards

1
Q

What motivated collectivisation?

A
  • Stalin was determined to solve the peasant problem and make peasants embrace socialism
  • To rid soviet society of Kulaks
  • End large scale private ownership of land
  • By 1928 NEP was failing, agricultural production failed, Kulaks were blamed
  • Opposition to NEP was a key reason for Stalin’s success he had to change agriculture
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2
Q

State farms

A
  • State farms (Sovkhos) workers worked for the state and were paid a wage
  • Kolkhoz - were co-operatives with shared resources and labour and an acre of private plot. Wages came from surpluses
  • Collecitivisation - initially voluntary but people didn’t want to join so was made compulsory = Dizzy with success in 1930 - 25% collectivised by 1940 - 100%
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3
Q

How mechanised were collective farms?

A
  1. MTS set up across the country
  2. 75,000 tractors produced but in 1932 only 1/2 of Russian farms had access. They didn’t make up for the loss of horses.
  3. By 1938, 95% of threshing, 72% of ploughing, 75% of sowing and 48% of harvesting done mechanically
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4
Q

What was the positive impact of collectivisation?

A
  • Did increase production - eventually:

1928 - 73m tons

1940 - 95m tons

  • Grain exports rose

1928 - 0.03m tons

1931 - 5m tons

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5
Q

What was the negative impact of collectivisation?

A
  • Famine - 5-7m dead (1932-33)
  • Resistance - strongest in the Ukraine - led to loss of livestock. Pigs only reached 1914 levels in 1956
  • Between 9.5m and 10m were exiled as part of dekulakisation, often the most successful peasants
  • Mechanisation was slow - Havest of 1933 was 9m tons less than 1926
  • Wages fell by half between 1928 and 1932
  • Meat consumed by urban workers fell by 1/3
  • Failed to end the private market with 50-70% of products produced on private plots
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6
Q

How successful was collectivisation?

A
  • Strengthened Stalin’s control over the party and the peasants
  • United the party behind Stalin and blamed the peasants
  • Many viewed the harsh treatment of the peasants as back to the Civil war period and associated him with heroism
  • Mechanisation did imporve
  • Grain exports allowed the funding of industrialisation
  • Grain procured was more than NEP levels - 1928 - 10.8m tons, 1933 - 22.6m tons
  • Improved urbanisation - providing a workforce
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7
Q

What was Gosplan?

A
  • The soviet central economic agency
  • They made production targets for every factory, mine and workshop
  • Soviet workers and managers were responsible for meeting these targets
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8
Q

What were the aims of industrialisation?

A
  • Preparing for future war
  • Catch up with the West
  • Develop heavy industry

BUT

  • Targets were unrealistic and poorly coordinated

HOWEVER

  • Gigantomania - Moscow underground, Magnitogorsk
  • Production dramatically increased
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9
Q

How successful were the 5YPs?

A
  • Significant increase in production of coal, iron and steel.
  • The Russian economy grew by 14% per year
  • Magnitogorsk, Moscow Underground, Dneiper dam - huge propaganda successes
  • Opportunities for workers - red specialists
  • Some improvement in living standards for some, end to rationing and increased wages in 2FYP
  • Preparation for war
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10
Q

Why were the FYPs unsuccessful?

A
  • Managers lied about targets - so planning was uncoordinated, quality was often low, and scarcity of workers and parts
  • Industrial production lagged behind Germany and the US.
  • Living standards decreased and there were few consumer goods. (1928-1933 milk, fruit and meat consumption fell by 2/3s)
  • Labour discipline and long working weeks
  • Wage differentials but led to division with workers living in barrack housing and senior communists living in 14 room houses.
  • 50% of work force were peasants and turnover was high
  • Economy not prepared for war in 1941
  • Russia did not become self-sufficient
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11
Q

What new centres and projects were created?

A

Magnitogorsk, Dnieper Dam, Belomor Canal, Moscow Metro

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12
Q

How were foreign industrial leaders involved in the development of Russia?

A
  • Henry Ford
  • Learnt the lessons of Western Industrialisation
  • Used 1000s of engineers out of work due to the depression in USA and Europe
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13
Q

What was the cult of Stalin?

A

Stalin became and icon

His images were everywhere

Every achievement was linked to Stalin

Russians were fed a daily diet of Stalin’s achievements via Pravda

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14
Q

What was socialist realism?

A

1932 - Socialist writers were engineers of the human soul

Artists to envision where the soviet state was going and what it would be like

Artists could not show their own interests

Artists had to promote the regime and Stalin

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15
Q

What limits were placed on all types of literature?

A

1934 - Soviet union of writers formed

Had to conform to socialist realism and advance the cause of socialism

Novels glorified the ordinary worker

Some writers such as GOrky conformed, others didn’t

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16
Q

What happened to art and propaganda under Stalin?

A

1929 - Union for artists

images had to conform

1930s art = industrial workers, peasants or Stalin

1931 - union of architects - Moscow metro completed - as a series of palaces for the workers

1932 union of soviet composers - controlled all music

19302 radios popular and used to spread governemtn messages

Cinemas popular - films used to promote Stalin’s successes

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17
Q

What were working conditions like for industrial workers?

A
  • Industrial projects like the Belomor canal were built by prision labour
  • Shortage of trained and skilled workers particular post the purges
  • Labour discipline
  • In 1930 coal workers moved jobs on average 3 times to find better work and conditions
  • Factories were often unsafe
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18
Q

What were conditions like for agricultural workers?

A
  • Many fled in the hope of a better life in the city
  • Life was hard and most did not support communism
  • Peasants didn’t own their land and got little reward for their labour so little incentive to work hard
  • Collectivisation process was devistating with between 9.5m and 10m exiled during the deKulakisation process
  • Living standards fell dramatically
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19
Q

What were living conditions like for industrial workers?

A
  • Many new houses were build without running water or connection to sewers -
  • Milk, meat and fruit consumption fell by 2/3s
  • Overcrowding was common
  • Some new hospitals were built improving heath
  • Most lived in poor conditions - little heating
  • Social inequalities increased

NEED TO ADD STATS to this card

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20
Q

Why did Stalin go for Totalitarianism?

A
  • Complete control over the economy
  • Terror to eliminate opponents
  • complete control of the media
  • used propaganda to win hearts and minds
21
Q

What was the machinery of terror?

A
  • Frightened of his own supporters who might challenge him eg Ryutin (200 page criticism supported by Kirov), or Kirov (more votes than Stalin)
  • 1935-38 The Terror was at its height and was responsible for the death of around 10m Russians
22
Q

What was the NKVD and what were the early purges?

A

NKVD = Secret police

Often used to get rid of critics

used to enforce the purge (purge = to get rid of)

NKVD were superior to most other offices of government

23
Q

What was Kirov’s murder?

A

Dec 1934 - used to start the terror

Kirov was shot.

Suspicions that Stalin was behind it

Kirov was Stalin’s main rival

Allowed Stalin to say there was a conspiracy against the communist party and start full terror

24
Q

What were show trials?

A

Mainly between 1936-8

Made political oppoinets own up to accusations

Arrest, imprison, torture, put on a trial (verdict predecided) and execute

Used to get rid of the leadership rivals of the late 1920s

Ruined reputations

25
Q

What was Stalin’s constitution?

A

1936

The most democratic constitution in the world

Gave freedom to vote, speech, religion but not upheld by law so worthless

26
Q

What was the impact of the Terror?

A

Social

Everyone was affected, created a climate of fear

Political

Got rid of all opposition, and secured Stalin’s power

Economic

1937 height of the purges = economic slowdown

Led to a shortage of workers, expertise and economic planning was impossible as people were terrified of telling the truth about production

27
Q

What was Yezhovschina the Great Terror?

A

From 1937

Eliminated 1920s communists

Created a new generation of loyal communists

Established Stalin’s right to use terror

Wide ranging impact

28
Q

What was mass terror and repression?

A

Mass terror remoed all opposition in the party and the country

1937 even the NKVD were purged losing 20,000 members

1937 the military were purged, executing 85,000 officers

29
Q

HOw were minorities affected by the Terror?

A

Summer 1937 - National groups were purged

Koreans (conflict in Japan), Central and Eastern Europeans (potential support of the Nazis), Chinease and Afghans

30
Q

What were the gulags?

A

Prison camps origninally started in 1918 by Lenin

1930s led to a network being built

1941 there were 8m in camps

Average sentence was 10 years

Hard labour

31
Q

When did the purges end?

A

1939 - Yezhow arrested and shot, replaced by Beria

Signalled the end to waves of arrest and executions

32
Q

What happened to Trotsky?

A

He was exciled in 1928

August 1940 he was exceuted in Mexico

33
Q

Who was responsible for the Terror?

A

Stalin - paranoid and feared being overthrown

Party memebers - who saw advantages for themselves so went along with it.

Lenin - he started a purge of the party in 1918 - they were not violent at the time and used Terror on his external opponents during the Civil War

34
Q

What was the difference between terror under Lenin versus Stalin?

A

Lenin - external enemies - imprisoned and/or killed- class warfare - isolated and reeducated

Satlin - class warfare at a whole nother level! and used it to implement economic reforms, Stalin killed and imprisoned Russians and all types of his own people.

35
Q

How successful was cultural and social change?

The church

A

Partially

1941 - 40,000 churches and 25,000 mosques closed

in 19202 = 60,000 priests in 1941 = 5665, rest sent to Gulags

BUT 1937 census 1/2m say they are religious believers

36
Q

How successful was cultural and social change?

Women

A

Partially

Family code 1936 - Abortion illegal, contraception banned

Birth rate 1935 - 25 per 1000, 1940 - 31 per 1000

Divorce harder, prostitution illegal

BUT divorce rate high 1934 - 37% in Moscow, 150,000 abortions per 57,000 live births and an increase in prostition

1928 - 3m workers in factories but 1940 13m, despite the fact women should be at home!

37
Q

How successful was cultural and social change?

Youth

A

Successful

Reformed the education system - better educated and more skilled workers

1917 - 65% literacy, 1941 - 94% in cities

Komsomol membership

1928 - 2m, 1939 - 7m, 1945 - 15m However, even at the height memebrship only 30% of 15-24 year olds

38
Q

How successful was cultural and social change?

Socialist man

A

Partially

Homosovieticus - opposition was rare, but estimated that only 1/5 workers enthusiastically supproted

Campaigns to improve men’s behaviour to women and reduce alcohol consumpton failed

Culture was enjoyed by many - 600,000 cinema tickets sold annually at Magnitogorsk and in 1936 - 40,000 books sold

But culture was often out of reach of ordinary citizens

39
Q

How does Lenin compare to Stalin?

A

SIMILARITIES

centralised government, strict control of the party, terror for control, censorship, policies to supress the peasantry, central planning of the economy and mobilisation of workers to get things done

DIFFERENCES

Lenin - no terror against memebrs of his own party dictatorship was temporary, centralised state due to circumstances?, encouraged national minorities to stay, whereas Stalin crushed them.

40
Q

What was Stalin’s view of the international situation?

A

He wanted collective security

41
Q

What was Stlain’s policy towards Germany?

A

Non-agression pacts with other European nations

42
Q

Why and when did Stalin join the League of Nations?

A

Sept 1934

For collective security

43
Q

What pacts did Stalin make?

A

Pacts with France and the Czech republic

44
Q

How did Stalin contribute to the Spanish Civil War?

A

Started in July 1936

He sent support to the Republicans

Finance, aid and advice

45
Q

What was the Nazi-Soviet Pact?

A

Stalin signed this with Hitler in August 1939

It surprised Europe and enabled Hitler to start a war with France

It was a non-aggression pact

Stalin didn’t trust HItler but hoped it would buy him time

46
Q

What was collectivisation?

A

1928-1941

Small farms merged into large collectives - ownership of famr’s land and resources - all state owned

47
Q

How did they go about collectivisation?

A

INitially voluntary - he didn’t ropose full collectivisation but it was stepped up by 1930. Partly becuase it had support from the party. Stalin claimed that initial targets were beaten by over 100% (blaming the fierce collectivisation on overzealous party members) said they were ‘Dizzy with success’ and they needed to slow down.

This was just a distraction - famine and forced collectivisation continued hard once the harvest of 1930 was collected in

48
Q

Why did Stalin favour mass industrialisation?

A

‘We are 100 years behind, we must catch up in 10’. He feared they would be defeated if they didn’t.

1928-1941 - 3 plans

Main aim was to industrialise

Centralised planning and investment with Gosplan

Eliminate NEPmen.

It reflected military concerns (particulalry against Germany)

Stalin wanted to assert his authority and prove himself.