economic policies

Question 1

WHY economic policies

Answer 1

industrialise and modernise USSR
‘soviet america’
practical and ideological
world industrial power

Question 2

WHY industrialisation

Answer 2

1) increase military strength
2) achieve self sufficiency
3) increase grain supplies
4) move towards socialist society
5) establish credentials
6) improve living standards

Question 3

significance of agriculture

Answer 3

need to spend money on factories, machinery and equipment to produce goods > to industrialise a country

buy resources from foreign countries > machinery and equipment

USSR resources > gold, furs, timber, oil, products to export

USSR not in position for loans like tsars could get

only source of wealth is agriculture
surplus grain exported for foreign currency
to buy industrial capital equipment

peasants need produce more to feed growing city workforce
annually state had to obtain food for cities and grain export

PROBLEM: was that agricultural production was in the hands of the millions of peasants who could hold the great socialist experiment to ransom
If they did not yield up sufficient grain, the push to industrialisation could not move forward

Question 4

types of collective farm

Answer 4

toz: peasants owned land but shared machinery
cooperated in activities like sowing and harvest ing
most common before 1930

sovkhoz: owned and run by state
paid regular wage
like factory workers

kolkhoz: land held in common
run by elected committee
50-100 households put tgt
land tools livestock pooled
farmed land as one unit
each household allowed to keep own priv plot of land up to one acre
use this to grow vegetables and keep a cow, a pig and fowl

initially wanted more sovkhozes but kolkhozes became most favoured by communists in 1930s

Question 5

why collectivisation solution to agricultural issues?

Answer 5

1) MTS, larger units farmed effectively bc mechanisation > net result = higher food production

2) fewer peasants needed > more labour for new industries

3) easier for state to procure grain needed for cities and export > fewer collection points and each farm have communist supporters

4) socialist solution
remove privitisation of land
live in socialist agro towns
apartments not huts
children in creches
eat in restaurants and visit libraries and gyms
live communally work tgt cooperatively

Question 6

why RAPID collectivisation

Answer 6

grain procurement crisis
1928-1929
grain seizures
resistance from peasants
crack down on resistance and solve procurement crisis

lack of prep and planning for rev in soviet agriculture

Question 7

flopism of rapid collectivisation

Answer 7

not enough tractors, combine harvesters, agricultural experts or supplies of fertiliser to carry out a high-speed collectivisation programme

BUT 1927 war scare made need for industrialisation more urgent

historians have also shown that there was a lot of support for collectivisation among the urban working class

saw the socialisation of the land as a key part of the revolution and the way out of poverty towards the great society. Whether they, or indeed Stalin, had any idea of what this would entail is a different matter.

Question 8

other issues stalin faced

Answer 8

trying to push forward rapid industrialisation plans upon which his credibility as a leader was staked

dealing with the problem of feeding the workers, his natural supporters

engaged in a power struggle to become leader of the party

fighting a political battle with Bukharin and the right about the pace of industrialisation and how they should handle the peasants

looking at the results of the Urals–Siberian method in 1929, which appeared to have been a successful way of getting grain from the peasants

thinking about a long-term solution to allow the development of agriculture, which for Communists had always been collectivisation and agrotowns

personality also has a role to play here and he had a history of taking revenge on people who thwarted him

Question 9

how was collectivisation carried out?

Answer 9

force terror propaganda

Question 10

why kulaks as class enemy

Answer 10

frighten the middle and poor peasants into joining the kolkhozes. But villagers were often unwilling to identify kulaks, many of whom were relatives or friends, people who might have helped them out in difficult times or lent them animals to plough their land. Even if the kulaks were not liked, they were part of a village community in which the ties to fellow peasants were much stronger than those to the Communist state. In some villages, poor peasants wrote letters in support of their richer neighbours. Meanwhile, richer peasants quickly sold their animals and stopped hiring labourers so that they could slip into the ranks of the middle peasants.

Question 11

twenty five thousanders

Answer 11

army of 25,000 urban party activists to help to revolutionise the countryside. After a two-week course, they were sent out in brigades to oversee the collectivisation process, backed by the local police, the OGPU (secret police) and the military.

had no real knowledge of how to organise or run a collective farm, but they did know how to wage class warfare. ‘Dekulakisation’ went ahead at full speed. Each region was given a number of kulaks to find and they found them whether they existed or not.

Question 12

dekulakisation

Answer 12

decree
1st feb 1930
gave local party organisations the power to use ‘necessary measures’ against the kulaks

Question 13

peasant resistance

Answer 13

mass deportations
riots and armed resistance
burned crops, tools and houses rather than hand them over to the state

WOMEN > revolts reported in press
kaganovich, a member of the Politburo, recognised that ‘women had played the most advanced role in the reaction against the collective farm’.
carefully organised with specific goals
stopping grain requisitioning or retrieving collectivised horses
more difficult for troops to act against all-women protests the government found their tactics difficult to deal with.

Question 14

impact on peasants

Answer 14

half of peasant households collectivised by end feb 1930
BUT actly disaster

25-30% cattle slaughtered

stalin march 1930 pravda officials ‘dizzy w success’

Stalin called for a return to the voluntary principle and an end to coercion
^ many abandoned collective farm

end 1931 50% collectivisation

end 1931 22.8mil tons grain collected
but drop in production

spring 1932 famine > holdomor ukraine etc
robert conquest says 7mil deaths in the harvest of sorrow 1986

ukraine breadbasket of russia
1931 32 high grain targets
grain dumped or left to rot
while starving ppl cant have it
punished by gulags or shot

1932 exported 1.73 mil tons
1933 worst famine era only slightly les

Question 15

law of 7 aug 1932

Answer 15

law of seven eights
ten year sentence for stealing socialised property
then changed to death sentence
aug and dec decrees prison sentences for peasants selling b4 quotas met

Question 16

collectivisation after 1934 stats

Answer 16

end 1934 70% households in collectives
1936 90%
1930 grain production slayful
1935 exceeded pre collectivisation levels

meat production 1953 pass pre collectivisation levels

priv plots 52% veges 57% fruits 70% meat 71% milk butter honey wool for USSR customers

Question 17

sheila fitzpatrick

Answer 17

Stalin’s Peasants (1994) maintains that the peasants developed all sorts of ways of subverting the farms and turning matters to their advantage

Question 18

Roy Medvedev

Answer 18

estimates that some ten million peasants were dispossessed between 1929 and 1932, of whom around two or three million lost their lives
end up in gulags

Question 19

Robert Conquest famine

Answer 19

7 mil died
5 mil in holdomor/ukraine alone

Question 20

“Collectivisation was a disastrous policy for the USSR” How far do you agree? (30)

Answer 20

1) impact on peasants
2) impact on urban workers
3) impact on kulaks
4) impact on state and stalin

conclusion: needed to modernise, but human cost can’t be justified

Question 21

Assess the impacts of collectivisation on the russian people (30)

Answer 21

1) impact on peasants
2) impact on urban workers
3) impact on kulaks
4) impact on state and stalin

Question 22

HOW five year plans organised

Answer 22

central planning
broad directions changed as went alone

targets backed by law
The People’s Commissariats (ministries or government departments) were responsible for working out more detailed plans for different regions and the enterprises under their control

1934 developed industrial commissariats: heavy, light, timber, food
1939 20 commissariats
top down management
GOSPLAN state planning commission 1921
given the job of working out the figures – the inputs each industry would need and the output each had to produce – to meet overall targets for the plan

party laid down basic priorities
day to day running, grip on economy @ all levels
senior party officials appointed and dismissed planners and senior managers, often for political rather than economic reasons

1930-1937 commissariat for heavy industry led by sergei ordzhonikidze

local level > party checked enterprises fulfilling plans
party secretaries held responsible if industrial enterprises in their area flopped

Question 23

features of 5yps

Answer 23

1930s emphasis on development of heavy industry
stalin and supreme econ council vesenkha agreed major investment for coal, iron, steel > heavy industries
provide power capital equipment and machine tools to manufacture other products
autarky

always declared complete a year ahead of schedule
denoted superiority of soviet planning over western capitalist economies who in GD

Question 24

industrial centres

Answer 24

magnitogorsk urals
kuznetz western siberia
most located east of the ural mountains > less vulnerable to attack from west

Question 25

gigantomania

Answer 25

projects to demo might of new soviet industrial machine dnieprostoi dam east russia for 2 years world's largest construction site increased soviet electric power x5 when came on stream moscow volga canal moscow metro

Question 26

foreign participation

Answer 26

companies send specialists, engineers, skilled workers erect new factories or exploit new resources henry ford helped russians develop car industry russian engineers trained by ford in USA ford designed cars produced in gorky car plank colonel hugh cooper engineer in charge or dniepostroi dam was american a. ruckseyer man behind growth in asbestos industry at remote place in urals called asbest also american skilled workers brit american etc came for many reasons ideological but also bc GD so unemployment in west GD convinced people capitalism in death throes and dynamic soviet union offered hope for the future of working people

Question 27

first 5yp

Answer 27

oct 1928-dec 1932 heavy industries > coal, oil, iron and steel, electricity, cement, metals, timber 80% total investment 1500 enterprises opened electricity trebled coal and iron output doubled steel increased by 1/3 engineering industry developed > output of machine tools turbines etc new industrial complexes new tractor works in stalingrad, kharkov etc little growth/decline in consumer industries like house building fertilisers food processing woollen textiles small workshops byebye > rid of NEPMEN and shortages in material and fuel chemical targets not fulfilled lack of skilled workers so problems > kept changing jobs so instability many targets not met GD > grain and raw material price down USSR can't earn from exports to pay for machinery needed investment had to go into agriculture bc forced collectivisation programme but USSR economy kick started impressive growth in certain economy sectors substantial achievement

Question 28

second 5yp

Answer 28

jan 1933-dec 1937 new industries opened up focus on communications > railway links to cities and industrial centres 4500 enterprises opened dnieprostoi dam cmg into use heavy industries benefited electricy production expanded 1937 self sufficiency in machine making and metalworking transport and comms grew chemical industries eg fertiliser growing metallurgy developed > copper zinc tin mined BUT consumer goods lagging even tho signs of recovery growth in footwear and food processing ^ modern bakeries, ice cream, meatpacking BUT not enough feeling that stalin overreached in 1st plan and targets too high 2nd plan consolidation 1934-1936 three good years pressure not intense food rationing end families have disposable income

Question 29

third 5yp

Answer 29

only 3.5 years USSR joined WW2 heavy industry for armaments heavy industry growing but uneven and some poorly defense and armaments grew bc resources diverted to them WEAKNESSES steel production flop oil production not meet target > fuel crisis consumer industries took backseat many factories run out of short materials difficulties @ start of 1938 bc hard winter and diversion of materials to military GOSPLAN chaos bc purges shortage of quali personnel > managers, engirneers, officials to link industries and gov

Question 30

sheila fitzpatrick cultural rev

Answer 30

first 5yp Sheila Fitzpatrick talks of this period as one in which the ‘spirit of a Cultural Revolution’ swept people along.

Question 31

Alec Nove third 5yp

Answer 31

There was a fuel crisis when the oil industry failed to meet its modest targets. As Europe moved towards war, resources were channelled into the armaments industry and this created shortages elsewhere. Alec Nove, places much of the blame for this slowdown on the purges that were in full swing in 1936 and 1937 . purges deprived the economy of valuable personnel and paralysed the ability of administrators and party officials to take the initiative and solve problems.

Question 32

5yp management

Answer 32

Wage differentials and incentives To stop workers ‘flitting’ from job to job, wage differentials (i.e. paying some people more than others egalitarianism of wages abandoned 1931 piece work > payment by piece of work to up productivity training > many of the training programmes were poor and trainees were rushed through by poor instructors. The situation improved in the Second Five-Year Plan with fewer but better training schemes made available tough measures 1930 1933 deal w absentees dismissal, eviction from factory owned homes, loss of beenfits prison sentence 1938 labour books and internal passports 1940 absenteeism crime > 2 offences = prison sentence forced labour labour shortages 300000 prisoner worked on baltic white sea canal ^ kulaks april 1930 criminals sentenced over 3 yrs sent to labour camps or cheap labour self supporting lumber camps frozen north > timber exported for industrial investment money great purges mid 1930s more forced labour propaganda shock brigade campaigns build damns socialist competition limited success stakhanovite movement problems in economy but productivity improved

Question 33

urban living standards

Answer 33

1st 5yp workers suffered lack of consumer goods and food rationing leningrad and moscow 1928-1933 meat, milk, fruit consumption down by 2/3 cities and towns growing by 200k monthly overcrowding and bad sanitation brutish violent crime ridden housing sub standard bc materials gone for factory building town transport, mainly trams, was also invariably packed shortage of water, shops, catering centralised distribution system was poor and the shops often lacked basic commodities some industrial enterprises set up their own shops, bringing in food from farms, and the peasants supplied towns with milk, eggs, vegetables and meat from their private plots

Question 34

Assess the reasons for the introduction of Stalin’s five year plan in 1928 (30)

Answer 34

1) establish war economy 2) consolidate political power 3) improve standards of living? 4) agricultural modernisation to fund industrialisation 5) commitment to marxism leninism 6) autarky

Question 35

“Russia gained little, and lost much” Assess this view on the results of Stalin’s economic policies (30)

Question 36

‘Industrialisation benefitted both the Soviet state and the Soviet people.’ How far do you agree? (30)

Answer 36

STATE: 1) economic and military aims 2) military aims 3) benefits to stalin PEOPLE: 1) impact on peasants 2) impact on kulaks 3) urban workers

Question 37

‘The main aim of all Stalin’s policies was to gain maximum power for himself.’ How far do you agree? (30)

Answer 37

POWER: 1) political purges and the great terror; get rid of the opps 2) control over economy/command economy + workers peasants kulaks etc 3) cult of personality NOT POWER: 1) marxism leninism/ideology 2) econ transformation > autarky and war 3) cultural control

Question 38

‘Motivated more by ideology than by practical considerations.’ Discuss this view of Stalin’s economic policies. (30)

Answer 38

YES IDEOLOGY: 1) classless society 2) abolition of priv property 3) centralised command economy 4) proletarian society OTHER PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS: 1) military and war economy 2) increase grain supply 3) working w foreign 4) rid of NEP 5) autarky 6) urbanise and mobilise labour