Stalin Industrialisation Flashcards
(16 cards)
Industrialisation good
Coal and iron output doubled
Electricity production tripled
Steel production increased by two thirds
Massive gains in heavy industry and engineering - military became stronger
Workforce doubled between 1926-1939
Urban population doubled from 26 million to 56 million
Command economy during Great Depression made them self sufficient - Autarky
Engineering industry developed
Huge industrial complexes built alongside new tractor works
Industrialisation bad
Human cost - Urban overcrowding and food shortages
Neglected consumer products until third five year plan - then got interrupted by the war - Agriculture was weakened by the famine from 1922 to 1934
Wastage - Unrealistic targets and quotes led to over and underproduction - products also low in quality amidst zeal to meet targets - also corruption and bribery
Lack of transportation and skilled workers
Good social outcomes of industrialisation
Stakhanovite movements inspired a larger workforce
New cities were created - Magnitogorsk
Educational and training programs were introduced - better vocational training
Bad social outcomes of industrialisation
Absenteeism was punished
Strong propaganda and brainwashing
Resentment because of the emphasis on productivity
Decline in living standards - Housing remained scarce, especially in urban hubs of Leningrad and Moscow where populations grew by 200,000 per month, overcrowded barracks, shortage in water and other facilities
Blue White Sea canal - thousands of people died
Collectivisation bad
Gulags
Inefficient in terms of the farms
Class warfare - Nomenklatura
Famine in holdomor in Ukraine
30% of cattle slaughtered
Most enterprising peasants shot or deported - Law of seventh eighths
22.8 million tons of grain requisitioned at the cost of 7 million peasants
Second serfdom - draconian laws that punished them - but still managed to have black markets from their private plots
Collectivisation good
Nationalise state resources - started through war communism
Centralised economic planning
Got rid of class system! Kind of - dekulakisation
Was necessary to prepare for Russia’s rapid industrialisation
Needed sufficient to trade overseas for capital investment and kickstart industrialisation
Mechanise and improve agricultural production
Political impacts of his economic policies
Strengthened Stalin’s authority and position
Show trials allowed him to eliminate internal opposition
Great Terror in 1936-38 - purges
Centralised control over the economy - eliminated private industry, mobilised resources and matched the aims of the great turn
Prepared for war by 1941, and had mass production of weapons due to their strong industrial base
Political failures
Excessive use of terror and creation of chaos through inefficiency
Overuse of propaganda and fear led to a false reporting on targets
Massive human cost - forced labours, prisoners, gulags
Stifled innovation since managers wanted to avoid the risk of being labelled as saboteurs
Historians
Robert Conquest - ideological tyrant
Steven Cotkin - strategic necessity for Stalin
Timothy Snyder and Ian Kershaw - compare to Hitler, and how Stalin cared more about ideological conformity and centralisation of power
Why industrialise?
Increase military strength
To achieve self-sufficiency
To increase grain supplies - did not want to be at the mercy of the peasantry
To move towards a socialist society
To establish his credentials
To improve standards of living - wealth creation and optics of communism
Why was collectivisation carried out so rapidly
Grain procurement crisis of 1928-29, peasant retaliation
Break peasant’s stronghold after getting rid of the right
1927 war scare
Rapid industrialisation plans
Needed to feed the workers
Power struggle
Long term development of agriculture - had always been about collectivisation and agrotowns for the communists
How collectivisation?
Force, terror and propaganda
Villainisation of the Kulaks to frighten the peasants into joining the Kolkhozes
But people refused to give up the kulaks - so the twenty five thousanders waged class warfare to deport them - also propaganda
Peasants resistance to collectivisation
Slaughtering animals
Women’s protests
Evaluation on collectivisation
Grain harvests dropped drastically
Animal population dropped drastically
State procurement continued
Labour fled to the cities
Resources for industrialisation procured
Grain became less valuable bc Great Depression
Horrendous human costs - 10 million peasants dispossessed, 7 million peasants starved bc of famine with about 5 million in Ukraine alone
Comments on the five year plans
First - many targets not met, grain prices driven down by Great Depression so it could not earn enough from exports to pay for machinery, and a good deal of investment had to go into agriculture because of forced collectivisation - still though, massive growth in certain sectors
Second - consolidation - three good years with less pressure and no food rationing with families having more disposable income
Third - ran into difficulties due to a hard winter and division of materials into the military - Gosplan thrown into chaos when purges created shortages, especially important managers engineers and officials who linked industries and government
How did industries manage the five year plans
Wage differentials to stop flitting
Honours
Piece work
Dismissal and eviction for absentees, labour book
Forced labour
Propaganda and encouragement - Stakhanovite movement
