The Great Patriotic War and Stalin’s Dictatorship, 1941–1953

Question 1

Operation Barbarossa

Answer 1

German invasion of the USSR launched June 1941

3 million invaded, intended to be a quick victory before winter

Question 2

Was Stalin prepared for operation Barbarossa?

Answer 2

No, he thoguht that to plan would be a direct confrontation

Took 2 weeks for Stalin to respond and speak publically

3 rd June – Stalin made a speech stressing
the themes of patriotism, religion and
unity

Question 3

Leadership during Operation Barbarossa

Answer 3

Stalin indicisive

Soviet army had inexperienced officers due to the military purges of 1937

Stalin refused to allow his sothern armies to retreat until it was too late

Question 4

What happened in 1941?

Answer 4

German offensive invade

German army pushed back from Moscow during December

Huge initial losses for the soviets - 665000 soldiers lost at Kiev

Question 5

What happened in 1942?

Answer 5

New German offensive towards the oilfields

German advance halted at Stalingrad

Russia attempts to establish it’s war economy (Hitler did not have enough resources to compete)

Question 6

What happened in 1943?

Answer 6

Feb - Germany surrender at Stalingrad

German offensive defeated at Kursk

Kiev liberated by Red Army

Soviets begin to claim victories across eastern Europe

Question 7

What happened in 1944?

Answer 7

Seige of Leningrad ends

Question 8

What happened in 1945?

Answer 8

Soviet forces capture Warsaw

Yalta summit meeting to plan postwar world

Defeat of Germany and surrender of Japan

Question 9

Impact of the GPW?

Answer 9

USSR suffered from great losses, food fuel and shelter in short supply

Around 12 million soviet citizens die in the war

1700 towns and cities and 70,000 villages were destroyed

Thousands of soviets held as prisoners of war

Question 10

How did the USSR mistrerat their own during the GPW?

Answer 10

Arrests of slackers, deserters

170,000 military personnel executed for treason

Mass deportation of minority groups

Question 11

Soviet war economy

Answer 11

Stalin’s early errors lost millions of
Red Army men and equipment

Conscriptions brought 29 million men to the red army

German occupation of the western regions destroyed the societ economy, factories relocate to the Urals

Whole factories were dismantled and moved using 20,000 trains - 500 moved from Moscow

Question 12

How did the USSR improve their military resources?

Answer 12

During 1942, the USSR began to build a huge industrial base for war production

Improvement made to military equipment and tactics, T-34 tank was powerful but quick to make and repair

War fought at home allowed resources to travel quickly

Question 13

Reasons for Soviet Victory during the GPW?

Answer 13

1. German Weakness, strat relied on swiftness, from 1941 Germany had to fight on 2 fronts, experienced generals replaced with ‘yes men’
2. Soviet Strengths, Geographical size of USSR meant German resources were stretched, population 3 x that of Germany, Stalin’s war committee became highly effective, propaganda motivated people e.g 4 million volounteers in civilian defence
3. Foreign Aid, 300,000 American trucks were supplied through the US Lend-Lease scheme, Britain and France bomb Germany

Question 14

Result of USSR victory in the GPW?

Answer 14

Superpower status

Communism seen defeating fascism

Cult of Stalin Strengthened

Baltic state territorial gains

20 million dead

Cold war tensions develop

Question 15

How did Soviet industry recover?

Answer 15

Stalin promised Soviet industry would be powerful by 1960

Gosplan launch 4th 5 year plan in 1946, focusing on reconstruction

In 1945, mining production, electricity generation and steel production were around half of 1940 levels

Transport disrupted

High investment in military effort meant less investment elsewhere

Death of civilians meant workers shortage

Question 16

How successful was industrial recovery?

Answer 16

Most targets met or exceeded

More coal, oil, steel, cement and electricity were being produced in 1950 compared to 1940

Some improvement to consumer goods

Production of shoes, clothes and furniture lagged behind pre-war levels which were already inadequate

Question 17

How did soviet agriculture recover?

Answer 17

98,000 collective farms destroyed, machinery and livestock destroyed

Food production in 1945 was at 60% of 1940 levels

Labour shortage

1946 driest year sinch 1891, 1.5 million die due to famine

Payments for farm products were kept very low and taxes were increased, recovery slow

Question 18

What was high stalinism?

Answer 18

During WW2 many aspects of Stalins dictatorship were softened e.g churches reopened

After WW2, repression returned, period called ‘high stalinism’ and was most repressive period

No party congress between 1939 to 52

Red Army and generals were demoted e.g Zhukov so they weren’t too powerful

Stalin encouraged rivalries within inner circle

Question 19

How did the cult of personality grow?

Answer 19

Stalin as heroic leader, replaced October rev with greatest victory

It became customary for all books and
articles to start and end with a paragraph
acknowledging Stalin’s genius on the topic

Towns and cities renamed after Stalin

Question 20

Isolation from the West

Answer 20

Cold war tensions rise, fear of soviets losing their dedication to USSR and communism

Around 15% of the 1.8 million returned
prisoners of war were sent to the gulags

Any contact with foreigners could result in arrest, 1947 illegal to marry a foreigner

Under Zhdanovism, western cultural
influences were blocked – no foreign newspapers and only a few approved books
were translated into Russian

Question 21

Zhdanovism and the cultural purge

Answer 21

Appointed lead of cultural policy in 1946, support socialist realism

Writers who did not fit party lines were forced to publically apologise or leave the Soviet writers union

Scientific theories were snuffed if they opposed marxist beliefs

Question 22

NKVD under Beria

Answer 22

Beria deputy prime minister, head of USSR atomic weapon programme

NKVD reorganised to:

MVD control domestic security and gulags

MGB control espionage

Question 23

The Leningrad Affair

Answer 23

Stalin suspicious of party base in Leningrad

By 1948, Zhdanov fell out of favour with
Stalin

On his death, Stalin launched a purge of
the Leningrad party – leading party
officials loyal to Zhdanov were arrested,
interrogated and executed

By 1950, 2000 party officials were replaced by pro-Stalinists

Question 24

The Doctors Plot

Answer 24

A doctor and police informer accused the
doctors who treated Zhdanov of
contributing to his death

1952, Stalin uses this as an opportunity to arrest Jewish doctors

Thousands of ordinary Jews were caught
in the purge, including Molotov and
Kalinin’s wives

9 doctors condemned to death but Stalin died before their execution

Question 25

Emergence as a Superpower

Answer 25

Post war Stalin wants to gain as much control across Central Europe in order to create a buffer zone

They were a military-industrial war
machine with 7.5 million well-equipped
soldiers

Developed an atomic bomb by 1949

Question 26

Formation of the Soviet Bloc

Answer 26

By 1948, most of the Easter European
countries had either been absorbed into the
USSR or turned into satellite states (Companies which had pro soviet governemnts)

1939 – Eastern Poland was annexed by the
USSR under the terms of the Nazi Soviet Pact

1940 - Baltic States occupied

1945 – Communists led by Josip Tito gained
control of Yugoslavia

Question 27

Conflict with USA and Capitalism

Answer 27

In 1943, the Allies met at Tehran and agreed to demand unconditional surrender – more to stop separate peaces being drawn, 1944 Churchill and Stalin argue over Poland

In February 1945, the Yalta conference was
dominated by conflicting ideas about post-war borders of Germany and Poland

Question 28

How did relations break down in 1946?

Answer 28

USA and Britain concerned with USSR expansion

Former Prime Minister Churchill, gave a speech warning of an Iron Curtain falling across Europe and urged for strength in dealing with the USSR

Question 29

How did relations break down in 1947?

Answer 29

In June the Marshall plan, which offered US aid to European economies, was met with hostility by Stalin

Question 30

How did relations break down in 1948-49

Answer 30

From June 948, the Berlin Blockade saw Stalin cut off all road and rail links between Berlin and the Western zones of Germany

NATO was formed in 1949 – this was an Atlantic alliance for the defence of Europe and was seen as a threat by the USSR

USSR atomic bomb increase cold war tensions

The victory of the Chinese Communist Party in 1950 further worried the Capitalist West

Question 31

Stalin’s death and legacy

Answer 31

Stalin dies following a stroke in 1953

Legacy? USSR world leader in industry and nuclear power

Cold war tensions high

No clear successor, Beria executed