Chap 2.2 To what extent did Stalin’s dictatorship devastate the Soviet Union?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/russia-reconsiders-the-official-view-of-stalin/7229.html

Stalin’s leadership: from 1929 – 1953.

• The Soviet Union became one of the most industrialized countries during that period.

• BUT…… It is estimated that he caused the deaths of no fewer than 15 million Soviets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awxHKqEquco

Slave labourers in gulags (Soviet labour camps)

Joseph Stalin

One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.

But his leadership continues to evoke intense and sometimes contrasting emotions….

Communist supporter kissing a portrait of Stalin, Feb 2010

7 Feb 2013 – Statue of Stalin removed and painted pink by unidentified

vandalizers

To what extent did Stalin’s dictatorship devastate the

Soviet Union?

Economic Impact of Stalin’s Policies

Stalin’s Economic Policies

Rapid Industrialization

(cities)

Collectivization(countryside)

Stalin’s Aims• To modernise the Soviet Union

• Achieve same economic and military levels as the Western powers.

• Rapid industrialization and agriculture were to work hand in hand

• Launched a series of Five-Year Plans – targets were set for industrial and agricultural development.

But ironically, collectivisation resulted in millions of deaths!

How did it happen?

After today’s lesson… you won’t want to waste food ever again!

Agriculture before collectivisation

• Lenin’s NEP• Farmers allowed to possess their own land.• Farmers could plant crops for personal use and sell extra

crops for profit.• A new class of wealthy peasants (kulaks) formed. They

owned 98% of the agricultural land in the USSR. • To make even more profits, kulaks sometimes hoarded

their crops.• Others chose to eat all of their crops instead of selling

them.• Result: food shortages in the cities and towns.

Stalin’s goal: to increase the

amount of crops produced by the

farms

Stalin’s goal for Russia

"Agriculture is developing slowly, comrades. This is because we have about 25 million

individually owned farms. They are the most primitive and

undeveloped form of economy. We must

do our utmost to develop large farms and to convert them into grain factories

for the country.”

WHAT IS COLLECTIVISATION?

• Farms in the same area were grouped into a unit to form a larger collective farm (kolkhoz).

• It was thought that larger units of farms could be farmed more efficiently through mechanization such as tractors.

• Land owned by the state; crops distributed by the state.• Equipment such as tractors were provided by the state.

• Quantities of crops that farmers were to produce, as well as their working hours and wages were fixed by the state. (In this way, farmers became paid labourers.) Farmers kept and shared about 10% of the crops, the rest was sold to the state for a very low price, which was fixed.

• Farmers who produced low quantities or were absent from work were punished.

Aims of Collectivisation• To increase agricultural output from collective farms• To make food production more efficient• To make tax collection more efficient• To reduce the manpower needed for farms so that more

people can work in the cities.

• By 1935, almost all the farms in the USSR were kolkhozy.

Persuading the peasants……

The caption reads ‘Comrade, come join the kolkhoz’!

Down with the ancient

grandfather’s village!

How did the peasants respond to collectivisation?

Peasant 1

This idea sounds good. With

collectivisation, I will be a co-owner of the land and I will get what the other peasants with land get.

Peasant 2

It sounds fine for those of us who

work hard, but what about those who are lazy? Why should we

share our hard-owned money with

them?

Kulak

In the past, we got high prices for selling our crops. Now with collectivisation, we

have to sell our produce at very low

prices to the government.

Results:• Many peasants, especially the kulaks, slaughtered their livestock, burnt their grain and produce and hit or buried their crops in the ground to prevent them from being taken over by the state.

• Bad harvest contributed to the Great Famine of 1932 – 1933. Millions of peasants in parts of the USSR starved to death.

• Grain harvest dropped dramatically between 1931 and 1934 and did not recover to their 1928 level.

• Loss of animal production (cattle pigs and sheep) were not recovered until after WW2 in 1945.

• .

• The state, however, managed to collect the grain it needed to feed the industrial towns and export them to buy industrial equipment.

• Manpower for new factories was found as peasants left the countryside.

Famine in Ukraine (Additional Info)

• Ukraine – ‘bread basket of Soviet Union’

• Food from Ukraine sustained the lives of millions of people as it was sent to the other parts of the Soviet Union that did not produce enough food.

The Holodomor, 1932 – 1933 • The Holodomor: “Death by Forced Starvation”

• A famine that was “engineered”/ “man-made”.

• Part of Stalin’s programme to crush peasant resistance.• Increased Ukraine’s grain contribution by 44%.

(Deliberate decision because they knew this would caused food shortages in Ukraine.)

Victims of the ukraine famine

Negative impacts of Collectivization – Peasants caught withhuman body parts – Cannibalism as a result of famine

Estimated death toll – between 7 – 11 million people!

Famine everywhere!

• When famine in Ukraine occurred, other parts of the Soviet Union suffered from food shortages as well!

Eyewitness account of the famine:

I would climb a cherry tree and would eat cherries, green cherries. My body swelled up, and sometimes I survived eating only grass and leaves. That was all my food.

Eyewitness account of the famine:

I would climb a cherry tree and would eat cherries, green cherries. My body swelled up, and sometimes I survived eating only grass and leaves. That was all my food.

Rejecting International Aid• Stalin sought to suppress information about the famine.

• Instead, he inflated figures of food production and boasted about how successful collectivization was.

• Stalin rejected any international aid.

Stalin’s Economic Policies

Rapid Industrialization

Collectivization

42

Stalin in a 1931 speech to factory managers explaining the need for rapid industrialisation

“We must put an end to backwardness in the shortest possible time. We are 50 to 100 years behind the advanced countries. We must catch up in 10 years or they will crush us.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_8e_OUUA2s (play from 0.00-0.26 and 3.09-09.38)

Industrialization

• Not just industrialization, but RAPID industrialization!

“And when we have the Soviet Union on an automobile and

the farmer on a tractor, let them try

to overtake us!”

Rapid Industrialization• Emphasis on development of heavy industries

• E.g.: steel, coal, electricity, oil• Hardest steel from Soviet mills was named Stalinite.

(Stalin a humble man? Go figure)

• Hundreds of new factories were built, and the industrial workforce expanded.

• As with collectivisation, the state set quotas for producing farming machinery and other factory goods.

• Working hours and wages of factory workers were also fixed.

[Under-construction] world’s largest blast

furnace in Magnitogorsk (a new industrial city in the

USSR)

Excavating for the building of a steel plant inMagnitogorsk, 1930s

Evaluation of the Five-Year Plans

• Five-Year Plans were marked by poor coordination and planning (especially the 1st Five-Year Plan)• Some parts of the economy faced underproduction

because factories were held up by shortages of materials.• Other factories overproduced in their attempts to exceed

the targets.

• This resulted in a great deal of wastage when some parts were overproduced.

Evaluation of the Five-Year Plans• Moreover, since the emphasis was on the development of

heavy industries, there was little growth in consumer industries such as house-building and woollen textiles.

• Consumer goods were often in short supply and rationing was imposed on every household.

• Thus, it could be seen that the Five-Year Plans had failed to consider the basic needs of the Soviet people.

• In addition, in the haste to meet production figures, the quality of products was often sub-standard and potentially hazardous.

• Greater planning and coordination as well as taking stock of production were put in place for the Second and Third Five-Year Plans.

• This resulted in a declining rate of growth.• After 1937, the USSR witnessed an economic slowdown

and industries such as oil and steel stopped growing.• Nonetheless, the Five-Year Plans helped to propel the

USSR forward to become an industrial base for powerful arms industry by 1941.

• The USSR became the second most industrialized country in the world after the USA by the end of the 1930s.