Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (interwar period, 1921-1939): NEP, Famine and Terror.
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1921-1939). Multinational USSR.
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Transcript of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1921-1939). Multinational USSR.
Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics
(1921-1939)
Multinational USSR
How was the USSR ruled?
• Officially, a Federation with widely dispersed powers.
• In fact, highly centralized through the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).
• All leading government officials were communists.
Who ruled the USSR?
• Lenin’s creation• Lenin (died in
1924)• Led to power
struggle:• Josef Stalin• Leon Trotsky• Lev Kamenev• Grigor Zinoviev• Nikolai Bukharin
New Economic Policy (NEP), 1921-28
• State-owned large businesses• Private small and medium-sized
businesses• Some free trade• Peasants left alone to feed cities
(N. Bukharin)• Tax-in-kind• Little use of violence• NEPmen
NEP, 1921-1928
• National communist awakening
• Indigenization (korenizatsiia)– National in form, socialist in content
• Proletarian cultural flowering
• Dziga Vertov’s Man with Movie Camera (1929)
Stalin won (by 1928)
Why?• Not brilliant• Ruthless: used
extreme measures
• Patronage• Will to win• Appealed to non-
intellectuals
The Great Turn, 1928->
• Move to Planned Economy• First Five-Year Plan, 1928-1932• Focus on Heavy Industry• Sacrificed consumer goods• Quotas for everything• Quantity over quality• Stakhanovites as role models
Aleksey G. Stakhanov, 1906-1977
31 August 1935: mined 102 tons of coal in 5 hours and 45 minutes (14 times his quota).
The Great Turn (cont.)
Collectivization, 1929-1935• 1927: voluntary• 1929: forced• Main goal: control of food• Requisitions• Peasants resisted (1600 large-scale
revolts)• “Kulaks”• De-kulakization (1.5 million removed)
The Great Famine, 1932-33
Causes:1. Requisitions for cities and export2. De-kulakization3. Poor collective farm management4. Livestock slaughtered5. Bad weather
• 3-6 million starved to death• Mostly in Ukraine
The Terror, 1934-39
• Sergei Kirov, 1886-1934• Strong Stalinist• Leader of CPSU in
Leningrad• 17th CPSU Congress,
February 1934• December 1, 1934:
assassinated by a communist
• Sparked Terror
Show Trials, 1936-38
Many Bolsheviks leaders wiped out of history
Great Terror widens to army
• June 1937: Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevskii, and three army commanders shot.
• 3 of 5 Marshals shot
• 15 of 16 army commanders
• 60 of 67 corps commanders
• 70 percent of division commanders
Great Terror widens to citizens, 1937-1938
• “kulak operations”– By Nov. 1938: 767,397 sentenced by
troikas• 386,798 put to death• Remainder to GULAG system
• “mass operations”– Poles, Germans, Latvians, Koreans,
Chinese– 335,513 sentences
• 247,157 to death• Remainder to GULAG system
Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev, 1892-1940 • Bolsheviks’ Muslim• Worked for Stalin at
NarKomNats.• 1923 arrested, put on
“trial,” and released.• “Sultangalievism”• 1928 arrested, sentenced
to death.• Commuted to 10 years in
Solovki labor camp.• Released 1934.• Arrested 1937.• Executed 1940.
Evgeniia Ginzburg
• Journey into the Whirlwind
• Loyal, dedicated communist
• 1937: arrested• “Trotskyist”• Conveyor belt• GULAG• Magadan• 1955: released
Consequences Eight million arrested How many killed?
681,692 people were executed during 1937–38
Memorial society released list of 1,345,796 victims
Gradually, greatly undermined CPSU’s authority and legitimacy