AS FP3 : Economic development ; reason and impact for the Great Turn Flashcards
Conceptual Awareness
How did the Stalin view the USSR?
Weak and underdeveloped ; some industrialisation had taken place before 1917 but it was disrupted by WW1 and the Civil War.
Conceptual Awareness
What was industrial recovery like after 1921?
There was some industrial recovery, however it was slow and patchy (despite the central planning organisations Vesenkha and Gosplan)
Conceptual Awareness
What had production been weakend by?
Production had been weakened by strikes, managerial inefficiency and low levels of mechanisation.
Conceptual Awareness
How successful were the collective farms that were established under the NEP?
Collectivisation under the NEP was poor, by 1928 only 5% of all households had been collectivised ; there was little enthusiasm for it amongst the peasants.
Reasons for the Great Turn
What were the economic reasons for the Great Turn?
[4]
- Several weaknesses in Industrial management and more efficiency was needed to increase production, improve the quality and lower the price of industrial goods.
- Both workers and peasants were facing harsh economic conditions ; shortages, unemployment and low living standards.
- Drive towards industrialisation going too slowly - Stalin wanted the USSR to be self-sustaining.
- Grain procurement crisis 1928-1929
Reasons for the Great Turn
How much had grain production decreased by during the crisis of 1928-1929?
25%
Reasons for the Great Turn
What were the political reasons for the Great Turn?
[2]
- Stalin wanted to increase the USSR’s military strength - there was a war scare in 1927 and Stalin knew that a country which wasn’t industrialised was a weak country
- Stalin would have a greater control of the people.
Reasons for the Great Turn
What were the ideological reasons behind the Great Turn?
- Improve the standard of living ; the communist life was supposed to be the good-life and other parts of the world were to envy it.
- Many people wanted the economy to follow the “true communist” ideology
- Socialism could only be achieved in an industrialised country
Reasons for the Great Turn
What argument does historian R.W Davies put forward for why the Great Turn occurred?
R.W Davies puts forward the view that the NEP saved the economy from disaster at the beginning but had to be changed in the late 1920s because it could not provide the framework for large-scale industrialisation.
When was the Great Turn?
1928
Reasons for the Great Turn
What did Stalin say regarding the USSR’s economic state?
“She was beaten by all of them because of her backwardness […] we are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries”.
He wanted the USSR to be the “soviet America”.
Impact of the Great Turn
What did the Great Turn signify?
The end of Leninism and the beginning of the Stalinist Era.
Impact of the Great Turn
Who lost their political majority because of the popularity of the Great Turn?
Bukharin lost his political majority in the Moscow party because of the Great Turn. After this he was accused of dekulakisation and in November 1929 he lost his seat in the Politburo.
