Revision cards - units 4-5 (industrialisation, collectivisation, culture and society, terror) Flashcards
What motivated collectivisation?
- Stalin was determined to solve the peasant problem and make peasants embrace socialism
- To rid soviet society of Kulaks
- End large scale private ownership of land
- By 1928 NEP was failing, agricultural production failed, Kulaks were blamed
- Opposition to NEP was a key reason for Stalin’s success he had to change agriculture
State farms
- State farms (Sovkhos) workers worked for the state and were paid a wage
- Kolkhoz - were co-operatives with shared resources and labour and an acre of private plot. Wages came from surpluses
- Collecitivisation - initially voluntary but people didn’t want to join so was made compulsory = Dizzy with success in 1930 - 25% collectivised by 1940 - 100%
How mechanised were collective farms?
- MTS set up across the country
- 75,000 tractors produced but in 1932 only 1/2 of Russian farms had access. They didn’t make up for the loss of horses.
- By 1938, 95% of threshing, 72% of ploughing, 75% of sowing and 48% of harvesting done mechanically
What was the positive impact of collectivisation?
- Did increase production - eventually:
1928 - 73m tons
1940 - 95m tons
- Grain exports rose
1928 - 0.03m tons
1931 - 5m tons
What was the negative impact of collectivisation?
- Famine - 5-7m dead (1932-33)
- Resistance - strongest in the Ukraine - led to loss of livestock. Pigs only reached 1914 levels in 1956
- Between 9.5m and 10m were exiled as part of dekulakisation, often the most successful peasants
- Mechanisation was slow - Havest of 1933 was 9m tons less than 1926
- Wages fell by half between 1928 and 1932
- Meat consumed by urban workers fell by 1/3
- Failed to end the private market with 50-70% of products produced on private plots
How successful was collectivisation?
- Strengthened Stalin’s control over the party and the peasants
- United the party behind Stalin and blamed the peasants
- Many viewed the harsh treatment of the peasants as back to the Civil war period and associated him with heroism
- Mechanisation did imporve
- Grain exports allowed the funding of industrialisation
- Grain procured was more than NEP levels - 1928 - 10.8m tons, 1933 - 22.6m tons
- Improved urbanisation - providing a workforce
What was Gosplan?
- The soviet central economic agency
- They made production targets for every factory, mine and workshop
- Soviet workers and managers were responsible for meeting these targets
What were the aims of industrialisation?
- Preparing for future war
- Catch up with the West
- Develop heavy industry
BUT
- Targets were unrealistic and poorly coordinated
HOWEVER
- Gigantomania - Moscow underground, Magnitogorsk
- Production dramatically increased
How successful were the 5YPs?
- Significant increase in production of coal, iron and steel.
- The Russian economy grew by 14% per year
- Magnitogorsk, Moscow Underground, Dneiper dam - huge propaganda successes
- Opportunities for workers - red specialists
- Some improvement in living standards for some, end to rationing and increased wages in 2FYP
- Preparation for war
Why were the FYPs unsuccessful?
- Managers lied about targets - so planning was uncoordinated, quality was often low, and scarcity of workers and parts
- Industrial production lagged behind Germany and the US.
- Living standards decreased and there were few consumer goods. (1928-1933 milk, fruit and meat consumption fell by 2/3s)
- Labour discipline and long working weeks
- Wage differentials but led to division with workers living in barrack housing and senior communists living in 14 room houses.
- 50% of work force were peasants and turnover was high
- Economy not prepared for war in 1941
- Russia did not become self-sufficient
What new centres and projects were created?
Magnitogorsk, Dnieper Dam, Belomor Canal, Moscow Metro
How were foreign industrial leaders involved in the development of Russia?
- Henry Ford
- Learnt the lessons of Western Industrialisation
- Used 1000s of engineers out of work due to the depression in USA and Europe
What was the cult of Stalin?
Stalin became and icon
His images were everywhere
Every achievement was linked to Stalin
Russians were fed a daily diet of Stalin’s achievements via Pravda
What was socialist realism?
1932 - Socialist writers were engineers of the human soul
Artists to envision where the soviet state was going and what it would be like
Artists could not show their own interests
Artists had to promote the regime and Stalin
What limits were placed on all types of literature?
1934 - Soviet union of writers formed
Had to conform to socialist realism and advance the cause of socialism
Novels glorified the ordinary worker
Some writers such as GOrky conformed, others didn’t
What happened to art and propaganda under Stalin?
1929 - Union for artists
images had to conform
1930s art = industrial workers, peasants or Stalin
1931 - union of architects - Moscow metro completed - as a series of palaces for the workers
1932 union of soviet composers - controlled all music
19302 radios popular and used to spread governemtn messages
Cinemas popular - films used to promote Stalin’s successes
What were working conditions like for industrial workers?
- Industrial projects like the Belomor canal were built by prision labour
- Shortage of trained and skilled workers particular post the purges
- Labour discipline
- In 1930 coal workers moved jobs on average 3 times to find better work and conditions
- Factories were often unsafe
What were conditions like for agricultural workers?
- Many fled in the hope of a better life in the city
- Life was hard and most did not support communism
- Peasants didn’t own their land and got little reward for their labour so little incentive to work hard
- Collectivisation process was devistating with between 9.5m and 10m exiled during the deKulakisation process
- Living standards fell dramatically
What were living conditions like for industrial workers?
- Many new houses were build without running water or connection to sewers -
- Milk, meat and fruit consumption fell by 2/3s
- Overcrowding was common
- Some new hospitals were built improving heath
- Most lived in poor conditions - little heating
- Social inequalities increased
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