Stalin and the Soviet Economy

Question 1

What was the political aspect of Stalin’s aims for economy?

Answer 1

Saw in a hard-line policy the best means of confirming his authority over the Party and government
= political expediency

Question 2

What did Stalin believe the survival of the revolution depended on?

Answer 2

The nation’s ability to turn its self into a modern industrial society within the shortest time possible

Question 3

What did Stalin’s speech in 1931 contain?

Answer 3

The claim of Russia pervious backwardness leading to its constant defeat, to prevent this Russia must modernise

Question 4

What were kolkhoz?

Answer 4

Collective farms:

- run as co-operative in which the peasants pooled their resources and share the labour and wages

Question 5

What were sovkhoz?

Answer 5

State farms:

- farms containing peasants working directly for the state, paid a fixed wage

Question 6

What were the two vital results Stalin wanted from efficient farming?

Answer 6

• create surplus food supplies to sell abroad to raise capital for industry
• decrease the number of rural workers needed to create workers for the new factories

Question 7

What did Stalin insist food shortages were the result of?

Answer 7

Grain-hoarding by the richer peasants

= provided moral grounds for the onslaught on the Kulaks

Question 8

What succeeded the Cheka?

Answer 8

OGPU, then the NKVD, later KGB

Question 9

Why did poorer peasants often take part in ‘de-kulakisation’?

Answer 9

Proved them with an excuse to settle old cores and to give vent to local jealousies

Question 10

How did ‘de-kulakisation’ benefit Collectivisation?

Answer 10

Served as a warning to the mass of the peasants of the likely consequences of resisting the state

Question 11

How many farms were collectivised between December 1929 and March 1930?

Answer 11

Nearly half

Question 12

What disturbances occurred in resistance to Collectivisation 1929-30?

Answer 12

• 30,000 arson attacks

- organised rural mass disturbances increase 1/3rd

Question 13

When had virtually the whole peasantry been collectivised?

Answer 13

End of 1930s

Question 14

How much did livestock decrease during 1928-1932?

Answer 14

By half

Question 15

How many peasants had died in the famine 1932-33?

Answer 15

10-15m

Question 16

How did collectivisation achieve what Stalin wanted?

Answer 16

Conversion from an agricultural society to an industrial one

Question 17

What did Stalin describe his industrial plans for the USSR as?

Answer 17

An attempt to establish a war economy

Question 18

What were the dates for the 1st FYP?

Answer 18

1928-1932

Question 19

What did the 1st FYP include?

Answer 19

Not so much of a plan but laid down what was to be achieved, but did no say how this was to be done

Question 20

What did local officials and managers do during the 1st FYP?

Answer 20

Falsified their production figures to give the impression they had met targets when they had fallen short

Question 21

How were the FYP huge propaganda projects?

Answer 21

Aimed at convincing the Soviet people that they were personally engaged in a vast individual enterprise
- by their own effort they were changing the character of society

Question 22

Between 1928-1932 how many people travelled to Magnitogorsk?

Answer 22

250,000

Question 23

How was industrialisation also a cultural revolution?

Answer 23

There was an attempt being made to create a new type of individual, ‘the soviet man’

Question 24

What happened to living conditions during the 1st FYP?

Answer 24

They deteriorated

- accommodation in the towns and cities remained sub-standard

Question 25

Why were machines and factories often ruined?

Answer 25

Because of workers’ lack of basic skills

Question 26

What was the term ‘sabotage’ used as?

Answer 26

A blanket term used to denounce anyone not pulling their weight

Question 27

What was the difference between the 1st FYP compared to the 2nd and 3rd?

Answer 27

2nd and 3rd had more realistic quotas

- BUT still revealed the same lack of co-ordniation that had characterised the first

Question 28

What did Alexei Stakhanov do?

Answer 28

Claimed the he had cut over 100 tons of coal in one five-hour shift = more than 14 times of his required quota
- used as propaganda = what was achievable in Stalin’s USSR

Question 29

How did workers have no rights during the FYPs?

Answer 29

• strikes were prohibited

- demands for better pay and conditions were regarded as selfishly inappropriate at a time of national crisis

Question 30

What was the code of ‘labour discipline’?

Answer 30

Demanded maximum effort and output; failure to conform was punishable by a range of penalties:

• loss of wages
• imprisonment

Question 31

How did living standards fair in 1937 compared to 1928?

Answer 31

They were worse

Question 32

By 1940 how much government expenditure was on armaments?

Answer 32

1/3rd

Question 33

What was the coal production in 1927 and 1940?

Answer 33

1927 = 35m tons
1940 = 150m tons

Question 34

How much had coal, steel and oil risen in 12 years?

Answer 34

• coal = x5
• steel = x6
• oil = x2

Question 35

Why did the USSR have no chance of competing with modernising economies of Europe and the USA?

Answer 35

• used old techniques such as massed labour rather than using efficient machines
• financial and material assets were wasted
• no intention of producing quality goods that could be exported

Question 36

What did Stalin’s schemes fail to improve?

Answer 36

• agricultural productivity

- living standards

Question 37

What did the lack of agricultural growth result in?

Answer 37

Constant food shortages which could only be met by buying foreign supplies