Stalin’s Rule, Economy and Society 1929-1941

Question 1

What were the characteristics of Soviet agriculture, 1921-1928?

Answer 1

• relations quite good between state and peasantry
• peasants paid taxes (prodnalog), but also sold through NEPMEN
• Party more urban concentrated, less rural interference
• Tensions with rise of Stalin
• remained an agriculture based society.

Question 2

What were the successes in agriculture?

Answer 2

• grain output up by 34 tonnes from 1921-1925
• 1921= famine 1923= enough food
• increase party support for peasantry
• was doing better than industry.

Question 3

What were the failures in agriculture?

Answer 3

• grain production 1/2 of 1913 level
• 23 mil peasant households farming in primitive ways
• grain exports, 1/20th of 1913 level
• did not produce enough extra food to sell abroad

Question 4

Why were tensions emerging?

Answer 4

• unhappy with peasants owning land (against collective ownership)
• grain collection rate fell by 1928
• led to forcible seizure (Ural-Siberian Method)
• Ideology: right wanted increased taxes on rich peasantry, left wanted industrialisation
• Stalin: holding back USSR, wipe out capitalism in country side, industrialisation.

Question 5

IMPACT OF COLLECTIVISATION ON THE KULAKS AND OTHER PEASANTS.

Answer 5

Reasons for on paper.

Question 6

How did Dekulakisation begin?

Answer 6

• 1928 in shakty
• used context of show trials and propaganda
• denouncing of fictitious parties e.g. ‘labouring peasant party’
• 1930 mir (peasant councils) abolished
• same time as attack on Orthodox Church

Question 7

What was the peasant response?

Answer 7

• civil war in country side, Ukrainian peasants hostile
• 1930: 25-30% of cattle, pigs and sheep slaughtered, rather kill then give grain
• burned farms and crops.
• plough and farm animals eaten, 18mil horses

Question 8

What happened to Kulaks?

Answer 8

• 1.8mil deported to collectives
• 10mins died due to resistance
• 390,000 sent to Labour camps

Question 9

What was the knock on effect on collectives?

Answer 9

• worked: 85.3 mil tonnes produced, 71.7mil tonnes year before
• 55% of peasantry in collectives by 1930, in 2 months
• internal passports to prevent peasants fleeing.

Question 10

What was the overall impact?

Answer 10

• collectivisation improved productivity, for selling for industrialisation
• negatively effected the lives of the peasantry
• successfully removed hated Kulaks.

Question 11

MORE ON COLLECTIVISATION + HOLODOMOR

Question 12

Important statistics:

Answer 12

1934- 70% of farms are collectives
1941- 100% of farms are collectives

Question 13

Types of Collectives: Kolkhoz

Answer 13

• combination of small, individual farms
• around 75 families
• some had schools/clinics
• had to deliver set quota of 40%
• left-overs shared based on ‘Labour days’ worked
• each had a communist party chairman
• internal passports, to prevent fleeing.

Question 14

Types of Collectives: Sovkhoz

Answer 14

• literally means ‘state farm’
• seen as ideal farming by communists
• labourers are workers not peasants, paid state wage (low)
• also restricted their movement
• Many returned to being Kolkhozes in 1930s, due to resentment on wages

Question 15

What Mechanisation was occurring?

Answer 15

• Labour shifted towards cities
• modernisation of methods
• Machine Tractor Stations (MTS) set up 1931, hire out machinery
• 2500 tractors but 1 for every 40 collectives
• skewed in favour of state farms
• 1938: 72% of ploughing, 48% of harvesting mechanised
• many jobs still intensive, weeding
• 196,000 trucks in USSR, million in USA

Question 16

The Holodomor: why did collectivisation fail in Ukraine?

Answer 16

• Ukrainian grain harvest was going to miss the soviet planners grain target by 60%

Question 17

The Holodomor:
How were Ukrainian peasants treated?

Answer 17

• Stalin ordered confiscation of what little they had
• internal passports introduced
• secret police retaliated, anything edible (livestock) also taken
• removal of Ukrainian language
• 1932 Decree- “target Ukranian Saboteurs”

Question 18

The Holodomor: Death Toll

Answer 18

• 3.9 mil dead
• 13% of population
• teachers and intellectuals slaughtered
• 1932- 4.27 mil tonnes taken from Ukraine

Question 19

The Holodomor: Long Term impacts

Answer 19

• famine in Ukraine
• 1933, Stalin stopped Ukraine borders from being opened, stop fleeing and food
• cannibalism
• resettled Russian peasants in Ukraine
• Russia deny genocide, US+UK recognise it as genocide
• Ukranian- Russian War today.

Question 20

DEBATES AROUND COLLECTIVISATION

Answer 20

Reasons for collectivisation on paper (comes before this)

Question 21

What were Stalin’s Personal motivations?

Answer 21

• Personal Reasons: strengthen his own power against the right (Bukharin said ‘peasants enrich yourselves’) (Lenin’s old peasant alliance), as he must denounce them now as he did with the left
• Political Reasons: industrialisation necessary, all other members agreed
• Security Reasons: 1927 British gov raid on soviet trade mission, international threats
• Economic Reasons: production not progressing, peasants gaining more from NEP, FYP only though collectivisation.

Question 22

What party Congress was known as the ‘Industrialisation Congress’?

Answer 22

14th Congress in 1925

Question 23

What was Gosplan?

Answer 23

• State Commission for Planning
• first annual economic plan in Aug 1925
• predicted future economic performance

Question 24

What was the Veshenka?

Answer 24

• the Supreme Council for National Economy
• supervision of the economy

Question 25

What did these agencies do?

Answer 25

Formed the First Five Year Plan

Question 26

What 4 factors had shifted the party in favour of rapid industrilaisation?

Answer 26

1. new industrial plants needed to increase manufacturing
2. Defeat of the left, Stalin could adopt pro-industrialisation without reprisals from, United Opposition
3. Deteriorating diplomatic relations- complete break from Britain in 1927, failed relations with France and Poland, failure of Russian policy in china , potential invasion, need defence
4. Successful management of agriculture, would accelerate rapid industrial is action

Question 27

What was happening between 1926-1927?

Answer 27

• 15th party congress, Stalin announced plans
• start of 3 huge schemes, Volga- Dan Canal, Dnieprostrol Dam and Turkish railway line

Question 28

What was happening between 1928-1929?

Answer 28

• opponents to Stalin, Tomsky, Rykov, Bukharin, Sokolnikov
• quarrels at July 1928 Central Committee plenum
• increasingly overblown targets by G and V hated by other contenders
• Stalin backed these ambitious planners
• Stalin wanted a removal of backwardness
• these years Veshenka’s plans agreed to, final decision

Question 29

What does pyatiletka mean?

Answer 29

Plan

Question 30

What were the variants introduced called?

Answer 30

‘Basic variant’ and ‘optimum variant’

Question 31

What were the aims for the optimum variant?

Answer 31

• electrification of the entire economy
• pig iron + iron ore output 3.3-10mil tonnes
• coal 35.4- 75mil tonnes
• agricultural production increased by 55%
• labour productivity by 110%.

Question 32

The Second Five Year Plan

Question 33

What were the aims of the second Five year plan?

Answer 33

• develop heavy industry
• grow chemical and consumer goods industry
• develop communications
• faster engineering and tool making
• more realistic targets

Question 34

What were the successes of the Second FYP?

Answer 34

• consumer goods production increased, e.g. grammar phones
• 1936- 4500 projects are complete
• wages and productivity rose as prices fell
• ‘three good years’ 1934-36 ( Moscow Metro 1935, Volgo Canal, Dnieprosti Dam )
• new metals enter USSR, copper, tin, zinc
• USSR self sufficient in metal goods and machine tools, so less imports
• MAYBE stalin ‘rooted soviety unreliable elements

Question 35

What were the failures of the Second FYP?

Answer 35

• targets still too optimistic
• did not reach aim of real higher wages
• priority of defence and rearmament ( secret workshops half of military production )
• GDP only rose 13%, aim 300%
• Investment fell
• purges removed skilled workers, stiffled creativity and was counter productive

Question 36

The Third Five Year Plan

Question 37

What were the aims of the Third FYP?

Answer 37

• 92% rise in production
• needs of defence sector met, rapid rearmament
• heavy industry developed
• complete transition to Communism

Question 38

What were the successes of the Third FYP?

Answer 38

• rearmament spending doubled
• rearmament production reached 250%
• Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland and Baltic States in 1940, added to USSR economic potential
• Prepared for German invasion in 1941

Question 39

What were the failures of the Third FYP?

Answer 39

• steel, oil and especially consumer goods production stagnated
• original targets not met due to war demands
• Alec Nove (historian) about the Stalinist purges- ‘swept away managers, technicians, planners’ and to ‘obey mechanically’