Stalin’s Rule, Economy and Society 1929-1941 Flashcards
1
Q
What were the characteristics of Soviet agriculture, 1921-1928?
A
- 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.
2
Q
What were the successes in agriculture?
A
- grain output up by 34 tonnes from 1921-1925
- 1921= famine 1923= enough food
- increase party support for peasantry
- was doing better than industry.
3
Q
What were the failures in agriculture?
A
- 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
4
Q
Why were tensions emerging?
A
- 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.
5
Q
IMPACT OF COLLECTIVISATION ON THE KULAKS AND OTHER PEASANTS.
A
Reasons for on paper.
6
Q
How did Dekulakisation begin?
A
- 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
7
Q
What was the peasant response?
A
- 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
8
Q
What happened to Kulaks?
A
- 1.8mil deported to collectives
- 10mins died due to resistance
- 390,000 sent to Labour camps
9
Q
What was the knock on effect on collectives?
A
- 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.
10
Q
What was the overall impact?
A
- collectivisation improved productivity, for selling for industrialisation
- negatively effected the lives of the peasantry
- successfully removed hated Kulaks.
11
Q
MORE ON COLLECTIVISATION + HOLODOMOR
A
12
Q
Important statistics:
A
1934- 70% of farms are collectives
1941- 100% of farms are collectives
13
Q
Types of Collectives: Kolkhoz
A
- 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.
14
Q
Types of Collectives: Sovkhoz
A
- 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
15
Q
What Mechanisation was occurring?
A
- 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
16
Q
The Holodomor: why did collectivisation fail in Ukraine?
A
- Ukrainian grain harvest was going to miss the soviet planners grain target by 60%
17
Q
The Holodomor:
How were Ukrainian peasants treated?
A
- 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”
18
Q
The Holodomor: Death Toll
A
- 3.9 mil dead
- 13% of population
- teachers and intellectuals slaughtered
- 1932- 4.27 mil tonnes taken from Ukraine
19
Q
The Holodomor: Long Term impacts
A
- 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.
20
Q
DEBATES AROUND COLLECTIVISATION
A
Reasons for collectivisation on paper (comes before this)
21
Q
What were Stalin’s Personal motivations?
A
- 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.
22
Q
What party Congress was known as the ‘Industrialisation Congress’?
A
14th Congress in 1925
23
Q
What was Gosplan?
A
- State Commission for Planning
- first annual economic plan in Aug 1925
- predicted future economic performance
24
Q
What was the Veshenka?
A
- the Supreme Council for National Economy
- supervision of the economy
25
What did these agencies do?
Formed the First Five Year Plan
26
What 4 factors had shifted the party in favour of rapid industrilaisation?
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
27
What was happening between 1926-1927?
- 15th party congress, Stalin announced plans
- start of 3 huge schemes, Volga- Dan Canal, Dnieprostrol Dam and Turkish railway line
28
What was happening between 1928-1929?
- 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
29
What does pyatiletka mean?
Plan
30
What were the variants introduced called?
‘Basic variant’ and ‘optimum variant’
31
What were the aims for the optimum variant?
- 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%.
32
The Second Five Year Plan
33
What were the aims of the second Five year plan?
- develop heavy industry
- grow chemical and consumer goods industry
- develop communications
- faster engineering and tool making
- more realistic targets
34
What were the successes of the Second FYP?
- 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
35
What were the failures of the Second FYP?
- 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
36
The Third Five Year Plan
37
What were the aims of the Third FYP?
- 92% rise in production
- needs of defence sector met, rapid rearmament
- heavy industry developed
- complete transition to Communism
38
What were the successes of the Third FYP?
- 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
39
What were the failures of the Third FYP?
- 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'
40
New Industrial Centres
41
What was the new Soviet ideals?
- that they were on the last road to socialism
- creating a 'socialist offensive'
42
Give some examples of new industrial centres:
- Kunetz in Western Siberia
- Magnitogorsk in the Urals
43
What were these new centres called?
'The most celebrated new superior industrial age'
44
Why were these industrial centres created strategically?
- East in the Urals left them less vulnerable to attack from the west
45
What was Gigantomania? Give some examples:
- demonstrated the might of the new soviet industrial machine
- Dnieprosti Dam in eastern route was worlds largest construction site
- Moscow- Voglo Canal
46
Give some statistics about Magnitogorsk:
- Was producing up to 10% of the USSR's pig iron and steel
- by 1933, 20% of the population there were exiled peasants
- 75% of inhabitants came of their own free will, serving the Communist ideals
- Few engineers had real experience
- 100 roubles for an unskilled workjer
- 300-800 roubles for administrators and directors (heavy differentation)
- 25% lived in mud huts they had built themselves
- managers lived in houses with several rooms and gardens
- housing differentiated through wages, not quite the socialist goal
47
Who was Ogordinov of Magnitogorsk?
- due to his output, was second highest payed person in Magnitogosk
- he was rewarded with a brand new motorcycle and individual house with its own garden
- 70% of this was payed for by the factory
48
The Stakhanovite Movement:
49
Why was Alexei Stakhanov significant?
On 30th August 1935, he cut sixteen times the norm of coal in a 5hr shift
50
What did the party organiser from Petrov decide to do?
- party organiser at Ormino
- saw that they were already slacking in quotas
- he took Stahkanov to a party Committee
51
What were Stahkanov’s rewards?
- 200 roubles
- bonus for a months wages
- a new car
- permanently and prominently displayed on the miners board of honour
52
What was the impact on other Miners?
- sectional competitions to emulate Stahkanov’s achievements
- a month layered, two had beaten his record
53
What did the Commissar for HEavy Industry say about Stahkanov?
- said he was ‘Soviet Hercules’
- on the front of Pravda it said ‘heroes of labour must become te most famous’
54
What was the impact of the Stahkanovite Movement?
- Stalin even called for ‘Stahkanovism’ to be spread ‘widely and deeply’
- Record mania for heavy industry spread across the country
- pressured managements to make more efficient production methods
- increased production overall
- those reluctant to the movement were seen as saboteurs
- workers wanted to be like Stahkanov
- increased pressure on managers and did not make their job appealing
55
Life in New industrial Cities
56
Why was foreign participation in Industrialisation suprising?
- Stalin had a siege mentality (paranoia)
- emphasised the threats from foreign enemies
57
What was given from the USA?
- Henry Ford: Sent engineers to help Russian car industry, Russian engineers trained by Ford in USA, Ford designed Cars were produced at Gorky
- Hugh Cooper, American in charge of the Dnieprosti Dam project
58
Why did not all foreign intervention go to plan?
- London Underground designers planned the logistics of the Moscow Metro
- these engineers had a show trial
- were deported 1933
- ended role of British businesses in Russia by 1937
- Magnitogorsk then became a ‘closed city’ and all foreign workers were sent away
59
What was the life of Managers like?
- had to fulfill targets
- many fell to bribery and corruption
- managers desperate to keep skilled workers, distributed ration cards and overplayed wages
- Stahkanovite movement added pressure
- by 1936, targets for managers increased
- gov spending for businesses declined, meant stretching finances
- labour shortages were apparent
- raw material shortages and less foreign trade
60
How much did the number of workers entering industry decline and why?
- by 2/3
- better conditions on collectives
- drafting into the army
61
What were the changes in defence spending from 1931 to 1940?
- it increased
- was 3.4% of budget in 1931 and 32.5% in 1940
62
What was the life of workers like?
- enthusiastic at beginning, thousands volunteered to work in new cities
- were prepared to make sacrifices for socialism
- were fed up of NEP
- little unemployment
- strides in higher technical education, possibility of being a manager
- exceeding targets rewarded, pay and conditions
- had to bring a Labour book with them, encouraged good behaviour as transgressions could effect future employment
63
What was the life of women like?
- 10 million women entered the workforce ‘more hands the better’
- communists open to notions of gender equality
- women dominated teaching and medicine professions
- but pay differences and less training/progression opportunities
- more strain in the woman, look after homes and work
64
Out of 328 factory directors, how many were women? What industry were most of them from?
- 20 were directors
- 17 were from the textile industry
65
What percent of doctors were women? But how many were head doctors?
- 50-60% of doctors were women
- only 4 were women
66
What remained despite all of this?
- Maintenance of separate spheres
