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Russia A-LEVEL History! Lenin to Yeltsin 1917-91 > Stalins Economy > Flashcards

Stalins Economy Flashcards

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1
Q

Key aspects of Stalins economy

A
  • 5 year plans
  • collectivisation
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2
Q

What were aims of all 5 of Stalins 5YPs?

A

1) heavy industry
2) Infrastructure
3) munitions - mass production of T 34 tank
4 and 5) post war reconstruction

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3
Q

What is socialism in one country?

A
  • industrialising the USSR to move towards Socialism
  • not inspiring socialist revolutions in other countries (like Trotsky idea of world revolution)
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4
Q

What were Stalins main economic objectives?

A
  • industrialise
  • modernise
  • move towards socialism
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5
Q

When was it decided to abandon Lenin’s NEP

A

1927 - 15th party congress

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6
Q

How would the economy become modernised and industrialised?

A
  • mass mobilisation
  • improve technology
  • focus on heavy industry
  • military language used like ‘storm’ and ‘conquer’
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7
Q

What was GOSPLAN?

A

1921 - State planning committee

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8
Q

What did gosplan do for industrialisation?

A
  • set targets for priority industries
  • planned and distributed resources needed
  • created peoples commissariats to coordinate industry at branch level
  • party officials are factory level - supervising
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9
Q

How were the NEPMEN dealt with?

A
  • forced into cooperatives
  • made into ‘class enemies’, shown as bourgeoise experts - campaign, 1928 show trials for wrecking!
  • removing the bourgeois experts = more jobs for loyal communists BUT hindered industrialisation
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10
Q

1st 5YP dates

A

1928-32
- only 4 years, propaganda

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11
Q

Summarise 1st 5yp

A

28-32
- heavy industry, coal, iron, steel
- recommended by superindustrialisers (PMs in favour of seizing ag.surplus for reinvestment)
- preobeazhensky
- consumer goods neglected
- made better use of existing factories
- centres like Magnitigorsk and Gorki

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12
Q

His much did Magnitogorsk grow, starting in 1929

A
  • 1929 = 25 people
  • 250,000 three years later
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13
Q

Stakharnovites

A
  • exemplary workers
  • best workers rewarded with better rations and new flat
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14
Q

Use of Slave labour in the first 5YP

A
  • mines, railway, construction etc
  • White Sea Canal - 1932
  • 180,000 prisoners, 10,000 died in the winter
  • propaganda triumph
  • too shallow so useless
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15
Q

Second 5YP dates

A

1933-37

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16
Q

Second 5YP

A
  • initially higher targets
  • redirected from infrastructure as tensions grew
  • initially higher consumer production
  • used technical expertise more
  • new industrial centres in use
  • increase in coal and chemical but oil dissapointing
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17
Q

1st 5YP issue with targets

A
  • workers put under EXTREME pressure
  • factory managers lie, bribe, forge stats, steal from other factories
  • corruption began here
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18
Q

Quality of products in 1st 5YP

A
  • rush to fill targets
  • quality sacrificed
  • stalingrad tractor factory = 500 a month target
  • only 8 produced, most broke down
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19
Q

Third 5YP

A

1938 - interrupted by invasion, but was preparing for invasion!

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20
Q

2nd and 3rd development:

A
  • developed existing centres
  • set up new centres in Kazakhstan - east of urals so safe from WEST
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21
Q

Despite official figures…

A
  • undoubtedly made HUGE progress
  • low start point BUT helped defeat Germany
  • rapid growth in engineering and transport
  • even if few met targets, enormous growth anyway
  • 1928 - 41 = 17% growth rate
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22
Q

1928-41 growth rate:

A
  • 17% = huge
    But unbalanced
  • 4x coal
  • 6x steel
  • increase in power industry - Dneiper Dam
  • shortage of agriculture - especially with collectivisation killing cottage industry (consequences felt for rest of USSR)
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23
Q

Official production figures:

A

1927 - 37:
- only one that surpassed = steel - 4 —> 17.7 (target 17m tonnes)
- coal - 35 —> 128m tonnes
- oil - 11.7 —> 28.5m tonnes

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24
Q

Consumer industries in 2nd and 3rd 5YP

A
  • 2nd: improvement in footwear and food processing
  • by 1930s not enough and impacting living standards, shortages still plagued
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25
Q

Why could the 5YPs not have been as successful as they could have been?

A
  • chaotic implementation/plannibg
  • ridged and fast adoption of command economy
  • planners in Moscow didn’t know realities in far regions = wasted resources/innapropriate resources
  • purge of managers and experts 1937 = slow down economy
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26
Q

Pros and cons of industrialisation under Stalin:

A
  • able to defend itself against capitalist powers (GERMANY)
  • transformed into modern industrial economy, areas of HUGE improvement

Cons:
- unbalanced progress
- lead to decreased living standards
- human rights abuses, WSC
- deprivation grew, industrialisation based on agricultural policy - famine!
- worker health and natural environment damaged

27
Q

Basic idea of collectivisation

A
  • for industrialisation, workers need food
  • agriculture needs to be so much more efficient!
  • sweep away peasant farms and labourers (Mir)
  • replaced with state owned farms, imposed mechanisation => agriculture on larger scale
28
Q

Mir

A

A collection of wise village elders who oversaw farming, they knew what they were doing
…
Soviet officials did not

29
Q

Agricultural policy under NEP

A
  • no formal collectivisation - compromise to get villagers back on side after hated grain req. of Civil War
  • instead tax on what grain they grew
  • rest could sell at market for a profit

(Unmonitored by the state, so officials thought intervention could make it so much quicker!

30
Q

Why need more food in industry?

A
  • Industrialisation = more people moving to cities
  • people make more children
  • more mouths to feed
  • also could be exported in exchange for foreign tech
  • mechanisation in country = less people needed in country so more workers in cities
31
Q

Economic case for collectivising:

A
  • remove hedgerows and boundaries = larger SA for crop growth
  • inefficient compared to other countries
  • machinery could be shared = more cost effective
  • release farmers to be city workers
32
Q

Political case for collectivisation

A
  • the farmers didn’t get socialism:
  • land decree vague - some assumed claim for themselves (private ownership)
  • NEP stopped collectivisation - peasants still controlled much of land
  • kulaks had become richer under the NEP, able to sell excess grain (hoarders - needing to be liquidated)
  • support for the party declined after Tambov rising in 1921
  • chance to extend socialism to the countryside
33
Q

Why was Stalin convinced agriculture was hindering industrial progress

A
  • grain procurements has decreased since 1926
  • less food for cities
  • peasants wary of growing a lot as the state would siege their hard work for little money
    = less incentive!
34
Q

Process of collectivisation

A
  • 1927 - 15th party = voluntary collectivisation
  • 1928 - forced requisitioning - temporary emergency measure due to shortages
  • ‘Ural - Siberian’ method = accelerated collectivisation
    -party officials sent to villages to announce the ‘Kolkhoz’: collective farm, advantages layer out
  • MTS established to supply machinery
  • once enough signed up, collective farms seized animals, grain and buildings
35
Q

Kulak term

A
  • initially to describe the richer peasants who owned their own plot
  • later = any peasant who didn’t sign up to the Kolkhoz
  • labelled as ‘class enemies’ and deported to Siberia
36
Q

Where was there violent opposition to collectivisation

A
  • Ukraine and the Caucasus
  • kulaks set fire to farms and killed their livestock
  • sometimes murdred party officials
37
Q

Who was sent to deal with the unruly kulaks?

A

Twenty-Five Thousanders/Dekulakisation squads:
- sent to forcibly organise collectives
- rounded up uncooperative peasants and sent them to labour camps
- red army used to quell unrest

38
Q

Who did Stalin blame for the ‘excesses’ of dekulakisation?

A
  • ‘Dizzy with Success’ article
  • blamed over zealous party members for dekulakisation
  • temporary slowing down, very brief to ensure the peasants sowed enough seeds!
39
Q

Statistics for collectivisation

A

1932 - 62% of households collectivised
1937 - 93%

40
Q

Failures of collectivisation

A
  • supply of machinery slow, many without till 1930s
  • kulaks = most productive farmers, removing them not smart
  • resistance from peasants damaged collectivisation
  • slaughter of animals - 1928-33 HALVED number of cattle - not solved till 53
  • shortages! Meat, milk
  • grain production fell
41
Q

Why was grain production disastrous?

A
  • fall in production from 73–>67 million tonnes (1928-34)
  • bad but made worse by INCREASING requisitioning
  • cities and RA fed
  • grain seized for exports
  • countryside left starving!
42
Q

Famine:

A

1932-33
- Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Caucasus
- peasants move into towns for search of more food - passport system established
- starving, some ate their own children
- govt dismissed ‘famine rumours’
- four million died in 1933 alone

43
Q

HOLODOMOR

A
  • 5 - 10 million dead from kulakisation
  • RObert Conquest - famine from collectivisation was Stalins deliberate genocide against Ukrainian people due to concerns over nationalism
  • HOLODOMOR - Ukraine - grew the most but saw worst shortage
  • some peasants cheered German invasion!
44
Q

Collectivisation succeeding in some areas:

A
  • 1930, Mir replaced with kolkhoz administration
  • chairman party member in charge
  • youth organisation employed to spy on peasants working
  • deepened the divide between town and country
  • rural communities were sacrificed for the cities - the smychka (collaboration between society) was exploititive, not symbiotic
45
Q

When did Germany invade the USSR

A

1941

46
Q

What was useful in wartime economic policy?

A

System of centralisation: mobilising and moving around resources

47
Q

Features of wartime economic policy:

A
  • defence committees set up at local level to coordinate production
  • factories converted (eg: Moscow bike factory —> flame thrower factory)
  • factories evacuated to eastern areas
48
Q

How many tanks and aircraft produced between 43-45?

A
  • 73000 tanks
  • 94000 aircraft
    = huge output
49
Q

Lend lease help

A
  • supplies sent from Britain (like spam)
  • with payment deferred
  • helped where consumer industries lacked
50
Q

How far did steel production fall by 1945

A
  • 12 million tonnes (18 million tonnes before 1940)
  • wool production half of 1940 figure
51
Q

Agricultural wartime policies:

A
  • able-bodied men conscripted
  • farm machinery/cattle requisitioned = huge decrease in food production
  • private plots provided an incentive
  • link system established - peasants in charge of small areas can sell excess grain for profit
52
Q

How far did grain output fall from 1940-42

A
  • 95 million tonnes
  • to 30 million tonnes in 1942
53
Q

Devastation stats after war:

A
  • 25 million homeless
  • 1700 towns, 70,000 villages destroyed
54
Q

4th 5yp dates and aims:

A

Reconstruction (46-50)
Reconstruct and restore economy to the pre-war levels
- conversion of factories back to what they were
- industrial plants rebuilt

=> state control increased, more difficult because lend lease finally ended

55
Q

What post war advantage did the USSR have to reconstruct?

A

Exploit Eastern Europe
- controlled increased parts of EE because of RA occupying land at the end of the war
- large amounts of machinery requisitioned from eastern Germany (rusted before put to use)
- trade agreements easily signed with (Soviet dominated) EE governments

However reconstruction was hugely placed upon soviet people

56
Q

How was industrial production increased/recovered rapidly?

A
  • two million gulag slave labourers
  • strong central planning - redirect wartime labour efficiently
  • retraining programmes - trained workers with the basic skills for in-demand jobs
  • harsh penalties for slackers
57
Q

Focus industry for 4th 5YP

A
  • successes in heavy engineering industry and metal
  • consumer industries neglected
  • fell behind other industries (developments in plastics and chemicals put on back burner - outdated economy)
58
Q

Dates and aims of 5th 5YP

A
  • 51-55
  • continued growth - more realistically
  • Cold War = increase in arms
  • less impressive growth in other industries
  • vanity projects for stalin
  • construction government buildings (housing crisis ignored)
59
Q

Vanity project: Volga-Don Canal

A
  • constructed by slave labour in 5 YP
  • encouraged by ‘working 1 day on project, 3 days off sentence’
  • HOWEVER, wasn’t used often, area didnt need to transport items by water
  • better use of investment would be in train lines
    HOWEVER supported the cult of Stalin - especially during HIGH Stalinism - statues littered the banks
60
Q

Conclusion in post war recovery:

A
  • industry bounced back (started at very low point)
  • 1948 onwards = increased living standard as
  • eg: 1952 real urban wages reached the 1928 level (end of NEP so good!)
  • recovery in country side much slower
61
Q

Recovery in the country:

A
  • link system abolished (increased party control - workers didn’t control their small areas anymore)
  • taxes put on private plots
  • supervision and surveillance by party members at the Machine and tractor stations
62
Q

Post war issues in the country:

A
  • huge inequality between sex demographics (able-bodied men get jobs on cities)
  • no machines or livestock due to requisitioning (strapped selves to the plough)
  • 1946 drought
  • 1947 some parts of Ukraine have famine
  • recovery so slow! By 1952 still below 1940 levels
  • productivity lower than 1913!
63
Q

Attempts to improve productivity in post-war countryside:

A
  • Moscow party secretary Khrushchev promotes creating larger collectives
  • easier to use large scale machinery
  • collectives easier to control
  • by 1952 - 100,000 larger collectives (very unpopular)
  • also Stalin tries to cultivate the desert - trees die 🤦‍♀️

Russia A-LEVEL History! Lenin to Yeltsin 1917-91 (19 decks)

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