The Big Debate - USSR's Future Flashcards
The main features of NEP:
- small privately owned industry and private trading were permitted
- heavy industry, transport and banks remained under state control
- grain requisitioning was replaced with a small tax
- peasants were allowed to sell their surplus food for profit
NEP was introduced:
1921
The NEP created big divisions in the party, who wanted to keep the NEP?
Bukharin
Why did bukharin want to keep the NEP?
- It was providing food for the cities as work for the proletariat
- Told the peasants to enrich themselves and buy goods to promote the USSR’s industry
- Believed there should be an alliance between peasants and workers: didn’t want to create difference between them
Who wanted to abolish the NEP?
Trotsky
Why did Trotsky want to abolish the NEP?
- Resented that much of the USSR’s industry wasn’t under the direct control of the government
- Hated Nepmen
- Felt that communism hasn’t truly spread to the countryside, wanted to end the inequality between poor peasants and kulaks
- Wanted to abolish private farms and introduce collective farming - profits made used to develop USSR’s industry
Why was stalin’s non-involvement in the NEP debate a clever move?
Meant he could win support both from those who’d backed bukharin (right) and those who’d backed Trotsky (left)
How did Trotsky and Stalin clash over how the USSR should be governed?
- Trotsky criticised the growing bureaucracy in the party - argued were making decisions without ordinary party members and that the party was losing touch with proletariat
- Wanted greater democracy to challenge party bureaucracy, wanted more open debate within party
- Trotsky’s party bureaucracy criticism was unpopular with other party members because the had benefitted from this system by gaining power and prestige
- Stalin’s government = communist party, aim = dominate Russian society ASAP
- General secretary this type communist government would give Stalin great power
2 ways to protect communism and the USSR:
Permanent revolution
Socialism in one country
Who believed in Permanent Revolution:
And what was Permanent revolution:
Trotsky
•He believed that unless communism spread beyond the USSR it wouldn’t survive
•Revolution in Russia = first step towards a worldwide revolution of the proletariat
•Government duty to export communism to other countries (Western Europe)
Who believed in socialism in one country:
And what was socialism in one country:
Stalin
•backed by bukharin
•been failed communist uprisings in Germany and Hungary after the war, Stalin didn’t think that other revolutions would be successful
•wanted to concentrate on building a socialist state - focusing resources on home development and not on promoting revolutions abroad
Socialism in one country was more popular with people as they wanted…
Peace and stalin’s policy also appealed to their national pride
