The Great Patriotic War And Stalin's Dictatorship 1941-53

Question 1

Stalin’s immediate reaction to operation barbarossa:

Answer 1

• Stalin had not taken any direct action in spring to prepare for German invasion
• following invasion on 22 June 1941, Stalin waited two weeks to make an announcement
• Stalin’s speech on 3rd July stressed themes of patriotism, religion and unity

Question 2

Poor leadership during early stages of war:

Answer 2

• Stalin was indecisive
• The Soviet army had inexperienced commanders
• Stalin refused to allow southern armies to retreat from Kiev until it was too late. This bought a massive defeat in the south in September 1941

Question 3

First stage of war (June 1941-summer 1942)

Answer 3

• 8 Sept 1941: siege of Leningrad begins
• 23 Aug 1942: bombardment of Stalingrad begins
• German advancement was swift and huge losses for Soviets (665000 captured at Kiev)
• troops from Siberia defended Moscow, aided by bad weather, avoided capture of Moscow

Question 4

Second stage of war (1942 - summer of 1943)

Answer 4

• 2 Feb 1943: surrender of German sixth army at Stalingrad
• Hitler did not have sources to fight war of attrition
• mass production of the T-34 tank was central to Soviet successes
• Hitler made a major error by not pulling troops out of Stalingrad

Question 5

Third stage of war (1943 to summer 1945)

Answer 5

• 6 Nov 1943: liberation of Kiev
• 4 Jan 1944: Soviet troops enter Poland
• 27 Jan: siege of Leningrad ends
  From August 1943 onwards there was a chain of Soviet victories across Eastern Europe

Question 6

The USSR under occupation:

Answer 6

Approximately 12m civilians died in the war. Of those alive in the USSR when the war started, 1/8 were dead by 1945. 1700 towns and cities and 70,000 villages were destroyed

Question 7

German brutality and repression:

Answer 7

• thousands of Soviet soldiers held as prisoners of war
• thousands of Soviet workers conscripted to work in German war factories
• captured Soviet commissars were executed immediately
• vicious reprisals against partisans
• massacres and deportations of Jews

Question 8

Soviet brutality and repression:

Answer 8

• thousands arrested or executed as ‘slackers’ or ‘deserters’
• 170,000 military personnel were executed for treason during the war
• mass deportation of ethnic minorities
• harsh treatment of people from liberated western areas
• harsh treatment of returned prisoners of war

Question 9

German weaknesses:

Answer 9

• Hitler’s strategy was based on securing a rapid victory
• from December 1941, Germany had to fight a two front war
• Germany lacked self sufficiency in raw materials
• experienced generals were replaced with ‘yes men’
• harsh German repression increased resistance movements and partisans

Question 10

Soviet strengths:

Answer 10

• the USSR’s vast geographical size (German supply lines were too far stretched)
• population size (171m in 1941) meant losses could be replaced in a way that was impossible for Germans
• natural resource wealth could out produce German war industries
• the Soviet ‘command economy’ was well suited to total war and the emergency mobilisation of workers and resources
• Stalin’s Stavka became ruthlessly effective
• propaganda and patriotism motivated the armed forces and civilians to fight and endure ( 4m people volunteered for citizen’s defence in 1941)

Question 11

The contribution by the allies:

Answer 11

• Stalin’s allies meant Hitler was fighting on two fronts
• mass bombing campaigns by British and Americans from 1943 inflicted huge damage on Germany’s war effort
• allied secret intelligence, gained by code breaking, undermined Germany’s war effort at crucial times
• enormous amounts of vital military and economic aid poured into the USSR

Question 12

Results of victory for the USSR:

Answer 12

• the USSR became a superpower
• communist ideology was vindicated
• Stalin was held up as the USSR’s saviour
• massive territorial expansion in the USSR and its ‘sphere of influence’
• devastating costs for the USSR (20m citizens killed)
• cold war tensions grew

Question 13

Problems faced by Soviet industry post-war:

Answer 13

• in 1945, mining production, electricity generation and steel production were around 1940 levels
• transport infrastructure was badly disrupted
• workforce was exhausted and depleted by war time sacrifices
• the end of foreign aid added significant pressures on industry
• high investment in military production (25% of total expenditure by 1952) as a result of the cold war meant less investment in other areas

Question 14

Industrial recovery under the fourth Five Year Plan:

Answer 14

• more coal, oil, steel, cement and electricity were all being produced in 1950 compared to 1940
• cotton fabrics, wool fabrics and sugar were back to pre war production figures by 1950
• as early as 1948, average Soviet incomes were back to 1948 levels

Question 15

Reasons for rapid industrial recovery:

Answer 15

• war preparations transferred masses of material from Germany to USSR
• central planning was able to enforce the mass mobilisation of people and resources
• the people were proud of the USSR victory and were willing to make more sacrifices

Question 16

Major challenges faced by agriculture in 1945:

Answer 16

• 98,000 collective farms were destroyed according to official statistics
• large quantity of farm machinery had been destroyed and livestock numbers depleted
• food production in 1945 was 60% of 1940 levels
• shortage of farm labour
• famine hit Ukraine in 1946-7, killing an estimated 1.5m people

Question 17

Slow and patchy recovery of agriculture:

Answer 17

• fourth Five Year Plan failed to hit many of its targets
• Stalin’s writings on the Soviet economy blocked reform in agriculture. Payments for farm products were still low, taxes increased and in 1948 the ban on selling food grown on private plots was reintroduced

Question 18

Features of ‘high stalinism’:

Answer 18

• unchallenged leadership by Stalin
• extreme form of dictatorship
• heroic leader of the Great Patriotic war
• Stalin cult portrayed him as god-like
• a secret police state
• cultural purges in the name of ideological ‘purity’
• the party and its institutions weakened or ignored
• rivalries and plots among Stalin’s inner circle
• Stalin increasingly withdrawn and paranoid
• deep suspicion of any influence from outside the USSR
• a lack of policy reform due to stagnation and inertia at the top of the government

Question 19

Strengthening Stalin’s dictatorship:

Answer 19

• party was sidelined, there was no party congresses between 1939-52. Politburo and central committee did what Stalin ordered
• red army and its heroes were downgraded, so they would not challenge Stalin
• totalitarianism

Question 20

Renewed terror:

Answer 20

• around 15% of the 1.8m returned prisoners of war were sent to gulags
• any contact with foreigners could result in denunciation or arrest. 1947 law outlawed marriage
• foreign travel by Soviet citizens was tightly controlled
• around 12m wartime survivors were sent to gulags

Question 21

The NKVD under Beria:

Answer 21

• Beria was NKVD Chief, deputy prime minister, full member of the politburo and head of USSRs atomic weapons programme
  -MVD controlled domestic security and the gulags
• MGB handled counter intelligence and espionage

Question 22

Zhdanovism:

Answer 22

• Soviet writers and artists followed party lines: socialist realism, praise of Stalin and Soviet achievements and criticism of American commercialism and inequalities
• those whose work did not embody socialist realism had to publicly apologise in order to continue working

Question 23

Stalin’s cult of personality:

Answer 23

• portrayed as the world’s greatest living genius
• Stalin’s victory in the war replaced Lenin’s Oct/Nov revolution as the greatest Soviet event
• Stalin was portrayed as the man of the people
• towns and cities competed for the honour in being named after Stalin
• Stalin prizes were launched to compete with Nobel prizes

Question 24

Leningrad affair:

Answer 24

• Stalin was suspicious of the party’s base in Leningrad because his rivals had built up a powerbase there
• in 1948, Stalin launched a purge on the party
• leading officials were arrested, interrogated and executed in 1950
• by 1950, 2000 party officials had been dismissed and replaced by pro-Stalin communists

Question 25

‘Mingrelian Case’

Answer 25

• in 1951, targeted at Party officials in Georgia who were mainly from the Mingrelian ethnic group
• accusations were mainly against followers of Beria.
• Stalin used the accusations to contain Berias power.

Question 26

The doctor’s plot:

Answer 26

• in 1952, Stalin arrested many Jewish doctors for participating in a ‘zionist conspiracy’ to harm the USSR on behalf of Israel and USA
• other Jewish people were caught up in the purge

Question 27

Formation of a Soviet bloc:

Answer 27

• By 1948, most of the Eastern European states had been absorbed into the USSR or turned into satellite states
• involved ‘salami tactics’, in which communist parties joined with socialists and liberals to gain power but then isolated and eliminated their rivals
• the Baltic states were occupied by the USSR in 1940 under the terms of the nazi-soviet pact
• Stalin hoped that this buffer zone of satellite states would help to protect the USSR from a future invasion by the West

Question 28

The emergence of a ‘superpower’

Answer 28

• a military industrial war machine: 7.5m well equipped soldiers
• increased territory: the USSR controlled the Baltic states and eastern Poland
• satellite states
• atomic power: USSR had developed an atomic bomb by August 1949
• UN permanent member: the USSR was one of five permanent members of the UN security council

Question 29

Tehran conferences:

Answer 29

• 1943
• allies agreed to demand an unconditional surrender from Germany. Ideological differences - Stalin was critical of his allies for not opening a ‘second front’ and relieving pressure

Question 30

Potsdam conference:

Answer 30

• august 1945
• it was clear that the USSR was asserting political control over the countries it had liberated

Question 31

Long Telegram:

Answer 31

• 1946
• from an American diplomat living in the USSR urging the west to contain the spread of communism

Question 32

Truman doctrines:

Answer 32

• March 1947
• USA was committed to a policy of containment

Question 33

Marshall plan:

Answer 33

• June 1947
• providing US aid for European economic recovery received a hostile Soviet response, as Stalin believed it would extend US influence

Question 34

Berlin Blockade of 1948-9:

Answer 34

• Stalin cut off all road and rail links between Berlin and the western zones of Germany. This hardened divisions of Germany.