The power struggle and Stalin

Question 1

Which candidates were chosen to head the party after Lenin’s death?

Answer 1

Three leaders were chosen to head the Party: Kamenev (Party Secretary in Moscow), Zinoviev (Party Secretary in Leningrad) and Stalin (General Secretary of the Party).

Stalin was considered by many to be a very average politician, but a hard worker and loyal follower of the Party’s policies.

Question 2

Who was the obvious successor to Lenin and what were some communist leaders afraid of?

Answer 2

The obvious successor to Lenin was Trotsky, the organizer of the Revolution and leader of the Red Army.

Some Communist Party leaders, however, were afraid that Trotsky was too powerful and that he might use the Red Army to make himself a dictator. They also disliked his emphasis on the need for ‘world revolution’.

Question 3

There was a debate between the left and right wings of the Party, or between internationalism and nationalism:

The Left:

Answer 3

led by Kamenev, Zinoviev and Trotsky, believed in world revolution or internationalism. They argued that the Soviet Union should do everything possible to encourage communist revolutions in other countries.

This would make communism stronger, and they would be better able to stand up to the capitalist world.

They also believed that the NEP should be abandoned, because it went against the socialist principles for which the Bolsheviks had fought.

Question 4

The Right:

Answer 4

led by the economist Bukharin, argued that a policy of world revolution would push the capitalist countries into attacking the Soviet Union. They believed that it would be unwise to abandon the NEP too soon, as this might threaten economic progress.

Question 5

Where did Stalin stand in this debate?

Answer 5

Between 1924 and 1927 he sided with the Right, Supporting a policy of ‘socialism in one country’. He sided with the Right in this period because he needed its support to
defeat his main rivals. (Most of them, like Trotsky, supported the Left.)

During this period, Stalin began to place supporters personally loyal to him in key positions in the Party and government.

Question 6

When and how did Stalin seize power?

Answer 6

In 1927, Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev were accused of plotting to overthrow the government. They were expelled from the Party.
Trotsky was forced to go into exile and was killed later by Stalin’s agents.

Stalin then attacked the policies of Bukharin and the Right. Stalin had cleverly used the divisions in the party to defeat all of his rivals for power. By 1928 he was clearly the only leader of the USSR.

Question 7

Stalin’s political and economic policies:

Answer 7

Stalin gained complete control of the Communist Party in 1928 and set about realising his ambition to transform the Soviet Union from an economically backward state into a world power. In order to do this, he had to change Lenin’s New Economic Policy and adapt Marxist ideology.

Question 8

What was Stalin’s regime characterized by?

Answer 8

The Stalinist regime was characterised by an increase in state control and growing
intolerance of any criticism of the state. The state increased its control over all means of production including farming, mining and industry but human rights were neither observed nor protected by law.

Question 9

Stalin’s interpretation of Marxism-Leninism:

Answer 9

Marx’s vision of a classless, wage-less society in which the country’s wealth would be
distributed to meet people’s needs was not achieved.

-Whereas Marx and Lenin had believed that communism must serve the people, the people served communism under Stalin.

-Stalin created a political regime in which people’s needs were sacrificed for the needs of the state.

Question 10

Some of the key features of his rule, knowņ as Stalinism:

Answer 10

-Stalin developed a cult of personality in which he was portrayed as the great
and wise leader. He presented himself as personally responsible for all Soviet
achievements. People were encouraged to worship him through public displays and
giant statues. All art and literature had to promote his greatness.

-He had enormous personal wy and used terror to control the population, and fear and terror to crush any potential opposition within the Party.

-There was a highly centralised system of government and economic control, with an
emphasis on industrialisation.

-There was strict censorship of all the media, and the Soviet people were cut off from foreign influences and contact. State propaganda told people what to think and put across the desired image of the leader.

Question 11

What state planning agency controlled the economy and what plans did they draw up?

Answer 11

Lenin’s New Economic Policy was abandoned and the economy was planned and
controlled by a state planning agency, Gosplan. Gosplan drew up Five Year Plans.

These plans set targets for the economic development of the Soviet Union. These targets
required workers to work long hours and forced labour was used to complete big
industrial projects.

Question 12

What did Stalin proclaim the official state ideology to be? And how was Stalin’s love for power and cruelty shown?

Answer 12

Stalin proclaimed the official ideology of the Soviet state under his rule to be Marxism-
Leninism.

Stalin’s love of power and cruelty became apparent once he ruled the Soviet Union. An
estimated 20 million people were killed because of Stalin’s policies, and, when questioned about this, he said: “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”

Question 13

Collectivisation and industrialisation:

What was Stalin’s slogan when he came into power?

Answer 13

When he came to power in 1928, Stalin’s slogan was ‘Socialism in One Country’ ,the building of a powerful, modern, socialist state.

Question 14

What policy did Stalin abandon and what did he introduce? And what needed to be modernized?

Answer 14

He abandoned the New Economic policy and introduced a series of Five Year Plans, where the main focus was on turning the Soviet Union into a giant industrial power.

However, agriculture also needed to be modernized. In this way more food could be produced for export, in order to buy the necessary imported technology for industrial development. It would also mean that more peasants could leave the farms and work in factories.

Question 15

What did the government do with the many small peasant farms?

Answer 15

Many small peasant farms were merged into huge government-controlled collective farms, which used machinery and modern farming methods. Most peasants did not support Communism, so collectivisation was a way for the government to have more control over them.

Question 16

To increase agricultural production:

Answer 16

Stalin introduced a system of collectivisation. Instead of
peasants producing just enough to feed their own families, as they had done in the past, now food production would be organised and planned by the state. The state would also provide health care and schools.

Question 17

Why were the peasant farmers unhappy and which group resisted the most?

Answer 17

They did not want to give up their land, and, rather than handing over their crops and
livestock to the collective, they burned and killed them. Those who resisted most strongly were kulaks or wealthier peasants.

Stalin therefore decided to get rid of the kulaks. Between five and ten million were deported to remote regions of the Soviet Union, or they were shot.

Question 18

Industrialization:

How the Soviet Union transformed into an industrial superpower

The Five Year Plans set targets to increase industrial production and mineral resources in the Soviet Union. These plans aimed to make the Soviet Union as powerful as the world’s most industrialised countries. To achieve this aim:

Answer 18

-All privately owned industries were nationalised by the state.
and these targets had to be met.

-Targets were set for increased production and these targets had to be met. Plant managers who did not deliver the quotas set were arrested or even executed.

-Forced (slave) labour was used. Workers were fined if they did not meet their targets.

-Propaganda such as posters, slogans and radio broadcasts urged the workers to
work harder for the good of their country.

Question 18

How did Stalin use the famine to his benefit and how did his plans affect agricultural production?

Answer 18

During 1932 and 1933, millions more peasants died from hunger when their produce was taken from them by force.

Stalin used the famine to force the peasants to submit to government control, by refusing to give aid to areas which opposed government policies. In spite of the resistance, by 1935 90% of farmland had been organised into collective farms.

However, agricultural production levels did not recover until the mid- 1950s.

Question 19

The First Five Year Plan, 1928 to 1932, focused on developing heavy industry and achieved the following results:

Answer 19

-Hundreds of new factories were built. “Tractor factories’ were established to
produce the agricultural machinery needed on the collective farms.

-Workers were sent to remote areas to build new mal towns from scratch
.
-Coal mining was developed in Siberia. Kulaks who had been deported to Siberia were used as slave labour on these mines. The production of cod rose from 36 million tons to 130 million tons.

-The Dnieper River Dam was constructed and was the largest dam in Europe. This dam produced hydro-electricity to power the many new factories that were built. It also provided irrigation water for the kotkhozi (communal farms).

Question 20

What did Stalin claim about the five year plans and what was remarkable about the Soviet Union’s transformation?

Answer 20

Stalin claimed that the First Five Year Plan had reached its targets in four years.
What is truly remarkable about the Soviet Union’s rapid industrialisation was that it was
achieved at a time when the rest of the industrialised world was suffering the effects of
the Great Depression.

Question 20

The Second Five Year Plan (1933-1937) aimed to run the industries set up in the first
plan more efficiently. Plans were made to improve communication and transport. The achievements of the Second Five Year Plan are as follows:

Answer 20

-The Baltic-White Sea Canal was constructed to link the White Sea in the north with
were used to dig this 227 km canal.

-The Moscow Metro, an underground railway system, was built.

-Transport was improved during this second plan by building more roads and railways.

-Factories were moved eastward into Central Asia so that they would be safe from
foreign attack.

Question 21

The Political terror: Purges and show trials of the 1930s

What did Stalin do to people who were critical of him?

Answer 21

In the 1930s, millions of people who were suspected of being critical of Stalin or his
policies were executed, or sent to force labour camps, or simply disappeared, This was
called the ‘Great Terror’ or the ‘Purges’ which were carried out by Stalin’s secret police.

Question 22

The main features of the Purges were:

-Show trials:

Answer 22

Public trials were held in which old Bolsheviks were forced to confess publicly to a variety of crimes. These ranged from disrupting the Five Year
Plans, or plotting to kill Stalin, to working to restore capitalism. All of the original leadership from Lenin’s time (except for Stalin himself and the exiled Trotsky) were put on trial and most were executed.

Question 23

-The Purges of the Communist Party:

Answer 23

Stalin expelled over one million members of the Party. Seventy per cent of the Party’s Central Committee were imprisoned or killed, and their positions were filled by Stalin’s Supporters. Even Trotsky was murdered by a Stalinist agent in Mexico in 1940.

Question 24

-The Purges of the army:

Answer 24

About a third of the officers in the army were imprisoned or
executed. This had a serious effect on the morale, discipline and effectiveness of the
Red Army.

Question 25

-The labour camps:

Answer 25

A vast network of slave labour camps (or gulags) was established, where political prisoners were forced to work on public works programmes or in the mines, Amongst the victims were many writers and academics whose loyalty to Stalin was doubted.

Included, too, were leading scientists, engineers and technologists. It is estimated that over 20 million people, including several million kulaks who resisted the changes in agriculture, were executed during this period or died in the camps.

Question 26

The effects of Stalin’s policies on the Soviet people

What was life under Stalin like?

Answer 26

Life for the Soviet people under Stalin was strictly controlled. People could be sent to the
gulags for small ‘crimes’, such as being late for work or telling a joke about Communist
Party officials, Government propaganda affected every aspect of their lives. Children
were taught to be loyal Communists from an early age They were encouraged to join youth organisations.

Question 27

What was there a shortage of during the first Five Year Plan and how did the second plan try to fix these?

Answer 27

During the First Five Year Plan there was a serious shortage of consumer goods, such
as clothing, because of the emphasis on heavy industry. With the movement of so many
people to the industrial centers, there was also an acute shortage of housing.

But in the Second Five Year Plan, attempts were made to improve the quality of goods, to produce more Consumer goods, to provide more housing for urban workers and to improve the standard of living.

Question 28

How did the lives of soviet people improve and what did the state provide?

Answer 28

In spite of all the problems associated with the economic changes and the terror,
daily life for many ordinary Soviet people improved in the 1930s.

The state provided jobs
for almost everyone and the Soviet Union avoided the high unemployment of capitalist countries at this time. People benefited from the government’s focus on health
services and education.

Question 29

What did the government encourage and what did they use for propoganda?

Answer 29

The government encouraged sport and fitness to improve the health of the people and provided forms of entertainment such as films and theatre, which served as an important means of propaganda to support government policies.

Question 30

Women in the Soviet Union under Stalin:

Answer 30

Under Stalin, Soviet women continued to be given equality with men on the work front, and many more types of work were now open to them than before the Revolution. For example, women played leading roles in many of the projects during the Five Year Plans.

However, the more liberal ideas of the 1920s such as easy abortion and divorce and free love were replaced with a renewed emphasis on traditional family values.

Question 31

What was the family code?

Answer 31

A new Family Code was introduced in which made it more difficult to get a divorce, and restrictions were placed on abortion. The state also paid a child allowance to married couples. Women who devoted themselves completely to the Party and neglected
their husbands and children were now criticised rather than admired.