USSR 2: Great Turn

Question 1

Reasons for 5YP’s

Fear of invasion

Answer 1

• A strong economy + heavy industry for armaments needed if invaded
• Churchill: “strangling Bolshevism in its cradle”
• In 1927:
• The British government accused the USSR of spreading revolutionary propaganda
• In China, the Communists were attacked by their political opponents resulting in a civil war.
• Pytor Voykov, Soviet diplomat, was assassinated in Poland.

Question 2

Reasons for 5YP’s

Ideological reasons

Answer 2

• Communism was appealing for workers BUT USSR mostly peasants
• More workers = more support for communism
• Get ride of NEPmen, stalin called them “enemies of the party”
• Better living conditions could increase dwindling support

Question 3

First 5YP (Overrall)

Answer 3

• 1928, Gosplan
• Very ambitious goals
• in 1929 Stalin decided goals were to be met by 1931

Question 4

First 5YP (Positives)

Answer 4

• Industrial workers doubled
• 1500 new enterprises
• Electricity output trebled (3x)
• Advisers: Ford experts caused 140k cars made in 1932
• Entire cities founded around industrial complexs
• New roads, canals, railways

Question 5

First 5YP (Negatives)

Answer 5

• Unrealistic targets were not met
• Lack of raw materials
• Lack of skilled workers
• Decline in living conditions

Question 6

Second 5YP (Overrall)

Answer 6

• 1933
• More concerned with improving efficiency and quality
• Focus on heavy industry and communications

Question 7

Second 5YP (Positives)

Answer 7

• Three Good Years (1934-6).
• Greater emphasis on consumer industries (food processing).
• Heavy industry grew because of complexes set up during the first plan.
• Dnieper Dam produced electricity.
• By 1937, USSR was basically self-sufficient.

Question 8

Second 5YP (Negatives)

Answer 8

• Consumer goods were still lagging.
• Limited growth of oil production.
• No improvement in living standards

Question 9

Third 5YP (Overrall)

Answer 9

• 1938
• Focus on armaments
• Halted by German invasion 1941

Question 10

Third FYP (Positives)

Answer 10

• 1/3 of government spending on defence
• 9 new aircraft factories
• Heavy industry and armaments grew rapidly

Question 11

Third FYP (Negatives)

Answer 11

• Hindered by purges (Gosplan officials and experienced managers)
• Consumer industries, steel and oil production lagged

Question 12

Stakhanovites

Answer 12

• Alexis Stakhanov, moved 102 tonnes of coal in one 6 hour shift
• Head of a propaganda campaign to encourage hard work
• Workers that exceeded targets got better housing, rations and called “Heroes of Socialist Labour”
• 25% became Stakhanovites
• Negatives: Workers hated pressure, Stakhanovites attacked, Stakhanovite “Pushy and Selfish person”

Question 13

Magnitogorsk

Answer 13

• Founded 1743 but irrelevant until 1929
• 750k people moved there
• Average worker stayed for only 82 days
• 40k political prisoners used
• Closed to westerners in 1937

Question 14

Reasons for collectivisation

Economic

Answer 14

• Grain procurement crisis: 1927-28 government could not buy surplus grain = rationing in cities
• Inefficient, old fashioned, Kulak-run farms
• Unable to produce surplus to support economic growth

Question 15

Reasons for collectivisation

Ideological

Answer 15

• Collectivisation extended socialism into the country
• Eliminated Kulaks
• Closer to ending NEP which was capitalist
• 1928-29 bread+meat rationed in cities (bad for ideology)

Question 16

Reasons for collectivisation

Political reasons

Answer 16

• Stalin aware food shortages caused Tsars downfall
• Collectivisation would give Stalin upper hand against Bukharin

Question 17

Impact of collectivisation (Overrall)

Answer 17

• Started Winter 1929-30
• 24 mil peasants in 240,000 kolkhoz
• Very negative response from peasants (nearly civil war)
• 1929-34 half of russian villages collectivised
• 1929 “liquidate Kulak classes” = 2 mil sent to Siberia and thousands killed

Question 18

Kolkhozes

Answer 18

Sovkhoz: Larger state farm where peasants paid wages
Kolkhoz: Collective farms
* 1940 there were 240,000
* 50-100 families
* After 1935 peasants given small area of private land

Question 19

MTS stations

Answer 19

• By 1940 one for every 40 farms
• MTS given complete control of farms until abolished in 1953
• Hated by peasants

Question 20

Collectivisation

Positive impacts

Answer 20

• 1937 90% of farmland collectivised
• Grain output 80% higher than 1913
• 1934 end of rationing food and bread
• 19m peasants moved to cities supplied lots of labour

Question 21

Collectivisation

Negative impacts

Answer 21

• Much resistance, particularly Kulaks
• in 1930, 14 million cattle slaughtered
• Livestock figure did not return to 1928 number till 1940
• By 1934 3mil Kulaks sent to labour camos
• Great Famine 1932-33

Question 22

Collectivisation

Great famine

Answer 22

• 4-5m dead
• Ukraine, hardest hit = “Breadbasket of Europe”
• Propaganda against canibalism, still 2500 people convicted of it
• People ate worms, bark, mice and humans
• Stalin made this much worse by refusing aid and grain seizures - deliberate?

Question 23

Collectivisation

Economic impact

Answer 23

• 1928 to 1933 cattle numbers halved
• Fall in grain (73.3m tonnes to 67.6m tonnes)
• Greater use of machinery in 1930s
• Allowed for industrialisation

Question 24

Collectivisation

Social and Political impacts

Answer 24

Social
* Heavy resistance
* Extended government control
Political
* Removal of non-government influences ( e.g village priests)
* Removal of capitalist classes (15m Kulaks)
* Abolition of Mir