“We are 50 or 100 years behind the advanced countries… we must make good this distance in 10 years… Either we do so, or we shall go under,” ("Joseph Stalin: National Hero or a Cold-Blooded Murderer?"). Russia had been behind all of the advanced countries for many years, using primitive farming practices, machinery, factories, and building. As a result, Stalin decided to enforce the Five Year Plan which would catch Russia up with everyone else in the world and dramatically increase industrialization. He believed that if he did not industrialize, Russia would have been taken over by other nearby Nationalist countries ("Joseph Stalin: National Hero or a Cold-Blooded Murderer?"). However, to do so in ten years, he had to enforce strict laws and …show more content…
Stalin slowly became more and more paranoid as the years went on while he was in office, so he plotted these massive purges that would kill off anyone who was “an enemy of the people.” Therefore, Stalin first started with his government, thousands of his file members were expelled by sending them to prison camps or exiling them ("Bill of Rights in Action"). After all of the government was cleaned and replaced with more young and loyal men, the economy started to fail, making the citizens angry and critical towards Stalin. As a result, Stalin created a Secret Police that would execute and arrest anyone against Stalin’s views ("Bill of Rights in Action"). Then Stalin started to make prison camps to put anyone who has betrayed him or go against any of his views and since Stalin was so fearful, everyone in Russia was in danger. The economic failure then caused a food production shortage which caused another famine and Stalin ‘offered’ collectivism to the peasants, but they refused (“Joseph Stalin Biography”). Consequently, this resulted in Stalin taking the food away from the poor and giving it to the wealthier classes, causing about 5 million peasant deaths from either starvation or forced labor ("Bill of Rights in Action"). The citizens of Russia became extremely angry with Stalin because of how unfair he was and that it was violating the Constitution, so he produced three ‘Show Trials’. During the years of 1936-1938, Stalin made three scripted Show Trials in front of fifty communist leaders to prove that the Russians were being trialed fairly ("Bill of Rights in Action"). The last of the three and most famous was in March of 1938 where Nikolai Krestinsky would not plead guilty and the script almost completely fell apart, but in the end, Stalin got his way ("Bill of Rights in Action"). To make the prisoners in the camps to
This highlighted not only Stalin’s fear of being subsided as leader of the USSR, but his ruthlessness in the face of opposition. Then followed the 1936 Show Trials, in which there were many arrests of party members, ex-opponents, military figures and non-party members. The first involved Zinoviev, Kamanev and their allies, who confessed under force for falsified crimes of being responsible for attempts to wreck Soviet industry and to kill Soviet leaders, and subsequently were shot after being convicted. The second followed in January 1937, in which Karl Radek, a well known Trotskyite and Pyatakov was shot, again on falsified crimes. In March 1938, Bukharin and 20 members of the old Right Deviation were tried, and found guilty of working with Trotsky and foreign governments against the USSR. All confessed and were shot, with Tomsky being so crippled by fear that he committed suicide. The Show Trials were a grotesque sham by which Stalin cast immense fear into the hearts and minds of Russia’s political clout, ensuring total control over any opposition through fear alone. Removal of any potential opposition was extended in July 1937 when Yezhov (Stalin’s head of the secret police from 1936) drew up a list of over 250,000 ‘Anti-Soviet elements’, which included intelligentsia such as artists, writers, musicians, priests and so forth. This became known as the Anti-Soviet List, ad anyone unfortunate enough to be found on it was arrested,
In 1917, Tsar Nicholas ll is the current ruler of Russia. Russia’s economic growth is increased by the czar’s reforms of the production of more factories. Since, Russia desperately needed to keep up with the rest of Europe’s industry. This reform worked out perfectly, but the working conditions of these factories didn’t please factory workers. After the events of the Russo-Japenese War, “Bloody Sunday”, and WW1, all of Russia was in utter chaos under the czar’s ghastly leadership. With no signs of the czar’s attempt to solve the problems that kept coming up, all of Russia banded together and filled the streets with strikes and riots. A revolution was peaking among the peasants. The uprising brought Nicholas ll no choice but to abdicate
The 3 5-year plans focused on heavy industry, as well as an emphasis on electricity, coal, oil and steel. The latter sections of industry greatly increased including coal (million tons) rising to 128 in 1937. Although during this time period, famine and forced labour occured, the 5-year plans were a success. Through the implementation of Collectivization and the 5-year plans, it can be seen how Stalinism impacted upon the economy, and thus the Soviet State.
Stalin had decided that he wanted to create a 5 year plan. He introduced this in
The first of several primary sources is "Industrialization of the Country and the Right Deviation in the C.P.S.U." by Joseph Stalin. Coming from the figurehead of stalinism, the piece is very much a declaration of Stalinist beliefs in regards towards urbanization. It’s original purpose seems to be uniting the soviet people in a push to create more technological advancements, as Stalin states that the U.S.S.R. is falling behind other countries such as Russia in that regards. It could also serve as a propaganda piece, as the views seem rather nationalistic. One thing this piece does not do however, is create a direct link between the Soviet Union’s plans and Cambodia’s seeing as it was written decades before the Khmer Rouge came into power. Yet,
His first five year plan was during 1928-1933 and this was the heavy industry plan which was making industries, transportation, and power supplies. The first of his methods was to use collectivization. Collectivization was the making of small farms into one big farm, and this would help increase the amount of products they make, and that would increase the amount of profit. Afterwards the people who were working on the farms would go into the city and be forced to work in the factories. The money then would be used to buy more more equipment which is industrial products which can help boost their profits yet again. Stalin was shown to be a heavy thinker, and to get his plans through, he made propaganda signs and speeches. He would focuses on telling his people the consequences if they didn’t work hard enough as a country, as they would be “falling behind... and those who fall behind are beaten”(Document 1). The propaganda speeches did work most of the time, but they felt hesitant as the goal for his five year plan was averaging to double the amount of, and “tripling in electricity (milliard kWh) from 5.05 to 17.0 in the end of 1933” (Document 2). Stalin
The Russian’s loss in the Russo-Japanese war was the another way that they got the public to turn against the provisional government and strengthen the communist revolt. The revolt got stronger and stronger until the Bolsheviks finally revolted and took down the Russian Provisional Government. Because of this, civil war erupted all over the country. At the end of this war, in 1920, the Bolsheviks set up the USSR, or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, under control of Vladimir Lenin. When Lenin died, Stalin aggressively worked his way up until he was the leader of the USSR. In his control, Stalin set up a “5 year plan” to advance the Russian economy from just farming to also having industry. In this plan, he would also advance the military and “cleanse the country of villains” or those he saw as villains. To “cleanse the country”, Stalin would have unfair trials that would have many on trial at once. These were called his “Show Trials”. The majority, if not all, of these people were found guilty and sent for execution. They were executed all at once, and the executions were called the Purges. To advance the Russian economy, Stalin would work the farmers to death… literally. When the farmers revolted, Stalin stopped sending them food and even more died from starvation. On the last of the purges, 16 men were put on trial and accused of acts of terrorism towards Stalin and the Soviet government. Two of them were Stalin’s allies after Lenin’s death, Zinovyev and
The show trials targeted the previous generation of the Communist Party. The Purges of 1937 wiped out younger members of the party, and dealt with unreliable elements within the army. A general purge of the Russian people kept the country in a state of fear and obedience. This enabled Stalin to establish a personal dictatorship as he eliminated any future rivals and kept Russia in a
The Third Five Year Plan lasted for only three years, as it was interrupted by Germany’s declaration of war on the Soviet Union during World War II. As war seemed imminent, this plan focused on the production of weapons and other wartime materials (Trueman). The Soviet Union mainly contributed resources to the development of weapons, and constructed additional military factories as needed. Stalin continued to use additional Five Year Plans in the years following WWII, in an attempt keep his promise in 1945 to make the Soviet Union the leading industrial power by 1960. By 1952, industrial production was nearly double the 1941 level. Stalin’s Five Year Plans helped transform the Soviet Union from an untrained society of peasants to an advanced industrial economy. So through out this plan of hopefully saving Russia that Stalin has created products that could not be used and unintelligent citizens who were only trained to only do only one skill.
The Bolsheviks believed they had to industrialise to achieve national strength and maintain independence. This was a shared view of non-Bolshevik predecessors such as Count Sergei Witte a former Russian minister. The Soviet Union needed a modern industry, especially a heavy industry, as there was the idea that they had to defend the revolution. They believed the Russian revolution was in constant danger from capitalist countries, which were militarily and technically far stronger than them. Then there was the belief that the building of socialism or communism involved industrialisation, and that a proletarian dictatorship was insecure so long as it ruled in an overwhelmingly peasant environment . Industrialisation was introduced to eradicate the backwardness that had plagued the country for so long so they could rise and defeat capitalism. In his speech in 1931 Stalin stated ‘we are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall go under’ and that ‘it is the jungle law of capitalism. You are backward, you are weak - therefore you are wrong; hence you can be beaten and enslaved. You are mighty - therefore you are right; hence we must be wary of you. This is why we must no longer lag behind’ . These show the need for the Soviet Union to advance and become stronger than capitalist countries. Industrialisation also allowed the Soviet
Many women worked in factories and construction. Men and women usually earned the same amount of wages. Joseph Stalin in 1928 launched the first Five-Year Plan it was designed to industrialize the Soviet Union in the shortest possible time and in the process, to make the collectivization of farm faster. Under Stalin (1939-1953) ten’s of millions of people were tortured executed or lived a life of suffering. Stalin saw education as a key part of life, by the year 1939 85 percent of people could read and write.
point of view of Russia the Five Year Plans had been a failure in that
""As known as there is no one can save from criticism? Stalin was actually super self-conscious about the way he looked, having a shorter left arm and mark. So, Stalin was responsible for the death of at least 20 million people. He said it himself: “One death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic,” and Stalin sure left one. But in another side, his policies greatly improved the industry in Russia. He forced people for collectivism on the people, and many Russians considered collectivism as a bad thing, but it helped the Russian economy and industry too much. Stalin and most party leaders supported the NEP, believing it necessary to strengthen the Soviet Union and protect the revolution"."
Once eliminating Trotsky, Stalin’s idea of, “socialism in our country,” inevitably meant that Russia needed strength. The productions in the USSR had almost reached pre-war levels by the mid-1920s, but the population of Russia had also increased by 20 million people. No matter, Stalin assured that maximum efforts and resources would be given to the expansion and strengthening of Russia herself rather than an effort to start a revolution elsewhere. This is explained in his famous 1931 speech, gaining power for himself. The people had nowhere else to turn to and needed a leader. Stalin was there and knew what to do to make the people interested in his ideas, thus acquired their trust and control. From these ideas, he created his first
Due to the extreme focus on heavy industry, there were shortages of consumer goods, and subsequently, inflation grew. To satisfy the state’s increasing need for food supplies, the First Five Year Plan introduced the concept of collectivization. Collectivization entailed compounding peasants’ land and animals, and state farms to provide food to the growing industrial sector. The collectivization movement was not received well by the peasants, and as a result, Stalin altered his plan of action. In 1933, he introduced the Second Five-Year Plan. With this plan, he set more realistic goals, and increased the focus on producing consumer goods and increasing industrial output in general. By 1940, after a Third Five-Year Plan was implemented, the Soviet economy was completely industrialized.