Document Test Stalin S USSR

Document Test – Stalin’s USSR

Stalin then turned to the question of the actual industrial achievements of the plan and gave a list (which is familiar and not, therefore, worth quoting) of the various industries which, he said, had been founded or transformed and illustrated the success of the plan in this sphere of national economy. Not only had these industries been created, but, compared, with the rate of their development, the standards of European industry were insignificant. The industrial transformation of the country had also led to the complete suppression of capitalist elements in industry. Meanwhile, the role played by industrial production in comparison with agricultural production had increased from a proportion of 48 per cent. of the whole output of national economy in 1928 to 70% in 1932.

As a whole, the industrial plan had been fulfilled by 93.7% and the volume of the industrial production was now three times what it had been before the war and twice what it had been in 1928. ……

“The party, as it were, spurred on the country, accelerating its forward pace.” It was necessary to drive on a country which was a hundred years backward, especially since it was impossible to tell “on what day the Imperialists would fall upon the U.S.S.R. and destroy its constructive development.” --- Source A: summary of a speech given by Stalin, January, 1933

Food is scarce and dear, butter, when it is there, is 17 to 20 roubles a kilo, and each person can only buy ½ a kilo.

Pork is 13 roubles a kilo, and beef 11 and 12 – very little to be had. It has been a long winter and meat killed off before the frost set in.

Dr. Bell said last night that most women went to work at 4 p.m. and from 7 a.m. they stand in a queue for food. Shops open at 10 or 11, and at 4 o’clock they go home without getting anything, as they must go to work. Thousands do this daily. We are lucky to have had Prince and the geese, and now I am getting 2 kilos of meat from Helsingfors. Dr. Bell says there is no fish; even last year there was plenty. It is worse now than it has been for three or four years. I got 50 kilos of butter at 16 r. 80 kop. Even the Consuls are astonished I got it. It is a God-send to our people; I also got 50 eggs, they are scarce too. --- Source B: excerpt from a private letter from a British woman living in the USSR in 1938

The Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee call upon all collective and private farmers who are honest and dedicated to Soviet rule to organize all their efforts for a merciless struggle against kulaks and their accomplices in order to: defeat in their villages the kulak sabotage of grain collection; fulfill honestly and conscientiously their grain collection obligations to the Soviet authorities; and strengthen collective farms. ---- Source C: from the Secretary for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Ukraine, 1932

--- Source D: Soviet Poster from 1934 entitled: “Peasants Can Live Like Human Beings” In the cities, the inordinate and unanticipated growth transformed a strained housing situation into an appalling one, creating the specifically Soviet reality of chronically overcrowded lodgings, with consequent attrition of human relations, strained family life, destruction of privacy and personal life, and various forms of psychological strain…. The falling standards of living, the long lines outside stores, and the proliferation of speculators suggest the depths of the tensions and hardships.

----Source E: from C. Ward (ed.), The Stalinist Dictatorship, 1998

Document Questions

1. (a) What does source C suggest about the views of the Soviet government regarding collectivization? [3 marks]

(b) What is the message conveyed by source D? [2 marks]

2. Compare and contrast the view of sources A and E about the success of the Soviet modernization. [6 marks]

3. With reference to their origin and purpose, assess the value and limitation of sources B and D for historians studying the USSR during the 1930’s. [6 marks] 4. Using the sources and your own knowledge, evaluate the success of Stalin’s modernization of Russia. [8 marks]