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Senior Scholars Interwar Europe Fall 2019 Week 9 10/27/19 Stalinism in the Soviet Union Senior Scholars: Interwar Europe: • Developments since Bolshevik Revolution and end of Civil War WorkinG Out Modernity • Shift in agricultural and economic policy that began with First in the Midst of Crisis Five Year Plan (1928-32) • Stalin’s efforts to eliminate all possible rivals in society, state, Fall 2019 and party – purges of 1930s Prof. Kenneth F. Ledford [email protected] • Foreign policy and shifting attitude of Soviet Union to western 368-4144 democracies and to rise of fascism DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union • Bolsheviks consolidated their now position after November • “War Communism • War Communism 1917 only after 4-5 years of bitter struggle – Political aspect • Structure of Government – Major and many-facetted Civil War – Economic aspect – Council of People’s Commissars – Intervention by Allies – Chairman, Vladimir Lenin – War with Poland – Commissar of National Minorities, Josef Stalin (Dzhugashvili) HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Stalinism and the Soviet Union • Vladimir Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov) – Born 1870 Simbirsk – Son of state official (school inspector) – Studied law at University of Kazan – In 1887, his elder brother, Alexander, was executed at age 21 for plotting to assassinate Tsar Alexander III – Became Marxist rather than Populist – Imprisoned 1896, Siberian exile for 3 years, then to Switzerland – Published Social Democratic newspaper, Iskra HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT 1 10/27/19 Stalinism and the Soviet Union • Lenin – 1903 forced a split in Social Democratic party – Emerged as leader of “majority,” Bolsheviks – Lenin’s Marxism always a more voluntarist one than in western Europe • Importance of “vanguard party” • Embedded in conspiratorial Russian revolutionary tradition HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union • Lenin • War Communism transformed Russia politically, socially, – After November 1917 Revolution, Lenin exercised real power only economically until May 1922, when he began to suffer a series of increasingly – Bolsheviks allowed peasants to seize land incapacitating strokes • Revolution had proceeded under slogan: “Bread, peace, land!” – Died on January 21, 1924 – Gave control of factories to workers’ committees – Nationalized all banks – Foreign trade became state monopoly, with special commissariat – December 1917, abolished existing judicial system, replaced with “revolutionary tribunals” and “people’s courts,” to be guided by “socialist legal consciousness” HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union • War Communism political and social reforms • War Communism economic reforms – Abolished titles and ranks – Law of June 28, 1918 nationalized “commanding heights” of industrial – Confiscated property of upper and middle class opponents and émigrés economy – Confiscated property of Russian Orthodox Church – Private trade replaced by rationing and government distribution – Abolished religious instruction in school – February 19, 1918, land nationalized, state property to be used only by those who cultivated it with their own labor – Adopted Gregorian calendar, January 31, 1918 – December 20, 1917, created Extraordinary Commission to Combat – Peasants withheld grain; decreed food levy; forcible requisition and Counterrevolution, Sabotage, and Speculation repression became common • “Cheka” – Closely tied to exigencies of Civil War HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT 2 10/27/19 Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union • By 1921, country was exhausted • Unbearable situation had led to uprisings of peasants in – Despite bloodless revolution in November 1917, 20 million had died, 1 countryside and strikes and violence in factories million had emigrated • Uprising of soldiers and sailors at Kronstadt naval base, March – War Communism saved Soviet government but wrecked economy 2, 1921 • Total output of mines and factories in 1921 was 20 percent of 1914 level – Reliable supporters of Bolsheviks • Cotton was 5 percent; iron was 2 percent • Cultivated land was 64 percent of prewar level – Provisional Revolutionary Committee ruled for 15 days • Exchange rate of ruble to dollar: – Demanded end to privileged position of Communist Party; satisfaction – 1914 2:1 of demands of peasants and workers; freedom of speech and press; – 1920: 1,200:1 1914 1920 1939 secret ballot; release of all political prisoners • March 18, Trotsky led Red Army in and crushed mutineers – Shot without trial, massacred HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Stalinism and the Soviet Union • Tumult of Kronstadt in 1921 led to shift in course • New Economic Policy, NEP, 1921-28 – Temporary retreat on road to socialism – Communist Party retained full political control – Relaxation merely economic – State kept economic control of “commanding heights” – Private enterprise allowed in small industry and retail trade – Peasants no longer subject to requisitions but definite tax, first in kind, then in money – Peasants could keep and sell on free market what remained after tax – Permitted some use of hired labor and leasing of land HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT 3 10/27/19 Stalinism and the Soviet Union • New Economic Policy, NEP – Mastermind was Nikolai Bukharin • Opposed by Leon Trotsky and “Left Opposition” – Great economic success • By 1928, amount of land under cultivation exceeded prewar area • State industries were required to pay for themselves • 75 percent of retain trade fell into private hands • Small businessmen, “NEPmen,” flourished in towns • Prosperous peasants, “kulaks,” in countryside • Even while successful, this social change worried Party – 1925 measures to restrict Nepmen – 1927 measures to restrict kulaks HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union • Constitutional Structure of Soviet Union • Constitutional Structure of Soviet Union – First constitution of July 10, 1918 – Second constitution December 30, 1922 • Created Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic • Created Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR • Local soviets elected delegates to provincial congress of soviets, which elected All- • Composed of 7 republics Russian Congress – RSFSR, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Transcaucasian Federation (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia), Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan • All-Russian Congress elected Executive Committee and Council of People’s – Increased to 11 in 1936: Federation divided into 3, Kazakhstan and Kirghizstan separated from RSFSR Commissars • Power wielded by 4 main agencies • Elections not secret – Soviets • Communist Party, especially Central Committee and Politburo, dominated state as – Communist Party well – Secret Police – Military • Real power lay with party HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Stalinism and the Soviet Union • Increasing power lay with secret police – Cheka, Felix Dzershinsky – 1922 renamed GPU, OGPU, Unified State Political Administration, led by Vyacheslav Menzhinsky – Later NKVD then KGB – Used to track down counterrevolutionaries and wreckers – Exile to “GULag Archipelago” HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT 4 10/27/19 HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union • Transition from Lenin to Stalin • Stalin won struggle for control after Lenin’s death – Three main points of view among Bolsheviks in 1920s – Overcame Trotsky beginning in 1924, beginning process of stripping • Left, led by Trotsky, supported world revolution and opposed NEP him of offices, especially leadership of Red Army • Right, led by Bukharin, believed in world revolution but did not see it soon, so – Collaborated with Right (Bukharin and Rykov) to struggle with Left wished for non-disruptive policy in foreign affairs and develop economy through (Kamenev and Zinoviev) NEP at home • Center, led by Stalin, favored building socialism in one country, called for great – Fifteenth Party Congress on December 27, 1927 condemned “all efforts to transform Soviet Union deviation from the general Party line,” as interpreted by Stalin – Stalin won struggle for control after Lenin’s death through control of party membership and apparatus as Secretary-General of CPSU HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Stalinism and the Soviet Union • In 1928, Stalin made momentous decision to abandon NEP and embark upon a crash program of centrally directed industrialization in order to match economic, and thus military, power of the west. • To defend “Socialism in One Country” from inevitable aggression of capitalist powers • Necessary to build Socialism in One Country because World Revolution had clearly been delayed • First Five Year Plan, 1928-32 HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT 5 10/27/19 Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union • But Soviet Union still a heavily agrarian society, bulk of • So starting point of First Five Year Plan was collectivization of • Required abandonment of market compromises of NEP population in countryside agriculture
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