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Home , Cheka, Gosplan, Kulak, War communism

10/27/19

Stalinism in the Senior Scholars: Interwar : • Developments since Bolshevik 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

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• consolidated their now position after November • “War • 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 – Intervention by Allies – Chairman, – War with Poland – of National Minorities, Josef Stalin (Dzhugashvili)

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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

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• Lenin – 1903 forced a split in Social Democratic party – Emerged as leader of “majority,” Bolsheviks – Lenin’s always a more voluntarist one than in western Europe • Importance of “vanguard party” • Embedded in conspiratorial Russian tradition

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• Lenin • War Communism transformed 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 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 – , abolished existing judicial system, replaced with “revolutionary tribunals” and “people’s courts,” to be guided by “socialist legal consciousness”

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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

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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 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 ; 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 in and crushed mutineers – Shot without trial, massacred

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• Tumult of Kronstadt in 1921 led to shift in course • , NEP, 1921-28 – Temporary retreat on road to – 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

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• New Economic Policy, NEP – Mastermind was • Opposed by and “” – 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, “,” in countryside • Even while successful, this social change worried Party – 1925 measures to restrict Nepmen – 1927 measures to restrict kulaks

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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, , 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, and Kirghizstan separated from RSFSR Commissars • Power wielded by 4 main agencies • Elections not secret – Soviets • Communist Party, especially Central Committee and , dominated state as – Communist Party well – – Military • Real power lay with party

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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 “ Archipelago”

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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 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 , 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

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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

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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 • By its very nature, work force for industrialization needs to be – To produce enough grain to feed new cities and for export urban – To free labor to move to cities to work in factories • Moreover, agriculture even now only barely feeding existing cities • Industrialization would mean transfer of labor from country to city, leaving even smaller workforce for agriculture, but needing to produce more food than before

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• In 1929, Stalin sent party agents to countryside to seize hoards of grain withheld from market because peasants were dissatisfied with price and stop food shortages in cities • December 27, 1929, called for “liquidation of the kulaks as a class” • Collectivize agriculture into collective farms (kolkhozy) and state farms (sovkhozy)

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• More than 27,000 party agents sent into countryside • Peasants resisted, provoking party agents into brutal overkill • Nothing less than open warfare between peasants and Party • Together with local authorities and Party organizations, police, – In theory, a was any peasant with enough capital to be a money- emerged in countryside and if needed, army troops, forced peasants into collectives lender and thus usurer – shelled and stormed • Most estimates no more than 5 percent of all peasants – A minimum of 1 million, perhaps as many as 3 million, peasants died – In practice, any peasant who resisted collectivization was liquidated as of starvation after all their grain was requisitioned or were killed a kulak – Peasants resisted by killing their livestock – Whereas original Plan called for 14 percent collectivization after 5 • Horses declined from 34 million to 16.6 million years, once resistance began, collectivization pursued brutally and • Cattle from 68.1 million to 38.6 million totally • Sheep and goats from 147.2 million to 50.6 million • Hogs from 20.9 million to 12.2 million

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• Effects of violence worsened by significant droughts in 1932 and 1933 • Result was horrific famine in 1932-33 – Charged by some as being deliberately induced – Particularly severe in Ukraine; called by Holomodor – Between 3 million and 4 million deaths, primarily in southwest, in Ukraine

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• Despite horrible dislocation and loss of life, Soviet agriculture • Despite dislocation and horrific loss of live, Soviet agriculture fundamentally transformed was fundamentally transformed – In 1928, 98 percent of all land in small peasant holdings – By 1938, 90 percent of all land had been collectivized – State had control over primary direction of food supply; farmers and peasants could no longer determine whether there would be stability or unrest in cities – By 1932, 68 percent of all cultivated land under kolkhozy, 10 percent sovkhozy, and only 22 percent private cultivation – State monopolized farm machinery in Machine Tractor Stations

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• Collectivization eliminated a possible power base for opposition to CPSU • Harvest in 1939 20 percent larger than in 1929, produced with fewer agricultural workers • Between 1926 and 1939 20 million Soviets moved from countryside to city, creating vast urban labor force • Never solved problem of agricultural productivity • Cost in human suffering and death, deprivation and sacrifice enormous

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• Counterpart to collectivization in agriculture was rapid • More than 1,500 new factories built construction of heavy industry • Entire cities, such as Magnitogorsk – Building upon wartime experience of “” • Under leadership of State Planning Committee, – Main goal of First Plan was to develop heavy industry • Rates of growth of 12-14 percent per year • Iron and steel • Machine-building and machine tools • Famous emphases like Stakhanovites, named after Alexey • Automobiles and agricultural machinery Stakhanov • Aviation • Electrical goods – Miner in Donets Basin, overfulfilled daily quota by 1,400 percent in • Chemicals course of shift

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• First Five Year Plan completed in 4 years and 3 months

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• First Five Year Plan (1928-1932) • Second great characteristic of 1930s was the series of purges • Second Five Year Plan (1933-1937) that eliminated possible rivals to Stalin for power • Third Five Year Plan began 1938, interrupted by German invasion in June 1941 • Amazing results – Still lagged in efficiency and per capita production – War-like mobilization led to further repression, “wreckers” – Forced labor camps of GULag

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• Soon after Bolshevik Revolution, political parties other than • Bolshevik Party itself underwent periodic purges • From the very beginning and creation of the Cheka, political the Bolshevik Party had been abolished – Reached 730,000 in 1921, but one-third were purged police were a fundamental reality of Soviet life • Their supporters either sided with Whites, went into exile, – By 1929, again had more than 1 million members – during 1918 during Civil War were arrested and sent to the GULag or killed, or dropped out – By 1939, had 1.5 million members plus 5 million in youth groups – Pursued upper and middle class backgrounds as “class enemies” of political life – Campaign of violence by Left Socialist gave impetus to Red Terror • Cadets, Socialist Revolutionaries, and suppressed – , Fanny Kaplan shot and wounded Lenin as counterrevolutionaries in 1917 and 1918 • Only party other than Bolsheviks that was permitted were Left Socialist Revolutionaries, but they split in March 1918 over class struggle in villages

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• Stalin began to use position as Secretary General of Party to • As Lenin declined in 1923, triumvirate of Stalin, Zinoviev, and eliminate rivals for power Kamenev, all opposed to Trotsky, assumed power – Three main points of view among Bolsheviks in 1920s – Transferred Trotsky’s closes associates to jobs far away from center of • Left, led by Trotsky, supported world revolution and opposed NEP; joined by power Zinoviev and Kamenev – Encouraged Trotsky’s enemies to criticize him • Right, led by Bukharin, believed in world revolution but did not see it soon, so wished for non-disruptive policy in foreign affairs and develop economy through – In January 1925, removed Trotsky as War Commissar NEP at home; also Rykov – Gradually lost power, and in 1929 was expelled from Soviet Union • Center, led by Stalin, favored building “Socialism in One Country,” called for great efforts to transform Soviet Union

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• Stalin then turned sights on other “Old Bolsheviks” • As Second Five Year Plan began in 1934, Stalin began Great – In 1927, had Zinoviev and Kamenev expelled for association with Purge Trotsky’s ideas – Signal was murder of party leader of Leningrad, in – Later readmitted, but power was gone December 1934 – By end of 1930, other old Bolsheviks such as Bukharin, Tomsky, and – Under guise of weeding out “plotters,” GPU killed hundreds and sent Rykov had been forced out of Politburo and replaced by Stalin thousands to labor camps loyalists, Molotov – ”Yezhovshchina” after head of GPU, Nikolai Yezhov

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• August 1936, Trial of the Sixteen – Accused of plotting murder of Kirov – Final liquidation of Left, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Tomsky

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• January 1937, Trial of the Seventeen – Plotting with foreign powers to destroy Soviet Union – Radek

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• March 1938, Trial of the Twenty-One – Eliminated leadership of the Right – Bukharin and Rykov

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• By the end of the in 1938, all of Lenin’s Politburo except for Stalin and Trotsky were dead • Stalin finally succeeded in having Trotsky murdered in Mexico City by Spanish Communist, Ramon Mercado

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• At Party Congress in 1934, 80 percent of delegates had been Old Bolsheviks • At Party Congress in 1939, 20 percent of delegates had been Old Bolsheviks • Of 1,966 delegates to 1934 Congress, most had been arrested • Of 136 members of Central Committee in 1934, 98 killed by 1939 • As many as 7 or 8 million people arrested during great purge • By 1937, 6 million people in labor camps

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• Crucial element of Great Purge was its effect on Red Army • June 1937, Generals of Red Army tried in secret • Stalin suspected Marshal Tukhachevsky as an independent • 3 of 5 marshals, 14 of 16 army commanders, 60 of 67 corps power commanders, 136 of 199 division commanders, 221 of 397 • Nazis thought that Tukhachevsky’s fall would weaken Soviet brigade commanders, half of officer corps, 35,000 in all, shot military, so forged documents compromising Tukhachevsky, or imprisoned gave to Eduard Benes, President of Czechoslovakia, ally of • Wrought havoc on army, not recovered by 1941 Soviet Union

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Stalinism and the Soviet Union

• Foreign Policy – 1917-24: World Revolution • Bifurcated foreign policy • Soviet state pursued traditional foreign policy • Third International, Comintern, promoting world revolution – 1924-35: No foreign adventure – 1935-39: Popular Front

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