Edexcel iGCSE (9-1)

Dictatorship and
Conflict in the USSR
1924-53
 1.1 The Soviet Union in 1924
On 21st January 1924, Vladimir Lenin died. He was the man who
had led the Bolsheviks to victory through revolution and a brutal
Civil War to create the world’s first Communist state – the USSR
(Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). He had provided inspirational
leadership to hold the party together through a tumultuous period
and provided strong ideology, propaganda and organisation
through both persuasion and fear.
On his death, the Soviet Union went into official mourning. His
body was mummified and his brain sliced up to allow scientists to
study his ‘great intellect’. Millions filed past his body to pay their
respects and Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honour.
There was a sense of gloom about how to continue with the
communist experiment and how to solve major challenges that still
remained without Lenin guiding them.
What Lenin had aimed to do throughout his life was to overthrow
the Tsarist system of government and implement the ideas of Marx and Engles where all people would
work for the common good and would be considered equal. The principle ‘from each according to his
ability, to each according to his needs’ meant that each person would only take what they need and
contribute what they can to the rest of society.
During the Civil War 1918-21 Lenin had introduced War Communism where all industry was
brought under state control and grain was forcibly seized from peasants in the countryside. Strict
discipline was imposed and terror was used to enforce this policy. Although the Reds won the Civil
War, there was a huge human and economic cost with a major famine in 1921 resulting in millions of
deaths.
As a result, Lenin had chosen to adopt some elements of capitalism back into the economy with the
New Economic Policy (NEP). This helped the economy to recover and the belief was that after the
country had recovered from the effects of war, the pace of change to a communist society could be
increased.
In his last few months, Lenin knew that the success of the communist experiment was far from
guaranteed. Although the USSR was the world’s largest
country (more than twice as big as the USA) this did not
necessarily translate into automatic power. Huge
distances and geographical differences between areas of
the country existed as well as only 4% of the 165 million
population working in industry. It had to overcome
continuing threats from abroad as well as managing the
economy effectively to rebuild the war devastated
country and turn it from an old fashioned agricultural
society to a modern industrial nation.
The question of who would be able to manage these
problems after Lenin’s death was very important. Should the party focus on spreading worldwide
revolution or concentrate on building socialism within one country…?

1.2 The rivals for leadership

After his second stroke in December 1922 left him partially paralysed, Lenin knew he may not have
much time left and turned his thoughts to a ‘Testament’ to be read after his death. He was very
secretive about this document and only gave his wife and sister copies of it to ensure they would not be
read until his death.

The Communist Party had been holding Congress sessions since 1898 as a convention for communist
supporters to gather (pre-1917 in secret/exile). The Central Committee was the executive leadership of
the party elected at the Congress to direct all activities in between sessions of Congress. This is where
during 1917 there had been large disagreements between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks within the party
about how to proceed with the revolution and whether or not to work with the Provisional
Government. After the October Revolution, it was through votes in the Central Committee that
decisions were made about the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and how to proceed with the Civil War.

In March 1919 the Politburo was established – a smaller group to solve immediate problems more
quickly without the full Central Committee deliberation. The members were Vladimir Lenin, Leon
Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, Lev Kamenev, Nikolai
Krestinsky, Grigory Zinoviev, Nikolai Bukharin and
Mikhail Kalinin.

Lenin knew that his successor was likely to either be

Leon Trotsky or Joseph Stalin due to their positions in
the Politburo. Lenin believed Trotsky was the ‘most
capable man in the Central Committee’ but too
arrogant and had often openly disagreed with Lenin.
However, Lenin was particularly worried about Stalin who as General Secretary of the Communist
Party had control over appointments and had been filling positions with his own supporters.

Lenin also mentioned but rejected other members of the Politburo – for example Bukharin was
popular but did not fully understand Marxism and Zinoviev and Kamenev had not supported the
October Revolution back in 1917. Perhaps Lenin simply felt that no one was able to replace him
effectively as leader, but it is clear that Lenin feared the power that Stalin had gained and wanted him
to be removed.

However, although Lenin’s testament was read after his death, it was not published outside the
Central Committee as the members of the Politburo did not want the embarrassing remarks about
them shared. Instead, they agreed to work together and share power. However, this show of unity was
an illusion as in reality each of them wanted to
dominate the party or stop their rivals from
gaining full leadership for themselves. Rather than
a purposeful collective leadership, the period 1924-
9 turned into a long and bitter power struggle
primarily between Trotsky and Stalin.

1.3 Strengths and Weaknesses of Stalin and

Trotsky
 Stalin’s strengths
 Born in the mountainous and lawless
kingdom of Georgia in poverty – people saw
him as a straight talking tough peasant who
was willing to be ruthless
 Long history of supporting the Bolsheviks
from robbing banks to suffering
imprisonment and exile
 Supported the idea of ‘socialism in one
country’ which was popular as people were
tired of war and revolution
 One of Russia’s leading politicians in the
Politburo - position as General Secretary
considered a boring admin job but allowed
access to information files on over 26,000
members and could promote own supporters
to key positions
 As more workers join the party under the
‘Lenin Enrolment Scheme’ they know they
need to support him if they want to get
promoted within the party
 Took the lead in organising Lenin’s funeral
and delivered the main speech
Trotsky’s strengths
 Long revolutionary history, being part of the
original St Petersburg Soviet in 1905 in the
first uprising against the tsar
 His role in the October Revolution was
crucial for Bolshevik victory
 Lenin’s right hand man from 1917-24
 Created the Red Army and won the Civil
War
 After Lenin, Trotsky was considered the
party’s greatest thinker
 Inspirational public speaker
 Brilliant organiser who can get things done
 Younger, radical members of the party liked
him
 Had a position in the Politburo but also
remained in charge of the Red Army
1.4 Stalin’s steps to power 1924-9
Stalin’s weaknesses
 Lenin’s testament called for his removal due to
his increased power – as Lenin was the party’s
highest authority this could damage his
leadership hopes
 Did not take a leading role in the October
Revolution or Civil War
 People considered him to have a dull personality
even though he was good at administrative work.
He rarely took the lead in meetings and was not a
good public speaker or thinker. People called him
names such as ‘the grey blur’, ‘comrade card-
index’ and ‘arch mediocrity’
Trotsky’s weaknesses
 Only officially joined the Bolshevik party in the
summer of 1917 so some doubted his
commitment
 Arrogance and sarcasm had caused offense to
some people
 Anti-Semites within the party disliked the fact he
was Jewish
 Often ill with fevers which caused exhaustion for
long periods – missed Lenin’
 Lived outside Russia for many years so some
thought him too ‘westernised’
 Did not believe Stalin was a serious threat
 Supported encouraging worldwide socialist
revolutions which many feared would cause more
war and violence.
 Wanted rapid industrialisation which many
feared would cause too much suffering for
ordinary people
 Due to his position as head of the Red Army
many feared he would simply use force to get his
own way
 Did not like political infighting and tactics so
hadn’t built up his own supporters within the
party
 Did not attend Lenin’s funeral
All members of the Communist Party had the same overall vision. They wanted to build a communist
society. However, there was strongly divided opinion on how best to do this which led to the creation
of hostile factions within the party.

The left wing were radicals who wanted to build communism as rapidly as possible. This would mean
ending the NEP, launching rapid industrialisation and spreading worldwide revolution. The main
members of the Politburo who supported this
were Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev. The
right wing led by Bukharin supported the NEP
and the slow industrialisation of Russia. They
also supported Stalin’s idea of socialism in one
country. They accepted that it would be a long
time before Russia became a communist
society but argued that daily life would be
easier for ordinary people.

For most of the 1920s, Stalin avoided taking

extreme positions so he was seen as the centre
of the party. He was skilful at appearing
moderate, keeping his thoughts to himself. He
wanted to keep the NEP but only for as long as
it worked – he wanted Russia to industrialise
faster than the right wing did but not at the
breakneck speed demanded by the left wing.
He took three steps to manoeuvre his own position and weaken his rivals.

Step 1 Trotsky was seen as the man most likely to win the power struggle which meant the
Defeat other contenders were prepared to work together to prevent this from happening. It
Trotsky did not matter that Kamenev and Zinoviev actually agreed with Trotsky on many
policy issues – they felt it was more important to keep him out of power. The anti-
Trotsky alliance helped Stalin as he lacked the authority to take on Trotsky alone.
Both Kamenev and Zinoviev steadily destroyed Trotsky’s reputation by writing
articles and making speeches about the ways Trotsky argued with Lenin before 1917
and diminishing his role in in the October Revolution. At the 13th Party Congress in
1924, Trotsky made speeches calling for rapid industrialisation and greater
democracy in the Party. But Stalin had ensured that the Congress was packed with
anti-Trotsky members so when votes were counted, all of Trotsky’s proposals were
rejected. He lost his position as head of the Red Army and left active politics,
refusing to take part in the factional infighting to build his own alliances and
maintain influence.

Step 2 Following Trotsky’s defeat, the anti-Trotsky alliance split apart as it had achieved its
Defeat goal. Stalin therefore decided to ally with Bukharin and the right wing of the party as
United they shared similar views on continuing with the NEP which was supported by the
Opposition majority of the party at the time. ‘Socialism in one country’ was seen as patriotic as it
meant they could build it without outside help and the despite the NEP being a retreat
from communism it was helping the country to recover. Bukharin also crucially
 controlled the party’s media which put them in the dominant position.

Kamenev and Zinoviev did not want to give up their leadership hopes and turned back
to Trotsky to help them form the United Opposition in 1926 to present their ideas at the
15th Party Congress in 1927. But as at the 13 th Party Congress, Stalin packed the hall
with his own supporters who booed and heckled them. Kamenev and Zinoviev lost their
respect and authority for allying with someone they had only just been denouncing
themselves. Stalin accused them of factionalism for arguing against approved Party
policy – this had been outlawed by Lenin in 1921 in order to maintain coherence and
stability within the party. The Congress voted to expel all three from the party.
Kamenev and Zinoviev were only allowed back when they admitted they were ‘wrong’ –
Trotsky refused and in 1929 was exiled from the USSR and eventually assassinated by
Stalinist spies in Mexico in 1940.

Step 3 In 1928 Stalin performed a dramatic U turn and decided to adopt the policies of the left
Defeat wing in order to challenge Bukharin. He travelled to Siberia himself and gave orders to
Bukharin violently seize grain from the peasants, clearly a violation of the NEP.

Why did Stalin change his position on the NEP? Firstly, the failures of the NEP had
started to become apparent as not enough grain was reaching the cities. Secondly, there
was a general shift within the party against the policy as fears of invasion from the West
suggested the need to industrialise so that the USSR could protect itself. Finally, by
having a clearly different view to Bukharin on these matters, he managed to step into
the light with a strong ideological identity within the party which he had previously been
lacking.

When Bukharin attempted to defend the NEP at party meetings he was simply outvoted
due to members being loyal to Stalin from the promotions he had given them. Bukharin
lost his important posts and Stalin remained the last man standing by December 1929 as
the unchallenged leader of the Soviet Union.
Not only had Stalin suggested the right policies at the right time (e.g. 1924 socialism in one country
and 1928 anti NEP), his position as General Secretary meant he knew he could always count on a
majority in votes of the Central Committee or Congress. He was a long term political plotter who
managed to use his position to his advantage – he only became General Secretary because everyone
else thought it was a boring position. Many also saw his quiet personality as demonstrating his humble
peasant origins rather than a bourgeois intellectual like many of the other potential leaders. His
opponents and rivals hugely underestimated him and miscalculated their own actions against him.

2.1 Stalin and Industrialisation

In the late 1920s, Stalin began the twin economic policies of rapid industrialisation and forced
collectivisation. He wanted to create a modern economy based on heavy industry and a highly
mechanised farming sector to allow the Soviet Union to compete with the more industrially advanced
countries in the West and also to be self-sufficient in case of future war. He said that ‘Old Russia was
continually beaten for her backwardness’ and that they must ‘either perish or overtake and outstrip
the advanced capitalist countries’. For Stalin, these economic priorities were so important that there
was no time to lose as he feared the Soviet Union would be destroyed if they did not catch up quickly
with the West.

There were several reasons for a policy of rapid industrialisation:

Failings of Although the NEP introduced by Lenin in 1921 had helped the economy to recover
the NEP from the damage done during the Civil War, it still had not caught up with the last
years of Tsarism or with smaller industrial powers like France. High rates of
unemployment added to the feeling that the NEP was no longer working.

Ideological The NEP had brought in capitalist elements into the economy which had created a
goals new class of ‘Nepmen’ who owned businesses and bourgeois experts managing
factories who were not communists. Stalin would get rid of these classes and fulfil
communist goals by taking the whole economy into the hands of the state for the
benefit of all. Full communism was believed to only exist in highly industrialised
nations.

Fear of Britain, France and the USA had intervened against the Bolsheviks during the Civil
invasion War. By 1927 the British government were accusing Soviet officials of spreading
communist propaganda and their offices in London were searched. Winston
Churchill had spoken of the need to ‘strangle Bolshevism in its cradle’ and to ‘destroy
the criminal regime’. A Soviet diplomat in Poland named Pyotr Voykov was
assassinated and in China the communists under Mao Zedong were facing opposition
and a civil war. It seemed like the world outside the Soviet Union was hostile to their
communist experiment and they needed to be prepared for attack with a modern
armaments industry.

Political Stalin’s decision to favour rapid industrialisation in 1927 allowed him to defeat his
motives right wing opponent Bukharin to the Soviet leadership. The far reaching policy goals
that industrialisation would require put Stalin’s authority without question – he
began to call it a second revolution and placed himself alongside Lenin in importance
for the survival of Russia’s communist state.
 Nature of industrialisation

In 1924, the State Committee for Planning (Gosplan) was a

little known government department providing advice on
economic policy with a small staff of 34 people who had
backgrounds in industry rather than the Communist Party.
The importance of Gosplan was transformed when Stalin
decided to turn the Soviet Union into a modern industrial
power as quickly as possible.

Gosplan was given the task of creating a series of Five Year

Plans that set out ambitious economic targets for the whole of
the Soviet Union. The plans were incredibly detailed so that
even workers had individual goals. This is known as a
command economy and required a huge number of
administrative officials – soon there were over half a million
Gosplan employees in Moscow.

Gosplan decided These overall The regions set The managers of The foremen then
on overall targets targets were then targets for each each industrial set targets for
for each industry broken into factory, business set each shift and
in the Soviet targets for each workshop, mine targets for each even each
Union region etc foreman individual worker

The Five Year Plans

Aims Successes Weaknesses

First Five Expand heavy Economy grew by a huge 14% Targets were unrealistic and
Year Plan industry each year with coal and iron were not met, there was a lack
output doubled and steel of skilled workers, products
Oct 1928 - production increased by a third were poor quality, many
Dec 1932 factories struggled to obtain
resources they needed and
living and working standards
declined

Second Expand heavy More realistic targets were set Consumer industries received
Five Year industry, develop and big advances were made in little investment which meant
Plan new chemical heavy industry as well as other that living standards were not
industries, new industries being developed raised despite promises made
Jan 1933- improve railway, e.g. fertiliser production, new
Dec 1937 canal and road transport schemes were
transport links, completed like the Moscow
make some Metro, Moscow-Donetsk
consumer goods railway and Moscow-Volga
canal

Third Expand heavy By 1940 a third of government Stalin’s purges led to the arrest
 Five Year industry and investment was on defence, of many experienced factory
Plan produce laying the foundations for a managers and Gosplan officials
armaments powerful arms industry and and the plan was cut short by
Jan 1938 nine aircraft factories the Nazi invasion in June 1941
– June
1941

Stakhanovites

For many workers, being part of the Five Year Plans gave their
lives a sense of excitement and purpose, helped by the huge state
propaganda campaigns. One of the cleverest but most controversial
propaganda campaigns focused on the efforts of a miner called
Alexei Stakhanov. In August 1932 he had mined 102 tonnes of coal
in 6 hours (14 times the output of a normal miner!) He was
rewarded with a bonus of one month’s wages, a new apartment and
a holiday and became the centre of a state publicity campaign.
Posters held him up as the model Soviet worker, statues were built
in his honour and he toured Russia encouraging other workers to
follow his example and exceed their targets for rewards.

The result of this campaign was that managers had to spend more
and more time dealing with attempts to set new production records
which disrupted normal working
patterns. Some workers did not like the increased pressure put on them by
the competition of their colleagues trying to set new records and the word
‘Stakhanovite’ became a slur for someone who was selfish and pushy.
Whilst some believed Stakhanovites were the pinnacle of communist
ideology in practice (working as hard as possible for the community’s
benefit) others believed they should be attacked (more interested in getting
benefits for themselves and forcing longer hours etc for everyone to keep
up).

Incredibly, it was revealed in the 1980s that

Stakhanov’s achievements had been a
complete publicity stunt by the
government. Instead of working alone,
Stakhanov had a team of miners with him
and state of the art equipment and machinery provided by the
authorities for his ‘amazing achievements’ to be accomplished.
 Successes of industrialisation
 By 1941 the Soviet Union had been transformed from a
mainly agricultural society to a powerful industrial
nation.
 The size of the working class increased with society
becoming more urbanised. Unemployment vanished,
cheap meals were provided in factory canteens and
Stakhanovites had improved wages and living
conditions
 In the space of just 12 years coal output went from 35-
150 million tonnes, steel output went from 3-18 million
tonnes, oil went from 12-26 million tonnes and
electricity went from 18-90 million kWh.
 The first Five Year Plan was particularly impressive
when considering most countries were in an economic
depression following the Wall Street Crash in 1929
 Showpiece projects were designed to ‘prove’
communism was better than capitalism
 Armaments were modernised which would later be
crucial for defeating Nazi Germany
 The White Sea canal 227km waterway connected the
White Sea to the Baltic Sea and was completed in only
20 months
 The Dneiper Dam was the world’s largest hydro-electric
dam when it opened in 1932 (61m high, 800m across)
 7000km of the Trans-Siberian railway were modernised
 The 128km Moscow-Volga canal meant goods could be
more easily moved through central and southern Russia
 First line of the Moscow Metro was opened in 1935,
built by 75,000 workers
 The Moscow-Donetsk Railways connected the capital
with Ukraine
 Stalingrad became a centre for heavy industry e.g. Red
October tractor works providing half of all tractors in
the USSR by 1939. Equally Chelisbinsk, Gorky, and
Novosibirsk were important manufacturing areas, and
the new city of Magnitogorsk had the USSR’s largest
steel plant
 Many of the new factories were built in areas that had
never previously been industrialised e.g. Siberia, the
Urals and central Asia. This made them out of range of
Nazi bomber aircraft during WWII which helped the
Soviet Union to defeat Germany
Failures of industrialisation
 The successes were delivered at huge
cost to the workers (e.g. poor living
conditions from housing shortages as
urbanisation increased, seven day
working weeks with long hours,
frequent injuries from poor health
and safety standards, forced labour
used from the Gulags – 12,000
prisoners used on the White Sea
Canal died)
 Output figures were often
exaggerated by both factory
managers and Gosplan officials to
avoid imprisonment so the official
Soviet statistics were unreliable
 The quality of goods produced in the
factories was low as the plans set
targets for quantity not quality so this
was what managers focused on
 There were high levels of waste as
lack of transport or poor organisation
meant that items were often stored
and left rather than used
 As the Gosplan targets were often
unrealistically high, factory managers
resorted to bribery and theft to obtain
supplies for their factories to avoid
imprisonment
 Although Magnitogorsk was hailed as
a triumph of the Soviet Union and
was heavily publicised, the steel
produced was of poor quality and
conditions were hard for the workers,
40,000 of whom were political
prisoners. The clean, bright Socialist
city of the future was never realised
 Due to the emphasis on heavy
industry and defence, there was a
continuous shortage of consumer
goods such as clothes, shoes and
furniture. Standing in long shop
queues was a feature of everyday life
 2.2 Stalin and Collectivisation

The Soviet Union was founded on the

idea of an alliance between the
industrial workers and the peasantry.
Lenin called it the ‘smychka’
(collaboration in society) and the
symbol of Communism became the
hammer and sickle.

In 1929, Stalin introduced a major

change to how agriculture had been
organised under Lenin’s New
Economic Policy (NEP). Peasants were
to give up their privately owned land
and form it into a large scale state
controlled farm. There were several
reasons Stalin wanted to do this:

Economic Stalin believed collectivisation was a necessary part of an attempt to modernise the
reasons Soviet Union’s economy to compete with its neighbours. Most farms in the 1920s were
small and divided into strips like England’s farming system in the Middle Ages. Most
crops were sown and harvested by hand – machinery was rarely used and chemical
fertilisers to boost production were virtually unknown. This meant farm output was
so low that food shortages were a constant problem.

Stalin believed that collectivisation would solve these problems as larger collective
farms would be better suited to the use of machinery. The state would be able to
provide Motor Tractor Stations and experts would teach peasants to farm in more
modern ways which would increase food production. This would help the
industrialisation drive in the cities because the workers in towns would be well fed,
the government could sell more food abroad to pay for new technologies and by
mechanising the farms fewer people would be needed which would encourage
migration to the new factories.

In addition, the grain procurement crisis of 1927-8 meant that more members of the
Communist Party turned to collectivisation as a solution. There was a grain shortage
in the cities because peasants had reduced grain production because of low prices or
withheld their grain from market to wait for prices to increase. This resulted in
rationing in the cities. Although the state could have simply paid the peasants more
money for the grain, this would have been costly and instead grain was requisitioned
by the state. A formal collectivisation policy would enable the state to maintain
control of the grain supply.

Ideological Just like in the cities, Stalin believed that the NEP was pushing the country in the
reasons wrong ideological direction because it was encouraging peasants to act like capitalists
with their own private property, selling produce for profit and employing labourers.
The communists argued that class decisions had developed in the countryside and
that kulaks were the major enemy.
 Collectivised farms were a way to build communist values in the countryside.
Everyone would have the same status if private land ownership was abolished. All the
produce would go to the state rather than a profit motive creating a desire in the
peasants to make money for themselves. They would work for the good of the nation
together and use communal shared facilities like canteens.

Political Opposing the NEP and therefore supporting collectivisation was a way of gaining the
reasons upper hand in the power struggle against Bukharin. But also, this policy was a way
for the Communist Party to gain the power they had always lacked in the countryside.
Collectivisation would enforce the direct authority of the Communist Party all over
the countryside.

The Nature of Collectivisation

In December 1929, Stalin called for a policy of collectivisation across the whole Soviet Union. The
Communists liked to portray this as a process that was undertaken voluntarily by the peasants
themselves voting to combine their farms for the benefits collectivisation would bring.

There were two types of farm:

Sovkhoz Huge state farms (three times the size of a kolkhoz). Peasants were paid a fixed labour
wage by the government and labelled ‘outdoor workers’. They were more common in
the central Asian regions of Russia.

Kolkhoz Collective farms based on old villages of 50-100 families. Each kolkhoz was run by a
chairman who was a Communist Party member from the village. The state decided
what jobs people did and the hours they would work as well as what was to be grown.
Relevant equipment was supplied by the state (e.g. motor tractor stations) and the
produce was collected by the state for a fixed flow price. The money from the produce
reaped was shared among the peasants (usually a poor wage). Peasants were not
allowed to leave the kolkhoz to work in the towns to find a better job – internal
passports ensured people could not move. After 1935 peasants were given a small area
of land to keep a limited number of farm animals. By 1940, 240,000 kolkhozes had been
created across Russia.
 However, most peasants had no wish to collectivise as they
wanted to work their own farms in their own way with
their own crops and animals rather than having
everything dictated by the state. The majority of peasants
rebelled, disrupting collective farm meetings, attacking
Party officials, setting fire to their farms and killing their
animals so the state would not take them. It was essentially
civil war in the countryside and Stalin sent into the army
and secret police to enforce the collectivisation policy
violently.

The biggest objectors were the kulaks who had the most to
lose. They had worked hard under the NEP and made
enough money to buy additional farm land and even hire
labourers. They were not prepared to give up their new
benefits without a fight. Although Communist propaganda
showed kulaks as a wealthy elite who were selfish and
greedy capitalists hiding grain, starving workers in the
cities and exploiting their fellow peasants, they were
actually only marginally richer than the average peasant.

In 1929, Stalin gave an order to ‘liquidate the evil kulaks

as a class’. They were forbidden from joining collective
farms and rounded up by ‘dekulakisation’ squads (a mix of army units, secret policy and loyal party
members from the cities). Soon the term ‘kulak’ lost any real meaning as it was simply applied to
anyone who disagreed with collectivisation. Over two million peasants were torn from their native
soil, stripped of their worldly goods and sent to distant labour camps whilst thousands of others were
simply shot on the spot.

Successes of collectivisation Failures of collectivisation

 By 1935 90% of Soviet farmland was  Fall in livestock – cattle numbers

collectivised which ensured that the state had a halved by 1933 meaning workers in the
guaranteed supply of grain. This was used to city ate 2/3 less meat. It took 20 years
 sell abroad to pay for new industrial projects
and also to feed workers in cities (rationing of
bread and most other foods ended by 1934)
 Between 1928-1930 production increased
considerably e.g. 73.3 to 83.5 million tonnes of
grain harvested,10.8 to 22.8 million tonnes of
grain procured by the state, 0.3 to 4.76 million
tonnes of grain exported
 Collectivisation meant that the state knew the
number of people that were needed per farm
and over 19 million peasants moved to the cities
to work in new factories in the industrialisation
drive. A system of internal passports ensured
that peasants could not move unless they had
official permission.
 The decision to abandon the NEP and launch
collectivisation helped Stalin to defeat Bukharin
in the Soviet leadership power struggle
 By removing private land ownership and
private enterprise, two key elements of
capitalism had been abolished and by removing
‘kulaks’ class divisions were ended. It was an
ideological victory
 The violence of collectivisation combined with
famine destroyed the independent spirit of the
peasantry and ensured the Communists were in
control
 By 1940 there was a Motor Tractor Station
(MTS) for every 40 collective farms. These
allowed farmers to rent machinery for the
collective farm to help modernisation of
agriculture
 Officials at the MTS were also responsible for
ensuring the kolkhozes handed over their grain
quotas. Although hated by the peasants, the
MTS had a useful political purpose for the
Communist Party to spy on peasants, spread
propaganda and arrest trouble makers quickly.
for animal numbers to regain their
pre-collectivisation levels
 Never enough tractors at the MTS to
meet demand, poorly built and
maintained and expensive to hire so
many peasants continued using
traditional methods like harvesting by
hand or using horse-drawn ploughs
 Peasants complained that internal
passports tied people to farms like a
form of ‘neo serfdom’
 Dekulakisation removed the most
skilled and productive farmers
 As peasants did not own the land they
worked on and resented the
Communist Party managers as well as
being very poorly paid they had no
incentive to work hard and just did
enough to avoid getting into trouble.
This lowered potential productivity
and remained a major weakness in the
Soviet economy
 Collectivisation contributed to a
widespread famine in 1932-3 killing 4-
5 million people. Ukraine was
particularly badly hit and was known
as ‘Holodomor’ (extermination by
hunger) perhaps a deliberate ploy by
Stalin to break Ukrainian resistance.
When unrealistic grain quotas were
not met, Stalin claimed it was due to
sabotage and ordered state
requisitioning that left the peasants
with nothing. Grain continued to be
exported abroad, peasants that hid
even the smallest amounts of grain
were exiled or shot, military
checkpoints were set up to prevent
people leaving famine-hit areas and
Stalin refused to accept foreign aid.
2500 people were convicted of
cannibalism.
 3.1 The reasons for the purges

Just as the Romanovs had used the Okhrana secret police to maintain tsarist
rule, Lenin had felt it necessary to use secret police (named the Cheka) to
prevent opposition to Bolshevik rule. Under Stalin, the Cheka was renamed
the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) and its powers were
hugely expanded. He started a campaign to purge Russia of anyone who
disagreed with him which involved mass arrests, executions and exile to
Gulags (prison camps). This period has become known as ‘the Great Terror’.

On the 1st December 1934, Sergei Kirov (Communist Party boss for
Leningrad and a member of the Politburo) was
shot by a disgruntled ex-party member Leonid
Nikolayev. Stalin immediately claimed that this
assassination was part of a plot led by Trotsky, Zinoviev and
Kamenev to overthrow his government. He therefore argued that
strong measured were needed to destroy this threat to the country.
Within weeks, thousands of Party members in Moscow and
Leningrad were rounded up and shot.

The events surrounding Kirov’s death are highly suspicious and it has
been suggested that he was killed on Stalin’s orders. Nikolayev was
executed without standing trial and NKVD officers investigating the
murder were arrested and shot. Kirov’s bodyguard was not with him
when he was killed and later died in a ‘traffic accident’.

But why would Stalin go to such lengths to kill a colleague when he

was already in control of the party? Although by 1929 Stalin had
succeeded in the leadership struggle, opposition to his rule was increasing. In 1932 a senior member of
the party named Martemyan Ryutin attacked his rapid
industrialisation and collectivisation policies. Stalin had wanted
him immediately shot for his disloyalty but Kirov and the other
members of the Politburo argued it was wrong to kill fellow party
members. At the 17th Party Congress in 1934, Kirov was widely
applauded alongside Stalin for the success of the economic policies
but also called for a more moderate approach. His popularity
seemed to be higher than Stalin’s when he received more votes
than him for the Central Committee. Some members tried to
persuade Kirov to stand against Stalin as General Secretary and
although he refused, Stalin soon found out about the plan.
 By organising the removal of Kirov, Stalin would be able to
ensure his own position was not threatened and also remove
old rivals like Kamenev and Zinoviev by blaming them for the
murder, as well as simply removing anyone in the wider party
that he believed might be disloyal to him personally. This
secured Stalin’s total control over the Communist Party and
instilled strict discipline to
follow his orders by
creating an atmosphere of
fear where nobody felt
safe.

Stalin believed that terror

was the way to maintain
control of the country
which was increasingly
unruly with the huge
societal upheavals that
rapid industrialisation and
collectivisation were creating. People lived in unsanitary and
overcrowded conditions in the cities where arguments often
turned violent and peasants felt great anger towards the
government. In the dekulakisation drive, Stalin had noticed
that his orders from Moscow were often not being carried out
by local Communist Party leaders who did not want to arrest
their former friends who were being denounced as kulaks.

When Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany in 1933,

Stalin knew that the Nazis would plan to invade the Soviet
Union and needed to ensure his armaments drive in the third
Five Year Plan worked so they could defend themselves. This
meant forcing the already exhausted labour force to work even
harder and ensure that the Red Army would be completely
loyal to him. Terror was a way of achieving both aims.

The Gulags became a vital pat of the economy by providing

slave labour as prisoners would be forced into dangerous mining and logging work within
inhospitable regions or to ensure large showpiece projects like the Moscow Metro and White Sea
canal were completed quickly. The purges ensured that there was always forced labour available.

Equally, when missed targets, low quality output or high accident rates developed, Stalin could blame
people for being deliberately against this reforms and attempting to sabotage the country’s progress.
This disguised the real faults in the central planning process but ensured that even ordinary workers
would report their managers and colleagues to the NKVD. ‘Enemies of the people’ were therefore not
just identified by Stalin personally but by members across society.

Stalin’s paranoid personality helps to explain the scale of the purges. He was deeply distrustful and
believed everyone would always betray him in the end so he needed to have as firm a grip as possible
over people. He saw threats and plots everywhere, even if they did not exist in reality and held
grudges for a long time. This was exacerbated after his wife Nadya Alliluyeva short herself in 1932
following an argument about the Great Famine. Stalin felt betrayed and became more isolated,
retreating only to his close political circle and only spending time in his Moscow office or nearby
country house.

Whilst we could see under Lenin that terror was part of the Communist way of keeping control, Stalin
was prepared to use violence within the party. This was a key difference as many believe that Lenin’s
Red Terror was directed against those he genuinely thought would try to overthrow the newly
established Bolsheviks and in order to win the Civil
War against all the odds. However, Lenin did close
down the democratically elected Constituent Assembly
when it did not suit his wishes and had created a ban
on factions within the party in 1921 showing his dislike
of dissent within the party. Had he lived longer,
perhaps he would have become as paranoid as Stalin
became.

3.2 The key features of the purges

The Communist Party’s secret police was known as the NKVD from 1934-43. The main purpose of the
NKVD was to seek out, hunt and destroy all threats to the Communist Party and it did so ruthlessly.
NKVD officers spied on, intimidated and arrested people, forced them to confess (often under torture)
and imposed harsh sentences – nearly always either execution or 10 years hard labour in a Gulag. The
Gulags were also run by the NKVD.

The types of people to be found in the Gulags by the end of the 1930s included:

 Common criminals
 Workers and factory managers that had been convicted of ‘wrecking’
 Communist Party and government officials found guilty of plotting against the government
  Foreign communists who had gone to
live in the Soviet Union but were
accused of spying
 Leaders of ethnic groups that were
seen as too independent by Stalin
 Members of ethnic minority groups
that had borders and links to other
countries e.g. Poles and Koreans
 Artists, writers and university
lecturers who did not adhere to
socialist realism or whose loyalty Stalin doubted
 Red Army officers who were considered disloyal

While some of these people were real opponents of Stalin or the Soviet regime, most were completely
innocent of any wrongdoing. This did not matter to Stalin – his aim was to terrify people into
submission and the very existence of the Gulag threat ensured obedience. They also gave the Five
Year Plans a plentiful supply of labour. From 1936-8 the
NKVD was led by Nikolai Yezhov who oversaw a dramatic
increase in the number of victims of the purges by arresting
members of the Communist Party, Red Army and the
general population. This became known as the
Yezhovschina (‘time of Yezhov’) because no-one was safe
from arrest.

Purging the Party – Moscow Show Trials

Most of the arrests, killings and deportations were not

reported. However, there were three high profile ‘show
trials’ staged in Moscow where some of the greatest heroes of the 1917 Revolution and the Civil War
confessed to plotting against the state. The charges against these ‘Old
Bolsheviks’ were false and the evidence was fabricated but they served
a very important purpose for Stalin. Not only was he able to remove
once and for all his old rivals within the party such as Kamenev,
Zinoviev and Bukharin but they frightened the wider Communist Party
by showing what would happen if they were disloyal to him. He wanted
to create a tense, paranoid atmosphere within the Soviet Union in
which people believed there were
dangerous enemies, spies, kulaks and
wreckers lurking everywhere that
needed to be removed.
 Trial of the The ‘stars’ of the first show trial were Zinoviev and Kamenev who were charged
Sixteen 1936 with organising Kirov’s murder as well as plotting to disrupt the Five Year
Plans and overthrow the government. Although they maintained their innocence
in prison, both men pleaded guilty at the trial. While Kamenev met his death
sentence with dignity, Zinoviev begged for his life in despair and panic. Stalin
enjoyed getting his security chief to re-enact this for his amusement.

Trial of the The second show trial focused on Trotsky’s former allies. Along with charges
Seventeen 1937 such as plotting to kill Kirov, overthrow the government and disrupt the Five
Year Plans, they were also accused of maintaining contact with Trotsky who was
in permanent exile. All pleaded guilty – 13 were executed and 4 sent to Gulags
where they soon died.

Trial of the In the final show trial, Bukharin took centre stage. He was charged with
Twenty One attempting to overthrow the government, murdering Kirov and also attempting
1938 to assassinate Lenin. During the trial Bukharin did his best to highlight the
ludicrous nature of the charges but in the end he pleaded guilty. He was
sentenced to death and his last words were to curse Stalin. Chief prosecutor
Andrey Vyshinsky called Bukharin ‘a foul smelling heap of human garbage’.

The show trials were a sham and the Old Bolsheviks only confessed after being worn down by torture
and constant interrogation. Stalin also offered deals in return for full confessions which he promptly
broke e.g. Zinoviev and Kamenev were offered full pardons, Bukharin’s wife and child were to be
spared.

Whilst the Old Bolsheviks were destroyed, the wider Party was also purged. 70% of Central
Committee members in 1934 were executed or imprisoned. 1108 out of 1996 people who attended the
17th Party Congress were purged. Overall at least 1 million Party members were victims of the purges

Purging the Red Army

After the independence of the Communist Party itself had been destroyed, Stalin turned his attention
to the Red Army. He feared that its leaders would one day potentially try to seize power from him as
they had access to weapons and manpower as well as many of them being
formerly appointed by Trotsky.

In May 1937 eight generals, including the popular Tukhachevsky, were

arrested on charges of plotting with Germany and Japan to overthrow
Stalin. Tukhachevsky was not only Chief of the General Staff but also one
of the original founders of the Red Army and a hero of the Civil War. He
was actually an enthusiastic supporter of Stalin and there was no plot to
overthrow him. But after brutal torture by the NKVD, all eight generals
confessed to treason and were shot – Tukhachevsky’s confession was even
stained with his own blood.

Over the next 18 months the Soviet Union’s military leadership was
extensively purged. Three out of five marshals (highest rank) as well as 14 out of 16 commanders were
shot. Half of the army’s junior officers (35,000) were imprisoned or shot. All the admirals of the Soviet
navy were shot and all except one of the senior commanders of the Soviet air force were shot.

Purging the people

Stalin signalled the need to widen the purges to ordinary people when in July 1937 he called for the
removal of ‘all anti-Soviet elements’ from society. Within a few weeks, Yezhov launched Operational
Order 00447 – a list of 250,000 people identified as ‘enemies of the state’ to be arrested by the end of
the year. Just like the Five Year Plans, each NKVD branch was given its
own arrest quota to fulfil.

The NKVD was greatly helped by ordinary people who informed on their
neighbours, work colleagues, friends and family. A mass media campaign
was launched by the state to encourage this behaviour and resulted in a
flood of denunciations, far more than the authorities ever expected. Some
people used it as a way to settle old scores, get a colleague’s job, flat or
possessions or to move criticism away from themselves for fear others
would inform on them. A slip of the
tongue or a small careless act could
result in someone telling the
authorities e.g. not ‘respecting’ Stalin
by using newspapers with his photo
for other uses. Russian society in the
1930s was made to be very paranoid that there were spies and
traitors everywhere and people were told that informing on others
was the right thing to do.

Most arrests came at night

between 11pm and 3am where NKVD officers drove in black
vehicles nicknamed ‘ravens’ to collect their victims. The late night
knock at the door came to be deeply feared. Prisoners were taken to
the local NKVD prison and subjected to the ‘conveyor belt’ method
of interrogation – continuous running for 10-12 hours whilst officers
shouted abuse at them. This went on for several days and nights and
was often accompanied by extreme violence and threats to arrest
and execute members of the prisoner’s family if they
refused to co-operate.

Exhausted, hungry, full of lice and with swollen legs

from long periods of standing as well as any other
injuries sustained meant that prisoners usually signed
the confession handed to them, although the charges
were usually completely false. The confessions would
also give the names of ‘accomplices’ who would then
be arrested. In this way, the number of ordinary
people caught up in the purges rapidly increased. The question of guilt or innocence did not matter to
the NKVD – fulfilling Stalin’s wishes by meeting or exceeding the arrest quotas was the most
important thing. Yezhov also reminded officers that it was important that no potential spy get away –
‘there will be some innocent victims in this fight… but when you chop wood, chips fly’.

After confession, a simple trial took place in front of three man teams of NKVD officers (troikas).
These almost always found the accused guilty and pronounced the sentence which was either being
shot in the back of the head or sent for 10 years hard labour in the Gulags. There were even quotas
for the sentences handed out – the Politburo decided that 28% of all prisoners should be executed.
Hundreds of mass graves are still being discovered to this day. One of the largest was near the village
of Butovo, a remote wooded area 23km south of Moscow. Victims were transported by night in food
vans marked ‘meat’ and the awaiting executioners were given free vodka and cologne. At least 20,000
people were executed and buried at Butovo.

Life in the Gulags

Those who were not immediately shot had to struggle

to survive in the hard labour camps known as Gulags.

 They were located in some of the most

inhospitable areas all over the Soviet Union.
The most feared area was Siberia where the icy
landscape and temperatures as low as -45
degrees was the toughest to survive. The Gulags
in Kolyma in the north eastern corner of
Siberia were so remote that the journey took 3 months.
 Work was exhausting and dangerous with the most
basic tools. Jobs included mining coal, copper, gold,
chopping trees or construction works for the Five Year
Plans.
 Prisoners lived in overcrowded, badly heated barracks
surrounded by a fence or barbed wire.
  They were constantly watched by armed guards in watch towers and random violence from the
guards was common
 There was a slight divide between common criminals and political prisoners. The criminals
were treated slightly better by the guards and were used to bully and intimidate the other
prisoners
 Prisoners received food according to how much work they did and a full ration was only the
minimal amount to survive. As a result some prisoners slowly starved to death as they became
weaker and weaker

Impact of the purges

By the end of 1938 Stalin decided that the purges had

gone far enough and he removed Yezhov as head of the
NKVD. The following March Stalin told the 18th Party
Congress stated that ‘undoubtedly we shall have no
further need to resort to the methods of mass purges’.
He even laughed at suggested from foreign powers that
claimed the purges had weakened the Soviet state – but
it was true, the people of Russia had paid a terrible
price.

Human cost It’s difficult to calculate how many people were caught up in the purges as the
although the NKVD kept records, many of these were burnt during WWII and
census records from 1937 were destroyed after they revealed a significant fall in
population.

Modern estimates suggest that 7-8 million people were arrested during the purges
with 1-1.5 million executions and 2 million deaths in the Gulags. The spread of
deaths across the population was also uneven with men aged 30-45 in
management/professional positions most at risk. Only 5% of those arrested were
women. Targets were set for different national groups as well.

The other human cost was that normal human relationships broke down as people
were so afraid to speak and have conversations in case someone would inform on
them or take something they said the wrong way. No-one could feel safe and a
feeling of paranoia set in for everyone.

Weakening Whilst the purges were supposedly meant to strengthen the Soviet Union by
the Soviet removing spies, wreckers and ‘enemies of the people’, the opposite effect actually
Union happened as experienced members of government and industry were removed.
Gosplan officials, factory managers, scientists, engineers and workers were all
targeted and their loss damaged the economy and weakened the third Five Year
Plan.

This is particularly evident in the Donbass region of Ukraine which was very
important for the Soviet economy as it produced 2/3 of all the coal in the country.
Mining production was doubling under the first and second Five Year Plans (27 to
45 to 80 million tonnes) but by the end of the third Five Year plan production was
 just 82 million tonnes after ¼ of mine managers were purged.

The removal of 35,000 Red Army officers damaged the quality of military
leadership too which was felt acutely when they failed to push back Finland’s
border from Leningrad in 1939-40 despite a much larger force. The lack of
experienced officers also contributed to military failure when the Germans first
invaded in June 1941.

Political For Stalin, the political impact of the purges was personally helpful for him as
Impact there was now no doubt he was the unchallenged leader of the Soviet Union. Every
potential threat to his power had been crushed; from the Old Bolsheviks who had
differing views to him on various issues, the wider Communist Party who might
have supported a different leader, the Red Army who was the only organisation
with the power to remove him and ordinary people whose general discontent could
have grown into rebellion.

1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940

Feb – Kirov is Jan – Zinoviev Aug – First Jan – Second March – March – Feb – Yezhov
widely cheered and Kamenev Moscow show Moscow show Third Moscow Stalin declares is shot
during 17th arrested for trial - trial – 17 old show trial – and end to the
Party conspiracy to Zinoviev, Bolsheviks are Bukharin and mass purges at
Congress murder Kirov Kamenev and convicted of 20 others the 18th Party
14 others Kirov’s found guilty of Congress
Dec – Kirov convicted of murder Kirov’s
assassinated murdering murder
Kirov May – purge of
the Red Army Dec – Beria
Sept – Yezhov begins replaces
becomes head Yezhov as
of the NKVD. June – head of the
Mass purges Tukhachevsky NKVD
of the Great and leading
Terror begin army officers
are shot
 3.3 Propaganda

Despite the scale of the purges, ordinary people did not obey Stalin out
of fear alone. This is because of the huge amount of propaganda that
the Soviet government produced that built up a level of genuine support
for the dictator.

The most striking feature of Soviet propaganda was Stalin’s cult of

personality. The Soviet leader was built into a god-like figure referred
to as the Vozhd (‘big hero’). His image was everywhere – everything in
the Soviet Union took place under the fixed stare of the plaster, bronze,
drawn or embroidered eye of Stalin. Statues of him were in every public
building and public space
including every classroom,
railway station and bus
stop. Shops sold millions of images of him and every
home had at least one portrait of him on the wall.
Adoration of Stalin was constant as journalists, artists,
writers and poets tried to outdo each other in describing
his ‘incredible qualities’.

Stalin as political Stalin was shown as Lenin’s right hand man and his natural successor. It was
genius claimed he was the only person capable of guiding the Soviet Union into the
Communist future. However Stalin was not a great thinker and was not as
close to Lenin as it seemed in propaganda.

Stalin as the great Stalin was seen as personally responsible for the ‘successes’ of the Five Year
economic planner Plans. Posters showed him looking out over landscapes of busy factories,
highly mechanised collective farms and showpiece infrastructure projects like
the Dnieper Dam. Failures of the economy were either not mentioned or
blamed on ‘wreckers’.

Stalin as the man of Stalin was usually portrayed wearing plain clothes, smoking a pipe and
the people walking among ordinary workers and peasants. He was also often shown with
children to develop a fatherly image. His childhood home in Gori, Georgia
became a place of worship to draw attention to his humble origins. In reality
he rarely mixed with ordinary people.

Stalin as After the Second World War Stalin was usually shown in his military
Generalissimo uniform as the great war leader who independently planned and led the
Soviet victory over Nazi Germany and helping the USSR be defiant against
the West in the Cold War. His costly military mistakes and the role of his
generals were ignored.

Although Stalin always said that Lenin, the Soviet Union and its people were more important than
him, he did nothing to discourage the cult of personality around him as it brought him a range of
political benefits. Absolute loyalty to one person gave the USSR a sense of unity. He acted as the
successor of Lenin giving his rule legitimacy. If he was viewed as a near-god, no one would hope to
challenge him. His god-like status gave people reassurance and comfort that he was helping and
guiding them through the confusing upheavals of collectivisation and industrialisation. It also meant
others could always be blamed for the difficulties in their lives, for example people believed the
brutality of the Great Terror was not Stalin’s doing.

Along with propaganda coming from the government, there was also
a strict censorship system to filter information entering the USSR.
Government censors prevented the publication of anything that
contained critical opinions of the government or a different political
message to the official one. The content of newspapers, radio
broadcasts, films, books, posters, paintings, plays, ballets, art and
music were carefully checked and critiqued. As the government had
the power to remove information or opinions that it did not like, it
was in an extremely powerful position over the populace. It was
simply able to restrict public debate by censoring any topics it did
not wish to be discussed.

In order to ensure that Communist messages were spread through

art and culture in the simplest of ways, Stalin ended creative freedom
in order to ensure it adhered to the rules of what he called ‘socialist
realism’. The strict government control of this new artistic style
ensured that all art, music, dance, literature and cinema adhered to
the messages Stalin wanted people to understand (i.e. that life under
Communism was noble, heroic, important, inspiring and great).

Art Idealised images of rural life with ordinary people contributing to communism. Russia
was a land of abundance for the people to share and enjoy. Sculpture was based on
ordinary people building communism as heroes.

Music and Happy and positive harking back to old folk songs. All classical music had to be in a
dance major key and jazz was dismissed as immoral. Dancing had to be simple and not complex
or experimental so that everyone could understand. Traditional ballet was encouraged.

Literature Plots usually revolved around peasant or worker heroes who were guided to even greater
things by the Communist Party e.g. How the Steel was Tempered by Nikolai Ostrovsky or
Cement by Fyodor Gladkov. Language had to be simple and direct so that the newly
literate population would be able to follow.

Cinema Films were to retell epic events in Soviet and Russian history where peasants and workers
helped Russia to victory e.g. Chapaev by the Vasilyev brothers about a peasant Civil War
hero or Alexander Nevsky by Sergei Eisenstein about the common people helping to
defeat an invasion of knights from Germany in the 13 th century.

Creative life suffered as a result of this censorship. In 1936 alone 30 films and 10 plays were taken out
of print for containing the wrong political messages. Those who tried to keep their artistic freedom
faced severe consequences. For example Osip Mandelstam made a poem about Stalin called ‘the
Kremlin Mountaineer’ in 1933 and even though he didn’t write it down but only performed it to a
small group of friends, one of them was an NKVD informer. He was arrested and died in a labour
camp, saying ‘only in Russia is poetry respected – it gets people killed’.

The New Soviet Constitution of 1936

Just as mass arrests began in earnest, Stalin created a new constitution for the Soviet Union even
encouraging ordinary citizens to organise meetings to discuss its democratic terms.

The constitution claimed there would be secret ballot elections to the government, freedom of the
press, the right to a fair trial and end of discrimination against class enemies. But these rights were
pure propaganda as only Communist Party candidates were allowed to enter elections, only approved
newspapers could be published and other rights were ignored ‘in the interest of national security’.
The constitution was simply issued as a way for Stalin to try and show ordinary people that he cared
about their rights and also to improve the image of the USSR abroad as he sought to work with the
West to stop the rise of Nazi Germany.

How did ordinary people respond to the constant flow of pro-government news stories, art and
culture? Most simply accepted what they read and saw. Those who were not convinced had to turn to
rumours and gossip….but people were very wary of engaging in such activities for fear of informants
denouncing them.
 3.4 Control of education and the Soviet interpretation of history

The Communist regime was particularly keen on targeting young people with propaganda as their
views were easier to shape than those of adults. The education system was reformed during the 1930s
so that it stressed total obedience to Stalin and the Communist Party. Classroom discipline was strict,
uniforms were compulsory and a national curriculum and examinations were supported by
government written textbooks.

There was one official version of history, approved by Stalin and taught to all school children. To help
build pride in their country, children learned inspiring tales of the great Russian leaders of the past
such as Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Lenin. The climax of the story was of course Stalin.

In 1938 Stalin ordered two new history

textbooks which had to be taught in schools:
The Short Course of the History of the All
Union Communist Party and The Short
Biography of Stalin. These wrongly showed
Stalin as the main organiser of the 1917
revolution with Lenin as well as showing him
as a hero of the Civil War. Trotsky’s role was
completely ignored and Stalin even had
photographs doctored to remove him and
others!

Outside of
school,
children were expected to join youth organisations – the Pioneers for
those under 14 and the Komsomol for those aged 14-28. Although not
officially compulsory, the Komsomol had over 10 million members by
1940. Children promised loyalty to Stalin and were taught how to be
good communists.

To guide them, the authorities used Pavlik Morozov as a role model.

He was a 14 year old boy from the Ural mountains who had
denounced his own father to the authorities for helping kulaks. The
message was clear – loyalty to Stalin was more important than family
ties. Morozov was murdered by his family for the denouncement but
the government used it as an example of true heroism and statues
were erected in Morozov’s honour.
4.1 Effects of Stalin’s policies on living and working conditions in town and countryside

When the Bolsheviks had seized power in 1917 they imagined building a communist society without
poverty or ugly class divisions. Soon after the revolution, steps were taken to establish this brave new
world with education reforms and more freedoms for women and ethnic minorities that had been
repressed by the Tsarist regime. But under Stalin these progressive trends were largely reversed and
living and working conditions were sacrificed for the needs of rapid industrialisation. By 1941, the
communist land of plenty and equality still seemed like a distant dream.

Living conditions Working conditions

Towns Explosion in the size of towns and cities –
Moscow’s population increased from 2.2
million in 1929 to 4.2 million in 1936 whilst
Leningrad’s population increased from 1.6
million in 1926 to 3.4 million in 1939
The state was not prepared to spend its limited
resources on building new housing and instead
simply divided up already small apartments.
An average family flat was only 4 square
metres in 1940 – and those were lucky families
who had received a room whilst many others
were ‘corner dwellers’ living in a corridor,
cupboard or coal shed.
Heavy industry was hard physical labour
such as digging mines or making steel.
Health and safety was not a priority and
accidents at work were common. Meeting
targets was more important to Stalin than
safe workplaces
Internal passports were introduced to try
and stop workers constantly changing jobs
in search of better employment. Police
could ask to look at an internal passport at
any time and if they did not have the ‘right’
to be in that city or workplace they would
be imprisoned.

In new towns like Magnitogorsk whose
population boomed from just 25 to 250,000
from 1929-32, workers lived in mud huts, tents
or barrack style dormitories. These new towns
also lacked paved roads, street lighting,
sewage and transport as they were being built
from scratch and this made new cities
dangerous.
The Five Year Plans prioritised heavy
industry which meant basic consumer items
like shoes and clothing were in short supply.
Queues for goods were sometimes 1000 people
long.
The problems caused by the collectivisation
programme meant bread was rationed until
1935 and shortages were common even after
this. The diet of a worker in the 1930s was well
below the 1900 level. People would start
queuing outside food shops from as early as
2am in freezing temperatures to ensure they
would be able to get some supplies.
The authorities tried to develop some leisure
opportunities within limited budgets in cities
e.g. Gorky Park in Moscow 1928. Most towns
Rights of trades unions were severely
restricted – managers were given the power
to sack workers and set wages without the
need to gain the approval of trade unions.
‘Progressive piecework’ wages were
introduced where workers were paid by the
amount they produced. This meant people
had to work even harder for better pay.
Real wages fell by over half during the first
Five Year Plan and were still below their
1928 levels in 1940.
1940 Labour Code set out harsher
regulations as war with Nazi Germany
became more of a concern – the working
day increased from 7 to 8 hours, working
week to 6 days and if late to work by
20mins on two occasions your pay would be
cut by 25% for 6 months
It was a positive that everyone was actually
given a job by the state at a time when in
Western countries the Great Depression
meant there was up to 25% unemployment.
It was also a positive that many factories
 had parks, football stadiums, athletics grounds
and cinemas. Even though films were full of
communist propaganda usually on Civil War
themes, they were popular. Even
Magnitogorsk had annual audiences of
600,000 at its cinema and ‘mini Olympics’
between different factory teams.
gave basic clothing to their workers, set up
canteens with cheap hot meals and set up
childcare and laundry facilities to allow
women to work.
Those classed as ‘Stakhanovites’ would gain
pay or ration increases

Countryside Compared to the towns, life was even harder
in the countryside. Peasants got less to eat
compared to town workers because they were
regarded as less important. Some farm
workers even had to travel to a town to buy
bread as there was so little food available on
the farms themselves
Collectivisation had been achieved by force
and the new kolkhozes were depressing
places to be.
The peasants were angry about the loss of
their land and being told what to do by a
Communist chairman

Peasants had always lived in basic housing
(wooden huts with outside toilet and a well for
water) and collectivisation did not change this.
Villages had very little investment so had none
of the leisure opportunities the town workers
had.
There was a lack of freedom as internal
passports meant peasants could not leave
the collective farm unless they had official
permission. Some risked arrest to run away.
Wages were low (20% of a factory worker)
and the hours were long with hard physical
work and little machinery to help.

Peasants therefore worked slowly and put

little effort into tasks making the farms
inefficient.

4.2 Differing social groups, women and the family

For an officially classless society, the Soviet Union was far from
equal. Living and working conditions varied widely
depending on location and on the job you had. Although
Communist Party officials became a new type of class in
society which enjoyed certain benefits for their loyalty to the
regime, those in important positions always had the risk of
arrest hanging over them if they failed to meet their targets.
 Communist Party officials – access to shops that ordinary citizens could not use which sold
better clothes, food and luxury items, lived in special apartment blocks and holidayed in
special resorts

Skilled engineers and technicians – better paid than average workers

Stakhanovites – workers given extra privileges for working hard

Industrial Workers – Poor living and working conditions but paid more than peasants and
access to slightly better facilities such as factory amenities and town parks

Peasants – collective farms, low wages, long hours, tough physical work

Gulag prisoners – used as slave labour in dangerous conditions

Position of women

Just as across the rest of the world for centuries, the position of women was difficult in Russia.
Women were not expected to be educated, pursue a career, have strong views or live successful
independent lives. Their role was to be an uncomplaining housewife and mother. Domestic violence by
drunk husbands was a common feature of Russian society.

When the Communists came to power, they wanted to end this appalling treatment of women. Soon
after the revolution, laws were passed to bring about sexual equality
which was an innovative idea at the time. An organisation called the
Zhenotdel was even established within the party to promote women’s
issues.

However, by 1930 Stalin decided to close the Zhenotdel claiming that its
work was done. In 1937 he wrote that ‘the triumph of socialism has filled
women with enthusiasm and mobilised the women of our Soviet land to
become active in culture, to master machinery, to develop a knowledge
of science and to be active in the struggle for higher labour productivity.’

Whilst some women were able to thrive under the Soviet system (e.g.
Polina Osipenko, Valentina Grizodubova and Marina Raskova’s 1938
world record non stop 6000km flight across Russia), the reality was that
many of the radical ideas first put forward either had no effect against
very traditional male attitudes or were steadily reversed by Stalin. This has been termed ‘The Great
Retreat’ by historians to describe his rejection of the radical cultural and social policies of early
Communist rule.

Changes 1917-30 Situation under Stalin in 1930s

Family Communists believed that
life marriage was a form of slavery.
The Bolsheviks changed various
rules to give women more power.
Women no longer had to take the
husband’s surname and did not
The Soviet Union went from having the highest marriage
rate in Europe to the highest divorce rate. Half of all
marriages ended in separation. Instead of helping
women, the easier divorce process was mainly used by
men to abandon their wives and children. The breakup
of families also led to gangs of abandoned children living
 need his permission to take a job.
Divorce was made easier to
prevent women being trapped in
abusive relationships. Abortion on
demand was legalised to give
women more choice (the first
European country to do so). If
couples did marry it was through a
civil rather than a church
ceremony to weaken the status of
it.
Employ The Communists had always
ment argued that the key to raising the
position of women was economic
independence. If a woman had a
regular income through work then
she would not need to rely on her
husband and would also develop
confidence and self worth. Laws
were passed to pay men and
women the same and be given the
same promotion prospects.
During the NEP period these
reforms to slow to have an impact
– by 1928 there were just under 3
million women working which was
similar to the number working
during Tsarist times. The majority
of women that were employed were
working in low skilled and badly
paid jobs such as domestic service,
on the streets.
The greater use of abortions also led to a fall in birth
rates (3:1 abortion to live birth ratio in Moscow by late
1920s). This was at a time when millions more workers
were needed by the state to carry out the rapid
industrialisation process.
The 1936 Family Code reversed the radical ideas of the
Bolsheviks and called for a return to traditional family
values. Abortion was made illegal, homosexuality was
made illegal and divorce was made more expensive.
Mothers with six or more children would also receive
money from the state. The birth rate rose from 25 births
per 1000 in 1935 to 31 per 1000 in 1940.
Propaganda was also used to criticise men who failed to
take family responsibilities seriously e.g. ‘a poor
husband and father cannot be a good citizen’. Men who
did leave their families would be forced to support them
financially.
The demand for labour under the Five Year Plans meant
that women became an essential part of the labour force.
By 1940 there were 13 million female workers including
in roles previously reserved for men e.g. engineers,
construction workers, steel makers, train and tractor
drivers. 41% of workers in heavy industry were women
and 40% of engineering students at university were
female.
Female role models such as Pasha Angelina were
promoted by the state. She organised an all female
tractor team which achieved 129% of its quota, beating
all other tractor teams in the region. She was awarded
‘Stakhanovite’ status and became a celebrity throughout
Russia symbolising the new class of highly skilled female
workers the Soviet system had created.
However, although women had an increased role, they
still had to battle misogynistic prejudice and anger in the
workplace from their male colleagues. Some men
refused to work with female workers. Despite official
 farming and textile workshops. policy on equal pay, in reality women were paid 60-65%
Rising unemployment under the of a man’s wages for the same job. Women were also
NEP also led to many women denied opportunities to advance, meaning most of the
losing their jobs ahead of men. management positions were filled by men.

Women also faced the ‘double burden’ of being expected

to cope with domestic tasks and child rearing as men
considered these tasks beneath them. The state tried to
help by offering free childcare before children were old
enough to go to school but not enough places were
available.

Political When the Bolsheviks first seized In 1930 the Zhenotdel was closed down as ‘equality had
position power, women were given the same been achieved’. This reflected the lack of interest that
political rights as men, including most of the male party members had in the political role
the ability to stand for and vote in of women.
Communist Party elections. This
was a shrewd move by Lenin to In 1936 Stalin approved the creation of the ‘Housewives
double the supporters of movement’. It was made up of the wives of Party
Bolshevism after the controversial officials and factory managers and focused on ‘good
October Revolution. The works’ such as collecting money for charity, organising
Zhenotdel was set up to promote activities for ill children and supervising factory
women’s issues within the party. canteens and nurseries. The message was clear – politics
was for men and women should be in a mothering role.
Although a small group of self It was not until 1957 that a woman became a member of
confident politically committed the Politburo.
women rose to important positions
(e.g. Alexandra Kollontai became
the first female People’s
Commissar for a government
department), female participation
in politics remained low as the
Communist Party consistently
failed to advance women –
harassing or ignoring those who
attempted to do so. This was
because the Party was dominated
by men with old fashioned
attitudes about women should and
should not do.
 4.3 Changes in education

The Communists took a close interest in the education system because it was seen as the main
way to teach the right kind of values to the young. The 1920s saw a lot of experimentation in the
way young people were taught but this was all reversed by Stalin.

Education policy in 1924 Education policy under Stalin

 Examinations, memorising facts, physical  For Stalin’s industrialisation to work, he

punishment and traditional academic
subjects all removed as the Communists
believed that all these had been used to
prepare children for life in a capitalist
world based on values of competitiveness,
rivalry, discipline, patriotism and
acceptance of the Tsarist order.
 ‘Project method’ was promoted as the
Party wanted to prepare children to play a
useful role in a communist society. This
method involved sending children into
factories and working alongside employees
first hand rather than using a textbook in a
classroom. Afterwards, students would
write a report on what they had seen and
done.
 Children were not forced to attend school
and often the project method was a way to
use children for labour in the factories
 Teachers were poorly trained and lacked
authority over their students. There were
not enough schools and they were
underfunded.
 Very few students went to university but
this did not worry the Communist Party as
they regarded universities as elitist
institutions. This resulted in the decline of
university education where many
traditional academic departments were
closed down. Academics were regarded as
supporters of the old system and were
forced out of their jobs. The small number
of student places available were given on a
quota basis according to class – the sons
and daughters of workers were preferred
over the middle class.
needed schools and universities to provide
large numbers of disciplined, hard working
and technically skilled students.
 He also wanted the young to obey the
Communist Party without question. Official
textbooks were provided by the state and had
to be used. Memorising the ‘correct’ facts
became the norm and exams and homework
were reintroduced
 Children had to attend school until at least the
age of 15. Fees were introduced for the final 3
years of secondary schooling.
 The percentage of primary aged children in
school increased from 60% in 1928 to 95% in
1932. This led to a rise in overall literacy rates
in the country from 55% in 1928 to 94% by
1939 (to compare, in 1900 only 21% of the
population was literate)
 The teacher controlled the class with strict
discipline – students had to sit at desks in rows
facing the teacher with arms folded. School
uniforms were reintroduced including
compulsory pigtails for girls
 All schools had to teach reading, writing,
science, Russian, geography, history and
Communist ideology. In history pupils learnt
about past Russian leaders such as Peter the
Great and Ivan the Terrible who had been
considered unimportant in the 1920s.
 Entry to university was by competitive exam
and there were no longer limits on the number
of middle class children who could attend.
Special emphasis was placed on STEM
(Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths).
The number of students attending university
increased from 170,000 in 1927 to 812,000 in
1939

4.4 Reasons for and features of the persecution of ethnic minorities

Russia has always comprised a vast area of land and is therefore a multi-ethnic nation. A 1926 census
listed over 180 different national groups living in the Soviet Union. Working out how to keep this
complex country together was an important issue for the Communist Party. Stalin had an extreme
and cruel policy toward ethnic minorities.

Ethnic minorities before Stalin Ethnic minorities under Stalin

 The Declaration of the Rights of
the Peoples of Russia just after
the October Revolution promised
different national groups equal
treatment, self government,
freedom of religion and the right
to develop their own culture and
lifestyle (rather than
Russification as the Tsarist
Empire had done)
 The USSR was created out of the
15 largest national groups. All
the Republics were declared
equal (although Russia was by
far the largest and most
powerful). Minority populations
within each Republic were
formed into smaller self
governing territories e.g. Russia
divided into 30 national
territories. The Communists
spoke about the Soviet Union as a
‘family of nations’ with different
national groups governing
themselves but together forming
one country.
 Schools, books and newspapers
were encouraged to be written in
local languages instead of
Russian.
 Local leaders were trained up
and given roles within the Party
and government.
 As Stalin was from Georgia himself, he was
considered an ‘expert’ on minorities within the
Party. Lenin had asked him to develop Party
policy on the subject before the revolution.
However, resistance to his collectivisation scheme
particularly from Ukrainians made Stalin angry.
 He was afraid that giving too much independence
to national groups might weaken overall
Communist control.
 Stalin completely reversed the tolerant approach
of the 1920s by imposing a new form of
Russification. Celebration of local languages and
culture came to be seen as a sign of disloyalty to
the Soviet Union. Russian language and culture
was shown to be superior to all others and schools
had to teach it.
 During the purges many national minority
leaders, teachers, artists and writers were
arrested.
 Stalin was particularly concerned that national
groups living near borders might be disloyal if the
USSR was invaded. He was prepared to move
whole national groups if he doubted their loyalty.
In 1937 171,000 ethnic Koreans were deported
from the Soviet Union’s Far East to central Asia.
In 1941 all the Volga Germans were arrested and
exiled to Siberia and central Asia. When Finland
joined the Nazi invasion, 89,000 ethnic Finns were
similarly deported. Whole ways of life were
completely destroyed through forced resettlement
in this way. Many national groups developed a
long lasting anger towards the Soviet state (which
later resulted in their independence in 1991)

5.1 The Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War

On 30th January 1933, Adolf Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany and proceeded to create a
militarised and fascist Nazi state with aims to destroy the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and expand its
empire. Hitler had strong racial views where German Aryans were the ‘ubermensch’ (master race)
whilst many of the nationalities of the Soviet Union were categorised as ‘untermensch’ (inferior race).
Hitler wanted to destroy communism in the Soviet Union and put its people into slavery. Although in
1939 Hitler managed to get Stalin to sign the Nazi-Soviet Pact which ensured Russia would not defend
Poland, both leaders knew that ideologically there would inevitably be a showdown between the two
countries at some point.

In June 1941, Hitler broke the Nazi-Soviet Pact and Operation Barbarossa began. Huge army groups
were gathered for an invasion, including troops from Italy, Romania, Hungary and Finland. In the
first six months of the invasion, the Nazis seemed unstoppable. They moved deep into Soviet territory,
advancing 80km per day with a three pronged attack:

 Army Group North advanced through the Baltic states, laying siege to Leningrad by
September
 Army Group Centre advanced East, taking Minsk by the end of June and then Smolensk. At
the end of Sept Operation Typhoon was launched to capture Moscow and in response the
Soviet government was evacuated and riots began in the city
 Army Group South advanced through Ukraine, taking the capital Kiev in September before
crossing the River Dnieper and entering Kharkov the following month.

Reasons and extent of Soviet setbacks

Hitler had planned on capturing Moscow and

Leningrad by winter, expecting that this would lead
to the swift collapse of the Soviet Union. Although
this did not happen, the Soviet Union was seriously
weakened by the end of 1941. 3 million Red Army
soldiers had been captured, iron and steel
production had dropped by 60%, German forces
were in control of 45% of the Soviet population and
40% of the grain supply lands.

One of the main objectives of the Five Year Plans

had been to prepare the country for war so why was the Soviet Union unable to stop the Nazi
advance?

 Stalin’s purge of the Red Army had removed many experienced officers, damaging its fighting
ability. Many were hastily released from the Gulags when the invasion began
 Stalin forbade his troops from retreating but this meant that the fast moving Germans would
encircle them and they were captured
 Stalin repeatedly ignored warnings from his spies and even from British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill that the Germans were preparing to invade.
 In the first week of the invasion, Stalin retreated to his country house, refusing to speak or give
instructions. This left the Soviet Union leaderless at a crucial stage
 The German army was large, highly trained and well equipped. They had developed a new
military tactic called Blitzkrieg (lightning war) which had conquered most of Europe, giving
the German army confidence in a quick victory as there was little effective defence against this
strategy.

Reasons for eventual success of the Soviet Union

Christmas 1941 was a cheerless time for many people in Europe as all the land from the English
Channel to the steppes of Russia was under Nazi occupation. But there was some hope as despite the
power of Operation Barbarossa, the Soviet State had not collapsed. There are several reasons for this:

 Hitler had actually had to delay Operation Barbarossa by 5 weeks in order to occupy
Yugoslavia. This gave the Germans less time to advance whilst weather conditions were ideal.
As winter approached, heavy rain turned roads to mud and temperatures dropped to -35
degrees. This slowed the advance as vehicles and weapons stopped working and German
soldiers began to suffer frostbite from inadequate clothing for such weather.
 In December, Stalin received accurate intelligence from a spy in Tokyo that Japan had no
plans to attack the Soviet Union in the East. This gave him confidence to transfer large
numbers of troops westwards from Siberia. In December General Zhukov launched a Soviet
counter attack with these tough Siberian soldiers who were accustomed to winter conditions
and had the required equipment such as white snowsuits, goggles, skis, sledges and ponies for
moving supplies. These troops caught the Germans by surprise and pushed them back from
Moscow.
 Although the Germans occupied large parts of the Soviet Union, it was far from economically
destroyed. The Five Year Plans had established new industrial areas in the Ural Mountains
and Siberia far beyond the reach of the German attacks. Stalin also ordered for 1500 factories
in the west to be taken apart and moved to the east, along with 16.5 million people. Anything
that couldn’t be moved was destroyed in a scorched earth policy to stop it being used by the
Germans.
 Stalin managed to motivate the nation to ‘defend the motherland’ and referred to the fight as
‘the Great Patriotic War’. This appealed to the nationalist spirit of the people rather than the
Communist Party ideology that was controversial.
Stalin also stayed in Moscow when the German
forces were approaching. This bold act gave the
people confidence that Stalin was going to stand
firm and strong against the Nazi threat.
The significance of the Battle of Stalingrad

One of the key reasons for eventual Soviet victory lay in the
Red Army’s ferocious defence of Stalingrad, lasting from
August 1942 to January 1943. The struggle for this major
industrial city on the banks of the River Volga is regarded as one of the Second World War’s most
important battles. For German soldiers fighting in the ruins of the
bombed out city, it turned into a living nightmare as the Russians
fought to the bitter end for national survival.

Stalingrad was a key objective of the German 1942 summer campaign.

Hitler had promised a quick victory the year before and the inability to
achieve this meant that Germany now faced a long war of attrition.
Resources were needed in vast quantities, particularly oil. As a result
Hitler set his sights on the vast oilfields of Baku in the Caucasus. If he
captured them it would also deprive the Soviet war machine of its main
oil supply, damaging its ability to fight. Stalingrad was therefore of
strategic importance as the centre of the north-south communication
routes to stop oil supplies reaching the northern half of the Soviet Union. As it had been named after
Stalin himself, its fall would also be symbolically important.

The German advance south began in June 1942 and was initially successful – by the end of August the
edges of Stalingrad had been reached. Huge German air raids turned much of the city to ruins whilst
mainly young Russian female volunteers manned anti-aircraft guns to defend. Believing the city to be
weakened enough, the elite Sixth Army under General Von Paulus started they assault. Their plan
was to push through the city to the banks of the Volga River as quickly as possible. But the defending
Red Army, despite being outnumbered 2:1 was determined to prevent this and they fought for every
building and every street.

Tanks were of little use in the

wreckage of the city and fighting
often became savage hand to hand
combat with knives and grenades.
Many of the Red Army counter

attacks were launched at night in order to deprive

the Germans of sleep and damage their morale. The
ruined city also provided ideal territory for snipers
– Vasily Zaitsev was credited with killing 225
enemies alone. The intensity of the fighting meant
that the Germans referred to Stalingrad as the ‘kessel’ (cauldron). The Germans inflicted an
incredible 75% casualty rate on the Red Army yet they refused to surrender and continued to hold
their ground. One division of 10,000 Soviet soldiers emerged from the battle with only 320 survivors.

On 19th November the Soviets launched Operation Uranus. General Zhukov had secretly gathered 1
million men for this and used them to attack the weaker Italian, Romanian and Hungarian troops to
the north and south of the city who were
meant to protect the German Sixth Army.
Their defeat left the Germans alone and
surrounded in Stalingrad itself. For the next
2 months the Red Army continued to fight in
increasingly desperate conditions. Finally, on
31st January 1943 Von Paulus surrendered –
despite being forbidden by Hitler to do so.

Stalingrad was a bitter and bloody fight to

the end. For the Soviets, the price of victory
was heavy – half a million soldiers died in the
struggle (more than Britain lost in the whole
war). It is estimated that 40,000 died in the
first week of German air attacks alone. 10,000 civilians, including 1000 children, were unable to
escape the city during the fighting and resorted to living in cellars and sewers. Those who had
managed to be evacuated, returned to find hardly anything left in the ruined city.

However, Stalingrad was a turning point in the war as it was Germany’s first great defeat and proved
that Hitler’s armies could be beaten. 147,000 German soldiers were killed and 91,000 taken prisoner.
The Sixth Army, which had been Hitler’s most successful force since the start of the war, had been
completely destroyed. The forces of Germany’s allies Italy, Romania and Hungary were also
shattered. From this point onwards, the Red Army was to make a slow advance, pushing the Germans
out of the Soviet Union and all the way back to Berlin.

Stalin personally benefited from a boost in his image both at home and abroad. Britain celebrated
‘Red Army Day’ on 22nd February 1943 and Winston Churchill presented Stalin with a ceremonial
‘Sword of Stalingrad’ made on the orders of King George VI. Stalin would now always appear in
public in a white military uniform and promoted himself and General Zhukov to the highest military
rank of Marshal. He also gave the title ‘Hero City’ to Stalingrad to reward the determination of the
defenders. There was a huge psychological boost to the Soviet people after the victory at Stalingrad
whereas the public mood in Germany turned more fearful and concerned that victory was now not
necessarily guaranteed.

Reasons for Soviet victory

War As Germany failed to defeat the Red Army swiftly in 1941, both sides faced a long
economy drawn out war in which economic strength became as important as events on the
battlefield.

The Soviet Union produced more weapons than Germany and this made them
potentially more likely to win the war.

1941 1942 1943 1944 1945

Soviet Aircraft 15,735 25,436 34,900 40,300 20,900

Union
Tanks 6,590 15,409 24,089 28,963 15,500

Germany Aircraft 11,776 15,409 28,807 39,807 7,540

Tanks 5,200 9,300 19,800 27,300 n/a

The impressive economic performance of the USSR can

be explained by the harsh working conditions put in place
– people worked 7 days a week throughout the war and
factory shifts lasted 12-18 hours. There was also the huge
Gulag population that was used for essential labour.

Half of the entire national income was spent on war

production (a much higher proportion than Britain,
Germany or America) and many of the armaments
factories were developed in the east of the country that
were safe from German attack (e.g. Chelyabinsk
developed the famous T-34 tank)

Stalin’s To ensure important military decisions could be taken

leadership quickly, Stalin set up and led a Soviet High Command
known as STAVKA. This consisted of a small number
of leading politicians and generals as well as Stalin as
Supreme Commander. A State Defence Committee
(GKO) was also established and led by him to run the
economy, identifying problems in production and
taking measures to solve them. These organisations met every day of the war and
Stalin’s excellent command of detail made him an able leader of both organisations.

Following the disasters of 1941 Stalin realised that he did not fully understand how to
direct an army and was prepared to listen to the advice of others. He promoted able
officers and gave them considerable freedom on the battlefield. General Zhukov was
appointed Deputy Supreme Commander to Stalin in mid 1942 and his military
achievements included the defence of Moscow, the liberation of Stalingrad and the
final attack on Berlin.

Heroism of In July 1942 Stalin issued Order 227 that stated; ‘not a step back – each position, each
the Soviet metre of Soviet territory must be stubbornly defended to the last drop of blood. We
people must cling to every inch of Soviet soil and defend it to the end’.
 The determination of the Russian people to stand their ground at the Battle of
Stalingrad eventually destroyed Germany’s elite Sixth Army Equally the 3 million
inhabitants of Leningrad were surrounded by German forces in Sept 1941 and
survived a 900 day siege (almost 3 years!) This was through constant shelling and a
lack of water and electricity supply as well as the harsh winters. Bread rations were
cut to just 250g for workers and soldiers and 125g for everyone else (about 400
calories). By 1944, 800,000 Leningrad citizens had died from shell fire, hunger and
cold.

Aside from filling labour shortages in factories, women were also a heroic and integral
part of the Soviet army with women serving as pilots, snipers, machine gunners and
tank crew members. The 588th Night Bomber Regiment
was exclusively female.

People resisted due to a natural patriotic desire to save

their country from foreign invasion as well as an
understanding that Nazi Germany was a particularly
bad enemy (SS Einsatzgruppen killing squads had been
shooting millions of Jews, Soviet political officials,
Roma gypsies and disabled people as they advanced).

Stalin ended the persecution of the Orthodox Church

and allowed many churches to reopen which gave some
people hope and faith to carry on fighting.

The use of force played a huge role in ensuring people

were loyal to the Soviet cause too. Workers who were 20 mins late for work or caught
stealing food were imprisoned. Whole ethnic groups who were considered potentially
disloyal such as Finns and Volga Germans
were deported to Siberia. Soldiers who
refused to fight would be put into penal
battalions and forced to carry out dangerous
tasks like mine clearance. Around 300,000
Soviet troops were shot by their own
commanders for disobedience.

Allied help Under the ‘Lend-Lease’ programme, America

 supplied weapons, food and transport to the Soviet Union. 95% of trains, 75% of
jeeps, 12% of aeroplanes, 10% of tanks and 2% artillery were from the US. Huge
quantities of spam (a tinned meat) were sent over ensuring the Red Army was fed.
17% of the Red Army’s food was from America, though they consumed 500 calories
lower than their British and German counterparts.

Britain and America fought against German forces in North Africa, Italy and France
whilst German cities came under a lengthy attack from British and US bombers.
However, these contributions were late in the war and for the majority of the time
Russia had to face Germany alone.

German Hitler made several strategic mistakes when launching Operation Barbarossa. The
mistakes delayed start date in order to conquer Yugoslavia was a risk, especially if troops were
not equipped to deal with cold temperatures which would inevitably set in. The Nazi
ideological racial prejudice that the Soviets were weaker played a part in Hitler
believing that it would be ‘easy’ to conquer quickly, saying ‘you only need to kick the
door in and the whole rotten structure will come down’.

Launching Operation Barbarossa before

completing Operation Sealion (the invasion of
Britain) meant that Germany faced a two front
war and had to divide its resources. The three
pronged invasion plan also committed forces in
three different areas of Russia, meaning the army
soon became overstretched the deeper they entered
Soviet territory. Hitler continuously overruled the advice of his generals on the ground
and refused to allow Von Paulus and the Sixth Army to retreat which simply meant
they were captured.

Hitler had also not turned the whole economy into war production as he wanted to
maintain people’s standards of living within Germany. This meant that the Soviets
were better able to withstand the war of attrition with their higher levels of
armaments production.
Year Key events of the ‘Great Patriotic War’ Winning
side

1941 June: Operation Barbarossa begins. The Soviet air force is almost completely Nazis
destroyed in the first 3 days

Sept: Operation Typhoon launched to capture Moscow. Leningrad is

surrounded by German and Finnish forces and a 900 day siege begins

Dec: First Russian counter attack launched, pushing Germans back from
Moscow

1942 Spring: Early Soviet offensive fails Nazis

June: Germans launch their summer offensive to capture the oilfields of the
Caucasus

July: Germans take Sevastopol

August: German forces begin fighting in Stalingrad

Nov: General Zukhov launches Operation Uranus at Stalingrad

1943 Jan: Germans surrender at Stalingrad and Red Army begins a slow advance USSR

July: Battle of Kursk – largest tank battle in history. Germans are defeated
losing 2900 tanks and 70,000 men

Dec: 2/3 of German occupied territory in Russia recaptured by Soviet forces

1944 Jan: Siege of Leningrad is ended by a huge Soviet offensive USSR

June: Operation Bagration launched – 2.4 million Soviet soldiers, 5200 tanks
and 5300 aircraft advance through Belorussia and into Poland

August: Soviet forces enter Romania and Bulgaria

1945 Jan: Warsaw falls to the Red Army USSR

Feb: Soviet forces cross into Germany

April: A total of 4000 Red Army tanks, 23,000 artillery and 4000 aeroplanes
prepare for assault on Berlin

May: Germany surrenders unconditionally

24th June: Victory parade in Moscow – Stalin standing on Lenin’s mausoleum as

Nazi regimental flags thrown at his feet

5.2 The Soviet Union after the Great Patriotic War

 Along with the
catastrophic loss of life Civilian deaths 19 million
that Russia suffered Soldiers killed 9 million
during the Second World
War (more than all the Towns 1200
allies combined), the destroyed
Soviet Union was
Villages 70,000
economically destroyed.
destroyed
As they retreated, the
German army took Railways 65,000km
anything of value and destroyed
destroyed the rest meaning that much of the economic progress
Hospitals 40,000
achieved in the 1930s was wiped out. By 1945 70% of Soviet industrial
destroyed
production had been lost and showpiece projects such as the Dnieper
Dam were in ruins. Collective 100.000
farms
Stalin called on the Soviet People to make huge personal sacrifices destroyed
again in the Fourth Five Year Plan. The lives of ordinary people were
not considered a priority but rather the need to rearm and get production levels up again. Stalin
considered this a matter of national security that could not be negotiated. 88% of investment went
into heavy industry and armaments, leaving only 12% for food production and consumer goods.

Results of the Fourth Five Year Plan

The Fourth Five Year Plan yielded impressive results with the
1940 1945 1950
Soviet economy becoming the fastest growing one in the world.
Coal 166 149 261 Mines, factories and vital road and rail links were all quickly
(millions rebuilt. In 1947 the Dnieper Dam began to produce hydro-electric
of tonnes) power again. Coal, oil and steel production all exceeded their pre-
war figures (though Soviet sources can be unreliable on such data).
Oil 31 19 38
(millions In order to achieve these production levels and industrial recovery,
of tonnes) the Soviet people endured long hours, low pay, food rationing and
strict discipline. Extra labour was provided by 2 million prisoners
Steel 18 12 27 of war that were captured as well as the huge Gulag population.
(millions Industrial machinery was also taken from Germany and
of tonnes) transported to Russia e.g. the Opel car factory was taken apart,
loaded onto 56 freight cars and put back together in Moscow. By
Leather 211 63 203 1947 it was mass producing the Moskvitch 400 family car with an
footwear impressive acceleration of 0-50mph in 55 seconds.
(millions
of pairs) However, the weakest part of the economy was agriculture. Grain
harvests had nearly halved over the course of the war and recovery
came very slowly due to poor investment in this area. Lack of investment was compounded by a
labour shortage from the deaths in the war as well as lack of machinery and even horses. Just as in the
1930s the peasants had little reason to work hard due to the incredibly low wages they were given (1/6
of an industrial worker). Even by 1952 grain production had not reached pre-war levels.

Post war purges

Wartime hopes that peace would bring a better life were soon disappointed. Stalin was just as
paranoid as ever (if not more so with his growing old age) and continued to launch a series of purges
to uncover potential ‘enemies of the state’. Members of the military, Communist Party and national
minorities were all targeted and the Gulag population almost tripled from 1.6 million in 1942 to 4.7
million in 1947.

1.5 million Soviet prisoners of war returning from camps as Germany was liberated were treated as
traitors for allowing themselves to be captured. They were interrogated by the NKVD and most were
deported to Gulags in Siberia. Even heroes of the war were victims of Stain’s purges. Marshal Zhukov
who was the architect of the Soviet Union’s victory over Germany was demoted to command the
Odessa military district far from Moscow and was written out of history textbooks. In 1949 he
arrested 200 members of the Leningrad Communist Party for invented charges of corruption and
spying as he believed they were becoming too popular from their heroic role in the war. Another 2000
other officials were exiled from the city and lost their homes and property. In Stalin’s mind, popular
and independent minded leaders were a potential threat to his position and he did not want anyone
else but himself taking the credit for the Soviet Union’s victory.

Terror was used to being some of the rebellious Soviet republics into line who had tried to take up
arms to fight for independence after the war. Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians were
mass deported in highly organised operations e.g. 3% of the entire Estonian population was seized in
less than a week in March 1949. The struggles in Ukraine and the Baltic States were very bitter fights
that were covered up by the Soviets e.g. in Lithuania alone the Red Army lost 20,000 men.

Stalin also had long held anti-Semitic beliefs which

intensified after the war. He irrationally believed that
Jews of the Soviet Union were not patriotic (despite
serving in the government and Red Army, standing
ground in the sieged cities and suffering from the Five
Year Plans). He thought that they were more loyal to
their fellow Jews around the world and Stalin believed
that anyone who had knowledge of the world outside the
USSR was a potential spy. Jews were sacked from
positions of responsibility in the government and
industry as well as removed from universities. Jewish
schools, newspapers and libraries were closed down and
it was made very difficult for Jews to worship freely.
Many were sent to Gulags or executed, even the Jewish
wife of the important and loyal foreign minister
Vyacheslav Molotov.
 Stalin’s anti-Semitism worsened
towards the end of his life as
evidenced by ‘the Doctors’ Plot’.
Terrified of dying and increasingly
paranoid, he became convinced that
those closest to him were trying to
kill him and when his personal
doctor Vladimir Vinogradov
suggested he reduce his workload for
health reasons he believed this to be a
plot to remove him from power. In
1953 over 30 top doctors, mainly
Jews, were arrested on charges of
trying to assassinate Soviet leaders. It is believed he was planning to deport the whole of the Soviet
Union’s Jewish population to Siberia but his death age 73 on 1st March 1953 meant this was not
carried out. Perhaps as a result of his deep distrust of doctors or perhaps deliberately, his colleagues
did not call medical help for at least 24 hours after he first collapsed from the stroke that eventually
killed him.

The Legacy of Stalin

Stalin’s use of purges as well as the

terrible living and working conditions
raises the question of how ordinary
people viewed their leader. Was he a
hated figure who brought misery to the
people he ruled to did he hold a high
level of popularity for modernising the
country and defeating the Nazi invasion
despite the cruelty of his reign?

The state certainly worked hard to shape people’s opinion of

Stalin. They tried to give him an almost god-like status through
the ‘cult of personality’ crafted through propaganda. He was
depicted as a man of military genius and determination who
cared about Russia and its people. It’s difficult for historians to
find out what people really thought of their leader as there were
no free elections to support alternative political parties, the
press was heavily controlled, opinion polls did not exist and
people were unable to speak freely for fear of informants
reporting them to the NKVD.
Three years after Stalin’s death, his successor and
closest political ally Nikita Krushchev finally felt able
to speak freely. He made a speech to the Communist
Party Congress in 1956 that was considered so
shocking that it was not released to the wider public
until 1989. He read Lenin’s Testament revealing that
Lenin had never intended Stalin to be his replacement.
He criticised Stalin’s use of the cult of personality and
mass terror and said that he had failed to prepared the
Soviet Union’s defences for the German invasion.
Many within the Party must have agreed with his
bitter assessment of Stalin’s rule…
‘It is clear that Stalin showed in a whole series of cases
his intolerance, his brutality and his abuse of power. Instead of proving his political correctness and
mobilising the masses he often chose the path of repression and physical annihilation, not only against
actual enemies but also against individuals who had not committed any crimes against the Party and the
Soviet Government.’
Stalin was probably respected and feared in equal measure. Many citizens did feel grateful to him for
his wartime role but also saw him as a remote and terrifying figure. Since no criticism could be
published we are left only with praise for him during his rule but this may be far from genuine. After
his death there was considerable criticism but that too may have reflected the need of the next leaders
to discredit Stalin for their own political reasons.
In 1961 Stalin’s embalmed body was removed from Lenin’s mausoleum and reburied in a modest
grave outside the Kremlin wall. Today there are still mixed views on Stalin’s legacy and state control
of certain media still exists. In many ways Russia is still recovering from the generational trauma of
Stalin’s era. However, there is no doubt that the transformation of the USSR from a war ravaged and
isolated country in 1924 to an economic and military superpower by 1953 that dominated
international affairs and precipitated the Cold War was due to iron grip of Stalin’s leadership.

Russia’s international standing by 1953 Russia’s domestic situation by

1953
The Soviet Union led the worldwide communist Economy was powerful fand centrally
movement. In 1947 it set up Cominform to co-
ordinate the different communist parties around the
world.
Stalin felt strong enough to challenge American
power, blockading Berlin in 1948 to try to force
American troops to withdraw from the city.
Europe and the USA formed the North American
Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949 as a military
alliance against the growing power of the Soviet
Union
The Soviet Union was one of the five permanent
members of the United Nations Security Council
alongside the USA, Britain, France and China. Their
task was to provide world leadership.
The Soviet Union, the USA and Britain were the
only nations to possess nuclear bombs. The first
Soviet atomic bomb was tested in 1949 in
Kazakhstan and by 1953 the Soviets had developed
the hydrogen bomb that was 10 times more powerful
than the atomic bomb
From 1950 Stalin provided support to communist
North Korea when they invaded non-communist
South Korea
In 1949 a communist regime was established in
China giving the Soviet Union a powerful ally in
Asia
The Soviet Union maintained the world’s second
largest army in the world (2.5 million troops – only a great project to make their country better
China was larger)
The Soviet Union’s heavy industrial production
meant its economy was more powerful than every
other country except America.
Eastern Europe was under Stalin’s close control – he The majority of Soviet citizens viewed their
established communist regimes called ‘People’s
democracies’ after the war. The USSR had direct
control of the Baltic states, eastern Poland and part defeated Nazi Germany and it was the Red
of Romania. 26 Soviet army divisions (half a million Army that had captured Berlin.
troops) were deployed in this region)
planned. Heavy industry was prioritised
whereas consumer industries were not
developed
Agriculture comminated by inefficient
collective farms
The state made sure everybody had a job
and worked in harsh conditions to ramp up
production rates
Terror was used to control the population
meaning everyone lived in fear. Millions
were imprisoned in the Gulag system for no
reason.
Many saw Stalin as a god-like figure thanks
to cult of personality propaganda
campaigns. All forms of media were strictly
controlled and independent thought was not
encouraged
National groups lost their independence and
were forcibly deported which caused long
lasting resentment.
Traditional values in education, the family
and the role of women were revived under
Stalin
Many ordinary people felt they were part of
which was why they had to make hard
sacrifices
Individual lives did not matter and the state
allowed millions to die through famine,
particularly the peasants who suffered
extremely poor living conditions
country’s role in the Great Patriotic War
with great pride. They had successfully