Revision Diary

Stalin

      

KEY TIP...

There has been a question on Stalin EVERY YEAR.

GET HIM LEARNED!!!

  

  

Struggle for power with Trotsky; elimination of other rivals in the 1920s; purges in the 1930s; the 1936 Constitution.

Propaganda and censorship;

Collectivisation of agriculture;

Five Year Plans and growth of industry; economic effects.

  

Make sure you have detailed factual knowledge about AND HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT the following issues and topics:

  

HOW FAR DID STALIN SET UP A PERSONAL DICTATORSHIP?

1.  The STORY of Stalin's seizure of power.

2.  The STORY of Stalin's Purges.

3.  How did Stalin keep power?

  

TO WHAT EXTENT DID STALIN MAKE THE USSR A GREAT ECONOMIC POWER?

4.  Collectivisaton

5.  The 5-Year Plans.

 

 

and that you are able to explain:

 

    

  

  

HOW FAR DID STALIN SET UP A PERSONAL DICTATORSHIP?

     

Stalin's Seizure of Power

Overview

When Lenin died in 1924, it looked as though Trotsky would take over - he was a genius, and leader of the Cheka and Red Guards.    HOWEVER, he was a big-head and everyone hated him!   Stalin was General Secretary of the Communist Party, and he had used his position push his supporters into positions of power.  

Most of all, the Politbureau was divided into 'leftists' (who wanted to bring back War Communism) and 'rightists' (who supported the NEP) and Stalin used this to take power.   First, he joined with the leftists to get rid of Trotsky.   Then, he joined with the rightists to get the leftists arrested.   Then, he arrested the rightists because he said the NEP was not communist!

  

Facts

1.   Lenin in his Testament (Will) had said that Stalin was too power-mad to be trusted as leader.

2.   The 'leftists' on the Politbureau were Zinoviev and Kamenev - Stalin got then arrested in 1927.

3.   The 'rightists' on the Politbureau were Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky - Stalin got then arrested in 1929.

 

        

Stalin's Purges

Overview

Stalin was murderously insane, but he also believed that Russia had to be united if it was to survive.   Political opponents, 7 million kulaks, navy, army and church leaders, and perhaps 10 million ordinary people were sent to the 'gulag' (labour camps) and/or put to death.   Russia lived in terror.

  

Facts

1.   Stalin used the murder of Kirov (an opponent) in 1934, as an excuse to begin the Great Purges.  

2.   One feature of the Terror were the public 'Show Trials' (e.g. Zinoviev and Kamenev 1936/ Bukharin, Tomsky & Rykov 1938).  

3.   'Russification' - all the races of the USSR were forced to use the Russian language and traditions.   Nationalist and Muslim leaders were imprisoned.

  

  

How did Stalin keep power?

(TAC)

IF YOU ARE ASKED THIS, MAKE SURE YOU GIVE SOME FACTS AS WELL.

1.   Terror - Secret Police (called the NKVD after 1934)/ the Great Purges/ 'Russification'/ Show Trials meant that even ordinary people lived in fear - 20 million Russians were sent to the camps, where perhaps half of them died

2.   ‘Apparatchiks’ (party members loyal to Stalin) got all the new flats, jobs, holidays =  a kind of bribery

3.   Cult of Stalin - Censorship (History books and photographs were changed to make him the hero of the Revolution)/ Propaganda (pictures, statues, continuous praise and applause)/ Mothers taught their children that Stalin was ‘the wisest man of the age’

     

  

  

  

TO WHAT EXTENT DID STALIN MAKE THE USSR A GREAT ECONOMIC POWER?

  

Collectivisation

Overview

Stalin knew that Russian farming had to produce more - both to feed the people and to earn money by exporting it.   Stalin's answer was collectivisation - to amalgamate all the small farms in each village into one big 'kolkhoz'.   The peasants - especially the wealthy kulaks, of course, did not want to do this.   When collectivisation was made compulsory, they burned their barns and killed their animals.   The result was a terrible famine (5 million died).

But Stalin carried on collectivisation with appalling human cost and, by 1937, 99% of the land was in collective farms.

  

Facts

1.   Collectivisation - by 1939  90% of the peasants lived on one of the quarter of a million kolkhoz

2.   Grain production - rose 1927-37 from 73-97 million tonnes.

BUT

3.   Stock -  numbers fell 1928-38 (cattle 70-50m/ sheep 150-50m).

4.   Human cost -  appalling (7 million kulaks shot or sent to the gulag).

     

  

The 5-Year Plans

Overview

Stalin stated (correctly) in 1931 that Russia had 10 years to modernise, or be defeated by Germany.   So he brought in two 'Five-Year Plans' to industrialise Russia.   production concentrated on heavy industry (coal and steel production rose x4, and electricity rose x7).   One miner, Alexei Stakhanov, cut 102 tons of coal in one shift (workers could become 'Stakhanovites').  

Production rose, but the human cost was terrible.

  

Facts

1.   Successes - Moscow Underground/ Belomor Canal/ Dneiper dam

2.   Enthusiasm - fanatical young Communists called 'Pioneers' moved into barren areas and set up new towns - e.g. the steel town of Magnitogorsk.

3.   Women - Stalin set up crèches so women could work.   Women went to university and became doctors and scientists.

BUT

4.   Human cost -  appalling (slave labour/ accidents/ workers who made mistakes were sent to the gulag).

  

  

  

 

Revision Focus

This is a Paper 2 topic, so you need to have factual KNOWLEDGE IN DEPTH but also a degree of understanding which will allow you in the exam to write MULTI-CAUSAL EXPLANATIONS of the key issues.

  

Links

   Hard copy of these revision notes

  

e-books on the How Stalin took power , the Stalin's Terror , Collectivisation and the 5-Year Plans

  

  

Stalin v Trotsky - VITAL comparison

   

  

Online revision sheet