Stalin & the USSRhis rise to power and rule Lenin died in 1924, and it was widely expected

d that Trotsky would take over as leader, but a complex power struggle developed from which Stalin emerged triumphant in 1929. At first it seemed unlikely that Stalin would become the dominant figure; he was regarded as a man destined to play second or third fiddle. After 1917, due to his outstanding ability as an administrator, he was quietly able to build up a position under Lenin. The most obvious successor to Lenin was Leon Trotsky, an intellectual and a man of action, the organizer of the Red Armies. But Trotskys brilliance worked against him and other key members of the Politburo resented Trotsky and his quick rise to prominence. The key three (known as the triumvirate) Kamenev, Zinoviev & Bukharin worked together doing all they could to prevent Trotsky from becoming leader. By the time of Lenins death in 1924(even though Lenin had warned party leaders against allowing Stalin to seize power) Stalin was Secretary-General of the Communist Party and a member of the Politburo, the committee which decided government policy. As Secretary-General of the Party, Stalin had full powers of appointment and promotion to important jobs. He quietly filled these positions with his own supporters and by 1928 all the top bodies and congresses were packed with Stalinites. Stalin was untouchable. One by one, the triumvirate were voted off the Politburo, replaced by Stalins yes-men and expelled from the party. Trotsky was eventually exiled from the USSR and went to live in Turkey. Stalin remained the dominant figure in the USSRthrough the second World War and until his death in 1953 at the age of 73. Many problems faced communist Russia when Lenin died in 1924: industry & agriculture were under-developed & inefficient, constant food shortages, pressing social & political problems and many Russians feared the foreign capitalist powers would destroy the new communist state. (See your reading in Gaddis) Stalin made determined efforts to overcome all these problems. He was responsible for Five Year Plans to revolutionize industry (192841), collectivization of agriculture, and introduction of a totalitarian regime, which was more ruthless than Hitlers system in Germany.

 Despite opposition from the Old Bolsheviks, Stalin was determined to eliminate all opposition. In 1934 he began the Purges, in which some two million people were arrested and sentenced to execution or imprisonment in a labor camp for plotting against the Soviet state. The vast network of these camps were known as the Gulag. It is estimated that as many as ten million people disappeared during the 1930s as all opposition was eliminated and the ordinary population was terrorized into obedience. When the dreaded attack from the West did comein the form of a massive German invasion in 1941, the Russians were able to hold out, and eventually ended up on the winning side. Stalins/Russias Economic Problems Production from heavy industry was still very low after WW I. Stalin believed a rapid expansion of heavy industry was essential to deal with the attack he felt would come from the western capitalist powers, who hated communism. Industrial workers were seen as the communists greatest allies Stalin thought the peasants were the enemies of socialism. More food would also have to be produced, both to feed the growing industrial population and provide a surplus for export. But the primitive agricultural system was incapable of providing such resources. Industrial expansion was tackled by a series of Five Year Plans, which achieved some measure of successhundreds of factories were built, iron and steel works, tractor works, a hydro-electric dam and oil refineries. The cash was provided by the Russians themselves, with no foreign investment. Hundreds of foreign technicians were brought in and great emphasis was placed upon expanding education in colleges/universitieseven in factory schools to produce more skilled workers. The Plans had their drawbacksordinary workers were severely disciplined and there were severe punishments for bad workmanship. Many of the products were of poor qualitybut Stalins major push to create a great industry was partly successful and helped the Soviets withstand the German invasion in 1941 but there were errors as well

 Stalin tried to go too far too fast, used brutal methods, and treated all criticism as evidence of subversion and treason. Problems of agricultural production were dealt with by the process known as collectivization. The idea was that small farms and holdings belonging to the peasants should be merged to form large collective farms jointly owned by the peasants. Stalin believed small farms were inefficient and large farms would vastly improve grain production, and he wanted to eliminate the class of prosperous peasants (kulaks) because he claimed they were standing in the way of socialist progress. Stalin saw the kulaks as the enemy of communism: We must smash the kulaks so hard they will never rise to their feet again. The policy was launched in earnest in 1929 and had to be carried through by sheer brute force. Landless peasants were not resistant, but all peasants who owned any property at allwere hostile to the plan, and had to be forced to join collectives by armies. Peasants who refused to join collective farms were arrested and taken to labor camps, or shot. Over 90% of farmland was collectivized by 1937. The collectivization movement produced a mixed bag of results: a substantial increase in grain production/exports, greater mechanization did occur on the farms, but the costs in human life and suffering were enormous. Also, the kulaks slaughtered many animals through their resistance and it took many years before livestock production levels recovered. A combination of many factors led to famine (1932-33) especially in Ukraine. Over five million peasants died of starvation. Some historians have even claimed that Stalin welcomed the famine, since along with the 10 million kulaks who were removed or executed, it helped to break peasant resistance to collectivization. During the 1930s, there was growing opposition to Stalin, and even though his personal dictatorship was complete, Stalin did not feel secure; he became increasingly suspicious, trusted nobody and seemed to see plots everywhere. The governments popularity with the general public had fallen sharply due to collectivization and the hardships of the First Five Year Plan. Stalin was determined that political opponents and critics must be eliminated totally.

 A new constitution was needed to consolidate the hold of Stalin and the Communist Party over the whole country. The Purges & the Great Terror ensue (1934-1938) Hundreds of important officials were arrested, tortured, made to confess to all sorts of crimes (of which they were largely innocent) and forced to appear in a series of show trials where the state wanted the people to see these criminals were getting a fair trialeven though the trial was only for show. Stalins motive was to frighten the great mass of the population into uncomplaining obedience by deliberately arresting and shooting a proportion of that societyguilty or not. The Purges were successful in eliminating possible alternative leaders and in terrorizing the masses into obedience. Stalin ruled unchallenged with the help of his supporting clique: Molotov, Mikoyan, Malenkov, and Khrushchevuntil his death in 1953. But the consequences of the Purges and Terror were serious: the cost in human lives and suffering is almost beyond belief. Some historians claim the total number of lives destroyed during that period runs from 10-11 million.

Assessments of Stalin
(Make sure you use your own WW II history of Stalin and the Big Three meetings here) When Stalin died in 1953, his reputation in the Soviet Union went into decline when Khrushchev delivered his speech in 1956denouncing Stalins excesses. (the start of de-Stalinization) Stalin was responsibledirectly or indirectly for rapid industrialization, collectivization, the new constitution, the rise of the new bureaucracy, the spread of mass education and social services. The supreme justification of Stalin and his methods is that he made the USSR powerful enough to defeat the Germans. The regime was popular with the top and middle ranks of the bureaucracy, in the army and navy, and the security forces. These were people who had risen from the working classes, they owed their privileged positions to Stalin. Stalin was also popular with the majority of ordinary people. How did such a brutal leader come to enjoy such popularity? He was adept at manipulating public opinion, created a cult of personality that kept morale high in some ranks, and rarely admitted to making a mistake always shifted the blame onto someone else. The worst aspect of Stalinism is that it was responsible for about 20 million deaths---over and above the victims of the war. These deaths

happened during collectivization, the famine of 1932-33, the Purges and the Great Terror.