Transcript Communism in Russia - Yellowhead Koinonia Christian School

SOC 30-1 Readings: Chapter 5 – parts on Russia
SOC 30-2 Readings: Chapter 7, pg. 161-172
Nature of Totalitarian
(Dictatorship) Regimes:
 Totalitarian regimes are responding to what they see as
dangerous and destabilizing changes
 Existing society is in need of a complete transformation
 In the case of the Soviet Union, it became Radical
 The change desired is a move toward the far left of the
economic spectrum (a classless society with state
[public] ownership of property) and a COMPLETE
REJECTION of the political and economic traditions of
the past
Nature of Totalitarian
(Dictatorship) Regimes:
 Just like liberalism, dictatorships are simply ideologies
 The focus is about control over your citizens
 Control is maintained through:
 Extensive local, regional, and national organizations
 Youth, professional, cultural and athletic groups (forced
participation)
 A secret police, using terror
 Indoctrination through education
 Censorship of the media
 Redirecting popular discontent (scapegoating)
Nature of Totalitarian
(Dictatorship) Regimes:
 If Liberalism embraces…
 Law
 Individual Rights and Freedoms
 Private Property
 Self Interest
 Economic Freedom
 Competition
 Then dictatorships reject some of these principles
 But which ones…?
•Weakness of Tsar Nicholas II
•Failure of the Duma
•Discontent of the workers
•Failures during WWI
•Rasputin and Scandal
•Opposition of the Communists
•February Revolution, 1917
Weakness of Tsar Nicholas II
 Was the absolute monarch of
Russia. He had total power
 Nicholas II was a weak man
 His secret police, the Okrana, were
used to persecute opponents
 Books and newspapers censored
 The Church supported the Tsar
 Nicholas II ruled a vast country that
was almost medieval compared to
other countries
 His undemocratic government also
caused tension
Failure of the Duma
 In 1905, Russia lost a war with Japan
 The defeat caused strikes throughout Russia
 Nicholas II offered to call the Duma, or parliament, with
free elections
 When the Duma met, it began to criticize the Tsar and
demanded the changes. Nicholas II didn’t like this
 The Duma was dismissed and new elections, controlled
by the Tsar were called
 It became clear that the Duma would be shut down if
it criticized the Tsar – as long as the Tsar had control
of the army, his power could not be broken.
Workers’ Discontent
 Industrialization began much later in Russia than in Western
Europe
 Huge iron foundries, textile factories, and engineering firms were
set up
 Most were owned by the government or foreigners
 By 1900, 20% of Russians were workers living in cities
 Working conditions in towns was very hard, pay was low
 Illegal strikes often took place, with strikers being shot by the Tsar’s
soldiers or even secret police
‘The whole day we pour out
our blood and sweat. Every
minute we are exposed to
danger.’
-Union leaflet 1898
Workers’ Discontent
 Traditionally, Russia was a rural society with over
90% of the people being poor peasants
 Until 1861, peasants had belonged to their masters,
who could buy and sell them like animals
 When the peasants were freed in 1861, they were given
small amounts of land for which they had to pay back
the government
 Most peasants were in a state of poverty. Agriculture
was in desperate need of modernization
 In contrast, a small number of upper-class people
held most of the wealth and power. This aristocracy
had large town houses and country estates
Russian Failures in WWI
 Russia fought very well early on in the war
 In 1915, Tsar Nicholas II assumed personal
command of the Russian forces
 Risky- any defeats would be blamed on
him
 It turned out that he was a poor
commander
 The Russian army lost confidence in him
after a string of defeats
 The Russian soldiers were poorly equipped
and trained; thousands deserted
 Lacked basic items such as rifles and
ammunition
 Without the support of the army, the Tsar’s
position became precarious
Rasputin and Scandal
 While Nicholas II was commanding the
Russian forces, he left the day-to-day
running of Russia to his wife: Tsarina
Alexandra
 Alexandra came under the influence of
Gregory Rasputin
 Seen as a ‘holy man’
 Was apparently able to heal the
hemophilia of Prince Alexis, the heir to the
throne
 Rasputin used his power to win effective
control of the Russian government
 This aroused envy and he was murdered in
1916
 Rasputin’s influence undermined the
prestige of the royal family
Opposition of the Communists
 Many middle-class Liberals and social revolutionaries
who supported the peasants opposed the Tsar
 But the social democrats/communists were the most
revolutionary
 Russian Communists are divided into two groups
 Bolsheviks – led by Lenin

Believed that a small party of Bolsheviks should seize power
and control Russia on behalf of the people
 Mensheviks – led by Trotsky
 Before 1917, Lenin and many other communist leaders
were in exile abroad, plotting revolution
February & October Revolutions,
1917
 Russia did so poorly in WWI that a spontaneous
uprising occurred in February
 Sparked by food riots, poor working conditions,
and failure to win the war
 The Russian army refused to shoot at the
demonstrators and joined forces with them
 Lenin, in exile in Switzerland, raced to Petrograd so that he could attempt
to seize control of the revolution
 In March 1917, the Tsar was forced to abdicate and a provisional
government was set up
 Lenin believed that this new government was weak and would not impose
communism on the Russian people
 In October 1917, Lenin led an armed uprising against the Provisional
Government
•Abandoning the Constituent Assembly
•The Cheka
•Success of the New Economic Policy
•The Kronstadt Revolt, 1921
•War Communism
•Execution of Tsar Nicholas II, 1918
•Civil War: 1918-1921
•Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 1918
Abandonment of the Constituent
Assembly, 1917
 Immediately after the October Revolution, Lenin promised
to hold elections for a parliament to be known as the
Constituent Assembly
 Lenin renamed the Bolshevik Party as the Communist Part
in order to win wider support.
 However, the Communists only won 175/700 seats – not
enough for a majority
 Therefore Lenin shut down the Constituent Assembly after
only one day!
 Lenin was not prepared to share power with anyone. This
was the first step in setting up a Communist dictatorship
The Cheka (secret police)
 In December 1917, Lenin created the
Cheka
 Cheka agents spied on the Russian people
in factories and villages
 Anyone suspected of being antiCommunist could be arrested, tortured,
and executed without a trial
 When opponents tried to assassinate
Lenin in 1918, he launched the Red Terror
campaign against his enemies
 Estimated 50,000 people were arrested and
executed in this period
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 1918
 To impose Communist control, Lenin needed to bring
Russia out of WWI
 The Russian army was weakened by poor morale, desertions,
and a lack of discipline. It could not resist the Germans
 In March 1918, Russia signed a humiliating peace treaty
with Germany
 Russia lost a huge amount of Western lands, including 1/6 of
its population (60 million people!)
 Also lost ¾ of its iron & coal mines, and over ¼ of its best
farmland!
 The Treaty came at a high price, but Lenin knew he could
not defeat Germany and his opponents in Russia at the
same time
Russia
Estonia
Treaty of
Brest-Litovsk
1918
Germany
.
Latvia
Lithuania
Ukraine
Brest-Litovsk
Russian territory ceded to Germany
Civil War: 1918-1921
 Two groups
 “Reds” – Lenin & the Communists
 “Whites” – aristocrats, royalists, churchmen, army
officers, many others

Also supported by Britain, France, Japan, and the USA;
countries alarmed at the possible spread of Communism
 The Reds managed to win the civil war. How?
 The Whites were divided, while the Reds controlled the
key cities, industrial centers, and communication links
 Leon Trotsky’s tough leadership of the new Red Army
also proved to be a decisive advantage
Japanese armies
Finns
Czechs (ex-prisoners of
war)
Communist Russia
besieged during the Civil
War 1918-1921
• Petrograd
•
Moscow
Allied armies
White Russian
armies
Polish armies
Civil War: 1918-1921
 Leon Trotsky – founder and
commander of the Red Army
 “Every scoundrel who incites
anyone to retreat or to desert
will be shot!”
 “Every soldier who throws away
his rifle will be shot!”
Execution of Tsar Nicholas II
 After abdicating the throne, Nicholas II and his family
were arrested and sent to Siberia
 In July 1918, the Romanovs were in Ekaterinburg, with
a White army closing in on the town
 Local communists were worried that the Tsar might be a
rallying point for the Whites
 Thus the Tsar, his wife, their five children, and four
attendants were shot and bayoneted
Lenin replaced War
Communism with his NEP in
1921
He never saw it as a permanent
policy, but as a temporary retreat
from socialism that would give
Russia a chance to recover
economically and socially
New Economic Policy
 Provisions
 State retained ownership in large
industry
 Private enterprise allowed in
small industries and retail trade
 Peasants freed from forced
requisitions


Had to pay tax in kind to the government, but were otherwise free to
sell the rest of their produce on the free market
Farmers given a strong incentive to produce more
 The NEP was a tremendous success and it quickly revived
the Russian economy
New Economic Policies
 “Dangers”
 75% of all retail trade fell into private
hands during the NEP
 Caused the rise of “Nepmen”
 It was feared that they would become the new
“bourgeoisie”
 Caused the rise of “kulaks”
 Peasants had grown wealthy because of
private enterprise provisions of the NEP
 Debate over the NEP would become
linked to the power struggle after Lenin’s
death
Ban on “Factions”
 In response to criticisms of the NEP,
Lenin and Politburo ban all “factions”
in 1922
 Any party member who joined others
to oppose or criticize any party policy
would be expelled
 Stalin would later use this policy to
eliminate rivals
 Leaders who would later suffer
because of this policy all voted for it
in 1922
Lenin suffered a series of increasingly
serious strokes between 1921 and 1924.
These left him speechless and paralyzed.
He also made two mistakes
1) Supported the ban on factions
2) Appointed Josef Stalin as General
Secretary of the Communist Party
Lenin Moves to get rid of Stalin
 Lenin discovered that Stalin had used
terror and murder to stifle peaceful
opposition of local communist leaders in
Georgia
 Lenin criticized Stalin’s “Moscow
chauvinism” and began to meet with
Trotsky to kick Stalin out of the party
 Stalin learned of the meeting and
berated Lenin’s wife, Krupskaya, when
she would not let him meet with Lenin
Lenin’s Last Testament
 Began in 1922 – Lenin did not name a successor, but offered
his personal evaluation of all possible candidates
 Stalin: should be replaced with someone “more patient, more
loyal, more courteous, and less capricious”
 Trotsky: most pre-eminent member of the party but suffered
from excessive self-confidence and highhandedness
 Highly praised Nicholas Bukharin and Felix Pyatokov
 No one was fit to succeed him
 He wanted Trotsky and several other party members to form a
caretaker government until Bukharin and Pyatokov were
ready to take over
Death of Lenin
 Lenin took final steps to
eliminate Stalin
 But a final stroke on March
10, 1924 completely
paralyzes Lenin before he
could get rid of Stalin
 Lenin died in early 1924 at
the age of 54
Death of Lenin
 When Lenin died, he had been very
successful in imposing a communist
dictatorship in Russia
 He had defeated all of his opponents
and established a strong communist
government
 As each of the areas formerly belonging
to the Tsar came under communist
control, they were turned into socialist
republics
 In 1923, these became the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
 But, Lenin failed to provide a clear
successor on his death. This led to four
years of bitter struggle
Stalin VS Trotsky
 After Lenin’s death, a four-year power struggle emerged as
to who would lead the Communist party
 Trotsky believed that under his leadership, Russia would
become a catalyst for the spread of Communism across the
world
 He had also been very successful as the commander of the
Red Army and appeared to have Lenin’s support
 Stalin had not played a significant part in the Revolution
of 1917, but had since gained a number of key posts in the
Communist party
 Stalin had no interest in international communism; he
wanted to make Russia strong, with himself at its head
Reason’s for Stalin’s Success
 Stalin’s strong position
 As General Secretary of the Communist party, Stalin had the
job of appointing posts in the party

He could remove opponents and replace them with supporters
 He was also popular since he wanted to concentrate on
turning Russia into a modern, powerful state
 Trotsky was much less popular
 He had been a Menshevik and had only joined the Bolsheviks
in 1917
 He gradually lost positions during the struggle and was forced
into exile in 1929

Stalin had him assassinated in Mexico in 1940
 Other leading figures of 1917: Kamenev, Zinoviev, and
Bukharin were also removed by Stalin
Stalin’s Dictatorship:
Purges & Propaganda
 Even with his opponents removed,
Stalin felt insecure
 He conducted a policy of purges
between 1934-1938
 Millions arrested, executed, or sent to
labour camps
 Stalin used the NKVD, secret police, to
undertake the “Great Terror”. Stalin
purged:




90% of the army’s top officers
Every navy admiral
1 million Communist Party members
20 million+ ordinary Russians
 He also encouraged a cult of
personality – propaganda was used to
make people constantly aware of Stalin
A foreigner
describes the
glorification of
Stalin in the
USSR
“Stalin’s face is
everywhere. His
name is spoken by
everyone. His praises
are sung in every
speech. Every room I
entered had a
portrait of Stalin
hanging on the wall.
Is it love or fear? I do
not know.
Socialism in One Country
 Stalin’s victory also had an ideological component
 Of three possible views, only his had the most attraction
for rank-and-file party members
 Communist Right: told people to bide their time to become
powerful (Bukharin)
 Communist Left: made Russia and its revolution seem
ineffective and unimportant (Trotsky)
 Only Stalin offered a program and goal that could be achieved
by Soviets
 To underline this point, the 15th Party Congress also
adopted measures that ended the NEP and began a new era
of Five-Year Plans
Overview:
•Made Russia a great industrial nation
• Russia was 5th in industrial production in 1928
• It became neck-and-neck with the USA in 1980!
•New system of collective
farming introduced
•A vast social transformation a
accompanied the economic
changes
Reasons for giving up the NEP
 NEP viewed as a temporary retreat from socialism
 Unacceptable to most Communists
 Industry had gained prewar levels, but future growth depended
on massive investment
 Peasants felt state prices were too low and refused to sell, and felt
prices were manufactured products were too high and refused to
buy
 Five-Year Plans would fix the situation by ensuring a steady supply
of food at low prices and squeezing necessary capital for industrial
growth out of peasants
 Stalin knew that war with Germany and Japan was inevitable
 Victory depended on absolute control of population and industrial
strength
 Five-Year Plans would collectivize agriculture and put peasants in
centralized areas where they could be watched and would increase
industrial production
First Five Year Plan (1928-1932)
 Projected that industrial production
would increase by 200%
 Emphasis on heavy industry
 Investment capital would come from
collective farms
 20% of agricultural production would be
performed on collective farms


Large consolidated blocs of land made up of
formerly independent peasant
smallholdings
Peasants would live and work together on
these farms and equally share income from
them
Collective Farms: Advantages
 Would halt growth of “petty capitalist
mentalities” among peasants
 Would make the peasants easier to
watch and educate them
 Increased productivity through
mechanization
 Creation of large industrial workforce –
increased mechanization has fewer
peasants farming
 Provide Capital for industrial
development
 State would pay farms 1/8 market value
for products
 Difference diverted into industry
 Farmer would also pay sales tax and
this would be invested into industry
Collectivization Gets Rough
 Collectivization was supposed to be voluntary
 But it was clear that peasants would not voluntarily give
up their small parcels of land
 Stalin then abruptly announced the abandonment of his
20% collectivization goal and states that ALL peasants
would be collectivized – by force if needed

Also announced his intention to liquidate all kulaks
 Thousands of kulaks had their property and possession
confiscated


Many sent to labour camps or deported to Siberia
All this was done with a great deal of armed force
Very High Price of Collectivization
 98% of all farmland collectivized by
1941
 Peasants slaughtered livestock – huge
drop in # of sheep, cattle, and hogs
 Urban communist party members
sent to manage farms
 Ignorant of agriculture
 Huge drop in agricultural famine
 Famine hits again in 1932-33
 Crime of “pilfering” imposed on
starving peasants who stole their own
grain
 At least 5 million people died during
collectivization
Industry
 The Industrial labour force
doubled during the first Five Year Plan
 Peasants were moving to cities
 Uncooperative factory managers who argued that goals
were too high were imprisoned and replaced with more
enthusiastic men and women
 Stalin declared the Plan fulfilled in 1932
 All targets were under fulfilled, but production had
drastically increased

Coal & iron by 200% (target of 300% though)
First Five Year Plan
 The most glaring shortfall occurred in consumer goods
 Targets had been low to begin with, but they were still
not met


Textile production actually declined
Urban housing went from bad to abysmal
 Waste, chaos, and mismanagement accompanied
rapid industrialization
 Expensive equipment was ruined by trying to produce
too much too fast, or by using untrained workers
 Blame was put on “saboteurs”

Often technically educated men of pre-1917 generation
Second Five Year Plan (1933-1937)
 Had to be scaled down after one year
 Realization that a limit had been reached as to what the
economy could do and what people could take
 Emphasis placed on improvement of efficiency and
improving living standards
 Things got better for three years and then leveled off
 Due to increased emphasis on military production and
chaos of the Great Purges
Third Five Year Plan (1938-1942)
 Projected 200% increase in production and increase in
consumer products
 Neither goal is fulfilled
 The outbreak of WWII causes an oil shortage and severe
labour shortage
 Main goal had been achieved by 1941:
 Although demoralized and exhausted, the Soviet Union
had become one of the world’s great industrial
superpowers
Problems Of Centralization
 Huge planning bureaucracy
 Tons of paperwork
 Stalin interfered with planning &
caused problems
 Hired flunkies who gave him the
numbers he wanted

No one would point out the mistakes,
thereby guaranteeing that when a
mistake was made, it would be a giant
one
 Centralized planning failed to
make the Soviet Union competitive
in the world marketplace
Effects of Stalin’s Rule on men and women
Pro’s
Con’s
 Schools built
 Millions suffered in Stalin’s
 Social insurance schemes
introduced
 Russia became a modern
industrial country




purges
Brutality, persecution,
executions, forced labour
Millions died of starvation
and over-work
Shops empty, clothes dull and
badly made
Household items difficult to
find
The Great Patriotic War
(1941-1945)
 When Germany attacked the USSR in
1941, Stalin used the same
ruthlessness to defend his country
 This defense was the bloodiest war
in history and cost millions of lives
and the destruction of thousands of
villages, towns and cities
 The final victory was, like everything
else, attributed to Stalin by the Soviet
propaganda machine
 After the war, Stalin built up the USSR
as a superpower, in opposition to the
USA
 This conflict is known as the Cold War
 Stalin died in 1953