Stalin transformed the Soviet Unionfrom a backward country into a strong state

had been set unrealistically high, but the industrial area had leapt

up in sheer amount of production. The Communist industrial work ethic

was highlighted by the reported "true" story of Alexei Stakhanov. It

was reported in national newspapers (controlled by the Government)

that Stakhanov had shifted 102 tons of coal in one shift, apparently

4 times that a regular man would move. This example of heroism and

Stakhanov's subsequent use as a guiding light to all Russian workers

is just an example of what the Government aimed to get out of the

workers at the end of the first Five Year Plan. Corollary, for the

industrial situation to improve, Stalin needed more workers and to

have more workers Russia needed to produce more food. In order to

produce the amount of grain needed for this concentrated upheaval of

industrial Russia, the farming system was forced to change from a

selection of individual farms to a series of collective farms where

land, equipment and workers were pooled together for the greater good

of Communism. Taken at face value, the bulk of grain produced did

indeed increase rapidly, but at great expense to the Russian people.

Stalin wanted the USSR to produce enough grain to feed itself, and

enough surplus grain to export to other countries to maximise the

amount of money flowing into the Russian economy. Problems aside

however, Stalin did in fact achieve what he set out to do in respect

to increasing industrial output and agricultural production. The USSR

was well on its way to being on level footing with international

superpowers as far as industry and import/export was concerned.

The overall increase in production in both industrial and agricultural

sectors inevitably came at a price. The effects of Stalin's policies

on the people of the USSR were profound. Under the Bolshevik's New

Economic Policy as a replacement for War Communism the peasant's were

doing extremely well. They had enough grain for themselves and their

family, and could sell part of their grain for profit. At the end of

all that the Government brought about, the quality of life the average

Russian citizen was much reduced. Although the country was produced

far more steel and iron, each household had become progressively

poorer, as collective farms had taken away personal grain stores and

belongings and given them to the people. Also, in urban areas of the

USSR factory workers had experienced a decline in their working lives.

When the Government set targets for the nation to meet at the end of

five years, these targets were sub-divided into regions, towns,

factories, shifts and sometimes individual workers. This led to an

immense amount of pressure being placed upon a factory to perform, and

on each individual worker to meet his target. Workers that did not

meet their targets or failed to work a full amount of time in a

factory were dealt with severely. First offence of absenteeism was

heavily punished with fines, loss of ration cards and/or dismissal.

The punishment for a second offence was prison and a forced labour

camp. These unrealistic pressures that were placed upon factories and

factory managers led to a great deal of things. Morale sunk lower and

lower as targets were consistently not met, and many goods were ruined

through over-speeding the work on them. Hurried work by unskilled

workers could also wreck machinery in factories. Times like these led

many factories to invent their production figures and dramatically

inflate the amount that their factory was contributing. Looking back

to collectivisation and its effect on different people, it is

immediately obvious that some people benefited from collective farming

whilst others lost everything. Those who had very little in the ways

of land and machinery stood to gain the most from collectivisation as

the poorest peasant would receive the same as the richest kulak in a

collective farm. The kulaks were the better off farmers, either those

that had prospered from generation to generation, or those who were

the most efficient farmers who worked hardest. These people were

especially opposed to collectivisation as they stood to lose the most

from it. Often farms would seize all a kulak had and use it to form

the base for a new collective farm. When the peasants, especially the

kulaks believed that they stood to lose everything from collective

farming, they started to burn their crops and slaughter their

livestock, preferring to destroy and eat their possessions rather than

let the state take them. As a result of this, Stalin started what was

called dekukalisation. This consisted of developing class-hatred of

such ferocity that kulaks were believed to be unclean and disgusting.

Often entire families of kulaks had all of their possessions stripped

from them and were deported far away from their village. The kulaks

were used as scapegoats by Stalin and were blamed for everything that

went wrong in collectivisation. People were denouncing fellow

villagers as kulaks all over Russia, with children being encouraged to

inform on their own parents in order to liquidate the kulaks as a

class. The reason for all of these methods of enforcing

collectivisation was that Stalin simply could not afford to keep

agriculture as it was. Collectivisation was so urgent to him because

of the food crisis of the 1920's and because he was tired of the

yearly struggle to collect grain that was desperately needed to feed

the workers and to pay for the programme of industrialisation. Stalin

needed the grain to feed the workers and he needed the workers to keep

the industrial side of the USSR expanding. Because of this,

collectivisation was the most important part of Stalin's drastic

remodelling of Russia, which was why he sanctioned so much brutality

to and killings of the kulaks as a class.

A contra-argument to all of these negative points about Stalin's plans

and collectivisation would be showing who stood to gain from his

overhaul of the industrial and agricultural system. Even though there

were many who suffered terribly as a result of Stalin's plans, there

were some people who benefited. Firstly, the role of women in Russia

was markedly raised during all of this as a result of Stalin and his

ideas. Women were employed in construction and in factories, and were

overall on a much more even-footing with their male counterparts as a

direct result of Stalin's policies. Also, contrasting the punishments

that were handed out to those who were absent or did not meet their

target, workers or managers who excelled were richly rewarded. The

Stakhanovite Movement was a system where great individual feats in

factories were widely reported in the press and Stakhanovites were

rewarded well. The Stakhanovite Movement, named after the original

extreme worker Alexei Stakhanov, caused deep unrest amongst other

workers though, as these 'heroic' workers could push up individual

targets and increase the amount of work each person was supposed to do

each day.

The words "misery for the Soviet people" are incredibly emotive and

strong ones. They also imply that all of the Soviet people were

unhappy during Stalin's regime. There are certainly several arguments

for and against that statement, but nevertheless during Stalin's

autocracy he was loved and worshipped in an almost God-like capacity.

There are many possible factors that could have contributed toward

this; propaganda, terror tactics or a genuine love of the leader to

name but a few. Throughout his plans for the empowerment of the USSR

Stalin believed he needed to be the sole chief and he wished to be

adored by his public for being that chief. He set into motion a huge

propaganda campaign, comprising of censorship of those who would make

him seem less important, and pride of place being awarded to his

supporters. For example Stalin commissioned several paintings to be

drawn of him, his deeds and the Soviet people. They portrayed Stalin

as a wise and benevolent ruler who was in tune with his nation and was

dearly loved for what he was doing for the good of Russia. Also,

because Lenin had been raised atop a mountainous social plinth of

respect posthumously, Stalin ordered and doctored photographs and

paintings of himself and Lenin. These appeared to show the two side by

side, approaching things in the same way and holding the same beliefs.

Although this could not have been further from the truth, Lenin

actually having all but decreed Stalin should not take over the

Communist Party, the pictures that public saw created an impression

that Stalin was carrying on Lenin's great work. There were always a

number of people in the USSR who opposed Stalin, and who disagreed

with what he said or did. Many peasants for example hated the idea of

collectivisation and spoke out and demonstrated their contempt for

Stalin. On them he used terror tactics, threats and promises to harm

relatives and farms in order for them to declare their love for the

state and specifically for him. There was a whole new generation of

Russians however that were learning in school and were being brought

up to love and respect Stalin. These children would have genuinely

loved the man that they believed was acting in the best wishes of the

USSR and would help create a better country for them all. This ideal

was shared by many youngsters and was a main reason in many who

volunteered to work in the harshest of conditions in the most

dangerous of jobs. They believed that Stalin shared their view of

creating a better country for their children to live in.

Strangely, it could be argued that Stalin's actions in being so

insistent upon building up an army and the means with which to fight a

war could have prevented a great amount of loss of territory and

honour for Russia. It is difficult to say whether the USSR would have

had the means or the equipment necessary to defeat the Nazi's were it

not for the supplies and armaments built up at Stalin's explicit

command. As it was, with the industry of Russia being so in tune with

preparation for war before engaging the Nazi's, Stalin had in fact

saved Russia from a great deal of harm and loss to the economy and to

the population. This is definitely a point in favour of Stalin's

decisions, but whether or not the saving of the amount of lives in the

war could justify the extent to which the Russian population was

decimated in the famines created by collectivisation is debateable.

Although highly dubious before the war, Stalin's policy of building up

enough weaponry to protect Russia paid off and was undoubtedly one of

the major successes of his policies.

Even after all that Stalin was responsible for, some Russian people

today look back on his days in power with something approaching

nostalgia. I believe that these people would have been the children of

the workers on sites such as Magnitogorsk. I think this as the

childcare facilities and living conditions in the newly pieced

together 'towns' found at major construction sites offered unrivalled

opportunity at the time. These people would have been young enough to

think that the little amount of freedom they had regarding crèches and

the shops of each blocks apartment store as luxuries. Indeed, compared

to the squalor of urban areas the living quarters of industrial sites

such as the one at Magnitogorsk would have been considered the epitome

of comfort. Also, if the child was in education at the time of

Stalin's control of the USSR they would have been brought up and

taught to love and respect Stalin. Stalin and the Communist party

altered history so that it suited them, and gave reports that

magnified the glory of the Communist Party and especially the

splendour of Stalin. Growing up with these beliefs and seeing mainly

the positive sides of the Communist Government and all that they

achieved in their Five Year Plans and collectivisation, it is quite

easy to see why some Russians would look back on Stalin's time with

nostalgia, as it was commonly perceived as the time when the USSR had

greatly increased its economic position and social pride.

The last important area to look at in relation to how much Stalin

destroyed or built up the people of Russia's lives is how Stalin took

control of Soviet society at all levels. Stalin did this in a great

many ways, one of which was what has now become called the Purges. The

purge of Communist society lasted for four years between 1934 and

938, during this period millions of Russians were arrested, sent to

labour camps or shot. Main features of the purges were extremely

public show trials where old Bolsheviks, who could have possibly

opposed Stalin, were forced to confess to several crimes against the

state. Sergei Kirov, a man who at one point seemed to be becoming a

popular alternative to Stalin as leader of the Communist party, was

shot and killed in 1934. Stalin claimed there was a conspiracy to

murder him, destroy the party and used the ensuing fear to order the

arrests of a multitude of people who were believed to have committed

crimes against the state. The ensuing show trials of prominent

Bolsheviks were used to place the blame of all of the failings of

Stalin's previous policies and also for all the unsolved mysteries

such as conspiracies and murders. But the show trials were not all

there was to the purges. Anybody who was suspected of opposing Stalin

was removed. Writers, musicians, politicians, businessmen,

high-ranking army officers and practically anyone deemed to be of high

status lived in fear of the secret police coming to take them away

from their family and to a concentration camp without trial. People

were being denounced everywhere and any derogatory talk about Stalin

was reported, whereupon the speaker was arrested. In the short term

this was a wonderful result for Stalin as it gave him the reason he

needed to create a nation of sheep that would follow him blindly. In

the purges he not only wiped out Russia's literary and academic

population, but also most of those who were capable of taking command.

As a result, this led to great difficulties in the war when there were

severe problems as a direct result of not having enough officers that

could take control who had previous battle experience. To complete his

stranglehold on society, Stalin introduced censorship that ensured

that only pro-Communist views would be published. Newspapers, books,

music, drama, art all had to be in favour of Stalin and of Communism,

and many an author was arrested for attempting to publish something

that spoke out against Communism.

After analysing carefully all the different sides of the story, the

argument and the debate about Stalinist Russia between the years 1928

and 1941 I have reached a definite conclusion. It is true to say that

as a direct result of Stalin's Five Year Plans and collectivisation,

coupled with extremely effective propaganda that Russia was advanced

considerably in all sectors under Stalin's rule. However, the cost of

this advancement was phenomenal. Basic errors were made and could not

be admitted and were blamed on mystery 'saboteurs' that were adamant

on halting the progress of the Communist party. This disorganisation

of both industry and agriculture led to devastating famine and

horrific death tolls. Also, Stalin's method of ensuring his

dictatorship, removing all of his opposition, was both brutal and

damaging to his own country. His actions in the purges not only

weakened his country's defence, but deprived Russia of over a decade

of artistic advancement. Yes, Stalin was responsible for incredible

developments in the USSR, and yes he did transform it from a backward

country into a strong modern state. But the price for this was the

misery of the Soviet people, and the eventual crippling of Russia's

socio-economic growth through bad decisions and brutality. Therefore I

believe that the statement about Stalin is highly accurate, but that

it was not just the people, but the country also that paid the price.