Historian Timothy Snyder identifies the disadvantages of collectivisation. Timothy Snyder can be recognised as a reliable historian. He derives from the United States and doesn’t derive from Russia in anyway, therefore his opinions should be unbiased. Snyder states the rebellion caused by collectivisation decreased the rates of agriculture output through killings and rebellions (such as killing livestock. In addition collectivisation did not fair economically, “It was not until 1950s that agriculture achieved the level of output desired by Stalin” therefore making the entire project unsuccessful as Stalin did not reach the output he desired. The evilness can be identified by the mass starvations, historian Geoffry Wheatcroft estimates that 4-5 million died from famine in one year as a result of farmers not achieving their quotas set from the government or those sent into labour camps from rebelling.
The only argument supporting the collectivisation scheme is a political one. Lewis Siegelbaum suggests that collectivisation was a key drive for the industrialisation. It solved the issue of the state being reliant on the unsteady peasant population giving the government control over the peasants and therefore the economy making the economy ready to enter industrialisation.
A comparison can be made between Hitler’s scheme in 1933 when he became chancellor, he introduced autarky in an attempt to improve Germany’s economy (especially in the weapons field) to prepare Hitler’s idea of Nazi dominance over Europe. This coincides with Stalin’s plans of autarky in the field of collectivisation to improve Russia’s economy. Stalin’s collectivisation defiantly had more drastic effects though due to how it was strictly forced on so many people with such harsh regulations (death penalties, camps) resulting in millions of deaths.
Of The Five Year Plan initiated by Stalin the key focus was on another sector, industrialisation. Industrialisation was the course of transforming an economy reliant on farming and agriculture into an industrial one which produced heavy industrial goods such as metals and oils.
Historian Timothy Snyder argues that the workers who held down the industry were to be exterminated provoking a sense of fear within the workers, for again, like collectivisation, not fulfilling their quotas set by the government. This could be recognised as a social disadvantage as killing to provoke fear in the people is an unmoral, harsh and essentially evil act. Stalin tried to avoid this though by encouraging the people with propaganda campaigns in order to encourage workers to strive for their privileges and warp their minds to think what they are doing is correct.
Both Stalin and Hitler were skilled users of propaganda they both used it as a tool to spread their ideas and to help them gain support from the people in their country. That is not to say there weren’t differences in their propaganda though. The Soviet Union was a communist state and therefore tends to place Stalin amongst military, workers and children as if he were to be offering support for their needs. This gave the impression that he as a ruler was a common man, and therefore he knows the policies that will benefit the people. Hitler’s propaganda states his position of power, almost viewing him as a god. People follow him because of his seemingly limitless power showed by the propaganda; this made him seem that he could make anything happen.
However unlike collectivisation the methods appeared to benefit the economy even though Stalin set such unrealistic goals, for example his aim was to achieve a 250% increase in total industrial output and a 350% increase in the heavy industries. Historian M.Macanely states , “It was as if mathematics ceased to exist.”, highlighting the extremeness of the goals set. These goals were not reached yet the USSR had still modernised rapidly equating itself to other European powers at the time. Industrialisation also resulted in the creations of massive industrial centres such as Magnetigorsk and Gorki. For these reasons industrialisation could be regarded as a success to an extent.
Stalin’s government was a totalitarian one; this meant that only the ruling government was allowed within the state. In this case Stalin’s communist party was supreme and all other opposition and criticism would be annihilated. He held many purges against his rivals, these purges demonstrated how this insecure leader could be so evil in order to keep him in power. Stalin’s own quote justifies his actions in the purges, “Death solves all problems. No man-no problem”, it shows how nothing would hold him back from eliminating all of his opposition.
The purges were absolutely not a necessary evil for the Soviet Union. ThinkQuest argues how the purges affected all of the people within the Soviet Union; they lived in constant fear of being jailed, tortured or shot. “It became a regular occurrence for ordinary citizens to turn upon each other of criticising each other of not supporting Stalin in order to show their commitment to their ruler to reduce the chances of themselves not being killed.”, this signifies the fright the people felt at the time. Overall the purges resulted in 10 million people sent to where they often died, whilst a million were executed (). All the fear and killings in the country also reduced the economic development, this was due to the fact that many industrial workers were killed and the general worker moral decreased and with so their productivity. To conclude the purges contained no significant advantages for the Soviet Union.
To restate the hypothesis Stalin was not a necessary evil for the Soviet Union. The extermination of the millions opposing his policies was an extremely unmoral and unjustifiable act. Through these awful actions he did not even manage to fulfil his goals set by The 5 Year Policy proving himself to be unsuccessful as a leader. Despite this is not entirely fair to say that Stalin was a complete failure. His industrialisation programme may have not achieved the output he set, yet it did still increase the good produced massively. The result of this was that it brought the Soviet Union to the modern world, however not as quickly as he wanted. Without this though the Soviet Union wouldn’t have coped in World War 2 as well as it did and more would have died in the war if the country did not become more advanced. However this is still not justifiable considering that millions more where lost through Stalin’s abysmal reign than what would have been lost in the war. Therefore proving Stalin was not a necessary evil for the Soviet Union.
