Stalin's Impact On Russia And The Russian People.

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3. Assess the impact that Stalin had on Russia and the Russian people. (8)

Stalin had a great impact on Russia and the Russian people with his variety of policies and events that took place during his reign. Any events or policies had both short and long term effects for everyone. I will be looking at both of these.        

Firstly, there was his use of terror on the people. This was displayed by the Purges and labour camps both which Stalin commanded. With the Purges, there were many short and long-term effects. In the short-term, many leading Bolsheviks such as Kamenev, Bukharin and Zinoviev were removed from the party after show trials. The military purged 25,000 officers - around one in five - including the Supreme Commander of the Red Army, Marshal Tukhachevsky. The NKVD itself was purged. 500,000 party members were arrested, executed or sent to labour camps. The Purges began in 1934, when Kirov, the leader of the Leningrad Communist Party was murdered. Stalin used this murder as an excuse to 'purge' or clear out his opponents in the party. However, it is strongly suspected that Stalin arranged for Kirov's murder to give him this excuse. As the Purges continued university lecturers, teachers, miners and engineers, factory managers and ordinary workers all disappeared. It is said that every family in the USSR lost someone in the Purges. By 1937, an estimated 18 million had been sent to labour camps and 10 million had died. Stalin seriously weakened the USSR by removing so many able individuals.

The Purges resulted in many long-term effects. Firstly, all of the leading Bolsheviks had gone, including Trotsky. Trotsky was killed in August 1940 by a member of the NKVD whilst living in exile in Mexico. The party was now completely ruled by Stalin and the only people who had power were those who he appointed. After most of the army was purged, the officers' that were left were young and inexperienced. When the Red Army invaded Finland in 1939, they put up a poor performance. Hitler was watching this very carefully as he had plans to invade Russia but was wary due to its reputation as being such a strong country, which would be difficult to invade. However, once Hitler had seen the Russian Army's performance in Finland he decided that they would have to difficulty in invading the USSR. He chose 1941, partly due to this reason and also because he received resistance from Britain. Another long-term effect of the Purges was on the 5 Year Plans. The success of the third was disrupted by the death or disappearance of so many scientists, engineers and factory managers. Many of these were purged often for no reason or occasionally for accusations of being a saboteur or wrecker. Stalin believed that these people were deliberately having accidents to slow down the effectiveness of the 5 Year Plans. On some occasions this was the case but on others accidents really were just accidents. Finally, the Purges profoundly affected individual thought and the way people acted. Society became inward and there was a severe lack of independent thought. People became unoriginal and derivative. Living with fear for so long had caused the people to become conformists - those who conformed with the rest. Only the second best were left.

Another method of Stalin's terror was the labour camps or gulags as they were called. 18 million had been transported to these for a variety of reasons. Firstly, during the forced collectivisation, millions of kulaks were sent here to be used as slave labour later on in the 5 Year Plans. Secondly, the rest came from the Purges. Many innocent victims were sent to labour camps often for no reason at all or having faced accusations of sabotage. Additionally, if you did not fill your quota at work, you could be shot or sent to a labour camp. Also, if you had produced a cartoon, poem or peace of music that criticised Stalin in any way then in most cases you would be sent to a labour camp as Stalin did not want anything critical of him to be shown to the public. The long-term effects of the labour camps were that the 5 Year Plans were greatly helped along with the work of all the people used as slave labour.

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Stalin's control of ideas had many short and long-term effects. The short-term effects of Stalin's control of ideas were that he was glorified and made into an icon. This was done through propaganda such as posters, speeches and even places e.g. Stalingrad. Lenin's cult was encouraged because is emphasised how close Stalin was to Lenin. In 1926, Stalin created a new constitution in which people were given the freedom of speech and votes. However, this was only a cosmetic measure as only Communist Party candidates were allowed to stand in elections. Stalin used censorship and propaganda to control what ...

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