However, Stalin’s Five Year Plans did accomplish a great deal and the centralized ‘command economy’ did prove help thrust Russia into the modern age. New cities rose from the ground such as Magnitogorsk in the Urals, as did huge industrial complexes, great dams and hydrogen stations. The advances made were remarkable, for example in 1925 the Soviet Union stood eleventh in the production of electro-energy yet by 1935 she was second only to Germany and America. Moreover Soviet production in other areas such as coal, steel, tractors, oil and sugar all rose dramatically. Urban unemployment virtually disappeared as millions of peasants migrated into towns seeking employment. Opportunities also opened for upward social mobility into the new intelligentsia and emerging elite due to Russia finding itself short of skilled technicians, industrials managers and supervisory personnel. Nonetheless the accession of working-class and peasant youth to greater responsibility should not however be overstated as did not change the class character of the society which promoted them. Another positive effect of industrialization was the elevation in the status of Russian women. Certainly their share in industry as a whole remained very slight and they were given the lowest-skilled and worst-paid jobs. Moreover their war-time rise in employment quickly diminished as men involved in the war-effort reclaimed their old jobs. Nonetheless it was under Stalin that women began to enter industries and trades that had largely been closed to them before industrialisation.
Stalin also incorporated a transformation of Russian agriculture in the aim of his Five Year Plans. A policy of collectivisation was pursued in order to replace private agriculture with collective and state farms as Stalin did not believe that Russia’s socialized industry could rely on an agricultural base provided by small peasant farming. This process began after an agricultural crisis with peasant hoarding of grain due a fear that the capitalist powers would launch an attack on Russia. In response to this Stalin began to extract grain from peasants through extensive coercion and reverted to the coercive tactics of War Communism by setting up road-blocks and moving in both military detachments and armed requisition squads. The defeat of the Right Opposition led by Bukharin by April 1929 meant that there was little resistance to this forced method of grain collection which historians such as Gill believe to be a full on attack on the Russian peasantry. The main intention of collectivisation was to obtain the financial and labour resources from agriculture in order to encourage industrialisation. This eradication of large-scale private agriculture in favour of collective farms or ‘kolkhozes’ was met with mass peasant opposition in the form of violent reaction and the destruction of crops and livestock. Moreover there was opposition from the prosperous farmers or Kulaks who were blamed for the unexpected drop in agricultural production under collectivisation and deported to Siberia or northern Russia. Stalin saw the Kulaks as sworn enemies of the collective farm movement and when asked what was to become of them remarked ‘when the head is off, one does not grieve for the hair’. Millions of peasants died as a result of collectivisation and ‘dekulakisation’, particularly during the famine of 1932-33 in Ukraine and North Caucasus. However Stalin maintained that the mass collective farm-movement was strengthening the bond between the workers and peasants and alleviating the grain crisis. He dismissed the widespread discontent as being solely due to the Soviet government’s inability to keep pace with supplying machines and tractors to the peasants.
By 1937 collectivisation was largely complete and in the long-term it was able to place the peasantry firmly under state control, ensuring state access to the grain resources of the country. Collective farmers were now dependent on the government for mechanized equipment and tied to the land through draconian measures such as system of internal passports which restricted movement. A major aim had also been accomplished in that the working class had been broken down as a collective force and underwent a profound social transformation, becoming a predominantly young, peasant-based and unskilled workforce. Collectivisation did also offer an opportunity for upward social mobility for peasants in the country-side because the creation of new rural organisations required large number of officials to administer them. However, in the short-term collectivisation constituted a major setback to the Russian economy. Much of the agricultural infrastructure was destroyed, farms were disrupted and equipment destroyed. The volume of Soviet livestock also fell dramatically which meant less availability in materials such as leather and wool, and consequently a decline in the production of consumer goods. This forced the regime to divert resources into the countryside that it had not planned for. The policy was unable to transform Russian agriculture and agricultural and grain production dropped resulting in an inflation of food prices. The autonomy of the Soviet collective farms was severely limited and this stunted both their initiative and economic growth.
An important theme which developed under Stalin was the hunt for both external enemies and those within the system. There was suspicion of a possible infection of the proletarian party by the petty bourgeois peasantry and it was this that had made the collectivisation policy popular amongst many party members. There were also worries about the reliability of specialists employed in the economic structure and between 1928 and 1934 these worries were reflected in a series of trails of specialist in the economy. For example, the trial of Shakhty engineers in 1928 which sought to link the domestic class enemy with the hostile capitalist powers and cast suspicion over the reliability of all technical experts working in the economy. The party purge of 1933-34 further demonstrated the aim of he leadership to break down all resistance to central directives. After the lack of success of this purge, the murder of Sergei Kirov who was Stalin’s main rival as leader was used as a pretext for the immediate introduction of a series of extra-ordinary anti-terrorist measures and an extensive purge of those suspected of complicity in the affair. For example 70 per cent of the 139 members and candidates elected at the 1934 XVII Congress were arrested and shot dead as were 1,109 of the party’s 1,966 delegates. The notorious show trials staged in Moscow between 1936 and 1938 also accused political figures such as Kamenev and Zinoviev of plotting to murder Stalin despite there being no material evidence brought against them and no defence. After a confession was forced out of the accused, they were shot dead.
Stalin introduced legislation which denied those accused of terrorism any protection in the investigation of the charges and immediate execution if convicted. The police could intervene at will in party affairs and remove party members for trail and execution without the prior permission of party authorities. Concepts such guilt by association, guilt by occupation and guilt by silence were introduced as means of widening the hunt for enemies. Gill asserts ‘terror became an instrument of government in that it was a weapon which the dictator was able to use in order to root out opposition and cow potential dissidence’. Stalin saw his policy of terror as a means of exterminating his rivals and consolidating his own position. He sought to create a highly industrialised socialist society in a backward, peasant country and believed that the use of force on a massive scale was needed in order to accomplish this. It is likely that Stalin also considered it essential to preserve the territorial and political integrity of the USSR against the threat of European fascism and Nazism. The elimination of opposition through terror and purges would ensure that internally the country remained strongly united. To an extent Stalin was able remove opposition and strike fear in the hearts of those who were plotting to overthrow him. He placed the country’s institutions under greater control by destroying their autonomy, and created new more educated intelligentsia which was devoutly loyal to Stalin. Therefore one could propose that without the impetus from Stalin and his implementation of terror which ensured greater cooperation and unity, the USSR may not have transformed itself into a modern global superpower.
However, this statement can be disputed as there was also several shortfalls of this terror based system. The excessive weakness of all political institutions meant that they developed little no integrity, autonomy or coherence. They could not act independently or structure their own internal operations and were always subject to intervention and control by the leader. Daniels argues that Stalin’s refusal to tolerate criticism or disapproval resulted in ‘intellectual stagnation, dogmatism and bureaucratic formalism’. Institutional weakness meant that central control was limited and that at a lower level political organs were unable to exercise any control over the political leaders. Moreover, the unrealistic demands made on local officials and managers meant they in turn developed defence mechanisms such as reporting overblown successes, causing a permanent tension to develop between the centre and the periphery. Stalin may, to some degree, have consolidated his position through the terror. However he was nowhere near as secure in his leading position as he would have wished and the centralisation of political affairs did not mean that central controls over lower-level figures were tight. Regional leaders retained substantial autonomy in local affairs and the high level of centralisation at elite levels coexisted with significant looseness lower down the political structure.
It is also certain that the terror resulted in the elimination of numerous valuable members of society and who would have continued to play an important role in helping the Soviet Union move forward. The terrible treatment of the Russian peasantry and the ‘dekulakisation’ policy resulted in starvation and famine, eliminating millions who were of benefit of the Russian economy. It also became apparent that many party, Soviet and economic activists who were branded as enemies in 1937-38 were never enemies or spies etc but honest Communists who were forced to make confessions due cruel and inhumane tortures and subsequently killed. Moreover the military purge of 1938 did not benefit the country at all due to its timing. The purge drastically reduced the size of the Red Army with the execution of some 30,000 men, including almost all its senior staff and commanders on the eve of major war with Germany. McCauley claims that the need to fulfil targets was a reason which helps explains the scope of the terror as the security forces were under pressure to achieve ever-increasing targets of arrests in order to avoid suspicion themselves. Denunciation also led to a large number of innocent people being arrested or executed due to people hoping to gain leniency for themselves or their families by cooperating with the NKVD. There was no basis for the mass terror in the country due to a lack of any opposition which posed a serious threat. Although it may have generated greater loyalty and removed some of the opposition, it harmed Russia’s future progress and created an intellectually stagnant society as the population, the party and the leaders themselves were denied the right to analysis and self-analysis.
An achievement that Stalin deserves praise for is the victory of the Soviet Red Army over Hitler’s Nazi Germany in the Second World War. The emphasis placed on military strength and the defence industry with an increased military budget and training of men meant that the Soviet Union became a first rate military power. Under the third Five Year Plan, massive amounts of and resources were pumped into the defence industry and during the two year period before the war with Germany Soviet defence expenditure rose from 25 percent of the total in 1939 to 43 percent in 1941. The centralisation of the control also meant that the economy could quickly move onto a full war footing. Yet despite the strengthening of the Soviet military machine Stalin was partially responsible for the initial military disasters and enormous human casualities during World War II where twenty million of the Soviet population died. This is because he eliminated many of officers during the purges, rejected the massive information warning of the German attack in June 1941 and did nothing to bolster borders. Moreover his prohibition of strategic withdrawal in the summer of 1941 led to the capture of hundreds of thousands of Red Army men. Nonetheless Stalin did prove to be a very effective military leader and was able to quickly regain initiative in the war. A crucial decision made by Stalin was for the large-scale movement of the war industry to the east as this sustained the 's war machine with astonishing success. Stalin also listened to the advice of military experts before carrying out a number of fundamental innovations such as elaborating the methods of artillery offensive action, the winning of air supremacy and methods of encircling the enemy. Moreover the prominence given to Russian nationalism in the symbolism of Stalin’s regime provided an important source of cultural identification for millions of Russians. The building of the Russian state and its defence against aggressors became important themes during the war and the Russian war effort benefited from Stalin’s ability to invoke patriotism in response to the German invasion. Germany was finally defeated in May 1945 and Stalin’s Russian armies had provided a decisive contribution to the Allied victory. After the defeat of Germany the Soviet Union had become the leading power in Europe and was also a world power.
In the post-war period it could be argued that Stalin mismanaged his country's relations with its former allies and that his policies united Europe and America in a solid anti-Soviet bloc. Stalin again feared the threat of an invasion from the west and therefore between 1945 and 1948 he created a large buffer zone or ‘Iron Curtain’ on his western border by setting up communist regimes in Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia. These events were understood by the Western powers to be an example of Stalin's desire to impose communism on the whole of Europe. The formation of in 1949 and the stationing of American troops in Western Europe was a reaction to Stalin's policies and helped ensure the development of the . Stalin’s unsuccessful economic blockade of Berlin in 1948 in order to secure full control over Berlin also soured relations with the West. Hostility to the Soviet regime was increased even further in 1950 when Stalin encouraged , the communist ruler of North Korea, to invade South Korea. This occurred when the Soviet representative at that time had been ordered to boycott the Security Council, which meant there was nothing to stop the sending troops to defend South Korea. The ended in 1953 and provided further support to the argument held by right-wing American politicians such as Joseph McCarthy that the Soviet Union was intent on world domination. In the post-war period the world became clearly divided between the two power blocks and Stalin's policies in Eastern Europe and Korea caused the Cold War to develop considerably.
Like all leaders, Stalin did have his weaknesses and short-comings. He was unable to transform productivity in Russian agriculture and his collectivisation policy may have done more to disrupt the economy than support its progress. Stalin’s terror campaign also led to the arrest and execution of copious numbers of people who were of value to Russia in economic, political and military affairs. Furthermore Stalin did much to harm Western interpretations of the Soviet Union in the post-war period and increased the thaw in relations between East and West. Still, Stalin’s achievements were phenomenal and helped to revolutionize Russia. The emphasis placed on industrialization had phenomenal results with Russia emerging from a backward, peasant country into one of the world’s leading industrial and military powers. The centralization of economy and political structures also increased Russia’s military efficiency. In addition Stalin carried out a successful cultural revolution which played on Russian nationalism and raised enthusiasm by glossing over Russia’s past and stressing the need for the people to work together to construct socialism in order for a new powerful, Communist Russia to surface. Although the results of Stalin’s various policies were of mixed success, his was of great value as it enabled the Soviet Union to emerge as a genuine global superpower.
Bibliography
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Robert Daniels, ‘The Stalin Revolution’, 1994
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Graeme Gill, ‘Stalinism’, 1990
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Martin McCauley, Stalin and Stalinism,1983
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R.Mcneal, ‘Stalin: Man and Ruler’, 1988
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Alan Wood, ‘Stalin and Stalinism’, 1990
Robert Daniels, The Stalin Revolution, 1994, 44
Alan Wood, Stalin and Stalinism, 1990, 33
Martin McCauley, Stalin and Stalinism,1983, 71
Graeme Gill, Stalinism, 1990, 16
Martin McCauley, Stalin and Stalinism, 25, 1983
