Under the leadership of Lenin, the wars were not the only factor that contributed to the humanitarian costs. The formation of Cheka by Lenin resulted into further humanitarian sacrifices. Cheka, secret police, was established to reinforce Lenin’s consolidation of power. The main objective of the Cheka was to eliminate the remnants of aristocratic bourgeoisie power. Cheka used a brutal method to counter the counter-revolution by means of terror. This period is well-known as the “Red Terror” in which the Cheka executed over 140,000 people between December 1917 and February 1922 (Lee 1987, 34). It is clear that Lenin used the Cheka as an instrument of oppression that ensured that “sporadic attempts by small idealistic groups were crushed ruthlessly with much blood and cruelty” (Maxwell 1934, 200). As a result, Russians had to live under constant fear; they had limited freedom: “The brief freedom which Russia had known in 1917 had been extinguished” (Watson 302).
In parallel to his failures in making positive political and social changes, Lenin failed to make positive economical changes in Russia. Lenin introduced War Communism which left the economy crippled. One of the most unpopular aspects of war communism was the requisitioning of surplus grains in the countryside (Hoover 1931, 74). Consequently, the forced grain requisitioning proved to be a disastrous policy for Russian agriculture:
the peasants introduced a policy of passive resistance by abstaining from sowing so that, in some of the most fertile parts of Russia, the areas sown fell to one-fourth of the pre-revolutionary acreage (Maxwell 253).
In other words, war communism left peasants with no incentives and resulted in drastic decline in production (Lee 37). Also, there was heavy inflation, starvation, and famine. Consequently, inflation emptied the cities as people migrated to rural areas in search of food: “Petrograd, with a population of 2.5 million in 1917, had only 0.6 million inhabitants three years later” (Watson 201). Overall, the peasants were incensed due to Lenin’s war communism: “in 1918, 249 rural risings were recorded, and 99 in Bolshevik controlled territory the following year” (Morris 201).
There is no doubt that under the leadership of Lenin some positive changes were made:
Bolsheviks confirmed the peasantry in possession of the nobles’ estates [and] measures were taken to end the exploitation of labour in industry by capitalists careless of such essentials as working conditions and health schemes (Lee 39).
Also, Lenin introduced his New Economic Policy that allowed free trade and prohibited grain requisitioning. Furthermore, Lenin’s New Economic Policy restored the Russian currency, the production to pre-war conditions in major industries such as steel, coal, grain, and electricity by 1926 (Morris 209). Hence, the New Economic Policy was defined as “a period of relative stability and prosperity ensued” (Tucker 1990, 2). However, these advancements were at an enormous humanitarian cost: twenty million people died and the entire nation was deteriorated during this “period of unprecedented conflict” (Lee 39). In addition, Lenin used terror and violence as a means to consolidate his power; he sought “a complete and frank liquidation of the idea of democracy by the idea of dictatorship” (Morris 199). His party “dominated the soviets at all levels. Party membership was carefully restricted” (Lee 34). In other words, unlimited power was given to the Communist Party and no opposition was allowed. Hence, it is clear that Lenin’s rule left more negative force for change than positive force for change in Russia 1917 to 1922; all the decisions Lenin made in that short five years resulted into humanitarian losses – something that one cannot buy or bring back. Overall, Lenin left a blueprint of negative force for change to his successor, Stalin.
Similarly, under the leadership of Stalin, there were many political, economical and social changes. Despite some of the positive changes brought by Stalin, Russia suffered enormous humanitarian losses; there were more negative changes in Russia. Most of Stalin’s policies were directed towards Russia’s economy. Stalin believed in the idea that:
if agriculture was to produce more, it had to be supplied with more and better industrial goods. Yet his was bound to become more difficult as the existing industrial equipment, inherited from tsarist days, began to wear out (Van Lowe 1971, 192).
Hence, Stalin saw that industrialization was the answer to Russia’s future success. Therefore, Stalin introduced collectivization in order to solve the problem of Russian agriculture. Before collectivization was introduced, Russian agriculture was backward: “around half the peasants reaped the grain harvest by hand, using sickles or scythes, and threshed it with flails” (Brooman, Stalin). Clearly, the main reason for Russian agriculture backwardness was the lack of western technology. Nevertheless, Stalin put an end to the small, individual, old-fashioned farms to organize them into kolkhoz, a collective farm where all the fields, horses, tools with tractors supplied by the government would work together (Morris 229). The collectivization “was a kind of reversion to the heavy-handed tactics of War Communism” (Wood 2004, 32). It marked the end of brief decade of liberation for the Russian peasants under Lenin’s New Economic Policy. Nonetheless, there was opposition in collectivizing by the peasants. The peasants were unwilling to hand in their private property to the government. As a consequence, Stalin decided to wage war against the kulaks, the rich peasants who were “standing in the way of progress” (Lowe 114). Stalin sought to “smash the kulaks so hard that they will never rise to their feet again” (Lowe 114). As a result, about 300,000 kulaks were deported, and about 1.5 million people of them were estimated to have died of “starvation, diseases, ill-treatment and the cold” (Brooman, Stalin). Thus, it is lucid that collectivization was a disaster in terms of results. Even though collectivization allowed greater mechanization of agriculture, the increase in agricultural output never solved the problem of grain shortage: “over the next three years [1930-1933], between 5 and 6 million people starved to death” (Brooman, Stalin). In addition, there were so many animal slaughters in protest of collectivization that “it was 1953 before livestock production recovered to the 1928 figure” (Lowe 115). Furthermore, the consequences of collectivization were so great that some historians such as Norman Lowe claims in Mastering Modern World History published in 1986 that “Russia has not fully recovered even today.”
Stalin introduced the Five Year Plans to industrialize Russia. Stalin’s Five Year Plans were a success. “By 1940 the USSR had overtaken Britain in iron and steel production” (Lowe 112). In the first Five-Year Plan (1928-1932), “the machinery output increased four times, oil production doubled and electrical output in 1932 was 250 percent of the 1928 figure” (Morris 230). Then, in the second Five-Year Plan, (1933-1937), the USSR gross national product increased nearly by 12 percent. This rate was much greater than those of Britain (2.5 percent), Germany (2.6 percent) or the USA (1.3 percent). The unemployment “dwindled from about 1.7 million in 1929 to virtually zero” (Morris 231). Furthermore, many “show pieces” such as the Moscow-Volga and Volga-Don canals, and Moscow Metro were constructed. Stalin’s objective, lay foundations to develop its industry to a level comparable that of U.S., was remarkably achieved. Nonetheless, the industrialization of Russia had negative consequences. This was due to the fact that Stalin used ruthless methods that hindered the freedom and security of workers to achieve his plan. As a consequence, the worker’s lives were not improved. In fact, the lives of the workers were endangered by industrialization:
It is probably no exaggeration to claim that the First Five Year Plan represented a declaration of war by the state machine against the workers and peasants of the USSR who were subjected to a greater exploitation than any they had known under capitalism (Lowe 113).
Food prices in cities rose significantly, for example, in 1933 alone there was 80 percent rise in the price of bread and eggs. Food and consumer goods “disappeared from the shops” and “interminable queuing became a regular feature of daily existence” (Wood 36). Also, taxes were increased. Furthermore, real wages decreased: real wages in 1937 was not more than 85 percent of 1928 level (Morris 232). Also, there was shortage of housing. These problems were due to the fact that Stalin’s industrialization was concentrated in heavy industries; the influx of people coming into the cities to work.
In addition, Stalin created the Gulags in order to carry out his plan; to construct state projects. It was the slaves who worked in these camps that were supervised by the NKVD, Stalin’s secret police (parallel to Lenin’s Cheka). In these slave camps, basic human rights were ignored. These slaves or zeks “dug the ground with picks and shovels, moved huge rocks by hand and carted earth in wheelbarrows” (Brooman, Stalin). In 1932, the number of zeks or prisoners rose to two million. These prisoners worked in the poorest conditions, and as a result, twenty percent of all prisoners died each year. “Between 1936 and 1950, around 12 million zeks died in the labour camps” (Brooman, Stalin).
In politics, Stalin carried out purges to eliminate his oppositions. During these purges, all eleven deputy Commissars for Defense, seventy-five out of eighty Supreme Military Council members, and all eight of naval admirals were executed (Lee 54). Furthermore, ninety percent of all Soviet generals, eighty percent of all colonels, and an estimated 30,000 officers below the rank of colonel lost their posts and, often, lives (Morris 236). As a consequence, the Russian army lost its military expertise and was weakened by these purges. In addition, he executed prominent Politburo members such as Zinoviev and Kamenev who were a threat to Stalin’s power. In 1933, there were 80,000 purges carried out:
Of the 139 Central Committee members in 1934, over 90 had been shot. Of 1,961 delegates to the 17th Party Congress in the same year, 1,108 were arrested in the purges (Morris 235).
Also, these men were often tortured and their families were threatened when they refused to accept and confess their crimes that they have not committed; most of these men were innocent. In addition, the “Great Terror” was introduced during these purges. “The Great Terror meant the emasculation of the intelligentsia and the rape of Soviet science and culture” (Wood 42). During these purges, freedom of speech was censored. Everything published had to reflect “Social Realism” to enhance the victory of socialism (Wood 36). For instance, intellectuals who failed to “conform to the rigid cultural commandments of the regime became martyrs to a mediocrity of philistinism and intellectual sterility in which they were either muzzled or murdered” (Wood 42). As a consequence, “absolutely nothing of creative or scientific merit emerged during this period, but what did survive were oases in an artistic desert” (Wood 42). Overall, Russians were disillusioned by the soviet propaganda.
In addition, despite the Russian victory in 1941 against the Nazi Germany, the country was decimated. Twenty million Russians, a tenth of the pre-war population died, 70,000 villages and 98,000farms were wholly or partly destroyed, 25 million people were left homeless from 4.7 million homes that were destroyed, and railway tracks, dams, bridges, locomotives, ships, factories, mines had been wrecked (Brooman, Stalin).
Russia under the leadership of Stalin made some major advancements; particularly in economy. Russia’s progress and advancements were achieved by ruthless and brutal methods that entailed enormous human sacrifice. Millions of Russians lost their lives, their freedom, and their right to express their mind under the Stalinist state. It is clear that Stalin’s brutal policies such as the purges ultimately weakened the country. Also, the new social and political reforms such as the Constitution of 1936 were created to consolidate Stalin’s dictatorship. Despite of his successes in industrializing Russia – his fourth Five-Year Plan in 1946:“by 1950 many parts of the USSR were producing as much as in 1940. In several cases the Plan’s industrial targets were exceeded” (Brooman, Stalin)., and aligning Russia with the superpower nations, Stalin restricted the lives of workers, executed and murdered millions of innocent people, and exploited the resources of the eastern European countries.
All in all, Bolsheviks in power, under the rule of Lenin and Stalin from 1917 to 1953, was a negative force for change in Russia. Despite the successes of industrializing the country and eradicating the remnants of Tsarist bourgeoisie, these changes left more damage to the country than benefits. Lenin and Stalin’s political, economical, and social policies left permanent damages such as the loss of millions of innocents. Ultimately, all of Lenin’s and Stalin’s policies that were created to bring positive changes to Russia contributed to the general drop of living standards of average Russians and resulted into enormous humanitarian losses and sacrifice. The costs of progresses and advancements made during the leadership of the two Bolsheviks, Lenin and Stalin, in Russia were far too great.
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