CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: STALIN QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

STALINCAMBRIDGE A2

QUESTIONS&ANSWERS

WEAKNESS OF KERENSKY'S PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT

1. Government - the Petrograd Soviet was very powerful – it built up a nation-wide network of Soviets which took their orders from it. Order Number 1 forbade soldiers and workers to obey the provisional government. Weakness: the government was powerless to act unless the Soviet agreed. Action: government did nothing to end the power of the Soviets.

2. Terrible conditions - inflation and hunger got worse because the war didn’t end. Weakness: the people stayed angry. Action: government didn’t manage to end the food shortages or inflation.

3. Peasants - started taking the nobles land. Weakness: anarchy in the countryside. Action: government sent troops to take back the land. This made the peasants very angry.

4. War - tried to continue the war. It attacked Austria in June 1917, but after initial successes, the Germans moved in and the Russians were defeated. Soldiers deserted. There was a naval mutiny. Weakness: the war was a disaster. Action: government set up ‘death squads’ to execute deserters. This made things worse – by October 1917, soldiers were deserting, going home, killing the landlords, and taking land.

KHRUSCHEV'S VIRGIN LAND POLICY

• This was Nikita Khrushchev’s 1953 plan to dramatically boost the Soviet Union’s agricultural production in order to alleviate the food shortages plaguing the Soviet populace.• Overall, the Virgin Lands Campaign succeeded in increasing production of grain and in alleviating food shortages in the short term. • The enormous scale and initial success of the campaign were quite a historical feat. • The wide fluctuations in grain output year to year, the failure of the Virgin Lands to surpass the record output of 1956, and the gradual decline in yields following 1959 mark the Virgin Lands Campaign as a failure and surely fell short of Khrushchev's ambition to surpass American grain output by 1960.

WHAT IS THE KOMSOMOL CC(BESIDES BEING ALL UNION)

• The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League usually known as Komsomol, was a political youth organization in the Soviet Union. • Not only was the ideal Communist youth an asset to his (or her) organisation, but he also “lived correctly”. This meant that every aspect of a Komsomolets’s life was in accordance with Party doctrine. • Smoking, drinking, religion, and any other activity the Bolsheviks saw as threatening were discouraged as “hooliganism”. • The Komsomol sought to provide them with alternative leisure activities that promoted the improvement of society, such as volunteer work, sports, and political and drama clubs.• These efforts proved largely unsuccessful, since the Bolshevik Party and the Komsomol were not in touch with Soviet youths’ desires and thus were not able to manipulate them.

STALIN’S WRITINGS

• "Anarchism or Socialism?," 1907• "Marxism and the National Question," 1913• "The Principles of Leninism," 1924• "Trotskyism or Leninism?," 1924• "On Lenin and Leninism," May 1924• "The new Russian policy", John Day (1931)• "Dialectical and Historical Materialism," 1938• "The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union," 1938• "The Questions of Leninism," 1946• "Marxism and Problems of Linguistics," 1950• "Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.," 1952• Works. Volume 1–13: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1950s/"Volume 14": Red Star Press, London 1978

DID STALIN ASSOCIATE HIMSELF MORE WITH THE LEFT/RIGHT

OPPOSITION OR REMAIN NEUTRAL THROUGHOUT THE 1930S?

• He always associated himself with left spectrum but some of his policies were right to extreme (fascism like).• Welcome to the debate.

LIBERAL SCHOOL

• Focus on individuals, most importantly, the Personality of Stalin.• Stalin is a very shrewd, cruel, determined and manipulative person. All his actions are seen as a part of Stalin’s plans to become the dictator of the Soviet Union. His opponents are portrayed weak, indecisive and easily fooled by Stalin’s plans.• They also focus on the tactical mistakes made by Trotsky, describing him as arrogant and that this meant that he underestimated Stalin.• They have an intentionalist approach to Stalin. This means that they think that Stalin had the intention to take power, to carry out his policies.• The Liberal view is often found in Biographies of Stalin. The sources are usually émigrés (emigrants) who suffered in Stalin’s camps.• Robert Conquest “Stalin – Breaker of nations” (1991) is the most well known historian of this school today.• R Tucker’s “Stalin as a Revolutionary 1879-1929” (1974) is another.

REVISIONIST SCHOOL

• They followed up on the ideological approach, focusing on the members of the Party. Why did they carry out these hideous orders?• The factor they focus on is the revolution as a generator of Social Changes in the Soviet society.• The Lenin Enrolment 1924, handed by Stalin, which meant the growth of number of members in the communist party is the key. They meant that the new members meant a gap between the leaders of the party and the “individual member”. A lot of the new members were from the workers and they were opposed to NEP, to the farmers, so when Stalin proposed the end of NEP, this was welcomed. They also welcomed the focus on heavy industry and their part of society. The social factor is their key explanation (the rivalry between farmers and workers).• W Chase “Workers, Society and the Soviet State 1918 –1929”.• S Fitzpatrick, the Homo Sovieticus, is also a historian with this approach.

THE TROTSKYIST SCHOOL

• Trotsky was a “world revolutionary”. In his view Russia wasn’t ready for the socialist state alone.• Trotsky meant that the growing bureaucracy caused the problems in Russia after the revolution, they became a state in the state.• Trotsky in “My Life” (1931) and “The revolution betrayed” (1937).

THE SOVIET SCHOOL BEFORE GLASNOST 1985

• The years 1930 – 1953 mark one period. During this time Stalin was portrayed as the great, wise, all-knowing leader who saved the revolution against the attacks from Trotskyist etc.

• After Stalin’s Death Khrushchev (1953-1964) started a period of criticism of Stalin’s leadership, but since he and all of his friends were men who made a career during Stalinist reign the critical voices were focused on Stalin’s personality.

• During Brezhnev (1964-1980) Stalin was basically erased from the History books.• Gorbachev and Glasnost meant a reassessment of Stalin. In 1988 the party

encouraged journalists, old victims to write about the period of terror and mistreatment.

• The focus was very much on Stalin’s personality. Gorbachev was a Leninist and when the critics were turning their focus on the structural problems and the misdeeds by Lenin and the men leading the revolution the debate went quieter. After the fall of the Soviet Union everyday problems became more of interests and the historical debate silenced. Nowadays Stalin is actually a fairly popular person in Russia, a person that many people see as an doer, a strong leader, the answer to Russia’s problems today.

• These historians share the same approach as the Liberal school. With the huge different that the early historians focus on the greatness of Stalin.

• G F Alexandrov “Joseph Stalin: A short biography” 1947 portrayed Stalin as a hero. E. Yaroslavsky “Landmarks in the Life of Stalin” 1942 is even worst.

WAS THE PURGE OF INTELLIGENTSIA MAINLY DONE BY

STALIN OR LENIN?

• ANSWER: Started by Lenin but perfected by Stalin.• In the 1920s and 1930s, 2,000 writers, intellectuals, and artists were imprisoned and 1,500 died in prisons and concentration camps. • After sunspot development research was judged un-Marxist, twenty-seven astronomers disappeared between 1936 and 1938. • The Meteorological Office was violently purged as early as 1933 for failing to predict weather harmful to the crops.• But the toll was especially high among writers.

TO WHAT EXTENT SHOULD WE KNOW ABOUT THE ROLE OF CHINA AND JAPAN, ESPECIALLY DURING

WW2?

• To a minimum extent, and only if you discuss in terms of WW2 involvement.

HOW WERE RUSSIFICATION AND COLLECTIVISATION IMPLEMENTED EXACTLY UNDER STALIN? WHAT

METHODS WERE USED TO ENFORCE THESE POLICIES?

• Russification or Russianization is a form of cultural assimilation process during which non-Russian communities, voluntarily or not, give up their culture and language in favour of the Russian one.• In a historical sense, the term refers to both official and unofficial policies of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union with respect to their national constituents and to national minorities in Russia, aimed at Russian domination.• The major areas of Russification are politics and culture. • In politics, an element of Russification is assigning Russian nationals to leading administrative positions in national institutions (METHOD). • In culture, Russification primarily amounts to domination of the Russian language in official business and strong influence of the Russian language on national idioms. The shifts in demographics in favour of the ethnic Russian population are sometimes considered as a form of Russification as well.

THE CONDITION OF SERFS UNDER NICHOLAS II,

LENIN AND STALIN

• Rumours circulated in the villages warning the rural residents that collectivization would bring disorder, hunger, famine, and the destruction of crops and livestock. Readings and reinterpretations of Soviet newspapers labelled collectivization as a second serfdom. Villagers were afraid the old landowners/serf owners were coming back and that the villagers joining the collective farm would face starvation and famine. More reason for peasants to believe collectivization was a second serfdom was that entry into the kolkhoz had been forced. Farmers did not have the right to leave the collective without permission. The level of state procurements and prices on crops also enforced the serfdom analogy. The government would take a majority of the crops and pay extremely low prices. • The serfs during the 1860s were paid nothing but collectivization still reminded the peasants of serfdom. To them, this “second serfdom” became code for the Communist betrayal of the revolution. To the peasants, the revolution was about giving more freedom and land to the peasants, but instead they had to give up their land and livestock to the collective farm.

PARTY LINE

• In the terminology of communism, the general line of the party or simply the general line refers to the directives of the governing bodies of a party (usually a communist party) which define the party's politics. The term was in common use by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (since its early days under other names) and also adopted by many other communist parties around the world. The notion is rooted in the principle of democratic centralism, which requires unconditional obedience to top level decisions at all party levels.• The term has acquired a significant notoriety in the context of Soviet political repressions, where deviations from the general line have led to severe punishment. The introduction to a collection of documents from the Stalinist era says that general line statements produced by the Stalinist leadership were written with great care and exact phrasing in prescribed terminology and with established slogans.• The goal was to provide a means of political and social control. Once the Central Committee formulated a statement about the party line on a particular issue, it was republished in major newspapers, such as Pravda. Disagreements with the party line were treated as a political crime: anti-Soviet agitation.

PURGE

• Purges of the Communist Party in the Union ("cleansing of the party ranks") were a key ritual in which periodic reviews of members of the Communist Party were conducted to get rid of the "undesirables."

CENTRAL COMMITTEE

• The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, abbreviated in Russian as "Tse-ka", was the highest body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) between Party Congresses. • According to Party rules, the Central Committee directed all Party and government activities between each Party Congress. • Members of the committee were elected at the Party Congresses.

GEORGIAN AFFAIR

• It was a political conflict within the Soviet leadership about the way in which social and political transformation was to be achieved in the Georgian SSR. The dispute over Georgia, which arose shortly after the forcible Sovietization of the country and peaked in the latter part of 1922, involved local Georgian Bolshevik leaders, led by Filipp Makharadze and Budu Mdivani, on one hand, and their de facto superiors from the Russian SFSR, particularly Joseph Stalin and Grigol Ordzhonikidze, on the other hand. • The content of this dispute was complex, involving the Georgians’ desire to preserve autonomy from Moscow and the differing interpretations of Bolshevik nationality policies, and especially those specific to Georgia. One of the main points at issue was Moscow’s decision to amalgamate Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan into Transcaucasian SFSR, a move that was staunchly opposed by the Georgian leaders who urged for their republic a full-member status within the Soviet Union.• The affair was a critical episode in the power struggle surrounding the sick Vladimir Lenin whose support Georgians sought to obtain. The dispute ended with the victory of the Stalin-Ordzhonikidze line and resulted in the fall of the Georgian moderate Communist government. It also contributed to a final break between Lenin and Stalin, and inspired Lenin’s last major writings.

NKVDOPERATION, METHOD, HIERARCHY

• The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) was a law enforcement agency of the Soviet Union that directly executed the will of the All Union Communist Party. It was closely associated with the Soviet secret police, which at times was part of the agency, and is known for its political repression during the era of Joseph Stalin. The NKVD contained the regular, public police force of the USSR, including traffic police, firefighting, border guards and archives. • It is best known for the activities of the Gulag and the Main Directorate for State Security (GUGB), the predecessor of the KGB. • The NKVD conducted mass extrajudicial executions, ran the Gulag system of forced labour camps and suppressed underground resistance, and was responsible for mass deportations of entire nationalities and Kulaks to unpopulated regions of the country. It was also tasked with protection of Soviet borders and espionage (which included political assassinations abroad), influencing foreign governments and enforcing Stalinist policy within communist movements in other countries.

LYSENKO

• Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was a Soviet agrobiologist. • As a student Lysenko found himself interested in agriculture, where he worked on a few different projects, one involving the effects of temperature variation on the life-cycle of plants. This later led him to consider how he might use this work to convert winter wheat into spring wheat. This process became known as “vernalization”.• Lysenko was an early proponent of soft inheritance and rejected Mendelian genetics in favour of pseudoscientific ideas termed Lysenkoism.• His experimental research in improved crop yields earned him the support of the prominent Soviet politician Joseph Stalin, especially following the famine and loss of productivity resulting from resistance to forced collectivization in several regions of the Soviet Union in the early 1930s. • In 1940 Lysenko became director of the Institute of Genetics within the USSR's Academy of Sciences, and the exercise of political influence and power further secured his anti-Mendelian doctrines in Soviet science and education. Scientific dissent from Lysenko's theories of environmentally acquired inheritance was formally outlawed in the Soviet Union in 1948.• Though Lysenko remained at his post in the Institute of Genetics until 1965, his influence on Soviet agricultural practice had declined by the 1950s.

NEP

• The New Economic Policy (NEP) was an economic policy of Soviet Russia proposed by Vladimir Lenin, who described it as a progression towards "state capitalism" within the workers' state of the USSR.• The NEP represented a more capitalism-oriented economic policy, deemed necessary after the Russian Civil War of 1917 to 1922, to foster the economy of the country, which was almost ruined. • The complete nationalization of industry, established during the period of War Communism, was partially revoked and a system of mixed economy was introduced, which allowed private individuals to own small enterprises, while the state continued to control banks, foreign trade, and large industries. • The Bolshevik government adopted the NEP in the course of the 10th Congress of the All-Russian Communist Party (March 1921). Other policies included the monetary reform (1922–1924) and the attraction of foreign capital. The NEP policy created a category of people called NEPmen, nouveau riches due to NEP. Stalin abolished the New Economic Policy in 1928.

VOTING SYSTEMTO ELECT STALIN

• Stalin was appointed General Secretary of the party's Central Committee in 1922. • He managed to consolidate power following the 1924 death of Vladimir Lenin by suppressing Lenin's criticisms (in the postscript of his testament) and expanding the functions of his role, all the while eliminating any opposition. • He remained General Secretary until the post was abolished in 1952, concurrently serving as the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1941 onward.• From the earliest stages of the struggle in the early 1920s, those voting for the slates of candidates to the Central Committee struck members of the oppositions off their ballots more frequently than they struck off Stalin or the Politburo majority.

• By 1925, in the election of the Central Committee at the Fourteenth Party Congress, 217 voters struck Kamenev off their ballots; 224 struck off Zinoviev. By contrast, 87 struck off Stalin and 83 Bukharin 61.• In his own memory of the events, Stalin nevertheless placed greater emphasis on the support he had in the broader Party membership: ‘In 1927,’ he observed, ‘720,000 Party members voted for the Central Committee line. That is, the backbone of the Party voted for us ‘‘secondraters’.’ Four to six thousand voted for Trotsky and a further 20,000 abstained.’• When Stalin led the purge of the Left Oppositionists in the Komsomol, when he directed the attack on Zinoviev’s stronghold in the Leningrad Party, and when he initiated the campaign against the ‘Right danger’, he knew he had the support of the majority of Party officials. He did not demand the persecution of oppositionists. He needed only to defend that persecution in the name of ‘Party unity’.

STALIN LIFE AFTER TIFLIS CHURCH SCHOOL AND BEFORE 1917

(UNDERGROUND REVOLUTION AND ROBBING BANKS)

• When Ioseb was sixteen, he received a scholarship to attend the Tiflis Spiritual Seminary, the leading Russian Orthodox seminary in Tiflis; the language of instruction was Russian. • Despite being trained as a priest, he became an atheist in his first year. He was a voracious reader and became a Georgian cultural nationalist. He anonymously published poetry in Georgian in the local press and engaged in student politics.• Although his performance had been good, he was expelled in 1899 after missing his final exams. The seminary's records also suggest that he was unable to pay his tuition fees.• Around this time, Ioseb discovered the writings of Vladimir Lenin and joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, a Marxist group from which the Bolsheviks would eventually emerge.• Out of school, Jughashvili briefly worked as a part-time clerk in a meteorological office, but after a state crackdown on revolutionaries, he went underground and became a full-time revolutionary, living off donations.

• When Lenin formed the Bolsheviks in 1903, Jughashvili eagerly joined him. • Jughashvili proved to be a very effective organizer of men as well as a capable intellectual. Among other activities, he wrote and distributed propaganda, organized strikes, and raised funds through bank robberies, kidnappings, extortion, and assassinations. • Jughashvili was arrested and exiled to Siberia numerous times, but often escaped. His skill, charm, and street-smarts won him the respect of Lenin, and he rose rapidly through the ranks of the Bolsheviks.• Jughashvili married his first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, in 1906, who bore him a son. She died the following year of typhus. In 1911, he met his future second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, during one of his many exiles in Siberia.• Sometime between 1910 and 1912, he began using the alias "Stalin" in his writings.

• The 1907 Tiflis bank robbery, also known as the Yerevan Square expropriation, was an armed robbery on 26 June 1907 in the city of Tiflis (now Georgia's capital, Tbilisi). A bank cash shipment was stolen by Bolsheviks to fund their revolutionary activities. The robbers attacked a bank stagecoach and surrounding police and military using bombs and guns while the stagecoach was transporting money through Yerevan Square (now Freedom Square) between the post office and the Tiflis branch of the State Bank of the Russian Empire. The attack killed forty people and injured fifty others, according to official archive documents. The robbers escaped with 341,000 rubles (equivalent to around US 3.4 million in 2008).• The robbery was organized by a number of top-level Bolsheviks, including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Maxim Litvinov, Leonid Krasin, and Alexander Bogdanov, and executed by a gang of revolutionaries led by Stalin's early associate Ter-Petrosian (Kamo). • Lenin and Stalin tried to distance themselves from the robbery.

5 YEARS PLAN

• Stalin's chief aim was to expand industrial production. For this, he developed three Five-year Plans between 1928 and 1938. • Gosplan, the state planning agency, drew up targets for production for each factory. • In the Soviet Union, the first Five-Year Plan (1928–32), concentrated on developing heavy industry and collectivizing agriculture, at the cost of a drastic fall in consumer goods. • The second plan (1933–37) continued the objectives of the first. Collectivization led to terrible famines, especially in the Ukraine, that caused the deaths of millions. • The third (1938–42) emphasized the production of armaments. • The fourth (1946–53) again stressed heavy industry and military build up, angering the Western powers.