AP-Chapter 28

Stalin’s Soviet Union

Text, pages 891-898
Vladimir Lenin
“Father of the Revolution”

Ruled:
October 1917- January 1924
 The NEP
New Economic Policy
• instituted in 1921
• a restoration of capitalist economics
– Farmers can sell surplus
– Traders/handicraft reappeared
“A step backward to go forward.”
 U.S.S.R
• In 1922, the country of Russia was named the
UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS
– Each republic was controlled from the new capital,
MOSCOW.
• In 1924, the communists created a constitution based
on socialist & democratic principles.
– Communist Party held all the power.
– Lenin est. a dictatorship of the Communist Party, not a
“dictatorship of the proletariat.” as Marx intended.
• Lenin died in 1924 and didn’t see the progress made.
• By 1928, the USSR slowly recovered.
Trotsky vs. Stalin for control
 Trotsky vs. Stalin; next leader
 Trotsky: world wide revolution of comm.
 Stalin: “socialism in one country”

 Trotsky: exiled and deported by Stalin

 He was assassinated at his villa in 1940 by
a probable agent (NKVD) of Stalin, Ramon
Mercader, who posed as a friend of
Trotsky's and then killed him with the blow
of an ice axe to his head.
The assassination of Trotsky
 Joseph Stalin
• Ruled: January 1928-March 1953
• Used a totalitarianism form of government.
 Key Traits of Totalitarianism
• Dictatorship & one party rule
• Dynamic leader
• Rigid ideology
• State control over all sectors of society
• State control over individuals
• Dependence on modern technology
• Organized violence to enforce dictators rule
 Stalin’s Economic Plan vs.
Lenin’s NEP
• Stalin’s Five-Year Plans---total government
control over the economy.(command economy)

• NEP--- Mixture of government control with

some free enterprise & some private ownership.
 FIVE YEAR PLANS
3 Aims:
• 1. build heavy industry
• 2. improve transportation
• 3. increase farm production
Agricultural Rev.
• 1928-collectivization
• Kulaks
• Gulag
• 1938 – 93% of peasants of collectives
• Limited family labor and produce own food
 Industry
Gasplan
• Set production goals
• Controlled raw materials and finished
products
• Gov’t could assign workers
• Millions moved to cities
• Learn a specialized skill = social mbility
 Weapons of Totalitarianism
 Police Terror
• Stalin’s Secret Police used tanks and armored vehicles to stop riots.
• Great Purge 1934-purge of Old Bosheviks for “crimes against the Soviet
State.
• Purge was over in 1939, historians est. that between 8-13 MILLION
were executed!

NKVD((Russian: НКВД) Emblem---

Народный Комиссариат Внутренних
Дел
Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del

(Cheka under Lenin)

 NKVD((Russian: НКВД)
 was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly
executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the
era of Stalin.
 Formed in 1934
 The main function of the NKVD was to protect the state security of the Soviet
Union. This function was successfully accomplished through massive political
repression.

Former
headquarters
 FSB: Russia’s Secret Police,
today
 "Those chosen to join the FSB of Russia must be trustworthy, and
unconditionally loyal to the Fatherland and their profession.”
 FSB are the initial letters of the Russian words Federalnaya Sluzhba
Bezopasnosti - Federal Security Service - the country's secret police.
 Formerly the KGB that was dismantled in 1991
 The secret police have long been a part of Russian life. Emperors, Communist
Party general secretaries, and presidents have all had a state security force of
one form or another.
 FSB Emblem--------------------------------------------------
 Indoctrination & Propaganda

 Instruction in the Gov’t/s set of beliefs; to mold

peoples minds
 Biased or incomplete info. to sway people to certain
beliefs, or opinions.
 Censorship
 Stalin took control of all news media!!
 He would not tolerate individual creativity
 Pravda: leading newspaper of the Soviet Union
 August 22, 1991, a decree by Russian President
Boris Yeltsin shut down the Communist Party and
seized all of its property, including Pravda.
 "Rossiiskaya Gazeta" (Russian Gazette) is published
by the new Russian state. It was founded by the
Government of the Russian Federation"
 Religious Persecution
 Marx called religion, “the opiate of the masses.”
 Ideas of communism replaced religion
 League of Militant Godless(started by Stalin)
 Russian Orthodox Church, Roman Catholics, &
Jews suffered greatly! Religious leaders of all faiths
were killed or sent to labor camps
 Life and Culture in Soviet
Society
 Daily Life
 Personal Advancement
 Women’s Roles
 Politicized Culture
 Stalinist Terror
 The Kirov Murder
 Kirov murder
 The assassination of Sergei
Kirov in 1934 is one of the great
murder mysteries of the 20th
century and the subject of a
highly charged historical
controversy.
 Boss of the Leningrad Party
 one of Stalin’s inner circle
 shot by an unemployed
Communist Party member,
Leonid Nikolaev Dec., 1, 1934
 Stalin accused his former
party rivals…including
Trotsky
 Stalin claimed the conspiracy
ran deep into the Communist
Party & would use this as an
excuse for terror
 Result…arrest & execution of
17 party members critical of
Stalin
Other Totalitarian Government’s
of the 20th Century
*Hitler of Germany (1920s-30s)

*Mussolini in Italy (1920s-30s)

*Mao (Mao tse-tung) Zedong in China (1949)

*Kim Il Sung in North Korea (1948-94)

 Stalin’s Totalitarian Rule
Revolutionized Soviet Society
• Explain:
• Women’s roles greatly expanded.
• People became better educated & mastered new
technical skills
• Country became a major industrial nation by 1939
• Those workers who didn’t offend the state were better
off than under the czar’s.
• Russia’s military forces were benefiting from the
industrial growth.
• There was a stable government under Stalin.
• People had access to better medicine care.
 But Lets Not Forget
• Somewhere around 30-32 million people were killed
during his reign.
• Russia became a “telling” society. The secret police
actively encouraged people to inform on others.
Many died as a result of jealous neighbors &
workers.
• Many of Russia’s talented people had been murdered
during the Purges. Those with talent were seen as a
threat by Stalin’s paranoia.
• Soviet army was a body without a brain as most
senior officers had been arrested & murdered during
the Purges.
 Summarization of vocab.
• Totalitarianism- is a government control over every aspect of
public and private life.
• Command Economy- is an economy system in which the
government makes all economic decisions.
• Collective Farm- is a large government-controlled farm formed
by combining many small farms.
• Kulak- is a member of a class of wealthy Russian peasants.
• Great Purge- was a campaign of terror in the Soviet Union
during the 1930s, in which Joseph Stalin sought to eliminate all
Communist Party members & other citizens who threatened his
power.
• Socialist Realism- is a style of art in which Communist values &
life under communism are glorified.
 Death of Joseph Stalin
• 1. Joseph Stalin, 73 years of age, had suffered a
cerebral hemorrhage and died at 9:50 p.m. on March
5, 1953.
• 2. Stalin's body was washed by a nurse and then
carried via a white car to the Kremlin mortuary.
• 3. an autopsy was performed. After the autopsy was
completed, Stalin's body was given to the
embalmers to prepare it for the three days it would
lay-in-state.
Stalin's body was placed on temporary display
in the Hall of Columns.

On March 9, nine pallbearers carried the

coffin from the Hall of Columns onto a
gun carriage.
 The body was then ceremoniously taken to
Lenin's tomb on the Red Square in Moscow.
Stalin`s and Lenin`s bodies in
Lenin mausoleum
 De-Stalinzation
• De-Stalinization refers to the process of eliminating
the cult of personality and Stalinist political system
created by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
• Nikita Khrushchev, first secretary of the Communist
Party (1953-1964) and premier of the Soviet Union
(1958-1964), spearheaded this movement against the
false memory of Stalin. Khrushchev's policies
became known as "de-Stalinization.”
• Five years later, it was time to physically remove
Stalin from a place of honor.
• A few days later, Stalin's body was quietly removed from the
mausoleum. There were no ceremonies and no fanfare. About 300 feet
from the mausoleum, Stalin's body was buried near other minor leaders
of the Revolution. Stalin's body was placed near the Kremlin wall, half-
hidden by trees.
 Stalin Successor’s
• Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov:March 5, 1953 -
February 8, 1955
• Nikita Khrushchev: September 7, 1953 - October 14,
1964