Socialism in one country
- No one knew what to do with socialism
- Bolsheviks wanted a revolution thinking that socialism would fail in Russia if not moved from national to international stage
- People in Polituro which was the central governing body for the communist party wanted socialism in one country making the role of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic not as the next worldwide socialist revolution
- Joseph Stalin promoted the idea of socialism in one country
- He was a Georgian at birth, orthodox seminarian by training, and a Russian nationalist by conviction
- 1928 he lived up to his name as "man of steel" and was victorious over his rivals in the party through purges and murders, which helped him with unchallenged dictatorship of the Soviet Union
First Five - Year Plan
- The first five year plan replaces Lenin's NEP for more rapid economic development
- This plan was to transform the Soviet Union from a predominantly agricultural country to a leading industrial power
- The plan set targets for increased industrial productivity, but mainly heavy industry especially steel and machinery
- Stalin and his party attempted to coordinate resources and the labor force on an unprecedented scale
- Maximum centralization of the entire national economy offered a better alternative to market capitalism, as the world was collapsing in their economies
- Stalin stressed this issue by saying "We are 50 to 100 years behind the advanced countries. Either we do it, or we shall go under."
Collectivization of Agriculture
- Soviet state took away privately owned land to create collective or cooperative farm units with their profits shared by all farmers
- Stalin and his regime looked as collectivization as increasing the efficiency of agriculture production and ensuring that industrial workers were fed
- This was forced much more aggressively to kulaks, peasants who were much more wealthier and who rose to prosperity during the NEP but was only 3 to 5 percent of the peasantry
- Some places had farmers kill more than 50 percent of their livestock and burn most of their crops
- These people left their farms and went to the city to find jobs, which taxed the limited supplies for housing, food, and utilities
- These peasants could not make quotas and so they starved
- Stalin halted collectivization in 1931 saying it was "dizzy with success" but half of the farmers in the Soviet Union had already been collectivized
- This plan set high unrealistically high production targets
- The Soviet Union industrialized under Stalin even though that meant postponing the gratifications of industrialization for citizens
- This meant that machinery was built before necessities
- Though the almost nonexistent consumer goods were not there it was balanced by full employment, low-cost utilities, and cheap housing and food
- A centrally planned economy was to create more jobs than workers so it was more viable and an attractive alternative to the depression ridden world
The Great Purge
- The five year plan created controversy though, as the communist party prepared for it's 17th congress in 1934, the "Congress of Victors"
- Doubts were raised about Stalin's administration due to the disaster of the collectivization and how aggressive it was
- The congress of victors became the "Congress of Victims" as Stalin started a civil war, with a climax of highly publicized trials of former Bolshevik elites for treason
- Victims faced executions or long termed labor camps
- 1939 eight million citizens were labor camps and three million were dead with the notion of "cleansing" which Stalin's supporters called it
- The world watched what happened in fear, contempt, and admiration
- Most saw that the political and social upheavals that transformed Russian empire were of worldwide importance
- This not only challenged the values and institutions of liberal society everywhere but demonstrated the viability of communism as a social and political system
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