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The effect of stalin's policies on the soviet people
How did Stalin solve the economic problem in Russia
Stalin's economic policies and the effects it had on the Russian people
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People say that the Stalin’s Great Purges could otherwise be translated as Stalin’s Terror. They grew from his paranoia and his desire to be absolute autocrat, and were enforced the NKVD and public show trials. When someone went against him, he didn’t really take any time in doing something about it. He would “get rid of” the people that went against industrialization and the kulaks. Kulaks were farmers in the later Russian Empire. (“Of Russian Origin: Stalin’s Purges). There were many reasons as to what caused the Great Purges but the main one seems to be Stalin. He believed that the country had to be united under the circumstances that he becomes the leader if it was to be strong. The Soviet Union was industry was weal and in the decline, obviously lacking the capacity to produce enough meal and heavy machinery for the imminent war. One of the worst nations to suffer from Stalin’s great purges in the Soviet Union was not the Russians. Fascist sought to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity which individuals are bound together by ancestry, culture, and blood which are all super personal connections. However, even though Stalin did enforce Russia of the Soviet Union the main enemies of his were the political opponents and their followers. His most ferocious acts of terror “The Great Purges” took place between 1934 and 1939. In 1934, Sergey Kirov a rival to Stalin was murdered. Stalin is believed to have been behind the assassination, he used it as a pretext to arrest thousands of his other opponents who in his words might have been responsible for Kirov’s murder. These purges not only affected those who openly opposed Stalin but ordinary people too. During the rule of Stain o... ... middle of paper ... ...ed to do. Stalin was more said to be like a little kid, that would have to get everything he wanted or he would throw a fit. If he didn’t get it, he would “throw a fit” in other words; take care of it on his own. Stalin later died on March 5th. It was said that he died peacefully in his bed but in fact that was only a myth. Stalin actually died from a brain hemorrhaged which started from a stroke first on March 1st 1953. There were also times before this where he had a stroke but there was always medication there for him in time to be able to treat him. He one day had a stroke and just collapsed and that was the first sign of it being very serious at this point. When he collapsed there was an alert sent out to all his doctors so they could get there with the medication, but they didn’t get it in time. The doctors were all out on purge missions.(“Death of Stalin”)
The Russian Stalinist terror I believe was Stalin's way of solidifying his power as dictator of the Russian government. It kept people in order, refrained people from organizing revolutions, and increased production of goods, however the terror ultimately destroyed millions of families and caused the deaths of millions innocent citizens.
As relations changed between Russia and the rest of the world, so did the main historical schools of thought. Following Stalins death, hostilities between the capitalist powers and the USSR, along with an increased awareness of the atrocities that were previously hidden and ignored, led to a split in the opinions of Soviet and Western Liberal historians. In Russia, he was seen, as Trotsky had always maintained, as a betrayer of the revolution, therefore as much distance as possible was placed between himself and Lenin in the schoolbooks of the 50s and early 60s in the USSR. These historians point to Stalin’s killing of fellow communists as a marked difference between himself and his predecessor. Trotsky himself remarked that ‘The present purge draws between Bolshevism and Stalinism… a whole river of blood’[1].
Another defining feature of Stalinism was the liberal and unchecked usage of state violence against so-called enemies of the state, saboteurs, foreign spies and any and all individuals that were deemed, almost always arbitrarily, as being harmful to the state. Class violence was another unique feature of Stalinism; with the single-minded persecution of the bourgeois, the elite and all those, which the party decided was ‘an enemy of the people’. Although Stalinism is often viewed as inseparable from the image of Communism, it was not always so and in recent years historians and scholars have started ruminating over whether Joseph Stalin’s vision of what Communism should be was necessarily what the founders of the ideology would have shared. Was Stalin the natural inheritor of Lenin?... ...
agendas, and moving around Party staff in such a way that eventually everyone who counted for anything owed their position to him(Stalin Biography).” By the time the Party's intellectual core realized what had happened, it was too late--Stalin had his people in place. While Lenin, the only person with the moral authority to challenge him, was on his deathbed and incapable of speech after a series of strokes, and besides, Stalin even controlled who had access to the leader. The General Secretary of the ...
Following the Russian revolution, Joseph Stalin’s desire to attain power disrupted the lives of Russians. Stalin betrayed his colleagues, robbed his people of the essentials needed to thrive, and created a police force who captured and killed any who disobeyed. The pain and suffering of the people Stalin eradicated will never be restored, for he committed the foulest crime of all, sacrificing human emotions.
The effects of the purges on the political structure and community of the USSR can be described (as Peter Kenez asserts) as an overall change from a party led dictatorship to the dictatorship of a single individual; Stalin. Overall power was centred in Stalin, under whom an increasingly bureaucratic hierarchy of party officials worked. During the purges Stalin's personal power can be seen to increase at the cost of the party's. It could be argued that this increasing power for the single leader drawn from his party was due to the need for fast, decisive and unquestioned leadership of the type needed in battle. After all Russia was portrayed by the Soviet propaganda machine as being at war with its own industrial backwardness as workers were urged to industrial `fronts'. If the period of the 1930s is considered, it was a time of crisis. The building tension due to the rise of Nazi Germany making European foreign politics a risky place to navigate, the economic onslaught at home in Russia and the economic depression in the rest of the world making the times harsh. This change then could be argued as being beneficial to the USSR as only a single individual can provide the strong leadership needed, amongst a large group of individuals disputes would hinder the decision making process. However, the idea of the...
Under Joseph Stalin’s rule of dictatorship, millions of Russians died due to starvation, execution, and exhuastion. The people of Russia conformed to Stalin’s “reign of terror” and were payed with consequences. The quote,” A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic” by Stalin demonstrate how minuscule the russian people are to him and they are merely tools.The irony lies in that the Revolution were started in order to overthrow the Bosheviks who were oppressing the people much like Stalin. This is another case in which conformity is a double edged sword and the oppressed becomes the oppressor.
Fashioning the Stalinist Soul," in Stalinism: New Directions. Edited by Sheila Fitzpatrick. London & New York: Routledge, 2000 Mochulsky, Fyodor Vasilevich. Gulag Boss: A Soviet Memoir. Edited and Translated by Deborah Kaple.
Historical Commentators throughout the past century have referred to Joseph Stalin through numerous aliases, one of which is ‘The Red Tsar’. The rationale for referring to Joseph Stalin by such an alias is due to the accurate assessment of his governance that coexists with the term. In medieval Russia, the title tsar referred to a supreme ruler and this form of jurisdiction lasted for three hundred years until it was abdicated during the revolution of 1917. Furthermore, Tsarism was inevitably maledicted due to the fact that it could not acclimatize with the changing class system. Particularly, with an augmented proletariat class that transpired for a more representative parliament and a more liberal constitution which in turn jeopardized the
As a dictator Stalin was very strict about his policies, especially working. For instance. Stalin had set quotas very high , as they were very unrealistic. The workers had very long days, and under the rule of Stalin most people worked many hours in overtime, and resulting in no pay. Stalin treated workers very, very harshly. Those who did not work were exiled to Siberia or killed. Some may say you got what you deserved in Stalin’s time. Those who worked very hard for Stalin sometimes got bonuses such as trips, or goods likes televisions and refrigerators. The workers had to conform to Stalin’s policies . Stalin’s harsh treatment of workers received a very unwelcoming response, but in fact the liberal amount of goods that the workers had made, had in fact
“Kamenev’s son’s wife still has the official document which reached her from the NKVD in answer to hope her inquiry. Kamenev, Lev Borisovitch, died 25.8.36, aged 53. Cause of death [deleted]. Place of death – Moscow. Kamenev, Olga Davidovna, died 11.9.41, aged 58. Cause of death [deleted]. Kamenev, Alexander Lvovich, died 15.07.39, aged 33. Cause of death [deleted]. Place of death [deleted]. Kamenev’s younger son, the ‘Young Pioneer,’ would also be shot, at the age of seventeen. The newspapers were full of deafening curses.” (Radzinsky, 344)
Also his wife fell ill from Baku’s bad pollution and was diagnosed with typhus and later died on December 7, 1907. Stalin was hit hard by this loss and when into mourning for a long time. This death made Stalin harden and have an even more stiff personality. He actually abandoned his son who was raised by Stalin’s wife’s family. While the grief of his dead wife was fading he continued his revolutionary activities in Baku. He then changed his last name from Dzhugashvili to “Stalin” which roughly translates to “man of steel”.
...e 1930s. He decided and persuaded the people that the former leaders and allies, such as Kamenev and Zenoviev, were plotting against the Party with Trotsky. The purpose of the purges, according to N. Mandelstam4, was not to secure power Stalin’s position, but to intimidate the nation. So, all opponents were imprisoned. In January 1937, several other prominent Bolshevik leaders were trailed for treason and executed. The climax of Stalin’s purges came in March 1938 when 21 leading Bolsheviks, including Bukharin, Rykov and Yagoda were similarly accused and killed. This demonstrates Stalin’s immense power, for he could simply eliminate anyone standing in his way!
To enforce political equality collective farming was implemented to stop the Kulags from abusing the system through privatized business and people were forced into the system through intimidation or threat of suffering the same fate as the Kulaks, mass murder.The loss of private land slowed production of food and was followed by a famine, leading to many people starving.Along with starving the people who opposed the government or had different views would be executed without trial in militaristic operations called purges.Stalin even had ethnic cleansing in which Poles, Germans, Latvians, Finns, Greeks, Koreans, and Chinese would be deported or killed.Similar to nazi germany the dictatorial system caused major political inequalities and fails bring the country greatness like the author of the source believed.Stalin ruled the people with an iron fist and removed many rights that are major components of liberalism such as right to a fair trial,freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of association along with many other right whether they are political or
“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is statistic”. This quote from Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Union of Soviet Republics (USSR) from 1927 to 1953 captures the values and morals of Russia under his rule. Stalin utilised the concept of terror and repression carefully to ensure that the people did as they were told. Death was a common fate, with an estimated 20, 000, 000 people dying from purges or man-made famine. The lives of Russian citizens were greatly impacted, as culture and education were altered to support Stalin’s views. While the processes were inhumane, Stalin successfully utilised the concept of terror and repression, stopping all opposition and activities perceived as threats to the regime.