Joseph Stalin is a polarizing figure. Decades after his death his legacy still continues to create debate about his tumultuous years as the leader of the Soviet Union. This is evident throughout the four documents while some praise Stalin as impeccable others criticize his policies and lack of political, economic, and social progress during his regime. Even though Stalin was behind various violations of human rights he was able to maintain the Soviet Union during a time of turmoil both domestically and internationally as a result he has earned notoriety as a great leader and advocate for Marxist ideology. Among the first policies enacted toward economic prosperity and industrialization were the Five Year Plans. The first Five Year Plan included rapid collectivization of the villages in the countryside in order to make enough agricultural profit to fund industrialization efforts. This period was plagued with violence, unattainable production targets and the destruction of traditional village life. The Second Five year plan began in 1933, in 1935 the term stakhanovite began to be used to identify those workers who developed new innovation that allowed them to greatly surpass average production. The term was named after Aleksei Stakhanov who was a miner.(Fitzpatrick and Slezkine 2000) “Speeches of Stakhanovites” is comprised of several speeches given at national Stakhanovite meetings that included member of the Politburo and Stalin himself. From these speeches we can see that there was a very positive image of Stalin among the Stakhanovites.They all begin and conclude by praising Stalin and the party. This shows that they clearly supported the policies of the Five Year Plans even though they demanded overoptimistic goals of produ... ... middle of paper ... ... a change in this image to a realization that Stalin’s suppression of dissidents and opposition had real effects on soviet society and can not be justified by Marxist and Leninist Ideology instead they were just Stalin looking to maintain his autocracy. Works Cited Fitzpatrick, Sheila, and Yuri Slezkine. "N.I. Slavnikova Et Al. "Speeches by Stakhanovites"" In the Shadow of Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women from 1917 to the Second World War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2000. 331-41. Print. "From Autocracy to Oligarchy." The Structure of Soviet History: Essays and Documents. Ed. Ronald Grigor. Suny. New York: Oxford UP, 2003. 340-50. Print. "International Seminar 'Stalin Today'" Revolutionary Democracy Journal. N.p., 1994. Web. 12 Dec. 2013. . A. Solzhenitsyn, excerpt from Gulag Archipelago. 1973
Tucker, Robert C. "The Mortal Danger". Course Reader for World Culture: Russia Since 1917. New York University, Spring 2001.
No war is fought without the struggle for resources, and with Russia still rapidly lagging behind in the international industrialisation race by the turn of the 20th century, the stage was set for social unrest and uprising against its already uncoordinated and temporally displaced government. With inconceivable demands for soldiers, cavalry and warfare paraphernalia, Russia stood little chance in the face of the great powers of World War One. Shortages of basic human necessities led to countless subsistence riots and the eventual power struggle between the ruling body and its people. From the beginnings of WWI to 1916, prices of essential goods rose 131 percent in Moscow and more than 150 percent in Petrograd. Additionally, historian Walter G. Moss stated that in September 1915 that “there were 100,000 strikers in Russia; in October 1916, there were 250,000 in Petrograd alone.” Moss continues to exemplify the increasing evidence of social unrest and connects the riots to a lack of resources when he goes on to point out that “subsistence riots protesting high prices and shortages… also increased.” ...
Joseph Stalin, of Russia, was completely uninterested in ideological debates, as he wanted to establish his own power within the Soviet system. Stalin had Trotsky expelled and ousted Bukharin in order for this to occur. Because of his torture technique for people to confess their crimes, about 10 million Russians were arrested in the late 1930s. Stalin even sent an assassin to kill Trotsky in 1940. In 1928, Stalin implemented the Five-Year Plan to expand Russia into an industrial nation. In order to find money for this, Stalin forced the kulaks, or wealthy peasants, to work on the farms. All of this brought the Soviet Union to a major industrial power in the end of the 1930s, while all others were in a devastating economic depression.
During the summer of 1941, Chancellor Adolf Hitler initialized “The Final Solution'; to the “Jewish Question';. Hitler started this program because he wanted to create a highly centralized state and one for the master race, Germans. Exterminating Jews was, for Hitler, the only way to create a perfect Germany because it would eliminate the ‘malignant tumors’, the race that caused Germany to lose World War One. Hitler’s decision to start exterminating Jews changed the course of history. In the end, over 6,000,000 Jews were killed and a Jewish state known as Israel, evolved.
Joseph Stalin was one of the Soviet Union’s most influencial leaders. When he came to power after Lenin’s death he began suppressing opposition to his rule and sought to create an economy that was based on command. This resulted in the Soviet Union being able to withstand the invasion of the Germans in the Second World War. It also enabled them to come out of the war as a Superpower. This paper will look at Stalin’s new society and how it effected the citizens of the Soviet Union before the war.
Adolf Hitler was born on April 20th of 1889 in Austria. As a child he played “Cowboys and Indians” which had a huge influence in war since it is a game that imitates the supposed behavior of cowboys and Indians in a conflict, as in shooting, chasing, and capturing. He had found a book of the Franco-Prussian War and he had become very interested in war-related material.
Wood, A. (1986). The Russian Revolution. Seminar Studies in History. (2) Longman, p 1-98. ISBSN 0582355591, 9780582355590
Fitzpatrick, Sheila, and Yuri Slezkine. "N.I. Slavnikova Et Al. "Speeches by Stakhanovites"" In the Shadow of Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women from 1917 to the Second World War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2000. 331-41. Print.
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
Joseph Stalin was a realist dictator of the early 20th century in Russia. Before he rose to power and became the leader of Soviet Union, he joined the Bolsheviks and was part of many illegal activities that got him convicted and he was sent to Siberia (Wood, 5, 10). In the late 1920s, Stalin was determined to take over the Soviet Union (Wiener & Arnold 199). The main aspects of his worldview was “socialism
Many historians say that Joseph Stalin is one of the most know villains of the twentieth century to date but at the same time he is the least known about. He was photographed more than any other leader in that time period, but still was one of the most mysterious men. Many historians have said that there are two main reasons that his life is a puzzle, the first thing is that there are no family records whatsoever, no letters, no diaries, or photographs, it is as if his family did not exist at all. Another reason that Stalin’s life remains so shadowy is the fact that he ordered his biography and even the Soviet Union’s history books to be changed constantly to make it appear he had done thing that he had not, with each rewrite
1) Adams, Arthur E. The Russian Revolution and Bolshevik Victory: Why and How? Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1960.
Riasanovsky, Nicholas V., and Mark D. Steinberg. A History of Russia. 7th ed. Oxford: Oxford, 2005. Print.
Exploring the October revolution and the establishment of communism, Richard Pipes concludes that the origin of communism can be traced back to the distant past in Russia’s history. Pipes states that Russia had entered a period of crisis after the governments of the 19th century undertook a limited attempt at capitalisation, not trying to change the underlying patrimonial structures of Russian society. (Pipes, 1964)
8Sites Richard, ‘The Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, 1900-1945’, in Michael Howard and William Roger Louis, The Oxford history of the twentieth century, New York, 1998, p. 117-27.