have a record of the time via Behind the Urals written be John Scott. Scott an American left the United States in 1931 for the Soviet Union, he was hired to work as a welder in Stalin's model industrial city Magnitogorsk, which was in the steppe just south of the Ural Mountains. It was one of the largest and most modern iron and steel plants, and was symbol for industrialization. Scott wrote Behind the Urals after living in Magnitogorsk as a firsthand account. It gives us insight of what it was like to live in the Soviet Union as Stalin's plans (five year plan/purges) unfolded. Magnitogorsk was not just happened upon, Stalin pushed for its building believing it to be vital to his industrial plans, “the tempo of construction was such that …show more content…
He goes with some other workers to a state run farm outside of Magnitogorsk to help repair tractors he remarks, “everything, in fact, had been thought of, he said, 'except good land and men to work it'.”7 This was the issue with Stalin's “revolution from above” be built these grand cities that were essentially just large plants like Magnitogorsk, but the people lived in horrible conditions, the collectivized farms that were meant to support the food supply for the workers of Magnitogorsk had bad land and nobody to work to the farms. In theory Stalin's plans could work, but the people, the land, the infrastructure could not feasibly attain the end result that was needed, it just wasn’t possible. For Stalin's plans to have worked he needed to be in the right place and the Soviet Union, and the unforgiving landscape just was not it. Things got so bad that Scott writes, “ the new Bolshevik government sent inspectors to every village to look for hoarded bread.”8 Scott writes, “ during the early thirties the main energies of the Soviet Union went into construction. New plants, mines, whole industries, sprang up all over the country” but he also recalls, “the new aggregates failed to work normally.
Tucker, Robert C. "Stalinism as Revolution from Above". Stalinism. Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York: American Council of Learned Societies, 1999.
The argument that both of these book have made is that Stalin, for all of his brutality, was a patient political leader that was concerned about the direction of the Soviet Union. The simplicity of “If you were seen as an obstacle you were removed” workered well for Stalin . Whether that future be political, ideological, or technological, Stalin deemed himself worthy of screening many aspects of Soviet society. Although we do get a portrait of Stalin's domestic life, that was of comparably lesser importance than running a nation with trouble developing a thriving heavy industry, defending itself from outside attacks, and spreading communist ideology. Stalin was a monster, but he built the Soviet Union from into an a world super power state.
During the post World War I era, many European countries were rebuilding, and the Soviet Union saw this as a chance to catch up. The Soviet Union, under Joseph Stalin’s rule, implemented the five-year plan as strategy for rapid industrialization (Hunt, 846). A great example of Stalin’s five-year plan was the construction of Magnitogorsk, a city based around a massive factory. This construction flawlessly captured Stalin’s goals for progression, efficiency, and conquering nature (back cover). The novel Time, Forward! took place in 1932 and described, in detail, the construction of Magnitogorsk. This novel hinted at the spirit of the times. In the novel, one of the engineers, Margulies, decided to push concrete pouring to its limits. His rival, assistant chief of construction, Nalbandov wanted the downfall of Margulies, and decided to write him up. Nalbandov thought of two charges. The first was that Margulies recklessly sacrificed the quality of the cement for more cement production; this recklessness went against the current scientific understanding of concrete, and the quality would not suffice. The second would show Margulies going against Soviet policies of increasing tempos, as he did not allow the next shift to pour an even larger amount of concrete (314). The second charge was less scientific, but it was more in the spirit of the times because those who hindered progress should be punished. One may wonder, what was the spirit of the times? When Joseph Stalin came into power, he instilled in the public sphere that the Soviet Union would no longer accept backwardness (Hunt, 846). The spirit of the times was all about progress, efficiency, and conquering nature; this spirit is what pushed the Soviet Union away form their backw...
The Soviet citizens during the 1930s, particularly the younger ones, believed “they were participants in a history process of transformation, their enthusiasm for what was called ‘the building of socialism’” (68). The Soviets built hotels, palaces, and had blueprints displayed all throughout “that was supposed to set a pattern for urban planning throughout the country and provide a model of the socialist capital for foreigners” (69).
Before the Stalin, the Soviet Union was backward, medieval type country full of unmade roads and people who lived without electricity in wooden homes. The Five Year Plans changed thi...
Son of a poverty-stricken shoemaker, raised in a backward province, Joseph Stalin had only a minimum of education. However, he had a burning faith in the destiny of social revolution and an iron determination to play a prominent role in it. His rise to power was bloody and bold, yet under his leadership, in an unexplainable twenty-nine years, Russia because a highly industrialized nation. Stalin was a despotic ruler who more than any other individual molded the features that characterized the Soviet regime and shaped the direction of Europe after World War II ended in 1945. From a young revolutionist to an absolute master of Soviet Russia, Joseph Stalin cast his shadow over the entire globe through his provocative affair in Domestic and Foreign policy.
Realizing that the Soviet Union was fifty to one hundred years behind the advanced countries, Stalin devised a Five-Year Plan to industrialize the nation. Modernization was expensive, and in order to fund his new project, Stalin knew that the Soviet Union needed to increase its agricultural exports. To accomplish this he outlawed the private ownership of land and organized collective farms. Stalin demanded collective workers give a huge majority of their crops to the government.
Stalin implemented a Five Year Plan in order to build up the industrial production of the Soviet Union. In order to keep the illusion of a successful Five Year Plan, production quotas were constantly made known well before they had been attained. He also announced another Five Year Plan before the last Five Year Plan was completed. According to Lyotard, Stalin and his Communism tried to give the proletariat a reality beyond that of the working class still bound to national traditions and differential claims, but unfortunately it would never be recognized for the legitimacy of any local power. Stalin to maintain power in his totalitarian regime, he purged his party of those who might oppose him and opportunists who might make the attempt to replace his regime. His use of terror was able to deceive people as long as it did because it seemed to be working toward the realization of the socialist republic. Terror became one of the key features of the government. Stalin, through his totalitarian power, got Russian workers many benefits like free education, free medical services and pension. The unemployment rate decreased and there was a great possibility for personal advancement. To advance in this society y...
Joseph Stalin was one of the cruelist leaders in all of history, alongside figures such as Genghis Khan and Napoleon Bonaparte. He destroyed anybody and anything that stood in his path. When Lenin died Stalin had to compete against Leon Trotsky. "Stalin's victory was slow and hard-fought, but by 1927 he had succeeded in having Trostky expelled from the party and, in 1929, from the country (Trotsky was tracked down and killed by Stalin's agents in Mexico City in 1940)" (Unknown). Although Trotsky's personal authority was unchallenged, Stalin was able to convince the Russian people to go with him, and not Trotsky. With his Five-Year Plan, Stalin planed to create a collective farming system and make the USSR powerful and industrial. Both of these goals would require massive amounts of murder, especially to the people of Ukraine. Stalin created a famine from 1932 to 1933 killing about six to seven million people and causing the Ukraine to fall. A combination between Stalin's drive for complete power and his paranoia led milli...
“The social causes by the Russian revolution mainly became of centuries of domination over the lower classes by the Tsarist regime, and Nicholas’s failures in World War one.”5 As the rural agricultural peasants had been limitless from serfdom in the year 1861, the peasants still refused paying redemption payments to the state and demanded to be the private owner of the land that they worked. The only problem was further compounded by the never lasting failure of Sergei Witte’s land reforms during the early twentieth century. Peasant disturbances increased which sometimes ended up becoming revolts, with only the goal of securing the ownership of the land they worked. At that time Russia consisted mainly of poor farming peasants, which made up one and a half percent of the population owning twenty-five percent of the land.
Trotsky’s career as Commissar of War illustrated his capabilities to lead, command and organize a body of individuals, it is undeniable he had the makings to be an exemplar leader. His militarization of grain requisitioning, use of blocking units in battle tactics, establishment of field tribunals to counter the massive desertion problem that had powers to enact the death sentence, his dismissal of the Kronstadt sailor manifesto as “petty bourgeois demands”(Trotsky) and their later massacre by sixty thousand of his own troops as well as his defense of Petrograd in 1918 all illustrate his ability to be a ruthless and successful leader in Russian, and someone fit to succeed Lenin. However, Trotsky lost the power struggle because Stalin was the only member who had influence in all three sectors of governance; Poliburo, Orgburo and Secretariat as General Secretary, a decision put forward by Lenin...
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
After Vladimir Lenin, a Russian communist revolutionary, politician and political theorist, died, Stalin outmaneuvered his rivals and won the control of the Communist Party. In the tardy 1920’s he became dictator of the Soviet Cumulation. Then he wanted to industrialize the country because at the time the economic was farming. Millions of farmers reluctant to be apart of Stalin’s orders and were killed as penalization. The civilization led a widespread famine across the Soviet Coalescence and killed millions of people. Stalin wanted to kill anyone who opposed him of his orders. He engendered an army of secret police, and inspirited citizens to spy on others which had many people killed or sent to a labor camp. Virtually everyone around Stalin was considered a threat to him, even the Communist Party, the military, and components of the Soviet Coalescence society, s...
Another goal of his new policy was to erase all capitalistic elements previously imposed by Lenin within Russia. Russian peasants just won their land from the nobles after the revolution, and now Stalin was taking it all back. Peasants were not happy with this. Many began to protest by killing livestock and burning fields. Stalin soon began killing many of these protestors or sending them to gulags. Eventually all farms became governmental property and soon giant collectivized farms were established. By the end of the 1930’s wheat production had risen exponentially. In the end, many peasants were able to leave the countryside and work in factories. Russia was also able to export much of its grain in order to fund further industrialization. But again, the human cost of this policy was monumental. Many people starved because of the protesting and many also were murdered by the government in order to force others to
Any signs of innovation and improvements were saved for cities, while conditions in the villages drastically worsened. Villagers like Matryona would listen about new inventions and Earth satellites through radio as if they were some useless magic wonders, and then they would go on loading peat with forks and eat plain potatoes and barley kasha. Soviet ideology infiltrated Matryona’s life through a wall poster and a radio, but it was unable to change her peasant soul into sophisticated and progressive New Soviet Man. Villagers’ life was a struggle of surviving the winter and finding food to eat, leaving no place for abstract concerns about ideological