DICTATORSHIP IN
THE SOVIET UNION
Chapter 19 Section 5
Remember
•1917 – Communists seize power, imprison Czar
•Many thought the years of oppression were over
•They had no ideas what would be in store under
Joseph Stalin
Russia under Lenin
•1922 – Russia became USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics)
•Between 1918-1921 Russia was under a policy of War
Communism
•Nationalized industries
•No long term plan
•Didn’t improve economy
•Farmers produced less than before the WWI
•Factory production was less than 1\6 of pre-war
levels
Russia under Lenin
•In response to economic collapse & social
disorder, Lenin announced New Economic Policy
(NEP)
•Major industries stay under government control
•Allow some small free enterprise
•Buy, sell, trade farm products
•Some private business, usually among peasants
•Nepman – small business owners
Russia under Lenin
•During revolution farmlands were seized from
wealthy land owners, divide up among the
workers
•Government now wants them to form collective
farms
•Land pooled together, people work together,
share equipment (very little modern
equipment)
Russia under Lenin
•Women’s Roles
•Claim women & men should be equal
•Equal pay for equal work
•Time off to care for newborns
•Easier to get divorce (as a result, one of the
highest divorce rates in Europe)
•Male party members, preferring traditional
roles, limited women’s gains
Russia under Lenin
• Education
• Emphasized education
• Wanted to increase literacy rates, spread communist teachings
& writings
• Established technical schools & industrial training programs
• Limited success
• Little funding
• Lack of supplies
• Lack of heat (had to close in the winter)
• Focus on higher education, ignored elementary schools
• In 1925 students averaged fewer than 3 years in school
After Lenin
•1924 – Lenin died
•Power struggle between who should replace him
•Leon Trotsky & Joseph Stalin were the main rivals
•The two had differing views regarding best way to
make communism succeed
•1928 – Stalin wins struggle
•Trotsky exiled to Mexico
•Later he is murdered under Stalin’s orders
•
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kO1T0JCsko
Five-Year Plan
• Stalin felt economy wasn’t growing fast enough
• 1928 – ended the New Economic Policy
• Returned USSR to a command economy
• Government controls all economic decisions
• 1928 – government released first Five-Year Plan for economic
growth
• Set high agricultural, industrial, social goals for the next five years
• Stalin wanted to double oil & coal production, triple steel
production
• Collective farms make enough food to feed people as well as a
surplus to export
• Goal: make the Soviet Union a modern, industrialized society
Five-Year Plan
• The plan came with a lot of hardships
• People didn’t want to collective farm, so government forced
them
• If you tried to keep your land, you were executed, exiled,
imprisoned
• The plan actually decreased farm production
• Millions die as a result of famine & crop failure
• There is some growth under the plan
• 1933 – a second Five-Year Plan goes into effect
• Production of consumer goods decreased
• Increase production in heavy industry & military
Stalin’s Dictatorship
• Stalin used secret police & spies to maintain absolute rule
• Just like the czars (& Lenin)
• Soviet people were ruled by fear
• People must obey demands, without complain (or there will be
punishment)
• Religious worship was discouraged, property seized from church
• Many ministers, priests, rabbis executed
• Artists, musicians, writers were subject to government control &
censorship
• Artists ordered to make works of “socialist realism” as proof of
loyalty
Stalin’s Dictatorship
•1936 – new Soviet constitution
•Basic framework of government that existed under
Lenin
•On paper, government appeared to be democratic
•In reality most power held by Politburo (Political
Bureau) of the Communist Party
•Small committee
•Stalin controlled them
Stalin’s Dictatorship
• Stalin’s dictatorship grew harsher with time
• 1934 – an important official was assassinated
• Stalin responded with a purge
• Large-scale elimination
• Any party members who were supposedly disloyal to Stalin
• Used brutality, intimidation, public trials to make examples of them
• Purge expanded to include the general population
• People imprisoned (or worse) without trial for the smallest offenses
• Estimated that by 1939 5 million people had been arrested, deported,
imprisoned in labor camps, or executed
•
http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/other-shows/videos/discovery-atlas-russia-siberian-gulag/
Stalin’s Dictatorship
• Foreign Policy
• Get other countries to accept them
• But also supported Communism International or
Comintern
• Organization founded by Lenin to spread the communist
revolution throughout the world
• Worked to overthrow democracies by urging workers to
rebel
• Obviously caused fear & suspicion outside Soviet Union
• So on one hand they want countries to accept them, yet
they also promote revolutions in those same countries