Evaluation Of Stalin S Leadership

Kiara Luis Mr. Butler
February 25, 2015 Global Honors

DBQ: Evaluation of Stalin’s Leadership

Loved and hated by many, Joseph Stalin is one of the most controversial leaders in world history. Joseph Stalin transformed the Soviet Union into a modern superpower between 1928 and 1941. His rule is characterized by the creation of Collectivized Agriculture, Rapid Industrialization like the Five Year plan, and the many aspects of life under a totalitarian regime like purges, censorship, propaganda, and the cult of personality. In 1917, Russia was crumbling into pieces. The World War I was draining all of Russia’s resources. There was shortage of food throughout the country, which left people starving. At the battlefront, millions of Russian soldiers were dying, they did not possess many of the powerful weapons that their opponents had. The government under Czar Nicholas II was disintegrating, and a provisional government had been set up. In November of 1917, Lenin and his communist followers known as the Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government and set a communist government in Russia. However, in 1924, Lenin died and Stalin assumed leadership of the Soviet Union. Stalin was a ruthless leader who brought many changes to the Soviet Union. Stalin’s goal was to transform the Soviet Union into a modern superpower and spread communism throughout the world, and he was determined to sabotage anyone who stood in his way. Stalin’s rule brought both harmful and beneficial consequences to the Soviet Union. Among Stalin’s accomplishments to the building of Russia, many were indeed positive. Stalin introduced a five-year economic plan, which gave a number of quotas for both industry and agriculture. The fulfillment of the first and second Five-Year Plans strengthened the U.S.S.R.’s economic position (Document 1). In 1928, one of Stalin’s goals was to rapidly develop a heavy industry. Stalin wanted to make the Soviet Union an industrial fortress and a strong nationalistic state. He figured to make Russian communism succeed industrial power was immediately needed. This was to be achieved by creating a command economy, which had meant that the industry was being forced to industrialize. Lenin had previously destroyed the power of private businesses to create a manageable industry. Therefore, when Stalin came into power, most of the major industries were already in government hands. Stalin had stated that stated that the Soviet Union was behind advanced societies, and that they had to industrialize quickly before ‘enemies’ would crush them. Heavy industry was essential for defense and for supplying agricultural tractors and combines. Stalin had believed that equality and democracy had to wait until the Soviet Union had a thriving industrial economy. The punishments for failing to meet the target were extremely severe. Many people were forced to work against their own will but Stalin felt that the policy was essential. The first three Five-year Plan from 1928 to 1941 increased production about 400% (Document 3). While all of these plans were unmitigated disasters, Stalin’s policy forbidding any negative publicity led the full consequences of these upheavals to remain hidden for decades (Document 7). To many who were not directly impacted, the Five Year Plans appeared to exemplify Stalin's proactive leadership. By the mid-1930s Russia had surpassed the 1927 production figures of pig iron, coal and oil (Document 2). There was no country ever known to industrialize so quickly. As a result, unemployment had been abolished. As Stalin was industrializing the country, he felt it was necessary to collectivize the farms of the country. Yet, for all of Stalin’s positive accomplishments, he also seemed quite the negative ruler, First, Stalin developed a system of collective farming that combined once privately owned farms into large farms, operated by the government. As heavy industry developed, agriculture was to be collectivized. In 1929, collectivization began. There would be no more individual farms, and no more individual farmers selling their goods independently. The farmers were required to hand over a certain amount of produce to the state each year. The young, large-scale, socialized agriculture, growing now even faster than big industry, had a great future and could show miracles of growth. Collectivization was mainly directed against the kulaks, which were the rich peasants who owned their own land (Document 4). Basically, Stalin would take land from the people who had owned it since 1861. Many peasants were forced to work for the state as a part of a collective commune. Some peasants and many kulaks resisted collectivization. They slaughtered their own cattle rather than to turn it over to the government (Document 5). As a result, they were killed or sent to labor camps called the ‘gulags’. By 1934, 70% of all the farms in Russia were collectivized and the kulaks were eliminated as a class. The Ukrainian Famine was dreadful famine premeditated by the Soviet Union, headed by Stalin during 1932-1933, as a means to undermine the nationalistic pride of the Ukrainian people (Document 6). It served to control and further oppress the Ukrainian people by denying them the basic vital essentials they needed to survive. On the collective farms, peasants would be paid wages in return for handing over the produce to the government. Stalin’s tenure as the Soviet Union’s head of State is remembered largely for his domestic policies like the First Five Year Plan, but also his paranoia fueled purges of the Soviet people and the Communist Party (Document 8). It is largely acknowledged that during his command the number of Russians who were killed as a result of his commands was in the region of 20 million. While the vast majority of Stalin’s targets during the purges were civilians, Stalin’s reach extended into the military as well. The purge of the Red Army Officer Corps was a power play, which resulted in Stalin consolidating his power as leader of the Soviet Union. Stalin systematically imprisoned and/or executed thousands of his own military officers. Stalin wanted everyone to worship him. He wanted everyone to know that he ruled all of Russia (Document 9) . He wanted to be above everyone and wanted everyone to know that he was the most powerful. No one was allowed to hate him and if you did you were facing multiple consequences. One of the most powerful and murderous dictators in history, Stalin was the supreme ruler of the Soviet Union for a quarter of a century. One of the most controversial and enigmatic figures in Russian history, he is still the subject of fierce discussions and assessments. His introduction of the command principal and five-year plans aimed at boosting the country’s economy condemned the country to human losses of immense proportions. The scale of repressions astounds and petrifies, though some believe it was a necessary and inevitable measure under the circumstances. Although an ethnic Georgian himself, he launched massive campaigns on the deportation and eradication of many ethnic groups from the Soviet territory. So great was his influence on the people that it eventually grew into a cult of personality His regime of terror caused the death and suffering of tens of millions, but he also oversaw the war machine that played a key role in the defeat of Nazism. Today the role of Stalin in Russian history is the subject of bitter public debate, with a number of Russian history textbooks calling him “an effective manager” and others presenting him as absolute evil. Stalin's historical legacy is overwhelmingly negative. Although his policies transformed the USSR from an agrarian-based society into an industrialized nation with a powerful military arsenal, the transformation was accomplished at the cost of millions of lives. Stalin's militant distrust of the West and his assertion of Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe gave rise to the Cold War. His purges of society through violent police terror left a permanent scar on the collective memory of the people under his rule. Although admired by some Russians, most would agree with the assessment in the West that Stalin was one of the cruelest dictators in history.