Explain Why Was There Tension Between Stalin And His People Between 1928-1941
Why was there tension between Stalin and his people between 1928-1941?
After Lenin’s death in 1924, the two leading candidates for his successor were Stalin and Trotsky-both with opposing ideologies in the manner in which the country should be run. Despite being a brilliant speaker and writer, Trotsky’s policy on a ‘permanent revolution’ worried people in the fear that the USSR would get involved with more conflicts while Stalin’s proposition of ‘Socialism in One Country’ was far more comforting for people. After being elected leadership of the party in 1924, Stalin did not have complete supremacy in his power until 1929 and once acquired, despite his best efforts, between the period of 1928-1941 saw economic, political and social tension between Stalin and his people. …show more content…
Politically, Stalin used his secret police, originally called the OGPU and then the NKVD, to eliminate any opposition of his policies and resulted in a major part of the tension created.
Stalin did not want to share power and so moved against other leading communists who might threaten him like his removal of power of left-wingers Kamenev and Zinoviev in 1926 and 1929. There were initial signs of terror in 1928 when engineers were accused of sabotage and later in 1931 where former Mensheviks were put on charge. However the true start of the horrific period known as the Purges began in 1934 where Kirov, the leader of the Leningrad, was murdered when there were suspicions that his opponents were planning to replace him. This was the perfect motive for Stalin as he proceeded to ‘purge’ out the rest of his opposition in the party. Source 23 in the source booklet demonstrates the extent of the purges as we can see that ‘Stalin the executioner alone remains’ from Lenin’s general staff of 1917; the rest of the members including famous names likes Trotsky, Bukharin and Kamenev are either missing, dead or executed. The reliability of the source can be questioned as it was put together by Trotsky supporters, whom Stalin had fought for power with,
so was likely to be biased against him however there is accuracy in what they say as he did arrest around 500,000 party members who were either executed or sent to the gulags. Furthermore Stalin then moved onto purging military officials as shown in source 29 in the Booklet where ‘7 leading generals were shot’ and ‘ all admirals and half the Army’s officers were executed and imprisoned’. This would have caused tension as people would have seen these numerous famous political figures fleeing for their lives and the terror that the NVKD would have caused severe tension as all soviet people lived in the fear of arrest and any sign of independence or individualism would ignite this. The thought of one man with such extensive power over the entire country would have frightened many. Stalin however was not the first leader to enforce rulings using the secret police: Nicholas’ rule was enforced by the Okhrana and his critics were often arrested or imprisoned and Lenin had the Cheka which he used to spy on civilians. Similar to the Purges, Stalin’s fear of rebellion resulted in a control of ideas and the New Constitution.
The state controlled all newspapers, books, films and radio programmes; essentially, the Russian people only received the information that Stalin wanted them to receive so further tension was created. An example of this is in source 26 page 335 in Ben Walsh OCR GCSE MODERN WORLD HISTORY where we can see one of Stalin’s opponents deleted from a photograph. Source 29 on the same page also backs up this source where it describes the burning of works from ‘disgraced leaders’. This source shows a similar message to source 26 but delivers it from a first person perspective increasing its reliability and is also useful for showing perceptions of the event This links back to the Purges and any other misdemeanours Stalin committed as it allowed him to cover up his actions from the general public. For those who were aware of Stalin’s actions, this would have hugely aggravated their tensions as their leader was concealing information from them. Similarly, Stalin also suppressed people’s freedom of speech through his creation of the new constitution in 1936 which in theory was supposed to actually give freedom of speech and free elections to the Russian people but instead confirmed Stalin’s and the Communist Party’s control over the USSR. Source 27, page 335 in Walsh presents the message that there was only person who had any say or power in the constitution: Stalin. The title ’The Stalinist Constitution’ and the fact that every figure in the room is Stalin further suggests the feeling of omnipotence. The main purpose of this cartoon would have been to mock Stalin as it is produced by Russian exiles whom Stalin had driven out. This does decrease the reliability of the source, especially the exaggerated manner in which its presents Stalin’s control of the constitution, but there is also some accuracy in the autocracy presented. In terms of tension created, obviously there would have been a sense of injustice from the Russian people who would have been outraged by the totalitarian state they lived in but also outraged by the lack of opinion they had in. Like the use of the secret police, there are resemblances to Lenin in terms of the disregard of elections: Lenin was quick to shutdown the Constituent Assembly after his Communist Party could only muster 175 seats in the 1917 elections and instead used the Congress of Soviets to pass his laws. As well as political tension, Stalin also initiated numerous economic policies which added to the tension felt by the Russian people.
One of Stalin’s main aims was to achieve modernisation and to rival the economies of the likes of the USA to such an extent that the USSR would become self sufficient and Stalin pressed this fully regardless of the tension created . These were achieved through a series of 5 year plans drawn up by the GOSPLAN which set ambitious targets for production. Although most targets were not met, the progress made was staggering. Electricity, Oil and Pig Iron production all nearly doubled between 1927-33 and electricity and coal production triples within ten years ( Source41 booklet). Consequently, the USSR were rich in natural resources, but only really in remote areas so cities and mills were built out of scratch for example Magnitogrosk ( Source 45 in Booklet). Despite the positives, the manner in which Stalin enforced these policies were at times inhumane; the human cost of the achievements crashed into the millions and the mass influx of new workers caused severe famine in towns and cities. An extract from Behind the Urals (1942) by John Scott describes the ‘appalling’ working conditions at Magnitogrosk. The tone is bitter and the language is distressing as he dwells into the plague and ‘intolerable’ heat there ; clearly he did not have a good time and can be used as evidence for the negative experience workers faced but the purposes also needs to be considered; the book was written just before the cold war in an era where tensions between the USA and USSR were intense and so the book may have been used as a method to produce a negative light on Stalin’s government. On the Contrary, there were many who loved the new found emphasis on hard work. Source C, p.179 AQA Modern World History demonstrates the ‘enthusiasm’ shown by the young workers and there is a very apparent nostalgic tone in the source. The contradictory nature of these sources reflects the opinions of many historians on whether Stalin was correct in enforcing such harsh policies. You can argue either way on the necessities of his actions but the tension created was very obvious: the deaths, famine and harsh working conditions (areas like Ukraine saw the death of 5 million) will have deeply upset many and the pressure on maintaining the targets set were colossal. However it was not just industrially where Stalin looked to develop: agriculturally, the USSR saw a big change in the period as well, known as Collectivisation.
For Stalin’s ambitious targets in the 5 year plan to be successful, Stalin would need to revamp the methods of agriculture in order to provide the necessary food, (they were 2 million tonnes short of grain in 1928) workers and funds required. The problem was farming was not organised to do this and under the NEP, farmers were either agricultural labourers (no land) or kulaks (owned small farms). Stalin introduced collectivisation in 1929 which essentially meant that peasants had to give up their lands to form large joint farms (Kolkhoz). He tried hard to convince peasants who were reluctant to trust the government and had an even harder time convincing the kulaks who owned their own land, something propaganda could not resolve. Finally Stalin had to result to force and took the food required and arrested thousands of Kulaks and sent them to labour camps. Results for Collectivisation, like industrialisation, were varied: a quarter of a million kolkhoz were made and 99% of the USSR was collectivised however food production did fall and resulted in huge famine in 1932 where at least 13 million peasants died and Kulaks were wiped out. Source 43 in booklet demonstrates the view of the communist party on Collectivisation and the overall message underlines the positives the country gained from it like ‘building factories’ and the ‘enthusiasm’ workers experienced. However, as it is an official view, the negatives have been overlooked or distorted like how it states ‘the working peasantry took the initiative in setting up new collective farms’ when it was in fact forced upon them therefore making it an unreliable source for demonstrating the views of the masses. On the other hand, Historians tend to give a very objective opinion and Source H page 174 in AQA MODERN WORLD HISTORY comments on how ‘collectivisation achieved its main aim’ and is backed up by SOURCE 22 p.333 that states that ‘the countryside was transformed’. Due to their objective opinion, we can trust, their opinion is reliable and that great depth has been taken in the research. Source 22 however, is not entirely complimentary; there is harsh tone at times to describe the way Stalin ignored ‘the great cost in human life and misery’ and shows that Stalin was willing to let people die to ensure the policy was a success, something that would have in itself caused tension. Stalin may have been unaffected by the tragedies with the sole aim of modernising agriculture but the hostility shown to peasants draws comparisons to War Communism under Lenin and decrease of production and the famine created would cause severe tension and would lead people to question Stalin. Furthermore, Stalin also introduced measures which were directly solely at the general public creating a lot of social tension.
Linking back to the Purges, after Stalin had finished purging the Military officials, ordinary civilians like lecturers and teachers were being arrested and sentenced to labour camps in far off Siberia or the Artic known as the Great Terror. There was an air of unpredictability about the nature of these arrests as they could take place in the middle of the night and usually for untold reasons. It is said that every family in the USSR lost someone in the Purges. Stalin’s use of such hostility resulted in those whose lives were spared thinking exactly as Stalin did, eliminating all independent thinking and creating the ultimate totalitarian state. However those that were able to escape went on to produce critical sources of Stalin expressing their displeasure: Source 25, p 334 in Walsh demonstrates a mock Travel Poster where we can see Stalin encouraging people to ‘Visit the USSR’s pyramids’ with the pyramids being made up of skulls which gives the message that Stalin has killed so many people that he can make pyramids out of them (there was an estimated 10 million dead by 1937). It pushes the sole blame on Stalin, as we can see him being presented as happy and even proud in the source. A similar message is present is Source 32 of the booklet where we can see a dead person holding up a sign saying ‘we are quite happy’ with a gun being pointed at him; essentially this is underlying the use of the NVKD and the manner in which it forced people to abide by the thinking of Stalin or else they would be shot. Again, there are numerous factors to consider in terms of reliability: both sources were produced by exiles so they were never going to be in favour of Stalin and were both produced in France who were keen to present USSR negatively due to their lack of involvement with the war against Germany but it can also be argued that the Control of Ideas meant that these kind of sources were not published in the USSR. Despite the reliability issues, these sources do reflect the tensions created as people were forced into backing Stalin’s government or else faced with the prospect of being killed and the anger felt by the exiles who were forced into running out of their country. The statistics back up these views as around 20 million people were sent to labour camps which was around 1 in 5 people. Furthermore, Stalin diverted the negative attention created by amplifying his positive image through the Cult of Stalin and also through his control of Religion, Art and Culture.
The horrors of some of Stalin’s policies were truly horrific but Stalin was able to alter the perceptions of the general public to an extent where they were adamant that Stalin paid no involvement with them and that he was a ‘dictator of the people’. This was achieved through various propaganda used to make people aware that Stalin played an integral part of their lives. History was also re-written to present Stalin as a hero and Trotsky was eradicated linking back to a Control of Ideas. This allowed Stalin to strengthen his communist dictatorship but also allowed his to achieve a personal dictatorship. Source 24 in the Booklet is an example of the sort of Propaganda Stalin used where we can see him being the leader of thousands of people, Stalin is much larger than everyone else giving an air of power but also quite heroic being entitled the ‘great Stalin’ and Stalin feels
After Lenin’s death in 1924, the two leading candidates for his successor were Stalin and Trotsky-both with opposing ideologies in the manner in which the country should be run. Despite being a brilliant speaker and writer, Trotsky’s policy on a ‘permanent revolution’ worried people in the fear that the USSR would get involved with more conflicts while Stalin’s proposition of ‘Socialism in One Country’ was far more comforting for people. After being elected leadership of the party in 1924, Stalin did not have complete supremacy in his power until 1929 and once acquired, despite his best efforts, between the period of 1928-1941 saw economic, political and social tension between Stalin and his people. …show more content…
Politically, Stalin used his secret police, originally called the OGPU and then the NKVD, to eliminate any opposition of his policies and resulted in a major part of the tension created.
Stalin did not want to share power and so moved against other leading communists who might threaten him like his removal of power of left-wingers Kamenev and Zinoviev in 1926 and 1929. There were initial signs of terror in 1928 when engineers were accused of sabotage and later in 1931 where former Mensheviks were put on charge. However the true start of the horrific period known as the Purges began in 1934 where Kirov, the leader of the Leningrad, was murdered when there were suspicions that his opponents were planning to replace him. This was the perfect motive for Stalin as he proceeded to ‘purge’ out the rest of his opposition in the party. Source 23 in the source booklet demonstrates the extent of the purges as we can see that ‘Stalin the executioner alone remains’ from Lenin’s general staff of 1917; the rest of the members including famous names likes Trotsky, Bukharin and Kamenev are either missing, dead or executed. The reliability of the source can be questioned as it was put together by Trotsky supporters, whom Stalin had fought for power with,
so was likely to be biased against him however there is accuracy in what they say as he did arrest around 500,000 party members who were either executed or sent to the gulags. Furthermore Stalin then moved onto purging military officials as shown in source 29 in the Booklet where ‘7 leading generals were shot’ and ‘ all admirals and half the Army’s officers were executed and imprisoned’. This would have caused tension as people would have seen these numerous famous political figures fleeing for their lives and the terror that the NVKD would have caused severe tension as all soviet people lived in the fear of arrest and any sign of independence or individualism would ignite this. The thought of one man with such extensive power over the entire country would have frightened many. Stalin however was not the first leader to enforce rulings using the secret police: Nicholas’ rule was enforced by the Okhrana and his critics were often arrested or imprisoned and Lenin had the Cheka which he used to spy on civilians. Similar to the Purges, Stalin’s fear of rebellion resulted in a control of ideas and the New Constitution.
The state controlled all newspapers, books, films and radio programmes; essentially, the Russian people only received the information that Stalin wanted them to receive so further tension was created. An example of this is in source 26 page 335 in Ben Walsh OCR GCSE MODERN WORLD HISTORY where we can see one of Stalin’s opponents deleted from a photograph. Source 29 on the same page also backs up this source where it describes the burning of works from ‘disgraced leaders’. This source shows a similar message to source 26 but delivers it from a first person perspective increasing its reliability and is also useful for showing perceptions of the event This links back to the Purges and any other misdemeanours Stalin committed as it allowed him to cover up his actions from the general public. For those who were aware of Stalin’s actions, this would have hugely aggravated their tensions as their leader was concealing information from them. Similarly, Stalin also suppressed people’s freedom of speech through his creation of the new constitution in 1936 which in theory was supposed to actually give freedom of speech and free elections to the Russian people but instead confirmed Stalin’s and the Communist Party’s control over the USSR. Source 27, page 335 in Walsh presents the message that there was only person who had any say or power in the constitution: Stalin. The title ’The Stalinist Constitution’ and the fact that every figure in the room is Stalin further suggests the feeling of omnipotence. The main purpose of this cartoon would have been to mock Stalin as it is produced by Russian exiles whom Stalin had driven out. This does decrease the reliability of the source, especially the exaggerated manner in which its presents Stalin’s control of the constitution, but there is also some accuracy in the autocracy presented. In terms of tension created, obviously there would have been a sense of injustice from the Russian people who would have been outraged by the totalitarian state they lived in but also outraged by the lack of opinion they had in. Like the use of the secret police, there are resemblances to Lenin in terms of the disregard of elections: Lenin was quick to shutdown the Constituent Assembly after his Communist Party could only muster 175 seats in the 1917 elections and instead used the Congress of Soviets to pass his laws. As well as political tension, Stalin also initiated numerous economic policies which added to the tension felt by the Russian people.
One of Stalin’s main aims was to achieve modernisation and to rival the economies of the likes of the USA to such an extent that the USSR would become self sufficient and Stalin pressed this fully regardless of the tension created . These were achieved through a series of 5 year plans drawn up by the GOSPLAN which set ambitious targets for production. Although most targets were not met, the progress made was staggering. Electricity, Oil and Pig Iron production all nearly doubled between 1927-33 and electricity and coal production triples within ten years ( Source41 booklet). Consequently, the USSR were rich in natural resources, but only really in remote areas so cities and mills were built out of scratch for example Magnitogrosk ( Source 45 in Booklet). Despite the positives, the manner in which Stalin enforced these policies were at times inhumane; the human cost of the achievements crashed into the millions and the mass influx of new workers caused severe famine in towns and cities. An extract from Behind the Urals (1942) by John Scott describes the ‘appalling’ working conditions at Magnitogrosk. The tone is bitter and the language is distressing as he dwells into the plague and ‘intolerable’ heat there ; clearly he did not have a good time and can be used as evidence for the negative experience workers faced but the purposes also needs to be considered; the book was written just before the cold war in an era where tensions between the USA and USSR were intense and so the book may have been used as a method to produce a negative light on Stalin’s government. On the Contrary, there were many who loved the new found emphasis on hard work. Source C, p.179 AQA Modern World History demonstrates the ‘enthusiasm’ shown by the young workers and there is a very apparent nostalgic tone in the source. The contradictory nature of these sources reflects the opinions of many historians on whether Stalin was correct in enforcing such harsh policies. You can argue either way on the necessities of his actions but the tension created was very obvious: the deaths, famine and harsh working conditions (areas like Ukraine saw the death of 5 million) will have deeply upset many and the pressure on maintaining the targets set were colossal. However it was not just industrially where Stalin looked to develop: agriculturally, the USSR saw a big change in the period as well, known as Collectivisation.
For Stalin’s ambitious targets in the 5 year plan to be successful, Stalin would need to revamp the methods of agriculture in order to provide the necessary food, (they were 2 million tonnes short of grain in 1928) workers and funds required. The problem was farming was not organised to do this and under the NEP, farmers were either agricultural labourers (no land) or kulaks (owned small farms). Stalin introduced collectivisation in 1929 which essentially meant that peasants had to give up their lands to form large joint farms (Kolkhoz). He tried hard to convince peasants who were reluctant to trust the government and had an even harder time convincing the kulaks who owned their own land, something propaganda could not resolve. Finally Stalin had to result to force and took the food required and arrested thousands of Kulaks and sent them to labour camps. Results for Collectivisation, like industrialisation, were varied: a quarter of a million kolkhoz were made and 99% of the USSR was collectivised however food production did fall and resulted in huge famine in 1932 where at least 13 million peasants died and Kulaks were wiped out. Source 43 in booklet demonstrates the view of the communist party on Collectivisation and the overall message underlines the positives the country gained from it like ‘building factories’ and the ‘enthusiasm’ workers experienced. However, as it is an official view, the negatives have been overlooked or distorted like how it states ‘the working peasantry took the initiative in setting up new collective farms’ when it was in fact forced upon them therefore making it an unreliable source for demonstrating the views of the masses. On the other hand, Historians tend to give a very objective opinion and Source H page 174 in AQA MODERN WORLD HISTORY comments on how ‘collectivisation achieved its main aim’ and is backed up by SOURCE 22 p.333 that states that ‘the countryside was transformed’. Due to their objective opinion, we can trust, their opinion is reliable and that great depth has been taken in the research. Source 22 however, is not entirely complimentary; there is harsh tone at times to describe the way Stalin ignored ‘the great cost in human life and misery’ and shows that Stalin was willing to let people die to ensure the policy was a success, something that would have in itself caused tension. Stalin may have been unaffected by the tragedies with the sole aim of modernising agriculture but the hostility shown to peasants draws comparisons to War Communism under Lenin and decrease of production and the famine created would cause severe tension and would lead people to question Stalin. Furthermore, Stalin also introduced measures which were directly solely at the general public creating a lot of social tension.
Linking back to the Purges, after Stalin had finished purging the Military officials, ordinary civilians like lecturers and teachers were being arrested and sentenced to labour camps in far off Siberia or the Artic known as the Great Terror. There was an air of unpredictability about the nature of these arrests as they could take place in the middle of the night and usually for untold reasons. It is said that every family in the USSR lost someone in the Purges. Stalin’s use of such hostility resulted in those whose lives were spared thinking exactly as Stalin did, eliminating all independent thinking and creating the ultimate totalitarian state. However those that were able to escape went on to produce critical sources of Stalin expressing their displeasure: Source 25, p 334 in Walsh demonstrates a mock Travel Poster where we can see Stalin encouraging people to ‘Visit the USSR’s pyramids’ with the pyramids being made up of skulls which gives the message that Stalin has killed so many people that he can make pyramids out of them (there was an estimated 10 million dead by 1937). It pushes the sole blame on Stalin, as we can see him being presented as happy and even proud in the source. A similar message is present is Source 32 of the booklet where we can see a dead person holding up a sign saying ‘we are quite happy’ with a gun being pointed at him; essentially this is underlying the use of the NVKD and the manner in which it forced people to abide by the thinking of Stalin or else they would be shot. Again, there are numerous factors to consider in terms of reliability: both sources were produced by exiles so they were never going to be in favour of Stalin and were both produced in France who were keen to present USSR negatively due to their lack of involvement with the war against Germany but it can also be argued that the Control of Ideas meant that these kind of sources were not published in the USSR. Despite the reliability issues, these sources do reflect the tensions created as people were forced into backing Stalin’s government or else faced with the prospect of being killed and the anger felt by the exiles who were forced into running out of their country. The statistics back up these views as around 20 million people were sent to labour camps which was around 1 in 5 people. Furthermore, Stalin diverted the negative attention created by amplifying his positive image through the Cult of Stalin and also through his control of Religion, Art and Culture.
The horrors of some of Stalin’s policies were truly horrific but Stalin was able to alter the perceptions of the general public to an extent where they were adamant that Stalin paid no involvement with them and that he was a ‘dictator of the people’. This was achieved through various propaganda used to make people aware that Stalin played an integral part of their lives. History was also re-written to present Stalin as a hero and Trotsky was eradicated linking back to a Control of Ideas. This allowed Stalin to strengthen his communist dictatorship but also allowed his to achieve a personal dictatorship. Source 24 in the Booklet is an example of the sort of Propaganda Stalin used where we can see him being the leader of thousands of people, Stalin is much larger than everyone else giving an air of power but also quite heroic being entitled the ‘great Stalin’ and Stalin feels