Was Stalin a Progressive or a Conservative?
Was Stalin a Progressive or a Conservative?
Although Stalin was a progressive in the economic aspect that he implemented the First and Second Five-Year Plans, which developed industry in Russia, as well as in the social aspect that he put forth a new education system, Stalin more so portrayed elements of conservatism. Stalin’s social, economic, and political policies and actions that conserved parts of Lenin’s regime including the NKVD secret police that executed and exiled opposition to Stalin, slave labor in Gulag camps, the Great Purge which removed many members of the Communist Party and Red Army, and the continuation of Lenin’s New Economic Policy were more important than his progressive changes because they influenced his government the most.
Stalin’s most significant progressive policy was the series of Five-Year Plans implemented especially the First and Second Five-Year Plans, which sent Russia in the path of industrial development. The First Five-Year Plan was put into action in 1929 and it emphasized heavy industries such as coal, iron, steel, and electricity. Farming methods were also changed from kulak-run farms to collectivization, which grouped 50-100 individual farms into a system of kolkhoz, larger state-owned farms. Collectivization was very successful and it made farming more efficient, since tractors and combined harvesters began to be utilized. By 1932, two thirds of Russian farmland was collectivized and its new efficiency didn’t require as many workers on the field. These additional peasants were sent into industry to work in many of the new factories built solely from Russia’s agricultural output.
The Second Five-Year Plan was created in 1932 and it established very similar goals to the first, in addition to goals of advancing transportation and communication. The number of railways, roads, and canals in Russia boomed in the next five years and these linked mines with factories, factories with central cities, and the
Although Stalin was a progressive in the economic aspect that he implemented the First and Second Five-Year Plans, which developed industry in Russia, as well as in the social aspect that he put forth a new education system, Stalin more so portrayed elements of conservatism. Stalin’s social, economic, and political policies and actions that conserved parts of Lenin’s regime including the NKVD secret police that executed and exiled opposition to Stalin, slave labor in Gulag camps, the Great Purge which removed many members of the Communist Party and Red Army, and the continuation of Lenin’s New Economic Policy were more important than his progressive changes because they influenced his government the most.
Stalin’s most significant progressive policy was the series of Five-Year Plans implemented especially the First and Second Five-Year Plans, which sent Russia in the path of industrial development. The First Five-Year Plan was put into action in 1929 and it emphasized heavy industries such as coal, iron, steel, and electricity. Farming methods were also changed from kulak-run farms to collectivization, which grouped 50-100 individual farms into a system of kolkhoz, larger state-owned farms. Collectivization was very successful and it made farming more efficient, since tractors and combined harvesters began to be utilized. By 1932, two thirds of Russian farmland was collectivized and its new efficiency didn’t require as many workers on the field. These additional peasants were sent into industry to work in many of the new factories built solely from Russia’s agricultural output.
The Second Five-Year Plan was created in 1932 and it established very similar goals to the first, in addition to goals of advancing transportation and communication. The number of railways, roads, and canals in Russia boomed in the next five years and these linked mines with factories, factories with central cities, and the