Administration of Russia under Stalin

Introduction

When Josef Lenin passed away in 1924, there was no succession plan in place for a new leader. As a result, Stalin and Trotsky engaged in a power struggle for internal dominance. In order to ensure leadership, Stalin used his position as the party's general secretary to place loyalists in influential positions inside the party.

Trotsky was kicked out of both the party and the Soviet Union. Years later, when living in exile in Mexico, he was killed, perhaps on Stalin's instructions. And hence the communist party under the leadership of Stalin seized complete authority over everything.

This tutorial will brief you on what happened after Josef Stalin gained power, how his administration was, what all policies and changes he brought in, and how his rule over Russia ended.

Stalin's Five-Year Plan

After gaining power, in October 1928 Stalin introduced the first Five-Year plan which was designed to turn Russia into a major industrial power. It was aimed to collectivize agriculture and grow heavy industries. These Five-Year plans were executed in 4 terms and occurred till 1953 until Stalin’s death.

• The terrible effects it had on human lives were among the first Five-Year Plan's primary characteristics. In addition to the horrific working conditions in the new industries, where peasants had no idea how to operate the machinery, the collectivization of farmland was disastrous as well. Following starvation and peasant unrest, millions perished.

• Stalin thought that for the five-year plans to succeed, there needed to be a source of food for the factory employees. So he targeted Kulaks, a group of wealthy peasants. He accused them of thwarting the implementation of the plan and either executed or imprisoned them so that the government could take their land for collectivization.

• The kulaks fiercely opposed collectivization because they thought their labor was being exploited. Because the government could not afford to buy the grain, the kulaks refused to do so. In order to prevent soldiers or the secret police from taking their grain or to avoid handing it to the kolkhoz, several kulaks destroyed their crops and livestock.

• Also, the Five-Year Plan widened enduring barriers between Russians and non-Russians because many of the fatalities due to feminine occurred in places that were different from Russia. And Stalin has no sympathy for non-Russians which ignited a return of hate for him amongst non-Russians, prominently Ukrainians.

Collectivization - Stalin Agricultural Policy

The Soviet Union's collectivization policy under the leadership of Stalin, which he pursued most assiduously from 1929 to 1933, aimed to modernize the country’s traditional agriculture and weaken the economic position of kulaks'. Peasants were compelled to join big collective farms and give up their own farms under collectivization. In the end, the technique was carried out in tandem with the effort to quickly industrialize the Soviet Union.

Collective farms were viewed as desirable by certain Soviet authorities since they considered it a socialist form of land tenure. However, in order to avoid disrupting the agricultural productivity necessary to fund industrial growth, they supported a gradual transition to community farms. Others, particularly those who supported Stalin, asserted that the big kolkhozy could handle heavy equipment more skillfully and produce more harvests than the numerous little ones could. In order for the government to raise the money needed for the expansion of the heavy industry, it would be easy to force them to sell a sizable portion of their produce to the government at a discount.

Stalin took collectivization seriously, his message to the common Russian populace was - “Western countries are already 50 years ahead of us, if we didn’t reach where they are in 10 years, they might crush us”.

Stalin's Reign of Terror

Stalin began widespread collectivization in the winter of 1929–1930. The Central Committee determined that an "enormous majority" of peasant families should be collectivized by 1933 after he (Stalin) pushed the party to "liquidate the kulaks as a class".

All peasants who opposed collectivization faced harsh punishments such as arrests, land confiscation, and deportation to detention camps. More than half of the peasantry had been forced to join collective farms by March 1930 (with a higher percentage in the agriculturally prosperous southwest of the Soviet Union).

Even if production decreased, the government nonetheless extracted the significant amounts of agricultural products required to raise the money for investment in industries. This led to a severe countryside famine that killed millions of peasants from 1932–1933. The forcible collectivization succeeded in establishing Soviet dominance in the rural despite these high expenditures.

Stalin also destroyed many fine examples of Russian architecture and vandalized numerous Russian cultural landmarks. He can be directly blamed for the devastation of several of Russia’s most beautiful cathedrals. It appeared as though he was attempting to erase and wipe Russia's past and create a new Russia in his own likeness.

Campaigns were launched against Jews and non-Russians during the latter years of Stalin. Writers and artists who dared to assert that historical Russian artistic leaders had learned from the West were scorned for their claims. Everything that was worth inventing was credited to Russians as a result of the rise of Russian nationalism.

Stalin and World War II

After a rocky start, Stalin became the most effective of the dictators installed by the belligerent nations during World War II. He made a deal with Hitler in August 1939 after first attempting to unite the Western countries in an anti-Hitler alliance.

Stalin attacked Finland and demanded territorial concessions while also annexing eastern Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, and some portions of Romania. He was eager to fortify his western frontiers while his new but ostensibly German ally was still active in the West. He remained in the endangered capital of Moscow throughout the winter of 1941, aiding in the planning of a massive counteroffensive.

Under Stalin's superior leadership, the Soviet Army also triumphed in the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk, turning the tide of invasion against the fleeing Germans, who finally capitulated in May 1945. Stalin, as the head of the Soviet military, kept a tight grip on the war economy, military reserves, and front lines.

At important Allied summits, such as the "Big Three" summits with Churchill and Roosevelt at Tehrn (1943), Yalta (1945), and Potsdam (1945), Stalin took and outsmarted these foreign statesmen with his skill as a negotiator.

Stalin’s Last Years

In his last few years, Stalin saw particularly the United States and Great Britain—as his arch-enemy, he wanted separate grounds instead of maintaining his wartime alliance with these countries.

The dominance of Marxist ideas was sternly reaffirmed in Russia. Andrey Zhdanov, a Central Committee secretary, and Stalin's top ideological assassin unleashed a reign of terror on the Soviet scientific and cultural establishment by mocking foreign accomplishments and claiming Russians were the true creators and trailblazers in virtually every subject. As a result, the Soviet Union's widespread hopes for household tranquility were sorely dashed.

Stalin, who grew more suspicious and paranoid in his last years, ordered the arrest of some Kremlin doctors, most of whom were Jewish, in January 1953 on suspicion of murdering different Soviet officials, including Zhdanov, using medical means. The official account states that the dictator unexpectedly passed away on March 5, just as he was apparently getting ready to use this "Doctors' Plot" as the cover for yet another significant act of terror threatening all of his senior allies.

Conclusion

Although there is much blame on Stalin for the starvation and poor situation of peasants during his reign, there are many true facts about him as well that can’t be ignored.

It was Stalin because of whom Russia was able to handle the German invasion and secure its position as a world leader during World War II. It was his negotiable power with the west that worked in the favor of the Russian people. Stalin can be remembered both as a ruler of its people as well as a communist tyrant.

FAQs

Qns 1. Mention the time frame of Stalin's rule in Russia.

Ans. Stalin's rule in Russia started in 1922 and ended with his death in 1953.

Qns 2. What was Stalin’s Five-year plan?

Ans. Stalin after gaining power had plans of developing Russia rapidly by setting up industries, so for that, he brought a Five-Year plan which rigorously focused on setting up big industries and developing more agricultural products.

Qns 3. What was Collectivization?

Ans. The Soviet Union's collectivization policy under the leadership of Stalin aimed to modernize traditional agriculture in the country and weaken the kulaks' economic position.

Qns 4. When did feminine hit Russia’s territory and how many people were affected?

Ans. The Soviet Union's primary grain-producing regions, notably Ukraine, experienced famine from 1930 to 1933 during the time period of the first Five-Year plan.

Qns 5. Who were the Kulaks and why Stalin did not like them?

Ans. In Russian and Soviet history, a Kulak was a wealthy or prosperous peasant, typically one who possessed a large farm. The kulaks fiercely opposed collectivization because they thought their labor was being exploited. Because the government could not afford to buy the grain, the kulaks refused to do so. This was the main reason Stalin did not like Kulaks.