The Political Economic and Social Conditions

📌 Living Conditions

Urbanisation and living

Positives/progress

• Increased provision of education and healthcare
• More opportunities of employment for women

Weaknesses/failures

• The urban population was 20% higher than planned
• In new industrial towns their needs could not be met
• Many lived in dormitories and barracks
• 25% lived in mud huts they built themselves
• Housing was abysmal
• Intense overcrowding
• People lived in communal apartments, one family to a room
• Homes were made in corridors and 'corners' in other people's apartments
• Most communal apartments in the 1930s were converted from old single-family apartments
• Nothing was done about this until the Khrushchev period
• Stalin lied about the conditions, saying they were improving "year by year" in Jan 1933 during the famine
• Life was not much better in the towns
• Rationing existed since 1929, would not end till 1935
• Real wages declined in the 1930s
• Moscow workers' real wages were 52% of their 1928 level by 1932
• Consumption of meat by the Moscow working class fell by 60% between 1928-32
• Dairy produce consumption fell by 50% too

Women in the workforce

Positives/progress

• New source of labour
• 10 million women entered the workforce
• Dominated some professions, e.g. medicine and teaching
• Less well educated (like tough ex-peasants) became labourers or factory workers
• Made up 44% of the Leningrad workforce in 1935
• Increase in women in the workforce saved family incomes from a sharp fall

Weaknesses/failures

• Were paid less
• Only four female head doctors in hospitals
• Less literate
• Less involved in political and technical education
• Chances of reaching the top were limited
• Of 328 factory directors only twenty were women
• These were in textile and sewing factories where over ¾ of the workforce were women anyway

Historian's views

• Geoffrey Hosking pointed out that women coped with 'the double burden' by limiting the number of children they had
• "In that way the fruits of female emancipation became the building blocks of the Stalinist neopatriarchal social system"

The Shops

• Shops had empty shelves and long queues
• Sheila Fitzpatrick regards the new distribution system replacing private trade as a 'policy disaster whose dimensions and long-term consequences were exceeded only by those of collectivisation'
• Introduced without any prior planning at a time of crisis and general upheaval
• Distribution of consumer goods remained a problem throughout the lifetime of the Soviet Union

Verdict on the Five-Year Plans

• Between 1928 and 1941 industrial output trebled
• Annual growth rate was 10%
• Total number of enterprises grew from 9,000 in 1928 to 64,000 in 1938
• Defence concerns drove the 28-fold increase in the production of aircraft and tanks in 1930 & 1940

WWII and the arts

• During WWII, artists and writers experienced less persecution and greater freedoms
• Shostakovich, attacked prior to WWII, had his seventh symphony performed in the still besieged Leningrad on July 9, 1942
• It was amplified around the city in the spirit of patriotism
• After WWII everything changed for these creatives

Tightening cultural grip

• Culture was a greater vehicle for politics in the eyes of Stalin
• Growing Cold War tensions following WWII led to Zhdanovschina
• Zhdanov was only Stalin's mouthpiece
• This was a drive for cultural and ideological purity
• State Museum of Modern Western Art closed down
• Leningrad was a point of contention for Stalin
• He aimed to ensure its continued subservience to Moscow in all aspects
• Theatres closed down for showing too many Western plays
• Playwrights and film directors given directives from Stalin's gov
• Writers championed during WWI were persecuted once more
• E.g. Anna Akhmatova was referred to by Zhdanov as 'half-nun, half-whore'

Wider cultural life Science

• Absurd claims made for achievements of Soviet science
• Ethnic Russians seemed to have invented almost everything
• Scientists had to adhere to State-set guidelines for survival
• Stalin worked closely with Lysenko in 1948
• This was to impose his views of genetics on the USSR
• Lysenko was a biologist and agronomist
• Claimed heritable changes in plants could be achieved by changes in the environment rather than genetics alone
• Wheat subjected to refrigeration would produce seeds that could be sown in colder climates
• Not the case and held back progress in Soviet Biology
• Led to the arrest of renowned geneticists who did not agree with his theory
• Chemistry also suffered and physics was different
• Einstein's theory of relativity was dismissed as it did not fit with Marxism-Leninism
• Could not be ignored
• Quantum mechanics also couldn't be ignored if they wished to develop the atom bomb
• The leadership knew no science
• Working under the pressure of the Stalinist regime scientists developed the bomb in only a little more time than the American team
• Helped only slightly by espionage

Russian Nationalism

• Stalin mounted a drive to emphasise the superiority of ethnic Russians over other nationalities
• Despite the fact he was Georgian
• Been called a 'Great Russian chauvinist' by Lenin
• Was a genuine believer in Russian Nationalism
• Policy sat well with ethnic Russians

Russian Empire

• Soviet Central planning, collective farms and other institutions and practices imposed on newly annexed countries
• Helped secure their support for the regime
• Was also an effective way of controlling other nationalities
• Top-paying jobs in non-Russian republics went to ethnic Russians
• Especially Party Secretaries and Police Chiefs
• In the Baltic states there were deportations to Siberia and Kazakhstan
• 142,000 people from these new Soviet Republics were deported in 1945-49
• Notably peasants resisting imposition of collectivisation in 1948
• Russian migrants took over their homes
• Deportations took place in western Ukraine
• Tens of thousands of Russian migrants and migrants from Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine moved in
• Cultures of nationalities like Latvians and Lithuanians were denigrated
• Moldavian language had Russian words added
• Had to be written in Cyrillic letters
• Ukrainian decreasingly taught to Ukrainian-speaking children in the Russian Republic
• Stalin was as keen on Russification as the Tsars

Anti-Semitism

• Stalin reserved a particular venom for the Jews
• Initiated a vicious campaign of anti-Semitism
• 1948: Jewish anti-Fascist committee was closed down
• They had helped send thousands of Russian Jews to fight the Nazis
• Leaders were arrested
• Thirteen were executed
• Jewish Soviet politicians disappeared and others in important positions lost their jobs
• Jewish writers and artists were arrested
• Jewish schools and synagogues closed
• Textbooks did not refer to the fact that Karl Marx was a Jew
• Stalin talked about setting up a special area for Jews in the Soviet Union in eastern Siberia
• Series of trials in which Zionist conspiracies were exposed
• Culminated in the Doctor's Plot just before Stalin died
• Reason for campaign lay in Jewish connections to the West
• Many Jews had relatives in the USA, other Western Countries and the new state of Israel
• Heavily backed by the Americans
• Stalin called them 'rootless cosmopolitans' who owed more loyalty to Jewish internationalism and Israel than to the Soviet State
• Suspected of being agents for the West and particularly America – Stalin's main Cold War enemy

📌 How well did Stalin rebuild following The Great Patriotic War?

Rebuilding industry and agriculture

• Was widespread hope that events of the war and the efforts of the Russian people would be respected and rewarded through closer ties between the regime and the people
• They were very wrong about this
• Stalin's Bolshoi Theatre Speech dashed these hopes

The Bolshoi Theatre Speech Feb 1946

• Delivered against a backdrop of The Cold War
• Very different context to WWII
• Stalin drafted and redrafted this speech numerous times
• Within it emphasised the USSR must become a superpower within a decade
• A three-fold increase in industrial output was required
• Robert Service argued that 'His [Stalin] assumptions about policy had hardened like stalactites'

Agriculture

Loss/damage from WWII

• Around 100,000 collective farms stopped functioning
• Many peasants returned to farming land privately
• Shortage of agricultural labour
• Large amount of arable land had not been cultivated for a long time
• Shortage of tractors, horses, fuel and seeds
• Livestock had been slaughtered
• Stock levels were low

Main policies

• Major drive in 1946 to tighten discipline of the Kolkhozy
• Reversal of war-time trends
• Grain procurements to feed people in cities and towns took up 70% of an already reduced yield
• 1947: delivery targets and taxes on income from private plots were increased
• Extra taxes invented e.g. on each fruit tree in a peasant's garden
• Currency reform designed to devalue savings made by entrepreneurial peasants
• Derisory prices paid to peasants for their produce and work

Negative

results/impacts

• Retail outlets and consumer goods in short supply
• 1946-47 around 1 million people died from starvation and related diseases, Ukraine hit hard
• By the end of 1952 the number of Kolkhozy was reduced by nearly two-thirds to 94,800 to increase production (and more importantly control)
• Villages not allowed electricity from state power stations
• Not provided with building materials to rebuild their houses
• Motivation hit rock bottom
• Agricultural production suffered
• Peasants under great pressure

Industry

Loss/damage from WWII

• 31,000 business completely destroyed
• Shortage of raw materials
• Heavy industry production decreased
• Limited numbers of workers in industry as many had been fighting in the war

Main policies

• Mobilised population
• Everybody was to be involved reconstruction work
• In Leningrad workers had to contribute 30 hours a month on top of their 8hr working day
• Citizens not working had to put in 60 hours
• Students had to put in 10 hours
• Extra labour provided by prisoners of war (around 2m) and inmates of labour camps (2.5m)

Positive results/impacts

• Population grew
• Expansion of Russian control of Eastern Europe
• Huge growth in heavy industry
• Factories and steel works rebuilt
• Mines reopened at astonishing rates
• Dnieper Dam back in operation, generating electricity by 1947
• Production of coal and steal passed pre-war figures
• According to Alec Nove industrial production in general passed pre-war levels

Negative results/impacts

• Bottlenecks and shortages of raw materials and component parts
• Focus on heavy industry meant lack of consumer goods despite reparations from Germany and Eastern Europe
• Clothes, shoes, and furniture were in short supply
• Details of the Fifth Five-Year Plan were not announced until 1952, a year later than planned
• Did not progress far before Stalin's death in 1953
• People were exploited mercilessly, effectively slave labourers
• Worked in often inhospitable conditions

📌 What were the social and economical impacts of the Great Patriotic War?

Stalin knew and believed in the idea that total mobilisation was needed in a war of annihilation, unlike Hitler. The emotional and psychological wellbeing of civilians was of secondary concern to Stalin and his government.

Mobilisation of Industry

• Within two days of the German attack, Russian machinery, manpower and other vitals for the war effort were moved further east
• 1.5 million rail wagon loads of machinery, resources and workers were transported east
• This was 8-10% of the economic capacity of the USSR
• 3,500 new soviet factories built to supply the war effort
• Streamlining of production: T34 tank production time halved
• Russian T34 and KV tanks outnumbered and outperformed the German Panzer by the end of the war
• Soviet products were known to be poor quality
• Aircraft had a reputation of being death traps
• Some men preferred the punishment of digging up German mines rather than Russian ones as they feared they would blow up

The People and agriculture – negative impacts

• Severely overworked and under-nourished
• Cold, poorly housed
• Living standards fell on average by two-fifths
• Some female workers lived in holes in the ground
• Countryside stripped of men, horses and machinery
• Four out of five collective farmers were women by the end of the war
• Carts and ploughs pulled by human beings
• State procurement of food from collective farms more ruthless than during the civil war
• Malnutrition due to intense rationing

Lend-Lease

• Predominantly from the USA
• To avoid economic collapse
• US shipped tins of Spam
• Imported trucks, jeeps and railway resources to give mobility to the Red Army
• 1943/44: made up 10% of the GDP of the USSR

Resilience of the Russian people

• Historian Edward Acton argues horrors of Nazi occupation provoked massive determination to resist
• The war brought the people and the regime together
• They "all felt closer to [our] government than at any other time"
• They felt they were all fighting the war together and were defending their country
• Propaganda aided their resilience

Women's contributions

• Made a huge contribution to the war effort
• Particularly good snipers
• Central Women's School for Sniper Training turned out 1,061 snipers and 407 instructors
• Graduates killed 12,000 German soldiers
• 'Night Witches' flew 23,672 sorties in flimsy biplanes
• 23 received the Hero of the Soviet Union award
• Women most valued by fellow male soldiers were the medics and signallers
• At the front 100% of the nurses and over 40% of doctors and field surgeons were women
• They and radio operators suffered heavy casualties
• The perseverance and determination of women in occupied zones and behind the front lines in factories and on farms also contributed
• Women made up 41% of the industry workforce before the war and around 53% during 1942-45
• 80-90% of the light industry workforce were women
• Even in heavy industry the proportions grew sharply
• Proportion of female labour employed in agriculture rose to over 80% by the end of the war
• All working predominantly by hand
• Urban sieges, rural deprivation, mass evacuation and mass deportation wreaked havoc with the well-being of millions of families
• Hit women very hard

Price of War

• 25 million left homeless
• 2 million recognised invalids
• 70,000 villages destroyed
• 27 million dead

📌 Overall did the Great Patriotic War strengthen or weaken Stalinism? JEON paragraph:

Overall the Great Patriotic War allowed Stalinism to strengthen, and Stalin's power was heightened. Propaganda meant indoctrination was rife and Stalin was hailed as a national hero, the saviour of Russia. He was in control of the GKO and the Stavka, and the majority of decisions were made in his office. No one could impose restraint upon Stalin. The resilience of the people was intense, and the contributions of women were nothing short of incredible – 100% of the nurses and over 40% of doctors and field surgeons on the front line were women. However, living conditions were still abysmal for many and hundreds of minorities were being deported and sent to gulags. The treatment of prisoners of war was not much better either. Despite this, the majority of Russian people still felt closer to their government than ever before, and collectively felt they were all fighting the war together, for the country and for the people.

📌 Why did the Soviet Union win the great patriotic war?

The Second World War

Nazi-Soviet Pact

• 23 August 1939
• USSR signed ten year long non-aggression pact
• Russians were worried about the prospect of facing Germany alone
• They weren't convinced they were able to form a solid defensive alliance with Britain and France
• In return for neutrality – freed Germany from war on two fronts
• Russia gained the right to occupy eastern Poland, the Baltic states and part of Romania in event of war
• Soviet security was Stalin's main concern
• The pact was the only way of avoiding war
• USSR not prepared for major conflict
• Cleared the way for Hitler to invade Poland

Key dates: Timeline

22 June

• Operation Barbarossa
• Germany invades USSR

19th September

• Fall of Kiev with the losses including ½ million prisoners

26th September

• Siege of Leningrad begins
• Lasted 900 days
• Hitler wanted to preserve northern troops for the battle for Moscow
• Starvation winter of 1941 – 800 000 dies

16th October

• Height of Moscow Panic
• German's advanced to Moscow

6th December

• Soviet counter- offensive begins new Moscow
• Red army had lost 6 million Phase two January 1942 - January 1943 (stalemate until decisive victory)

8th May

• German offensive re-commences in south

28th July

• Stalin starts order 227: "not a step back" issues after fall of Rostov
• Low point of war

13th September

• Is the beginning of the offensive against Stalingrad

31st January 1943

• Paulus surrenders Stalingrad (800,000 dead here) Phase three: February 1943- August 1944 (Germans chased out of soviet territory)

12-15th July 1943

• Battle of Kursk

27th January 1944

• Leningrad blockade lifted; end of 900-day siege

22nd June- 29th August

• Operation Bagratiom

Phase four:

August 1944 - May 1945 (drive to Berlin)

2nd May 1945

• Berlin surrenders

The Great Terror/The Great Purge

• Following the pressure, successes, failures and stresses of collectivisation and industrialisation, Stalin was pushed ever closer to vindictiveness and suspicion
• His wife committed suicide in 1932
• This was a 'great betrayal' in his eyes
• He enacted the Great Terror
• Many historians argue that this worsened his paranoia

📌 How was the Great Terror enacted?

• The most ardent criticism of Stalin's leadership came in 1932
• This was in the form of the Ryutin Platform – a 200-page comprehensive criticism of Stalin's entire leadership to date
• Ryutin was previously expelled from the party due to his 'rightist' beliefs
• Despite this, his critique was still widely circulated within the party
• Stalin's only support however came from Molotov and Kaganovich
• 4/7 disagreed with him
• Ryutin was imprisoned for five years instead
• In 1937 Ryutin was shot dead on Stalin's orders
• His wife and children and any blood relatives were also killed
• By this point, Stalin's power was nearly total

📌 17th Party Congress 1934 – 'congress of victors'?

• The party felt that following rapid collectivisation and industrialisation the brakes needed to be applied
• They saw the policies as a success
• Undercurrents of disenchantment with Stalin through the congress
• It is believed that Stalin lost to Kirov in votes for the Central Committee
• Mysteriously, Kirov was murdered
• Stalin's role was hard to prove …
• He blamed Kamanev and Zinoviev for it
• 843 associates of Zinoviev were arrested by the beginning of 1935
• NKVD participated in a purge of 250,000 party members
• Up to 1937 the main target of the terror was party members who had been involved in/suspected of criticism of Stalin at one time or another
• Main punishment was imprisonment or being sent to a labour camp
• The majority of people were imprisoned in the early stages of the Great Terror

Role of the international situation

• Fear of impending war following the steady rise of Adolf Hitler engulfed the party
• War was a perfect mechanism through which to overthrow a regime
• Stalin was increasingly concerned about any 'fifth elements' (enemy sympathisers) in Russia
• His paranoia increased
• After 1937, the main victims of the terror were peasants, petty criminals and anybody dubbed 'anti-Soviet'
• Fear of mass social unrest due to the upheaval of collectivisation and industrialisation

Stages of the Great Terror

The Officers Corp

• June 1937: Tukhachevsky ('Red Napoleon' and hero of the civil war), the moderniser of the Red Army and Deputy Commissar of Defence, was brutally tortured and shot after a secret trial
• Seven of the country's senior military commanders were arrested and accused of treachery along with Tukhachevsky

Of the 767 members of the High Command:

• 512 were shot
• 29 died in prison
• 3 committed suicide
• 59 remained in prison
• 10,000 army and navy officers were arrested
• Another 23,000 were dismissed
• The number killed however was modest
• Nazi intelligence service provided disinformation and may have hoodwinked Soviet intelligence and Stalin into believing they were plotting
• Regime acted as if it believed there was a plot
• Second half of 1937: policy was to destroy anyone suspected of present or potential disloyalty

Mass arrests of loyal party bureaucrats

• Summer of 1937: saw the start of the denunciation of loyal Stalinists (highest officials below Politburo level and the thousands associated with them)
• They had been the mainstay of Stalin's majority in the central committee
• These officials were simply swept away
• Leadership in every organisation like planning agencies, trade unions, Komsomol and education was hit
• Set in motion local denunciations too
• Stalin's letters to Molotov and Kaganovich are full of attacks on bureaucracy and ministries connected with the economy
• Stalin's solution to economic problems was to purge
• Provided scapegoats for the crises in the economy and the difficulties faced by ordinary people
• Blame was placed firmly on the Party leadership at republican, regional and district level
• Economic managers were also blamed
• Swept away bureaucratic families and clans Stalin distrusted
• New appointments were young Stalinists
• They owed their education and their lives to Stalin

Mass arrests and show trials

• Used to implement fear and control
• Propaganda
• Minimal if any evidence was used
• It was all slander against the accused, whether the crime was committed or not
• First show trial showed how no-one could speak out about Stalin, removing opposition
• Second trial scapegoated and placed blame on other officials in government
• Showed no-one could be trusted
• Third show trial highlighted how Stalin was the only hope of Russia
• Stalin wasn't actively involved in the trials, but he was 'spying' on them