Emergence of Josef Stalin and the Single Party State of

the USSR

How does a Single Party State emerge?

1. National Crisis: For Russia it was the impact of WWI

2. Lack of Opposition or eliminates it

3. Fear and uncertainty: leads to the promise of better things

“Peace, land and Bread” slogan from Lenin

Upbringing

• Stalin was born the son of a poor shoe repairer and a washer-woman

• He learned Russian while attending a church school and attended Tiflis Theological Seminary to become a priest

• It was there when he first read Karl Marx

• He was expelled for revolutionary activity

Stalin Rises In Leadership

• Between 1901 and 1913, he was arrested, imprisoned, and exiled 7 times!

• His revolutionary activity caught the attention of Lenin, who named him to the board of Pravda, the party newspaper

• Within two weeks he was given a seat on the Executive Committee of the Soviet, but was exiled to Siberia until 1917

Stalin Rises In Leadership

• When he learned that the Tsar abdicated, Stalin returned in March 1917

• He briefly led the Bolsheviks in July 1917, when Lenin’s failed uprising caused him to go into hiding

• Stalin played little part in the October Revolution that placed the Bolsheviks in power

• Trotsky was the one who gained prestige by leading the October coup

Stalin Rises In Leadership

• During the civil war, Stalin was sent to Tsaritsyn (the future Stalingrad) as Director General of food supplies

• Stalin also reorganized branches of the Cheka and suppressed many plots by simply arresting the accused and having them executed

Stalin Rises In Leadership

• In 1922, he became General Secretary of the Central Committee. He was also member of the Politburo and of many other committees

• The same year, Lenin suffered a series of strokes which left him nearly incapacitated

Lenin’s Potential Successors• Leon Trotsky

– Trotsky was an intellectual and formerly a member of the Mensheviks (he recently had joined the Bolsheviks)

– He had led the Red Army and was probably the most able successor, but he was very arrogant and did not have political allies

– He was prepared to criticize the party for the growth of bureaucracy

Lenin’s Potential Successors

• Kamenev and Zinoviev– These candidates lost credibility by allying

themselves with Trotsky– Kamenev had been chairman of the Politburo– Zinoviev had been a member of the Politburo and

President of the Comintern

Lenin’s Potential Successors

• Bukharin– Was the editor of Pravda and

Secretary of the Comintern

– He supported Lenin’s NEP

– He was not a viable candidate to succeed Lenin because his belief system was not sufficiently Marxist

Lenin’s Potential Successors• Josef Stalin

– Was underestimated and was careful never to criticize the party

– As General Secretary of the Cabinet, Stalin controlled promotions and ranks in the Soviet Union. He filled the party with those who were personally loyal to him

– He used the image of Lenin and the “Cult of Lenin” to present himself as the rightful heir. Stalin presented himself as the only true Leninist

– The Cheka was used to find information which could be used to discredit his opponents

Lenin’s Death

• In Lenin’s testament, he said that he wasn’t sure Stalin would be capable of using authority with sufficient caution

• Lenin also called him “rude” and had a dispute with him about Lenin’s wife

• However, on March 7, 1923, he suffered his last stroke and lost the power of speech

• He died on January 21, 1924

Stalin Rises to Power• Trotsky claimed that Stalin mislead him on the

date of the Lenin’s funeral, so he didn’t attend. This discredited Trotsky

• Stalin didn’t allow Lenin’s testament to be immediately read to the Central Committee, so they didn’t get to hear Lenin’s criticisms of Stalin

• He also built up Lenin by renaming Petrograd Leningrad and creating a book called The Foundations of Leninism (17 mil sold)

Stalin Rises to Power

• Trotsky led the “united opposition” against Stalin, who led the Communist Party to believe that he was trying to split the party

• Splitting the party was something that Lenin didn’t want, and everyone in the Central Committee knew it

• Stalin used this to his advantage as well as the “cult of Lenin” to further discredit Trotsky

• Trotsky and his followers were expelled from the party in 1927

Rapid Industrialization

• Stalin wanted rapid industrialization to:– Free Russia from dependence on capitalist states

for goods– Put all national resources under government

control, including workers– Make Russia economically strong so that she would

be able to produce more powerful weapons– Prove that the socialist system was more successful

than capitalism– Raise the standard of living

Rapid Industrialization

• According to Stalin, NEP made gains, but had reached it limits

• A false conspiracy by “foreign threats” who were charged with wrecking factories on behalf of foreign governments justified the need to fight on the industrial front

• Stalin wanted to drop NEP in favor of a far more Communistic five-year plan

• Nonetheless, Stalin had to import experts and borrow technology from the West

Five Year Plans

• Were plans to industrialize Russia with emphasis on heavy industries such as coal, iron, oil, steel, and electricity

• Capitalist models were used for nearly every project

• Targets were set which industries had to meet

• Exaggerated figures were often submitted to demonstrate that a particular factory had exceeded expectations

Gosplan

• This was a group responsible for administering the Five Year Plans

• They decided:– The amount of every article the country should

produce– How much of the national effort should go into

the formation of capital and how much for consumption

– The wages all classes of workers should receive– The price of all goods exchanged

Five Year Plans

• First Five Year Plan (1928-1932) – Aimed to create an industrial base for further development through the rapid expansion of coal and steel production, electrical power, and transport

• Second Five Year Plan (1933-1937) – Aimed to diversify and the focus shifted to communication systems such as railways and new industries such as the chemical industry

• Third Five Year Plan (1938-1941) – The aim was weapons production

Assessment of the Five Year Plans

• Russia was transformed into a major industrial power second only to the U.S.

• The Five Year Plans allowed the USSR to resist the German invasion

• Living standards declined at first, then improved slowly• Russians suffered a lack of consumer goods and daily

necessities• Communist principles were compromised – good

workers were rewarded with higher pay and competition between factories was encouraged

• There wasn’t enough food in the cities, which caused millions of deaths

Collectivization of Agriculture

• Industrial development could not occur without sufficient food production

• Collectivization was pursued as a means of giving the government the food supply needed to support industrial areas

Collectivization of Agriculture

• Peasants were forced to work on collective farms by the secret police

• The main goal of the revolution from the peasants’ point of view was land ownership, so they were resistant to this idea

• Those peasants who resisted were killed or faced starvation

• Some peasants were persuaded by propaganda to join collectives, but the better-off peasants weren’t (kulaks)

Kulaks

• The kulaks resisted collectivization by smashing farm tools, burning farm buildings, slaughtering livestock, and setting crops on fire

• Quotas were set up for each locality to arrest a certain number of them. The secret police, trade unions, Red Army, Communist Youth, and city radicals called “25,000ers” showed up with lists or relied on denunciations

• They were executed, sent to Gulags, or moved to settle in remote areas

Collectivization of Agriculture

• In 1932, a crop failure came which resulted in a famine that killed 5 million

• By 1939, 95% of Russian farms had been collectivized, but some concessions were made to peasants:– Were allowed too keep small plots for

their own use– Were able to keep their own cattle– Were able to sell their extra crops on the

open market for profit

Collectivization of Agriculture

• Results:– The workers were guaranteed a supply of cheap

food– The produce of collectives was sold in overseas

markets for big profit – the money could be used in industries

– The government gained greater control over the production and allocation of food, which helped during Germany’s invasion

– Kulaks were virtually eliminated– Had an enormous human cost– Agricultural production didn’t increase