by John Slight
The Forest School, Horsham, Great Britain.
Stalin
Why did Stalin succeed Lenin?
Stalin was the brutal dictator of the USSR from 1928 to his death in1953. However, he was already in control of the Communist Party from just before Lenin’s death in 1924, and only several clever manoeuvres were needed by him to eliminate any threats to his position to control the Party and the country.
First, Stalin held the position of General Secretary from 1922 onwards, with control of the secretariat. This enabled him to appoint members of his choosing, (those Party members who would support him), to become Party secretaries. Consequently, what could have been an almost democratic election system apart from the autocrats in the Politburo was tainted by Stalin, appointing his supporters to promote pro-Stalin people in the Party that would support him up and demoting Trotskyites in the Party down. Other leading Bolsheviks failed to recognise the importance of Stalin’s position, seeing it as a paperwork job, and this ignorance is another reason why Stalin succeeded Lenin because by the time this was noticed key positions in Party apparatus were occupied by Stalin’s supporters. If Lenin did not appoint Stalin General Secretary, he would not have been able to fill posts with his supporters and ensure a party largely grateful to him for their positions, and make his grip of power stronger than that of Trotsky, because although Trotsky was a brilliant intellectual he could only offer his supporters encouraging words and not positions, which was what mattered in the Party if the power struggle was to be won. The nature of the party had changed after the Civil War 1918-1920 from a small base of intellectuals to a large bureaucratic system full of careerist, proletarian, anti-Semites, products of the Civil War, which made them ruthless and wanting positions, not words of inspiration.
Second, Lenin’s Last Testament was read to the Party Congress 1924 but Zinoviev defended Stalin after the reading. This was written in December 1922 after Lenin’s first stroke and an addition in January 1923, which said that ‘Stalin is too rude... and should be removed from the office of General Secretary’. This reading could have destroyed Stalin’s grip on power, but after the reading Zinoviev spoke and foolishly defended Stalin by saying that Lenin was ill at the time and he did not know what he was saying. If Zinoviev had not defended Stalin, the soldiers of Lenin could and should have followed orders and removed Stalin from the position. However, even if Zinoviev had not defended him the members of the Party Congress would not remove him, because Lenin was dead and most of them had got to that position as a result of Stalin and removing him would have decreased their chances of moving up in the Party.
Third, Stalin took over Lenin’s image, personifying him as a leader of the USSR as well as Lenin. He set up the Lenin enrolment 1924, which added 200,000 more members to the Party, which doubled it in numbers. These were mostly factory workers, proletarian, careerist and anti-Semitic. Stalin formed ‘Leninism’ in his book ‘The Foundation of Leninism’ 1924. In the book he accused Trotsky of attacking Lenin’s NEP, attacked Trotskyism but resurrected Trotsky’s old idea of ‘Permanent Revolution’ in the economic sense. Trotsky’s policy of ‘Permanent Revolution’ meant the building up of heavy industry and spreading revolution abroad, whereas Stalin’s ‘Socialism in one country’ was a pragmatic view towards achieving Communism; to build up the revolution in Russia first before spreading it around the world. If Stalin had not taken over Lenin’s image he would have appeared wanting power for his own gain and nowhere near as great a leader as Lenin and this would have decreased his chances of grasping power. However, with an image as a man who coined ‘Leninism’, took over Lenin’s image and attacked Trotsky for opposing Lenin’s NEP when he himself disagreed with it, was a clever move, and made him look like Lenin’s natural successor.
Fourth, Stalin cleverly out manoeuvred his political rivals in the Politburo from 1924-9, but even before this, Stalin was in control of the Party. First, from 1923-5 were Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev versus Trotsky. In 1925, Trotsky resigned as Commissar for war. Second, from 1925-7 were Stalin and Bukharin versus Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev, after Zinoviev realised he had supported the wrong person. All three were expelled from the Party in 1927. Third from 1928-9 were Stalin versus Bukharin, which ended when Bukharin was expelled from the Party. If Stalin had not eliminated his political rivals in the Politburo, and they realised Stalin’s powerful position they could have collectively turned against him and no matter how many supporters Stalin had in the Party, the Politburo was at the top echelon of power. Consequently, if they had expelled Stalin a Trotskyite or pro-Bukharin member of the Party could have become General Secretary and Stalin’s effect on the Party would have been reversed. However, because Stalin had taken over Lenin’s image and now appeared the natural successor to him, it would have been hard to expel such a person from the Politburo and Stalin’s rivals for power were on both the left and right wings of the Party and would have found it hard to co-operate collectively, especially with Trotsky’s arrogance.
Stalin succeeded Lenin because Lenin appointed him General Secretary in 1922, and his attitude towards Lenin caused Lenin’s addition to his Last Testament in 1923, which once Lenin died was read to the Party Congress, but its ramifications were restricted by Zinoviev’s speech defending Stalin after the reading of the Testament. Because Lenin died, to succeed him Stalin took on his image and attacked his rival for power, Trotsky, and this led to the manoeuvres in the Politburo whereby once Trotsky was all but defeated in 1925 Stalin turned on all the other opponents for power in the Party and out manoeuvred them to succeed Lenin and become the leader figure in the CPSU and the dictator of the USSR.
The most important reason why Stalin succeeded Lenin was Stalin’s position as General Secretary. If Lenin had never made ‘Comrade Card-Index’ General Secretary, Stalin would have been without a position with which he could populate the Secretariat, which controlled who was promoted or demoted in the Party, with members loyal to Stalin and his ideas because of their promotion. This is of vast importance because without this power base Stalin, who was a poor public speaker, could not have got members to support him by words but no power or positions, which is what the careerist, proletarian Party members wanted. However, by 1923 it was already clear that Stalin had the position and the cunning to succeed Lenin with only a few obstacles in his way such as Trotsky, which he could easily remove. However, in the end the most important reason Stalin succeeded Lenin was a combination of all the causes, his position as General Secretary being of relative importance than the others.
Why did Stalin transform Russia economically?
Once in complete power Stalin wanted to bring Russia’s backward economy up to date with capitalist powers such as Great Britain, because although he felt the USSR was ahead of the capitalist countries politically, that they had achieved Socialism, but needed to overtake them economically so Communism could be achieved. However, Stalin wanted to transform Russia economically to make it a strong country and meet the challenges of the imperialist powers who he believed, in one of his paranoid states, that they were going to crush Russia.
First, for doctrinal and ideological reasons Stalin transformed Russia economically, because it theoretically followed the doctrine of Marx. Marx argued that after the revolution the workers would build a new society based on working for the common good-not for greed or individual profit. However, Stalin did not follow Marx’s true communist direction because of the uniqueness of the situation in Russia. Marx’s ideas could have been implemented perfectly in Germany but not in Russia. The working class in Russia were small and lived in poor conditions. They saw the peasants charge high prices for food and not sell at all if the price was too low, and Nepmen with small businesses do well and swank around Moscow restaurants. Stalin and the Communist Party by 1926, wanted to abolish the Nepmen, force the peasants to provide food and build up heavy industry.
If Stalin had not considered continuing Marx’s communist doctrine of industrialisation Russia would never have been transformed economically, because it would have continued to follow NEP which was not communist and would have not transformed Russia economically. However, Stalin, although a Communist, was worried more about getting heavy industry going, dropping NEP, and following Trotsky’s economic ‘Permanent Revolution’ policy than continue the Marxist doctrine to push Russia onto true Communism. This resulted in the First Five-Year Plan 1928-32.
Second, there was a need to industrialise because of the so-called threat from capitalist powers to crush Soviet Russia. In 1927 this appeared a distinct possibility, in the eyes of the Stalin and the people, but in reality was unfounded. Chiang Kai-Shek massacred Chinese Communists in Shanghai 1927 and after the Arcos raid 1927 Britain broke off diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia. This raised the thought of capitalist intervention and even invasion. However, this was unfounded, but Stalin’s perception was that without heavy industry and a transformation of the Russian economy the USSR was vulnerable to capitalist take-over because of its weakness economically.
If there were not these low-key international incidents involving capitalist antagonism towards communists Stalin would have probably let the Russian economy stay in its NEP form. However, these incidents only served as a catalyst for the transformation of Russia economically, because other more important reasons prompted Stalin to fundamentally change the system. Nevertheless, with his paranoia and after the albeit minor Allied intervention in the Civil War 1918-20 this returned fears of being crushed and the ideological and practical need to rise above this.
Third, Stalin wanted to control the peasants, and this meant more vitally control of food production so the workers could be supplied adequately in the new factories. Before Stalin transformed Russia economically, the peasants were in a favourable position to control the workers under NEP because of food supplies. Stalin embarked on collectivisation of peasant farmland from 1930. All individual farmland was amalgamated into a collective with an overseer. Kulaks, peasants that were rich or opposed this change were transported to Siberia. Stalin eliminated all opposition to him from the peasants, but only after virtual civil war in the countryside, and more importantly controlled food production, which was vital to feed the workers and allow a massive build up of heavy industry. However, it sacrificed efficiency and productivity in the countryside, and resulted in the deliberate Ukraine famine 1932-4, where 7 million peasants died.
If Stalin had not decided to control the peasants and food production by force, Russia would not have been transformed economically because heavy industry would have been developed, but at a much slower rate because of food production would be under the control of the peasants. Consequently, the FFYP would have failed and Russia would have remained economically backward and almost capitalist because of NEP. However, if Stalin had wanted to transform Russia economically, successfully, he should have been less brutal when dealing with the peasants, because this would have averted virtual civil war in the countryside and meant a more productive and efficient agricultural system that fed the workers better.
Fourth, Stalin saw a real need to get rid of NEP and adopt Veshenka’s economic policy. This comprised of concentrating on heavy industry to advance the nation economically, and then start producing consumer goods. Stalin rejected GOSPLAN’s plan to concentrate on all areas of industry, as heavy industry built up an economy, but consumer goods were needed later to balance it out. Stalin explained this position to the Central Committee in 1928- ‘We have caught up and overhauled the capitalist countries in our political forms. But that is not enough. To achieve the final victory of Socialism in our country we also need to catch up and overhaul them in the technical and economic sense. Either we do it, or we shall be crushed.’ Behind this ideological rhetoric was a realisation that NEP was producing Nepmen, which was a form of capitalism, and this was not benefiting the workers and that the system needed to be changed and expanded or else there would no longer be a USSR.
If Stalin had not abolished NEP and adopted the focus on building heavy industry, Russia would not have been transformed economically to the extent it was or at all, because NEP would have remained producing a quasi-capitalist economic system. Although a paranoid view that they would ‘be crushed’, Russia would have continued to be backward and have been crushed by capitalism eventually, which it was, without heavy industry which would guarantee the needs of the military.
Stalin transformed Russia economically because of he wanted to abolish NEP and concentrate on heavy industry which would prevent Russia from ‘going under’, and this led to an overall transformation of the system, particularly and crucially controlling peasants and food production for the workers, collectivisation 1930, which led to the doctrinal and ideological reasons because it was an advancement towards true Communism, and a catalyst for these reasons was the wrongful perception of possible capitalist intervention in Russia in 1927.
The most important reason why Stalin transformed Russia economically was to control the peasants, and more vitally food production. If Stalin had not collectivised them, food production would have remained in control of the peasants, and they could have charged whatever price they wanted for bread and other crops. This would have hindered the concentration of development of heavy industry in the economy, to such a large extent that Russia would not be transformed economically, apart from a few more factories, because there would not be enough workers because they would still be peasants, and the prices of food and the amount produced would not be enough to successfully sustain a growth in heavy industry, and fulfil the FFYP, because the new workers would probably starve.
However, collectivisation did nearly starve the workers but the process allowed more workers into new factories, controlled food production so the workers were fed, albeit badly, and destroyed the peasant’s right to charge for food they produced. This produced an under-productive and inefficient system, but did just about cope with the economic transformation. Control and collectivisation of the peasants is a very important reason why Stalin transformed Russia economically, because they were, up to the transformation, the backbone of the economy in Russia. Transformation of the economy could never have been achieved without reforming the agricultural system so it suited Stalin and Veshenka’s plans to develop heavy industry. However, Stalin only did this so he could industrialise Russia, thus transforming it economically, and enable him to supposedly continue the Marxist doctrine and avoid ‘going under’, with collectivisation only as an accessory to that, because although important Stalin wanted to control the peasants so he could build up heavy industry and industrialise Russia, the capitalist intervention scare of 1927 adding as a catalyst to him wanting to build up heavy industry. In the end, the most important reason Stalin transformed Russia economically was a combination of all the causes, Stalin wanting to build up heavy industry and thus industrialise the country being of relative importance than the others.
Why did Stalin launch the Great Purge?
In December 1934 Kirov, a leader of the conciliatory mood in the Party, was shot. In 1936 the Great Purge (Great Terror) began, in which 1 million were shot and 7 million arrested. Stalin launched the Great Purge because it established his total control of the Party, and crushed any rivals he had. It created a new generation of people in the Party who were unquestioning towards him and allowed him to become a totalitarian dictator with the population fearful of him, whereas even though after 1928 he had won the struggle for power there was still opposition to him in the Party, there was now total obedience to him. Although Stalin launched the Purge it had a dynamic of its own, and purged more people than Stalin had ever anticipated.
First, Stalin wanted to purge the CPSU of all rivals and opposition to having total power in the Politburo and over the country. By 1932, Stalin was in control of the country with the FFYP and collectivisation was complete. However, in the CPSU there was a mood of reconciliation after the carnage caused to Russian society by the FFYP and collectivisation. The people in the Party, who were only used to being brutal in the Civil War 1918-20 when the Bolsheviks were fighting for survival, thought that although the upheaval in 1928-1934 was necessary it was now imperative to stop and re-establish the links that the Party had with the population. This was spearheaded by ‘Leninist cadres’ such as Kirov, who thought that the dictatorship should be relaxed. This opposition to Stalin increased to such an extent that the Bukharinite Ryutin wanted Stalin removed from his position as General Secretary 1932 and when Stalin wanted him shot the Politburo refused, led by Kirov, Leningrad Party boss. Consequently, Stalin’s aims contradicted these of the Party. He had control of it, but he had not enslaved it. He wanted total power and the opposition was a clear danger to this.
He purged the Party ruthlessly from 1936, two years after Kirov was shot. First, were the Moscow show trials, Zinoviev 1936, Trotsky 1937 and Bukharin 1938, where they were accused of being part of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite conspiracy to destroy communism. Second, during the mass purge, the Party was heavily hit, with over 60% of members in the Central Committee and the Congress arrested and either shot or put in a labour camp. The Army was purged in 1937, decimating the officer corps and executing generals, including the brilliant strategic thinker Marshal Tukhachevsky. The NKVD was also purged. These were the only organisations that could have mounted any conceivable opposition to Stalin, and purging these meant he was guaranteed total control of the country. If Stalin had not launched the Purge it seems unlikely that he could have won another struggle for power against Kirov because the majority of the Politburo supported him and the conciliatory mood of the Party would have meant the members would have preferred Kirov, whether they were put in their positions by Stalin or not, and to ensure he had total power Stalin needed something that would terrorise the Party out of any opposition against him and also remove his rivals. The Great Purge was the brutal answer, in Stalin’s eyes, although not to the extent that it occurred.
Second, Stalin was scared, in his own mind of Hitler and an invasion. However, before hand Stalin only viewed Hitler as the ‘last-gasp’ phase of capitalism. The 17th Party Congress Jan.-Feb. 1934 with Kirov came shortly before Hitler’s Night of the Long Knives June 1934 where he purged the Nazis of any opposition to his leadership, notably the SA head, Röhm. In September, the USSR joined the League of Nations, as a gesture by Stalin to show that he wanted to ally with Britain and France against Hitler. The opposition mounted by Kirov against him and the Night of the Long Knives could have given Stalin an ideal method to eliminate his rivals like Hitler did, and the Purges were just a Russian version of the Night of the Long Knives, but much more brutal and widespread, the typical Stalin hallmarks of a new policy. Also, with fear of an invasion in his mind Stalin wanted to eliminate his rivals because if Hitler did invade, which was unlikely and impossible in 1934, Stalin did not want rivals attempting a coup against him in the midst of a national crisis where he could be vulnerable.
Subsequently, it would have made sense to Stalin that the quicker he eliminated his rivals the more prepared he would be for a war against Hitler. This was both true and false when Hitler actually invaded in 1941. If Stalin was not fearful of an invasion or had not heard of the Night of the Long Knives, it is still likely he would have launched the Great Purge because he still had an overriding need to remove his rivals and gain total power in the Party, and the events inside Germany at the time probably only made Stalin act on his insatiable drive for total power.
Third, Stalin had a master plan for Russia in terms of power politics, to launch the Great Purge because it will inflict massive fear among the population of him, establish a ferocious control over them, and replace one generation of Party members, 1917-37, who remembered Lenin with Stalinists, who were unquestioning and had total obedience to him. Although the Great Purge produced these results in Russian society, it was probably not part of a grand plan. The mass purge, carried out by the NKVD, headed by Yezhov 1936 after Stalin replaced Yagoda 1934-6. Beria, who stopped the Purge under Stalin’s orders, replaced Yezhov in 1938. During 1937-8, the NKVD arrested 7 million people, and 1 million were shot. It was called Yezhovschine, ‘time of Yezhov’. This gave rise to the system of denunciations, and a knock on the door in the night, creating hell for the population, but fear of Stalin. The Party was purged and the elites: intellectuals, scientists, and industrial managers. This severely damaged the economy. Consequently, the NKVD purged itself with Yagoda shot 1938 and Yezhov 1940. The Purge, coming full circle, ended. However, it is unlikely Stalin wanted to purge all of the population; he was only interested in the power politics of the CPSU, and a purge of the population was not necessary because collectivisation had removed the last opposition to Stalin outside the Party. The mass purge was the purge, that having decimated the CPSU then had a momentum of its own, tearing through the Army, the masses, and the elites, finally stopping at the NKVD, fuelled by the suspicious and paranoid mind of Stalin in an effort to root out ‘enemies of the people’.
If Stalin launched the Purge because he wanted to have a firm grip on society and remove ‘enemies of the people’ he would have overlooked the crucial element to attaining total power in the country; controlling the CPSU. Without that control, even with the rest of the population in fear of him he still would not have total power because it was the Politburo that held the power, not the masses. Nevertheless, the Mass Purge was disastrous for Russia but useful for Stalin because it created a population fearful of him and under his tight control, something that was needed in the Second World War, and this was unexpected as he had only wanted to extend his total power to the Party, and instead he extended a ruthless grip over the entire country, all because of a purge that had a powerful momentum of its own.
Fourth, Stalin wanted to produce cheap labour for the Gulags (labour camps). The 7 million that were arrested and not shot were sent to Gulags, where they reached their highest capacity in 1938. The Gulags were camps in inhospitable parts of the USSR where the occupants were used as slave labour and worked to death building canals, railways, or working in mines. With the inevitable high death rate, the NKVD had to arrest more people to keep the camps running. Although the Mass Purge damaged the economy, the Gulags were useful to it because it enabled projects to be completed at a low cost in terms of wages. However, this did not make up for the damage caused by a large amount of industrial managers being purged from the factories. With the purge, Stalin could have effectively kept the labour camp population high and embark on huge construction projects like the Volga canal at a low cost that would otherwise been impossible without the slave labour.
If Stalin had not launched the Great Purge because he wanted to keep the labour camps full, he still would have launched it for the more important reason to gain total power over the CPSU, because the labour camps were merely a welcome side effect for Stalin, the unexpected mass purge giving a population of slave labourers that Stalin had not anticipated, and thus a useful commodity to build construction projects cheaply. However, Stalin could have launched the Purge to fill labour camps and simply start in the CPSU, but this is unlikely. The labour camps were merely a product of the Mass Purge, and not something that Stalin specifically launched the Great Purge for.
Stalin launched the Great Purge because he wanted to crush his rivals in the CPSU such as Kirov and Ryutin, destroying the conciliatory mood in the Party after the carnage of 1928-34, and enslave the Party to his total control, and this could have been prompted by a paranoid fear of Hitler and an idea to follow the methods of The Night of the Long Knives 1934, but so the CPSU were purged of opposition to Stalin, and the Purge that was launched in 1936 achieved a dynamic of its own, destroying the Army and NKVD, the only organisations that could have mounted any credible opposition to Stalin, and the masses, and this exercised ferocious control over the population and created a massive fear of Stalin, and the mass of people who were arrested were put Gulags for slave labour, and when they died the NKVD arrested more people to fill the places.
The most important reason why Stalin launched the Great Purge was that he wanted to crush his rivals in the CPSU and establish total control over the Party. If Stalin had no opposition in the Party, from Kirov and the members wanting a relaxing of the dictatorship after the necessary turmoil of 1928-34, Stalin would have never needed to launch a brutal purge, because all that mattered to him was that control rested with power. In his ruthless power politics it was not important that he inflicted fear on the population or filled up labour camps, he wanted total control of the CPSU, so he could crush all his rivals to total power in there and also to eventually purge the Army and NKVD, the only two organisations possible of launching any effective opposition against him. The Mass Purge, leading to the labour camps, was only because of the purge of Stalin’s rivals in the Party, and not the reason why he launched it in the first place. Nevertheless, it was a plus for Stalin because he had control of the population. However, Hitler and events in Germany could have given Stalin an impetus to remove his rivals. In the end, the most important reason why Stalin launched the Great Purge was because of a combination of all the causes, Stalin wanting to crush any opposition to him and remove his rivals in the CPSU being of more relative importance than the others.
Was Stalin a success?
Stalin died in 1953, having been dictator of the largest and one of the most powerful countries on earth, the USSR. He retained his grip on power until the end and the methods he used while in power to advance to the true Communist State are known as ‘Stalinism’. It was partly these methods that enabled the USSR to become a superpower at the end of the Second World War but also contributed heavily to the ultimate collapse of the Communist system in Eastern Europe and Russia in 1989-91.
The majority of the Soviet people regarded Stalin, using his powerful cult of personality, as a success, and even today, many Russians regard him as their greatest leader. However, was Stalinism and Stalin simply responsible for one of the greatest social and economic catastrophes of the 20th century, which has left much of Asia and Eastern Europe paying the price for his incompetence, even in 1999?
Stalin’s abilities politically were clever. His cunning and skill enabled him to win the struggle for power after Lenin’s death 1924. He was in control of the most strategically important position in the CPSU, General Secretary, which gave him the power to appoint people sympathetic to him to the Central Committee and the Congress. Coupled with his successful ‘taking over’ of Lenin’s image as ‘Father of the Nation’, which he was, and his penchant for ruthless power politics out-manoeuvring Trotsky (1925), Zinoviev (1927) and Bukharin (1929) in the Politburo to become the dominant figure in there, his three opponents all dead on his orders in 1940, 1936 and 1938, he won the struggle at the very top by 1929. However, it was clear when he was appointed General Secretary in 1922 that the importance of the position and the ability Stalin used to manipulate for his own ends are the most important reason why he won the struggle for power.
In terms of politics in the USSR, Stalin was a success because he out-witted the other prominent members in the Politburo to become dictator of the USSR, but not a totalitarian one. If he was not a success and did not utilise his position to the utmost, he would have remained a paperwork man, unimportant in the Party hierarchy leaving the leadership to Bukharin or Zinoviev. In the end, this would have probably produced a more positive legacy in the USSR than the one that exists today. Nevertheless, politically Stalin was a success, but mainly due to his position. However, Stalin being a dictator with little opposition was a dangerous situation that presented the possibility of the fate of the country resting in one man’s hands, the scenario that happened with disastrous consequences.
The First Five-Year Plan 1928-32 can be interpreted as one of Stalin’s great successes or failures. It is both. The reasoning behind it is ambivalent. On one hand Stalin believed after the Arcos Raid and the massacre of Chinese Communists in Shanghai by Chaing Kai-Shek in 1927 capitalist intervention in the USSR was imminent and the economy needed to be transformed to cope with this threat. The founding for this is absurd because at no time were the capitalist countries going to intervene in the USSR. However, it was a catalyst for the transformation of the country economically. On the other hand Stalin accurately believed that the current system of NEP was not working favourably for the workers, and wanting to advance towards Communism as in the Marxist doctrine, and the USSR needed to catch up with the capitalist countries economically, because ‘we must do it in 10 years or we will go under’. The consequences of the FFYP were that the USSR became an industrialised country and this was carried on by the subsequent plans. This enabled the USSR to survive in the Second World War because new industrial centres were built over the Urals, in Central Asia and along the Trans-Siberian railway. If Stalin had not embarked on the FFYP the USSR would have crushed easily when Hitler invaded in 1941, and Stalin would have been a total failure without any debate because the country he was in control of would have become a part of the victorious Third Reich.
However, because of Stalin’s economic planning this did not occur. Nevertheless, the economic system set up was hardly adequate for the population, namely the workers. Although under NEP the workers were not fed properly because the peasants controlled food production, with the new system the workers faced bigger targets to achieve and more hardship. With a drive towards heavy industry, consumer goods were not produced so this gave the workers little incentive to work hard, ultimately leading to inefficiency and low productivity-an economic system that could not support a large country successfully, and one that eventually reached stagnation, with disastrous results. If Stalin had not adopted Veshenka’s idea of concentrating solely on heavy industry, there was Bukharin’s economic alternative staying to NEP, letting the peasants grow richer and henceforth the whole economy developing as a whole. Although this primitive free-market economy would have left the USSR in a better state economically than it is now, it was not a true Communist economy-everyone working for the common good and not for individual greed. Stalin’s command economy was truer to Marxist doctrine, but with its own streak of Stalinism made it a disaster and Bukharin’s alternative would have been better.
The FFYP was a success and a failure for Stalin, making him in this area appears both, but in the long term a failure. Although it proved vital in the survival of the USSR in the Second World War, and winning it, in the short term, in the long term it left a legacy of a command economy that was inefficient, under productive, gave the workers no incentive to work and made the worker’s living standards drop. Bukharin’s revised NEP alternative would have been better in the long term for the USSR, but it is unlikely to have survived and won the Second World War.
Collectivisation 1929-34 was a vitally important part of Stalin’s economic system being a short-term success, but again in the long term it had disastrous consequences for agriculture in the USSR. It gave Stalin control over food production and the peasants, thus ending NEP and the quasi-capitalist economic system in the USSR, theoretically bringing true Communism closer. However, this was not the case, and what proved advantageous for Stalin in the short term, and gave the appearance of him being a success because he had stamped out the capitalist peasants and could progress economically towards true Communism, was simply a cold blooded attempt to control the peasants as they had the key to the future of the USSR: food. Stalin mishandled the key. It did give the CPSU control over food production, which in turn enabled the industrialisation of the USSR to occur, because otherwise the peasants would have bled the project to death with their high prices.
However, it led to the most brutal act of control in the USSR because it irreparably damaged the agricultural system. The ‘kulaks’, peasants that disagreed with collectivisation, and often the most productive members of agricultural society, were brutally destroyed by deportation to camps and killings. Consequently the system was made less efficient because the people who were best at making the countryside were destroyed, leaving behind an under productive workforce. As well as the deliberately induced famine in the Ukraine 1933 this destroyed agricultural production there for years and demoralised the peasants in the USSR’s ‘breadbasket’. In the Ukraine, and across the USSR developed an inefficient collective farm system because of the demoralisation. This part of Stalin and Stalinism shows him as a failure to understand the needs of the agricultural sector of the economy because his system produced a legacy of inefficiency that led to the USSR having to buy grain from the USA in the 1970’s.
If Stalin had simply imposed his will on the countryside by stopping them from the buying and selling of food and persuading them of the Communist ideal of working for the common good, but otherwise leave the system untouched, this would have left a more efficient and productive system with the kulaks running their farms efficiently and productively than the mess which resulted from collectivisation. Although this seems a feeble alternative it is better than destroying the people that can reform the agricultural system better than Stalin ever could. Nevertheless, a degree of force was needed after the virtual civil war in the countryside under Lenin so Stalin had to rightly learn from past experience that the peasants needed force imposed on them to conform to reforming agriculture from merely subsistence farming and quasi-capitalist methods which were against the Communist ideal. However, Stalin went too far and destroyed agriculture in the USSR for years an in this aspect he is a total failure.
The Great Purge 1936-8 had far-reaching consequences socially, economically, militarily and politically for the USSR. For the paranoid Stalinist it destroyed the ‘enemies of the people’, people trying to kill Stalin and part of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite conspiracy. For the fairly balanced person it was a purge of the system to eliminate all opposition to Stalin’s rule and make ordinary people terrified of him. In terms of a dictatorship it was a success because it delivered total control over the population, making a totalitarian state. For the population Stalin was not a success because they were being oppressed and denied any real freedom, totally contradictory to the Communist ideal. Stalin, being paranoid, was convinced that everybody was out to kill him and this suspicions, as well as a desire to crush all his rivals after the Ryutin memo 1932 and the moderate Kirov’s popularity. It can be argued that the purges cleansed the USSR from all people opposed to Communism, but the people who were shot and arrested were some of the firmest believers in it.
In the course of the Great Terror, or Yezhovschine as the people called it after the head of the NKVD who orchestrated it and him being shot in 1938 and replaced by Beria, the whole of the USSR’s society was plunged into hell. Over 8 million people were arrested and one million shot. Socially, the USSR became a quiet, fearful society, people not daring to question the State lest they were taken away at night. It produced a society fearful of the State, where a foot wrong could mean a knock on the door in the middle of the night and then a bullet in the head in a dark prison. Economically, a system already laden with inefficiency and low productivity was plunged into further turmoil, with a deficiency of workers and peasants because they had been arrested, slowing down the development of heavy industry to the extent that the country nearly collapsed in 1941 with the German invasion. Militarily, with the removal of most of the officer corps and the shooting of the principal strategic minds of the Red Army, Marshal Tukachevsky, the Red Army was paralysed twofold. First, it was denied of original thinking or initiative, a consequence of which was that with the German invasion the generals were afraid to fight because Stalin had not told them and was responsible for the massive advances made by the Germans in 1941, and new tactics could not be tried because they might have constituted thinking against Stalin. Second, the Red Army was much disorganised to resist invasion in 1941 because there were hardly any officers and new recruits had to take their place.
Politically, the USSR was denied of progressing towards true Communism, instead settling for an elite that was totally subservient to one man, Stalin, and carrying out his distorted perception of Communism, Stalinism. It signalled a move towards a political elite that was detached from the population, corrupt and devoid of political thought, being replaced by greed. However, although the consequences of the Great Purge were disastrous for the people of the USSR, it shows Stalin as a success because it shows he does not take any opposition from anyone so he can pursue true Communism for the people and is a strong leader of a backward and dangerous country and to make it safer he removed the conspirators against him and the USSR. Nevertheless, the Great Purge, although confirming Stalin’s position as a strong leader and in total control of the USSR and everyone fearful of him, makes him a failure in this sense, because although being a success for him personally, it is a disaster for the population as it destroys their feeling of security, delayed economic and political development, and seriously compromised the military’s ability to resist the German invasion of 1941, which it nearly could not without huge sacrifices.
One factor of the Stalin era is the victory over Hitler and Germany in the Second World War, which undoubtedly shows Stalin as a success in these years if he is a failure in all other areas. Stalin rallied the people of the USSR, calling on them to fight for Mother Russia, and although most Russians fought out of intense patriotism it is unlikely this could have occurred without being inspired and led by the Father of the Nation-Stalin. It appears impossible how the USSR could have won against Germany, being pitched unexpectedly against the best army in the world, but victory was achieved through Hitler’s tactical mistakes and Stalin’s leadership of the country in a time of crisis. The placing of some of the new heavy industry beyond the reach of the German armies were instrumental in keeping war production going when factories in the European USSR were overrun, and the inspiration and leadership Stalin gave the people production of such things as the T-34 tank sky-rocketed.
The sheer scale of the sacrifice of the people of the USSR, some 20 million, showed the great ability of the country to pull together under the leadership of Stalin. The Red Army also won the most stunning victories over the superior Germans, but at a price, notably Stalingrad 1942-3, the greatest battle ever, with combined casualties of some 2 million. Kursk 1943, the biggest tank battle ever where the Red Army staved off an attempted pincer movement by the best Panzer armies and proceeded to crush the Germans. Berlin 1945, the only major battle to be fought in a major European capital city with the Red Army confronted by fanatical SS resistance whereas in the West the Allies had a relatively easy invasion of Germany. Although in these battles it was more down to the ability and initiative of generals like Zhukov, without Stalin authorising these operations victory could never have been achieved.
However, Stalin, although playing the major part in defeating Hitler, at the start of hostilities can be blamed for nearly losing the war. However, since this did not occur, Stalin is a success as regards to the Second World War. Nevertheless, the mistakes at the beginning showed his incompetence. The Nazi-Soviet Pact 1939, although could be interpreted as a clever move by Stalin, was not, because he never launched a pre-emptive strike on Germany and it was merely a stopgap for war in the East. What makes it even more of a failure for Stalin was that he never expected Germany to attack the USSR, which is very uncharacteristic because he was paranoid and suspicious of almost everyone, and not to be suspicious of Hitler after his notorious foreign policy is mere stupidity. The Red Army, because of the Army Purge were disorganised and unprepared for an attack, so when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa it was in disarray. Its generals were afraid to attack without orders from Stalin, they lacked initiative, the officer corps were so small the Army could not be managed effectively in the face of an invasion, and the grouping of armies along the border were like the First World War, all strung out and relying on the Stalin Line as the main defence, and could not cope with the modern tactics of the German Blitzkrieg.
The victory over Hitler in the Second World War shows Stalin, apart from some serious military grievances as a result of the Purges in the Red Army and a glaring oversight with the Nazi-Soviet Pact 1939, as a total success, because he won a total war of annihilation against a fascist-capitalist enemy against overwhelming odds and guided the people of the USSR through the struggle by inspiring increased armaments production and having a small hand in the three great battles on the Eastern Front that decided the course of the war there: Stalingrad 1942-3, Kursk 1943 and Berlin 1945.
Stalin died in 1953, while he was still in total power of the USSR, having built it up to a superpower status after 1945 despite the damage inflicted by the war. This is a remarkable achievement and proves Stalin is a success politically, using his own brand of ruthless power politics to remove any opponents that could threaten his power. If Stalin was not a success politically he would not have retained an iron grip on power until the very end, perhaps being replaced by one of the young Stalinist proteges in the Politburo, although the way this new generation got to where they were was through unquestioning obedience. Consequently, because of the Purge in the CPSU, Stalin effectively removed any possible opposition to his total power, which is an achievement, few Soviet or Russian leaders have been able to repeat.
The Cold War was one of Stalin’s last great misconceptions and another factor that makes him a failure. From 1945 Stalin was deeply suspicious of the West, particularly Churchill and Britain and later the USA. This was because, simply, they were capitalist countries, and with no common enemy left to fight, and West and East face to face in Germany the ideological difference became apparent, which grew into a rift between the two. This was primarily Stalin’s fault. He imposed Stalinist regimes on the liberated countries of Eastern Europe and when confronted by the West he perceived these regimes as democratic; they were for the workers and the common good, therefore democratic. His deep-seated suspicion of the capitalist countries was evident at Yalta 1945 and even more so at Potsdam 1946. This led to a catalyst of events that became the Cold War from 1947 with the Truman doctrine, a war without actual military confrontation, between the Communist bloc and the capitalist bloc.
This was a major mistake by Stalin because although powerful militarily, the Stalinist command economy could never develop fully, being burdened with the ensuing Arms Race between the two blocs. This was another of Stalin’s legacies, which ensured a military based economy when it could have been used to develop services to make life better in the USSR. The Cold War was a factor that made Stalin a failure, because it was a misconception that there must be a war between the Communists and capitalists, and it involved the conception of a military dominated economy that could not, in the long term, sustain the Arms Race against the USA, which had a better organised economy than the USSR.
Stalin’s legacies which still exist in Russia in 1999 are the main factors that effectively judge whether he is a success or failure for Russia, the land he adopted and took over. First is industry. Although Stalin industrialised the USSR and made it a major industrial power, the system had major flaws. Everything was controlled by the State, and with little incentive for the workers to work hard, the economy being geared to heavy industry and the military, and not consumer goods, this created gross inefficiency and low productivity, which continue still in some places in Russia today. Second is agriculture. The peasants had been demoralised by collectivisation and induced famine. Consequently as their ‘revenge’, they worked only at the bare minimum to supply the workers and not use the full potential of the USSR’s fertile soil. These two branches of the economy combined to make a grossly inefficient, huge State run economy which by the time collectivisation was complete had already built in its own self-destruct button, of which it would take only a matter of time before the system would collapse under its own incompetence.
From 1956-64, Khruschev tried to reform the system, to stop the impasse, but with him, being deposed his changes made no impact. Under Brezhnev 1964-82 the system continued unchanged, and stagnated. The system had effectively collapsed by the lack of reform. 30% of economic production was devoted to military expenditure, which meant although the USSR was a military superpower it had a third world economy. This military spending was prompted by Stalin being the main cause of the Cold War, creating a huge drain on the economy when it was already in need of reforming. From 1985, Gorbachev tried to cut military expenditure and reform the economy. A catalyst for this was Reagan and the SDI, a theoretical defence system that would nullify the USSR’s nuclear threat. Gorbachev realised whether it was put into practice or not the USSR had lost the Arms Race. The change came too late and events took their own momentum, the USSR and the Eastern bloc ceasing to exist by 1991.
If Stalin was a success, his legacy would be a good one that benefited the lives of Russians. It is not. It is a nightmare legacy of the greatest perversion of the Marxist doctrine into a totalitarian and kleptocratic state, in which the majority of the population has low living standards, military spending consumes most of the economy in an un-winnable battle against the most powerful economy in the world, the USA, and a small corrupt elite rules the masses for its own ends and not for the common good. That is the consequence of Stalin and Stalinism, a system that had built into it the capacity to self-destruct and which did in the end, a consequence Russian and the people of Asia and Eastern Europe are paying for still today.
The responsibility for this lies on Stalin, because he was in control of the USSR and decided what course it would take. But did he intentionally shape the USSR so that the state of affairs today would be the result? It is unlikely, but would be a cruel twist of fate in the turbulent history of Russia if it were true. Josef Vissarionovitch Dzhugashvili, Stalin, was a success politically because he won the struggle for power after Lenin’s death 1924 and retained this until his death in 1953, using the Purges to eliminate all possible rivals. This was a remarkable achievement. He saw himself as a success. He was also a success in the Second World War taking the USSR to victory against all the odds. However, in his incompetence over industry, the FFYP, and agriculture, collectivisation, plus the blunder of the Cold War he is a failure and his legacy is testament to that, the former USSR being ruined economically for countless years to come because of his perverted dream towards true Communism; Stalinism. Stalin was a success politically but a failure economically, with a lasting legacy on the former USSR and the rest of the world, a man who perceived himself as the ‘Father of the Nation’, but in fact a ruthless, paranoid, totalitarian dictator who is the best example of misinterpretation this century; he delivered Communism, the utopia, to the USSR as Stalinism, the dystopia.
