Internal situation (plan-based economy)

Thanks to NEP the Soviet economy started to develop. This resulted in a greater autonomy of the society. Peasants became main opponents of the Bolsheviks. Tradition consolidated families, making control from the outside difficult, and the food production made them the most independent group. The party rightly regarded them as a hostile group.

In 1927 Stalin decided to give up NEP - it was the beginning of the fight. Due to this decision the years 1927 - 1929 were the period of retreating from NEP objectives.  

 Obligatory contingents were restored. Different means of repression, characteristic of war communism, returned.

In December 1929 Stalin announced a programme of collectivisation of farming and the liquidation of kulaks as a class. Collectivisation was an obligatory liquidation of individual farms in order to create collective ones. The state wanted to have a total control over food supplies and indirectly over peasantry. By 1938 94% of farms had been part of collective farms. After a few decades the Russian peasant was again a tenant. All opponents were shot or deported.

The crimes were justified on the grounds of fighting with a non-existent enemy - kulak. The liquidation of kulaks meant deporting or murdering masses of people, notably richer peasant families. In the years 1930-1932 2 million people, presumed kulaks, were departed. Agricultural production decreased by 30%. A new wave of famine came, yet it seems that it was caused on purpose rather than by natural reasons. In 1932 passportisation was introduced - one could not change his habitation without a passport. Peasants were not given passports.  

Free market was liquidated; markets, shops, and artisan's workshops were closed. Pre-war intelligentsia lost their work. Students who could not prove the "right" social background were relegated from universities.

The year 1929 was the year of a new economic policy - plan-based economy. Five years plans were formulated, concerning iron and steel industry and re-militarisation. There was a secret budget for the industrial-military sector.  

The first five-year plan encompassed the years 1929-1932. Its main objectives were as follows: increase in economy and military power, self-sufficiency, collectivisation, increase in energetic power of the country. The plan stopped to operate before the end of the term, after 4 years and 3 months. The reason was an economic chaos, which resulted from a huge momentum of change under conditions of the agricultural crisis and technical underdevelopment.

For the needs of propaganda it was announced that the plan had been fulfilled before the end of the term. This brought good results both in USSR and in the Western countries, which were struck by a great economic depression.

Plan-based economy is connected with the creation of a system of camps, which took place in Russia. The development of this system was connected with an intense industrialisation foreseen by all five year plans. Prisoners were used as workforce. The biggest camp complexes were built in the regions of great socialist building sites, in the mining areas, and the regions of woodcutting. 10-12 million people are estimated to have been imprisoned at some stage. The death rate was high: 5-6%, sometimes even 20-25%, a year. Prisoners died because of the hard work, hunger, freeze, and uncured diseases. The biggest camps were in Kolyma (300,000 prisoners in 1953) and Vorkuta.

One of very few photographies showing lager (Soviet concentration camp). Ulike Nazis concentration camps lagers were photographed very rarely. Firstly there were poor technique in Soviet Union. Secondly there were no visitors from democratic countries who had seen the real face of communism.

In 1933 2nd five year plan started. The last years of collectivisation (1933-34) brought a new wave of famine. As opposed to the former famine of 1921-1922, this was partly provoked by the Party and aimed to conquer the opposition of Ukrainian people, kill the sense of nationality, and fight class enemies. Collectivisation caused a sudden decrease in production, the rebelling farmers slaughtered the cattle and ruined the fields; they did not work efficiently because they did not profit from their work. The government liquidated Kulaks - the most productive group. Russia imported similar amounts of food as before, in the years of the development of agriculture. Since the government did not break any contract for the export of cereals, in order to fulfil the amount described in the contracts, the army robbed the fields, taking away other food as well. On the territories that were struck by famine no import of food was introduced. Armed forces surrounded these territories not to allow people to escape. It is estimated that as a result of this "political famine" 6 million people died. Cannibalism appeared.

In 1930 the Purge began. A few years earlier in 1921 at the Congress of the Party a decision was made abolishing the creation of fractions within the Party. The internal fights started in the year of Lenin's death (1924), which caused a contest of control on Kreml. In a few years Stalin got rid of all competitors. In 1934 he employed the murdering of Kirov to introduce dictatorship. An era of terror started.

Made by Ania Zaremba, Vincent Yau and Kevin Jones