To move towards a socialist society: • According to Marxist theory, socialism could only be created in a society where the majority of the population were workers – but in 1928, only 20% were workers in the USSR. To establish his credentials: • Stalin wanted to prove himself was the worthy succession of Lenin. • He wanted to make the leading Bolsheviks believe the he was Lenin’s equal. • He believed he could do this through his economic plan – he believed that by taking the USSR towards socialism would prove this. To improve standards of living: • Stalin knew the USSR had a bad standard of living was poor compared to the West, and wanted to catch up with them.
He believed in ‘Socialism in one country’ where the USSR would become strong enough to survive, then would take over the rest of the world. There is no doubt that his plans were successful in many ways, but would it be logical to call this phase an overall success when we consider the human cost, chaos, un-organization and the slip in overall living conditions in everyday life? Or are those flaws completely irrelevant as Stalin was a tyrannical leader who did what was necessary for the country to move the country forward and the deaths would probably be viewed as a necessary statistic. Stalin’s first plan (October 1928 – December 1932) was extremely far fetched, the plan lacked reality and rather random enormous statistics were demanded for the factories to produce. This was largely down to the two groups involved in the construction of the plan; the Gosplan (in charge of the wider plan – not the specifics) and the Vensenka (who were in charge of the specifics e.g.
Another ideological method that was central to his success of emerging as the leader of the Soviet Union by 1929 was accusations of Trotskyism . This was due to Stalin defending himself by accusing Bukharin of Trotskyism because Trotsky had been the first to make the claim about bureaucracy . This can be viewed as a weakness of Trotsky because this accusation of Trotskyism attempts to show that Trotsky’s ideology was far from Leninist . This greatly caused decline in Trotsky’s support because many wanted a leader who was close to Lenin and followed Lenin . Therefore , this is one of Stalin’s strengths because he was
Which motives were most decisive? How far were economic problems responsible for Stalin’s decision to replace the New Economic Policy in 1928 with the first Five-Year Plan? There seemed to be various reasons why Stalin decided to replace the New Economic Policy with the first Five-Year Plan in 1928. These included economic problems, the role of ideology, a fear of invasion and political considerations. Although economic problems certainly were an important reason for Stalin’s decision, the most significant reason must have been political, since the consolidation of his power position had always been Stalin’s prime concern.
In 1928, Joseph Stalin became one of the world’s most contentious leaders. During the period that Stalin was in control of mother Russia, he transformed the Soviet Union into a modern super power. He used certain methods to change Russia. He did this by modernizing the Russian economy with his Five Year Plans. He also increased industrial and agricultural production with his policy of collectivization.
Other than Witte the only Russian Leader to have made such a big of an impact on Russian industrialisation is Stalin and his five year plans. His time in power saw the narrowing of the gap between Russia and the west which surely was a sign that Russia was on the right path, but it’s important to remember the Wall Street crash of 1929 sparked a worldwide depression, which allowed Russia to catch up in a sense since the depression prevented the west from experiencing any type of growth. Since Industrialisation became a key focus point for each leader, a main issue which had to be dealt with was the creation of large population of inner city workers, who would primarily work in the cities. Before Witte’s Great Spurt the percentage of the population who were workers made up around 0.75% of the population, during and after his Great Spurt this figure rose to approximately 1.25%. This is in stark contrast to the west where the average percentage of the population in work was much higher.
There were many short and long term effects of the Russian revolution. Firstly the short term effects following the Russian revolution were that Lenin hoped the constituent assembly (parliament) would show the rest of Russia how good the Bolsheviks could be for the Russian nation and how popular their leadership was. However they only gained 161 seats, compared to the social revolutionaries who won 267 seats. Obviously the Bolsheviks had become popular in Petrograd, but beyond the capital the population hadn’t been more in favour of the social revolutionaries and hadn’t been convinced by Lenin’s promise yet. In reaction to this, he shut down the assembly in order to keep power for himself.
Andrew Wodarcyk Freshman English Mr. J. Pharion 11 February 2008 Communism During the Russian Revolution Communism was founded on the ideas of Karl Marx and failed because of flaws in the system, mainly in the leadership. To understand why communism failed, one must have researched the principles of Marxism; because of the way that Communism was based upon Marxism. To compare and contrast Communism and Marxism, it would be necessary to research the principles of Communism also. Since there were three leaders during the time of Soviet Communism, understanding the principles of each would be necessary. The first was Vladimir Lenin, whose style of government was referred to as Leninism.
By 1946, unemployment was reduced to 2.5% and this was in spite of huge post war problems such as shortages of raw materials and massive war debts. One way in which the government kept almost full employment was through nationalisation where the government took control of certain industries such as iron and steel production. Under this managed economy the government could use tax to keep an industry afloat even if it faced economic difficulties. This is a controversial topic as it was unclear how significant nationalisation was in creating jobs. Above all the Marshall plan was created as an initiative to provide massive loans for post war reconstruction and both the unemployment benefit and the massive rebuilding programme helped relieve idleness.
Finally the failures of the Provisional Government made them vulnerable which coincidentally worked to advantage the Bolsheviks. Personally, I believe that the vulnerable position of the Provisional Government, timing of the governments mistakes, discontent of the soldiers as well as the workers and the occasional guidance from other Bolshevik leaders, was exploited by Lenin, alongside his popular policies and leadership skills he catalyzed the revolution that was inevitable, planning it in such a way that it would benefit long term and not short-term as it had done in 1905 and February 1917. In disagreement, the failures of the provisional government to make the correct decisions led to the Bolsheviks’ success because the Bolsheviks were efficient in using this time to take control of the vulnerability of the Provisional Government which had caused this upon itself. The first mistake was allowing Lenin return from Germany in April as a part of democracy terms, since Lenin, despite being