From this prospective Russian expansionism was a key factor in the developments of the cold war. To the West Stalin was perceived as the “Red Tsar” seeking to extend the Soviet Union’s border and influence, the reason for this perception was because of the Soviet union’s: rigging of elections forming a communist government
Trotsky wanted to help communists in other countries to the revolution and push forward the revolution in the USSR. He wanted to end the NEP and introduce more socialist ways of running the economy; Stalin however believed they could build a fully economic state by helping the people within the USSR and not from outsiders. Members of the communist party like the policies of Stalin better than those of Trotsky’s, because they didn’t trust Trotsky to lead them into a better USSR. What Stalin meant by ‘socialism in one country’ was that the nations first was to consolidate Lenin’s revolution and the rule of the CPSU by turning the USSR into a modern state capable of defending itself against enemies, a majority of Russia’s population agreed with this. Although Zinoviev and Kamenev attacked Stalin calling a vote of no confidence in him, the ending of the NEP and a
The workers of the world had to be “liberated” from bourgeois exploitation. As the principle communist nation of the world, Russia had a duty to spread the revolution begun in 1919 to the rest of Europe. The view of many Marxist scholars was that the proletariat had been brainwashed by the rich, and thus were not capable of instigating a workers’ revolution themselves – therefore Communism had to be introduced by force. Stalin realised that the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe was a rare opportunity for Russia to act as this vanguard. Perhaps less importantly, though still a significant point in the domination of Eastern Europe, was the desire of Stalin to
However, it would be all too easy for one's opinion to be based entirely on the increase in agricultural output after 1928. Due to Collectivisation, grain productions rose to almost 100 million tonnes in 1937, allowing Russia to trade with other countries and strengthen their economy. This increase in productivity, though not a major change, was extremely important to Stalin if he wished to achieve industrialisation in such a small space of time. However this was not a drastic improvement and it is difficult to see how this, what would be considered, minor increase in output can be classed as a success. The fact that Collectivisation wasn't leagues better than the NEP in terms of productivity could be excused by its socialist nature.
This was sometimes called ‘Revolution from above. During the years 1928 to 1941 Stalin decided to introduce a series of reforms in order to radically change Russia’s economy. This would not only create a more prosperous country, but as well would stand out the figure of Stalin and would make him a memorable leader for his acts, moving of the way the image people had of Lenin as the real and unique leader Russia once had. During these years, through collectivisation and industrialisation (Five Year Plans), Stalin was able o successfully improve Russia’s economy. This was mostly due to his policies of collectivisation which made economic sense and forced a lot of peasants to leave the land, which was a process needed in order to change an agricultural rural society to an urban and industrial one as well s the fact that his industrialisation plan increased massively the heavy industry in Russia; the production of raw materials such as iron, coal, steel and oil all increased successfully.
After the 1905 revolution, Russia was in need of political and economic reform if it was to remain one of the world’s great powers and prevent another revolution from occurring. The answer to this was the October Manifesto. However, some of the Tsar’s attempts to reform made little change to Russia. The October Manifesto was published as a result of the 1905 revolution as a way to appease the peasants and to be seen as revolutionary change. The October Manifesto promised to create a parliament called the Duma.
Either we do this or they crush us.’’ Stalin wanted the USSR to modernise at such a fast rate that it would make up the 50-year gap in 10 years. The industry had to be developed to such an extent that the country, which had all along depended mostly on agriculture or farming, had to depend on industry more. Although Russia was recovering from war, its production from heavy industries was still low compared to other countries. Stalin felt that this needed to be improved if they were to survive any possible attack that might come from the capitalist West attempting to destroy Communist Russia. The USSR needed to invest in materials like coal, iron, steel and power to defend itself properly.
The increase in state procurement also meant that exports of grain increased. Grain exports peaked in 1931 with five million tonnes sold abroad. Although five million tonnes was the peak, 1931 was at the beginning of the Wall Street crash meaning that the grain would have been sold for minimum value. With machine tractor stations put in place to hand out fertiliser and other resources to the collectivised farms it was much easier for the government to keep control and watch over the peasants. The kolkhozy and sovkhozy collective farms were much easier to watch and control than traditional peasant villages.
There were two views on the Tsarism regime, the Liberal theory where they believed things were getting better and the regime could have survived and the Marxist theory where they believed the Tsarist regime was outdated and could no longer work and the masses would rise up. Although these two views were debated amongst the people of Russia it was not what made the revolution inevitable, different factors such as the war, food shortages, working conditions, etc.... are what mad the revolution inevitable as they showed the Tsar’s weaknesses and made him vulnerable. The main reasons why it was inevitable that Russia would face a revolution in 1917 was the War. This was one of the main reasons as the Tsar was over ambitious once he got to the Front, he thought they could win the war which meant pro-longing the suffering back in Russia, as the people thought the war was dragging on and that they were unlikely to win, therefore even more soldiers would die leaving the women and children without husbands, fathers or brothers. This made the people more frustrated with the Tsar as 10 million soldiers had already died, therefore they did not want the suffering to go on longer if they were not going to win.
For some peasants life did improve dramatically, Stolypin set up banks that would help peasants get loans and buy land. This was a huge improvement for peasants as they were getting more freedom, this may have been because they would murder their landlords. This lead to improvements in farming this therefore lead to an industrial boom and made Russia the world’s fourth largest producer of coal, pig iron and steel. Only 15% of peasants took up Stolypin’s idea though. As for the Dumas, they could not pass laws, could not appoint ministers and could not control finance.