To achieve self- sufficiency: • Stalin wanted to make the USSR less dependent – especially on Western manufactured goods. • It was important that the USSR had a strong industrial base to produce the goods people needed. • He wanted to make Russia more self-sufficient and less dependent. To increase grain supplies: • Stalin wanted to end the dependence of the economy on a backward agricultural system – he did not want the new socialist state to depend on the peasantry for agricultural supplies. 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.
How far did the aims and key features of the Five-Year Plans change in the years 1928-41? Aims and features changed: * Aimed originally to catch up with the Western economies that were about 100 years ahead of the USSR. * To manufacture weapons in order to defend against invasion from capitalist countries. * Aimed to continue socialism as it was believed socialism could only exist in a highly industrialised nation. * Aimed to improve conditions for the working class as Stalin believed the revolution was a working class one, and had seen how the peasants prospered but the working class did not under the NEP.
West versus East 1. Truman cut off aid to Russia because of Stalin's insistence on having communist governments in eastern Europe. 2. By 1947, many Americans believed that Stalin was trying to export communist revolution throughout Europe and the world. 3.
Industrialization was creating even more towns, increasing this problem. So in order to feed his industrial workforce Stalin needed to revolutionize agriculture. He achieved this through forced grain seizure and the prosecution of kulaks and forcing peasants to work together in ‘collectives’. By doing so he was able to secure extra grain to feed the growing urban population of workers and sell the surplus to gain foreign currencies for purchasing foreign machineries. Though collectivisation may have had short term boosts to the economy but the effects of collectivisation were disastrous.
During the beginning of the 1900s, there were plenty of revolutions and violence that took place. The Chinese revolution in 1911 and Russian Revolution in 1917 shared similar goals, they wanted to end the power of their current leader and establish a new one. For Russia, it was Tsar Nicholas II and for China it was the Qing Dynasty, Russia wanting a functioning communist government and Chinese revolutionaries wanted a democratic government. The first outcome is different in that China relied on agriculture to maintain its economy and Russia relied on industry to fuel its economy. The second outcome of the revolutions was that the countries were dramatically changed, two great powers were stopped and communist leaders eventually took over in the two countries.
The Soviets strived for communism, where everyone, at least in principle, had equal shares and no one was above another, while the United states wanted to spread their values of democracy to re-developing countries across the globe. Communism was seen as such a threat to the United States because they believed the Communist Party wanted to spread and take over the entire world and the U.S. insisted that they were a force that must be stopped. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers was a key film, made during this time period that reflected greatly on the themes of the Cold War. In the film the protagonist, Miles, is a once sane, intelligent doctor who has been strung out, by many strange events that indicate an alien invasion is happening into a hysterical man. It starts out with relatives and children accusing loved ones that they’re not really themselves, that they have no emotions.
As he abandoned the party’s monopoly on political power and machinery controls, the Moscow leadership declined and harsh regulations were de-imposed. Now there was no means to prevent disintegration. 36. Why was the independence of Russia significant to the disintegration of the USSR? Russia was the largest and most powerful of the Soviet Republics.
Question #70: Analyze the strategies, successes and failures of two of the listed enlightened despots in Eastern Europe (Catherine the Great, Frederick the Great, Joseph ll). During the mid 18th century to the late 18th century Catherine the Great of Russia and Frederick the Great of Prussia had many more successes than failures. Catherine and Frederick improved their country through wars. Catherine’s reforms did not promote equality and Frederick did not gain any power in the Seven Years’ War. Catherine sought to westernize Russia and Frederick used war to bring together Prussia.
During the 1950’s and 1960’s the Soviet Unions satellite states established the Brezhnev doctrine. The Brezhnev Doctrine was established because of the Soviet Union’s ability to maintain such governmental control over Eastern Europe. An intervention of such domestic affairs with military power provided the Soviet Union a unique Political power. Surprisingly by the 1970’s the Soviet Union and the United States of Americas formed a treaty agreement to reduce the nuclear missiles both possessed. Nuclear missiles were the reasons such turmoil was established between the Soviet Union and other nations.
Stalin’s country nicknamed themselves the “Soviet Union” and he got Roosevelt and Churchill to agree that he and the Soviet Union could declare war on Japan once Hitler and Germany were defeated. They also agreed that an organisation called the United Nations was to be set up, here all the powerful people from each country could discuss issues with each other and ask for help. Roosevelt and Stalin pushed away their previous arguments and seemed to become friends. However they met again in a city called Yalta, in Russia, and, upon discovering there closeness to the defeat of Germany, they decided more conditions and policies for when defeat had been reached. They