THE HOUSE THAT STALIN BUILT

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THE HOUSE THAT STALIN BUILT
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The power structure of the Russian State

• The Tsar
• The Boyars (chiefs of bureaucracy)
• The intelligentsia (middle class, small layer)
• The Narod (Common People)

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The Origin of the Soviet Union

• First World War Russia fights against Germany
  and Austria.
• Russia becomes exhausted, the last Emperor
  Nicholas II abdicates.
• Lenins Bolshevik party overthrows the
  provisional government on 25th October / 7th
  November 1917.

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Vladimir Lenin (1917-1924)
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What was Bolshevism?

• 1903 Lenin splits the Socialist movement instead
  of working through parliamentary means
  (menshevism or Social Democracy), he advocates a
  dictatorship of the proletariat.
• The Russian revolution was the first proletarian
  revolution. The Bolshevik party renamed
  Communist.
• Lenin unleashes terror in the name of class
  warfare.
• In 1921, with the Civil War over, Lenin announces
  the New Economic Plan, allows small business to
  thrive.

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The Soviet Empire?

• USSR occupies most of territory of the former
  Russian Empire.
• Exceptions Finland, Poland, Baltic States
  (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) which become
  independent in 1918 (and were reabsorbed after
  1945).
• 1924 Lenin dies, Georgian Bolshevik Josef Stalin
  consolidates power.

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Josef Stalin (1924-1953)
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What was Stalinism?

• 1920s saw rise of Fascism in Germany, Italy war
  inevitable to defend the only communist country
• Socialism in one country meant building a
  powerful industrial state
• 1928 First Five-Year Plan to raise production.
• Millions arrested, used as slave labour in
  construction
• Electrification of the country dams and canals

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Collectivization of Agriculture

• Decision to sell grain abroad to purchase
  industrial equipment
• Peasants forced into collectives, contributing
  their own livestock, land, equipment
• Industrialization of agriculture tractors and
  combines
• Partly class war against peasants

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Holodomor

• In 1933 the crops fail, Soviets confiscate grain
• Millions die of starvation in the villages,
  especially in Ukraine
• Was it genocide by Russians against Ukrainians?

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Collectivization of agriculture

• Theory
• increased output possible due to concentration,
  mechanization
• Doubtful results
• eradication of peasants motivation
• Millions of people are starved to death when land
  and food is confiscated
• Soviet agriculture permanently disabled

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Industrialization

• Introduction of ambitious 5-year plans
• Successful development of heavy industry.
• Tractors, trucks, planes, Moscow metro
• Soviet Union becomes a sophisticated industrial
  power
• Massive exploitation of prisoners work. Labour
  camps.
• Stalins utopian projects White (Belomor) Sea
  Canal

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PURGES THE GREAT TERROR

• Elimination of political rivals
• murder of Sergei Kirov (1934)
• show trials of fellow Bolsheviks
• the Great Terror (peak in 1937)
• Millions arrested, shipped to Siberia, worked to
  death in the GULAG camps

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Gulags Labour camps
Official police data. Reported to Stalin by
Minister Kruglov. Source Ahlberg 1992
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Why the Terror?

• Stalin falsified history to eliminate Trotsky
  from the history books
• Wrote his own History of the Communist Party of
  the Soviet Union exaggerating his own role
• Feared a coup détat and his own replacement by
  Trotsky, in exile in various countries
• Trotsky finally murdered in Mexico City by a
  Soviet agent in 1940

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Socialist Realism

• Term invented in 1932 to set Soviet policy on
  literature as the central art-form.
• Promulgated at the first Congress of Union of
  Soviet Writers (1934) by Zhdanov.
• Objective to control literature and make it
  serve Stalins objective of Socialism in one
  country.
• To replace ambiguous (hence dangerous)
  avant-garde art forms with more traditional ones.

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The Cultural Program

• Zhdanovs assignment develop model of
  organization for all the arts.
• Use the creation of artists unions to reward and
  control dachas and royalties for the compliant
  poverty and eventual arrest for the
  uncooperative.
• Literature model later applied to film, visual
  arts, music, even architecture.

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Ever Higher(Serafima Riangina, 1934)
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• Voloshyn, Reconstruction of Dnieper Hydro Plant,
  1947

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The Worker and the Collective Farmer(??????? ?
??????????) Vera Mukhina

• Created for the 1937
• International Exhibition in
• Paris re-erected in the
• Exhibition of Economic
• Achievements, Moscow
• Recently restored

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Stalin as an organizer of the October
Revolution by Karp Trokhimenko
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Roses for StalinBoris Vladimirsky
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Socialist Realism Meaning?

• Formula worked out by Maxim Gorky
• Literature must be realistic (i.e., believable).
• Appeal to the newly literate masses of workers
  and peasants.
• Party-minded (Marxist-Leninist)
• Optimistic apotheosis at end.

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Sotsrealism in literature

• Bildungsroman about the education of an
  individual with whom the reader is supposed to
  identify.
• young positive heroof correct class background,
  i.e., son of worker,
• overcomes difficulties thanks to help of older
  Bolshevik, perhaps party member,
• triumphs over difficulties at the end and has his
  consciousness raised.

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Socialist Realist FilmLiubov Orlova in film
Circus.
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The Prelude to WarMolotov-Ribbentrop pact 23
August 1939.

• Germany and USSR
• secret protocols divide
• Eastern Europe into
• spheres of interest.
• USSR granted Eastern
• Poland, Estonia, Latvia,
• Lithuania, Finland and
• Bessarabia (Moldavia).

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Execution of Polish Officers

• In 1939 some 20,000 Polish officers surrendered
  to Soviets
• In 1940 Stalin gives the order for them to be
  executed
• Why? they pose a risk in case of invasion they
  represent a hostile force
• Falsification of history Soviets claim they were
  murdered by the Germans

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THE SECOND WORLD WAR(THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR)

• June 22, 1941 Germany invades USSR.
• Defence of Moscow and Leningrad
• July 1942 - February 1943 the Battle of
  Stalingrad
• Generals win battles, economies win wars.

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Victory!

• In 1945 USSR is superpower.
• Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, part of Poland,
  Moldavia all absorbed into USSR.
• German city Königsberg (Kaliningrad) becomes
  Soviet.

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The Cold War

• Soviet bloc of occupied countries is formed
• East Germany (GDR), Poland, Czechoslovakia,
  Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria.
• Winston Churchills Iron Curtain speech (Fulton,
  Missouri, 1946

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Personality Cult

• Stalin as an Icon
• Religious-style indoctrination
• Forged history
• Stalin Motherland
• People cried when he died
• Denounced by Nikita Khrushchev on 25 February1956
  at 20th Communist Party congress.
• Most popular leader in Russia today