First Five Year Plan 1928-1932
- Command Econ
- Heavy Industry
- Targets-only oil met (industrial growth = impressive)
- slave labour
- collectivization
Collectivization
- Collective farms or “kolkhozes”
- modern machinery
- less labour - extra to industry
- increase production to
- feed industry workers
- sell to pay for industry
Results
- peasents resisted
- 1931 - 53% of peasants collectivized
- 1932 - 62 % of peasants
- 1937 - 90% of farmland collectivized
- agricultural production dropped
- blamed on kulaks
- famine
Kulaks
- wealthy peasants resisted
- not permitted to join collectives, poor land, high taxes
- gulags
- other peasants “voluntarily” joined collectives!
Third Plan 1937 - ?
Focus on consumer goods but WW2
Results of 5 year plans
- purges
- targets seldom met BUT econ expanded greatly
- 1937 = 90% of peasants on collectives
- large urban population
- 1935- living standards improved; education & healthcare
- Costs were appalling !
Great Terror
- purges: to destroy perceived enemies
- dec. 1934 = Kirov
- Secret police
- Cheka 1917-1922
- OGPU 1923-1934
- NKVD 1934-1954
- KGB 1954
Stalin used purges to destroy his perceived enemies
Victims of the purges
- Menshevik
- Old Bolshevik
- Intellectuals
- Professionals
- Comintern Leaders
- Trotskyites
- Army Officers
- The Purgers themselves were purged!
Show trials
- Kamenev
- Zinoviev
- Bukharin
purges 20% of red army
cult of personality
use of radio broadcast is significant
Stalin's 1936 Constiution
What conclusions can be made from the opening chapter of Stalin’s Constitution?