Effects Of Stalinization

To begin with, this book educated the reader about the past. Everyone in the Soviet Union looked up to the leader, Stalin, even though he wasn’t a good leader at all. He caused many problems for the citizens including uncomfortable living conditions. This book educates the reader by showing that back then even when people were treated badly, they still had to look up to their leader even though he was the cause of all

Stalin’s early promises compromised of socialism and a life free from exploitation in regards to his social policies. However, he soon realised his error and reverted to a more conservative form of rule, whereby the interest of the state was given priority. Many describe his soviet social policy during the 1930s as a ‘Great Retreat’, it was named this as his policies saw a return to earlier social policies under the Tsar and former leaders. It is debatable as to how far his actions were a retraction of previous decisions…and the areas impacted were women, family, and education. A common theme of the great retreat was the gender role in society.

The USSR showed great educational progress as it is shown in the statistics , the literacy was twenty-five percent in 1915 and it grew to ninety-nine in 1980. Another example of Russia’s social condition is the massive instability and genocides during 1937 and 1938. In Document C it states “According to declassified Soviet archives, during 1937 and 1938, the NKVD detained 1,548,366 victims , of whom 681,692 were shot -an average of 1,000 executions a day ( in comparison, the Tsarists executed 3,932 persons for political crimes 1825 to 1910-an average of less than 1 execution per week).” (Document C) it shows how the NKVD, the police force that carried out Stalin’s orders to keep his people from rebelling and having freedom of speech

The Great Terror was one of the single greatest loss of lives in the history of the world. It was a crusade of political tyranny in the Soviet Union that transpired during the late 1930’s. The Terrors implicated a wide spread cleansing of the Communist Party and government officials, control of peasants and the Red Army headship, extensive police over watch, suspicion of saboteurs, counter-revolutionaries, and illogical slayings. Opportunely, some good did come from the terrors nonetheless. Two of those goods being Sofia Petrovna and Requiem. Both works allow history to peer back into the Stalin Era and bear witness to the travesties that came with it. Through the use of fictional story telling and thematic devises Sofia Petrovna and Requiem, respectively, paint a grim yet descriptive picture in a very efficient manner.

Aleksander Nikitenko is notable for an extraordinarily detailed dairy kept from a very early age that provides an intimate view of Russian culture during the early 1800s. Aleksander’s written account, Up from Serfdom, offers a first-hand account of Russian history, making a rather insightful contribution to slave literature. This book is among one of the very few autobiographies ever written by a pre-existing serf. Despite being a bright child, Nikitenko was nevertheless one of the three hundred thousand serfs that were the personal property of the Sheremetiv family in Voronezh Province, whom possessed legal authority to dispose of the serfs as they wished. Nonetheless, through a remarkable turn of events, Aleksander, unlike other serfs

Ukraine’s hope and will was in the hands of the dictator Joseph Stalin. Joseph Stalin instilled a totalitarian government into Ukraine’s society. Moreover, Stalin tried to cut any threats that would affect his plan in making Russia a communist utopia, by using the secret police. But according to document 1, the Ukrainian’s were independent, rebellious people who believed strongly in their culture and traditional ways consequently, this caused much controversy with Joseph Stalin and the Ukrainian’s, such as Ukrainian’s not being able to speak up about the collectivization and not being able to practice different religions because of Russification. Likewise, Stalin used propaganda for in an effort of gaining support for collectivization, this

As he attempted this goal, he disregarded all those he would affect in the process, even if it meant the death to millions through genocide. This would eventually depict the negative aspects of Stalin’s tendentious rule. Josef Stalin’s first negative method of attempting to increase the power of Russia can be seen as his idea of collectivization. As seen in Document Four, collectivization is the Socialist way of an agricultural economy. “[The Government] is to set up collective farms and state farms…[through] the joining together of small peasant farms into large collective farms.” This method completely abolished any means of capitalism within society, such as the idea of individual gain. This would put the country in a state of great famine for peasants, as well as wealthy farmers, would revolt against the idea of a community farm. Working for the state instead of working for their individual self seemed to be an absurd idea, leading to a decrease in agricultural production for farmers refused to work under these conditions. Along with this, Stalin also introduced the “Great Purge” to the nation of Russia during his rule. The “Great Purge” is seen as the torture, exile, or execution of any being that opposed or threatened the ruling of Stalin. This was a method of instilling fear in his people in order to let Stalin rule in

Destalinization was a political reform launched by Soviet Communist Party First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev at the 20th Party Congress, otherwise known as the secret speech. The main components of the reforms were changing or removing prominent institutions that had helped Stalin remain in power; the Stalinist political system, political party members that had supported him (beginning with the arrest and subsequent execution of political rival Lavrentiy Beria) and the removal of the Gulag labour camp system.

The purges also saw a huge loss of original Bolshevik party members who had taken part in the original revolutions of February and October. It could be argued that the replacement of these individuals, among others, strengthened the party as it reduced threats to Stalin by removing prominent leading members and therefore potential rallying points for other dissidents. Lionel Kochan is of the opinion that `Stalin's purges did of course reveal the existence of widespread dissatisfaction and opportunist sentiment'. If this is true and there was real factional threat in the Communist party, then the purging of dissidents at a time when disunity could be fatal could be seen as strengthening the party and government and through them, the country. Repressed by the ideas of denouncement and the threat of arrest the party was united by fear, this had the added, beneficial effect of deterring outbreaks of resentment at the violence. This is perhaps not the best unifying factor, however, it insured obedience. This effect and the now open positions at the top would have been a strengthening factor for Stalin's position as he could select the individuals who would suit him; he

From Stalin’s Cult of Personality to Khrushchev’s period of De-Stalinization, the nation of the Soviet Union was in endless disarray of what to regard as true in the sense of a socialist direction. The short story, This is Moscow Speaking, written by Yuli Daniel (Nikolai Arzhak) represents the ideology that the citizens of the USSR were constantly living in fear of the alternations of their nation’s political policies. Even more, the novella gives an explanation for the people’s desire to conform to the principles around them.

The famine too was an assault on Ukraine’s rising nationalism, which threatened to remove the country from Soviet influence and thus undermine the Party as Stalin saw it. Thus, in those few months during which millions died, not only was the traditional Ukrainian village effectively destroyed, but much of Ukraine’s political and cultural elite were purged. Moreover, Russian settlers were brought in to repopulate the *devastated countryside, altering the country’s ethnic makeup. Take together, these factors severely retarded the country’s nation-building and nationalist ambitions, and it would not be until 1991 with the fall of the Soviet Union that the country would achieve independence. In this paper I will describe the events which led up to the famine, the famine itself, the subsequent Russification of Ukraine, the extent of Stalin’s knowledge and intentions toward Ukraine, explanations for the famine including the role of ideology and the importance of individual personalities, outside reactions from foreign nations and journalists, and the famine’s lasting impact.

The Ukraine was suspected of Rebellion early on and in order to keep their people from organizing, much like in Orson Well’s 1984, Stalin had ordered the intellectuals of the villages to be removed and either executed or put into prison camps he had set up to keep the rest of the people from gathering a rebellion.

It can be argued that Leon Trotsky’s naïve personality is what failed him in the attempt to achieve power, but through his intelligence and sturdy leadership, he shaped the Russian and International history to the way it is today. Through his main roles as ‘Commissar for Foreign Affairs’, ‘Commissar for War’ and the political position in the Politburo, Trotsky impacted society by his efforts in control and fight for power, and his aim to spread his communist ideals of ‘comintern’ (Communist

The Russian Revolution is a widely studied and seemingly well understood time in modern, European history, boasting a vast wealth of texts and information from those of the likes of Robert Service, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Allan Bullock, Robert Conquest and Jonathan Reed, to name a few, but none is so widely sourced and so heavily relied upon than that of the account of Leon Trotsky, his book “History of the Russian Revolution” a somewhat firsthand account of the events leading up to the formation of the Soviet Union. There is no doubt that Trotsky’s book, among others, has played a pivotal role in shaping our understanding of the events of The Revolution; but have his personal predilections altered how he portrayed such paramount

The conflict between the Ukraine and Russia is the Ukraine's most long-standing and deadly crisis; since its post-Soviet independence began as a protest against the government dropping plans to forge closer trade ties with the European Union. The conflict between Russia and the Ukraine stems from more than twenty years of weak governance, the government’s inability to promote a coherent executive branch policy, an economy dominated by oligarchs and rife with corruption, heavy reliance on Russia, and distinct differences between Ukraine's population from both Eastern and Western regions in terms of linguistics, religion and ethnicity (Lucas 2009).