The Soviet Union Essay

later, brought rural farmers’ grievances into the picture after their land was destroyed during the

In the beginning of 1932, the Soviet government had sharply increased the Ukraine's production quotas in the collectivized farms. This ensured that the people would not be able to meet them. This resulted in an even larger widespread of starvation. In the summer of 1932, Stalin ordered a decree that called for the arrest or execution of any person that was caught taking any amount of grain or food item from their place of work. This led to military blockades stationed around many Ukrainian villages, preventing food from coming in and the starving people from going out in search of food. Soviet guards were brought into the villages to confiscate any hidden grain. Eventually all food from any farmer’s home was taken. When news of the Famine reached the outside world, food supplies were sent from the United States and Britain, however through Stalin, the shipments were denied and new policies from the Soviet Union that denied their part in the famine refused all outside aid were instilled. Stalin refused entry even to journalists, as he feared the media would reveal the Soviet Unions’ crimes against the Ukraine.

The next step in Stalin’s plan was to attack the independent land owners, known as Kulaks. In 1928, he created a program called agricultural collectivization. This scheme forced farmers to give up their livestock and land and join “collective farms,” which run like factories. These farms not only fed city workers but also provide grain to be sold to other countries. Stalin used the money he made from these farms to finance his Communist agenda. In 1929, Stalin wiped out any independent Ukrainian farmers who rebelled against collective farms. In 1930, they were stripped of their houses, packed into trains, and shipped to Siberia. Approximately one million Ukrainian peasants were left without shelter, food, and water. Many of them froze to death from the icy tundras of Siberia (Babij).

Collectivisation had a big impact on Russia for both positive and negative reasons; it was a failure in the aspect that it caused ‘chaos in agriculture’ and due to the problems caused, millions died due to famine and poverty in the short term. ‘Grain harvests dropped dramatically’ during the early 1930s and took until the late 1930s for yield to rise again. However, in the long run, a food surplus was secured and so could be used to feed and pay for the industrial workforce needed for the 5-year plan. It was also incredibly significant in history as it showed how much control Stalin had over Soviet Russia and the fear that the peasants lived in; for example if they were caught stealing even just a few pieces of grain they could be executed or imprisoned for up to 10 years. The lasting impression that is received from the wide tolerance of this policy was how small and insignificant the few rebellions were that were organised. This further demonstrates the power and influence held over the peasants during this period of time.

The 1980’s were a dynamic time in the life cycle of the Cold War. The early portion of this decade, which saw massive shifts in the administrations of the United States and Soviet Union, maintained an atmosphere of suspicion, wariness, and skepticism. This theme of uncertainty and caution was the logical product of decades of both American and Soviet duplicity, confrontation, and militarization. Yet, despite this mistrust between the polar Cold War belligerents, and contrary to the early rhetoric of the Reagan administration, the United States and Soviet Union modified their perceptions of each other’s intentions following 1985’s Reykjavik Summit, which, despite producing no tangible results, established common desire for arms reduction and a conclusion of the Cold War. This warming of relations, however, increased at a gradual rate and encountered significant hurdles as the two nations attempted to limit the potential for thermonuclear war. Ultimately, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev’s “dialogue of the eyes” transitioned from one administration to the next, while also weathering significant domestic pressures as the United Soviet Socialist Republic disintegrated.

Nearly eighty years ago, Ukraine, “the breadbasket of Europe” suffered an awful famine caused by the Soviet Union. The starvation affected nearly every part of Ukraine, but it was most murderous in the south and east regions of the republic. On January 5, 1930, the Communist Party started Collectivization, the most inefficient agricultural system in existence, which is when trouble began to brew. This process forced all peasants to live on different food surrogates. Because they endured communal farming in their past, the Russian peasantry did not revolt against Moscow. The Ukrainian peasants, on the other hand, were used to an independent and individualized farming tradition, so the Russian communism was completely foreign to them, and they opposed Moscow bitterly. The slaughtering of their livestock before joining was one way the Ukrainian farmers showed disapproval to collectivization. The government later passed a death penalty for this kind of action. Although the Holocaust in Ukraine had been just as cruel as the rest of it anywhere else during World War II, many history books overlook the terrible genocide

This decree passed all the land, whether it be state, monetary, peasant, church, private, or public, on to those who could cultivate it. As long as one is able to cultivate the land, they were able to maintain possession of the land. This is backed by number 4 of the decree stating “The right to use the land shall be accorded to all citizens (without distinction of sex) desiring to cultivate it by their own labor, with the help of their families, or in partnership, but only as long as they are able to cultivate it.” In the result of disability, a village is able to assist one in the cultivation of their land for up to two years or until they are able to cultivate it again themselves. In the result of old age or permanent disability, one loses their right to the land and also receives a pension from the state. Along with Lenin, Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the USSR from 1929-1953, also highlights the issues he believed were the greatest problems with the “free market” ideologies of capitalism in “The Tasks of Business Executives.” Through this source, Stalin talks of the government that they wish to establish in Russia as “a system which is free of the incurable diseases of capitalism and which is greatly superior to capitalism” (document 79, page 349). Stalin wished to reform the USSR economy because he recognized distinct issues within the free market ideology. He refers to the issues with the free

The Cold War was a state of tension between the Soviet Union and the United States soon after WWII had ended. The war was deemed “cold’ because there was no direct fight between the two key countries. When World War II ended, there were only two super powers left and both had intentions of spreading their incompatible ideological system across the globe. Soviet’s Communism and the United States’ Capitalism were the different views that sparked the Cold War. Problems started when the USSR started its expansionism in Eastern Europe which went against the rules brought about in the Yalta Conference. The Yalta Conference was the meeting of the heads of governments of United States, United Kingdom and the Soviet Union (Brinkley p. 655). The conference was designed to prepare a post-war peace plan. The United States saw the Soviet’s expansion as a threat so they planned to contain the growth of communism. Under President Truman, the United States aided countries in Europe to stop the spread of communism. This aid cost the United States approximately 400 million dollars which went to the Greek and Turkish governments. The Cold War had a massive impact on numerous countries around the world with proxy wars occurring in places like Korea and Vietnam. While the war was pulling other countries into conflict, the United States was being influenced as well. Fear and a shift in opinion of homosexuals were present in the time of the Cold War and even continued when the Cold War came to an

As a part of this Five Year Plan the Soviet leaders conducted a massive reorganization of privately owned farms into collective (state-owned) farms and imposed high crop requisition allocations. It was the sale of the crop yields that was to pay for industrialization and independent farmers were forced to give up their private land to the state along with their livestock and equipment, without compensation. These independent farmers became workers of the collective farm, and they would only be paid if the “collective farm” (Sazonova, 2007) met the standardized

The genocide in the USSR is connected with the policies of social engineering carried out under Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union in the late 1920s against the Kludks. Kludks are farmers or peasants that were referred to as vampires by the previous leader Lenin. On January 1990 communist party of Ukraine adopted a policy. Stalin felt that Ukrainian nationalism through religion and culture could overpower the people's loyalty to the USSR (Soviet par. 2). Later the law of “Five Ear of grain” was put into act, anyone who was caught stealing would be shot or imposed for stealing from the “socialist party” (par. 3). Quotas for grains were raised and blockades were formed around villages blocking any imports or exports leaving the villages

When Lenin and the Bolsheviks officially came into power, the pressure from peasants could not be ignored. Lenin adopted a number of policies between the years 1918 to 1921 known as War Communism. These policies of War Communism targeted peasants, there was forced grain requisitioning, banning of private trade and labour discipline. Unsurprisingly, the peasants acted bitterly and began to lose support of the government, as seen in source B. This source is a propaganda poster used by the Bolsheviks in the 1920’s, when the Provisional

It is reported that entire villages were executed by the Cheka for being even vaguely associated with counter-revolution. Due to the reforms of the Tsars, peasants’ landholdings increased at a slow pace but without violent disturbances, which ensured a steady growth of production and prosperity. This cannot be said about peasant life under the Bolsheviks. Under Bolshevik rule

land reforms for the peasant farmers, and made many other reforms. The Russian citizen’s needs

In some ways Nicholas II impacted the modernisation of Russia’s agriculture. Firstly, the government introduced bank loans to help enable peasants to buy land as kulaks were the only ones able too due to their wealth. Furthermore, peasants were allowed to buy strips of land and combine them to make plots, this along with buying farms from their neighbours would encourage more efficient productivity and in 1913 it was a record harvest. Peasants who sold their land became poorer labourers as they ended up wandering the countryside or looking for work; 400,000 peasants were encouraged by the government to migrate along the Trans-Siberian Railway towards the East however all the best land was taken forcing half to return to Western Russia and find

In his academic journal on agricultural policies in civil war era Russia, research associate of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University Kazuo Nakai touches on the destructive effects of the Bolshevik requisitioning policies on Russia during the civil war. He says, “The process of grain requisition was crazy and the real amount of grain held by middle-class peasants was not taken into consideration. … and it provoked anti-Soviet feeling among the peasants, especially against the policy of grain requisitioning” (Nakai 49). Not only was grain requisitioning sloppily advised and executed, it also created a strong feeling of resentment towards the Bolshevik regime, only furthering the mindset that caused civil war to begin with. Anti-Soviet feeling among Russian peasants could only add fuel to the fire of the civil war, having detrimental effects on Russia as the nation sunk deeper into war and desperation. In order for grain requisitioning to be successful, Bolshevik officials had to confiscate grain from the Russian peasantry and then parcel out the supplies to the armed forces and starving Russian citizens. The Bolshevik government was largely