History Of The Ussr Essay

Propaganda flourished in the public as posters, newspapers, and other print media all praised Stalin, communism, the military, and his ideals. Soviet schools were controlled by Stalin from nursery to college. [“Censorship under Stalin.”] Industrialization allowed women to gain more rights in the workforce (factories). Other groups were not as lucky. From 1941-1949, Stalin ordered mass deportations and sent 3.3 million Ukrainians, Poles, Koreans, Greeks, Bulgarians and Jews to Siberia and Central Asian Republics. [Languages Of The World, 10 Mar. 2015,] Collectivism and industrialization were his two biggest economic policies under his Five Year Plan implemented in 1928. The idea of collectivization was meant to allow peasants to grow crops on the farms using machinery tractors from the state. Peasants would be compensated and they would keep a small plot of land near their homes for personal use. Stalin wanted to see increases in the USSR’s crop growth quickly. By the end of 1931, the goal set for grain was met but there was a drop in the grain production. Many factors that caused this. Stalin’s activists did not have a wide range of farm knowledge or the skills. Also, the amount of animals were not enough to pull the plows because the hungry peasants ate them. A drought occurred throughout large parts of the USSR and Ukraine during 1931-32. Because all of this, collectivism ultimately failed.

In the period after World War II, from the late 1940’s up until the 1990’s, the United States and their allies were engaged in a “cold” war with the Soviet Union and its allies. Except for minor proxy wars between countries supported by the respective sides, no major wars were fought between the U.S. and the USSR. Nonetheless, tensions were extremely high for many years and the two superpowers constantly went back and forth trying to best the other. Likely the most well-known of these competitions was the Space Race. Battling for cosmic supremacy from the late 1950’s to 1969, the two countries traded many victories over the years and pushed each other to their technological apexes.

The Soviet Union was founded in 1922 with Lenin as its first leader. During these years Stalin was able to move up the party ladder. In 1922 Stalin became Secretary general of the Central Committee of the communist party. This role a loud him to appoint his allies to government jobs. This helped him grow his base of political support. In 1924 after Lenin died Stalin was able to out maneuver his rival and gained control over the communist party. By

Stalin’s policy priorities were not building a ‘worker’s paradise’ or a classless society, but protecting Russia from war and invasion. In 1928, Stalin launched the first of two ambitious five-year plans to modernize and industrialize the Soviet economy. These programs brought rapid progress – but also significant death and suffering. Stalin’s decision to nationalize agricultural production dispossessed millions of peasants, forcing them from their land to labor on gigantic state-run collective farms. Grain was sold abroad to finance Soviet industrial projects, leading to food shortages and disastrous famines in the mid-1930s. Soviet Russia was dragged into the 20th century, transforming from a backward agrarian empire into a modern industrial superpower – but this came at extraordinary human cost.

Once eliminating Trotsky, Stalin’s idea of, “socialism in our country,” inevitably meant that Russia needed strength. The productions in the USSR had almost reached pre-war levels by the mid-1920s, but the population of Russia had also increased by 20 million people. No matter, Stalin assured that maximum efforts and resources would be given to the expansion and strengthening of Russia herself rather than an effort to start a revolution elsewhere. This is explained in his famous 1931 speech, gaining power for himself. The people had nowhere else to turn to and needed a leader. Stalin was there and knew what to do to make the people interested in his ideas, thus acquired their trust and control. From these ideas, he created his first

The Soviet Union, which was once a world superpower in the 19th century saw itself in chaos going into the 20th century. These chaoses were marked by the new ideas brought in by the new leaders who had emerged eventually into power. Almost every aspect of the Soviet Union was crumbling at this period both politically and socially, as well as the economy. There were underlying reasons for the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and eventually Eastern Europe. The economy is the most significant aspect of every government. The soviet economy was highly centralized with a “command economy” (p.1. fsmitha.com), which had been broken down due to its complexity and centrally controlled with corruption involved in it. A strong government

In 1917, Russia was crumbling into pieces. The World War I was draining all of Russia’s resources. There was shortage of food throughout the country, which left people starving. At the battlefront, millions of Russian soldiers were dying, they did not possess many of the powerful weapons that their opponents had. The government under Czar Nicholas II was disintegrating, and a provisional government had been set up. In November of 1917, Lenin and his communist followers known as the Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government and set a communist government in Russia. However, in 1924, Lenin died and Josef Stalin assumed leadership of the Soviet Union, which was the name for the communist Russia. Stalin was a ruthless leader who brought

Stalin thought that Russia was far behind the rest of the western world. He devised a 5 year plan to get Russia up to speed with the rest of the world. This is similar to how Napoleon built the windmill. Stalin also created a centralized agriculture

Following the timeline of Josef Stalin’s ruling as a leader of Soviet Russia, it can be seen that his positive accomplishments brought Russia from a period of

The 3 5-year plans focused on heavy industry, as well as an emphasis on electricity, coal, oil and steel. The latter sections of industry greatly increased including coal (million tons) rising to 128 in 1937. Although during this time period, famine and forced labour occured, the 5-year plans were a success. Through the implementation of Collectivization and the 5-year plans, it can be seen how Stalinism impacted upon the economy, and thus the Soviet State.

The start of World War I began after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914. The assassin was a Bosnian of Serbian nationality, and his intentions were to see Bosnia break away from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Shortly after, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and by August 4, 1914, most of the European powers were involved in what was World War I. It can be said that two of the biggest factors that aided to the start of World War I were nationalism and imperialism.

While discontent increased during the 1900s three major philosophies were established. The three major philosophies that were established were socialism, communism, and fascism. Socialism was never officially promoted, but the Bolsheviks, the elite group when Lenin was in power in Russia, thought socialism could be achieved by moderate reforms such as higher wages, increased suffrage, and social welfare. Communism was promoted by Lenin, his successor, and Stalin. Lenin developed the New Economic Policy, or NEP. Lenin just saw the New Economic Policy as a temporary retreat from communism. His successor put the Soviet Union back on the road to “pure” communism. Stalin developed Five-Year Plans while the Soviet Union developed a command

He began with state control of Industry and Agriculture. This led to Stalin adopting his 'Five Year Plans for Industry' and 'Collectivisation of Agriculture'. An organisation called GOSPLAN was created to plan everything out. The first five-year plan was created to improve heavy industries production such as coal, oil, iron, steel and electricity. The second continued to emphasise on heavy industry but also made a commitment to communication systems such as railways.

Communism in the USSR was doomed from the onset. Communism was condemned due to lack of support from other nations, condemned due to corruption within its leadership, condemned due to the moral weakness of humanity, making what is perfect on paper, ineffective in the real world. The end of this system was very violent. It left one of the two most powerful nations in the world fearful of what was to come. <br><br>Communism can either be called a concept or system of society. In a society that follows the communist beliefs groups own the major resources and means of production, rather than a certain individual. In theory, Communism is to provide equal work, and benefits to all in a specific society. Communism is derived from many ancient

The Bolsheviks believed they had to industrialise to achieve national strength and maintain independence. This was a shared view of non-Bolshevik predecessors such as Count Sergei Witte a former Russian minister. The Soviet Union needed a modern industry, especially a heavy industry, as there was the idea that they had to defend the revolution. They believed the Russian revolution was in constant danger from capitalist countries, which were militarily and technically far stronger than them. Then there was the belief that the building of socialism or communism involved industrialisation, and that a proletarian dictatorship was insecure so long as it ruled in an overwhelmingly peasant environment . Industrialisation was introduced to eradicate the backwardness that had plagued the country for so long so they could rise and defeat capitalism. In his speech in 1931 Stalin stated ‘we are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall go under’ and that ‘it is the jungle law of capitalism. You are backward, you are weak - therefore you are wrong; hence you can be beaten and enslaved. You are mighty - therefore you are right; hence we must be wary of you. This is why we must no longer lag behind’ . These show the need for the Soviet Union to advance and become stronger than capitalist countries. Industrialisation also allowed the Soviet