What Was The Effectiveness Of Soviet Law

The Russian’s loss in the Russo-Japanese war was the another way that they got the public to turn against the provisional government and strengthen the communist revolt. The revolt got stronger and stronger until the Bolsheviks finally revolted and took down the Russian Provisional Government. Because of this, civil war erupted all over the country. At the end of this war, in 1920, the Bolsheviks set up the USSR, or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, under control of Vladimir Lenin. When Lenin died, Stalin aggressively worked his way up until he was the leader of the USSR. In his control, Stalin set up a “5 year plan” to advance the Russian economy from just farming to also having industry. In this plan, he would also advance the military and “cleanse the country of villains” or those he saw as villains. To “cleanse the country”, Stalin would have unfair trials that would have many on trial at once. These were called his “Show Trials”. The majority, if not all, of these people were found guilty and sent for execution. They were executed all at once, and the executions were called the Purges. To advance the Russian economy, Stalin would work the farmers to death… literally. When the farmers revolted, Stalin stopped sending them food and even more died from starvation. On the last of the purges, 16 men were put on trial and accused of acts of terrorism towards Stalin and the Soviet government. Two of them were Stalin’s allies after Lenin’s death, Zinovyev and

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.

During the second half of the 1920s, Joseph Stalin set the stage for gaining absolute power by employing police repression against opposition elements within the Communist Party. The machinery of coercion had previously been used only against opponents of Bolshevism, not against party members themselves. The first victims were Politburo members Leon Trotskii, Grigorii Zinov'ev, and Lev Kamenev, who were defeated and expelled from the party in late 1927. Stalin then turned against Nikolai Bukharin, who was denounced as a "right opposition," for opposing his policy of forced collectivization and rapid

Similar to other dictatorships, one of the momentous changes that happened under Stalin was the cultural change that was present in society. Importantly the peasantry ceased to be the national social unit as urbanisation took its effect. Urbanisation occurred due to the use of collective farming in agriculture sector and due to the rapid industrialisation of the cities. As the demand for workers increased many moved to the industrial heartland of the Soviet Union. Under Stalinism both industrial and agricultural industries began to be looked at as sing societal units. Urbanisation changed the way people lived their lives thus adding to the controls that Soviet policy was already introducing.

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

Firstly, background to the rise of the Soviet Union is examined. Keenan states that the Communists rose to power on ideas which denounced capitalism and

On December 5, 1936, the Soviet Union adopted a new constitution to reform the government. It replaced the 1924 constitution that was ratified shortly after the death of Vladimir Lenin. The 1936 constitution lasted until 1977, when a new constitution was adopted. According to a former kulak named Andrei Arzhilovsky, people celebrated on the streets when the constitution was ratified, and everyone called it the “Stalin Constitution”. Rightfully so, it deserved the name because Josef Stalin was heavily involved in the creation of the new constitution. Indeed there were good reasons for Soviet citizens to celebrate the adoption of the new constitution, because it granted rights that were previously denied to the people. Among the rights that were provided were: (1) universal rights for all Soviet citizens including kulaks (2) freedom of religion (3) preservation of the rights of all ethnic groups. In this paper, I will argue that the 1936 Soviet Constitution did not achieve its goal of providing universal rights to all Soviet citizens,

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.

Upon the creation of the USSR, Lenin introduced new rule that would ensure greater totalitarian control. Only communists would be able to stand for the soviets, and so this meant that the communist party had the true control over the

The collectivization efforts of 1928 came to a head with the central government essentially forcing peasants to collectivize and attacking the kulaks. Initial efforts backfired with many peasants choosing to slaughter their animals rather than give them to the collective farm. As for the kulaks, some fled to the cities to find work while others decided to try and fight back. In retaliation, the OGPU (secret police) acted quickly and arrested the troublemakers. Massive numbers were deported across the country and into the Urals, Siberia, or the North. The intense crackdown was eventually a success. By 1932, the per cent of collectivized peasant farms had reached 62% according to official Soviet figures (Fitzpatrick, 138). The path to collectivized farming in this time period is heavily significant for a number of reasons, namely the social upheaval and the new state controlled

This was a period of time that represented mass executions, Soviet concentration camps for dissenters, and tyranny of the peasantry. One common practice that perfectly captures the essence of the Cheka and Dzerzhinsky during this time period was hostage taking. To combat famine and capitalism, around two dozen hostages would be selected from an agricultural community and held until any surplus food grown there was distributed to other areas. If the food was not distributed appropriately or quickly enough, the hostages were shot in the head. Through rule like this, the Cheka was effective in spreading and maintaining Lenin’s ideology. However, the international community disapproved of the Cheka so it was eventually replaced with the State Political Administration (GPU) in order to improve economic relations with the West. In reality, while the name sounded better, it mostly was just that – a renaming. Suppression against civilian populations decreased slightly, but Dzerzhinsky remained chairman of the GPU and there was still much oppression. After Lenin’s death, this dark organization would regain its previous power and reach unseen heights in playing a vital role to ensure Soviet

It should not be unforeseen that the Bolsheviks worked hard to safeguard that any person potentially antagonistic to them did not retain arms. The first Soviet gun controls were enacted during the Russian Civil War, as Czarists, Western troops, and national independence movements fought the central Red regime. Firearm registration was instituted on April 1, 1918. In October 1918, the Council of People's Commissars (the government) ordered the renunciation of all firearms, ammunition, and sabers. As has been the case in nearly every nation where firearms registration has been introduced, registration proved a preamble to confiscation. Excused from the confiscation order, however, were affiliates of the Communist Party. A 1920 decree imposed a obligatory minimum penalty of six months in prison for non-Communist possession of a firearm, even where there was no felonious intent. After the Red triumph in the Civil War, the firearm laws were consolidated in a Criminal Code, which if broken, unauthorized possession of a firearm would be punishable by rigid labor. A 1925 law made unauthorized possession of a firearm punishable by three months of hard labor, plus a fine of 300 rubles (equal to about four months' wages for a highly-paid construction worker). Stalin apparently found little need to alternate the weapons control structure he had inherited. This chapter of Lethal Laws summarizes the genocide perpetrated by Stalin from 1929 to 1953, starting with his efforts to collectivize farming by destroying the class of property-owning farmers. Altogether, about twenty million people were murdered, worked to death in slave labor camps, or deliberately starved to death by Stalin's government. Stalin's successful campaign of genocide against the Kulaks and against dissident Communists served as a model for

Stalin made collectivization mandatory after everyone had ignored his idea and there had been a famine. The peasants hated the idea, so instead they burned their crops and killed their animals rather than hand them over to the state. Then another famine occurred in 1930. Stalin then stopped trying to enforce the rules, but in 1931 he again tried to enforce collectivization. Again this time there was the same resistance and another and even worse famine. This lead to Stalin blaming the Kulaks, and he declared war on them. The Kulaks were executed or sent to Russian labor camps. There were soldiers all over the place—in the railroad station, in the avenues, all varying outstandingly from the non military personnel. The British journalist’s report

Joseph Stalin’s three decade long dictatorship rule that ended in 1953, left a lasting, yet damaging imprint on the Soviet Union in political, economic and social terms. “Under his inspiration Russia has modernised her society and educated her masses…Stalin found Russia working with a wooden plough and left her equipped with nuclear power” (Jamieson, 1971). Although his policies of collectivisation and industrialisation placed the nation as a leading superpower on the global stage and significantly ahead of its economic position during the Romanov rule, this was not without huge sacrifices. Devastating living and working standards for the proletariat, widespread famine, the Purges, and labour camps had crippling impacts on Russia’s social

After World War I the economy in the USSR was failing, they were producing very little and were hit hard economically. Stalin developed many economic policies for three main reasons. The first was that he wanted to turn the USSR into a modern world power; he wanted it to be self-sufficient and to have a strong military. Secondly, he wanted to show the eminence of communism over capitalism by proving that a modernized USSR can overtake the capitalist countries. Lastly, he wanted to improve the livelihood of all the Soviet citizens. In order to do this, his main goal in order to do that, he made sure the agriculture section of the economy was productive. The first policy that Stalin created was collectivization. By 1928, the grain produced was insufficient to feed the people. Stalin addressed this issue and took action by joining small farms and making a collective group called Kolkhoz. This policy was unsuccessful. The one good side was that farmers received a wage from