Transcript Chapter 29 Stalin Revolution By Rohan Badlani

By: Rohan Badlani
Per. 3: AP World History
Mr.Marshall
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Joseph Stalin turned the USSR into a great industrial and military power in early 1929, which raised
the admiration for and the fear of communism throughout the world. Stalin played a small role in he
Russian Revolutions of 1917, and eliminated all other rivals in the Bolshevik Party, including Lenin,
and rose to become absolute dictator and transform Russian Society. (Bulliet 767)
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Building up the USSR’s industry was not to produce consumer goods for a mass market, but to rather
increase the domestic power of the Bolshevik Party, in order to increase the power of the USSR in
relation to other nations. (Bulliet 767)
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To turn USSR into an industrial nation, Stalin devised the Five-Year Plans, which was a system of
centralized control which would quintuple the output of electricity and double that of heavy industry
in five years. (http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/soviet.exhibit/collect.html)
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It also called for the expedient agricultural production by ruthlessly taking over private farms and
combining into state-owned enterprises. This process is called collectivization. (Armstrong 243)
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This process was achieved in the name of communism, but in reality was totalitarinistic in nature.
This was due to political factors affecting the people such as the lack of sharing in power or profits,
along with the lack of the ability to decide their participation. (Armstrong 243)
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There were many political and economic changes such as the creating of whole industries and cities
by the government and the training of millions of peasants to work in new factories, mines, and
offices. (http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0818831.html)
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Due to USSR’s agrarian society, the only way to fund these massive investments, provide the labor,
and feed the millions of workers was to squeeze the peasantry through a process called
collectivization. (Bulliet 768)
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Collectivization was the consolidating of small private farms into vast collectives by means of making
the farmers work together in commonly-owned fields. Each collective was expected to supply the
government with a fixed amount of food and distribute the balance among its members. This was the
most radical social experiment of the time. (http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/soviet.exhibit/collect.html)
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These collectives became outdoor factories where food was produced through mass production
methods and the application of machinery. (Armstrong 243)
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Collectivization was an attempt to replace the “petty bourgeois” attitudes othe peasants with the
Communist-respected industrial life. When it was announced, the government issued massive adcampaigns and party members went to the country side to gain the support of the peasants. (Bulliet
768)
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But, the kulaks, or wealthier peasants, resisted giving up their property and burnt their crops along
with slaughtering their livestock. As a result, Stalin ordered the liquidation of the kulaks, where 8
million kulaks were arrested, and executed or sent to labor camps. (Whelan 243)
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The peasants who were left were the least successful and the least competent, producing bad harvests
in 1933 and 1934. This led to famine, killing 5 million people. (Bulliet 768)
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The 1930s brought terror and new opportunities to the Soviet people. There was the forced pace
of industrialization, the collectivization of agriculture, and the uprooting of millions of people.
In order to prevent any resistance, the NKVD, or Stalin’s secret police, created fear for the
people. (Bulliet 769)
The country faced terror as a result of Stalin’s paranoia, because he did not trust anyone.
(Laden 246) Stalin expelled three million members of the communist party for
counterrevolutionary ideas. (Bulliet 769)
In December 1934 Sergei Kirov, the party boss of Leningrad, was assasinated, while Stalin
blamed others for the crime and held a public display of mourning. (Armstrong 234)
In 1937, Stalin had his eight top generals and many lesser officers charged with treason and
executed, which weakened the Red Army. Stalin even executed the head of the secret police.
(Whelan 256)
The government was frequently making demands that the people were unable to meet, so
everyone became guilty of breaking regulations, causing many arrests. At the height of this, 8
million were sent to gulags. (Bulliet 769)
In spite of this, many people supported Stalin’s regime because there were new opportunities
becoming available, women began enlisting in jobs previously closed to them. (Bulliet 769)
Stalin’s brutal methods helped the USSR industrialize faster than any country had ever
done. By the late 1930s the USSR became the worlds 3rd largest industrial power. (Bulliet
769)
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 Andrea, Alfred J., and James H. Overfield. Human Record. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 2004.
 Armstrong, Monty. Cracking the AP World History Exam: 2009. The Princeton
Review.
 Bulliet, Richard W., Pamela Kyle Crossley, Daniel R. Headrick, Steven W.
Hirsch, Lyman L. Johnson, and David Northrup. The Earth And Its Peoples A
Global History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004.
 "Collectivization and Industrialization." Ebooks@ibiblio. 31 Mar. 2009
<http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/soviet.exhibit/collect.html>.
 Infoplease: Encyclopedia, Almanac, Atlas, Biographies, Dictionary, Thesaurus.
Free online reference, research & homework help. — Infoplease.com. 31 Mar.
2009 <http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0818831.html>.
 Whelan, Patrick. Kaplan AP World History 2009. Grand Rapids: Kaplan, 2009.
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