IRL 10, December 16, 2009

URL; http://campus.udayton.edu/~hst-102/fern.html (the text is the same color as the page so you need to highlight it to read it).

This is an essay written by a college student about the role of women in Nazi Germany, and it is titled "Individual vs. Society; Women In Nazi Germany". It mentions the way women were viewed in Germany prior to the rise to power of the Nazis. In 1918, women in Germany were given the right to vote, and after WWI, many women joined the labour force in factories and offices to replace the men who had been killed in the war, but it also says that this was short lived, because once the Nazis took over Germany, one of the first things they did (in 1921) was make it so that women could never hold positions of power in the Party, and this set the trend for the following years, and eventually women were stripped of everything except their ability to take care of their husband, children, and household and (hopefully) keep having children. The Nazi Party took from women everything they had worked for in the previous three decades, such as the right to vote. One other key fact that I picked out from that essay was that Hitler set up a National Socialist Women's Movement to ensure that women had help raising their children. While I did not know all of the facts mentioned, such as that women had previously been getting equal rights such as suffrage only to have them revoked by the Nazis, the basis of the essay is consistent with what we have learned in class - the Nazis saw women primarily as mothers, housekeepers, and the people who would raise the country's children. This adds value to what we learned in class because knowing that the women of Germany had been working for their rights prior to the Nazis shows me that the Nazis changed the way society viewed women and put them in a certain position - one that only allowed for housekeeping and the raising of children, which limited women's capabilities in the workforce as well and made women fill one specific role that the Nazis wanted women to fill. The only thing I'd really doubt about this source is that it was written by a college student and not by a professional writer or a historian, but then again the sources used were quoted at the bottom of the page in a bibliography. It's just difficult to determine the accuracy of the information, although for the most part it sounds plausible and consistent with what I have learned in class.

IRL 9, December 7, 2009

URL; http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/hitlerssuccesses.htm

This source is a webpage from the United Kingdom designed for history students who are looking for a brief outline on Hitler's rise to power and why he appealed to the German people. This is pertinent to what we are studying in class because we learned how Hitler rose to power and why he appealed to the people of Germany and what led to his success, but this source gives a basic outline of the political and social climate at the time. According to this source, Germany at the time was recovering from the Treaty of Versailles and its restrictions on the country, which angered many Germans. Hitler used this for political gain, promising the people of Germany that he would restore the country to its former condition and do away with the Treaty of Versailles and this is one way that he won approval of some of the people. One thing we learned in class that is consistent with my findings here is that Hitler did not like the Communist party of Germany, and his rise to power was made able by his sneaky tactics of eliminating this political opposition, and I read here that the German middle class did not like the Communists either and was worried they would end up in power, so Hitler won their support as well. Other contributions to Hitler's success are outlined as well, such as his ability to convince the Germans that the Jews were responsible for their troubles, and that Hitler's book Mein Kampf was a great success as it showed the people of Germany what his intentions were, which many were supportive of. This adds value to what we studied in class because it is consistent with what was learned in class and it also provides an easy-to-read, summarized outline of Hitler's rise to power and how he appealed to the people. It is well organized and outlines the information, and in addition I read information here that I did not already know much about, such as Hitler's initial attempts at the Munich Putsch to weasel his way into power, and that since this tactic was a failure and landed him in prison, it was then that he had to think of another way to get into power, which is what he did. He became Chancellor not too long after this incident either so I learned that his rise to power was relatively quick. This source is just a good summary of what I already know and contains information that I did not know, or was less clear on, so it was useful to me in my understanding of Hitler's rise to power. The main limitation is that many situations or methods used by Hitler are mentioned here, such as his blaming the Jews for Germany's problems, and his desire to end the effects of the Treaty of Versailles, but it was not described exactly how he did this or HOW it contributed to his rise of power, it is just stated that he did these things. This source would be more helpful if it was more detailed and gave a little bit of description. If it says Hitler did such-and-such to gain the support of the people, it'd be more useful if it was explained what he did, or an example was given of when he did this or that.

SGQ10, December 3, 2009

MWH 309-318

1. What did National Socialism stand for? It did not refer to a redistribution of wealth or nationalization, but it was meant to attract the support of German workers.

A. What were the movements four general principles?

i. It was a way of life dedicated to the rebirth of the nation. All classes in society must be united into a 'national community' to make Germany a great nation and to have national pride restored. To do this, all other political parties, especially the communists, must be eliminated.

ii. Great emphasis was placed on the ruthlessly efficient organization of the lives of the masses under the central government in order to achieve greatness, even with violence and terror if necessary. The interests of the state came first, and Germany was to be a totalitarian state.

iii. The entire state must be organized on a military footing.

iv. The race theory. The ideal person was believed to be Aryan, or German; blond, blue eyed, handsome, and these people were considered the master race who were destined to rule the world. All other people including Slavs, colored people, and Jews were inferior and unfit to belong, and would be excluded from the 'national community' along with gypsies and homosexuals, who were also believed to be inferior. The Slavs were destined to become the slave race of the Germans.

B. What evidence suggests Nazism was a "natural development of German history"?

i. It was a natural extension of earlier Prussian militarism and German traditions.

ii. Marxist historians believed that National Socialism and fascism in general were the final stage of western capitalism, which they felt was bound to collapse due to fatal flaws.

C . What evidence suggests Nazism was a "distortion of normal development" of German history?

German historians stressed the personal contribution of Hitler, stating that Hitler was striving to break away from the past and introduce something completely new. They believed National Socialism was a grotesque departure from the normal and logical historical development. This point of view absolves the German people from most of the blame.

D . What evidence suggests Nazism was a bit of both?

Most of the elements of political culture that fed into Nazism were peculiarly German. Hitler exploited these conditions which is what contributed to his rise to power and what happened after. The conditions that made Hitler's rise possible were plainly recognizable in the 20 years or so before WWI.

2. How did Hitler consolidate his power?

A. Actions leading up to the March election of 1933

i. Nazis were able to use all the apparatus of state in order to influence the elections.

ii. Senior police officers were replaced with reliable Nazis and 50,000 auxiliary policemen were called up.

iii. These police officers showed no mercy to communists and other 'enemies of the state' and meetings of all parties except Nazis were wrecked and speakers were beaten up.

B. The Reichstag fire

i. What happened?

The Reichstag building was badly damaged by a fire started by the young Dutch anarchist called van der Lubbe, who was arrested, tried, and executed. It was believed that the SA knew of this plan, and allowed van der Lubbe to go ahead and burn down the Reichstag so it could be blamed on the communists, who would then be punished.

ii. what did it mean?
Hitler used the fire to stir up fear of communism and as a pretext for the banning of the party. This meant that the communists could not participate in the election and as a result, the Nazis won more support in the election, although not an overall majority.

3. How was Hitler able to stay in power?

A. What was the Enabling Law? The Enabling Law stated that the government could introduce laws without the approval of the Reichstag for the next four years, could ignore the constitution and could sign agreements with foreign countries. All laws would be drafted by the Chancellor and come into operation the day they were published. This meant that Hitler would be the complete dictator for the next four years, or however long he wanted since he was now in complete control.

B. How did the Enabling Law pass?

The Kroll Opera House (where the Reichstag had been meeting since the fire) was surrounded by Hitler's private armies, and MPs had to push their way through the solid ranks of SS troops to get into the building. The 81 communist MPs were not allowed to pass. Inside the building the SA troops lined the walls and the SS could be heard chanting outside "We want the bill, or fire and murder." It took courage to vote against the bill in such surroundings and it passed 441 votes to 94 (all Social Democrats).

C. What was gleichschaltung?

Forcible co-ordination. This is what turned Germany into a fascist/totalitarian state. The government tried to control as many aspects of life as possible, using a huge police force and the Gestapo to do this. It became dangerous to criticise the government in any way.

D. What were the characteristics of gleichschaltung?

i. All political parties except the National Socialists were banned, causing Germany to be a single-party state.

ii. The separate state parliaments still existed but lost all power. Most of their functions were taken over by a Nazi Special Commissioner. There were no more state, provincial, or municipal elections.

iii. The civil service was purged; all Jews and other suspected 'enemies of the state' were removed so that it became fully reliable.

iv. Trade unions were abolished, their funds confiscated and their leaders arrested. They were replaced with the German Labour Front, to which all workers had to belong. Strikes were not allowed, and the government dealt with all grievances.

v. The education system was closely controlled so that children could be indoctrinated with Nazi opinions. For instance, textbooks were rewritten to fit in with Nazi theory, the best examples in history and biology. Human biology was dominated by the Nazi race theory as well. Teachers, lectures, professors had to make sure they did not express opinions which strayed from the party line and many lived in fear in case they were reported to the Gestapo by children of convinced Nazis. This was supplemented by the Hitler Youth to which all boys had to join at 14, and to the League of German Maidens for girls.

vi. There was a special policy concerned with the family. Since the Nazis worried about a decline in the birth rate, healthy families that were racially pure were encouraged to have more children. Family planning centres were closed down and contraceptives were banned.

vii. All communications in the media were controlled by the Minister of Propaganda, Dr. Joseph Goebbels. Radio, newspapers, books, magazines, theatre, film, and art were all supervised. By the end of 1934, 4000 books were on the forbidden list because they were un-German. Opinions could not be given that strayed from Nazi ideology.

viii. How was the economic life of the country organized?

a. Industrialists were told what to produce depending on what the country needed at the moment, closing factories down if their products weren't needed was not required.

b. Workers were moved around the country to places where jobs existed and labour was needed.

c. Farmers were encouraged to increase agricultural yields.

d. Food prices and rents were controlled.

e. Foreign exchange rates were manipulated to avoid inflation.

f. Vast schemes of public works; slum clearance, land drainage, and motorway building, were introduced.

g. Foreign countries were forced to buy German goods, either by refusing to pay cash for goods brought from those countries, so they had to accept German goods instead, or refusing permission to foreigners with bank accounts in Germany to withdraw their cash, so that they'd have to spend it in Germany on German goods.

h. Manufacturing synthetic rubber and wool and experimenting to produce petrol from coal in order to reduce dependence on foreign countries.

i. Increasing expenditure on armaments; in 1938-9, the military budget accounted for 52% of government spending.

ix. How was religion handled?

a. Catholics

Hitler at first signed an agreement with the Pope in which he agreed to not interfere with German Catholics in any way, in return they agreed to dissolve the Catholic Centre Party and take no further part in politics. The government, however, broke the Concordat by dissolving the Catholic Youth League because it rivaled the Hitler Youth. When Catholics protested their schools were closed down, and by 1937 Catholics were completely disillusioned with the Nazis. The Pope issued an Encyclical in which he condemned the Nazi movement, and Hitler was unimpressed and thousands of priests and nuns were sent to concentration camps as a result.

b. Protestants
A majority of Germans were Protestant, so Hitler tried to organize them into a 'Reich Church' with a Nazi as the first Reich bishop. Many pastors objected and a group of them protested to Hitler about government interference and about his treatment of the Jews. The Nazis were ruthless and 800 other pastors were sent to concentration camps. Hundreds more were arrested and the rest were forced to swear an oath of obedience to the Fuhrer.

x.

xi. Anti-Semitism

a. how was it legalized?

The Nuremberg Laws gave legal status to the campaign against the Jews, in which Jews were denied German citizenship, lost their jobs as journalists, doctors, lawyers, and teachers, forbade to marry non-Jews, and a rule was made that someone who was 1/4 or more Jewish was classified as a Jew.

b. examples of the law being carried out

1. Kristallnacht ('Night of the Broken Glass') which was a vicious attack on Jewish synagogues and other property throughout the whole country.

2. When WWII began the Jews were harassed in every way; their property attacked and burnt, their shops looted, synagogues destroyed and eventually, they were sent to concentration camps.

3. Hitler called it his 'Final Solution' - he intended to wipe out the whole Jewish race. He was able to lay his hands on non-German Jews during the war when Germany occupied such countries as Czechoslovakia, Poland, and western Russia.

E. How popular were Hitler's policies?

i. personal appeal - Military parades, torchlight processions, and fireworks displays were held in Nuremberg every year, and this appealed to the masses.

ii. unemployment - Hitler eliminated unemployment. When he came to power the unemployment figure was over 6 million, but by 1939 it disappeared completely. This is because the public works schemes provided many jobs. The party was expanding rapidly and this provided thousands of extra office and administrative posts. In addition, there were purges of Jews and anti-Nazis from the civil service and from other jobs connected with law, education, journalism, broadcasting, theatre, and music, leaving tons of vacancies. This was one of his biggest successes that made him popular.

iii. working people - The Strength through Joy Organization provided benefits such as subsidized holidays in Germany and abroad, cruises, ski-ing holidays, cheap theatre and concert tickets and convalescent homes. Other benefits were holidays with pay and control of rents. This made Hitler popular with workers.

iv. upper class - Wealthy industrialists and businessmen were delighted with the Nazis. They felt safe from a communist revolution and they were glad to be rid of trade unions, which had constantly pestered them with demands for shorter working hours and increased wages. They were also able to buy back at low prices the shares that they had sold to the state during the crisis of 1929-32. There was a promise of great profits from the public works schemes, rearmament, and other orders which the government placed with them.

v. farmers - They gradually warmed toward the Nazis despite initial hesitation once it became clear that the farmers were in a specially favored position in the state because of the declared Nazi aim of self-sufficiency in food production. Prices on agricultural produce were fixed so that they assured of a reasonable profit.

vi. the Army - they were much impressed with Hitler's handling of the troublesome SA in the Rohm Purge of 30 June 1934.

a. officers - well-disposed toward Hitler because of his aim of setting aside the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty by rearmament and the expansion of the army to its full strength.

b. lower ranks - there was a steady infiltration of the National Socialists into the lower ranks and this was beginning to work through to the lower officer classes.

c. Night of Long Knives - This was a way to purge society of the SA, because their leader Ernst Rohm was becoming an embarrassment to the chancellor. Rohm wanted his brownshirts to be merged with the Reichswehr and he made himself a general. In addition Rohm was homosexual and Hitler disapproved of this as well, and he considered the SA to be a bunch of gangsters, and Rohm was persistent with his demands which caused Hitler to have to choose between the Sa and the Reichswehr. Hitler used one of his private armies to deal with the other and he had the SA murdered as well as Rohm, in addition to people who were not even connected in any way.

vii. foreign policy - With each successive triumph, more and more Germans began to think of Hitler as infallible.

IRL 8, November 23, 2009

URL; http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-russia-stalin2-2009nov02,0,2551543.story

This is an article from Los Angeles Times, written by Megan K. Stack on November 2, 2009. Titled "Russia reconsiders; Was Stalin Really So Bad?" this article outlines how in Russia today, people view their Soviet past and Stalin with nostalgia and that the late Soviet dictator is "enjoying a renaissance of sorts in Russia." An example of this in the article is the picture that goes with it, which is of a man who resembles Stalin dressed exactly like him, on an escalator on his way to Red Square, so that people can have their picture taken with him. Throughout the course of the article, several people were quoted, including one Russian man who stated the following;

"The same doctors, teachers, builders and steelworkers continue to live and work in the same country, and everything in our midst was built by the hands of people in the Soviet Union. The state changes, but the country remains the same."

Another man quoted in the article states that maybe the deaths of millions of people under Stalin could have been justified by some higher state goal. The article states that many now view Stalin in a way of "hazy nostalgia" and that after having portrayed him as negative ever since the USSR collapsed in the 1990s, now people are starting to reconsider whether or not he was really as bad as they had thought. This relates to what we're studying in class because we had recently learned that Stalin had a very charismatic personality and that people held him in high regard despite all that he did that wasn't good, and that he attained a godlike status and was celebrated, with images of him everywhere. It adds value because it demonstrates that even today, after many years have passed, this trend, to view Stalin as good and worthy of celebration, is returning. This is the reason why you'd have Russians reconsidering Stalin and how to view him, and why you'd have impersonators dress up as him so that people could have their picture taken with him. People are looking at Stalin with nostalgia and fonder memories, showing that the attraction to him has not completely gone away and is in fact returning. The limitation to this article that makes me highly skeptical is the fact that it quotes a select few people and shows a picture of a Stalin impersonator, leading one to believe that the majority of Russians are starting to think highly of Stalin. However, no poll was taken, and there is no way of determining whether or not the people quoted in the article were chosen to prove a point or even if their opinion is the minority one. There's not enough information to be 100% clear, but still enough sufficient evidence to determine that to SOME extent, people still see Stalin as a benefactor of the past.

Effect of Purges on Soviet Society, November 13, 2009

Sources A and B reflect some of the ways in which Stalin's purges effected Soviet society. Source A is an extract from Natasha's Dance by Orlando Figes, and this extract demonstrates that it was difficult to express yourself without your intentions being questioned. Prokofiev's working life became difficult because he was accused of being a formalist (one who was regarded as preferring their art as an art form rather than it being understood by society as a whole), and he had to change his work so that he wouldn't give the wrong message and be accused of anything else.

Source B, an extract from Hope Against Hope by N Mandelstam, who along with her family were exiled in 1934, demonstrates how Stalin's terror at the time infiltrated the society in such a way that it was difficult to imagine the end of it. It is stated that it was essential to smile because if you didn't, it showed that you were discontented or nervous. The effect of this on society is that people could be accused of doing the wrong thing on a very superficial basis, and that it was necessary to make sure you seemed in line at all times, rather than letting your emotions show, because they could be interpreted the wrong way and cause people to be suspicious. This must have made life very difficult for the people of the USSR, since they would have to maintain a certain behavior at all times, so that people wouldn't realize just how horrified you were.

What the information in these two sources signifies about Stalin's purges and their effect on society is that they made life very difficult for the people, who had to hide their opinions, their horrified reactions, and their emotions in general so that they would not be accused of being anti-Stalin and against his motives, otherwise it would just make their lives worse and there would be consequences further down the road. I get this feeling because in source B it states "Even from your children you had to hide how horror-struck you were; otherwise they might let something slip at school." This is bad because the people couldn't even express their feelings without it seeming like they had something to hide. The purges made Soviet society a very emotionless one, because although people were terrified on the inside, they weren't allowed to show it and had to keep all of their feelings bottled up. Imagine a society where you couldn't express your views without consequences or even express basic emotions and here you have it.

IRL 7, November 12, 2009

URL;
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/stalin/97020

This article is written by Nick Bendel, a member of suite101.com, a website on which people can post their journal entries and articles, which are copyrighted. He was born in Australia and has a Bachelor of Media degree, and his article focuses on the murder of Kirov and the involvement of Nikolayev and Stalin in the murder. According to this article, Stalin to some extent had a grudge against Kirov, for a number of reasons. Many people in the Soviet Union felt that Stalin's policies were too harsh and Kirov, although generally a supporter of Stalin, did not approve of some of his methods, and a lot of people wanted Stalin to be replaced by Kirov. An example of this was in 1932 when Stalin demanded that one of his critics, Ryutin, be execited, and Kirov and the others in the party overrode his demand. Instances like these and the fact that Kirov was starting to win support at the expense of Stalin, were reasons why Stalin would have wanted to see Kirov dead, and Nikolayev, who was a very unstable man and had a grudge against the way the party handled some things and treated him, had the means to physically murder Kirov. It's stated here in the article that Nikolayev was able to get past security on the night that Kirov was murdered due to Stalin, who in some way manipulated security. This information and source is pertinent to what we're studying in class because we have read about Kirov's murder and were asked to look at the evidence and decide who was involved, and why. This article gives me more background information that allows me to make the connections for myself. There is one key limitation to this source, and that is the lack of background sources quoted with each specific piece of information stated to back up the author's point. For instance, he is, as far as I know, not a professor or a historian, and although what he is saying sounds accurate and plausible, he hasn't quoted any other sources IN his writing, but rather put a bibliography at the end, making it difficult to know if his claims come directly from the sources he used, or whether he threw information into the journal entry that is not directly from another source, since there are no footnotes for specific claims made. This is the main thing that would make me skeptical about trusting the information here, even though it's consistent with what we have learned in class.

IRL 6 - November 2, 2009

URL ; http://www.katardat.org/russia/pictures/photos-collectivisation.html

This source contains a collection of photos of collective farms and farmers that were forced to work on them, with most of the photos dated between 1930 and 1935. The photos are labeled by date and what they are of. This is pertinent to what we are studying in class because we have been studying collective farming in Soviet Russia in the 1930s and its successes and failures. This source adds value to what we've been studying because I can actually get a visual image of the farms, the farmers, and the materials that they had. For instance, one of the photographs is from 1931 and is labeled "Kolkhoz Field" and it depicts a line of tractors farming a giant field. The tractors all look the same and don't look to be the best quality either. Another photograph shows a woman driving a tractor, smiling, and the photograph appears to be posed. I am convinced a lot of these pictures were posed because another shows a peasant girl holding a rake, smiling. What I learned in class would go against this, because the peasants as far as I know did not like the idea of collective farming and put much more effort into their own private plots of land. Yet in these photographs, the peasants appear to be working hard and even enjoying their work. What I can deduce from this is that the photographs that were taken were posed, to hide the reality about how collective farming made the peasants feel and to make it look more successful than it was, because from these photographs, one would never know that the peasants had a problem with the collective farming or didn't give the farming their all. I can sense that these photos were initially used as propaganda. That is one of the limitations of this source - I do not know who compiled the pictures, or if the labels and dates are necessarily correct since they are typed BELOW the pictures and not stamped on them. However the photographs do depict large areas of land being farmed by many peasants who appear to be from that part of the world, so I can safely assume these photos do depict collective farming.

IRL 5, September 23, 2009

URL; http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/08/24/the_early_read_a_photo_essay?page=0,0

This is an online sample of material that appears in author David King's collection, Red Star Over Russia; A Visual History from the Soviet Union from the Revolution to the Death of Stalin. This page contains several Soviet images (including photographs, art, cartoons) that had been lost over the years and recently uncovered. One example of the images that this page contains is a photograph depicting Lenin and his comrades at a Marx Day rally in Moscow's Red Square in 1919. Another photograph is of Leon Trotsky having a discussion with his officers and men during the Russian Civil War. There are many other images on that link, including mugshots of one of Stalin's political opponents (Zinoviev, before he was sentenced to death), and images of rallies and protests. This connects to what we are studying in class because in class, we are currently learning about Communist Russia and its beginnings, including when Lenin rose to power, and when Stalin was his successor after his death. The value of these images is that it is putting a clearer image in my mind of some of the events that happened during the time, and is also providing enough of a visual image that I can understand the intensity of the events that took place. For instance in the photograph of Lenin and his comrades at a Marx Day rally, I can get a visual image of what these rallies looked like. From the mugshot of Zinoviev, I can see how he looked very worn down and from that I can make inferences that Stalin made life very difficult for his political opponents when he worked to eliminate them. The visual images add significance to what we are learning because I can understand the intensity of the situations and the drama of the communist area. The limitation I am facing with these images is that every image is labeled by what event it came from, but there is not enough background information with each picture that I can fully understand the circumstances. Unless I know the circumstance myself, I am only getting a visual image without the history behind the photograph itself.

SGQ9, October 22, 2009

MWH 361-378

1. How did Stalin get to supreme power? Stalin got supreme power by using his manipulative and intuitive ways to eliminate his opposition, by discovering their weaknesses and exploiting them during debates.

a. Why might Trotsky have become leader? Why did he not?

Trotsky might have become leader because he was one of the most important Bolsheviks at the time. He didn't become leader because the other Politburo members did all they could to ensure that he did not become the leader. Many resented him for only joining the Bolsheviks shortly before the November revolution and he was also very critical of Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Bukharin during Lenin's illness, saying that they had no plan or future. The other Politburo members decided to run the country jointly so that no one man, especially not Trotsky, would hold all the power.

b. Who were the other Politburo members? Why did none of them take power?

Some of the other Politburo members were Lev Kamenev, Grigori Zinoviev, and Nikolai Bukharin. None of them took power because Stalin did, and the other Politburo members underestimated Stalin. Stalin had great political skills and intuition, and he waited for disagreements to arise between his colleagues in the Politburo and then he would side with one faction over the other until he eliminated all of his competition. Stalin was manipulative, a good judge of character, and a lot smarter than his colleagues took him for, and this gave him the advantage.

c. How did Stalin use his position?
Stalin was Secretary-General of the Party. He had full powers of appointment and promotion to important jobs, such as secretaries of local Communist Party organizations, so he filled these positions with his supporters and removed the supporters of others. These local organizations which now supported him chose the delegates to national Party Conferences, which by default filled with people who supported Stalin.

d. What was the major Politburo disagreement? What were the three options?

The major Politburo disagreement was how the new communist society should be organized. This was left for disagreement because Marx never described in detail how the society should have been organized. One option was proposed by Bukharin, which was that it was important to consolidate Soviet power in Russia, and this became known as 'socialism in one country'. This meant that there would be a prosperous peasantry with a very gradual industrialization. Another option came from Trotsky, which was for revolution outside of Russia, or 'permanent revolution'. This would cause the industrialized states of western Europe to help Rissia with her industrialization. The other option was to continue the NEP.

2. How successful was Stalin in solving Russia's economic problems? He was very successful, as the Five Year Plans rapidly increased industrial production, and Russian industrial production was comparable with the other powerful nations which it was formerly far behind.

a. What were Russia's economic problems?
Production from heavy industry was very low. For example in 1929 France produced more coal and steel than Russia, with Germany, the US, and Britain far ahead of both Russia and France. Stalin believed that a rapid expansion of heavy industry was essential to enable Russia to deal with the attacks he predicted would come to Russia from western Europe. Also, there was a shortage of food, so Stalin believed that more food would need to be produced to feed the growing industrial population and to provide a surplus for export. The primitive agricultural system that existed was unable of providing such resources however.

b. What were the Five Year Plans? The Five Year Plans were designed to increase industry. The first Plan concentrated on heavy industries such as coal, iron, steel, oil, and machinery. The two later Plans focused on increases in customer goods as well as heavy industry, while the third Plan was cut short due to WWII.

i. How were they carried out?

The purpose of the Five Year Plans was for industrial expansion. The first two (1928-32 and 1933-7) were completed a year ahead of schedule and the third plan (1938-42) was cut short due to Russia's involvement in World War II. The other two plans contributed to increases in consumer goods and heavy industry, and in order to carry out these plans, hundreds of factories were built, such as iron and steel works.

ii. How successful were they? (Provide hard facts as evidence!)

The Plans were a remarkable success. This is known because in 1940, the USSR had overtaken Britain in iron and steel production, and was within reach of Germany. Industrial expansion was remarkable, as in 1900, the USSR produced 16.0 million tons of coal, and by 1940 this number jumped to 164.9 million tons. Production of steel increased from 2.5 million tons in 1900 to 18.4 million tons by 1940.

c. What does collectivization mean? Collectivization meant the merging of small farms and holdings belonging to peasants into larger collective farms owned jointly by the peasants.

i. How was it carried out?
It was carried out through sheer brute force, since the peasants who owned property were hostile to the plan, and had to be forced to join by armies of party members. Peasants who refused to join collective farms were arrested, taken to labor farms, or shot.

ii. How successful was it? (Provide hard facts as evidence!)

It was successful in one sense. It allowed greater mechanization, which achieved a substantial increase in production in 1937. The amount of grain taken by the state increased and grain exports also increased; 1930 and 1931 were good years for exports. However, it turns out that total grain production did not increase at all except for in 1930, and the grain production in 1934 was less than in 1928. Eventually, a famine occurred, mainly in the countryside. So in one sense, collectivization was a success as grain production increased one year, but for the most part it turned out to yield serious consequences, such as the famine, because kulaks (the best producers) were excluded from farms, many peasants left their farms after collectivization to look for work in the city, peasants did the minimum work they could do on the collective farms, and the government did not provide sufficient tractors at first.

3. How successful was Stalin in solving Russia's political problems? He was successful in that he dealt with opposition by eliminating it. 800,000 people had been expelled in 1933, and a further 340,000 were expelled in 1934. 2 million people were in prisons and forced labour camps.

a. What were Russia's political problems?

i. The government's popularity with the general public had fallen by 1930 due to the failures over collectivization and the hardships of the First Five Year Plan.

ii. A new constitution was needed to consolidate the hold of Stalin and the Communist Party over the whole country.

iii. Some of the non-Russian parts of the country wanted to be independent, and Stalin had no sympathy with nationalist ambitions and was determined to keep the country unified.

b. The Purges and Great Terror

i. What were the "purges"?

The purges were Stalin's removal of all dissident party members. These included an expulsion of 800,000 people in 1933, and 340,000 in 1934, the placing of 2 million people in prisons and forced labour camps, and the arrests, tortures, and forcing of hundreds of important officials to confess to crimes they did not commit for the most part.

ii. How were the purges justified?

1. J. Arch Getty suggested that the Purges were a form of political infighting at the top, playing down the role of Stalin and claiming that it was the obsessive fears of all of the leaders which generated the Terror.

2. Sheila Fitzpatrick suggests that the Purges must be seen in the context of continuing revolution.

iii. What was the Great Terror? How was it carried out?

The Great Terror was the murder of Kirov and the arrests, tortures, and interrogations of tons of important officials who Stalin believed may have been trying to plot against him. It was carried out when these people were forced to appear at "show trials" where they were usually found guilty and sentenced to death or labour camps.

c. What was the purpose of the 1936 constitution? How did it work in practice?

The purpose was for everyone to be able to vote (including 'former people' such as ex-nobles, kulaks, priests, and White Army officers) by secret ballot to choose members of a national assembly known as the Supreme Soviet. The purpose was for the candidates to get nearly 100% of the votes and to prove that government policies were popular. The power remained with the Politburo (leading body of the Communist Party), because in reality, there was only one candidate to vote for in each constituency and that was the Communist Party candidate.

d. What was Stalin's two part approach for holding the union together?

i. National languages and cultures were encouraged and the republics had a certain amount of independence, and this was much more liberal than under the Tsarist regime.

ii. It had to be clearly understood that Moscow had the final say in all important decisions, and if necessary, force would be used to preserve control by Moscow.

4. What was everyday life and culture like under Stalin? People could not avoid contact with the state - being educated, finding a job, getting a promotion, getting married, bringing up children, finding a home, shopping, traveling, reading literature, going to theatre and concerts, enjoying the visual arts, and practicing religion, reading the news, listening to the radio - all connected back to the person having contact with the state.

a. Why was life hard?

i. food - Food was in short supply. Due to famine, bad harvests, and a concentration on heavy industry and not on food production, not enough food was produced to feed the population.

ii. housing - the rapid growth of the urban population (an increase of 31 million between 1926 and 1939) caused housing shortages. Local soviets controlled all of the housing in the town, and they could evict residents and move new residents into already occupied houses.

iii. the nomenklatura - these were special elite groups such as party members, government officials in the bureaucracy, etc. They escaped the hardships that plagued the general population, and they had many privileges that no one else had, such as bread delivered to their homes, they were allowed lower prices, they had better living accommodation and the use of country houses. They made the ordinary people feel like the underdogs.

b. What signs of improvement were there?

i. Food supplies improved with all rationing abolished in 1936. The provision of cheap meals in factory canteens and free work clothes was a great help as well.

ii. Education and health care were free, and the number of schools and medical centres was increasing.

iii. What they called "culturedness", such as grooming and personal hygiene was encouraged by the state. Some industrial enterprises ordered that all engineers and managers were clean-shaven with neatly cut hair. Other signs of culture included sleeping on sheets, eating with a knife and fork, avoiding drunkenness and bad language, and not beating your wife and kids.

iv. Culturedness was extended to shopping and 13,000 new bread shops opened around the country in 1934, where the assistants wore white smocks, caps, and took lessons on how to be polite to customers. In addition, new sanitary regulations were brought in, and loaves of bread needed to be wrapped.

c. The state, women, and the family

i. Why was life hard for women? Women were forced to do work that men originally did because there were more women in society than men at this point.

1. Millions of women were left to provide for their families because of the disappearance of so many men during collectivization, the famine, and the Purges.

2. Women were forced to do work that was traditionally thought of as men's work, including construction, lumbering, and machine-building.

ii. What two goals did the government have for women?

1. Women were encouraged to have as many children as possible, and abortion was made illegal except in cases where the mother's life was in danger. Also maternity leave was allowed up to 16 weeks, and there were benefits for pregnant women.

2. In addition to producing children, women were expected to take jobs, increase output and look after the household and family.

iii. What policies did the government adopt towards women?

1. The Wives Movement - aim was to raise the culturedness of the people that wives came into contact with.

2. Maternity leave was extended up to 16 weeks.

3. Abortion was outlawed in order to increase the number of children that were born.

iv. What was life like for upper-class or well-educated women?

For upper class women with professional jobs, they were seen by the state as part of its campaign to 'civilize the masses', and this is what the Wives Movement was for - it was to raise the culturedness of the people in workplaces.

d. Education

i. What improvements were made to education?

1. Free, mass education was expanded. By the summer of 1930, all children aged 8 to 11 must be enrolled in schools, and between 1929 and 1931, the number of pupils increased from 14 million to around 20 million.

2. By 1940 there were 199,000 new schools and even the most remote areas of the country were provided with schools. New training colleges were set up to train a new generation of teachers and lecturers.

ii. What were some of the goals of education?

1. Education was the way in which the younger generation could be turned into good, orthodox Soviet citizens.

2. To discourage the people from 'bourgeois' practices and religion, which were presented as superstitious and backwards. Education would help the people to see this.

e. Religion

i. Was was the Communist view of religion?
Religion was an invention of the ruling classes to keep the people docile and under control, or 'the opium of the masses' as it was known.

ii. What actions did the government take towards religious organizations?

A savage attack on the Orthodox Church had been launched by Lenin, but after Lenin's death the regime became more tolerant toward religious groups, however the priests began to oppose collectivization, so Stalin instructed local party organizations to attack churches and priests. Hundreds of churches and cemeteries were vandalized and thousands of priests were killed. Muslim and Jewish leaders also fell victim as well.

iii. What was the people's reaction to those policies/actions?

There was outrage, especially in rural areas were priests, mullahs and rabbis were respected members of the communities.

f. Literature and theater

The regime began to mobilize writers, artists, and musicians to wage a cultural war against the 'bourgeois intellectuals' and there were at first two rival groups of writers; the dedicated communists who were members of the All-Russian Association of Proletarian Writers and were committed to socialist realism. The other group were the non-communists who wanted to keep politics out of literature. Writers who did not write the right kind of socialist realism were running the risk of arrest and Stalin himself could even read the typescript of novels and tell the authors what he expected to be changed. A number of actors, actresses, and ballet dancers were also sent to labour camps as well if their work was alien to Soviet norms.

g. Art, architecture, and music
Artists, sculptors, and musicians were expected to play their part in 'socialist realism' as well. Abstract art was rejected, while paintings were expected to portray workers straining their muscle to fulfill their targets. Also encouraged were scenes from the revolution and civil war and paintings of Revolutionary leaders. Music followed a similar pattern to literature, with the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians condemning the 'modernization' of western music.

h. The cinema
Film was considered the most important form of communication. Soviet films were required to be 'intelligible to the millions' and were expected to tell a simple, yet powerful story. Film makers were expected to incorperate so many different and sometimes contradictory themes to their work - proletarian values, classless Soviet nationalism, the problems of ordinary people, the heroic exploits of the revolutionaries, and the glorious communist future. Film was considered the best and most effective way to get communist ideals across to the people and instill them into society.

IRL 4, October 13, 2009

URL; http://www.cliffordmay.org/1906/a-creeping-coup-is-russia-heading-back-to-the-ussr

This article was written by Clifford May (the President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies), for Scripps Howard News Service. It was written on March 10, 2004, and relates to the political climate of Russia at the time, which is that Russia is reverting back to its communist ways. This is very connected to what we are studying in class about single party states. When Russia first started to head toward Communism when Lenin was powerful, one of the things that happened was that Lenin and the Bolsheviks tried to crush all opposition and take power away from the wealthy, and from business owners. According to this article, arbitrary arrests were made in Russia recently (2004) and according to a State Department report issued that year, Vladimir Putin's (Russia's president's) government has been threatening members of opposition groups (Lenin did this!), manipulating the media (Lenin silenced newspapers and did the same thing but in a different way), and harassing businessmen. This sounds vaguely familiar to me. The value of this article is that a lot of what it is saying sounds familiar and relates to what we are studying about Russia when it first headed toward communism. Russia became a single-party state and these incidents were happening (harrassing of businessmen, crushing opposition) before Russia became communist, and since these same things are happening nowadays, it gives me a hint that history might repeat itself. I know what happened before and I am seeing it happening again so inferences can be made. One limitation of this article is that it was written in 2004, so it's not known from this article if Russia has moved even closer to communism since then. Another limitation is that although the same incidences are happening now that happened before in Lenin's time, it is not known if this necessarily means Russia is reverting back to communism, or if it is just a coincidence that there are similar circumstances.

SGQ8, October 6, 2009

I. How much support did the Bolsheviks have from the people?

The Bolsheviks did not have anything like majority support in the country as a whole. 

    a. the elections of November 1917

        i. Bolshevik seats - 175 out of 700

        ii. Social Revolutionary seats - 370 out of 700

        iii. Mensheviks seats - 15 out of 700

        iv. "left wing" groups - 40 out of 700

        v. nationality groups - 80 out of 700

        vi. Kadets - 17 out of 700

  

    b. How did Lenin respond to the election results?

Lenin was determined not to share power with the SRs, or hand power over to them. After some anti-Bolshevik speeches at the Constituent Assembly in 1918, it was dispersed by the Bolshevik Red Guards and not allowed to meet again, and the Assembly must take second place to the Congress of Soviets and Sovnarkom, which was a cabinet in which all 15 members were Bolsheviks. Lenin claimed his actions were consistent with democracy because the Bolsheviks knew what the workers wanted. 

II. What was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and what were its conditions?

    a. It was a treaty between Russia and the Central Powers.

    

    b. Russia gave up

        i. 1/3 of its farming land

        ii. 1/3 of its population

        iii. 2/3 of its coal-mines and 1/2 its heavy industry

^ This was because Russia lost Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Georgia, and Finland.

III. Why did the Bolsheviks resort to violence?

    a. Violence from others

        i. Petrograd and Moscow - There were food shortages and Lenin believed that the better-off peasants were hoarding huge quantities of grain, so Lenin's new secret police (Cheka) dealt with grain hoarders and speculators.

        ii. Ukraine - The loss of Ukraine made the food situation worse, as Ukraine was a major source of wheat.

        iii. Social Revolutionaries - They did a complete campaign of terror, assassinating the German ambassador and a leading Bolshevik member of the Petrograd soviet, with evidence that they were trying to seize power for themselves.

        iv. violence aimed at Bolshevik leaders - The head of the Petrograd Cheka was assassinated on August 30, 1918, and a woman shot Lenin twice with a revolver at point-blank range the same day. 

    

    b. Lenin's flawed reasoning 

        i. Marx's predictions

            1. The collapse of capitalism would take place in 2 stages; first, the middle class bourgeois capitalists would overthrow the autocratic monarchy and set up systems of parliamentary democracy. 

            2. When industrialization was complete, the industrial workers who were now a majority would overthrow the bourgeois capitalists and set up a classless society. 

        ii. Russia's reality

            1. The first stage took place with the February revolution.

            2. Lenin insisted that the two revolutions - bourgeois and proletarian could be telescoped together. However, because the Bolsheviks were in power before their most reliable supporters, the industrial workers had become a large enough class to sustain them, the Bolsheviks ended up a minority government, dependent on the peasants).

        iii. Lenin's expectations for the rest of Europe

Lenin expected that if the revolution in Russia was successful, a European or even worldwide revolution would follow. He believed that revolutions would happen next in central and western Europe, and the Soviet government would be supported by neighboring governments. When this didn't happen, Russia was left isolated with the rest of capitalist Europe suspicious of them.

    c. Liberal historical interpretation

Liberal historians believe that Lenin and Trotsky were committed to the use of violence and terror from the beginning. One historian claimed that Lenin regarded terror as a necessary element of a revolutionary government and was prepared to use it as a preventive measure even if no one was opposing his rule. This would explain why he set up the Cheka. 

IV. The Red Terror

    a. against peasants - The Red Army was used to enforce the procurement of grain from peasants who were thought to be hoarding the grain.

    b. against political opponents - Social Revolutionaries were rounded up and shot, and many of those arrested and executed weren't guilty of any particular offense, but accused of being 'bourgeois' (term of abuse applied to landowners, priests, businessmen, employers, army officers, professional people).

    c. against the former Tsar - The ex-Tsar Nicholas and his family were killed. In the summer of 1918, they were kept under guard in a house in the Urals, and Lenin gave the orders for them to be killed. The civil war was in full swing and the Bolsheviks were afraid that the White forces might rescue the royal family.

V. Civil War

    a. Which groups made up the "Whites"? The opposition, consisting of Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, ex-tsarist offices and any other groups which opposed the Bolsheviks.

    b. What was the Whites' main goal? To set up a democratic government on Western lines.

    c. What was the role of other nations? A White government was set up in Siberia. The Czechoslovak Legion seized long stretches of the Trans-Siverian Railway, and these troops were originally prisoners taken by the Russians from the Austro-Hungarian army, who fought against the Germans.  

    d. What was the result of the Civil War? The Bolsheviks survived. The Communists won the civil war. The White armies suffered many defeats and the interventionist states lost interest, withdrawing their troops. In 1920 when Polish and French troops invaded Ukraine, it forced Russia to hand over part of Ukraine and White Russia. The Communists were happy they had won the civil war, however, and Lenin presented it as a great victory.

    e. How were the communists able to win the Civil War?

        i. The Whites were not centrally organized.

        ii. The Red Armies had more troops. 

        iii. Lenin took decisive measures, known as war communism, to control the economic resources of the state. For instance all factories were nationalized, all private trade banned, and food and grain seized from peasants. 

        iv. Lenin presented the Bolsheviks as a nationalist government fighting against foreigners. The Whites had foreign connections, which made them less popular, even though war communism was not popular overall. 

VI. What were the effects of the Civil War?

    a. civilian deaths - 8 million

    b. economic changes - Important changes had taken place in the communist regime as well - it became more centralized, and state control was extended over all areas of the economy. The regime was also militarized and brutalized. The Civil War was responsible for the political developments of the communists.

VII. What was done about economic problems?

    a. effects of war communism

        i. Peasants only produced enough food for their own needs, since they knew that any excess food would be taken from them without compensation.

        ii. A naval mutiny occurred at Kronstadt, the island naval base off St. Petersburg. This convinced Lenin that a new approach was needed to win back the support of the peasants, who formed the majority of the population.

    b. reforms of the New Economic Policy

        i. Peasants were allowed to keep surplus produce after they paid a tax representing a certain amount of the surplus.

        ii. Small industries were restored to private ownership, though coal, steel, iron, power, transport and banking, remained under state control.

        iii. Foreign investment was encouraged to help develop and modernize Russian industry.

    c. successes of the NEP

        i. The economy began to recover, production levels also improved.

        ii. Great progress made with the electrification of industry.

        iii. There was an eight hour working day, two week holiday with pay, sick and unemployment pay and health care, which gave industrial workers an easier time.