college, a history

History Exam.

It’s done.
It went so-so. The questions were unlike any mock exam I’ve ever done (and I’ve done a LOT of passed papers) so I’m a little uncomfortable.

Saying that, I was sitting there thinking “wow… I know a LOT about Russia”.
So, I feel pretty good.
The night before I did last year’s exam in timed conditions as practice, and they were such good questions, I couldn’t help but think: …This would have gone a lot better if I had those question.

But yeah, tomorrow is my last exam. Then it’s half term & then I start A2 work.
I’ll have the fun bit of choosing my course work topic (: 

How far did the status of women improve between 1928 and 1941?

During the period of Bolshevik experiments, the status of women was up in the air. 1920s policies towards women argued that they should be seen as equal to men in the home, at work, in parenting and in politics. There was also a pledge to build kinder gardens, to allow women more autonomy from childcare. However, the reality of this period was quite different. Due to marriage being frowned upon & the propensity towards open relationships, many women ended up being abandoned with children – this is because divorce when filed took only two weeks, and the quicksand society that had developed in Russia meant that men could disappear without trace with no means of the state tracing them and receiving child support from them. Abortion was free to access, and some women – including Stalin’s wife – were reported to have had up to 10 abortions. The equality of women was also in question, the kinder gardens were never built which meant women were expected to work and be the primary care giver – leaving children with next to no socialisation and mostly uneducated. The work they were given was low paid and unskilled, they did not move up the career ladder, there were also no examples of women climbing the political ladder.

The status of women did improve between 1928 & 1940, it is reported that Stalin visited Russia in the early 1930s and was dismayed by the amount of feral children. Because of this he brought in a new era of ‘Strengthening the Soviet Family’. Within this he removed the stigma attached to marriage, and made it harder to achieve a divorce – lengthening the process from two weeks and adding a fee. As well as this, the kinder gardens were finally built which gave the same freedom to women as men to work, and child tax was installed to aid the primary care giver in bringing up children. However there were also steps back in the equality of women, abortion was made difficult to obtain in any case other than therapeutic (when the women’s life was endangered) which abridged the autonomy of women. As well as this, paternalistic values were reinstalled where the wife and children were seen as an extension of a man’s property. There were also no reported cases of women achieving better jobs or advancing politically.

In conclusion, Stalin’s ‘Strengthening of the Soviet Family’ did aid women by allowing them to more freedom to work over childcare; it also curtailed men’s ability to abandon women and added a stigma to the previous open relationships where women were often the causality. However he did not do anything to better women’s career options or to make them more equal with men, in some ways Stalin was more of a traditionalist. His outlawing of abortion forced many women to resort to backstreet abortions, and the stigma attached to divorce was also a strain on women who no longer wanted to be with their husbands. This period was known as ‘the great retreat’ for Stalin, where he proved himself to be conservative and a traditionalist – although he needed women in the factories for the 5 Year Plans to succeed – Stalin was not shy to reveal his belief that women should remain ‘in the home’

Policies Towards Women in Russia 1920-1950.

The Bolshevik party had a positive policy towards women in 192os, they wanted men and women to be equal at work, home, in parenting and politics. There were extensive plans for childcare to allow women to leave the home and get into the work place. Abortion was easily accessible, and it was easier to get divorce – marriage was actually frowned upon as traditionalist – open relationships were not seen in a bad light.

However the reality for women between 1920 and 1930 was very different. The promised kinder gardens were never built, meaning women and men were not equal as they still had to be the primary care giver – women had to go to work, where they were paid less and given low skilled jobs, and still had to go home and look after the children. There were no examples of women rising up the political ladder. Because of marriage being frowned upon and divorce was so easily accessible many women were abandoned with children, with men disappearing to work new work projects and untraceable to give any means of child support. Many of these single parent families the mother was the only caregiver, meaning children would only see their parent for a few hours a day, leading to feral children who were un-socialised and uneducated.

Stalin’s policies changed the life of women in 1930s, Stalin reportedly visited Moscow in the early 1930s and was dismayed about the amount of feral children, and this was a main driving point for him to change many of the Bolshevik policies in place. The process was dubbed ‘Strengthening the Soviet Family’. First women were allowed child allowances, which would mean they could choose to spend less time at work and more time in the home with children. Some traditionalistic values returned, like paternalistic values where the wife and children were considered a man’s property. Stalin pushed towards ‘the love of marriage’, a movement away from open relationships. He also made it more difficult to gain a divorce, before it had taken 2 weeks to file for a divorce, now it was a lengthened process which included a fee. Abortion was made incredibly hard to obtain, where the only allowance was made for women whose lives were threatened – therapeutic abortions. The kinder gardens were built so that women could work in the factories but not at the deficit of their children’s wellbeing. 

A Woman In Berlin - The Brutal War Crimes That Russia & Germany Choose to Ignore.

How far were economic problems responsible for Stalin’s decision to replace the NEP in 1928 with the First Year Plans?

New Economic Policy (NEP) was brought in by Lenin to bring Russia out of the famine that had been caused by War Communism. Lenin put a lot of work in NEP, facing opponents and making compromises with communism. So have argued that Lenin’s battle with NEP and subsequent stress were the cause of the three strokes that finally killed him. After Stalin triumphed from the struggle for power, one of his first decisions was to replace NEP with the 5 Year Plans (5YPs).

There were many economic problems with NEP. Peasants were allowed concessions to communism to have small capitalistic ventures, this included selling produce and homemade goods. It also allowed people to pay a tax and to keep their grain to feed themselves and sell the remainder, this led to many economic problems: the peasants were not producing enough grain to feed the rapid industrialisation of Russia that Stalin planned; NEP also allowed people to carry out subsistence farming – which involved people growing small amounts of crops for their own needs, and was not very efficient and it also fuelled a capitalistic enemy within Russia, a class of Kulaks who performed well under NEP. Stalin needed to change from NEP to the 5YP to fix these problems. By enforcing Collectivisation productivity was supposed to increase, pooling resources would produce fewer losses – by eradicating individual barns and housing then it’d be harder for peasants to withhold grain and work against the government. Collectivisation would also free up many peasants to leave the rural areas of Russia and work in the factories of the cities, this was incredibly important for the success of modernising Russia. An increase of grain production was also necessary for cash crops – Stalin needed to sell grain to fund the industry side of the 5 Year Plans, this would not be achievable under NEP.

However there were other reasons for turning from the NEP. Stalin had recently won the struggle for power and needed to cement his success. During the struggle for power he had ruled NEP as uncommunist that had allowed him to expel Tomsky, Rykov and Bukharin from the party; to live up to this declaration he needed to introduce a new policy. At this point the global eye was on Russia, western countries like America and Britain were incredibly sceptical of communism. Stalin needed to perform to prove Russia able to compete, he argued that if Russia was to modernise people would “beware you”. The five year plans also fitted well with Stalin’s megalomaniac view of governing Russia, GOSPLAN drew up the plans which set targets for every region, district, factory/mine, manager, foremen and even worker. Heavy discipline was also instilled, very much in league with the view of Stalin ruling by an ‘iron fist’.

Another alternative reason would be the need to eliminate capitalism from Russia. As mentioned previously a class of Kulaks emerge from NEP, as those who performed well under the capitalism. Stalin wanted to eradicate this class, mercilessly killing and imprisoning all that were considered Kulak. The Kulaks had great social sway in the rural areas of Russia, many of the peasants looked up to the Kulaks and opposed collectivisation – evidenced by the mass slaughtering of livestock in rebellion to Collectivisation – by removing this class many of these opponents were gone, as well as giving the remaining peasants with no one to look to other than the Russian state.

The final reason is one that is often overlooked but is equally valid: the 5YPs were supposed to benefit the Russian people’s quality of life. Collectivisation was supposed to make it easier for people to increase productivity – by basic economies of scale. Stalin also promised better housing in rural Russia, as well as education becoming more available and electricity finally being brought to the Russian countryside. Industrialisation led to full employment, and at the time Russia seemed to be the winning team – America was currently suffering from a Great Depression and Russia was on its way to rapid modernisation. The factories built tractors and equipment to make farming easier and more efficient and the peasants were not asked to work harder than they were expected to under the Tsars, just this time they were ‘doing it for themselves’. This however is often overshadowed by the fear installed by the Great Terror, the mass famine caused by over taxing and lack of empathy towards the peasants, but it is a cause all the same.

In conclusion is it easy to see the economic difficulties were a main factor to why Stalin replaced NEP. The drawbacks of NEP – the concessions made to communism & the amount of subsistence farmers – would never have allowed Russia to have modernised and to one day become the Superpower it was consider in the 1950s. Russia performed amazing achievements, industrialising in 10 years were it took Britain 100, and coal, steel and iron productivity tripling pre-war levels, all due to the move from NEP to the 5YPs. However this was not Stalin’s only motivation, Stalin is renowned for his paranoia and need for applause, the 5YPs and their impressive targets would impress foreign threats and allow Stalin succeed in making those “beware you”. As well as this, many have argued that Stalin was not actually corrupt, that although incredibly despotic and happy to kill 1,000 if only 1 was guilty (“One death is a tragedy, 1 million deaths is a statistic” – a quote often attributed to Stalin) Stalin was trying to build a Soviet Utopia for Russia, his focus was work hard today for a better tomorrow – he was happy for his socialist realism propaganda to show the current day harshities as long as they promoted a bright future that was being built.

To summarise, the turn from NEP was fuelled by the economic problems it had provided, without moving to the 5YPs Russia would never have become a Superpower or be able to fight the Nazis during WW2 – however Stalin’s personal paranoia of foreign threats and dreams for Russia were equally as important. 

What were the costs of The Purges?

 *Write something here about what & why the purges happened.*
The costs of the purges come under four main categories: Economic, Social, Military and Political.

Economically there were many costs to the purges, at first all the foreign experts were expelled from Russia which removed expertise from important projects. There was also a lot of fear of failure, so workers were less likely to put themselves ‘on the line’; this led to a lack of innovation. Areas like chemical science and physics were side-lined, hard labour being preferenced.  Due to the immense pressure put on factory managers and so many being victims of The Terror, there was a lack of skilled leaders in the factories – productivity fell in 1938/39 – in particular in iron and steel production, a 10%-20% drop was found. Evidence of this was Russia needing to rely on lend-lease during WW2. However, like in many other areas of Russia, by the 1940-50s productivity increased again and exceeded pre WW1 levels.

There were many social costs, by 1938 18 million people were in the Gulags, where the survival rates were incredibly low. 10 million people were reported dead, and people were frozen by fear in Russia. However it has been suggested that this increased loyalty in Russia and it’s been argued that it was this strict discipline that helped Russia beat the Nazi invasion. After that, Russia also best America in the Space Race. Many argued that Stalin ‘weeded out’ those who were enemies of communist Russia. However to live people had to adhere to everything Stalin said, no one dared questioned their despotic leader, but many of the same people believed that the Terror was necessary to root out the enemies from within.

There were also excessive costs suffered in Russia’s military. The Red Army was so weakened in 1941 that it almost failed against Hitler. The main problem being that the Red Army lacked skilled leaders, during the purges 25,000 officers were killed, many of them efficient leaders who had shown themselves capable during the 1917-1921 civil war. However from 1941 onwards the army was filled with strictly loyal Stalinists who proved themselves capable of not defecting to the enemy under the harshities of invasion.

Politically there were some costs as well, a western democratic view of Stalin’s communism would argue that his successes were not actually achievements due to them being performed under great coercion, but Stalin did not share that view. By the 1940s Stalin had removed his rivals like Zinoviev, Bukharin and Trotsky; he was also now respected globally, seen as one of the main three leaders of the western “civilised” world. Also by the 1950s there was better productivity in agriculture and industry, this can be seen as a response to the fear of The Terror. 

The Great Terror was primarily driven by the insecurities and paranoia of Stalin himself. To what extent do you agree with this statement?

The Great Terror began in 1934, fuelled by Stalin’s decision to murder Kirov, and finally wound down in 1939 – not before the authorisation of Trotsky’s murder (1940) who was at this time living in Mexico. The Great Terror was a period of paranoia and assassinations in Russia, where Stalin, through the use of imprisonment, murder and show trials, ruled with an Iron fist over Russia. Stalin’s personal insecurities and paranoia is known as a main cause of the Terror, but other influencing factors, like the power of the NKVD and economic pressures, also powered this era.

The argument that it was Stalin’s personal insecurities that drove The Terror is a traditionalist’s view of history. Stalin was increasingly worried about his power base at this time, threatened by the support of Kirov in the 17^th party congress; Stalin instigated The Terror to allow him to remove his rivals. Using the purges and applying the use of show trials and forced confessions, Stalin condemned his political rivals such as Bukharin, Kamenev & Zinoviev to death. After The Terror few of the original Bolsheviks were left. Robert Service, a respected author on this subject, can be cited to support the idea that Stalin’s character was the main cause of The Terror. The Terror began to climax after the death of Stalin’s wife by suicide in 1932 – Stalin and Nadezhda had had a strained relationship up to this point, and in her later years she had publically stood up to Stalin – some have even argued that the death was framed to look like a suicide, whether this was true or not, this did foreshadow a period of Stalin being indifferent to death. Stalin could be argued as a man who believed that most problems could have a physical solution: “A man, problem; no man, no problem”. Stalin had no problem executing a 1,000 people as long as one of them was guilty. This is evidenced by comparing Stalin to the other previously potential leaders of communist Russia: although many party members were normalise to violence for the bloody revolution, many – like Bukharin – saw it as a necessary last option, Stalin however would use it as the only option. This could have stemmed from his violent father, or the fact he came from Georgia – known for its brash and forceful culture – either way, it is un-doubtable that Stalin was not shy to use violence: “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic” – a quote often attributed to Stalin.

However there were other causes, one being the weight of economic problems in Russia. This is an incredibly important argument, which fits within the revisionist view of history, and stipulated that Russia had many economic problems in the early 1930s, in particular when it came to collectivisation. Failure to reach targets set in the five year plans (although many of the quotas were set too high and optimistic to ever be realised) made Stalin hunt for a scape goat. Professor Edward Acton argues that it was these economic reasons that were the main driving force for The Terror. Stalin was under a lot of pressure from sceptical other nations and his recent power struggle to uphold good results and to consolidate his power. The Terror was used as a tool to add pressure on workers to be more productive as well as a device to explain away failure. Stalin’s rapidly modernising Russia also needed a large amount of slave labour to construct new industrial areas quickly, this meant condemning thousands to the Gulags which kept the most valuable ‘resource’ – people – available to complete forced work in a fully expendable manner. Without the Gulag system it can be agreed that Stalin’s great achievements, like Magnitogorsk and the Belamor Canal, would not have been completed.

Another cause which was incredibly influential was the fear of foreign threats in Russia, and the paranoia they fuelled. During the 1920s there were many external threats from right-wing governments abroad: Fascist Italy, Franco in Spain, Nazi Germany building momentum in the 1930s and the Japanese empire growing. There was also a distinct threat from ‘capitalist nations’ like America and Britain, who had been notoriously sceptical of communism. This fear pushed Stalin to militarise, purge the party for spies and kept the Russian people loyal to Stalin – the belief that Stalin was acting to protect Russia from outside influenced allowed the Russian people to explain away Stalin’s merciless behaviour. This fear went hand in hand with the social pressures within Russia, social upheaval experienced through forced collectivisation and industrialisation meant that the state found it harder to keep control of the public. Fearing that the masses may side with other nations or revolt, Stalin needed to set a firm example of control. A quick sand society had developed in Soviet Russia, where individuals could not easily be traced, led to the instigation of internal passports. General public paranoia also dwelled in Russia, the people feared the supposed threat of enemies from with. It has been argued that Stalin needed to uphold an ‘iron fist’ (iron the material Stalin chose to base his name on) as the Russian people were used to living under an autocratic society and needed a leader they could look up to and respect.

The final cause was the power of the NKVD and how The Terror snowballed. The NKVD’s role in society expanded greatly during the terror. The heads of this organisation wanted to protect and promotes its power, there were those in Russia who profited greatly from the business of killing – to many it was a lucrative job. The purges seemed to almost take on a life of their own and gathered momentum: quotas of death being installed just as there were quotas for steel, iron and coal. This was perpetuated by local leaders’ need to kill people, without justification, just meet the quota’s demand. It was understood that failing to meet such targets was putting your own head on the block. Many Russian’s at the time believed that Stalin was unaware of this mass killing, that “if only Stalin knew” he’d do something to stop it, however this could not be the case due to Stalin’s name appearing on over 600,000 death warrants. I personally do not agree with the NKVD being a cause of the terror due to the secret police being a tool of Stalin’s to maintain power, Stalin was definitely a megalomaniac and wanted absolute power – this is evidenced by Stalin culling the first head of the NKVD, Yagoda, and then again later into The Terror, replacing Yezhov with Beria. 

To conclude was the most influencing factor I would have to argue that it was Stalin’s personal character that led to The Great Terror, but was definitely fuelled by foreign threats and economic pressures. This is a hybrid theory of historical analysis, and was common within the 1990s. This is because it was Stalin’s totalitarian rule and distinct paranoia of his fellow party members which tipped the scales towards The Great Terror, not to forget that it was Stalin’s own signature that appeared on over 600,000 death warrants. Unlike other dictators, like Hitler who had different autonomous factions working under him all vying to earn his approval, Stalin wanted complete control over Russia. He kept involved in all aspect of governing Russia and undercut officials who looked like they were able to sway public opinion.

However economic problems also had its influence on the cause of The Terror, they fed into Stalin’s paranoia and need to look successful. Failure within the 5 Year Plans would have opened Stalin up to criticisms from other nations, with paranoia from other strong competing countries which had previously considered Russia as a backwards peasant nation on his heels, Stalin needed to project the image of success; The Terror was a means of scapegoating millions for the lack of productivity and created thousands of expendable workers from the Gulags.

In summary, Stalin’s personal insecurities were the main cause of The Terror. Without Stalin at the helm The Great Terror would never had happened, however social pressures, the economy and foreign all fuelled Stalin’s need to motivate Russia – in which he reacted in the way most close to his nature: violence, fear and control.