Union of Soviet

Socialist Republics

(1921-1939)

Multinational USSR

How was the USSR ruled?

• Officially, a Federation with widely dispersed powers.

• In fact, highly centralized through the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

• All leading government officials were communists.

Who ruled the USSR?

• Lenin’s creation• Lenin (died in

1924)• Led to power

struggle:• Josef Stalin• Leon Trotsky• Lev Kamenev• Grigor Zinoviev• Nikolai Bukharin

New Economic Policy (NEP), 1921-28

• State-owned large businesses• Private small and medium-sized

businesses• Some free trade• Peasants left alone to feed cities

(N. Bukharin)• Tax-in-kind• Little use of violence• NEPmen

NEP, 1921-1928

• National communist awakening

• Indigenization (korenizatsiia)– National in form, socialist in content

• Proletarian cultural flowering

• Dziga Vertov’s Man with Movie Camera (1929)

Stalin won (by 1928)

Why?• Not brilliant• Ruthless: used

extreme measures

• Patronage• Will to win• Appealed to non-

intellectuals

The Great Turn, 1928->

• Move to Planned Economy• First Five-Year Plan, 1928-1932• Focus on Heavy Industry• Sacrificed consumer goods• Quotas for everything• Quantity over quality• Stakhanovites as role models

Aleksey G. Stakhanov, 1906-1977

 31 August 1935: mined 102 tons of coal in 5 hours and 45 minutes (14 times his quota).

The Great Turn (cont.)

Collectivization, 1929-1935• 1927: voluntary• 1929: forced• Main goal: control of food• Requisitions• Peasants resisted (1600 large-scale

revolts)• “Kulaks”• De-kulakization (1.5 million removed)

The Great Famine, 1932-33

Causes:1. Requisitions for cities and export2. De-kulakization3. Poor collective farm management4. Livestock slaughtered5. Bad weather

• 3-6 million starved to death• Mostly in Ukraine

The Terror, 1934-39

• Sergei Kirov, 1886-1934• Strong Stalinist• Leader of CPSU in

Leningrad• 17th CPSU Congress,

February 1934• December 1, 1934:

assassinated by a communist

• Sparked Terror

Show Trials, 1936-38

Many Bolsheviks leaders wiped out of history

Great Terror widens to army

• June 1937: Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevskii, and three army commanders shot.

• 3 of 5 Marshals shot

• 15 of 16 army commanders

• 60 of 67 corps commanders

• 70 percent of division commanders

Great Terror widens to citizens, 1937-1938

• “kulak operations”– By Nov. 1938: 767,397 sentenced by

troikas• 386,798 put to death• Remainder to GULAG system

• “mass operations”– Poles, Germans, Latvians, Koreans,

Chinese– 335,513 sentences

• 247,157 to death• Remainder to GULAG system

Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev, 1892-1940 • Bolsheviks’ Muslim• Worked for Stalin at

NarKomNats.• 1923 arrested, put on

“trial,” and released.• “Sultangalievism”• 1928 arrested, sentenced

to death.• Commuted to 10 years in

Solovki labor camp.• Released 1934.• Arrested 1937.• Executed 1940.

Evgeniia Ginzburg

• Journey into the Whirlwind

• Loyal, dedicated communist

• 1937: arrested• “Trotskyist”• Conveyor belt• GULAG• Magadan• 1955: released

Consequences Eight million arrested How many killed?

681,692 people were executed during 1937–38

Memorial society released list of 1,345,796 victims

Gradually, greatly undermined CPSU’s authority and legitimacy