Allen - Stalin Research Paper

Allen 1 Geoffrey Allen Professor Puricelli HIS 102-006 17 April 2015 At Any Cost: Stalin and Soviet Modernization It’s the early nineteen hundreds, Western Europe and the United States are well into their process of industrialization and are moving even further still into technological developments. As Africa, South America, and parts of Asia are violated and exploited for their resources, one nation lags behind in kind, yet avoids being a target: Russia. Knowing they cannot rely on their Czar to bring them into the twentieth century, the Bolsheviks led by Lenin overthrow their government. Under the banner of communism, the refreshed, Bolshevik led Russia pushes forth to industrialize their newly christened Soviet Union. Soon though, Lenin falls ill, and eventually dies. The man that supplants him, Joseph Stalin, stands at the head of a nation filled to the brim with human capital, culture, and a desire to survive in the increasingly distanced world outside their borders. Stalin succeeds in bringing about a Soviet Union capable of contending with the greatest of empires, but at a nigh unjustifiable cost. Ultimately, Stalin’s desire to modernize his nation led him to violate basic human rights, and to eradicate groups considered ‘unfit’ for his Soviet society. With little industry existing within Russia’s borders, Stalin’s first concern was in garnering enough money to create a usable infrastructure, exploiting Russia’s farmers and peasantry, he pursued a program known as collectivization. Russia, having only abolished legal serfdom as late 1861, was still mostly populated by agrarian peasantry (Lestrade 225). These

Allen 2 peasants lived in divided farms, cared for their land, and grew grain to feed their families and trade with others. It was here that Stalin found the source for the income that the Soviet Union would need to kindle the tinder of Soviet industry. Starting in 1928, literally millions of Soviet citizenry were uprooted from their ancestral homes and forced to work on massive farming communes in a process called collectivization (Naimark 54). With agriculture firmly under the federal governments thumb, grain was able to be confiscated and utilized to feed the hundreds of thousands now living in the swelling Russian urban centers, but also to sell to other nations to gain the sheer monetary power necessary for a nation such as Russia to advance their still primitive industrial infrastructure (Naimark 53). The plan was a failure in nearly every respect. During the period most wrought with forced collectivization, citizens revolted against the acquisition of their livelihoods (Suny 224). This frustration and defiance was reflected in the numbers of grain produced, as the crops yielded from 1927 (the first year such plans were implemented) to 1929 were markedly reduced compared to those harvested years prior to collectivization (Suny 225). It would take until 1930 for the ambitious, aggressive plan to play out in the way Stalin and his cronies desired domestically. Across the sea and in foreign markets however, the plan fell to pieces, as Soviet grain was in little demand in the already saturated market (Suny 226). Regardless, in time, an unbelievable sixty million people would be torn from their farmlands and placed upon these collectives (Naimark 54). Those who would not submit to collectivization were ultimately shipped off to prison camps known as gulags where as many as eighteen million people during Stalin’s reign would face a fate less preferable to death. The violation of the rights of property and liberty implicit in collectivization would be reason enough to condemn Stalin, but the punishment for failing to comply, a sentence in the brutal work camp institution known as the Gulag, paints an even more vivid picture of the evils

Allen 3 perpetrated by the Stalinist government. Poorly supplied in construction material, workable resources, clothing, and even the most basic edible foodstuffs, gulags resembled a Stalinist response to the Nazi’s concentration camp (Forsythe 514). Forced to live and work in the foreboding, and exceedingly lethal Siberian tundra, the men, women, and children of the gulags fought viciously to cling to even a shred of their lives. Cannibalism is reported to have been rampant in these camps, sometimes by way of killing, but more often out of desperate desire for survival through necrophagy, the consumption of corpses (Naimark 62). Stalin was well aware of these difficulties. Ever the paranoid micro-manager, the Soviet leader received constant correspondence regarding the maintenance of the gulags; despite this, he still decided to reduce the funding granted towards keeping those banished to the unforgiving camps alive and working (Naimark 63). While the official story paints these camps as places where those who refused to work on collectivized farms could still contribute to Soviet society by way of land clearing, lumber work, or canal construction, the true intent was clear; to eliminate dissenters (Naimark 57, 60). One camp operator known only as Shpek wrote following a conversation with a higherup well aware of the situation, “…After this conversation, I refused to organize the camp, for I had understood that they were going to send people out there and that I was supposed to see to it that they all died.” (Naimark 60). All in all of the eighteen million people isolated in these horrific camps, and as many as 2.3 million are estimated to have perished, all under the watchful eye of Joseph Stalin (Forsythe 518). The targets of this mass-murder spree were undeniably varied, in nationality, political outlook, gender, wealth, and age; but all were deemed unacceptable by Stalin, and thus given the label of Kulak. By turning the blame for the failures of collectivization towards a group already experiencing animosity, Stalin was able to reduce the number of mouths that Soviet grain

Allen 4 producers needed to feed, and to trim the populace of any who would oppose his policies by way of an extermination known as ‘Dekulakization’. Kulak, meaning fist (for tight-fisted), was a catch-all term utilized by Stalin for labeling dissidents, and unwanted citizenry of the Soviet Union (Naimark 55). The primary target of Kulak accusations were mostly the more successful individuals of the peasantry, such as those that had possessed land, or the variety of holy-men that had once preached (Naimark 56). By painting the picture of rural life as a class struggle between the rich peasantry and the poor peasantry, Stalin was able to eliminate not only those that had a vested interest in opposing the collectivization of farms, such as the former land owners, but also those whose religious beliefs weren’t in line with the newly and firmly atheistic Soviet Union (Naimark 56, Suny 224). Utilizing a system of statewide propaganda, and federally appointed bureaucracy, Stalin was able to turn the Soviet state, and its people, against the socalled kulaks. Many different mantras were instilled in the minds of the terrified peasantry to inspire them to independent action, such as “We will make soap of kulaks.” and “Our class enemy must be wiped off the face of the earth.” (Naimark 57). One can assume the lack of subtlety reflects the attitude Stalin’s administration had towards the minds of the peasantry, as it takes little imagination to grasp the action intended to be spurred by such phrases. Despite these facts, the planned elimination of an undesired political group curiously evades the label of genocide. One may assume that this is because of the scale of the undertaking, seemingly much smaller than that of the Holocaust, or that of the Rwandan Hutu on Tutsi killings; however the Serbian attempts to eliminate Bosnian Muslims (far smaller on scale than any of the three attacks aforementioned), still receives the label of genocide, so this can’t be the case (Naimark 26). The honest reason for ‘Dekulakization’ evading the label of genocide falls squarely on Stalin’s shoulders. Following World War II, a United Nations gathered to determine the meaning of

Allen 5 certain terms, amongst these was genocide. While the originator of the term, Raphael Lemkin, felt the name should include virtually every grouping conceivable, the victorious allied Soviet Union vied for the exclusion of ‘political groups’ as a legitimate category (Naimark 16, 21). This ensured that their ‘Dekulakization’ cleansing of society couldn’t be retroactively brought up as a case of a crime against humanity. However, a cleansing of any other name is still just as cruel, and its intentions clear. Stalin’s goal in eradicating these socially unacceptable people was to ensure that the only genetic lines to survive this period would be those unerringly loyal to Stalin and the Soviet cause. To properly clear the way for his dystopic Soviet society, Stalin found it useful to remove the power base of another group of people, the Ukrainians, by way of a mass starvation known as the Holodomor. Ukraine had long been the bread bowl of Russian and Eastern Europe, its flat plains serving well to grow the grain and bumper crops required to feed the millions living beneath the shadows of the Urals (Suny 227). Some figures plant Ukraine as having contributed as much as forty-six percent of all requisitioned grain deliveries during the brutal process of collectivization (Naimark 71). Despite this, the Soviet regime continued to increase the percentage of grain harvest that was required to be handed over towards the federal machine (Suny 227). The Ukrainians, already hesitant over the idea of collectivization, responded negatively, with much of its intellectual base opposing the plan and attempting to inspire feelings of long-held nationalism in rebellion; this only served to further cement Stalin’s resentment (Naimark 72). Ellman holds that Stalin “was more concerned with the fate of industrialization than with the lives of the peasants,” a position that becomes more defensible as one considers the implications and origins of the famine (Ellman 664). The Ukrainians attempted many forms of resistance, from out-right theft, to the more passive act of simply fleeing from the collectives and

Allen 6 the country itself; those that were found to have ‘subverted’ collectivization in such a manner were sent back home, or to the aforementioned gulags (Naimark 73). So great was the suffering of this period that a multitude of foreign nations offered supplementary grain to feed the starving Ukrainians, grain that Stalin declined (Naimark 73). Desperate for food, and weak from hunger, Ukrainian society was seen to have nearly broken down completely, by 1933 it is said that ‘Corpses lined the roads, whole families disappeared, and instances of cannibalism were reported…’ (Suny 228). Perhaps the most disturbing element of this famine was Stalin’s insistence that those suffering from it had brought it upon themselves, and ‘deserved to starve’ (Ellman 664). This insistence is placed at a time where Naimark insists ‘Most scholars agree that there was enough grain in the Soviet Union in this period to feed everyone in Ukraine at a minimal level.’ (Naimark 74). When the requisitioning finally ceased, a mind-boggling death toll of three to five million Ukrainians had perished from starvation, disease, or Stalin’s gulags (Naimark 70). Stalin’s attempt to remove the Ukrainian ‘nation’ from the ranks of his destitute followers would not be the last of his statewide cleansings, however. For a time following the Holodomor of 1932-33, there was a general easing of the Soviet state and it’s persecution of individuals living in its borders; but this dull period only served as the calm before the worst and most indiscriminate of Stalin’s storms, the ‘Great Terror’. In the year 1937, the atmosphere across Europe and the Soviet Union was one of unbearable tension, and nations were swiftly ramping up defense policies in order to prepare for war (Naimark 99). Stalin, paranoid as he had ever been, decided that yet another cleansing would be required for the Soviet state to emerge victorious from the creeping threat of war (Naimark 100). In order to ensure the Soviet Union would follow him without question, Stalin finally turned his eyes upon members of his own cabinet who he had possessed personal doubts about. By way of show trials,

Allen 7 Stalin forced his former allies and officers into harsh interrogation, the results of which led to them “regurgitating the new version of party history,” one “that had been rewritten ‘to comply with Stalin’s megalomania and infallibility’.” (Naimark 101). Already hard at work combatting his political rivals, Stalin turned towards the NKVD (a sort of prototypical KGB) and set them against the populace. His most loyal lapdog in this pursuit was the newly promoted leader of the NKVD, Yezhov. Yezhov was described as being a ruthless killer with an unshakable belief that the ends justified the means, he ‘was known to justify the execution of many innocent people if the trade-off was to catch the guilty ones.’ (Naimark 108). This is reflected in the staggering numbers of people incarcerated during his ‘reign’, as many as 1,575,000 individuals are cited as having been brought in by the NKVD from 1937 to 1938 alone (Naimark 109). The figure that speaks most of his character, and of the ‘Great Terror’ itself is the sheer percentage of those arrested that were then summarily executed, 681,692 in all (Naimark 109). The rest would be sent to live in the harsh Gulag, which remained a favored punishment during the entirety of Stalin’s life (Naimark 109). Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the ‘Great Terror’ was the complicity of the citizenry in the purging of society. It’s known that Stalin and his tyrannical NKVD actively supported turning in one’s neighbor if they were suspected of being an enemy of the state (Naimark 117). In the end, despite Stalin’s attempt to refine the Soviet state by way of eliminating dissenters, traitors, suspected class enemies, and unwanted nationalism, he only succeeding in crippling the country. It’s said that following the purge ‘the judiciary, police, and military organizations were in shambles,’ and that the manufacturing sectors suffered from constant accidents due to a lack of professionals (Naimark 119). Stalin had succeeded in thrusting his nation into the future, but with a populace controlled by fear, and many of its greatest minds already dead.

Allen 8 In retrospect, Stalin remains a controversial figure, his fiendish pursuit of modernization forced the Soviet Union out of obscurity, but at a tremendous human cost. By treating the citizenry beneath him as mere numbers rather than individuals, he was able to undertake massive civic projects. Collectivization and the grain acquisitions that occurred because of it was responsible for much of the capital the Soviet state was able to garner before the advent of World War Two. The Gulag itself lingers in the Russian culture, with unimaginable numbers of families cut viciously short, or separated during its imprisonment of nearly eighteen million Soviet citizens. For better or for worse, Stalin’s elimination of the Kulaks led to the revision of the term of ‘genocide’, which remains to this day. Much like the Gulag, the memory of the Holodomor has lingering consequences, and could be attributed to the animosity between the two states to this day. The ‘Great Terror’ itself still exists in memory as a warning to all people living today, like the actions of the Nazis, about what it means to stand idly by while men do evil. Stalin showed what it meant for a man to be a figure, a gear, a cog in a machine greater than oneself, and what an impact that could have on the human spirit. The cost of this lesson lay in the shallow graves of an entire generation.

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Works Cited Ellman, Michael. "Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932 – 33 Revisited." Europe-Asia Studies 59.4 (2007): Web. Forsythe, David P. "Soviet Gulag." Encyclopedia of Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. 513-21. Print. Lestrade, V. C. De. "The Present Condition of the Peasants in the Russian Empire." The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2.2 (1891): Web. Naimark, Norman M. Stalin's Genocides. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2010. Print. Suny, Ronald Grigor. The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States. New York: Oxford UP, 1998. Print.

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