4/28/11
How did the Soviets establish a totalitarian society?
v Civil war
¨ War communism worked a bit during the war, but after the war peasants hoarded food and wouldn’t give it to the government
¨ Disasters after the civil war
Ø Drought à famine 1920-1922 (as many as 5 million died)
Ø Industrial collapse: 1921 output = 20% of 1913
v NEP (New Economic Policy) Lenin’s partial return to capitalism
¨ Peasants were encouraged to sell surplus food
¨ Small businesses ok
¨ Successful
v Leadership problems 1922-24
¨ Lenin had strokes and died in 1924
¨ Despite the theoretical “collective leadership” Lenin was strong he was a one man leader
¨ Lenin supposedly warned the party against Stalin
v 1924 Politburo split between left and right
¨ Left- Leon Trotsky Commissar of War
Ø Rapid industrialization at the expense of the peasants
Ø Spread communism world wide immediately
¨ Right- eventually led by Stalin
Ø “Socialism in one country”
Ø Slower industrialization- avoided hurting the peasants
Ø Continue NEP
v Stalin
¨ 1927 Trotsky was expelled form the Party, 1929 exiled
¨ 1929-39 Stalin CHANGED DIRECTIONS
Ø No more NEP
Ø Rapid
¨
v
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