3.2 Totalitarianism in Germany and Russia

Soviet Totalitarianism
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This lesson contains 35 slides, with interactive quizzes, text slides and 2 videos.

Items in this lesson

Soviet Totalitarianism

Slide 1 - Slide

Today
  • Recap: Sovjet Union?! - Questions
  • What is communism?
  • Who was Stalin?
  • Reading plus questions

Slide 2 - Slide

What do you remember about the Sovjet-Union?

Slide 3 - Mind map

In what year was the Russian Revolution(s)?
A
1905
B
1917
C
1919
D
1923

Slide 4 - Quiz

What is Communism? What do you remember?

Slide 5 - Open question

communism
capitalism
Make the correct combinations
businesses / industry are owned by the state
big difference between poor and rich
you work to make a profit for yourself
farmers must sell their crops to the state
the state controls the economy

Slide 6 - Drag question

Characteristics of communism


  • A Communist state is a totalitarian state: the government controls every aspects of peoples' lives.

Most characteristics are economical in nature:

  • Planned economy:
    The state decides what is produced, how much and against what prices.

  • No private companies. All companies are owned by the state. Workers get fixed wages. Nobody makes a profit.

Slide 7 - Slide

Plan Economy
  • Plan Economy: production plan for everything in the next 5 years

  • Government decides what and how much should be produced

  • Economically a disaster - shortage of everything!

Slide 8 - Slide

The symbol of 
Communism
hammer and sickle

both are tools that represent the two most important groups of people in the country: 
farmers and industrial workers


The color associated with communism is RED

Slide 9 - Slide

Introduction

Lenin had begun to transform the new Soviet Union into a communist state, but died before his plans were realised. After a power struggle, Joseph Stalin became the new leader. How did Stalin rule the Soviet-Union?




Propaganda poster. The text says: ‘And Stalin raised us to be loyal to the people, inspired us to work and to deeds!’, Leonid Golovanov, 1949,

Slide 10 - Slide

Slide 11 - Video

Reading - 8 minutes
Read:
  • Learnbeat 3.2 - Theory 8-9

Write down:
  • Difficult words
  • Difficult theory



timer
8:00

Slide 12 - Slide

What is meant by Stalinism? Explain.

Slide 13 - Open question

Why is killing your opponents for being critical a totalitarian aspect?

Slide 14 - Open question

Homework
Before next class (next week)

Make:
  • Learnbeat 3.2 - Basics 9 &10

Slide 15 - Slide

Totalitarianism in the Soviet Union
Learning goals

  1. What did Stalin want to do and how did he try to achieve these goals?
  2. How did he believe he was helping people?



Slide 16 - Slide

The Soviet Union in brief
  • 1917 October Revolution - Communists seize power
  • After the communists win a brutal civil war Russia becomes the Soviet Union (until 1990)
  • A totalitarian state which tried to create a communist paradise
  • Spoiler alert - no communist paradise

Slide 17 - Slide

Lenin - the first leader of the Soviet Union in 1919

Slide 18 - Slide

Lenin
He develops the totalitarian state:
  • Secret Police
  • Terror and ‘purification’ 
  • Gulags (Russian concentration camps) for opponents

  • Lenin dies in 1924, Stalin and Trotsky fight to become the next leader

Slide 19 - Slide

  • Stalin wins the battle to become the next leader
  • Priority Number 1: Make Russia powerful
Propaganda poster. The text says: ‘And Stalin raised us to be loyal to the people, inspired us to work and to deeds!’, Leonid Golovanov, 1949,

Slide 20 - Slide

Slide 21 - Slide

Five Year Plans. (1928 - '32), (1933 - '37)
  • Stalin wanted to develop industry - coal, oil, steel, electricity.
  • Factories, dams, power-stations, whole new cities built.
  • Industries are given 5 year targets to meet.

Slide 22 - Slide

Propaganda poster: "we will achieve the Five Year plan in four years"

Slide 23 - Slide

2. AGRICULTURE: Collectivisation.

What?

  • Russian farming backward and inefficient
  • Richer farmers (kulaks) often killed or sent to work camps (Gulags)
  • Millions of tiny farms to be forcibly gathered into large state-run farms   (= collective farms = "kolchoz")
  • Surplus grain used to buy modern machinery abroad for modern farming or to feed the population needed in the cities for industrial growth.

Slide 24 - Slide

Collectivation
State propaganda shows that the policy was a big success

Supported by many poorer farmers but....

Slide 25 - Slide

Holodomor

Slide 26 - Slide

Food exported even as people were starving
Anyone who complained was sent to the Gulags

Slide 27 - Slide

One death is a tragedy.
A million deaths is simply a statistic

Slide 28 - Slide

Slide 29 - Video

Stalin had two goals

1. Turn the S.U into a modern communist superpower:  
  • Industry: Five-Year Plans
  • Agriculture:    Collectivisation
2. Turn the Soviet Union into a totalitarian state:
  • Great Purge: kill all opponents
  • Cult of Personality: use propaganda to make him into superhuman hero

Slide 30 - Slide

The Great Purge (1930s)

What?
  • Stalin's efforts to eliminate all opposition to his power.
  • Millions of "enemies of the state" were arrested, sent to gulags or executed.
  • Show trials were held to give the impression of a fair justice system, but the outcome ("guilty") of these show trials was decided beforehand.
  • Enemies who were killed were also "erased from history"
  • Stalin even purged the Red Army, killing thousands of his own officers.

Slide 31 - Slide

Gulags
18,000,000 people sent to Gulags 1919 - 1952
53 Gulag camps and 423 labor colonies in the Soviet Union as of March 194
1,600,000 died due to detention in the
camps.

Slide 32 - Slide

Show trials
  • Gefilmde neprechtszaken
  • People 'found guilty' and confessed on camera to betraying the revolution
  • Shown in cinemas
  • Family and friends forced to give evidence to protect themselves

Slide 33 - Slide

The Cult of Personality
  • What?
  • Propaganda campaign to lift Stalin to the status of a demi godMake people believe they owed everything to him and the communist party. Slogan: "thank you comrade Stalin"

  • How?
  • Mass parades with people cheering StalinPropaganda films, photos, posters, sculptures, paintings of Stalin everywhere.

Slide 34 - Slide

The Cult of Personality
  • Stalin could not ever make a mistake so history was changed if necessary
  • Anyone who questioned the official history was killed

Slide 35 - Slide