Totalitarianism in Russia

• History
• Middelbare school
• havo, vwo
• Leerjaar 3

Totalitarianism in the Soviet Union

Today

Communism and Totalitarianism

The Soviet Union under Stalin

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 (planned economy)
)

Totalitarian State

• In a totalitarian state the government has almost complete power over citizens
• Three examples in the 1920s/1930s:
  

1. Soviet Union (communist/extreme left)
2. Italy (fascist/extreme right)
3. Germany (fascist/extreme right)

Give some examples of Totalitarianism in Nazi Germany

Totalitarian State

• The Dictators who rule Totalitarian states don't usually think they are evil or bad
• People like Hitler and Stalin believed that what they did was for the 'greater good', that it was a kind of sacred mission to improve (some) people's lives

What did Hitler try to do?

Who did he believe he was helping?

What did Hitler believe?
Who did he believe he was helping?

Totalitarianism in the Soviet Union

Take notes when you see the icon and answer the following questions:

1. How did Stalin and Communist Party turn the Soviet Union into a totalitarian state?

The Soviet Union in brief

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

The Soviet Union in brief

Lenin - the first leader of the Soviet Union in 1919

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
  

• 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,

Stalin had two goals

1. Turn the Soviet Union into a modern communist superpower:

• Industry: Five-Year Plans
  
• Agriculture:    Collectivisation

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/Terror: kill all opponents of the Revolution
• Cult of Personality: use propaganda to make him into superhuman hero

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.

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

Failure to meet targets = arrest / Gulags in Siberia

Five Year Plans. 

Results?

• progress is made, but...
• many industrial accidents, many deaths
• harsh penalties for failure, many sent to Gulags
  

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.

Collectivation

State propaganda shows that the policy was a big success

Supported by many poorer farmers but....

Holodomor

Ukraine

1932 - 1933

'Death by Hunger'

3.3 - 7.5 million deaths by famine

Food exported even as people were starving

Anyone who complained was sent to the Gulags

One death is a tragedy.

A million deaths is simply a statistic

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/Terror: kill all opponents
• Cult of Personality: use propaganda to make him into superhuman hero

The Great Purge/Terror (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.

Gulags

18,000,000 people sent to Gulags 1919 - 1952
53 Gulag camps and 423 labor colonies in the Soviet Union as of March 1940
1,600,000 died in the camps.

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
  

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.

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
• Examples from Soviet Classroom?