3.2 Totalitarianism in Germany and Russia

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

Soviet Totalitarianism

Today

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

What do you remember about the Sovjet-Union?

In what year was the Russian Revolution(s)?

1. 1905
2. 1917
3. 1919
4. 1923

What is Communism? What do you remember?

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

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.
  

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!

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

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,

Reading - 8 minutes

Read:

• Learnbeat 3.2 - Theory 8-9

Write down:

• Difficult words
• Difficult theory

What is meant by Stalinism? Explain.

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

Homework

Before next class (next week)

Make:

• Learnbeat 3.2 - Basics 9 &10

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?

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
  

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,

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"

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

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

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.

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.

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