Lenin’s rule saw: 

The end of democracy when he dissolved the elected Constituent Assembly

The takeover of the economy by the State with first War Communism and then a less authoritarian policy called the New Economic Policy (NEP)

The use of terror through the CHEKA (secret police ) to crush opposition and the victory of Communist forces in a Civil War.

Lenin died in 1924 leaving no obvious successor. Stalin emerged as leader after defeating his rivals, including Trotsky, and by 1928 he was the head of the Communist Party and dictator of the Soviet Union.

A set of targets for production rather than a plan of how to produce things

This caused exaggerated figures of goods produced from local officials in order to meet targets

Which in turn caused raised targets from Stalin!

High production figures were also useful as a propaganda exercise

But

There was also a huge idealism from workers for building the revolution

Historians Alexander Nove and Sheila Fitzpatrick talked of ‘Homo Sovieticus’; the creation of  ‘Soviet man’, a cultural revolution

It was a collective rather than an individual effort. Workers were building communism and not working for personal gain.

A  sacrifice was being made in the face of the ‘enemy’ (capitalist nations)

Show trials for saboteurs and wreckers were used to explain any failures or shortcomings (Shakhty trial of 1928) because the ‘Plan’ could not be wrong

Quantity not quality of production became the yardstick of success

All resources went into modernizing Russia which led to a large shortage in consumer goods (things to buy in shops). Stalin saw necessities for everyday life, like bread, soap, clothing etc. as not important compared to the effort to industrialize.

Shop shelves were empty for the majority of the time and people were unable to buy the things they needed for everyday life. However, Stalin made sure that those who did right by him were looked after with everything they needed regardless of cost and scarcity.

A propaganda ploy that merged idealism with an essentially ‘capitalist’ reward system

Andrei Stakhanov was a miner who produced 7 times his quota in one shift. He dug 102 tonnes of coal instead of 14.

In reality, resources from other coalfields were used to help Stakhanov and coal production on the night of his record was actually lower across the region because of this.

But other feats were soon reported and workers began to enjoy rewards such as higher wages and new apartments

However, this coexisted with a huge number of slave labourers working in the economy and an overall lack of care given to living standards.

Robert Conquest describes this as a great turning point in Soviet history

Stalin used the murder as a pretext to begin the purges

Stalin identified a class of ‘kulaks’ as rich peasants who were hoarding grain and holding back the revolution.

This idea has been shown to be a myth by historians.

However, this ‘class war’ proved to be beneficial.

The communist party cared little for the peasantry and Stalin needed labour from the countryside to fuel industrialization.

Initially poorer peasants were encouraged to turn on ‘kulaks’; seizing land and attacking them

OGPU (secret police) requisitioning squads were then sent into the countryside

The use of terror suited the purposes of the regime as it spread fear in the population

From 1929, Stalin had armed units search every town and every house in the USSR room-by-room. Stalin ordered the liquidation of the Kulak class and millions of Kulaks and peasants were dispossessed of their land, sent to the Gulags or killed. 

Stalin was leading a virtual ’civil war’ against the countryside and was determined to find every grain hidden throughout the USSR to add to the surpluses to sell internationally. The searches and passing through villages of Stalin’s men became known as the “red broom”

From December 1929 to March 1930 nearly half the countryside was collectivized

The sheer disruption this caused led to the policy’s brief suspension by Stalin who blamed local officials for the chaos saying they were ‘dizzy with success’

Despite this slowing down, by the end of the decade virtually all of Russia had been collectivized

The peasants were staggered by the policy and would not or could not cooperate with the destruction of their way of life

They resisted by slaughtering their animals and eating their seed crops.

This induced famine across large areas

The Ukraine and Kazakhstan were particularly hard hit

Peasants died of starvation outside massive silos of grain being guarded by officials. Truckloads of grain were extracted from peasant communities while people died in the streets

A national famine also pushed millions into the cities

Millions of others were used as slave labourers

Large projects, such as Magnitogorsk (a metal production facility), suited the need for propaganda and the nature of the large unskilled workforce

There was no real national strategy on how to achieve the targets so central targets had to be interpreted by local officials and managers. This lead to fraud from below and recriminations from above as the plan could not be wrong or be allowed to fail

The uncoordinated nature of the plan lead to huge local differences in production

Some areas over produced whilst some fell short

This lead to competition and the hoarding of raw materials as they became scarce and thus further inefficiency

Poor standards of production became the norm and as no one was willing to criticize the plan and so errors were left unchecked

The plan also coincided with the political purges so charges of sabotage were all pervading

The lack of qualified personnel and exerts became devastating

Media control meant that increasingly poor working conditions went unreported

Stalin’s enemies were put into prison camps and forced to work until they died. Stalin had a virtual ‘slave labour’ work force that rose from 30,000 in 1929 to 8 million by 1938.

Slave labourers received food rations but were punished by having them withdrawn which only weakened them further

There was no check on the hardships workers faced.

Strict labour rules were enforced

Labour discipline codes were severe – You could go to prison if you were 20 minutes late

Prices also rose due to the failure of collectivization (agricultural changes)

Quality of food fell; queues for food emerged

Overcrowding was common in new industrial cities as millions of workers moved 

1928 – 1933 was particularly bad but there followed some improvement