Tag Archives: Joseph Stalin

Nationalism in a Multiethnic Country

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Karl Marx writes on how the revolution of the proletariat will bring down national boundaries, and that class will unite and bring people together in the same way that nations did in the past. With a land mass as extensive as the Soviet Union had, the number of cultures, languages, and traditions are nearly infinite. However, the problem that the Bolsheviks faced was that they needed to unite the peasants in some manner to get them to overthrow the tsarist regime, so they attempted to unite under a common Russian identity. The major ethic groups such as the Tatars, Chuvash, and Caucausian peoples wanted to keep their traditions which had been in place for centuries if not more. ((Slezkine, 421)) Clearly they wanted to stand up against this, but the nationwide reforms the Soviets sought to put into place required some basic language or national unity for efficiency’s sake.

This quickly deteriorated into a very pro-Russian ethnic idea. It was epitomized by a man who was Georgian by birth, Stalin. The people who were not Great Russians were the victims of tsardom, and were backwards, and in order to reverse this backwardness, they needed to be educated by the party in all aspects of life. They would have to, “Develop and strengthen their own Soviet statehood in a form that would correspond to the national physiognomy of these peoples.” ((Slezkine, 423)) The Soviets met all of these cultures at the middleground, they allowed them to preserve their languages in things such as their courts and arts, but bow down to Soviet dominance in other aspects of life.

This is not to say that the Soviet Union made it easy for these cultures to survive, the process for a language to become official was extremely arduous. The failure to go along with Stalin’s policies or the party line would end in harsh punishments for that group.

With the large groups of nationalities, controlling them according to the needs of Stalin and the party was always going to be a harder task, especially when some of them do not feel the need to contribute back to Moscow.

Yuri Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethical Particularism,” Slavic Review, 53, 2, 414-452

Power of the Masses: How Regional Government Organs Shaped Collectivization in the USSR

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Though at first Stalin and the Central Committee argued that it was necessary to collectivize and mobilized the 25,000ers in order to promote controlled collectivization in the countryside, collectivization in rural areas often became controlled by local government organs. The 25,000ers themselves were not influential in these regions because these “rural offices” outnumbered them. ((Lynne Viola, “Collectivization as a Revolution,” in The Stalin Revolution: Foundation of the Totalitarian Era, ed. Robert V. Daniels (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,1997), 126.)) Further, when members of the 25,000 attempted to provide feedback to the Central Committee’s Department of Agitation and Mass Campaigns regarding unclear government policies on the gathering of seeds for sowing , they were often rejected from the party. The Central Committee’s inability to accept all feedback from the 25,000ers made the task of controlling collectivization from the top down more difficult.

Despite Stalin’s initial argument that “it was necessary to begin gradually to organize agriculture on the basis of large-scale collective farming,” regional organizations took initiative and began to collectivize at a rapid rate between the years of 1929 and 1930. ((Lynne Viola, “Collectivization as a Revolution,” in The Stalin Revolution: Foundation of the Totalitarian Era, ed. Robert V. Daniels (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,1997), 110-112.)) As a result, Stalin and the central government found themselves attempting to control collectivization in response to this rapid growth. In January of 1930, the Central Committee released the decree “On the Tempos of Collectivization and Measures of State Aid to Collective Farm Construction” in order to discourage the forming of rural parties who took it upon themselves to control their region’s collectivization process. Further, the decree encouraged the elimination of the Russian kulaks “as a race.” ((Lynne Viola, “Collectivization as a Revolution,” in The Stalin Revolution: Foundation of the Totalitarian Era, ed. Robert V. Daniels (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,1997), 114.)) This decree was an empty threat to rural communities because the members of the 25,000ers who were in each region were not only outnumbered, but considered as outsiders. Though some 25,000ers went against policy and resorted to violence to control these communities, the majority had little authority over the communities and the local government organs. ((Lynne Viola, “Collectivization as a Revolution,” in The Stalin Revolution: Foundation of the Totalitarian Era, ed. Robert V. Daniels (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,1997), 122.)) In addition, the encouragement of the elimination of the kulak “race” led to uncontrollable violence in the countryside. In the government’s attempt to regain central control, its policies perpetuated more instability in the rural regions of the USSR.

The 25,000ers did not allow this lack of control to go unnoticed, they frequently reported back to the central government. Members of the 25,000 noted the threat that the kulaks presented, lack of “support offered by villagers,” and the problem of collecting seeds for sowing. ((Lynne Viola, “Collectivization as a Revolution,” in The Stalin Revolution: Foundation of the Totalitarian Era, ed. Robert V. Daniels (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,1997), 118-120.)) Regarding the later concern, workers who complained about the government’s lack of specific instructions on the collection of seeds were “transferred, fired, or expelled from the party.” ((Lynne Viola, “Collectivization as a Revolution,” in The Stalin Revolution: Foundation of the Totalitarian Era, ed. Robert V. Daniels (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,1997), 119.)) Though these members were trying to point out to the government its own inefficiency and ambiguity, the government rejected this constructive criticism. These reports were clear indicators of many issues present in the countryside, and the government often chose to ignore these critiques. As collectivization continued to increase, the government found itself having difficulty keeping up with this rapid, uncontrollable growth because of its inability to make full use of its reach through the 25,000ers.

Purging for the Good of the State

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Stalin had a clear agenda for what he wanted to get done in the Soviet economy. The base of the society rests on if they can get food, so naturally agriculture is very important to the success of an economy. Due to the poor results he was getting from the agricultural sector, he sought to find new ways to inspire production from the Soviet people.

Interestingly, the dominant force within Soviet argriculture were the kulaks, the peasants who controlled the majority of production or were doing well for themselves. While the term represented a large spectrum of wealth, they were an oddball in a socialist country. Stalin saw these people to be enemies of the state and began to discredit them through party agitators and eventually began to purge them. (( http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1929-2/collectivization/ )) Stalin realized that these kulaks did hold a tremendous amount of power on a local level, which matters more to the everyday lives of the Soviet citizen. In his essay regarding the grain crisis, he reiterates that those who seek to return to kulak farming are similar to that of the great serf estates of the tsarist regime. (( http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1929-2/collectivization/collectivization-texts/stalin-on-the-grain-crisis/ )) He also mentions that the kulak is the antithesis of communism, and for that reason alone, it should not be allowed. Stalin mentions how the kulaks have lost a large amount of power in the years leading up to his writing, and now they can finally bring the power of the kulaks into the realm of the state so that it can produce for everyone. (( http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1929-2/collectivization/collectivization-texts/stalin-on-the-liquidation-of-the-kulak/ ))

A year after his essay on the liquidation of the kulaks, Stalin writes in the party newspaper, Pravda, that the successes of liquidating an entire class of people has been phenomenal for the state as a whole. The success was “dizzying” and this sets a very dangerous precedent for the rest of Stalin’s reign. He is justifying the murder of his own people for the good of the state and the party. He sees success in the rural community through his destruction of the kulaks, writing, “It shows that the radical turn of the rural districts towards Socialism may already be regarded as guaranteed.” (( http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1929-2/collectivization/collectivization-texts/dizzy-with-success/ )) By defending murder for the good of the state, Stalin is tightening his grip on the Soviet Union more and more.

The rural parts of the Soviet Union were always going to be the hardest to adjust to socialism, and Stalin believed that drastic steps were needed to impose it upon them. By removing their local “lords” and replacing them with the state, Stalin is taking the steps towards having socialism entirely in one country.

 

At the Crossroads of Lenin and Stalin

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Map of the USSR portraying 1922-1928

Map of the USSR portraying 1922-1928

(( Soviet Union 1922-1928 : Socialist republics – National powers. Digital image. Hisatlas – Map of Soviet Union 1922-1928. Accessed February 21, 2016. http://www.euratlas.net/history/hisatlas/ussr/192822URSS.html. ))

 

During the Russian Civil War, nationalist uprisings and criticisms left Bolshevik leadership with some important questions and decisions to make. They had to determine whether to grant different ethnicities and nationalities sovereignty, how to cope with those that did not receive as such, and how to make the union of soviet socialist republics stronger and well-connected. Both Lenin and Stalin, in the form of personal writing, shared their thoughts on these issues.

 

Lenin seemed to take an approach not too dissimilar to the ancient Romans: when ruling over another group of people, keep their systems and leadership intact, so long as they provided troops and worked within the greater economic system.[1] Lenin understood that to oppress a minority population led to resentment and an unwillingness to work with the system in place. Furthermore, he claimed to see beyond nationalities in a sense, declaring being a proletariat the superior identifying characteristic. Moreover, if groups worked together long enough, their origins will cease to matter.

 

Stalin argued in a similar manner, but used Western and pseudo-socialist nations to juxtapose where his Communist ideology was superior.[2] He criticized the others for being hypocritical in its views towards imperialism: while they were willing to allow for “self-determination” of their colonies, they refused to acknowledge the similar poor treatment minorities received in the home countries. Furthermore, Stalin criticized the other countries’ warping of “self-determination” to the point where a minority ethnicity or nationality could receive their cultural freedom, but still essentially had to maintain political and economic submission to the mother country. Stalin also asserted the fusion of nationalist revolution against colonialism and imperialism with proletariat revolution against capitalism.

 

However, what Stalin failed to acknowledge were the minority groups under control of Russia at the time.[3] He avoided discussing the people of Georgia, Armenia, and the like. Perhaps because Stalin himself was Georgian and had managed to become a higher up in the Bolshevik Party, he saw no reason for Georgians not to be a part of Russia. In any case, it is at this point where Stalin differed from Lenin, leading to a course of action in which Lenin eventually condemns Stalin in his writing. Lenin acknowledged the nationality differences within the future USSR, and seemed to prepare to figure out how to solve the problem.

 

That being said:

  1. Lenin dictated that being a proletariat in a communist mindset superseded all other forms of identification. In a capitalist system, what gets valued more – economic class or nationality? Does it depend on the class?
  2. Lenin and Stalin wrote these points during the Russian Civil War. Do you think their points would have changed had they been written afterwards?
  3. How did Stalin’s attacks on imperialism fit into the global context at the time (1921)?

[1] Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich. “Lenin on Nationality Policy.” Seventeen Moments in Soviet History. 2015. Accessed February 21, 2016. http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1921-2/transcaucasia/transcaucasia-texts/lenin-on-nationality-policy/.

[2] Stalin, Joseph. “The Presentation of the National Question.” The Presentation of the National Question. Accessed February 21, 2016. http://marx2mao.phpwebhosting.com/Stalin/CPNQ21.html.

[3] Stalin wrote in 1921, meaning that it was still Russia at the time.

Question for Commenters

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I am not scheduled to blog for today, but I had a question that came to me in my reading that maybe some commentators could debate. The speeches by Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin are in direct correspondence with one another. In Churchill’s speech, he hinted at the possibility of continuing friendships and maintaining good terms with the USSR, especially highlighting sympathy. Stalin on the other hand, completely rebuffed Churchill and attacked him, comparing him to the new Hitler.

 

Do you think that Churchill was sincere in his remarks? Or was he just playing the political system? Because he tried to give a little bit of respect to Stalin, do you think it made him look weak?

Fascism and the Inevitability of War & Stalin’s Master Plan

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Fascism and the Inevitability of War & Stalin’s Master Plan

 

When representatives from Germany and the USSR established the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, it is difficult to tell whether the Soviets actually believed in the treaty lasting. The fact that the war resulted in a victory for the Allies and the USSR probably allowed the Soviets to see the war differently than the Axis powers, certainly with a different bias. In Joseph Stalin’s 1946 speech, he seemed to think that because the Germans were fascist with the Nazi Party at the helm, war was inevitable. He pinpointed this circumstance on an ideological belief inherent in fascist politics – the need to acquire more foreign territory and attain world domination. He cited that the only reason the Soviets were willing to work alongside capitalist powers like the U.S. and Britain was via a common enemy, the fascists. All three of those parties disliked that the fascists eliminated the sovereignty of small, developing nations; it was likely for different reasons though. The U.S. and Britain likely wanted to see the small nation develop into a trading partner, or at least a suitable ally or buffer country, while the Soviets likely hope to establish a Communist movement there. In short, all three parties understood the fascists to be a threat to the freedom of lots of peoples and, for Stalin and the Soviets, an inevitable source of conflict.

If Stalin believes that the fascists would inevitably create conflict, then why would he sign a treaty with Nazi Germany? In short, there are a few potential answers to this question. Firstly, Stalin could be lying through his teeth and merely just trying to cover himself in this speech; it is, after all, an “election.” Maybe Stalin honestly thought the Germans would honor their agreement. There is also the possibility that Stalin merely wished to delay the inevitable, giving him more time to prepare for a Soviet attack. Without this agreement, Hitler may have jumped straight from Poland and Austria, to the USSR. Stalin also must have known that Hitler’s hatred of Marxists and Communists would have to ground itself somehow.

However, the last possibility is perhaps the most striking, and the boldest out of the three ideas presented here. (In short, bear with me on this one.) Stalin may have known that Hitler would try to stab him in the back and break an agreement; he has had to deal with lots of political enemies himself. Therefore, perhaps Stalin wanted the pact signed, almost as if to goad in or tempt the Nazis, to convince them that the Soviets were in a false sense of security. If a nation, like the USSR, can anticipate and prepare ahead of time for a backstabbing, then it can catch its opponent off guard immensely. Since a backstabbing relies heavily on the element of surprise, if one were to reverse that element, the backstabber would be caught in a near impossible situation. When the Nazis do finally attack the USSR in one of the largest military offenses in history, it initially resulted in heavy losses for the Soviets.[1] However, they were able to absorb the damage, get back on their feet pretty quickly, and retaliate with great strength, as Stalin described in his speech. The Soviets from that point onward made the offensive a war of attrition, using their home territory to their advantage. In short, they took out the German army quite skillfully. Lastly, Stalin continuously mentioned during his speech what a victory it was not just for the USSR as a whole, but for the Soviet social system, the Soviet state system, and for the Red Army. Stalin wanted to prove critics wrong, and Nazi Germany during WWII provided the perfect venue to demonstrate the USSR’s advancements. The U.S. did it during the Spanish-American War, and von Bismarck was well known for starting wars to help get Germany going; is it not unlikely that Stalin wanted WWII to happen and that he wanted Nazi Germany to invade?

 

[1] “Operation Barbarossa.” Wikipedia. Accessed April 8, 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa.

Stalin Against Capitalism and Churchill

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Throughout Stalin’s speech, given at a meeting of voters of the Stalin electoral district, Stalin continually mentions the superiority of the Soviet system and its greatness. This is also evident in his response to Winston S. Churchill’s speech on the “Iron Curtain”, given in 1946. In both of these speeches Stalin makes frequent comments on the inefficiencies of capitalism. This further proves that Stalin was not a fan of capitalism and its capitalistic ideas. In his speech to the voters of the Stalin electoral district, Stalin blamed the Second World War on the development of world economic and political forces on the basis of present-day monopolistic capitalism, mentioned that the capitalistic system contains some aspects of a general crisis and military conflicts and almost never proceeds smoothly. He glorified the Soviet Union’s victories over their enemies and the war and determines the nation’s victory through the “victorious” Soviet social system, in which he says “passed the test of fire and war and prove to be fully viable”.
Stalin continues further to exaggerate the Soviet Union’s greatness by direct attacking Winston Churchill in his response to the “Iron Curtain” speech. Stalin directly states that Churchill only thought of English speaking nations as the only valuable nations that were actually worth something and should rule over the rest of the world. This is a very strong statement to be said especially to such large public, it proves that Stalin only had one intention in these two speeches, to increase his popularity within the people of his nation and to encourage his nomination as a supreme Supreme Soviet. I would say that these two speeches were mainly used as a way to increase his popularity within the public he appealed to.

The best/worst of two evils

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After reading Churchill’s speech and Stalin’s response on it, I wonder what a smart orator Soviet leader was. They both were trying to convince their audience in the idea that another one is a possible threat for the world, but do it in a very different way, and, from my point of view, Stalin is more effective in that.

Churchill introduced some facts, like growing influence of communists parties on the other side of the Iron Curtain, and then just added the claims that it was bad, dangerous for the world piece, destroying, etc. He did’t provide these claims with evidence, he didn’t present clearly why he thought that it was the possible threat for the world, etc.
At the same time, Stalin did his job great almost just by paralleling Churchill’s speech with nazi Germany’s ideology. He even didn’t have to explain it further to reach his audience, probably, not only in Soviet Union, but all other the world by that. This parallel, I think, should be very effective in a post-war world, as everybody remembers nazi’s rhetorics, ideas on which that ideology was built, etc. So, even if Churchill’s speech was about to inspire nations to think about the communists as a potential thread to the world, this passage made Britain look as the country which wants to expand its’ influence to the entire world, supported by english-speaking countries and persuading them to aggressive policy because they have a “traditions” or “values” which have to be spread and destroy other ideologies. Pointing on that, Stalin did a clever hook in maybe not making soviet ideology more popular, but at least in showing his opponent being the worst of two evils.

Stalin’s Speech

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In his 1946 speech, Joseph Stalin reflected on the events that occurred in Europe the last few years by ripping into the Capitalist system, praising the strength of the Soviet People, and discussing the positives of the war on the Soviet Union.  Of the items that Stalin covered in his speech, his praising of the Soviet people stood out to me the most.

During his discussion of the second World War, he noted that the war “was the fiercest and most arduous ever fought in the history of our Motherland.” (Stalin Speech: http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/SS46.html))  Highlighting the fact that the Soviet state had endured so much death and destruction from the invasion of the Nazis, Stalin recognized the fact that the Soviet Union had survived because of the determination of its people.  If we place his praising of the Soviet people into context of the late 1930s and early 1940s, one could theorize that the people either had no choice to Serve in the Red Army as a result of the fear of being purged or secondly to protect their families from Nazi occupation.  It strikes me as interesting that Stalin would praise his own people considering the policies he had launched during the 1930s.

Another significant part of his praising was of the Red Army.  He stated that “our victory signifies that the Soviet Armed Forces, our Red Army, was victorious, that the Red Army heroically withstood all the hardships of the war, utterly routed the armies of our enemies, and emerged from the war the victor.” ((Stalin Speech: http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/SS46.html))  Stalin used this statement within his speech to not only compliment the bravery of the Red Army, but he also used his speech to hide the blunders that he had made with the purging of his military leaders and the lack of militarization during the 1930s.   When the Germans had invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 the Red Army had lacked any leadership as a result of these purges and had lacked military preparation.   As a result, Stalin had to rely on help from western powers to defeat the Nazis.

Although some could argue that the Soviet Union and its system could not have won the war without help from western powers, it can also be argued that if Stalin had not purged his military leaders, had he prepared for the Nazis much sooner than he did, the Soviet Union would have held its own against the Nazis, perhaps winning the war on its own.

Indirect Correspondence between Stalin and Churchill

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Winston Churchill speaks extremely highly of the Ally powers in his speech discussing the Iron Curtain and his desire to unite the English speaking commonwealth with the United States.  Although his main goal appears to be a peaceful settlement with the Soviet Union and elimination of their “expansionist” policies, he focuses much more on global security and the strength of the United States and England.  For instance, he opens his speech with the phrase “The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power.”  Churchill does so not as a warning or criticism, but rather offers praise and strategic help.  “You must feel not only a sense of duty done, but also you must feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement.”  Churchill is not berating the United States for laying the foundation of the title of “World Police”, he is instead offering support.

Churchill’s speech is seen in a very poor light by Josef Stalin.  Stalin asserts that the British are only mimicking the same racial theory that Hitler brought to Germany.  Stalin claims that Churchill’s assumption of their desire to ensure the security of their future as a means of forceful expansion is inaccurate. Stalin is sure to mention the faith that he has in the people has no limitations and that they are much smarter than Churchill proclaims them to be. The two leaders have extremely different views on how each side of the Iron Curtain operated, and both believed the other to be incorrect. Stalin proclaims power to the people while Churchill broadcasted a message of national cooperative power regardless of the people’s wants.