In “Dizzy with Success” (1930) Stalin discusses the need to temper growing enthusiasm in the socialist state and the socialist system. It is interesting to note that this was necessary. In America, students are still raised on ideas born of the Cold War: communism is evil; the people are never happy under communism. This piece contradicts these foundational American ideas.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Soviet citizens were ecstatic in the changes to their economy. The economy was growing at an unbelievable rate and the people were glad to see their living conditions quickly improving. This happiness went hand-in-hand with an eagerness to continue. Many people wanted to help push the economy even further. It was this idea that Stalin cautions against in this piece. He did not want the people to become so “dizzy with success” that they forgot themselves, their country’s position in the world, or the power of its enemies. He warns that many, once they taste the first fruits of success, want to capture the feeling. Many would do anything to protect their new advances, but they also become careless–they believe that since they have already succeeded, the success will continue. With this perspective, they continue to push themselves, but not to the same level and not with the same need to strive beyond the success of others.
This piece was written in 1930 when collectivization was in its first few years. Stalin needed to prove that his plans for the economy were more profitable than those first begun under Lenin. Platanov’s The Foundation Pit highlighted the difficulties associated with collectivization and its counterpart, dekulakization. On what level was “dizzy with success” a piece of propaganda? Were the statistics from the program truly reflective of the changes in the economy? Stalin encouraged Stakanovites to work past their quotas to achieve more for the state. Why did this same principle not apply to collective farming?
Tag Archives: Stalin
Stalin’s New Collectivation
In Joseph Stalin’s Industrialization of the Country, 1928, the main argument of the article is to push forward the ideology of communism through the agrarian ways of the Soviet 1920s. It commonly sites the failures of capitalism to fairly protect the farmers, as well as the previous Tsarist government to modernize in technology and political rule over the 1920s and 1930s. In Stalin’s piece he goes over the failure of the new agricultural policy in an attempt to reform it within collectivization and the new Soviet style. Beyond that it continues to disregard and downplay capitalism as a failing technique and further builds our new historiographic world.
In his work one sentence I found most interesting was one on changing social classes’ and the economy.
“If that were the case, the capitalist encirclement could not be so serious a danger as it is now, the question of the economic independence of our country would naturally recede into the background, we could integrate ourselves into the system of more developed proletarian states, we could receive from them machines for making our industry and agriculture more productive, supplying them in turn with raw materials and foodstuffs, and we could, consequently, expand our industry at a slower rate.”
In this piece I see a respect for all industries but the capitalist groups even in Russia continually achieve and receive more wealth and time than the non capitalist groups. If natural integration between social groups were possible during the 1930s and 40s I believe that not only would the Cold War would have been less active, but also that the action between East and West forces would have been naturally more calm.
However after the destruction caused by the collectivization done by Stalin in this work is very telling about the worth of human life to Soviet leadership. The idea of backwardness of the economy takes a seat in order for the state to push for further self independence. I have to ask how true the actors of the time, specific to districts or towns would readily agree to these comments. As well as how at the same time how much they could agree that the local populace would be to them as well.
Dizzy with Success
In the late 1920s the Soviet government began to collectivize agriculture within the country. In this document Stalin boasts about the rapid success of this newly implemented program in regards to agricultural output. Since the program has had such a swift and unexpected success, Stalin attempts to dissuade the public from being lured into feeling of contentment and complacency. He wishes to promote further advancement of the the country’s agricultural potential in order to obtain the “full victory of socialism.”
Although the collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union did succeed in several regards, it was a highly controversial program as well. Stalin wrote that “even our enemies are forced to admit that the successes are substantial,” in order to make opponents of the policy reevaluate their criticisms. He needed to defend the collectivization program because it was met by heavy opposition from propertied individuals who would be required to forfeit their lands. Many peasants knew that the state would benefit from having large quantities of cheap grain continually available, but these same peasants also realized that this same policy would have a negative impact on them as individuals because they would be forced to sell their grain at cheap, state dictated prices.
Did the impressive immediate results of collectivization effectively dissuade many of the programs critics? Or did most of them realize that it was merely a short run phenomena that would be difficult to expand and sustain?
Stalin’s Industrialization of the Country
In Stalin’s Industrialization of the Country, 1928, he states, “Look at the capitalist countries and you will see that their technology is not only advancing, but advancing by leaps and bounds, outstripping the old forms of industrial technique.” This statement refers to Stalin’s fear that the Soviet Union’s industry was lagging behind other European countries, and as a result, the country will be unable to achieve socialism. In this statement, he argued that the reason for the success of various capitalist countries was due to the fact that they were far ahead of the Soviet Union in terms of technological advancement.
This quote is significant because it captures the fear that was present throughout Stalin’s writings, and more generally, throughout the Soviet Union. In this piece, it is clear that Stalin feels as though industrialization is a race that the Soviet Union must win, no matter the cost. He repeatedly compares the Soviet Union to other, more advanced European countries with a sense of apprehension. Industrialization of the Country, 1928 seems to focus largely on using a fear of lagging behind to promote industrial productivity. Stalin seems to have felt that instilling a sense of fear in society would be the best and most productive means of change.
How convincing do you think Stalin’s approach would have been? Was approaching industrialization as a race that the Soviets needed to win the proper way to go about achieving socialism?
Replanning Sevastopol
Students know of the widespread devastation that resulted from WWII, but most history lessons stop just short of how those countries, cities and towns picked up the pieces and rebuilt their homes. As this reading shows, it wasn’t an easy task. Sevastopol needed to be completely rebuilt–and not just the buildings, but social services as well. Infrastructure was close to nonexistent, public health services were failing the population and all the while, architects and city planners were attempting to “russify” the Ukrainian city with a city-wide face lift in the Russian style.
Credit: crisisboom.com
In typical Soviet Union fashion, the state wanted Sevastopol to be rebuilt in the Russian image. As Professor Qualls wrote in his article, “the perceived reversion to tradition meant a Russian ethnic identification wrapped in a Greek architectural façade, yet devoid of all hints of competing identifications.” When I read this, I was completely unfazed. Why of course the government would use this opportunity to impose Russian culture on Sevastopol. It would be logical for the people of Sevastopol to want to rebuild their own heritage, commemorate their losses in their own fashion and construct a city of their own choosing–but this wasn’t an option under Soviet rule.
It was this “top-down” approach to reconstruction that most caught my attention in the article, but the health and safety conditions plaguing the city were of great importance as well. It took several years before disease began to decline, living conditions (such as apartments with adequate space so as not to spread disease) improved, health services (such as ambulances) were restored and the population began to rebound. Of course, the important thing is that the city did achieve this stability, but I’m sure that if compared to the reconstruction timelines of Western European nations, the case of Sevastopol look quite bad.
Day in the Life
Although the critically acclaimed prose of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich has been diminished through translation, Alexander Solzhenitsyn delivers a powerful novel which exposes the tribulations and inhumanity in Russian labor camps in the 1930s. Ivan Denisovich is a former soldier who was sentenced to ten years in a labor camp located in Siberia. As long as the temperature did not drop to negative forty-one degrees, Ivan and the other prison inmates were sent out in groups to perform tasks which mostly involved construction or heavy labor. The prisoners were malnourished, ill equipped for the elements, and abused by prison staff on a daily basis.
Something that interested me as I read this novel was the fact that the events took place over the course of a day, which makes the reader think of the potential types and severities of events which simply did not occur in that time frame. Another thing which stuck out to me was the fact that labor is seen as a type of privilege–it was unfortunate to have your rights to perform labor stripped because otherwise it was harder to stay warm and feel alive.
Probably my favorite quote from this novel may have been the saying “How can you expect a man who’s warm to understand a man who’s cold?”. (23) It is used repeatedly and represents the two sides of “us” and “them” that is a ubiquitous theme when learning about Russian class relations.
Gulag Archipelago and Labor Camp
In the Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsynt describes the labor camps in which mass numbers of prisoners and political undesirables were literally worked to death. The first question this article elicits from me is if these prison workers had the same frame of mind Podlubnyi had in his diaries. The labor process was used as a means of rehabilitation for the mind of a law breaker or political deviant, and maximum efforts were vehemently supported by the state. The state was also extremely unsympathetic towards the humans rights violations that the prison laborers worked through on a daily basis. It was estimated that 1% of the original total of workers died per day, but the social protocol was that every worker “managed” their obstacles. Statisticians lied about the number of labor related deaths, and logically deduced that since there were 100,000 workers at the projects beginning, and 100,000 at its end, than there must have been zero total deaths, despite the fact that it all of these workers had been replaced.
the labor camps in which mass numbers of prisoners and political undesirables were literally worked to death. The first question this article elicits from me is if these prison workers had the same frame of mind Podlubnyi had in his diaries. The labor process was used as a means of rehabilitation for the mind of a law breaker or political deviant, and maximum efforts were vehemently supported by the state. The state was also extremely unsympathetic towards the humans rights violations that the prison laborers worked through on a daily basis. It was estimated that 1% of the original total of workers died per day, but the social protocol was that every worker “managed” their obstacles. Statisticians lied about the number of labor related deaths, and logically deduced that since there were 100,000 workers at the projects beginning, and 100,000 at its end, than there must have been zero total deaths, despite the fact that it all of these workers had been replaced.
The Gulag were a Soviet Union government agency that was used by Stalin as a form of political repression and social control. During this era, many civilians were arrested and unfairly tried because they were assumed to be political threats. Along side with labor camps, Stalin would also use purges as a form of political control. Although purges had been taking place since as early as 1921 by the Bolsheviks, they were very heightened during Stalin’s Terror in the 1930’s and greatly altered the social dynamic between the citizen and the state.
Did these workers have the same Soviet mindset as Podlubnyi? Did they see themselves as Stalin and the party saw them? What was the civilian populated that wasn’t under containment by Stalin thinking? How did societies structure fluctuate with paranoia?
Penal Systems of World Powers
The organization of Soviet labor camps hoped to accomplish a number of purposes. These projects were improvements on the infrastructure of the Soviet Union and, ultimately, the economy. Considering how swiftly the Belomor was completed (“Twenty months and it must be built cheaply” –Stalin) and the lack of material resources, this success was based primarily on the re-purposing of an otherwise idle prison population. Granted, the ‘labor camp’ style of punishment in the Russian penal system was established long before Soviet rule but the Soviets were the first to implement it on such a large and effective scale. Removal of ‘undesirables’ was, as we can see from Stalin’s policies, a high priority. These “enemies of the State” would then (hopefully) be re-educated by exposure to a good Soviet work ethic. This pool of shiftless ‘kulaks’ isolated to the wilderness would provide the Soviet Union with a valuable resource key to large projects, such as the Belomor Canal, developing in the Union –cheap labor.
At the same time, the United States was facing some of the earliest waves of incarceration increases while also not greatly revising her penal system.Moving into the 1930s, labor derived from the then locally-managed institutions was made illegal and a national “Bureau of Prisons” was formed. Now in charge of more than 160 institutions, and with very little experience, the Bureau prescribed a “penopticon” model to their prisons –a style which allowed for maximum surveillance of a maximum number of inmates. The prison population would not stop increasing until the onset of America’s involvement in World War II. Many 
historians argue that American productivity and mass of troops helped turn the European front. But, how different is this from the labor in the Soviet camps? We can say that the quality of life was far better and the pay, of course. But, the camps were focused on a mass of cheap labor. When the prisons were releasing such numbers of inmates, a mass of labor was definitely produced and the larger general supply of labor provided lower wages to employers — though not the free prison labor of Stalin’s camps.
If we examine both countries now, when the U.S. and Russia are both among the world’s top ten largest incarceration rates (716/100,000 citizens and 490/100,000 respectively), should we expect any change in penal policy?
Sovietization of Spanish Niños
During the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, Stalin decided to test the influence of the Soviet state by providing some “assistance” to the warring nation. He did this in several military and political ways, but the focus of our class reading this week was on the nearly 3,000 Spanish children that the Soviet Union took in as refugees from the war.
There was an ulterior motive, however, that wasn’t too surprising given the Stalin’s history. While promoting Communist ideals in Spain itself via propaganda, Stalin saw these child refugees as tools. The state would educate them in Soviet ways and make them into the perfect hybrid of Spanish-Soviet culture. The children’s acceptance of communist ideology would prove its universal appeal while symbolizing the selfless and altruistic nature of Soviet society. It was a win-win.
The niños were taught camaraderie, respect for authority, independence and discipline in addition to their academic undertakings. This was done by adult role models that perfectly embodied Soviet ideals. If the designated teachers were later deemed “politically illiterate,” meaning they did not embody and teach Soviet values with enough conviction, they were removed from their posts (usually under the guise of some other complaint against them.) Although these subpar instructors were not labeled “political enemies” of the Soviet state, the process did help identify them as weaker members of Soviet society and the government preferred to keep tabs on such citizens.
The refugee program for the Spanish children is yet another example of the creative and guileful policies of the Soviet Union. You would be hard-pressed to find a political leader as detail-oriented, goal-driven and determined as Stalin. His desire to transform the Soviet Union into the perfect communist state knew no bounds.
Bibliography Interwar.doc 24.0 KB
My research project will focus mainly on the repressive political system run by Stalin in the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1950. During this era, Stalin used an oppressive political machine in order to gain control over the political sphere. Two ways which Stalin executed this tactic was through mass purges and The Gulag. The Gulag was a Soviet Union government agency which spearheaded the labor camp movements. Stalin’s purges of The Party was also a form of political control. Millions of Party members which he deemed as unfit were killed. I will be explaining the political and social strains and affects that this had on the Soviet Union during this time period.