Stalin’s soviet union

1924, after Lenin’s death Trotsky was supposed to be his successor, a Jewish high level
intellectual that started in the Mensheviks, but Stalin was the one that took power. Stalin was
able to make a lot of alliances with prominent members of the party to kick him out of the
country, after these men weren’t useful he killed them.

Stalin was a paranoid leader

Modes of production Marx defended imperialism as the way of exporting capitalism to other
countries so communism could be born out of it. Stalin defended that since Asiatic mode of
production was not understood anymore he defended that feudalism was the system in china,
and therefore China couldn’t be communist, at the start he supported the Kuomintang against
the Communist China. During the civil war in spain Poum members were killed by the Stalinist
in the PCE.

Stalin’s domestic policy

Personality cult

Nomenklatura (The soviet elite, formed mostly out of members of the party)

Millions of prisoners in the gulags (The gulag system was invented by Lenin, the difference with
nazi concentration camps were created to exterminate people but it was possible to get out
alive, and most prisioners weren’t due to race, were political prisioners. The great purge, a lot
of poles were killed as the result of the soviet defeat in the war against Poland. A lot of
members of the party and the armed forces were also killed.

Beria was the only exception, he was the head of the NKVD.

Stalin’s foreign policy (until 45)

Socialism in one country, he concentrated power in himself and he tried to convince the allies
that he didn’t want to expand communism. Lenin tried to expand revolution but all of them
collapsed, the permanent revolution was impossible, Trotsky still believed in it.

Popular fronts were the alliance of all leftish parties, they won the elections at France and
Spain in 1936. They wanted to improve the working class conditions within capitalism. The
soviet union under stalin was the only country that (other than mexico) that help the republic.

Molotov Ribbentrop pact

The division of eastern Europe between Germany and the SU was welcomed by communist as
stalin was perceived as a messiah, it’s believed that he annexed these territories as a buffer
zone in the coming war.

Stalin’s economic policy (24-53)

Total planning by the communist party: Five year plan

Bet for industry

Collectivization of land (New production units, Kolkhozes and Sovkhozes, in theory the first
ones are owned by the cooperatibist and the latter by the state)

Murders of kulaks (the wealthy peasants, later considered enemies of the state)

Famine (30-33) the mass selling of grain

Abolition of private property

End of self-management

The crisis of 29 is avoided

Between 26 and 37 the gdp multiplied by 4

The question of nationalities

In the territories recovered by the red army the Soviet Union was proclaimed in 1922, some
more republics were created out of Russia’s territory.

The USSR was composed of 15 republics (after the destruction of the SSR of Karelia) with
autonomus republics within them.

“Piedmont principle” Stalin wanted to put together all territories speaking Ukrainian and
Belarus.

During the WW2 14 nationalities were deported to Siberia and 48 partialy deported accused of
collaborating with the enemy.

Millions died of hunger due to Stalin’s economic policy, mostly people living in Kazakhstan and
Ukraine, but due to the mixture of ethnicities in those territories it’s not considered genocide.
(Holodomor and el otro que no me acuerdo, pero vamos el kazajo)

Glottogenesis (menudo invent de este men) The end of the Turkestan dream. Stalin created
soviet republics in the areas where some Turkish dialect was spoken to divide the Turks.
Supposedly Stalin was trying to expand population to prepare themselves for the war

Comentar que el ejercitio habia sido purgado, el tratado germano soviético