Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (interwar period, ): NEP, Famine and Terror

Multinational USSR

How was the USSR ruled? Officially, Federation with widely dispersed powers In fact, highly centralized through the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) All leading government officials were communists

Who ruled? Lenin’s creation Testament (Dec. 1922) died in 1924 Result: Power struggle: Josef Stalin Leon Trotsky Nikolai Bukharin Lev Kamenev Grigory Zinoviev

New Economic Policy (NEP), State-owned large businesses Private small and medium-sized businesses Some free trade Peasants left alone to feed cities (N. Bukharin) Tax-in-kind Little use of violence NEPmen

NEP, National communist awakening Indigenization (korenizatsiia) Proletarian cultural flowering Dziga Vertov’s Man with Movie Camera (1929)

Stalin won (by 1928) Why? Not a man of ideas Ruthless Patronage Will to win Used extreme measures Appealed to non- intellectuals

The Great Turn, 1928-> Move to Planned Economy First Five-Year Plan, Focus on Heavy Industry Sacrificed consumer goods Quotas for everything Quantity over quality Stakhanovites as role models

The Great Turn (cont.) Collectivization, : voluntary 1929: forced Main goal: control of food Requisitions Peasants resisted (1600 large-scale revolts) “Kulaks” De-kulakization: by 1933, over two million removed as “class enemies.”

The Great Famine, Causes: 1.Requisitions for cities and export 2.De-kulakization 3.Poor collective farm management 4.Livestock slaughtered 5.Bad weather 6.Border closing exacerbated deaths About six million starved to death Mostly in Ukraine

The Terror, Sergei Kirov, Leader of CPSU in Leningrad December 1, 1934: assassinated by a communist, Leonid Nikolaev Sparked Terror

Show Trials,

Many Bolsheviks leaders wiped out of history

Great Terror widens to army June 1937: Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevskii, and three army commanders shot. 3 of 5 Marshals shot 15 of 16 army commanders 60 of 67 corps commanders 70 percent of division commanders

Great Terror widens to soviet citizens, “kulak operations” –By Nov. 1938: 767,397 sentenced by troikas 386,798 put to death Remainder to GULAG system “mass operations” –Poles, Germans, Latvians, Koreans, Chinese –335,513 sentences 247,157 to death Remainder to GULAG system

Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev, Bolsheviks’ Muslim Worked for Stalin at NarKomNats 1923 arrested, put on “trial,” and released. “Sultangalievism” 1928 arrested, sentenced to death Commuted to 10 years in Solovki labor camp Released 1934 Arrested 1937 Executed 1940

Evgeniia Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind Loyal, dedicated communist 1937: arrested “Trotskyist” “Conveyor belt” GULAG Magadan 1955: released

Grappling with the numbers: number of prisoners in GULAG camps and colonies, YearGULAG prisoners YearGULAG prisoners , ,777, , ,484, , ,179, , ,460, , ,703, , ,721, ,296, ,199, ,196, ,356, ,881, ,561, ,672, ,525, ,659, ,504, ,929, ,468,524

Consequences  About three million arrested,  How many killed?  681,692 people were executed during 1937–38  786,098 state prisoners shot,  Memorial society released list of 1,345,796 victims for period,  Exact figures will probably never be determined, but about 20 million  Initially, allowed considerable ‘upward mobility’  Gradually, greatly undermined CPSU’s authority and legitimacy