Stalin – He was a monster

After the Tsar in 1917 Russia was undeveloped and behind the west in its economy, agriculture and standard of living, Lenin had made a futile attempt at changing this but little had been achieved. Stalin enforced new policies to change and improve the USSR.

Stalin made great changes in the Russian economy, he introduced Five year plans to do this. His main reasons for wanting change in the economy was so that the USSR relied less on the west and to produce arms to defend the USSR. The first 5 year plan was to improve heavy industry (coal, steel oil, power), the second was to improve heavy industry, rail and chemicals and the third was to improve luxury goods but was interrupted by WW2 and factories used to make arms.Stalin had modernised Russia through his five year plans, this is backed up by source B, the sources shows the results of this modernised Russia a new hydroelectric power station and it shows how the Soviets wanted you to see Stalin as somebody who jokes with workers.

Stalin made changes in the standard of living for the Russian people. Almost every person had a job, enough money to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads, children were educated and there was a health service.With Stalin's changes that had been made and through good leadership he saved Russia form defeat in WW2. A big problem was that Russia was about 50 years behind the west in all sectors (arms, health, industry etc) through his policies a lot of these were brought up to modern standards, which enabled Russia to defend them selves in WW2.

Source E is a balanced source it tells us of how he was very gifted in some of his policies and successes, but it also tells us of how he had an evil side to his nature and just because he was talented doesn't mean that he is a good man.Although Stalin made a lot of good changes these changes came at a cost and not all of his policies were a success.It is thought that throughout Stalin's reign over 12 million Russian civilians died. Many of these deaths came from people being sent to labour camps and being either gassed or worked to death, but also the unrealistic targets he set himself in his economic policy was responsible for many deaths, safety was jeopardised for production targets and many workers worked a twelve hour day.

Source C suggests that through the cult he created (Cult of Stalin) Stalin managed to brainwash people and control what they felt and thought about him. He used a lot of propaganda and censorship to achieve this but mainly he used fear. The public was afraid to speak out against Stalin because they would be sent to labour camps, many of the people didn't know what was actually going on and therefore continued to support him (they only saw one side).Source F tells us how he had too much power and this caused him to become such a monstrous tyrant, with all the power he had he could get away with murder (absolute power, corrupts absolute).Source H tells us how he used this power, one way of this was to put people on trial that he suspected of crimes but have him as the "judge, jury and executioner" so the suspects had no chance of winning there case.

Source C tells us of a writer who has been totally taken in by Stalin's propaganda, he can be described as being a typical civilian of Russia in the way he views Stalin, it is almost worship.Source A show the USSR's pyramids of skulls, these represent the dead from the purges (labour camps, show trials, mass arrests) and collectivisation (food shortages).Many of the useful army generals and intelligent ministers were purged and got rid of because "they knew to much about the state" (show trials, labour camps, mass arrests). This meant that the USSR had the biggest army in the world but because 90% of generals had been removed, the army was controlled poorly and had poor communication with the state.

After Stalin had removed any ministers with a mind of their own, he was left with a load of mindless political puppets that would only stick to Stalin's policies and not suggest any new ideas.Source G tell us how these ministers and generals were put on "show trials" they were tries by Stalin and Khrushchev and were forced to confess to crimes that they did not commit.Source D tells us just how suspicious he was of people behind his back with too much information, it tells us how he saw double dealers and spies everywhere, which supports the knowledge we have of the purges. This left Stalin with a very big army but no talented generals to command this vast army also his ministers were afraid to suggest ideas just in case it was considered plotting against Stalin, so they just followed policy and Stalin.

One of Stalin's major policies collectivisation was introduced in 1930 and was not a complete success. He wanted to introduce collectivisation; so it was easier to introduce modern machines and methods, more efficient farming meant more free labour for factories and it was easier for the state to collect food. Collectivisation was forced on villages, equipment and land was confiscated to from the collective farms, any resisters were shot and the public was told that it was the rich peasants that were resisting (Kulaks) and they were used as an excuse. The peasants resisted burnt crops, animals and started riots (this made Stalin ease off a bit), food shortages got worse and food was even sold to other countries and slowly the peasants accepted collectivisation and the state collective farms were up an running by the mid 1930s.

Stalin was not a monster, he was just a ruthless politician with too much power and he couldn't control this power a lot of the time. This is shown in how the purges had to be stopped because they were getting out of control and how the peasants rebelling made him cool off his policy of collectivisation for a while because the situation was becoming worse not better. Also Stalin was a very ambitious politician who didn't quite realise the human costs of his policies. Stalin didn't realise that people would die because of the massive targets he set in his 5 year plans he just wanted to improve Russian the best he could economically. Also when trying to introduce collectivisation Stalin didn't realise that the peasants would rebel and would have to be killed to put down the revolt.Stalin was a man with too much power and a man who didn't realise the consequences of his power and policies, he was not a monster.