Did Stalin Succeed In Setting up A Totalitarian State? Overall, Stalin did not create a totalitarian state, the very definition of which suggests the state’s complete control and authority over every aspect of society; the economy, politics, religion and culture; as, despite all of the action Stalin took to gain this, he was constantly facing opposition. Many would argue that the wide range of economic measures used to enforce control over the population allowed Stalin to succeed in gaining total control over the State.
This was evident in Eggplant’s expectation Of meeting Asia targets and the setting of much higher, optimum targets, for increasing production, prices, wages and allocated manpower/ resources, which ensured there would be no chance of a relationship between worker and employee, with the hopes of improving loyalty to the state as the state had become their employer.
The introduction of collective farming was also an important factor in Stalin’s supposed success because, through the use of Machine Tractor Stations, which provided grain and machinery for peasants to use in their work, also acting as a proletariat base that was staffed by members of the NOVA, Bolshevik party officials and army units, as well as agricultural productivity increasing, the state also became more successful in collecting grain from the 90% of peasants who worked on them, reinstating their control over the farmers, destroying any form of individualism they may have had in their work and views on it.
Any peasant who may have accumulated private wealth for themselves were named Kulaks and were often exiled to Siberia in labor camps called Gulags, because they were seen to have supported capitalism, which went against the party ideology. Between 1 930 ND 1 931, the number of exiled kulak families had risen from 1 1 5,000 to 265,800, effectively destroying any opposing viewpoints. On the other hand, it can be argued that Stalin was not, in fact, totally authoritative over the USSR economy. This is because, though the Soviet Union’s world shares in manufacturing had supposedly risen from 5% to 17. %, giving them the second largest share, Eggplant’s optimum targets, in the 5 year plan, hadn’t been met in a majority of areas, for example, targets for coal production was 75 million tones, and had only managed to reach 4. 3 million tones. This gives the impression that workers had not pushed themselves to really meet the targets as they hadn’t fully accepted them and the reasoning behind them (benefiting the State, not the individual), which could in fact have lead them to being accused of being called a “wrecker” or “Trotsky”.
As well as working on collective plots for a majority of the day, from 1935, the peasantry had also been given a small private plot of land, on which they were free to farm as much as they wanted for themselves, able to sell their excess to others also. This eventually lead to Stalin’s loss of control over the peasantry and economy of the state as, in general, it is believed that people spent more time and effort on their own household plots than they were on collective plots for the state: 50% of the User’s vegetables and 70% of their milk was produced on private lots, typically under 0. Hectares. This gives the impression that the population of farmers had no interest in aiding the government or state, and so were not completely controlled in a totalitarian manner. Political: for- defeat of real and potential political opposition, such as Routine, ho claimed he was an ‘evil genius’, so was expelled with supporters in 1 932, followed by purge/ Kirks was assassinated, removing a desired successor by central committee/ 53 old Bolsheviks put on show trial, leaving only Stalin from Linen’s government alive. Lattice: against- Stalin was to be ‘retired’ in place of Kirks before his murder/ 292 votes against Stalin in 1 934 party congress putting him in 10th place, though he changed the results in his favor, leaving only a few votes between him and Kirks but ultimately letting him win/ Routine’s platform had gained support in the C and Stalin unable to in support for death penalty to be passed on his critic. An aspect considered significantly more important than Stalin’s control over the economy, though less so than that over political intolerance would be his domination over the populations right to express their individual religious views.
He did this through the total devastation of almost all spiritual aspects of the Soviet Union, which were seen to act as alternatives to the Bolshevik Party’s one true set of ideals, and in the process, almost completely wiping out Islam, by 1930, through the closing of 10,000 out of 1 2,000 mosques, as ell as the accusation against leaders in the Muslim Asian republics that they had been trying to resist the regime and so had been working hand-in-hand with the Kulaks, punishing them accordingly.
It was not only Muslims, however, who had been affected as in 1 929, a new law was passed making any participation in religious activity outside of churches or congregations illegal, whilst the League of Godliness, established in 1 925, saw membership increase to 1 million, supporting the treatment of Catholic and Orthodox churches throughout the nation- churches were turned into grain stores in he countryside to completely isolate them of religion, only 87 out of 500 orthodox churches remained in Moscow, in the space of two years 1 05,200 Orthodox priests were executed and only 12 out of 163 bishops were alive in 1939.
This had the effect of gaining temporary control over the population, as they were witness to the very public punishments that religious fig rest faced as Stalin made a mockery of their faith, taking it and God away from the entire population, convincing many that perhaps religion was not worth going against the Bolshevik party for, until WI.
After Hitless Nazi invasion on Russia, in 1941, Stalin once again made alterations to suit the population by re-opening many of the churches he had closed just a few years prior; accepted with lots of enthusiasm; as he believed that by giving the inhabitants of the USSR a God to have faith and hope in, they would become unified and were likely to remain strong as a nation against the Nazi’s. This is a failure of setting up a totalitarian state because Stalin chose to no longer control the religious aspects of individuals’ lives in favor of gaining stronger support of the one-party state.
In addition to this, preceding the war, in the 1 937 census, it became obvious that, despite Stalin’s attempts at turning the country against their religion, such as with the anti- religious propaganda, such as anti-religious museums that had been opened in churches depicting priests as being corrupt, and teaching children a hatred of religious figures/ leaders from a young age, they had maintained their faith as 57% of the population claimed to be religious.
This, once again, shows that ‘Comrade Card Index’ was unable to dictate the entire population at one time, UT rather could only focus on controlling one aspect of the state at a time, letting control slip when he moved on. Culture: for- arts controlled through social realism/ foreign films banned/ soviet of writers were the only authors who were allowed to publish their work/ Symbol and pioneers controlled the youth’s education/ literacy defined as being able to write your name, which 90% of population could do, in order to increase the rate of literacy.
Culture: against-wasn’t consistent with treatment of women as they were paid less than men and their part of the arty was shut down, but given medals for having a large family/ shortage of teachers and equipment so effectiveness of education was quite low/ people simply stopped making movies, such as Sensitive, rather than conforming to what was expected of them/ couldn’t increase birth rate because they had to balance production and that, which was difficult with 13 million women employed as cheap labor.
