Pre-War Stalinism. Life under the Totalitarian Dictator

Transcription

1 Pre-War Stalinism Life under the Totalitarian Dictator

2 Totalitarianism Defined Form of rule where Gov. has total control over society including all aspects of the public and private life of its citizens Characterized by: Rule by a single party Total control over the military Total control over communication (newspapers, radio, propaganda) Police control with use of terror as a control tactic Complete control over the economy

3 Stalin s Totalitarianism Propaganda: Artists painted pictures and authors were made to write novels that glorified Stalin People were expected to have a picture of them in their homes (often replacing former pictures of Jesus and other religious figures) He took the name Uncle Joe to give off a kind and friendly image

4 "Captain of the country of Soviets leads us from victory to victory! (1933)

5 Stalin s Totalitarianism Cont Education: Strictly controlled by the state Children expected to join age-appropriate organizations that indoctrinated the Stalin version of communism

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7 Stalin s Totalitarianism Cont Legal Restrictions: Stalin placed restrictions on what families could do For example: divorces and abortions were outlawed

8 Stalin s Reign of Terror Imagine you live in a Moscow apartment in the late 1930s. In the middle of the night, the police come and arrest the entire family that lives in the apartment above you, including the children. Another night, one of the men who lives in the apartment below you disappears. You assume he has been arrested, too, but are too afraid to ask any questions. Soon, many people have disappeared, hundreds of thousands of them from around the country. Only decades later may you find out what happened to them. They were shot or sent to a labor camp where they died. Or perhaps they were sent to a labor camp and survived to tell the horrible tale.

9 Secret Police (The NKVD) The NKVD stood for the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs and was the name for the secret police at the time Members of the troika were different secret policemen acting under Stalin's direction who acted like judges Trials'' held by the troika were no such thing; they simply found you guilty Arrests and executions were often fairly random; your neighbor was arrested and, under torture and duress, named you and anyone else he could think of as a counter-revolutionary.

10 Secret Police (The NKVD) The NKVD stood for the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs and was the name for the secret police at the time Members of the troika were different secret policemen acting under Stalin's direction who acted like judges Trials'' held by the troika were no such thing; they simply found you guilty Arrests and executions were often fairly random; your neighbor was arrested and, under torture and duress, named you and anyone else he could think of as a counter-revolutionary.

11 Show Trials A show trial is a trial where the outcome is already determined in advance Not a fair trial Used for political propaganda purposes Show trials charged many Bolshevik party leaders with counterrevolution Devout Communists (such as Nikolai Bukharin one of Stalin's main political rivals) was charged with absurd crimes and executed Show trials allowed Stalin to: Eliminate any potential political opposition to his rule Make people think that there really were serious conspiracies around those accused The victims of the show trials became scapegoats

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13 The Great Terror/The Great Purge Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s he persecuted a number of groups including prosperous peasants he called kulaks, and permitted famine to kill millions in Ukraine and Kazakhstan The exact number of people killed in the Great Purge is unknown; estimates vary from under 700,000 to around 1.75 million.

14 Gulags (Labour Camps) If you were not executed, victims of the terror might be sent to the Gulag The Gulag was the name of the system of labor camps in the Soviet Union that spanned from Ukraine in the west all the way to the Russian Far East More than a million people died in the camps under Stalin, from being worked to death, starvation, or disease. The Gulag played a significant role in the Soviet economy, and Gulag laborers were responsible for many large construction projects Many prisoners died working up to 14 hours a day with little food.

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17 Trotsky is Exiled Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1927 and exiled to Turkey in 1929 In December 1936 Trotsky, now 56, and Natalia were put on a freighter to cross the Atlantic to Mexico. In exile he had continued to work resolutely against Stalinism and his book The Revolution Betrayed was published in Paris in Argued under Stalin the Soviet Union had betrayed socialism and become a totalitarian state.

18 Trotsky is Killed

19 The Assassination of Trotsky (1940) The Soviet agents in Mexico had succeeded in planting a woman called Sylvia Ageloff in the house as one of Trotsky s secretaries. She had a lover, a Spanish communist called Ramón Mercader, who turned up at the house pretending to be one of Trotsky s admirers and began calling on him often with chocolates and flowers. Everybody liked him and Sylvia as well. Trotsky was ill, suffering from high blood pressure, and not expecting to live much longer. About 5pm on August 20th Mercader arrived at the house with his raincoat over his left arm tucked firmly against his body. He went upstairs to see Trotsky in his study. While they were talking Mercader went round behind him, pulled an ice-pick out of his raincoat and slammed it into Trotsky s head. Mercader afterwards described Trotsky giving a long aaaa cry. He grappled with Mercader and bit his hand and then staggered out of the room. Natalia had heard Trotsky cry out and ran upstairs to find him with his face covered in blood. Guards rushed to the scene, seized Mercader and started beating him up, but Trotsky said: No, he must not be killed, he must talk. Soon afterwards he collapsed and Mercader was turned over to the police. Trotsky was taken to hospital in a coma and died there at 7.25pm the next day, aged 60.

20 Communism

21 Collectivization of Agriculture Collectivization was a policy of forced consolidation of individual peasant households into collective farms (under government control) called kolkhozes Farms were seized from landowners by propaganda or by force. All lands, cattle and equipment were to become collective, government property Poor peasants were often glad to hear this news (but the wealthy ones were not ready to give away everything they owned) Rich peasants, called kulaks, who did not want to enter kolkhozes were considered public enemies and arrested, exiled, or executed. In despair, some killed their own cattle and burned their own fields. Livestock population decreased to half its size. Riots started here and there but were ultimately suppressed