HISTORY ESSAY OUTLINE

TO WHAT EXTENT DID THE PURGES LINK TO THE FIVE-YEAR PLANS?

I.

Introduction:
Stalins Great Turn was the first true revolution in the USSR Five-Year Plans ran parallel with the purges State the research question and link to the body part

II.

Body:

Explain why the 1st Five-Year Plan is the most notorious and its consequences Link between the Five-Year Plans and the collectivization of agriculture
=> Historian Roy Medvedev and his statistics on number of deaths of peasants

The 1st Five-Year Plan led to discontent and horror among party members
=> The chitska 1932-1935: approx. 20% of party members expelled

Challenge to Stalins leadership developed at a higher level

=> Ryutin openly criticized Stalin but was protected by Kirov and Ordzhonikidze => Death of Kirov and mass purging outside of the party and show trials. => 2nd stage of the purges linked with the Five-Year Plan through Kirov. => Historians from Totalitarian line argued that the show trials had more to do with Stalins personality than any practical needs.

The Yezhovschina 1937-1938 had more to do with Yezhov and the position of the NKVD III. Conclusion:

Historiography debate
=> Totalitarian line (R. Conquest and R. Tucker): Stalins personality, intentional use of purges to defend and promote his economic policies. => Revisionist school (J.Arch Getty and R. Manning): conflict between Moscow and the local regions due to the Five-Year Plans => Conclude that the Five-Year Plans to a great extent were causes of the purges.

HISTORY ESSAY
TO WHAT EXTENT DID THE PURGES LINK TO THE FIVE-YEAR PLANS? It has been argued by many that Stalin was the first to launch a true revolution in the Soviet Union in 1928 by taking the Great Turn in which he decisively abandon the NEP and launch a program of rapid industrialization and collectivization in agriculture. The results were three Five-Year Plans which completely changed the Soviet machinery. But just as the first Five-Year Plan concluded, a process of cleansing in the Communist Party also commenced. In fact, the process of purging in the Soviet Union ran parallel with the Five-Year Plans and mass purging outside of the Party only started after the breakneck first Five-Year Plan in 1934. Was this a mere coincidence or does it suggest that there are links between the Five-Year Plans and the purges? Thus the aim of this essay is to examine the question: To what extent did the purges link to the Five-Year Plans? The first Five-Year Plan is the most notorious out of the three Five-Year Plans because the Communist leadership, especially Stalin set such high out targets for the plan which seemed impossible to achieve to most people. Like all the Five-Year Plans, the first Five-Year Plan was aimed at rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union through the focus on heavy industries such as producing steel, mining iron ore and coal, producing electricity, etc. As a result, most of the labour force was concentrated for the work in these heavy industries instead of the consumer industries. Furthermore, since the State had to ensure that the grain supplies were sufficient for the working force to make sure that the output targets would be met, the pressure was on the peasants who now were forced into collective farms. However, not only the collectivization of agriculture only produced mixed results, it led to the death of 2-3 millions of peasants and the dispossession of around 10 million peasants according to a research by historian Roy Medvedev. Moreover, there was a famine from 1932 to 1934 which resulted in around 7 million deaths. The collectivization of agriculture no doubt caused great distress and fury among the Soviet population and because the scheme was designed by Stalin to ensure the supply needed for his plans to industrialize the Soviet Union, the Five-Year Plans unpopular as well despite overwhelming achievements in the heavy industries and Stalin unavoidably came under fire. While the peasants developed hatred towards the rural Communists and urban workers became antagonized by the low wages and harsh punishments at the workplace, the Communist party members who favoured industrialization in the first place were also horribly disturbed by the methods employed to push through the industrialization process and the terror used against the

peasants. As a result, many local party members refused to implement central policies and orders, unwilling to push forward the process of collectivization and breakneck industrialization for various reasons. This caused anger among top party leaders who valued discipline above all else and hence, Moscow launched the chitska from 1932 to 1935 to root out all passive elements, violators of the party and state discipline which basically meant all those who opposed Stalins economic policy. And by 1935, around 20% of the members were expelled from the Communist Party. This is the first link between the purges and the application of the Five-Year Plans with the collectivization of agriculture as the link between the events. But opposition to Communist leadership did not stop at local level. In the 1930s, there were signs of growing opposition to Stalins leadership at higher levels, much due to his unpopular economic policy and use of coercion to force collectivization on the peasants. In 1932, after the Five-Year Plan, Ryutin circulated a document that was highly critical of Stalin. Stalin wanted him dead, however he was opposed by Kirov and Ordzhonikidze and in the end, Ryutin was not sentenced to death. The upshot of this event is that Stalin realized that he was not yet the unchallenged leader of the Soviet Union. This point is emphasized even clearer at the 17th Party Congress where Sergei Kirov the Leningrad party boss who was a very popular figure, decided to take a stance against Stalins forcible grain seizure of the peasants and maltreatments of the workers. Even worse, Stalins title of General Secretary was abolished and thus he was put on equal ranks with Kirov. Stalin was completely aware of his vulnerability as he could be removed or demoted from his position so he decided to take a decisive act to remove all of his rivals once and for all. On 1 Dec 1934, Kirov was mysteriously murdered by a man who is said to have mental issues. Whether Stalin was involved in this event or not, he definitely used it as a pretext to root out his oppositions, leading to the second stage of the purges which was dominated by numerous show trials of old Bolshevik party members such as Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin. In the beginning, there was an extensive purge of the Leningrad party Kirovs power base, followed by mass purging outside the Party whose targets were the supposed Trotskyites involved in the plot to murder Kirov and other Communist leaders. From 1936 to 1938, show trials were held publicly with the aim of putting old Bolshevik leaders such as Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin to death. Stalin succeeded and at the end of 1938, none of his old Bolshevik colleagues survived. But again, one should remember that these events could not have been materialized without the unpopular Five-Year Plan and collectivization of agriculture in the beginning because Kirov was probably murdered because he presented opposition to Stalin through his different viewpoint on the Soviet

economic policy and without Kirov, there might not have been a pretext for Stalin to launch such a frightening purge. However, historians from the totalitarian line such as R. Conquest and R. Tucker in their works have argued that the purges had more to do with Stalins personality as a person characterized by paranoia who had unlimited ambitions despite limited capability. They have explained that Stalins removal of his old Bolshevik colleagues who knew his limitations had more to do with personal grudges and the fear of being thwarted. And also he had a preference of using brute force as an instrument of control and to resolve problems, this can certainly be connected with the force seizure of grains from the peasants. So perhaps after all, the Five-Year Plans were not the sole causes of the purges? The last stage of the purges was called the Yezhovschina from 1937 to 1938 in which Yezhov the new head of the NKVD unleashed mass terror against Soviet citizens of all elements: party officials (apparatchiki), intelligentsia, scientists, managers, economic administrators... Anyone could be arrested as an oppositionist including those from the Red Army and in fact, the hero of the Civil war Marshal Tukhachevsky was also arrested and sentenced to death. A quota system was applied to geographical areas and to public bodies and the encouragement of denunciation of higher level party officials from below put the purges out of control. Even Stalin felt that the use of terror had sprung out of control thus he decided to put the Yezhovschina to an end in 1938, first by replacing Yezhov with Beria as the head of the NKVD and second, by slowing down the arrests and purges. At this point, virtually all of the old Bolsheviks had been wiped out and Stalin was definitely the all-powerful leader of the Soviet Union. But because causes for this last stage of the Great Purge had more to do with Yezhov himself and the position of the NKVD, the influence of the Five-Year Plans seem especially weak here. While historians from the totalitarian line put a stronger emphasis on Stalins personality, they also argued that he intentionally used the purges as a way to defend his economic policies by finding scapegoats and also used terror to ensure that the business managers would do their best to meet his output targets and hence, the Five-Year Plans could be seen as central to the purges. Historians from the revisionist school such as R. Manning and J. Arch Getty, despite focusing more on structural causes, they agree that there were conflicts and rivalries between the centre Moscow and the local regions mainly because the local party bosses did not want to purge specialists and kulaks who were valuable men to them which conflicted the demands of the centre. But again, the local regions did not want to purge kulaks and specialists because they would help them to meet the output targets set by Stalin in his Five-Year Plans and thus the root of all problems are still the Five-Year Plans. Because the consequences of the Five-Year Plans are so immense, it is

possible to conclude that the Five-Year Plans were to a great extent, the causes of the purges in the 1930s in the Soviet Union.