Answer to Question #267991 in History for Heuidijf

Question

1. Describe how Stalin and the Communist party kept Soviet citizens in line and believing in the Communist ideology during the 1920s and 1930s.

2. Describe the events of the Prague Spring, from January to August of 1968.

3. What sense do you have of life in the Soviet Union during the decades of Stalin’s rule based on the two documents from the Sources reader by Tchernavin and Solzhenitsyn? (Refer to both!)

Answer 1

Q1.

After death of Lenin, a power struggle ensued between Joseph Stalin, the party's General Secretary, and Leon Trotsky, the Minister of Defence, each with highly contrasting visions for the future direction of the country. Trotsky wanted to implement a policy of permanent revolution, which was predicated on the notion that the Soviet Union would not be able to survive in a socialist character when surrounded by hostile governments and therefore concluded that it was necessary to actively support similar revolutions in the more advanced capitalist countries. Stalin, however, argued that such a foreign policy would not be feasible with the capabilities then possessed by the Soviet Union and that it would invite the country's destruction by engaging in armed conflict. Rather, Stalin argued that the Soviet Union should, in the meantime, pursue peaceful coexistence and invite foreign investment in order to develop the country's economy and build socialism in one country.Stalin gained the greatest support within the party compared to Trotsky. His policies policies later came to be known as Stalinism.

Stalin kept the Solviet Netizens by doing the following;

·        Changing party’s name to All-Union Communist Party, reflecting that the republics outside of Russia proper were no longer part of an all-encompassing Russian state. Stalin sought to formalize the party's ideological outlook into a philosophical hybrid of the original ideas of Lenin with orthodox Marxism into what came to be Marxism–Leninism. Stalin's position as General Secretary became the top executive position within the party, giving Stalin significant authority over party and state policy.

·        By the end of the 1920s, diplomatic relations with western countries were deteriorating to the point that there was a growing fear of another allied attack on the Soviet Union. Within the country, the conditions of the NEP had enabled growing inequalities between increasingly wealthy strata and the remaining poor. The combination of these tensions led the party leadership to conclude that it was necessary for the government's survival to pursue a new policy that would centralize economic activity and accelerate industrialization. To do this, the first five-year plan was implemented in 1928. The plan doubled the industrial workforce, proletarianizing many of the peasants by removing them from their land and assembling them into urban centers. Peasants who remained in agricultural work were also made to have a similarly proletarian relationship to their labor through the policies of collectivization, which turned feudal-style farms into collective farms which would be in a cooperative nature under the direction of the state. These two shifts changed the base of Soviet society towards a more working-class alignment. The plan was fulfilled ahead of schedule in 1932.

·        secret police,

·        propaganda

·        personality cultism,

·        mass surveillance

·        political purges

 

Q2.

Prague Spring was a brief period of liberalization under Alexander Dubček in Czechoslovakia that took place in 1968. After he became first secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party on January 5, 1968, the following events took place; 

·        He granted the press greater freedom of expression

·        He rehabilitated victims of political purges during Stalin’s era.

·        In April he promulgated a sweeping reform program that included autonomy for Slovakia.

·        He revised constitution to guarantee civil rights and liberties, and plans for the democratization of the government.

·        He claimed that he was offering “socialism with a human face.”

·        By June many Czechs were calling for more rapid progress toward real democracy. Although Dubček insisted that he could control the country’s transformation, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries viewed the developments as tantamount to counterrevolution. On the evening of August 20, Soviet armed forces invaded the country and quickly occupied it. As hard-line communists retook positions of power, the reforms were curtailed, and Dubček was deposed the following April.

Q3.

People lived in intense poverty