History 101

As you know, Russia’s Bolshevik Party led a successful revolution in 1917; in the years that followed, that revolution led to a grinding, devastating Civil War across Russia. As that conflict ended in 1921, the new Soviet state and economy were in shambles. In response to this disastrous situation, Soviet leader V.I. Lenin announced a program of economic liberalization, known as the New Economic Policy. But Lenin’s death in 1924, still more the political dynamics generated by the Bolshevik-led "dictatorship of the proletariat," cut these economic reforms short. By the early 1930s, drastic new economic policies were underway, closely associated with the rise of Josef Stalin as undisputed Soviet ruler. 

By the late 1920s, Stalin had outmaneuvered his political rivals and gained control over the Bolshevik Party. Key to his rise to power had been his ability to present himself as Lenin’s most faithful acolyte and follower. Yet, for all Stalin’s assurances of continuity, the "Stalin Revolution" that followed represented, most historians agree, a radically new phase in Soviet development. The Documentary Reader selections – the "Lenin versus Stalin?" selections, the accounts of Ukraine collectivization and famine by Vassily Grossman & Lev Kopelev, and the “cult of personality” readings from Avdienko & Yevtushenko – are all directed towards understanding this Stalin Revolution in its cultural as well as political dimensions. 

a) what arguments does Stalin make for the Soviet Union’s rapid industrialization? Do you see his approach as different or similar to Lenin’s? Wherein lie these differences or similarities? 

b) how would you describe the motivations of Lev Kopelev as a young activist implementing Stalin’s forced collectivization of agriculture? How did Kopelev come later to see these actions? 

c) how do you reconcile Stalin’s hurry-up “industrialize or perish” orientation (see especially the “The Hard Line” text) with the wasteful destruction shown us by Kopelov and Grossman’s account of the collectivization drive? The argument is sometimes made in Stalin’s defense that his policies, however harsh, at least led to successful economic development. Based on the evidence from these and other readings, how would you evaluate that claim? 

d) in “The Ode to Stalin,” what does this hymn to the Soviet dictator tell us about Soviet-style socialism? To what degree does this system seemed attuned to the ideas of Karl Marx, to what degree the old relations of Tsarist autocracy? Does the account by Yevtushenko adequately explain to you the cult of personality surrounding Stalin?