Russia 1924-1945

Stalin                                                                                                                                             Strengths:More cautious, he had lots of supporters as he helped to appoint people     Weaknesses: Lenin's opinion of him in his testament, uninspiring public speaker known as the 'grey blur'

Trotsky                                                                                                                                  Strengths: Led the red army, Lenin's opinion of him in his testament                            Weaknesses: Too ambitious, wanted worlwide communist domination

Who else could have taken over after Lenin's death?

• Zinoviev
• Kamenev
• Rykov
• Tomsy
• Bukharin
• Zherzinsky

Aims: 

• Increase grain production
• Make farming more efficient
• To free up workers for industry                                                                                      Methods:

• Forced, peasants were given no choice and had to go into colllective farms called Kolkhoz
• Peasants who refused were sent to Gulags (labour camps)                                         Successes:

• Farming output increased
• Increased literacy and education level
• More rights for women                                                                                                    Failures:

• Short-term starvation
• 5 million people died of famine in the early years

Aims:

• To catch up with other countries
• To do so quickly
• To make the USSR strong                                                                                             Methods:

• Set five year targets for all sectors of industry                                                           Successes:

• Production increased
• Russia kept factories running during WW2                                                                       Failures:

• Safety was not considered
• Many of the workers were forces labourers
• Workers were shot for not meeting their targets or working hard enough
• Poor quality of living

Stalin's purges and show trials:

• The point was to ruin their reputation and make them confess to crimes they had not done
• Some were accused of being American and German spies
• Some were accused of plotting against Stalin and the governement
• Stalin even murdered leaders who had left the country 

Stalin's cult of personality:

• Faked photos showing Lenin and Stalin together
• Rewriting history books to glorify his role in the civil war
• Posters and statues of Stalin
• Removal of Trotsky from history

World war two lasted from 1939-1945. In the USSR it was known as the great patriotic war and lasted from 1941 to 1945.

Successes of the USSR in WW2

• Battle of Stalingrad
• Battle of Kursk
• 900 day seige of Leningrad
• Evacuation project to protect people and resources

• Kulak - Slightly better off peasant
• Magnitogorsk - New industrial city that was a show project
• NKVD - the name of Stalin's secret police
• Alexi Stakhanov - Famous record breaking coal miner who was rewarded as an example of hero workers
• Sergei Kirov - The communist leader who was shot, his death sparked the purges and show trials
• Gosplan - Wrote the five year plans
• Kolkhoz - The collective farms 
• Gulag- Forces labour camp