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Chap 13 (Poland (Leadership of Golmulka
1956 industrialisation was…
Chap 13
Poland
Leadership of Golmulka
- 1956 industrialisation was failing the Workers as it hadn't delivered on what was promised to them
- Working hours - long, food- poor and often in short supply, worked in dangerous unsanitary conditions
- June 1956 - Series of strikes and riots occurred - 100,000 workers
- Shocked the Soviet leaders and made them question the wisdom of the hard-line leadership in Poland
-Gomulka - 1956 became First secretary of the PUWP - though he wasn't the USSR's desired leader
- Believed in Marxism-Leninism but didn't though Poland should find its own path to socialism
- Agreed to the leadership as long as he was allowed to make reforms
PUWPCommunist parties followed diff paths to power in the satellite states but once in power - all followed the soviet model
- Full authority in government actions - same true for the legal system and centrally planned economy
- The legislature/Sejm - had more representatives from more than 1 party and so the electorate had a wider range of candidates to choose from
- The Front of National Unity - group of trade unions and parties - allied to the PUWP - created the list of candidates - making sure those who would oppose the party would not be chosen
Differences in Poland and Satellite statesReformist agenda in PUWP predated secret speech or Gomulka's leadership
- The purges were less severe in Poland - intellectuals had a stronger presence and influence in the PUWP - pushed for liberalisation
- Roman Catholic Church - important in Poland - lessened the influence and power of the PUWP whilst Pope seen as an alternative leadership figure - moderating influence on PUWP policies
- Poles - nationalist and liked socialism but not keen on Russia or USSR - Role before and after the close of the war
- Party - have any influence or legitimacy - distances itself from the USSR - knew any move to sovietisation would be met with unrest
Economy
- Pre-war Poland exported its coal and manufactured goods to the west - post-war it was directed solely towards the USSR and other satellite states
- Followed Stalinist model Heavy investment and focus on heavy industry especially steel production
- USSR - Poland's supplier of natural gas, oil and iron ore
Collectivisation
- Prior to 1956 - collectivisation was slow due resistance by peasant farmers in many areas - In USSR resistance - low due to Stalin's purges
- Though repression was severe - in the form of harassment by authorities or financial penalties
- With the death of Stalin - Government moved towards financial incentives for collectivisation - better response from poor peasants - by 1956 9% of Poland's farmland was collective farms
- 1956 - collectivisation completely stopped by Gomulka after unrest of 1956 - allowed peasants to leave peasant farms
- By 1959 - 1% of arable land was collective farmland
- Polish farming was dominated by small, private farms
Centrally planned economy
- Death of Stalin - PUWP moved investment to agriculture, housing, consumer goods and raising wages of workers after growing worker discontent
- Early hopes amongst intellectuals in Gomulka's leadership slipped away - reverted back to the Stalinist model - work norms raised, planned targets raised and wages failed to keep up with increased production
Strengths and WeaknessesStrengths
- Valuable resources and industrial potential
Weaknesses
- Poles - nationalist and hated the USSR and so it proved hard to manage Poland
- Polish communist sought as much independence from the USSR as possible
- PUWP was weak - internally divided and had to share authority with the Church and proved unable to push through the soviet model well enough
Cezhoslovakia
Leadership
- Antonin Novotny - First Secretary of the CPCz - hard-line Stalinist who had the full support of the soviet leadership - largely resisted pressures for change
- Invovled in the organisation of show trials and purges in the 1950s
- By 1960s - still 9000 political prisoners
- Dislike of his authoritarian leadership in Czech and USSR - had to allow investigation into the trials and rehabilitation of the victims - many went free
CPCz
- Czech and Slovaks - long and turbulent history
- CPCz - ruled over the whole country with a separate Slovak party that was subordinate to it
- Had to share power with 5 other parties - all united under the National Front organisation -all parties - subordinate to the CPCz
- National Front - organised elections and candidate lists - making sure the right candidates were chosen
- Lacked an influential intellectual faction - purged after Stalin's split with Yugoslavia - didn't want others to deviate from the correct path to Socialism
- 1952 - Widespread arrests and interrogations - led to executions and imprisonment
- By 1956 - CPCz influence characterised by fear and repression - Activities of - Catholic Church - restricted - largest religious group
Economy
- Pre-war economic success - depended on export of high quality manufactured goods , metalwork's and
- One of the worlds biggest manufacturing economies
- Economic success - geographically limited to the Czech half of the country - rest was mostly peasant agriculture
- After the communist takeover - industries were nationalised, management replaced with party appointees and production had to follow central plans
- Trade with satellite states and USSR - increased - USSR wanting favourable prices
- Trade with the west - cut - basis of their economic success
Collectivisation
- Adopted collectivisation relatively quick - by 1953 - 47% of farmland was collectivised
- Second wave began in 1956 - and full collectivisation reached by 1963
- Eastern Europe's most industrialised countries and long a history of collective farming - geared up to supplying fertilisers to the collective farms making them more productive
Centrally planned economy
- Industrial growth - initially promising - 7% between 1956-60 but stagnation started to settle in late 1950s
- National income - declined in 1963
- Previous success dependant - skilled workers , foreign trade and specialisation - central planning didn't fit in well with this
- Production linked to supplying the USSR at heavily subsidised rate - little incentive to innovate
- Didn't have access to western markets - industries fell behind technologically
- Planning focused on quantity not quality of production - what mattered was more workers and not a skilled workforce
- Economists pushing for decentralising economic reforms - 1960s
Weaknesses and Strengths Strengths
- More industrialised than USSSR
- Population or part of it didn't resent the USSR as Czech choose the USSR as its partner in development
- Post-war period - Soviet model - proving itself year after year I growth rates , culturally and in science and tech
- Fit in well with the brotherhood of socialist states
- Party - efficient in weeding out unsuitable elements and developing an impressive security powers over the Population
Weakness
- Pre-war Czech geared towards western markets - change of focus to comecon and needs of the USSR - costly
- Industrialisation - conc in the Czech half and Slovak region - underdeveloped
Hungary
Leadership
- Matyas Rakosi - chosen as First General Secretary of the MZP - after the red army occupation - 1945
- Described himself as 'Stalin's best pupil' - after consolidating his power - set out to purge the Communist party - 1948 300,000 arrested and more than 2000 were executed
- Hard-line Stalinist - after Stalin's death in 1956 - Soviet leadership forced him to appoint Imre Nagy as premier - collective leadership - fearing his harsh leadership would lead to unrest
- Did his upmost to undermine Nagy's calls for more political and economic freedom - had him successfully replaced by hard-liner Gero
- Rakosi was removed from power for 'health reasons' and replaced with Gero
- Gero was replaced with Nagy after 3 months in charge - ill-judged hard-line speech he gave on the 2nd day of the Hungarian Revolution - Oct 1956
- Nagy tried to restore order but eventually backed the Uprising calling for Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw pact - executed in a secret trail - 1958
- Replaced with Jonas Kadar - victim of Rakosi's purges and imprisoned until 1954
Economic Organisation
- Pre-war Hungary was primarily an agricultural country - little heavy industry
- Relatively lacked natural resources - reliant on foreign trade
- Soviet-style nationalisation - transformed its economy - USSR supplied Hungary with half of its energy supplies
- War - done huge damage to Hungary - Capital destroyed and 40% of its pre-war GDP was lost
- USSR demanded a reparations for Hungary's role in the USSR'S wartime losses
- Million POW's still in the USSR - affected how the USSR was viewed and Hungary's economic recovery
MSzP
- Brought into power by soviet leadership after the occupation of the Red Army - 1945
- Organised in a similar fashion to the communist parties in the other satellite states - had a National Front style organisation in the Independent Democratic Front
- Problem for the MSzP - Hungary an ally to Germany in WW2 and once defeated by the USSR - was treated as such
- Little enthusiasm for the party - in 1945 elections it won only 17% of the vote
- Elimination of the opposition brought the party to power - set about drastic purges of itself based on Stalin's model
- Popular discontent with the MSzP fuelled the Hungarian Revolution 1956
Collective Farming
- Land reform turned Hungary from a society where 1% of the Pop owned 50% of arable land to a society where a single landowner doesn't own more than 115 hectares
- Collectivisation 3 years later - 1948 took all this away - strongly resisted by peasantry
- Farmers -forced to sell their produce at low prices
- Regular raids occurred to see where people where hiding their grain
- Many peasants were labelled 'kulaks' - sent to labour camps - widespread famine occurred as a result
- 1948 - a third of the farmland was collectivised before the Revolution in 1956 nearly derailed collectivisation
- A second wave 1958 resulted in full collectivisation been reached by 1960
Centrally planned Economy
- Rakosi ruthlessly applied the Stalinist model to economy before Stalin's death - him and Gero looked to make this a 'land of steel and coal'
- 5 year plans continually adjusted upwards and production norms were punishly high whilst workers discontent increased
- Expensive heavy industry projects which made no economic sense undertaken whilst any natural resources were sold to the USSR at knock-down prices
- Though standards of living improved in other states in Hungary it declined
- After Stalin's death - Soviet leadership criticised Rakosi for economic incompetence - replaced by Nagy - 'new course' 1953 included
- increasing wages by 15%
- Lowering production rates
- Plan was soon deemed a failure even though the soviet leadership supported it but did nothing as Rakosi did everything to undermine it - Nagy soon expelled from the party
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GDR
Leadership
- Walter Ulbricht - Party Secretary from 1950 and dominated the political scene until 1971
- Early years his position was far from certain - USSR constantly watched him along with internal disputes in his party
- Mass purges of the SED in 1948 followed by another in 1951
- Factionalist disputes settled after the suppression of the 1953 unrest
- By the 1960s - greater security in his personal position - led him to widen the scope of the party's Central Committee and allow more discussion with 'technical experts'
- Centralisation continues and final decision remained with Ulbricht
SED
- Designed after the soviet model
- Legislature - Volkskammer - made up of elected representatives from several diff parties - all parties obeyed the SED
- Purges of the SED continued after 1953 uprising - over 60% of SED members - expelled from the party by 1954
- Reformists were also excluded
- Ulbricht felt secure - paid no attention to de-Stalinisation - pushed forward with Collectivisation and industrialisation
Economic Organisation
- Largely agricultural country
- SED - had to re-pair damaged caused by the war and build a modern, industrial socialist stated in GDR - made difficult by:
- USSR demanded huge reparations for the damage done and took 25% of GDR's industrial products as part of it + dismantled thousands of industrial plants taking them over
- GDR - got its coal and steel from the Rhur - now in FRG - had little of its own
- Before Berlin wall - thousands of East Germans left the GDR for the FRG - 1960 just under 200,000 and first half of 1961-150,000
- Loss of labour - especially skilled labour - proved fatal
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Collectivisation
- Collectivisation began in 1952 - resulting food shortages and price increases fuelled the 1953 uprising - collectivisation was halted
- Second wave - more successful as by 1960 85% of farmland was collectivised
Strengths and weaknesses
GDR front line of the cold war - Soviet POV it was to be an advertisement for the social developments taking placeWeaknesses
- Before Berlin wall - massive exodus of citizens - propaganda gift to the west whilst the uprising in 1953 showed that GDR was not secure nor at the best advertisement of a socialist state
- Uprisings - scared the Soviets fearing they could just like they did in Hungary and Poland
Strengths
- Building of Berlin - halt the flight of massive number of citizens and Ulbricht the chance to build a strong socialist state - soon GDR had the highest standards of living, workers productivity and growth in the Eastern bloc
- Politically stable after lesson were learnt from the 1953 uprising - Purges and Eastern bloc's most extensive secret police making sure of it