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How did Stalin use Propaganda and Terror to remain in Power? - Coggle…
How did Stalin use Propaganda and Terror to remain in Power?
Introduction/Becoming Leader
Lenin died with no successor - Contest between Trotsky and Stalin
Stalin had upperhand - Commissar of Nationalities/General Secretary of the Party
Could appoint supporters to Key Positions
Stalin deliberately spread the Cult of Lenin
Organised Lenin's Funeral
Promoted his own image as best, staunchest, truest Comrade in Arms of Lenin
Socialism in One Country
Allowed for the removal of Trotsky
Stalin removed any threat by outmaneuvering his rivals on issues of Policy
Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin
Collectivisation/Eradication of Kulaks
Idea of maximising Agricultural output, by getting rid of small unproductive peasant farms and bringing them together into large State owned farms
Promise of new schools and health centres
Income raised from new farms would modernise the farming sector
Increased food production which would help Russian Society
By 1929 only 10% of Farmers had volunteered to join the Collectives
Stalin now used force to get peasants to co-operate
By 1930 it was 58%
By 1936 it was 90% - 250,000 Collective Farms
Inefficient - Widespread Famine
False promises made Peasants give up land
Suffered from food shortages, with Government requisitioning their food supplies
Resistance from Kulak Class
Stalin called for them to be 'eradicated'
Propaganda labeled them 'enemies of the workers'
Responded by burning crops and slaughtering animals
5 Year Plans
Replaced by NEP in 1928
Drawn up Gosplan
'We are 50 or 100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good the difference in 10 years or they will crush us'
First emphasised Heavy Industry (Coal, Iron, Gas and Electricity
Unrealistic Goals - 330% expansion in Heavy Industry
Achievements Dramatic - Electricity production trebled, Coal production doubled, Workforce doubled to 22 million
Model City - Magnitogorsk
Second emphasised Consumer Goods and Transportation
Third emphasised Rearmament - 16% to 33% increase in Government Spending
1940 - USSR became 2nd most industrialised nation in the world
Unemployment eradicated
Industrially Self-Sufficient by 1939
Pressure to meet targets
Examples made - Alexey Stakhanov
Internal Passports
Provision of Work, Housing, Schooling and Healthcare
Increase in Role of Women
Totalitarian State
Communist Party only Party
Had complete control - Press, Radio and Industry
Party members who were in positions of power within each area
Control of Army
Pravda claimed Stalin as 'the Great Leader of Communism
Secret Police enforced Party Policy and ensured conformity
Propaganda
Newspapers, Radio, Cinema, Writers and Artists all controlled
Glorified Stalin and his Policies
Indoctrination
'We must make the young into a generation of Communists. Children, like soft wax, are very malleable and they should be moulded into good Communists....from the earliest days of their lives, they must find themselves under the beneficent influence of Communist schools'
Young Communists and Komsomol
Teachers taught Marxist Ideologies
Textbooks and History was revised
Writers and Artists produced work that depicted a compliant and happy workforce contributing to the greatness of the Soviet Union
Drew attention to the enemies of the workers
The Cult of Stalin
Stalin became a God like figure where worship of him was promoted
Statues and posters erected throughout USSR as well as towns being named after him (Stalingrad)
History books rewritten to exaggerate Stalin's importance
He became focus of music and theatre and was even mentioned in the National Anthem
Made him the equal of Lenin - 'Stalin is the new Lenin of today', 'the most learned of men', 'the font of all wisdom'
Known as the Vozhd
'Father of Nations', 'Brilliant Genius of Humanity', 'Great Architect of Communism' and 'Gardener of Human Happiness'
The Purges/The Great Terror
Stalin's want to remove any threat to his power - 'to destroy men who might form an alternative Government'
Allowed Stalin to lay the blame for all the failures of Stalin's Policies at the hands of 'traitors' and 'spies'
Climate of fear throughout the country
Informers everywhere
NKVD
Targeted 'Old Bolsheviks'
Targeted Soviet Red Army
Stalin declared, 'the Purge was unavoidable and its results, on the whole, beneficial'
Resulted in there being no challenge to the Leadership of Stalin
Gulags/Slave Labour
Used to imprison Stalin's opponents
Designed to provide slave labour to help with process of industrialisation
Exceptionally harsh conditions - weather, food, treatment
The Show Trials
Propaganda Trials, with the accused men portrayed as enemies of the people
Aim to establish complete domination over the Communist Party and to eliminate any potential threats
Also allowed Stalin to find scapegoats to blame for failures during the 5 Year Plans
Confessions were key in the trials as they 'proved' that there was a conspiracy and that Stalin was justified in what he was doing
Link to Nazi Germany
The accused implicated others in their evidence and confessions, thus raising the possibility of other Bolshevik Leaders being prosecuted
Stalin ensured that the Trials were accepted by the people
Constant coverage by Newspapers
Invites to International observers - give validity
Foreign Policy
Initially an Isolationist Policy where focus was on Collectivisation and Industrialisation to achieve Self Sufficiency and International recognition of Communism
Particularly successful due to the Wall Street Crash
Give Stalin the confidence and belief now was time to involve USSR in foreign territories, aligned with the Rise of the Nazis
1934 - Joined League of Nations
Popular Fronts - European Communist Parties to form Anti-Fascist Alliances with other Political Parties
Military Alliances with France and Czechoslovakia
Involvement in Spanish Civil War
Conclusion
30 Years in power until his death in 1953
Eradication of all opponents during that time
Through both Physical and Diplomatic methods
By 1940, of the original 15 man Bolshevik Government of 1917, only one was alive - Stalin
11 had been executed under Stalin's Reign
Stalin demonstrated the 'necessary grit, determination, manipulative, skills and ruthlessness to attain power through his own means'
'No area of Soviet Life escaped being purged. Under Stalin terror was elevated to a method of Government'
Concealing of 1937 Census results
Potentially 30 million killed during his Reign of Terror
Used purges to warn Party members that no one was safe, and helped to reinforce the message from Stalin to ordinary citizens that traitors were extent on making Communism fail