History Coursework

The task of assessing one mans significance on such a large a field of human endeavour
as agriculture is never simple. Stalin being the man in question does not make this fact
any easier. In the words of the historian Ronald Suny, Stalin rose from impoverished son
of a shoemaker to become one of the most powerful men in the world 1 (Suny, 2012).
When Lenin passed away in 1924, Stalin rose as the new leader of the Communist party.
This turned out to be one of the most significant changes in almost every aspect of the
Soviet Union, if not the entire world. It marked a time of XXXX; it lead XXXX; it turned the
Soviet Union into a world superpower. Firstly, in order to assess Stalins significance on
the agriculture, one must first look at the width and depth of the impact as well as its
legacy. Therefore, a most logical way to evaluate the new deals significance is to
examine the effect his policies had on agriculture, the cultural changes that ensued
mostly as a result, the effect that propaganda played; both on the Eastern and Western
sides. Stalin marked several changes into the fundamental fabric of society and in
particular the lives of the peasantry. In these areas at least, Stalin was very significant.
One key area of significance was the relationship between agriculture and industry. Stalin
brought in revolutionary changes to industry at the expense of agriculture. The Achilles
heel of Soviet power, the problem to which the Communist Party returned repeatedly
with little success, was the relative backwardness of the peasantry, which then
comprised the vast majority of the population of the Soviet Union. Everything about the
peasants annoyed Stalin: their religiousness, their attachment to customary laws, their
supposed primitiveness and bourgeois-esque mentality.
Getting Agriculture ++ for industry.
NEP difference
In the year of 1922, the Russian Civil War ended and Stalin became General Secretary of
the USSR. Lenin, The then current leader of the Soviet Union suffered strokes in May and
December 1922, forcing him into semi-retirement. During this time, Stalin became one of
the three men acting as Lenins intermediaries.
-Lenin introduced many changes from 1921-1924; these included the NEP, government
control and centralisation, the growth of the CPSU, control of education and the church,
he used propaganda and censorship to control minds.
-Economic problems of agriculture have occupied prominent positions during almost all
periods of Soviet history. This is to be expected; even today, after more than 30 years of
rapid industrialisation, 47% of the population is still classified as rural 1. Nevertheless,
Lenin, Stalin, and their successors all had to solve important economic problems
involving agriculture, and the impact of their decisions are still apparent today.
B
B

Impact on peasantry
Depth and Width

-Good for Agriculture? Good for industry, or

Stalin approach to agriculture doesnt last Kruschev has to change it to keep SU in
check
Stalin is being looked on with greater sympathy in moderner times

++ This is intended to argue that Stalins mass killings of the 1930s should be classified
as genocide. This argument is made more difficult by the fact that there was no single
act of genocide in the Soviet case, but rather a series of interrelated attacks on class
enemies and enemies of the people,
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