The USSR up to 1953.

The USSR 1924-53

The situation in 1924

At the beginning of this period the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) consisted of 5 ‘Republics’ or provinces. These republics were: Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus, Transcaucasia and Central Asia. Trancaucasia was later broken up into Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Central Asia was later divided into Kazakstan, Tadjikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. This brought the number of republics up to 11.

By far the biggest Republic was Russia. The capital, Moscow, is in Russia.

The official language of the USSR was Russian but 50% of the population of the USSR had different languages so they had to learn Russian as a second language.

21 January 1924 the Prime Minister of the USSR, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov – known as LENIN – died of cerebral arteriosclerosis. That is to say that a blood vessel in his brain burst. He had suffered strokes for afew years beforehand. He knew that his death was impending and had therefore set forth a last will and testament. He denounced Stalin, Trotsky and other Communist doyens. He said that Stalin was too rude to be the leader.

Background on STALIN

Joseph Vissarinovich Dzughashvili (known as STALIN) was born 21 December 1879 in Gori, Georgia. His nickname, STALIN, means ‘has steel” as in ”he has steel”. This is normally rendered into English as  “man of steel”.

Georgia was a part of the Russian Empire in the south. Georgians are different from Russians in that they have a different language, they have typically Georgian names and they view themselves as ethnically Georgian.

The Russian Empire was ruled by the Tsar (meaning “Emperor”) from the capital, St. Petersburg. Unlike the United Kingdom, here the Tsar actually governed, he was the absolute ruler, he made all the decisions. There was no parliament and little free speech.

STALIN had to learn Russian as second language. He spoke Russian fluently but with a heavy Georgian accent all his life. In fact his Russian was so superb that he even authored a book on Russian linguistics. For all his many grave faults it must be acknowledge that he was very scholarly. He was a short man with a high voice. He was pigeon-toed and walked oddly – putting his left foot and left arm forward together and then his right leg and right arm together. His biarre gait and unprepossessing appearance probably made him very insecure and defensive.

STALIN grew up in a very poor family. His father was a shoe-maker and his mother a peasant. His father was an alcoholic who died when STALIN was three.

STALIN trained to be a priest in the Russian Orthodox Church. STALIN however rejected Christianity and all religions. He came to believe in Communism.

Background on Communism

Communism was formulated into a cogent theory by a German named Dr. Karl Marx (1818-83). Because Marx happened to be born into a Jewish family it was later claimed that there was some connection between Judaism and Communism. Marx’s family, although originally Jewish, had changed to Christianity and Marx himself followed no religion at all. In actual fact Dr Marx was vociferously anti-religiously, he excoriated it as ”the sigh of the oppressed, the opium of the people.”

The best short version of Communism was written by Marx in 1848 and entitled The Communist Manifesto. This book claims that the rich are exploiting the poor and that this must and will come to an end.

Communists believe that running a business or owning anything significant is evil and selfish. Private ownership and making a profit are called ‘capitalism’. Making one man richer always makes another man poorer.

Communists believe that all property (houses, cars, land, books etc…) should be owned in common like, say, computers in a school computer room. Communists believe in community. One must serve the community’s interest and not one’s individual interest. It supposed to be all about sharing and caring.

Communists believe that people should co-operate and not compete. Then there will be no need for government – the state will just wither away. There will be no need for the army or police because wars and crime are caused by capitalist greed.

Under the ideal Communist system one could do to a clothes shop and take what one needs without paying for it because everyone would be a good person and only take what one needs. No one would be selfish because eventually everyone else would start being selfish too and the entire structure would unravel. Everybody would see that to be greedy would eventually harm them.

Communists are violently opposed to all religions. They think religions are false and a trick to make the poor obey the rich. They say that religious stories reinforce the idea of private ownership. Religions are always controlled by conservative elements who use churches and so on to fleece the poor. Religion is allied to national identity and other bourgeois ideas.

Communists think they are rational and modern. They sometimes call Communism “scientific socialism.” Marx called religion “the opium of the masses.” Indeed a later Soviet ruler, Khruschev claimed that Communist triumph was an absolute certainty as it had been ”scientifically proven” by Marx. When would true Communism arrive? This was a moot point. The Communist authorities were more circumspect about the past. They labelled some pre-Communist rebels proto-Communists and then denounced them as bourgeois nationalists. Then these official interpretations would all be reversed again. It was quipped that – the future is certain but the past is always changing.

The USSR before 1924

The Tsar was overthrown in March 1917 by people who wanted a democratic system of government. This was in the middle of the First World War. The new government was called The Provisional Government.

In November 1917 the Bolsheviks (another name for Communists) overthrew the Provisional Government. LENIN was the Bolshevik leader and STALIN was also a Bolshevik although not a very high-up one at that time.

The Bolsheviks did not immediately have full power. They had to fight against the remnants of the Provisional Government and people who wanted the Tsar back. Together those loyal to both the Provisional Government and those loyal to the Tsar were called “Whites” and the Bolsheviks were called “Reds”.

The Tsar, his wife and five children fell into the hands of the Reds (i.e. Bolsheviks/Communists). They were shot on the orders of Lenin in July 1918.

A Civil War between these groups carried on until 1921. The Russian Empire changed its named the USSR. The name Russia had ignored the many groups who were not Russian. A large area of the USSR kept the name Russia though.

The struggle for power.

On 26 January 1924, three days after LENIN’S death STALIN gave an elegy praising LENIN as “the genius of geniuses”. STALIN wanted to link himself to LENIN as much as possible.

Communists around the world revered LENIN. STALIN wanted to improve his own standing by claiming some of LENIN’S reputation for himself.

STALIN’S main rivals were Leon TROTSKY, Lev KAMENEV, Nikolai BUKHARIN and Georgi ZINOVIEV. At the start TROTSKY seemed to be the most likely successor to LENIN. STALIN joined forces with the other three to sideline TROTSKY. Trostky made some cardinal errors such as not attending the funeral of Lenin. He was thousands of miles away and ill when Lenin died. Nonetheless Lenin’s funeral took place several days after his death.

Of the 5 notables who were potential top Communist after Lenin only one was an ethnic Russian. That was Bukharin and he was a rank outsider in the race to achieve poll position. Stalin was a Georgian. Trotsky, Kamenev and Zionviev were all Jews. Anti-Semites made much of this.

STALIN’S job was General Secretary of the Communist Party. It had not been considered a good job, everyone else had turned it down. STALIN could appoint people to posts in the Communist Party who supported him.

TROTSKY was in distant part of the USSR when LENIN died and he was unwell himself so he did not attend the funeral, causing great offence.

Many people were jealous of TROTSKY’S fame. He was the People’s Commissar for War and he had been a brilliant tactician in the Civil War. Trostky was a towering intellectual, talented linguist and a stirring orator. His gifts excited much envy among more plodding Communist cadres. Trotsky did little to help himself with his hauteur. He contempted Stalin as, ‘mediocrity incarnate.’

TROTSKY thought the USSR faced imminent invasion from capitalist countries. The best form of defence was attack – the USSR must launch and immediate war on capitalism. He was a Johnny-come-lately to the Communist cause, only joining them in 1917.

Most people knew the USSR had been devastated by years of war and famine and needed a break from fighting to recover. TROTSKY’S attitude was dangerously stupid for the USSR.

STALIN’S rivals were all higher than him in the party. STALIN belonged to three key bodies in the Communist Party – the Secretariat, the Orgburo and the Politburo. STALIN thus had great influence and was able to push out his rivals. Stalin was able to appoint his placemen to key posts. He promoted those of modest ability who would never have made it on their own. They thus owed their positions to him directly. They realised that they would rise with him or fall with him.

STALIN controlled the newspapers and radio (there was no TV then). He ran articles denouncing TROTSKY. TROTSKY resigned and was later kicked out of the USSR in 1929. He was done to death with an ice-pick by a Soviet agent, Ramon Mecador, in Mexico city in the summer of 1940.

KAMENEV and ZINOVIEV were pleased with themselves for seeing of TROTSKY but STALIN had them expelled from the Communist Party in 1927, so was BUKARIN in 1928. They were later allowed back into the Party in far more junior roles once they confessed the errors of their ways. In the 1930s they were condemned again, tried and shot.

The USSR was a one party state. Trades unions were banned. All newspapers had to be supportive of the government. There was no freedom of speech. The constitution of 1936 guaranteed all these rights. However, if one attempted to exercise this right they would be accused of anti-Soviet agitation. One would be sent to a gulag often without any semblance of a trial. Gulag is an acronym of ”main camp administration.” Political prisoners and class enemies were sent there to work in appalling conditions. They were underfed, overworked, subject to savage beatings, deprived of the chance to wash, ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-shod and mostly without medical care. Unsurprisingly many died young in the camps.

Economics

In 1921 the USSR suffered a terrible famine, this was not helped by years of war. The government had ‘requisitioned’ (i.e. taken at gunpoint) food from farmers to feed people the towns. This made farmers hide or destroy food. 

The government decided to give farmers an incentive to sell – they called it the New Economic Policy. This was not new but a return to the old system, capitalism – free markets, profit and loss. Four years after the institution of Communism the Communists were having to tacitly admit that Communism does not work.

TROTSKY for one had opposed the NEP, wanting to Communise as fast and as fully as possible.

In 1928 STALIN scrapped the NEP. He began a 5 year plan – this called for massive increases in industrial and agricultural output. It was hopelessly over-ambitiouts. These unrealistic targets were actually counter-productive.

It was dangerous to disagree with STALIN’S plans. STALIN would not admit he had got it wrong. Failure was not possible. Any setbacks were due to malice he claimed. So-called saboteurs were severely punished. The most stunning confessions were announced in the media. Previously loyal Communists had been wrecking things. They were in the pay of countries hostile to the USSR. These men had been put up to it by the UK, France, the US, Germany, Japan, Poland and whoever else.

Mendacious reports were issued of how well things were going with titles such as “dizzy with success.” Films were produced showing people merrily working and singing joyous paeans of praise to STALIN as they did so.

STALIN claimed the first 5 year plan had gone so splendidly that it had exceeded all expectations in 4 years. In 1932 he launched another 5 year plan.

The Soviet flag was blood red with a gold start, hammer and sickle. The hammer stood for factory workers, the sickle for farm workers. BUKHARIN had favoured agriculture. STALIN wanted the USSR to be modern and preferred industry. 

In 1928 there were 28 million individually owned farms. Farms were compulsively collectivised. By 50 % of all farms were collectivised, in time they all were.

Many famers had prospered due to the NEP and resisted. In Khazakhstan 80% of farm animals were killed by farmers rather than give them to the government.

Foreign policy.

STALIN believed in “socialism in one country” – he used “communism” and “socialism” interchangeably when really “socialism” is much milder. STALIN meant that the USSR would build up its strength and try to prove Communism was a good idea. He would not seek to impose it on others by force.

Throughout the 1920s Communists insisted that only THEY were right and good, they refused to help socialists. In the 1930s this policy was dropped. Communists around the globe were ordered by Moscow to take part in popular fronts, broad alliances to oppose fascism. Some remarked, ”there are no enemies on the left.” Despite this policy Soviet agents abroad spent much of their time tracking down and killing Trotskyites.

STALIN recalled how the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Serbia, Australia, Poland, India and Japan had all joined forces to try to crush the Bolsheviks in 1917. He did not want to be friendless in the world.

In the 1920s the USSR collaborated with Germany. They trained German tank crews and air force pilots. This was because under the treaty of Versailles Germany was forbidden from possessing such war machines. In the 1920s Germany was run by a mixture of Socialist, Centrist and Conservative politicians.

In January 1933 a new Chancellor was appointed in Germany by the name of Mr. A. Hitler. He was well known for his colourful attacks of Communism and his declared attention to destroy the Red menace. He led the Nazis party and Nazis often paraded around towns bearing placards saying, ”death to Communism.”

In 1935 the USSR made deal with France, they would help one another out if attacked. This was a big breakthrough. Previously the USSR had been an outcast. But a Socialist government in France had a more pragmatic attitude then.

The United Kingdom had refused to recognise the USSR as a proper government for a few years, up until 1924. The UK was represented through the Norwegian embassy in the USSR. One such diplomat who performed sterling service in representing British interests in the USSR was one Vidkun Quisling. The UK and France had also demanded that the USSR re-pay the debts of the ancien regime. But France and the UK both relented in the end.

Germany reacted to the Soviet-French pact by remilitarising the Rhineland, claiming they felt threatened and needed troops right up to the French border.

On 17 July 1936 a Civil War broke out in Spain. On one side were Republicans (a collection of pro-STALIN Communists, pro-TROTSKY Communists, Liberals, Socialsists, Anarchists, Democrats and Separatists). Ranged against them were Nationalists (a coalition of Monarchists, Fascists, Conservative Catholics, Capitalists, Imperialists and Militarists).

STALIN sent military advisers, material, money etc… to help the Republicans. Germany and Italy sent troops to help the Nationalists. Some Soviet supply ships were torpedoed by the Italians. Soviet secret police in Spain spent much of their time exterminating Trotskyites rather than fighting capitalists.

The French Socialist Premier, Leon Blum, announced France would help the rightful Spanish government, the Republicans, to remain in power. However there was a strong pacifist streak in his party that objected. Much of the French right sympathised with the Spanish Nationalists.

Leon Blum was forced to renege on his earlier commitment. The UK and France agreed to stay out and mount a non-intervention patrol – to check that no weapons were being sent. Blum also just so happened to be Jewish. You may imagine what Hitler made of this.

STALIN noticed how France and Britain had no stomach for the fight. France was supposed to be his ally. France since 1931 had been building a huge fortification along the German frontier called the Maginot line. France’s entire military outlook was defensive.

STALIN began to cogitate, was he backing the wrong horse? France and Britain were weak-willed, callow and unreliable. STALIN also witnessed the Great Depression and he arrived at the summation that the capitalist system in the UK and France was teetering on the brink of collapse. However rebarabative Germany was under the Nazis Stalin thought that it was at least a lifeful and virile regime. Germany was prepared to fight in both sense – psychologically and in terms of armaments.

In March 1939 the Nationalists entered Madrid and Generalissimo Francisco Bahamonde y Franco issued his celebrated message “the war has finished.”

In 1939 Stalin sacked his Foreign Secretary, Maxim Litvinoff, because he was a Jew. This would have made his very hard for the Third Reich to trust. Instead Vyacheslav Molotov was promoted.

STALIN put out peace feelers to ADOLF HITLER despite the fact that HITLER had recently created the anti-Comintern pact with Italy and Japan.

STALIN made one last attempt to explore the possibility of a meaningful alliance with the Western democracies. Britain and France. A British delegation travelled by sea to Archangel at the height of summer in 1939 to negotiate.

The French Republic and the Britannic Realm in July 1939 would not acquiesce with STALIN’S designs on former domains of the Tsar in the Baltic and Poland. There was little logic or rectitude in opposing one type of aggression by colluding in another. The talks came to nothing.

HITLER’S foreign secretary, Joachim von RIBBENTROP boasted that he was about to pull of the greatest diplomatic isolation of Britain since the eighteenth century. In August 1939 he flew to Moscow to conclude this. STALIN was afraid of flying, he never took a plane in his life.

 

 

The Nazi-Soviet pact.

HITLER who had made a career out of Red-bashing called STALIN “a Russian patriot”.  Hitler had said that years before he had begun his struggle against Marxism. Now this rhetoric was quietly dropped STALIN was equally impressed with Mr HITLER. He saw in HITLER vigorous, audacious, decisive man of vision and action. Most of the German Communist Party was in concentration camps. There only hope of being freed was if the Red Army rescued them. Despite languishing in labour camps they called for ”observance” of the Nazi-Soviet pact.

On 1 September 1939 the German blitzkrieg against the Poles began. Despite Poland’s 7-1 advantage in cavalry their lances proved to be of limited use against tanks.

Two weeks later the Red Army attacked Poland from the East. It was a walkover. By the end of the month gallant Poland had succumbed to the depredations of the two monstrous tyrannical mass murderers.

HITLER and STALIN divided their ill-gotten gains. STALIN took the eastern part, a little over half, and HITLER claimed what remained.

On  3^rd September the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said in a broadcast to the nation “I am speaking to you from the Cabinet room at Downing street. This morning our ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a note saying that unless we heard from them by 11 o’clock this morning that they were prepared, at once, to withdraw their troops from Poland a state of war would exist between this country and Germany. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and consequently this country is at war with Germany.”

France declared war that day.

STALIN was sitting pretty. He ordered Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to be annexed to the Soviet Union. It was done. Likewise Finland was attacked but only partly taken over. The Soviet Union demanded Moldova and northern Bucovina from Romania. Romania knew she was sure to lose if she fought so she caved in. Stalin actively assissted the Third Reich. This went beyond selling them huge quantities of raw materials and food. The Third Reich had a naval base in the far north of the USSR called Basis Nord. A Soviet ice breaker also helped a German U boat sail across the northern coast of the USSR and into the Pacific.

Operation Barbarossa.

At dawn on 22 June 1941 Germany invaded Soviet Russia. At first very rapid progress was made and huge numbers of prisoners were captured. Among them was Vasily Josefovich Dzughashvili, STALIN’S son.

The Germans offered to exchange Yakov for a senior officer of their own. STALIN refused to be nepotistic. He could of course have ordered the Soviet media to keep the people in ignorance about this. However, he did not like his son. When Yakov had tried to commit suicide before the war Stalin had scoffed, ”the boy couldn’t even get that right.”.Yakov was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He was filmed for German news reels and he later died of an illness. Some say he died trying to escape.

Many Soviets welcomed the Germans as liberators from Communist savagery. They rubbed the crosses on German panzers fondly imagining the Germans had come to restore Christianity. But it was out of the frying pan, into the fire.

German troops were indoctrinated to view Soviets as subhuman and in some cases they treated them as such. National Socialism was a virulently racist ideology and savagery towards other races was actively encouraged by the Nazi regime. This was a myopic policy. The ThirdReich could have harnessed genuine anti-Communist feeling to its advantage. But many Nazis were so blinded by their own racist ideology that they squandered this good will. It is estimated that up to 10 million Soviet civilians died in that conflict.

In one Soviet republic, Belorussia, 30% of the people died.

German radio dubbed Soviets as “swamp animals and Mongols”. Dr Joseph Goebells, the Nazi Minister for Propaganda and Popular Enlightenment, announced that Stalingrad had fallen to the Whermacht in the summer of 1942, this was untrue.

The Soviet military code forbade surrender. Those who capitulated were to be regarded as traitors. Those Red Army soldiers who became Prisoners of War of the Germans often did not want their own side to win. If the Soviets did win they could expect to be punished for surrendering. Those who were taken prisoner and escaped back to Red Army lines were punished by being sent to the gulag.

After the war those who so much as surrendered, much less had fought against Communism or even worked in factories for Germany, were sent to slave labour camps.

Soviet soldiers in German hands were often seriously abused. Only 60% of them survived the war. Some were offered the chance to join an anti-Communist Russian army. Many leapt at the opportunity. They were given decent rations and living quarters. A Georgian Legion was formed to fight for Georgian independence.

Some Ukranians fighting for the independence of their part of the USSR went on fighting as partisans into the 1950s. Any Soviet citizen who had fought against STALIN and was captured faced execution.

In December 1941 the attack on Moscow stalled. The Germans were temporarily driven back. The siege of Leningrad dragged on.

The Sixth Army under Gen. Paulus in Stalingrad was surrounded in late 1942. In February 1943 Paulus surrendered. There is a pub on that spot named “Paulus’s”. He led his 100 000  remaining men into captivity. 6 000 came back alive.

STALIN realised that men were much more likely to lay down their lives if they believed that they could go to an eternal reward. He therefore permitted religious worship of all kinds once more. This was ironic as he bestially persecuted religion for years and killed thousands of priests. The patriarch of Moscow called upon all Orthodox Christians to, ”destroy this fascist Satan.”

Much industry had been evacuated behind the Urals, well beyond German reach earlier in the war. Holidays were cancelled.

The Soviets were able to push the Germans back and by the end of 1944 all USSR territory was a German-free zone.

Georgi Zhukhov was ordered by STALIN to take Berlin by June 1945 or be shot. He was a great believer in artillery and he accomplished his objective although at great cost in lives.

The German surrender became effective on 8 May 1945. The Soviets stripped down the few factories left standing in Germany and removed the parts to the USSR as compensation for the devastation wreaked upon the Soviet Motherland. The area of Germany under Soviet rule was forced to pay reparations. Tens of thousands of German girls were raped by Red Army soldiers.

A month later a tremendous celebration was held in Red Square. Marshall Zhukhov rode in on a white charger. Gen. Eisenhower was present. Soldiers threw the banners of defeated German regiments at the feet of Comrade STALIN.

 

The post war settlement.

In January 1945 Churchill and Roosevelt met STALIN at Yalta in the USSR in one of the Tsar’s dachas. They discussed the shape of the post-war world. Churchill and Roosevelt’s rooms were bugged by the Soviet secret service.

They agreed that Germany would be divided into four zones of occupation, one each – run by the USSR, US, UK and France. STALIN agreed to break his 1939 10 year non-aggression pact with Japan and to attack Japan 3 months after the German surrender.

They further agreed that there would be sphere of influence. STALIN was to have hegemony in named Eastern European states. Moreover, the section of Poland annexed by him in 1939 he was to be allowed to hang onto. The Western Allies consented to this for a number of reasons. The Red Army already had Poland in its grasp. They wanted Soviet co-operation on a whole host of other areas. They were unwilling to fight against the Soviets. The UK did draw up a contingency plan in 1945 for fighting the USSR alone. It was called Operation Unthinkable. It rated chances of success, ”very remote.”

It had been agreed that no stab-in-the-back myth must be allowed to grow up. Germany must be comprehensively defeated and be seen to be comprehensively defeated. The only terms acceptable to the Allies were unconditional surrender.

With the Soviet tanks rolling under the Brandenburg gate and the Red banner hoisted on the Reichstag there was no doubt about it – Germany had been smashed.

In July 1945 Stalin, Churchill and Harry Truman (Roosevelt had died on 20 April 1945) met at the Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam, just south of Berlin. They demanded that Japan either surrender unconditionally or face a new weapon of unparalleled destruction.

On 8 August 1945 STALIN honoured his promise to Britain and America and broke his promise to Japan – he attacked Japan. The Americans dropped their atomic bombs.

On 15 August Japan surrendered unconditionally. STALIN was jealous of the nuclear bomb an instructed his scientists to develop one. In 1949 they did.

The Eastern Bloc.

The USSR was allowed to station soldiers in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Albania. (These last two later fell out with Stalin and made him take his men out).

Free and fair elections were to be held. But this agreement clashed with the clause about Soviet dominance. The Communists subverted the democratic process. These countries became totalitarian states.

The world was by then bi-polar. Most countries either supported the US or USSR. Some were neutral. The term Cold War was used to described the tense stand-off.

STALIN died on 5 March 1953 in the Kremlin. He had been dying for days but he was deliberately left to perish. Huge grief accompanied his passing. It is quite possible that he was poisoned by Lavrenty Beria, the head of the secret police. Beria allegeedly crowed about poisoning his fellow Georgian with warfarin which is colourless, odourless and difficult to detect in autopsies. He would have been very rash to admit to this. As it happens he was executed by firing squad on 22 December 1953. He was convicted of several crimes but never even charged with killing Stalin.