The Soviet Bear

[AggieDave 6]

For you history/politic types, here's my essay on why Communism failed in the Soviet Union (yes, I do know that no body really cares about my essay, I just thought I would post it for something to do/for a joke ):
Fundamentally flawed and thrust upon a socially and economically inept Russia, the October Revolution was destined to fail; furthermore, throughout the Soviet Union’s troubled and varied leadership one plan (NEP, the New Economic Policy) presented a glimmer of hope for the country’s economic and social future, only to be thwarted upon returning positive results, sending the Soviet Union into a downward spiral unable to return. The October Revolution and the Bolshevik seizer of power failed to realize the socialist utopia envisioned by Marx and Lenin, although Lenin and especially his successors could have acted to reverse the social and economic problems. When Khrushchev and Gorbachev attempted to act on the situation, the window of opportunity had passed and the Soviet Union was on a downward spiral spinning tighter and faster towards self destruction.
The October Revolution did not conform to the conditions set forth in Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto, which called for a capitalist society with an oppressed working class to undergo a revolution by the proletariat rebuilding society into a socialist utopia. Russia at the dawn of the twentieth century had barely crawled out of a feudalist society, much less become an industrial economy based on a capitalist society, thus leaving a hole in the base of society in which a socialist utopian society was to built. Marx’s Historical Determinism stated that a capitalist society had to predate a socialist revolution, although the Bolshevik intelligentsia dismissed this detail with the belief that between the February and October Revolutions in 1917 Russia had a capitalist economy. This sort of economic blindness within the party and government leadership began the paradigm that would define the Soviet leadership for almost a century.
The Bolshevik party, being a political minority struggled from the onset to establish themselves legitimately as the ruling political party. Also, since they were the smallest party, their revolution was a widely unpopular one, the Russian people resisting their urges towards a one party dictatorship. With these reasons, after the October Revolution, a very costly, very destructive civil war between the different political factions fighting for the control of the government during the years following 1917. By 1921 the war between different political factions is over, however the scare left on the economic and social stability and future of the Soviet Union is done. The civil war is important in Soviet history for many reasons, for our purposes, however, it is important due to the economics of War Communism and the results of which.
War Communism was a term used by Lenin to justify his seizing control of Russia’s industrial and agriculture. Starting in 1918, Lenin begins nationalizing certain industries to solidify the government’s ability to manufacture war material, also nationalized is agriculture. Peasants farmers are required to sale grain to the government for incredibly low prices, thus severely endangering the farmer’s lively hood and family. Obviously resistance ensued, however, this did turn for the worst: during the first six months of 1918, 10,000 people were killed resisting grain requisition, during the second half of 1918 nearly 10% of all persons involved with requisitioning food were killed. During the nationalization of agriculture and industry, capitalists and kulaks were killed, imprisoned or removed, to be replaced by party members. The people missing were the people who knew how to run the factories, the people who oversaw the industrial production of and how to farm successfully, thus leaving the Soviet Union economically headless.
Due to the sharp downward turn of Russia’s economy, Lenin devised his New Economic Policy in 1921, what could have been Russia’s only saving grace. Lenin’s first step was to end the grain requisition followed by a tax reform, freeing the peasant class from some undue burden. Realizing that the party does not know how to run economics or factories, Lenin legalizes a free market economy, to a point. All factories or industries with 20 or less employees were given the ability to denationalize and run their business on their own. Factories hire back the once relieved management, ousting party members, so to facilitate manufacturing reform. Also legalized is the peasant’s ability to work as a middle man between buyer and seller, creating a bourgeois position referred to as “NEP-men”. NEP-men were middlemen, non-party members who worked between state run factories to facilitate sales and production, this, moreover, put them in a very lucrative position, allowing them a very pleasant lifestyle in view of the rest of Russia. This bridge between capitalism and socialism worked, however, since between 1921 and 1928 production rose 82% (back to pre-World War I levels). This compromised, though, was very unpopular with the party leadership and those who thought that Lenin had turned slightly away from his socialist ideals. The outstanding economic growth gave evidence that economic growth was possible in Russia. Even though the unprecedented growth was sending Russia in the right direction economically and socially, Lenin’s NEP was very unpopular with the Bolshevik party and became the focal point of conflict during the struggle for power following Lenin’s death.
January 1924, the unthinkable, Vladimir Lenin dies. His death leaves a power vacuum at the top of the party and the government, a bloody tossup between four likely contenders. The two that were the main competitors for the vacant spot were Stalin and Trotsky. This is a focal point in Soviet history, since we are dealing with an unknown as party leadership goes, Trotsky. With this uncertainty in how Trotsky would deal with NEP and the economy, this could have been Russia’s glimmer of hope; Stalin had already voiced his disdain of NEP to Lenin and other party officials before, citing that NEP was not the answer that Russia needed despite the results.
Joseph Stalin overcomes his opponents, winning the struggle for power, and by 1929 sets forth the first of his Five Year Plans (FYP). The FYP was Stalin’s answer to Lenin’s NEP, although much less successful and the first real step away from a chance of success and toward the downward spiral of destruction. Widespread industrialization was one of the primary goals of the first FYP, however, the pace in which this was to take place and the astronomical number of economic growth that was predicted to be achieved from rapid industrialization doomed Stalin’s plan from the start. Also apart of the first FYP was the collectivization of agriculture, which the industrialization of Russia would help facilitate with farm machinery. Stalin’s fundamental belief that the peasant class was overwhelming capitalistic drove his initiatives to rid the country of kulaks during the collectivization. The “cleansing” of the countryside of the kulak class, left a majority of the unsuccessful farmer peasants to run the collective farms, setting them up for future failure. A series of categories are created to organize various forms of kulaks and to liquidate the kulak class. Being classified in the least of the these categories punished the kulak class by depriving them of their property and denying admission into the collective farms; the most sever category ended with imprisonment and occasionally death. A virtual war on the country side between the kulaks and the agents sent to identify them and collectivize farms erupts. The results of this mini-war is staggering, nearly crippling the Soviet agriculture. By 1930 nearly half of all horses have been slain, over half of all pork, 70% of sheep, 30 million cattle and nearly 2 million kulaks had been arrested and sent to labor camps. Followed by severe drought and famine and followed relatively closely by World War II, the Russian agriculture never recovered. If Stalin had continued on Lenin’s economic path with NEP, this would not have happened and the Soviet Union would have been a much stronger nation economically and especially agriculturally entering WWII.
The downward spiral to destruction sharpened at Stalin’s dissolution of NEP and the implementation of his first FYP, this became the first in a series of events that solidified the Soviet Union’s doomed fate. The reign of terror during the 1930s is important to my argument for one reason, the solidification of the creation of a supreme dictator who is able to act with out question. This unwavering loyal attitude to leader and nation is what helps to fuel the Cold War from the Soviet side, which would come to prove too much for the weak Soviet economy to withstand.
Passing away in 1953, Stalin leaves the leadership position open once again, which would, after a short power struggle, be filled by Khrushchev. Khrushchev comes to power with the intention of raising the quality of life in the Soviet Union; however, like the leaders before him, he did not have a clear cut plan in which to do this. His ideas for an economic turn around seem almost whimsical to an outsider and one can wonder how his ideas were never called into question before they were implemented. This can be explained back to Stalin’s terror, eliminating people’s desire to speak out against their superiors. On the foreign front, Khrushchev had wanted to peruse a softer relationship with the west, a peaceful co-existence; however, through a series of events he not only does not accomplish that, he perpetuates the Cold War into a much worst situation. The U2 spy plane incident, the creation of the Berlin Wall and almost initiating a nuclear war with the United States during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev further pushed the Soviet Union towards destruction. Internally, with in the party, Khrushchev did attempt to pull the leadership out of the paradigm that controlled the collective thought process. He created a system of term limits that would not only permit but require new people to be pushed to leadership positions, thus giving the ability to avoid the stagnation of ideas and leadership. This, however, was Khrushchev’s downfall with the party and he was removed in 1964.
Following Khrushchev a series of men attempt to lead the Soviet Union, but they have no real outcome on the USSR’s future. In 1985, though, Gorbachev comes to power, thus marking the beginning of the very end of the Soviet Union, although he nor the United States knew that at the time. Gorbachev came to power believing that a war with the United States was not inevitable, that the USSR and the west could live in a peaceful co-existence. This was also his premise to the understanding that he needed to revamp the Soviet economy if his country was to survive, since he understood that the Cold War was taking half of the country’s economic resources, and that the only way to focus on making socialism work the money being spent on the Cold War would have to be spent on the country as a whole. To facilitate this change, Gorbachev initiated a program in which manufacturing was decentralized, with the government taking less of a role in the operations of factories. Although his plan was conceived with the best of intentions, the government had acted as a sort of a middle man for the factories, helping them negotiate between each other for goods and services. With out this sort of concierge present, the factories did not know how to function properly. This accompanied with a new generation of Russians who had not experienced life under Stalin’s rule, longed for the consumer goods that they heard of being available in the west. Moreover, the loosing of censorship laws (Glasnost) invited harsh ridicule from the press and public directed towards the government. Beginning in 1987 the ball of yarn began quickly unravel, after Gorbachev had granted permission to the nation states in the Eastern Bloc to break away from the USSR to form their own governments. In 1991 a successful coup was staged and the Soviet Union was no longer a communist nation.
The plans and steps taken by Khrushchev and Gorbachev, whilst in the best of intentions, did not have the ability to positively effect the digression of the Soviet Union towards destruction. Although, if their planning had been better and more geared towards implementing a form of Lenin’s NEP, then the inevitable collapse of communist Russia may have been delayed significantly. Practically the only chance of actual success had laid in the foundations of NEP when originally carried out by Lenin. If Stalin had continued Lenin’s plan, then the Soviet Union would have more then likely have become a successful country instead of regressing to subservient nation dependent on others. Upon Stalin’s dissolution of NEP, the Soviet Union rapidly descended into a downward spiral towards economic and political self destruction with out the ability to reverse course.

Not too bad, I guess, just under 8 pages...
Aerials
So up high
When you free your lives (the) eternal prize

[Viking 0]

got the cliff's notes of that?
I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver

[jfields 0]

Dave,
You made that into 8 pages? Were you using like 2 inch margins and 20 point fonts? Later today I'll actually go and read it.
Justin

[kingbunky 3]

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(yes, I do know that no body really cares about my essay, I just thought I would post it for something to do/for a joke

whore! shameless whore ! good essay though. i sometimes wish i had paid more attention to history when i was in school, but subjects like history require a good teacher in order to make it interesting and/or somewhat relevent. i had the type that read the text book to you and wanted regurgitated answers for tests. my memory is like some other things i have, it works great but it's short . as a result, i always barely got through the course and never had any interest in learning more.
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bunky
get crazy, before it gets you.

[AggieDave 6]

Nope, standard widths, fonts, everything. The 'net just formats stuff weird. Aerials
So up high
When you free your lives (the) eternal prize

[AggieDave 6]

Quote

got the cliff's notes of that

Yeah, the cliff's notes version of the history of Communist Russia: "what the f**k were they thinking?! And why were we so damn scared of them, they were way more scared of us!"
Aerials
So up high
When you free your lives (the) eternal prize

[GrumpySmurf 0]

Shouldn't 'This compromised, though, was very unpopular with the party' be 'This compromise, though, was very unpopular with the party'
It seems to jump between past to the present back to the past tense a bit. 'The Bolshevik party, being a political minority struggled' vs. 'Lenin legalizes a free market economy'. Don't think it's wrong, just feels 'odd' *shrug* 'C' is my first language, not english All in all though, intriguing proposition - learn something new everyday. I guess if there was a second term paper to follow, it could follow why the Chinese variant of Communism has succeded?

[AggieDave 6]

I haven't slept in 2 days and haven't gone back over that paper yet, so I wouldn't doubt I have some grammer mistakes...
Aerials
So up high
When you free your lives (the) eternal prize