After graduation civil war in Soviet Russia, an acute socio-political crisis began, caused by the discontent of the peasants with the policy of "war communism". Peasant protests against the surplus appropriation system in the winter of 1920/21. acquired the character of armed uprisings against the Bolsheviks in the Tambov and Voronezh provinces and Western Siberia, for the suppression of which the Bolsheviks used regular troops. From February 28 to March 18, 1921, the seamen of the Baltic Fleet and the Kronstadt garrison spoke out against the Bolshevik policy. They demanded the re-election of the Soviets, freedom of speech and press, the release of political prisoners, etc. These sentiments of broad circles of the population could not but affect the situation in the ruling party itself, within which a split was planned.

A way out of the crisis was found at the 10th Congress of the RCP (b), which was held in March 1921. His decisions on the hiring of labor, on the authorization of private property on a huge scale, on the replacement of surplus appropriation with a tax in kind and free trade were aimed at satisfying the most pressing demands of the peasantry and parts of the working class. They laid the foundation for the implementation of the new economic policy, which had the main goals of restoring the Russian economy destroyed during the world and civil wars and the establishment of normal economic relations between the working class and the peasantry. The congress also adopted a resolution "On Party Unity" aimed at defusing tensions between its various leaders. At the same time, a decision was made to liquidate the existence of other political parties in Russia.

In connection with decisions taken The Soviet government, which allowed private property, carried out a reorganization of the punitive bodies of state power and the legislative basis for their activities. On February 8, 1922, a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was published on the liquidation of the Cheka and the transfer of its functions to the NKVD. This was due to the end of the civil war and the need to abandon the emergency authorities. As part of the NKVD, the State Political Administration (GPU) was created, which had its own local bodies. Thus, political affairs were separated into a special production.

In 1922 V.I. Lenin instructed the justice authorities to develop and adopt a criminal code that would meet the new realities. Soon the new Soviet legislation came into effect. In June-July 1922, the first political trial in Soviet Russia took place over 47 leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, which ended with the sentencing of 14 defendants to death. However, under pressure from the world community, the sentence was commuted by the expulsion of the defendants abroad. The Socialist-Revolutionary Party itself was disbanded. At the same time, the Menshevik Party was “disbanded”. At the end of August 1922, a "philosophical steamer" sailed from Soviet Russia, which took away about 160 outstanding representatives of Russian culture in emigration. The expulsion of political opponents of the Bolsheviks continued afterwards.

The adoption by the 10th Congress of the resolution "On Party Unity" did not mean that the leaders of the RCP (Bolsheviks) strictly followed it. The fact is that the recognized leader of the party, V.I. Lenin, for health reasons already in the fall of 1922 was forced to retire and hand them over to his comrades-in-arms. In April 1922, I.V. Stalin. A.I. Rykov.

Gradually, disagreements arose between Lenin and Stalin on issues of principle, the depth of which increased as Lenin departed from the practical leadership of the party and the state. This concerned the issues of introducing a monopoly of foreign trade, the creation of the USSR, etc.

IN AND. Lenin understood the failure of the choice of Stalin's candidacy for the post of head of the ruling party. In those written or dictated by him at the turn of 1922-1923. articles and letters, the totality of which was called "political testament", he proposed "to undertake a number of changes in our political system." A special place of V.I. Lenin assigned the role of the party in the process of building a new society, on the unity of which, in his opinion, depended on the future of the Russian revolution. It was precisely at strengthening the role of the political factor in Soviet society that his ideas were aimed, such as defining his possible successor as head of the party and state, increasing the role of the Central Committee as a collective leadership body, ensuring proper control over the activities of individual leaders, attracting workers from the machine to the governing bodies. etc. Data of V.I. Lenin's unflattering descriptions to many party leaders forced them to make remarkable efforts to get into power.

L. D. Trotsky, I.V. Stalin, L.B. Kamenev, G.E. Zinoviev believed that each of them is capable of replacing V.I. Lenin and the main task is to remove the most capable opponent. They all together hid the opinion of V.I. Lenin on the personal qualities of contenders for power, and then three of them, I.V. Stalin, L.B. Kamenev and G.E. Zinoviev, having created a kind of "triumvirate", criticized L.D. Trotsky, who made many mistakes in the struggle for power and gave many trump cards in the hands of his rivals. Accused of Trotskyism, who resigned from his posts in the army in 1925, L.D. Trotsky found himself isolated and could no longer influence the policy of the party.

The defeat of Trotsky also predetermined the fate of the "triumvirate." First, there was a split between the center and the Leningrad party organization headed by G.E. Zinoviev. At the 14th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in December 1925, he came out with a special platform defending Leninism not against Trotskyism, but against Stalinism, in particular against the concept of I.V. Stalin on the possibility of building socialism in one country. In addition, G.E. Zinoviev accused Stalin of "leaderism", which, according to him, contradicted the "precepts" of V.I. Lenin.

I.V. Stalin emerged victorious in this struggle, taking N.I. Bukharin and having strengthened the Central Committee with his protégés V.M. Molotov, K.E. Voroshilov, M.I. Kalinin and others G.E. Zinoviev was removed from his posts and S.M. Kirov, and N.I. Bukharin.

In 1926, an attempt was made to unite all oppositionists who were dissatisfied with I.V. Stalin. However, this association included too different people who had fundamental disagreements with each other. The opposition tried to win over the party masses and create illegal party structures. However, there was no unity between the oppositionists and I.V. Stalin succeeded, relying on the party apparatus obedient to him, to expel the most prominent oppositionists from the party, and his main rival L.D. To expel Trotsky in 1928 from Moscow.

I.V. In his struggle for power, Stalin openly applied the resolution "On Party Unity," prohibiting factionalism and forcing the minority to accept the will of the majority. In the fight against political opponents I.V. Stalin increasingly began to rely on the organs of the OGPU, which began to move from spying on the opposition to open interference in the internal party struggle, giving trump cards to one side in the struggle against the other. The evidence obtained by the Chekists was increasingly used in political struggle and became the basis for organizing new political processes.

At the end of the 1920s, active legislative activity began, aimed at creating favorable conditions for the work of punitive bodies. The third session of the III convocation of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR on February 25, 1927 put into effect the first chapter of Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR "State Crimes". Work on the preparation of such processes began immediately.

In 1928, the “Shakhty case” was fabricated, in which so-called bourgeois specialists were accused of industrial sabotage. Already at this trial, a very popular accusation was later voiced in connection with the convicts with Western circles. At the end of 1928, the final chord of the reprisal against L.D. Trotsky and his supporters. L.D. himself Trotsky in January 1929 was expelled from the USSR, and his supporters were exiled to the periphery.

On the outskirts of the collapsed empire, local communists, led by the Central Committee of the RCP (b), formed sovereign Soviet republics that formally converged outside Moscow's control: the Ukrainian SSR (December 1917). Byelorussian SSR (January 1919). Azerbaijan SSR (April 1920). Armenian SSR (November 1920), Georgian SSR (February 1921). The last three joined the Transcaucasian Federation in March 1922. Soviet power, which was established in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, could not hold out there, burnt out in the flames of civil war and intervention.

From the moment of their emergence, the sovereign republics immediately found themselves within the framework of a general political union - already due to the uniformity of the Soviet state system and the concentration of power in the hands of a single Bolshevik party (republican communist parties were initially part of the RCP (b) as regional organizations).

During the years of the civil war, a new step was taken towards the rapprochement of the then Soviet republics: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia. By the decision of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of June 1, 1919, which followed soon after, their armed forces, economic councils, railway transport, and the people's commissariats of labor and finance were united. State ties were consolidated in 1920-1921. a series of bilateral agreements between the RSFSR and the republics, which expanded the general coordination functions of the Russian people's commissariats in the economic sphere. In preparation for the international conference in Genoa, a diplomatic union of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Transcaucasian republics was formed (February 1922).

On December 30, 1922, the congress of plenipotentiaries of the RSFSR, Ukraine, Belarus and the Transcaucasian Federation (I Congress of Soviets of the USSR) adopted the Declaration and Treaty on the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, elected the Central Executive Committee (CEC). In January 1924, the Second All-Union Congress of Soviets approved the Constitution of the USSR. The supreme body of power, she announced the All-Union Congress of Soviets, and between the congresses - the Central Executive Committee, which consisted of two equal chambers: the Union Council and the Council of Nationalities (the first was elected by the congress from representatives of the union republics in proportion to their population; the second consisted of five representatives from each union and autonomous republic and one at a time from the autonomous regions). The highest executive body was the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. He was in charge of foreign affairs, the country's defense, foreign trade, communications, finance, etc. The Union republics were in charge of internal affairs, agriculture, education, justice, social security and health care.

In 1924, new union republics were created (with the abolition of the Khorezm and Bukhara People's Soviet Republics) - the Uzbek SSR and the Turkmen SSR, in 1929 - the Tajik SSR, in 1936 - the Kazakh SSR and the Kirghiz SSR, in Azerbaijan, Armenia, After the dissolution of the Transcaucasian Federation, Georgia directly became part of the USSR. In parallel, new autonomous formations were established in the union republics themselves.

By the beginning of the 20s. the country faced not only a socio-political, but also a severe economic crisis. Industry, transport, financial system of Russia were undermined as a result of the world and civil wars.

The new economic policy, launched at the 10th Congress of the RCP (b), was a whole system of measures to revive the Russian economy. The main efforts were directed against the growing food crisis, which could only be eliminated by raising agriculture. It was decided to liberate the producer, to give him incentives for the development of the economy. At first, this was supposed to be achieved by replacing the surplus appropriation with a tax in kind. The size of the tax was significantly less than the appropriation, it was progressive in nature, that is, it was reduced if the peasant cared about increasing production, and allowed the peasant to freely dispose of the surplus products that he had left after the tax was passed.

Since the peasantry learned about the change in economic policy late, in the midst of the sowing campaign, they did not dare to go for a sharp increase in sown areas. In addition, the situation in agriculture was exacerbated by the drought, which hit the main grain regions of Russia and caused severe crop failure and hunger. The number of hungry people in 1921, according to various estimates, ranged from 10 to 22 million people. A large number of hungry people began to leave the disaster areas and rushed to more prosperous areas. The state had to allocate huge funds to help the starving, aid received from international organizations was used.

In 1922, reforms were continued in agriculture... The tax in kind was cut by another 10% compared to the previous year and it was announced that the peasant was becoming free to choose the forms of land use. He was allowed to hire labor and lease land. This allowed the peasant to realize the advantages of the new economic policy and he began to increase grain production and harvest a large harvest. After the tax was passed to the state, the peasant had surpluses, which he could dispose of freely and sell them on the market.

The government decided to create conditions for the free sale of surplus agricultural products. This was facilitated by the commercial and financial aspects of the New Economic Policy. The freedom of trade in grain was announced simultaneously with the transition from appropriation to the tax in kind. But at first it was understood as a direct product exchange between town and country. The priority was given to exchange through cooperatives rather than through the market. The peasantry found such an exchange unprofitable and V.I. Lenin already in the fall of 1921 admitted that the exchange of goods between town and country had broken down and resulted in buying and selling at "black market" prices. I had to go to the removal of restrictions on free trade, encourage retail trade and put the private trader on an equal footing in trade with the state and cooperatives

Allowing trade required putting things in order in the financial system, which in the early 1920s. existed only nominally. The state budget was formally drawn up, estimates of enterprises and institutions were also formally approved. All expenses were covered by printing unsecured paper money, so inflation was out of control.

As early as 1921, the state took a number of steps aimed at restoring financial policy. The status of the State Bank was approved, which switched to the principles of self-financing and was interested in receiving income from lending to industry, agriculture and trade. It was allowed to create commercial and private banks. Individuals and organizations could keep any amount of money in savings banks and banks and use deposits without restrictions. The government stopped uncontrolled financing of industrial enterprises, which were supposed to pay taxes to the budget and generate income for the state.

Then, measures were taken to stabilize the Russian currency, which were carried out during 1922-1924. As a result of the reform in the USSR, a unified monetary system was created, chervonets were issued, which became hard currency, as well as treasury notes, silver and copper coins.

The most difficult thing was the revival of industry. The industrial policy consisted in the denationalization of a large part of the enterprises; transfer of small and medium-sized enterprises into the hands of private and equity capital; reorientation of a part of large enterprises for the production of consumer goods and agricultural products; transfer of large-scale industry to self-financing with the expansion of the independence and initiative of each enterprise, the creation of trusts and syndicates, etc. industrial enterprises.

In the mid-20s. the development of the Soviet economy was contradictory. On the one hand, the successes of the New Economic Policy in reviving the country's economy were obvious. Agriculture practically restored the level of pre-war production, Russian grain again began to be sold on the world market, and funds for the development of industry began to accumulate in the countryside. The financial system of the state was strengthened, the government pursued a strict credit and tax policy. On the other hand, the situation in the industry, especially in the difficult one, did not look very good. Industrial production by the mid-20s. still far behind the pre-war level, the slow pace of its development caused huge unemployment, which in 1923-1924. exceeded 1 million people.

The new economic policy went through a series of severe economic crises. In 1923, the imbalance between the increasing pace of development of agriculture and the practically stalled industry caused a "price crisis", or "price scissors". As a result, prices for agricultural products fell sharply, while prices for manufactured goods continued to remain high. On these "scissors" the village lost half of its effective demand. The discussion of the "price crisis" turned into an open party discussion, and a way out was found in the use of economic methods. Prices for manufactured goods were reduced, and a good harvest in agriculture allowed the industry to find a wide and capacious market for selling its goods.

In 1925, a new crisis began, provoked by private traders of agricultural products. Their speculation led to the fact that prices for agricultural products rose sharply and the bulk of the profits went into the hands of the most prosperous peasants. Discussion about the "price crisis" flared up again among the Bolsheviks. The advocates of continuing to encourage the development of the agrarian sector and further concessions to the peasantry won again. However, hasty measures were taken to restrict the private trader in the market, which led to his disorganization.

A new crisis in economic policy was associated with the grain procurement difficulties of the winter of 1927-28, which went down in history as the “grain strike”. The peasants decided not to hand over their grain to the state, deciding to hold it back until spring, when prices for it would rise. As a result, in large cities of the country there were disruptions in the supply of food to the population, and the government was forced to introduce a rationing system for the distribution of food. During a trip to Siberia in January 1928 I.V. Stalin proposed to apply extraordinary measures of pressure on the peasants when carrying out grain procurements, including the use of the criminal code for grain harvesters, forcible confiscation of grain from peasants, the use of barrage detachments, etc. As soon as grain procurement difficulties were repeated again in the winter of 1928-29, supporters of the use of economic methods to resolve the grain procurement crisis were removed from their posts, and the new economic policy was abandoned.

There are many reasons that led to the cancellation of the new economic policy. One of them was associated with the disproportionate development of the main sectors of the country's national economy. The successes in restoring agricultural production and the obvious lag in the pace of industrial revival led the NEP through a period of economic crises, which were extremely difficult to resolve by purely economic methods. Another contradiction arose between the economy, which was of a multi-structured nature, and the one-party political system, designed to use administrative-command methods of management. In addition, it is necessary to take into account the influence of the complex international situation on the USSR, which became especially aggravated by the end of the 1920s.

In order to be recognized by the capitalist states, the Soviet government tried to use the inter-imperialist contradictions, which intensified after the First World War.

First of all, the Soviet government normalized relations with its closest neighbors, and already in the early 1920s. interstate relations were signed with Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland, Poland, Iran, Afghanistan, Mongolia and Turkey. When concluding treaties with its western neighbors, the Soviet side often made large territorial concessions. This was explained both by the desire to protect oneself from possible aggression from outside, and by the lingering hopes for an early world revolution. With its southern neighbors, Russia entered into more equal treaties of friendship and assistance.

The Soviet government was interested in establishing normal relations with the developed countries of the West, both political and economic. At the same time, proceeding from the real situation, when the governments of England and France took an irreconcilable position on the issue of returning the debts of the tsarist and Provisional governments and compensation for losses of foreign companies as a result of the nationalization of their property, the Soviet side could not count on the restoration of relations between Russia and the Entente countries. in full.

The collapse of the anti-Soviet bloc forced the Entente countries to reconsider their attitude towards Soviet power. Already in March 1921, an Anglo-Soviet trade agreement was concluded. The beginning of Russia's entry into the world community was evidenced by the participation of its official representatives at the Genoa (April-May 1922) and Lausan (November-December 1922) conferences, which discussed important international issues. During these conferences, it became clear that there is no unity between the Western countries regarding Russia and Soviet diplomacy was able to play on the existing contradictions.

The result was the conclusion of a number of treaties between Soviet Russia and Germany, which paid huge contributions to the Entente. In the conditions of the world isolation of these two countries, Soviet-German relations began in the 1920s. priority for them. These relations have outgrown purely political and economic frameworks and extended to the military field. The arrival in 1924 in England and France to the leadership of the left forces led to the establishment of diplomatic relations with these states. After that, the Soviet government was recognized by the majority of European states, as well as by China, Japan, and other states.

The development of international cooperation with the participation of the USSR was hampered by the fact that the Bolsheviks in the 1920s. did not give up hopes for a world revolution and continued to push it along the line of the Comintern, which was aimed at organizing communist parties in various states of the world, orienting them towards destabilizing the situation in their countries. Examples of such a policy were the events of 1923 in Bulgaria and Germany, which aggravated relations between the USSR and the governments of these states. In 1924, the right-wing circles of Great Britain used the so-called letter from Zinoviev, allegedly sent on behalf of the Comintern to the British Communists, in order to deprive the Labor Party of power and aggravate Soviet-British relations. In 1926, the USSR was accused of supporting the British miners' strike, which led to a new aggravation of Soviet-British relations and even to their temporary break in 1927.

In the 20s. in Soviet Russia, cultural life was on the rise. In art and science, it was mainly representatives of the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia who worked. Naturalists V.I. Vernadsky, N.I. Vavilov, A.L. Chizhevsky, A.A. Friedman, K.E. Tsiolkovsky, N.E. Zhukovsky, philosophers N.A. Berdyaev, V.S. Soloviev, P.A. Florensky, economists A.V. Chayanov, N. D. Kondratyev, historian S.F. Platonov; into art - the artists V.V. Kandinsky, K.S. Malevich, A.M. Rodchenko, V.E. Tatlin, I.I. Brodsky, B.V. Ioganson, A.A. Deineka, K.S. Petrov-Vodkin, writers A.M. Gorky, E. Zamyatin, B. Pilnyak, A. Platonov and others. Listing these names in one line does not mean that their fate was the same.

The fate of a figure in science and art in the Soviet state depended on the policy that it pursued in the field of culture. The introduction of the new economic policy was accompanied by the revival of "bourgeois ideology", the expression of which was the "Smenovekhovskoe" movement. In the fight against him, the government applied tough measures, creating censorship bodies such as Glavlit and the Glavrepetkom, as well as expelling dissidents from the country. At the same time, in the 20s. scientific and creative discussions were allowed, there was a coexistence of such different trends in art as Proletkult, associations of avant-garde artists, futurists, the Serapion brothers, imagists, constructivists, and the Left Front. The presence of pluralism in the cultural life of the country should be considered an achievement of this time.

Serious steps were taken to eliminate the illiteracy of the adult population, create the material base of public education, and form a network of cultural and educational institutions. However, in the absence of sufficient material resources for the Soviet state, no radical shifts took place in raising the level of culture of broad strata of the population.

Significant changes took place in the 1920s. in the life of the population of Russia. Everyday life, as a way of everyday life, is different for different strata of the population. The living conditions of the upper strata have worsened Russian society who occupied before the revolution the best apartments who consumed quality food products, who enjoyed the achievements of education and health care. A strictly class principle of distribution of material and spiritual values ​​was introduced and representatives of the upper strata were deprived of their privileges. At the same time, the Soviet government supported the representatives of the old intelligentsia that it needed through a system of rations, a commission to improve the life of scientists, etc.

During the NEP years, new strata arose that lived prosperously. These are the so-called Nepmen or the new bourgeoisie, whose way of life was determined by the thickness of their wallet. The party and state nomenklatura existed quite well, the position of which was in direct proportion to how it performed its duties.

The way of life of the working class has changed dramatically. From the Soviet regime, he received the rights to free education and medical care, the state provided him with social insurance and pension benefits, and through workers' schools supported his desire to obtain higher education. However, the weak development of industrial production during the NEP years, mass unemployment reflected primarily on the workers, whose standard of living directly depended on the size of wages.

Life of the peasantry in the 20s. changed slightly. Patriarchal family relations, common work in the field from dawn to dawn, the desire to increase their wealth characterized the way of life of the bulk of the Russian population. The bulk of the peasantry became more prosperous, they developed a sense of the owner. The low-powered peasantry united in communes and collective farms, and organized collective labor. The peasantry was very worried about the position of the church in the Soviet state, for it linked its existence with religion.

The policy of the Soviet state in relation to the church in the 20s. was not permanent. In the early 20s. repressions fell on the church, church values ​​were seized under the pretext of the need to fight hunger. The state carried out active anti-religious propaganda, created an extensive network of anti-religious societies and periodicals, introduced socialist holidays into the everyday life of Soviet people as opposed to religious ones, even decided to change the working week so that the days off did not coincide with Sundays and religious holidays.

As a result of this policy, a split occurred in the Orthodox Church, a group of priests formed a "living church", abolished the patriarchate and advocated for the renewal of the church. Under Metropolitan Sergius, the church began to actively cooperate with the Soviet government. The state encouraged the emergence of new phenomena in the life of the church, directing repression against supporters of the preservation of the old order in the church

STUDY THEORY

From the rules of multi-theoretical study

1. Comprehension of objective historical facts is subjective.

2. Subjectively, three theories of study are distinguished: religious, world-historical (directions: materialistic, liberal, technological), local-historical.

3. The theory is determined by the subject of study and reflects the worldview of a person (group of people).

4. Each theory of study has its own literature, its own periodization, its own conceptual apparatus, its own explanations of historical facts.

literature of various theories

Vernadsky G.V. Russian history: Textbook. M., 1997. (local). Vert N. History of the Soviet state. 1900-1991. M., 1992; Ostrovsky V.P., Utkin A.I. Russian history. XX century. 11th grade: Textbook. for general education. study. institutions. M., 1995. (liberal). History of the USSR. The era of socialism. (1917-1957). Study guide / Under. ed. M.P. Kim. M., 1957; History of the USSR. The era of socialism. Study guide / Under. ed. Yu.S. Kukushkina. M., 1985; Munchaev Sh. M., Ustinov V. V. History of Russia. M., 2000; Markova A. N., Skvortsova E. M., Andreeva I. A. History of Russia. M., 2001 (materialistic).

1. Monographs: Choosing a Path. History of Russia 1861-1938 / Ed. O.A. Vaskovsky, A.T. Tertyshny. Yekaterinburg, 1995. (liberal). A. V. Kartashov History of the Russian Church: In 2 volumes. M., 1992-1993. (religious). Latsis O.R. The Turning Point: Experience of Reading Unclassified Documents. M; 1990. (liberal). Mau V. Reforms and dogmas. 1914-1929. M., 1993 (liberal). NEP: gains and losses. M., 1994 (liberal). Plimak E. Political testament of V.I. Lenin: Origins, essence, implementation. M., 1989 (materialistic). Trukan G.A. The path to totalitarianism. 1917-1929. M., 1994 (liberal). Pospelovsky D.V. Russian Orthodox Church in the XX century. M., 1995. (religious). Modernization: foreign experience and Russia / Otv. ed. Krasilshchikov V.A.M., 1994 (technological).

2. Articles: Bondarev V.V. Stalin and Lenin // Motherland, 1995. №1. (liberal). Gorinov M.M., Tsakunov S.V. 20s: the formation and development of a new economic policy // History of the Fatherland: people, ideas, solutions. Essays on the history of the Soviet state. M; 1991. (liberal).

Concepts of various theories

Materialistic direction

Dictatorship of the proletariat

The power of the working class, established as a result of the socialist revolution and with the goal of building socialism and the transition of society to the building of communism.

Socialism

The first or lowest phase of communism. A state system in which social ownership of the means of production prevails, power belongs to the entire people, and there are no exploiting classes.

EXPLANATION of historical facts

In various theories of the historical process

Each theory chooses its facts from a variety of historical facts, builds its own causal relationship, has its own explanations in literature, historiography, studies its historical experience, makes its own conclusions and forecasts for the future.

REASONS FOR A NEW ECONOMIC POLICY

World history theory studies global development, the progress of mankind. (Worldview - obtaining maximum material wealth.)

The materialistic direction of the world-historical theory, studying the progress of mankind, gives priority in it to the development of society, social relations associated with forms of property. It is based on revolutionary changes, class struggle leading to the destruction of private property and the creation of public property. At the head of the study is collectivism, the future construction of a new society. (Worldview is the happiness of a creative society and a person in it).

Materialist historians (MP Kim, Yu. S. Kukushkin and others) believe that NEP is the policy and practice of the Communist Party, calculated for the transition from capitalism to socialism. This period combines the features of capitalism and socialism in the economy. At the same time, finding political leadership in the hands of the Communist Party and maintaining the dictatorship of the proletariat are prerequisites. The essence of the NEP is the displacement of capitalist elements and a change in the psychology of the people (from private property (division) to public property (everything in common). The NEP is historically logical for all countries of the world during the transition from capitalism to socialism. In the USSR, the NEP was carried out in 1921-1937. The interest of historians of the Soviet era in the study of the new economic policy was observed during the period of economic reforms carried out by NS Khrushchev, AN Kosygin and MS Gorbachev. transferring them to a new historical era.

In the liberal direction of world-historical theory, priority in the study is given to the individual, its rights, granted by nature, and, above all, the right of private property. Based on evolutionary change, class collaboration and the inviolability of private property. At the head of the study is individualism, the present, the reality of the individual. (Worldview is the personal happiness of a person living in society).

Liberal historians (N. Werth, V. P. Ostrovsky, A. I. Utkin and others) cover the events of the Soviet period with reservations "on the one hand, on the other hand." On the one hand, they are impressed by the private property reforms, which the Bolsheviks undertook under the pressure of circumstances. In this regard, liberal historians described in sufficient detail the market mechanisms that were used in the Soviet economy during the NEP period, but emphasized the limitations of their application. The author emphasizes the one-sidedness of modernization development, imbalances in various industries.

On the other hand, attention is drawn to the fact that the experiment on admitting private property elements into the economy was carried out under the conditions of the preservation of the Bolshevik dictatorship, which determined its short-lived nature. Rejecting the socialist idea as a whole, the supporters of the liberal interpretation criticized all the practical activities of the Bolsheviks and defined the content of the NEP as a kind of system of subordinating the economy to the political goals of the Bolshevik Party, when the futility of private property was originally foreseen.

All liberal historians agree that the NEP is a purely Russian phenomenon, caused by the crisis of the Civil War and the military-communist delusions of the Bolsheviks. In the conditions of the political monopoly of the Bolsheviks, private property was initially doomed, since the ruling party used the orthodox ideas of commodity-free socialism. They define the chronological framework of the NEP in the USSR in 1921-1928.

The technological direction of world-historical theory, studying the progress of mankind, gives priority in it to technological development and related changes in society. (Worldview is human happiness, due to the progress of technology).

Supporters of the technological direction (V. A. Krasil'shchikov, S. A. Nefedov, and others) believe that the revolution of 1917 - 1921. opens the second cycle in the history of domestic modernization - the socialist one. Socialist modernization was of a domineering, top-down character, as in the first cycle of Russian modernization. The NEP period is considered as a stage at which the possibility of socialist modernization was decided, which depended on which development trend would prevail: a return to the patriarchal way of life or the desire to accelerate the country's socio-economic development along the path of its industrialization.

The NEP period was characterized by hesitation among the leaders of the RCP (b) on the issue of their attitude to the forms of industrial and agricultural entrepreneurship borrowed from the West. Ultimately, the compromise option was rejected. Russia has embarked on the path of creating a state economy.

Comparative theoretical schemes

subject + historical fact = theoretical interpretation

No. 1. Reasons for the New Economic Policy (NEP)

№ 2. Assessment of the state of culture at the turn of the 20s. XX century

Foreign policy of the USSR in the 20-30s. developed in the direction of establishing official diplomatic relations with other states, illegal attempts were made to transport revolutionary ideas. When it became clear that it would not be possible to carry out a world revolution immediately, more attention was paid to strengthening the external stability of the regime.

In the early 20s. The USSR achieved the lifting of the economic blockade. A positive role in this was played by the SNK decree on concessions of November 23, 1920. The signing of trade agreements with Britain, Germany, Norway, Italy, Denmark and Czechoslovakia meant the actual recognition of the Soviet state. 1924-1933 - years of gradual recognition of the USSR. In 1924 diplomatic relations were established with 13 capitalist countries.

The first Soviet people's commissars for foreign affairs were G.V. Chicherin and M.M. Litvinov. They achieved great success in the international formation of the Soviet state thanks to the brilliant education and manners received in Tsarist Russia. It was through their efforts that relations with England were renewed, peace and trade treaties were signed with France, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, which lifted the cordon between the Soviet Union and Europe.

At the end of the 20s. there was a sharp deterioration in the international situation of the USSR. The reason for this was the support of the Soviet government for the national liberation movement in China. Diplomatic relations with Britain were severed due to the fact that the USSR tried to provide material support to the striking British workers. Religious leaders of the Vatican and England called for a crusade against Soviet Russia.

The policy of the Soviet state changed in proportion to the change in the political situation in the world. In 1933, after the dictatorship of the National Socialists came to power in Germany, the Soviet Union began to show an interest in creating a system of collective security in Europe.

In 1934 the USSR was admitted to the League of Nations.

In 1935, the USSR signed an agreement with France on mutual assistance in the event of aggression in Europe. Hitler saw this as an anti-German move and used it to seize the Rhineland.

In 1936, the German intervention began in Italy and Spain. The USSR supported the Spanish republicans by sending them equipment and specialists. Fascism began to spread throughout Europe.

In March 1938 Germany invaded Austria. In September 1938, a conference was held in Munich with the participation of Germany, England, France and Italy, by the general decision of which the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia was given to Germany.

The USSR condemned this decision.

Germany invaded Czechoslovakia and Poland.

The tense situation persisted in the Far East. In 1938-1939. there were armed clashes with parts of the Japanese Kwantung Army on about. Hasan, b. Khalkhin-Gol and on the territory of Mongolia. The USSR achieved territorial concessions.

Having made several unsuccessful attempts to create a system of collective security in Europe, the Soviet government embarked on a course of rapprochement with Germany.

The main goal of this policy was to avoid premature military conflict.

In August 1939, a non-aggression pact was signed between Germany and the USSR (Molotov - Ribbentrop), as well as a secret protocol on the delimitation of spheres of influence. Poland ceded to Germany; USSR - the Baltic States, Eastern Poland, Finland, Western Ukraine, Northern Bukovina. Diplomatic relations with Britain and France were severed.

On September 1, 1939, the Second World War began with the German attack on Poland.

November 30, 1939 began, which caused enormous financial, military and political damage to the country.

In the 1920s, almost the entire territory of the former Russian Empire(with the exception of Finland, the Baltic States, Poland, Western Ukraine and Belarus, Bessarabia) the dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party was established - a variant of a one-party political system. At the beginning of the decade, other so-called Soviet parties - the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries - were defeated by the Cheka or announced their dissolution, in 1921 the Bund disbanded itself.

In the summer of 1922, an open trial was held in Moscow over the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, who were accused of counterrevolutionary and terrorist activities. The protests of the world community prompted the Bolshevik leaders to abandon the similar "Menshevik trial" that was being prepared. Organized political opposition to the Bolshevik regime in the country was done away with. During the Civil War, the Bolshevik Party took the form of a militarized organization. This provision was consolidated by the 10th Congress of the RCP (b) (spring 1921), which banned factional activities. The real leading center of the country was the Political Bureau (Politburo) of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), which in 1921 included G.E. Zinoviev, L. B. Kamenev, V. I. Lenin, I. V. Stalin, L. D Trotsky, as well as NI Bukharin, MI Kalinin, VM Molotov as candidates. All major political and economic issues were discussed and resolved here, which were then carried out through the relevant state bodies.

The appointment in the spring of 1922 of JV Stalin as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP (B.) Has accelerated the process of centralization of the party. The structure of party committees at different levels was unified, and freed secretaries were appointed to head them exclusively to engage in party activities.

In the 1920s, a kind of "technology of power" took shape, in which the approval of any responsible post in the field of state, economic management, culture, etc. was the prerogative of the relevant party bodies: the Central Committee, regional, city, district committees.

Under these conditions, the process of formalization of the bodies of Soviet power, which unfolded during the years of the civil war, continued. In the 1920s, in fact, the same pre-revolutionary structure of power was being revived: a rigid vertical of party secretaries (under the tsar - general-governors), framed by structures of local representation - Soviets (before the revolution - zemstvos); and all this rested on a broad basis of tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of worldly gatherings (in the countryside in the 1920s, as under the tsar, the overwhelming mass of the population of Russia lived).

The existing one-party system functioned in a relatively "soft" regime. Members of the Bolshevik Party held key posts in the government. A truly rule-of-law state was not created, but the terror abruptly subsided. During 1922, the Criminal and Civil Codes were prepared and approved, judicial reform was carried out (revolutionary tribunals were abolished, the prosecutor's office, the legal profession were established) and censorship was constitutionally enshrined, the Cheka during the civil war was transformed into the State Political Administration (GPU), and then the OGPU under SNK USSR.

The regime pursued a punitive policy in relation to the church (primarily Orthodox), a number of artistic trends. Having embarked on the path of a compromise in the economy, the Bolsheviks, in spite of the bellicose declarations and outbursts of terror that were heard from time to time, were still forced to make a certain compromise in politics, in particular in the national state.

By the end of the civil war and foreign military intervention, the territory of the Soviet republics connected by the military-political union is formed: the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Azerbaijan, Armenian, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republics, Bukhara and Khorezm Soviet People's Republics(in November 1922 the Far Eastern Republic entered the RSFSR).

In most of these state formations by 1921-1922. the national communist parties were in power.

Each republic had its own constitution, organs of state power and administration. In 1921-1922. the economic and political unification of the Soviet states into a federal union began. It took place in the form of concluding agreements and union treaties between the RSFSR and other republics. However, this system turned out to be insufficiently effective, which led at the same time to the emergence of various conflicts between the leadership of the RSFSR and a number of republics (Ukraine, Georgia).

In December 1922 the RSFSR, Belarus, the Transcaucasian Federation (which united Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia in March 1922), Ukraine, having signed the Union Treaty, formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The treaty established the delineation of competence between the new government bodies of the USSR and the republican bodies.

A new Central Executive Committee of the USSR was elected, which, at the suggestion of Lenin, was supposed to have four chairmen (M. I. Kalinin, N. N. Narimanov, G. I. Petrovsky, A. G. Chervyakov), representing each union republic. In 1922-1924. development of the foundations continued state structure The USSR, which after numerous discussions were formulated in the new Constitution adopted on January 31, 1924, the Constitution of the USSR retained for each republic the right of free withdrawal from the Union, the territory of any republic could not be changed without its consent.

The Soviet Union, created with the use of administrative and political pressure, was a federal state, but essentially unitary. The national-territorial formations basically had only cultural and national autonomy. In the 1920s, a significant number of national schools, theaters, newspapers; literature is widely published in the languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR; many peoples for the first time receive a written language developed by scientists.

The situation within the Bolshevik regime itself was also distinguished by inconsistency and instability during the NEP years. Rigid authoritarianism could be effective only if the representatives of the lower levels of the power hierarchy were unquestioningly fulfilling the directives of the higher ones. To do this, the "top" had to have an indisputable authority in the eyes of the "bottom". The historical leader of Bolshevism, chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, was such an "authoritative top" in the Bolshevik party-state pyramid.

The most ambitious Bolshevik leaders bowed their heads before him: G. Ye. Zinoviev, I. V. Stalin, L. D. Trotsky. In him the party (and not only) masses saw the bearer of the ultimate truth.

The situation changed dramatically after Lenin's death (January 21, 1924). A paradoxical situation has developed - an authoritarian regime without an authoritarian leader and with the existence of three currents of approximately equal influence: the left - the supporters of L. D. Trotsky; the center - first, the supporters of the "troika": L. B. Kamenev, G. Ye. Zinoviev, a member of the Politburo, I. V. Stalin; right - headed by N.I.Bukharin, A.I. Rykov and M.P. Tomsky.

The existing disagreements at the "top" disoriented the lower echelons of the power hierarchy, whose representatives sometimes did not know which of the leaders should be guided by in practical politics. Confusion in the minds of functionaries could paralyze an authoritarian regime.

Objectively, a twofold development of events was possible. Either the cancellation of the decision of the X Congress of the party on the prohibition of factions in the CPSU (b), the transition to a social-democratic model of the party, which allowed the coexistence in it of various officially recognized trends, platforms, and ultimately to a pluralistic political model, or the nomination of a new leader. The transition to social democratic positions was extremely unlikely. The ambitions of the Bolshevik "oligarchs" hindered the nomination of a new leader. As a result, the party was in a fever.

In the context of the intertwining of party, state, economic power, the struggle of candidates for leadership took the form of rivalry between competing socio-economic programs, which were put forward, as a rule, during periods of economic failures (in 1923, 1925, then in 1928-1929).

The left believed that the complete construction of a socialist society in the USSR, a technically and economically backward country, was possible only as a result of the victory of the world (or at least European) proletarian revolution. The rightists believed that it was possible to build socialism initially in one country - in the Soviet Union. To achieve this goal, one should relate to small private capital; the planned policy, in their opinion, should not have been excessively tough; the plan should have been more recommendatory than obligatory. Without formally speaking out against the democratization of the party, they actually strengthened the apparatus principles in the internal party life.

Stalin maneuvered between these two currents. It was Stalin who created and in every possible way strengthened the hierarchical party apparatus. Thus, in the fight against Trotsky, he received the support of the real power vertical, whose representatives were irritated by the utopian (if not demagogic) projects of the left about democratization and workers' democracy while maintaining an authoritarian regime. During 1921-1925 / 26. Stalin also supported the social and economic line of the right. On the other hand, from the second half of the 1920s, he began to lean more and more towards leftist positions in the field of economics and social relations. Subsequently, Stalin declared that in the first years after the end of the civil war, it was necessary to allow the country to heal its wounds, restore the economy, and only then proceed to the implementation of industrialization plans at the expense of the peasantry.

After each "round" of internal party discussions, the number of potential "Lenin's heirs" decreased. In the course of the internal party struggle, the contours of the new leader, Stalin, became more and more clear.

Introduction

By the end of the 1920s, thanks to the NEP policy, it was possible to overcome the devastation and restore the national economy. According to the main indicators, it was in 1925-27. reached the pre-war level, or approached it. But at the same time, Russia's economic lag behind the advanced Western countries not only did not decrease, but, on the contrary, increased.

Fuel and commodity shortages are becoming more acute. The urban population is growing. Before the revolution, external sources of financing were practically absent. The volume of exports, on the income from which the import of equipment was based, was two times lower than before the war - and all this happened against the backdrop of stagnation in the grain economy. Industrialization based on the NEP is reaching a dead end.

Due to the lack of industrial goods for exchange for grain, crop failure in a number of regions by January 1928, grain procurement in relation to the previous year fell by 128 million poods, which aggravated the problem of supplying urban residents and military personnel.

The state resorted to emergency measures - the forcible confiscation of grain from the wealthy strata of the village, restricting the market trade in grain, which was perceived by the village as the abolition of the NEP. In the fall of 1928, winter crops declined, and mass slaughter of livestock began. In late 1928 - early 1929, rationing distribution of basic products was reintroduced in cities. This provided the cities with grain, but at the cost of undermining market relations in the countryside.

In the party in 1928-1929. two lines collided. The Bukharin group of "rightists" (leader of the Comintern NI Bukharin, chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR AI Rykov, leader of trade unions MP Tomskoy, secretary of the Moscow party organization N.A. Uglanov, etc.) explained the crisis with miscalculations of the party-state leadership (wrong tax, price, investment policy), opposed the use of emergency measures in the spring of 1929, for the stabilization of the situation in agriculture on the basis of market methods, the gradual deployment of large collective grain farms, a relatively moderate pace of industrialization based on a balanced rise in heavy and light industries, maneuvering, etc.

The Stalinist group, formed in the leadership of the party and the country (General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) I.V. Stalin, Chairman of the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the USSR V.V. Kuibyshev, People's Commissar of Defense K.E. Voroshilov, Chairman of the Central Control Commission G.K. Ordzhonikidze and others. ), considered the crisis to be the inevitable result of accelerated industrialization in the absence of external sources of financing, and the crumbling of production in the agricultural sector. Its programs included the maximum concentration of resources in heavy industry by siphoning funds from the light food industry, agriculture, and the consolidation of agricultural production along the lines of collectivization. The joint plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission (April 1929) supported the Stalinist group, and in November 1929 the Bukharin group was withdrawn from the Politburo.

The Great Leap Forward Policy at the Turn of 20-30 The transition to forced industrialization and complete collectivization of agriculture

1929 is considered to be a turning point in the history of our country, for this year there have been fundamental changes in the socio-economic policy of the Stalinist leadership. Having dealt with his opponents, Stalin took a course towards speeding up socialist construction, towards forcing the pace of industrialization and carrying out a complete collectivization of agriculture. The theoretical substantiation of the turn in socio-economic policy was Stalin's article "The Year of the Great Turning Point", published on November 7, 1929, on the day of the XII anniversary of the October Revolution, in the newspaper "Pravda". In it, he stated that the prerequisites had been created in the USSR "for an accelerated rate of development of the production of means of production for the transformation of our country," through the development of collective and state farms, in some three years into one of the most grain-rich countries, if not into the most grain-size country in the world. “We are marching,” Stalin summed up, “at full steam ahead along the road of industrialization - to socialism, leaving behind our great“ rassian ”backwardness. (Stalin I.V.

Developing these thoughts, Stalin, in the "Political Report" of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) at the 27th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on June 27, 1930, stated that we have every reason to fulfill the first five-year even in two and a half years "(IV Stalin op. vol. 12 p. 270).

Stalin motivated the need for the accelerated development of the Soviet economy by the fact that: 1) “we are devilishly lagging behind the advanced capitalist countries in terms of the level of development of our industry” (vol. 12, p. 273); 2) the task of planting state and collective farms "is the only way to solve the agricultural problem in general, the grain problem, in particular (p. 279); 3) the world economic crisis of 1929, which engulfed all capitalist countries, created the danger of unleashing a new intervention against the USSR.

In the light of the Stalinist directives, a large-scale revision of the first five-year plan began in the direction of a significant increase in industrial production. The chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, V.M. Molotov, speaking in front of an economic asset, said that in 10-15 years of rapid development of the USSR it could provide an increase in industrial production by 8-10-15 times and that in the next 2-3 five-year economic performance can surpass the entire capitalist world.

In the aggravated situation of 1928, generated in no small measure by the grain procurement crisis of the winter of 1927-1928. the first five-year plan was formed. It was mainly about the development of individual branches of heavy industry - metallurgy, energy and mechanical engineering. Moreover, the question of the accelerated construction of military enterprises and the entire industrial infrastructure that ensures the operation of the defense complex has become increasingly acute. The implementation of the first five-year plan began on October 1, 1928.

Already in the course of industrialization, the Bolshevik leadership abandoned not only the starting point, but also actually distorted the optimal plan for the development of the national economy for 1928-1933, unreasonably raising the pace of industrial construction. At the XVI Congress of the CPSU (b), held in the summer of 1930, Kuibyshev put forward the slogan "The pace is everything!" This "spurring" led to exactly the opposite results. The first five-year plan was the time for the construction of foundation pits as monuments of administrative arbitrariness.

Acceleration of industrialization in conditions of imbalance in market relations, growing budget deficits and inflation led to the strengthening of administrative methods of economic management. In 1930, commercial credit was liquidated, and a transition to centralized (through the State Bank) lending was carried out. In 1930-31 the plurality of taxes is replaced by one - the turnover tax. Industry turned out to be divided between sectoral monopolies, the production programs of which were coordinated by the State Planning Committee and the Council of People's Commissars by strengthening directive planning.

As the industrialization progressed, the government faced a number of serious difficulties, primarily in the area of ​​financing. With a shortage working capital, galloping inflation, the leadership has repeatedly resorted to the removal of values ​​from the so-called remnants of the bourgeois classes. During the period of industrialization, a huge number of works of art were exported abroad. The sources of financing were the proceeds from the sale of bread, timber, furs and gold.

The super-fast rates of industrial development led in a number of cases to violations of technological requirements, a drop in the quality of work and products, the emission of money and inflationary processes increased, the self-supporting mechanism of economic development was curtailed and replaced by an administrative-distribution system for managing the national economy.

Despite the difficulties, the first five-year plan was completed, the political leadership of the country announced that the economic foundation of socialism had been built in the country.

Despite all the costs incurred in the course of industrialization during the first five-year plan, its results can and should be assessed as positive. 1,500 largest enterprises were built, new branches of the national economy appeared, which were absent in tsarist Russia, the foundations of the defense industry were laid. The symbols of the first five-year plan were Dneproges, Turksib, Stalingrad and Kharkov Tractor Plants, Moscow and Gorky Automobile Plants, Ural-Kuzbass, etc. Industry in Kazakhstan and Central Asia developed dynamically.

During the years of the first five-year plan, industrial production increased by 2.3 times in comparison with 1928, which should be regarded as an indisputable achievement. In fulfilling the first five-year plan, the Soviet working class showed examples of heroic labor. No other capitalist country has demonstrated such a rate of industrialization. The achievements of the USSR made a stunning impression against the backdrop of the economic crisis and the Great Depression throughout the rest of the world.

One of the most important social achievements of the first five-year plan was the elimination of unemployment in 1930.

Since 1933, the implementation of the second five-year plan (1933-1937) began. It was a major step in the industrial development of the country. Its main task was to complete the technical reconstruction of the national economy.

It should be noted that the lessons of the first five-year plan did not pass without leaving a trace, and the second five-year plan took place in a more normal environment. However, in the course of its implementation, a new problem emerged - the problem of mastering new technology. To the slogan of the first five-year plan "Technology is everything!" added a new slogan "Cadres decide everything!" In a country where more than half of the adult population was illiterate, this problem became decisive. Together with the national program of universal education, a network of industrial and technical schools, various courses, where workers improved their qualifications and mastered complex technology, was deployed.

A movement began to master new technology and revise old technical standards. In 1935, it received the name of the Stakhanov movement - after the miner A. Stakhanov, who, using new technology and a new organization of labor, exceeded the usual rate by 14 times.

The new form of socialist competition has embraced practically all branches of the national economy. The initiators of the Stakhanov movement in the textile industry were the weavers E. and M. Vinogradov.

Success in the development of new technology has made it possible to bring the largest enterprises that were built during the first five-year plan to their design capacity. In addition, 4,500 new large enterprises have been commissioned. Labor productivity has doubled and has become a decisive factor in the growth of production. Gross production increased 2.2 times. At the beginning of the third five-year plan, industry as a whole became profitable. In 1938, the third five-year plan began. The factor of the threat of war began to influence the development of the economy and the life of Soviet society more and more tangibly. During these years, special attention is paid to the development of metallurgy, the construction of backup plants in the East of the country, and funds for the defense of the state are increasing.

Overcoming the technical and economic backwardness of the country, gaining the economic independence of the USSR, and creating guarantees of defense capability became the fundamentally important results of the implementation of industrialization. In terms of industrial production, the country came out on top in Europe and second in the world, second only to the United States. The workers, engineers and specialists who grew up in this difficult and contradictory era ensured the success of the industrialization of the country in the long run.

Party organs set the target for "complete collectivization." The decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), adopted on January 5, 1930, "On the rate of collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm construction" regulated the timing of the completion of collectivization and "the elimination of the kulaks as a class."

For the purpose of phased collectivization, the country was preliminarily divided into three large land-climatic zones. In the end, the agricultural artel was chosen as the basis for collective farm construction. In the first zone of grain regions, where the North Caucasus, the Lower and Middle Volga were assigned, collectivization was ordered to be completed already "in the fall of 1930, or at least in the spring of 1931", in the second zone, where all other grain regions of the country were assigned - "in the fall of 1931 year, or at least in the spring of 1932 ".

Such a short time frame for collectivization, due to their unreality, led to administration, brutal pressure, threats, "dispossession" of not only the "kulaks", but also the middle peasants, and sometimes the poor, which was later forced to recognize the CPSU (b) in a resolution of March 14, 1930 " On the fight against Party distortions in collective farm construction ".

During 1930-31, about 2 million people were sent to special settlements only in remote areas of the country. The expulsion continued in the future, but on a smaller scale.

Collectivization was carried out with gross violations of the principles of voluntariness and gradualness. The violent methods of its implementation met with resistance from the peasantry. Mass slaughter of livestock has become a serious problem. A significant part of the middle peasants sold animals and implements, not wanting to hand them over to the collective farm.

Under these conditions, in March 1930, Stalin's article "Dizziness with Success" and a resolution of the Central Committee appeared, condemning excesses and advocating the observance of the principles of voluntariness. All responsibility was shifted to local workers, but there was no real policy revision. After a short break, "dispossession" and forced collectivization were continued.

The consequences of collectivization were very dire for the countryside. First of all, as a result of the creation of the collective farm system, the peasantry as a class underwent a serious economic, economic and social transformation. It ceased to exist as an economically independent business entity. The individual peasantry was replaced by the "collective farm peasantry", which formally possessed certain economic and economic rights, but in fact could not dispose of anything independently. Collective farmers were attached to the land and until the mid-1950s did not have the right to freely choose or change their place of residence.

Having created collective farms, the Bolsheviks practically returned to the food appropriation policy, which made it possible for the state to pump out everything necessary for industrial construction from the countryside.

At the second stage of collectivization, which began in the fall of 1930, adjustments were made to its implementation. Economic methods of organizing collective farms have become more widely used. The scale of technical reconstruction of agriculture through the MTS increased. The level of mechanization has risen. Collective farms were provided with substantial tax breaks. And by the fall of 1932, collective farms had already united 62.4% of peasant farms. Large-scale collective production in the countryside became one of the foundations of the country's economy and the entire social system.

The third stage of collectivization coincided with the beginning of the second five-year plan. It was this time that became the most tragic for the village. As a result of extremely unfavorable weather conditions, crop failure, famine broke out in the winter of 1932-1933, moreover, in grain-producing regions. The government was forced to significantly reduce grain exports.

A crisis situation has developed in agriculture, overcoming which took time and effort. The grain harvest fell, the livestock population fell by 50%. The restoration of the efficiency of collective farms in the grain regions of the country was slow. The growth of agricultural production began in 1935 1937.

Collectivization was completed at the same time. By 1937, there were 243.7 thousand collective farms in the country, which united 93% of peasant farms.

As a result of the completion of collectivization in the agrarian sector, the tasks of providing growing cities and factories with food were solved, agriculture switched to a planned system, and the supply of machinery to the countryside was significantly increased.

Despite the objective difficulties and excesses in collective farm development, the peasantry ultimately adopted the collective farm system. The whole life of the peasantry has changed in a qualitative way; working conditions, social relations, thoughts, moods, habits.

It should also be noted and emphasized that the collective farm peasantry did a lot for the country, to strengthen its economic and defense power, which manifested itself during the Great Patriotic War and in subsequent periods.

Consequences of the Great Leap Forward

The tasks of the first and second five-year plans were not implemented in many respects, although it was officially announced that they were completed ahead of schedule. So, according to the economist B.P. Orlov and historian V.S. Lelchuk's first five-year plan was fulfilled only in two indicators: in capital investments in industry and in group "A" production. As for the entire industry, the fulfillment of the plan was only 93.7%, the gross agricultural output, instead of growing by 55% according to the plan, actually decreased by 14%.

At the same time, it would be wrong not to see the positive results achieved in the industrial development of the USSR during the pre-war five-year plans. During this period, 9 thousand industrial enterprises were built. The growth rates of heavy industry were 2-3 times higher than in the 13 years of development of Russia before the First World War. According to L.A. Gordon and E.V. Klopov, the authors of several works for 20-30 years (Thirties - Forties // Knowledge is power. 1998, No. 2-5; Forced breakthrough of the late 20-30s: historical roots and results // Political education. 1988. No. 15), in terms of absolute volumes of industrial production, the USSR in the late 30s came to second place after the United States (in 1913, Russia occupied only the fifth place in the world).

But the industrial breakthrough in the USSR was achieved primarily due to the agricultural sector of the economy, due to total impoverishment and destruction of the productive forces of the countryside. Its main tasks were: providing industrial construction projects with labor, technical raw materials and food. The number of cattle for 1929-32 decreased by 20 million, horses - 11 million heads, pigs - 2 times, sheep and goats - 2.5 times.

During the years of the pre-war five-year plans, certain shifts took place in the social sphere: unemployment was eliminated, the literacy rate of the population increased from 43% in 1926 to 81.2% in 1939. The Soviet Union came out on top in the world in terms of the number of students, the pace and volume of training of specialists.

However, the impressive growth of heavy industry, the expansion of elements of culture and health care was carried out on the basis of stagnation and even a drop in the standard of living both in the city and in the countryside. The consumption of meat, lard, milk and dairy products in the USSR in 1940 did not even reach the level of 1913 (see MN Zuev. History of Russia. M., 1998. S. 353).

The political consequences of the Great Leap Forward were: the tightening of the political regime, accompanied by massive repressions, the intensification of ideological pressure, the establishment of a dictatorial form of government, and the formation of an administrative command system. The most important features of the administrative-command system: centralization of the management system: the economy, merging of the party apparatus with the state, strengthening of authoritarian principles in the leadership of social and political life. The result of the country's political development was the formation of a totalitarian state.

On December 5, 1936, on the basis of Stalin's report, the VIII Extraordinary Congress of Soviets approved the new Constitution of the USSR. It declared the victory of socialism in the USSR and the proclamation of the Soviet country as a socialist state.

Conclusion

Historians and publicists (V.S. Lelchuk, V.M. Ustinov, I.V. Bestuzhev-Lada, etc.) qualify the abrupt revolution in socio-economic policy at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s as a "big leap". The policy of the "Great Leap Forward" provided for the transfer of the economy and society to a new qualitative state in a short time. It was based on Stalin's conceptual approach to building socialism as a short-term phase of development, which was to be followed by communism. A number of party workers believed that Stalin in his practical steps departed from the Leninist concept of socialism and, having usurped political power, carried out a counter-revolutionary coup. This is evidenced by the facts of an acute internal party struggle in the 1920s and 1930s, during which there was serious resistance to Stalinism.

What are the current assessments of Stalin's conclusions about the socio-political development of the USSR by the end of the second five-year plan? The first approach is that no socialism was built in our country, because Soviet society in its qualitative characteristics did not correspond to the Marxist-Leninist criteria of socialism. The second approach is that socialism was built in our country in the Stalinist interpretation. Supporters of this approach (Butenko, Maslov, Gordon, Klopov, etc.) call it Stalinist, state-administrative, barracks, deformed and even feudal.

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Danilov V., Ilyin A., Teptsov N. Collectivization: how it was. // The lesson is given by history. M., 1989 (or: Pages of the history of the KPSS: Facts, problems, lessons. M., 1988).

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MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

BELGOROD LEGAL INSTITUTE

Department of Humanities and Socio - Economic Disciplines

Discipline: National history

ESSAY

on topic number 8: "USSR in the 20s - 30s"

Prepared by: Group 453 student

Pronkin N.N.

Prepared by: teacher of the department G and SED, police captain Khryakov R.N.

Belgorod - 2008

Introduction

The civil war was a terrible disaster for Russia. It led to a further deterioration of the economic situation in the country, to complete economic ruin. Material damage amounted to more than 50 billion rubles. gold. Industrial production decreased by 7 times. The transport system was completely paralyzed. Many sections of the population, forcibly drawn into the war by the opposing sides, became its innocent victims. In battles, from hunger, disease and terror, 8 million people died, 2 million people were forced to emigrate. Among them were many representatives of the intellectual elite. Irreplaceable moral and ethical losses had profound sociocultural consequences, long time influencing the history of the Soviet country.

In the first half of the 1920s, the main task of domestic policy was to restore the destroyed economy, to create the material, technical and socio-cultural basis for building socialism, promised by the Bolsheviks to the people.

1. Economic and political crises of 1920 -1921. Transition to the new economic policy

During the civil war, the Soviet government was forced to mobilize all its resources and turn the country into a single military camp. To this end, the Bolshevik Party subordinates all spheres of social life to its control. Since the second half of 1918, the Soviet state has implemented a number of measures aimed at centralizing state control and management of all spheres of economic life. The complex of these extraordinary actions was called "war communism".

The constituent elements of the policy of War Communism were:

1) in the city: the abolition of utility bills, the introduction of payment in kind for labor (food is distributed at enterprises through cooperatives). For persons of mental labor, labor service is introduced. In the sphere of industrial production, enterprises are nationalized, first large, then smaller, up to handicraft and craft (in total, 38.2 thousand were nationalized; enterprises). To manage the enterprises, a system of state bodies was created: the Supreme Council of the National Economy - the provincial councils of the national economy - the Main Committees for Sectors (GLAVKi). In 1920, 52 GLAVKs were created in the country, to which enterprises of state importance were directly subordinate. A system of strict vertical subordination of enterprises to committees and centers was created. In fact, the trend of over-centralization of industrial life in Russia has won out;

2) in the countryside: a number of emergency measures taken in connection with the need to supply food to the gigantic army and industrial workers, expressed in the introduction of food taxes or surplus appropriation. In May 1918, the Soviet government took a series of measures called the food dictatorship. According to the decree of May 13, 1918, the People's Commissariat of Food was endowed with extraordinary powers in the field of procurement and distribution of food, the state grain monopoly and fixed prices for bread were confirmed. To collect taxes in kind, special food detachments are created, later - Prodarmia, endowed with emergency powers.

It should be noted that the implementation of emergency measures in the countryside contributed to the growth of food collections, mainly at the expense of the central provinces. On the outskirts of the country (Don region, Ukraine), the efficiency from these innovations turned out to be extremely low, causing a wave of discontent and mass uprisings. The peasantry refused to supply the required amount of grain to the city. A wave of peasant uprisings swept through: the anarchist movement (N. Makhno) was gaining wide popularity in Ukraine, and a partisan army revolted in Western Siberia. The largest performance was the mutiny in Tambov and in a number of adjacent provinces (led by A.S. Antonov, who was a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party). The Red Army threw its best forces against the Antonovites under the command of the talented commander M.N. Tukhachevsky. The suppression of the uprising was carried out exclusively by military measures using artillery and poisonous gases, claiming 50 thousand lives on both sides.

The apogee of discontent was the uprising of the Kronstadt sailors, who had previously supported the Bolsheviks. The sailors demanded the observance of the rights and freedoms proclaimed in October 1917, an end to violent confiscations, etc. Despite the fact that the Bolsheviks managed to suppress the uprising, it came as a real shock to them. Members of the party elite realized that the policy of War Communism had exhausted itself; as a result, the Bolsheviks were forced to retreat, developing a new economic policy.

The essence of the new economic policy of the Bolsheviks. At the X Congress of the RCP (b), decisions are made to change the policy: in particular, the surplus appropriation is replaced by a tax in kind (it was collected based on the real share of the cultivated area and was about half as much). Free trade in surplus was allowed, that is, what remained after the withdrawal of the tax in kind.

These measures were the beginning of a new economic policy - the economic sphere underwent decentralization: the largest technically equipped enterprises were united into trusts, endowed with the rights of planning, distributing funds, and conducting trade operations. The piece-rate system was again widely used. Wages depended on the qualifications of the worker and the amount of products produced. The state began to lease small businesses to private individuals, and they were also allowed to sell private industry items. One of the characteristic features of NEP was concessions - enterprises based on agreements between the state and foreign firms.

Thus, with the transition to the New Economic Policy, an impetus was given to private capitalist entrepreneurship. Despite this, government regulation remained in a fairly high volume in the form of supervision, control, etc. commodity producers, sale of goods of the private industry.

The state reserved for itself the enterprises of heavy industry, the extraction of priority types of raw materials, and foreign trade. In an effort to prevent the excessive concentration of capital in private individuals, the state used tax oppression, carried out through the financial authorities. As for, for example, concessions, they were also placed under the control of the Soviet state apparatus and labor legislation.

As a result, the state, even after partial denationalization, had at its disposal the most powerful sector of the national economy, the "commanding heights in the economy."

2. Formation of the USSR

At the end of 1922, the USSR was formed. It included 4 republics: the RSFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR and the Transcaucasian Federation, which united Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. All the republics that entered the USSR were previously the territory of the Russian Empire. Historically established economic ties existed between them. After the October Revolution of 1917, the communists of the republics, who fought for the establishment of Soviet power, created a military-political alliance. So, on June 1, 1919, a military alliance was concluded between Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus "to fight world imperialism." In 1922, in connection with the preparations for the Genoa Conference, a diplomatic alliance was formed between the republics. The RSFSR was entrusted with representing the interests of all republics at the conference. In the early 1920s, military-economic agreements were signed between individual republics and Soviet Russia.

In the development of military, economic and diplomatic cooperation, the leading role was played by the RSFSR, since the leadership of this process was carried out by the Central Committee of the RCP (b). As a result, the Council of Labor and Defense, the State Planning Committee of the RSFSR and the SNKh of the RSFSR began to perform the functions of a common body, representatives of all Soviet republics began to take part in the work of the All-Russian Congresses of Soviets.

On August 10, 1922, the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) created a commission to prepare for the Plenum the question of the relationship between the RSFSR and the independent Soviet republics.

In August - September 1922, a commission of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), under the leadership of Stalin, prepared a draft unification (the so-called "plan of autonomization"). In accordance with this project, all Soviet republics were to enter the RSFSR with the rights of autonomies. This approach met with sharp objections from Lenin, who proposed creating a new union state by uniting all Soviet republics on an equal basis. The plenum of the Central Committee approved this proposal.

On December 30, 1922, the 1st Congress of Soviets of the USSR adopted the Declaration and the Treaty on the Formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. These documents laid down the main principles of the formation of the new state, which were based on federalism. The I Congress of Soviets of the USSR elected the highest legislative body - the Central Executive Committee (CEC of the USSR) and its four chairmen - one from each republic.

The proclaimed creation of the USSR on a federal basis did not receive any real implementation. In the process of drafting the Constitution of the USSR, a number of amendments were introduced into its draft, expanding the competence of the all-Union authorities and restricting the rights of the republics. Moreover, in the Chamber of Nationalities - the second chamber of the Central Executive Committee - the RSFSR was supposed to have 64 - 72 votes, the Transcaucasian Federation - 12, and the BSSR and the Ukrainian SSR - 4 votes each.

On January 31, 1924, the first Constitution of the USSR was adopted at the II All-Union Congress of Soviets. In accordance with the Constitution, the competence of the highest authorities of the USSR included the following issues: foreign policy, borders, armed forces, transport, communications, planning of the national economy, declaration of war and conclusion of peace. Formally, each republic had the right to secede from the Union. The supreme body of power was the All-Union Congress of Soviets, in the intervals between them - the CEC, consisting of two chambers: the Council of the Union and the Council of Nationalities.

3. The results of the NEP, the reasons for its clotting

Speaking about the results of the new economic policy, it can be noted that they contributed to the stabilization of the economy and the growth of production indicators. Already in the fall of 1922, the famine stopped. By the mid-1920s, light and heavy industry enterprises had basically restored their pre-war production volume. The economic indicators in the countryside also improved: after the abolition of the surplus appropriation system and its replacement with a tax in kind, which was much lower than the first, the peasant got incentives to work. At the same time, the additional allotment of land under the decree "On Land" also affected. The permission of small-scale private enterprise and private trade made it possible to revive small-scale industry relatively quickly and fill store shelves with everyday goods.

Within the framework of the NEP, the Soviet government managed to achieve certain successes. But as the recovery proceeded, the old problems of the Russian economy, its structural imbalances and contradictions, returned. If pre-revolutionary Russia was not one of the advanced economically developed states, then in the 1920s its backwardness was further aggravated. The country became even more agrarian than it was, its industrial development directly dependent on the state of agriculture. Neither industry nor agriculture has created expanded production markets for themselves. The countryside could not meet the needs of industry and the city for marketable agricultural products, acquiring a semi-natural character. In turn, the needs of industrialization demanded a different orientation of production than rural demand. The exchange of goods between the countryside and the city was disrupted. The first had nothing to give for the surplus of commodities and the peasants began to leave them on their farm. In the second half of the 1920s, the established grain procurement plans turned out to be a failure.

Economic turmoil has led to a split within the ruling elite. One of the first critics of the NEP were representatives of the workers' opposition associated with the state sector of the economy (workers of Leningrad). They criticized the party, which, according to them, had forgotten about its main task - the development of large-scale industry. Gradually, the idea of ​​the need for radical changes in the country's economy matures in the leadership of the party. Part of the party elite saw a way out of this situation in the reconstruction of the NEP, the implementation of "super-industrialization", the development of heavy industry in order to keep the approaches to the world revolution.

It should be noted that the new economic policy was initially viewed only as a temporary measure, a retreat, and not a long-term line. Even Lenin in the last years of his life warned that in connection with the transition to the NEP, on the basis of freedom of trade, the revival of the petty bourgeoisie and capitalism would take place, which could actually nullify the achievements of the revolution. Representatives of the left wing in the party in the mid-1920s stated that the economy of the USSR as a result of the measures being taken is increasingly integrating into the world economy and thus turns into a state capitalist one. If we take into account that in terms of economic indicators, the level of industrial production at the end of the 1920s, the USSR was 5-10 times inferior to the leading Western countries, it becomes obvious that further economic development within the framework of the NEP would threaten the transformation of the Soviet Union into a secondary power. The Soviet Union was in the position of catching up, lagging behind (outsider). In this "race for the leader" it was impossible, in the opinion of the party leadership, to make mistakes, to act for sure. The crisis that broke out in the West in 1929 strengthened the confidence of the Soviet political elite that the market economic model is unpredictable and unstable, so a different approach to the country's economic development is needed.

The factors of the international situation have played an important role in the choice of the model of the country's economic development. In the late 1920s, few doubted that a world revolution would not take place in the near future, and that the young Soviet republic would find itself in an atmosphere of capitalist encirclement under the pressure of a rapidly growing military threat. The course towards world revolution, the initial revolutionary romanticism is being replaced by an attitude towards pragmatism - the line towards building "socialism in a single country."

A group of pragmatists headed by Stalin, who concentrated enormous power in their hands, took control of the party apparatus and the nomenklatura, was promoted to the first roles in the leadership of the party and the country. The party apparatus is gradually ousting the opposition from its posts, putting forward the idea of ​​the need to overtake and overtake the advanced capitalist countries in the shortest historical period. The 15th Congress of the CPSU (b) in 1927 adopted a five-year plan for the development of the national economy. The plan was based on the high rates of industrialization, an offensive against the private capitalist elements of the city and countryside by significantly raising tax rates and strengthening cooperation in the countryside. To successfully confront the capitalist camp required the creation of a strong economic base. It was necessary to create a powerful industry, first of all, a heavy one, associated with the production of weapons. As a result, at the end of the 1920s, the party leadership took a course towards industrializing the country, strengthening the planned and directive construction of socialism, and "curtailing the NEP."

4. Socio-economic development of the USSR in the 30s

The XVI Party Conference (April 1929), and then the Fifth Congress of Soviets, approved, after repeated upward revisions, the "optimal version" of the five-year plan. This plan provided for an increase in industrial production by 136%, labor productivity by 110%, and a decrease in the cost of industrial products by 35%. According to the plan, priority was given to heavy industry, which received 78% of all capital investments.

The old industrial regions were to become the pivot points, the main base of the ongoing industrialization of the country. It was assumed that they would be the foundations for building up the country's industrial power; they were subject to a system of priorities in the distribution of raw materials, equipment, and labor (Central Industrial Region, Leningrad Region, Donetsk-Kryvyi Rih Region of Ukraine and the Urals).

Economic policy was aimed at strengthening the role of directive planning, the deployment of grandiose mass campaigns aimed at accelerating the pace of socialist construction. The industrialization plan provided for a change in technology and production methods in the direction of the development of energy capacities, the expansion of mass production, the transfer of advanced American and European technology to the country's economy, rationalization, and the scientific organization of labor.

In practice, this policy resulted in the implementation of the active construction of new industrial facilities against the background of the strengthening of the austerity regime, the voluntary-compulsory distribution of loans for industrialization, the establishment of a card supply for the population of cities and workers' settlements. The party leadership is developing mass socialist competition in factories, plants, transport, construction, etc. In connection with the transition to directive centralized planning, the entire system of management of the national economy is being transformed. On the basis of production syndicates, production associations are created, subordinating production to centralized regulation. One-man management was introduced in production, the heads of enterprises were directly made responsible for the implementation of the plan. The heads of enterprises and construction projects themselves were now appointed according to a special nomenclature list in a centralized manner.

Speaking about the economic results of industrialization, it can be noted that the Soviet leadership as a whole is bold enough to overcome the absolute lag behind the states of Western Europe in the production of the main types of industrial products. At the end of the 30s (in contrast to the previous decade and pre-revolutionary times), the production of electricity, fuel, cast iron, steel, cement in our country exceeded the corresponding indicators of England, France and Germany. In terms of the absolute volume of industrial production, the Soviet Union was second only to the United States. A number of modern industries are emerging, such as the aviation and automotive industries, tractor and combine building, tank production and much more, which were previously practically absent in our country before the turn to forced industrialization. The country's leadership made huge investments in industry, relying solely on internal sources of accumulation. Forced industrialization, according to the Stalinist plan, was originally to be carried out by "pumping funds" from the village to the city. The process of expanding industrial production itself was impossible without a regular supply of food to the workers, but the grain crisis of 1927-1928 threatened the plan of forced industrialization and the supply of the city with food. In this situation, the government took a course towards industrial cooperation in agriculture and an attack on the kulaks.

It was in the collective farms that the Stalinist leadership saw the production and distribution mechanism that made it possible to distribute funds and supply the cities and the army with bread, without creating a threat of economic and political upheaval.

Representing socialist society as a "single factory" subordinate and controlled by Soviet society, Stalin and his supporters strove to involve the entire population in the workshops of this factory as soon as possible. Moreover, it was decided to carry out this in the countryside through total collectivization, which began to be carried out in the fall of 1929.

The collectivization policy presupposed the abolition of land leases, the prohibition of hired labor, the confiscation of means of production, household and residential buildings, and enterprises for processing agricultural products from wealthy peasants (kulaks). The means of production and property were transferred to the indivisible funds of the collective farms as contributions for the poor and farm laborers, with the exception of that part that went to pay off the debts of the kulak farms to the state. At the same time, part of the kulaks were supposed to be arrested and repressed as political criminals, another part was to be sent together with their families to the northern and remote regions of the country, and the third part was to be resettled within the region on lands specially allotted for them outside the collective farm tracts.

Such measures, naturally, met with massive resistance from the peasantry. Antikolkhoz protests and other acts of disobedience on the part of the kulaks, middle peasants and part of the poor were suppressed through the use of the most severe measures of violence. The Stalinist leadership dispossessed and repressed about 900 thousand farms. 250 thousand households “self-dispossessed”, that is, they sold or abandoned their property and fled from villages, villages, stanitsas.

By 1932, the collectivization policy created 211.1 thousand collective farms (61.5% of peasant farms). By about 1937-1938, the complete collectivization of the country was completed. The country's leadership applied the "carrot and stick" methods to the collective farmers. On the one hand, the party-state apparatus carries out the most severe repressive measures, reprisals against opponents of grain procurement requisitions, on the other hand, it tries to create factors of interest among collective farmers in the results of their labor by introducing a system of grain purchases, allowing them to create personal subsidiary plots. The peasants were also allowed to sell their produce in the market. Thus, the party and the state managed to find a compromise with the peasantry for a while.

The established large-scale collective production has demonstrated a number of economic and social advantages. Over the years of collectivization, more than 5,000 machine and tractor stations (MTS) were built, which provided the village with agricultural machinery: tractors, combines and other machines. Labor productivity from 1928 to 1940 increased by 71%.

The structure of sown areas has changed towards an increase in the production of industrial crops (sugar beet, cotton, potatoes, sunflower) required for an industrialized country. The country produced a minimum sufficient amount of grain, exceeding its production before collectivization.

The main social consequence of industrialization and collectivization was the formation of a massive multi-million dollar core of industrial workers. The total number of workers increased from 8-9 million in 1928 to 23-24 million in 1940. On the other hand, employment in agriculture declined significantly: from 80% in 1928 to 54% in 1940. The freed population (15 - 20 million people) went over to industry.

The policy of forced industrialization plunged the country into a state of general, as in war, mobilization and tension. The choice of a forced strategy implied a sharp weakening, if not complete elimination of commodity-money mechanisms for regulating the economy and the absolute predominance of the administrative and economic system. This version of economic development contributed to the growth of totalitarian principles in the political system of Soviet society, sharply increased the need for the widespread use of administrative-command forms of political organization.

5. Formation of a totalitarian regime in the USSR in the 30s

Totalitarianism is a political regime in which full control and strict regulation by the state of all spheres of the life of society and the life of every person is carried out, provided mainly by force, including by means of armed violence.

The main features of a totalitarian regime include:

1) the supremacy of the state, which is of a total nature. The state does not simply interfere in the economic, political, social, spiritual, family and everyday life of society, it seeks to completely subjugate, nationalize any manifestations of life;

2) the concentration of the entire completeness of state political power in the hands of the leader of the party, which entails the actual removal of the population and rank-and-file members of the party from participating in the formation and activities of state bodies;

4) the dominance in society of one omnipotent state ideology, which maintains among the masses the conviction of the fairness of the given system of power and the correctness of the chosen path;

5) centralized system control and management of the economy;

6) complete lack of human rights. Political freedoms and rights are formalized, but actually absent;

7) there is strict censorship over all media and publishing activities. It is forbidden to criticize government officials, state ideology, speak positively about the life of states with other political regimes;

8) the police and special services, along with the functions of ensuring law and order, perform the functions of punitive bodies and act as an instrument of mass repression;

9) suppression of any opposition and dissent by means of systematic and mass terror, which is based on both physical and spiritual violence;

10) suppression of personality, depersonalization of a person, turning him into a cog of the same type of the party-state machine. The state seeks to completely transform a person in accordance with the ideology adopted in it.

The main factors that contributed to the formation of a totalitarian regime in our country are economic, political and socio-cultural.

Forced economic development, as noted in one of the previous sections, led to a tightening of the political regime in the country. Let us recall that the choice of a forced strategy presupposed a sharp weakening, if not complete destruction of the commodity-money mechanisms for regulating the economy, with the absolute predominance of the administrative and economic system. Planning, production, and technical discipline in an economy devoid of levers of economic interest was most easily achieved by relying on the political apparatus, state sanctions, and administrative coercion. As a result, the same forms of strict obedience to the directive, on which the economic system was built, prevailed in the political sphere.

Strengthening the totalitarian principles of the political system was also required by a very low level of material well-being of the overwhelming part of society, accompanying the forced version of industrialization, attempts to overcome economic backwardness. The enthusiasm and conviction of the advanced strata of society were not enough to keep the living standards of millions of people at the level that usually exists for short periods of time, in years of war and social disasters, during a quarter of a century of peace. Enthusiasm, in this situation, had to be supported by other factors, first of all, organizational and political, regulation of labor and consumption measures (severe punishments for theft of public property, for absenteeism and being late for work, restrictions on movement, etc.). The need to take these measures, naturally, did not in any way favor the democratization of political life.

The formation of the totalitarian regime was also favored by a special type of political culture characteristic of Russian society throughout its history. It combines a disdainful attitude towards the law and law with the submissiveness of the bulk of the population to power, the violent nature of power, the absence of legal opposition, the idealization of the population of the head of power, etc. (a subject type of political culture). Typical for the bulk of society, this type of political culture is also reproduced within the framework of the Bolshevik Party, which was formed mainly at the expense of people from the people. Coming from war communism, the "Red Guard attack on capital", the overestimation of the role of violence in the political struggle, indifference to cruelty weakened the feeling of moral justification and justification of many political actions that the party activists had to carry out. As a result, the Stalinist regime did not meet with active resistance within the party apparatus itself. Thus, we can conclude that the combination of economic, political, cultural factors contributed to the formation of a totalitarian regime in the USSR in the 1930s, a system of Stalin's personal dictatorship.

The main characteristic feature of the political regime in the 1930s was the shift of the center of gravity to the party, emergency and punitive bodies. The decisions of the XVH Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) significantly strengthened the role of the party apparatus: it received the right to directly engage in state and economic management, the top party leadership acquired unlimited freedom, and ordinary communists were obliged to strictly obey the leading centers of the party hierarchy.

Along with the executive committees of the Soviets in industry, agriculture, science, culture, party committees functioned, whose role in fact becomes decisive. In the context of the concentration of real political power in the party committees, the Soviets carried out mainly economic, cultural and organizational functions.

The growth of the party into the economy and the state sphere since that time has become a distinctive feature of the Soviet political system. A kind of pyramid of party-state administration was built, the top of which was firmly occupied by Stalin as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Thus, the initially secondary position of the secretary general turned into a primary one, giving its holder the right to supreme power in the country.

The assertion of the power of the party-state apparatus was accompanied by the rise and strengthening of the power structures of the state, its repressive organs. Already in 1929, in each district, so-called "troikas" were created, which included the first secretary of the district party committee, the chairman of the district executive committee and a representative of the Main Political Directorate (GPU). They began to carry out out-of-court proceedings on the perpetrators, passing their own sentences. In 1934, on the basis of the OGPU, the Main Directorate of State Security was formed, which became part of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD). Under him, a Special Meeting (CCA) is established, which at the union level has consolidated the practice of extrajudicial sentences.

Relying on a powerful system of punitive organs, the Stalinist leadership in the 30s spins the flywheel of repression. According to a number of modern historians, the repressive policy in this period pursued three main goals:

1) a real cleansing of functionaries "decomposed" from the often uncontrolled power;

2) suppression in the bud of departmental, parochial, separatist, clan, opposition sentiments, ensuring the unconditional power of the center over the periphery;

3) removal of social tension by identifying and punishing enemies.

The data known today about the mechanism of the “great terror” allow us to say that among the many reasons for these actions, the desire of the Soviet leadership to destroy a potential “fifth column” in the face of the growing military threat was of particular importance.

In the course of the repressions, the national economic, party, state, military, scientific and technical personnel, representatives of the creative intelligentsia were purged. The number of prisoners in the Soviet Union in the 1930s is determined by figures from 3.5 million to 9-10 million.

What were the consequences of the policy of mass repression? On the one hand, it must be admitted that this policy really increased the level of "cohesion" of the country's population, which was then able to unite in the face of fascist aggression. But at the same time, not taking into account even the moral and ethical side of the process (torture and death of millions of people), it is difficult to deny the fact that massive repressions have disorganized the life of the country. Constant arrests among the heads of enterprises and collective farms led to a drop in discipline and responsibility in production. There was a huge shortage of military personnel. The Stalinist leadership itself in 1938 abandoned mass repressions, purged the NKVD, but basically this punitive machine remained inviolable.

Conclusion

As a result of massive repressions, a political system was established, which is called the regime of Stalin's personal power (Stalinist totalitarianism). During the repression, most of the country's top leaders were destroyed. They were replaced by a new generation of leaders ("promoted to terror"), completely devoted to Stalin. Thus, the adoption of fundamentally important decisions finally passed into the hands of the General Secretary of the CPSU (b).

There are usually four stages in the evolution of Stalinist totalitarianism.

1. 1923-1934 - the process of the formation of Stalinism, the formation of its main tendencies.

2. The middle of the 30s - 1941 - the implementation of the Stalinist model of the development of society and the creation of a bureaucratic basis for power.

3. The period of the Great Patriotic War, 1941 - 1945 - a partial retreat of Stalinism, the advancement of the historical role of the people, the growth of national consciousness, the expectation of democratic changes in the internal life of the country after the victory over fascism.

4.1946 - 1953 - the apogee of Stalinism, growing into a collapse of the system, the beginning of the regressive evolution of Stalinism.

In the second half of the 50s, during the implementation of the decisions of the XX Congress of the CPSU, a partial de-Stalinization of Soviet society was carried out, but a number of signs of totalitarianism remained in the political system until the 80s.

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