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Historian

 

Dr James Harris, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History, University of Leeds

Podcasts by James Harris

Podcasts on Russian History

 

DVD

GBP 14.99

Synopsis

 

Contents:

1. Why did Stalin seek to transform the USSR economically?
2. But were Stalin’s Five Year plans successful?

 

In this podcast Dr. Harris explains why all Bolsheviks agreed on the need to overcome economic backwardness. He explores why Soviet industrialisation took the form it did in the late 1920s, and then explores a fascinating paradox: How the Soviet planned economy in the 1930s was at once both a spectacular success and a catastrophic failure.

 

HANDOUT (right-click save as)

 

Key Points

 

Part 1. Why did Stalin seek to transform the USSR economically?
a/ All Bolsheviks agreed on the need to transform the USSR economically, but they disagreed on just how it should be done.
b/ Bolsheviks generally saw NEP as a “retreat”, but they hesitated to risk the economic growth it generated.
c/ Through the 1920s, the Party was gradually turning away from NEP.
d/ The war scare of 1927, and the grain crisis of 1928, encouraged Stalin radically to increase the scope and ambitions of central planning

Part 2. But were Stalin’s Five Year plans successful?
2.1. Successes
a/ overcoming backwardness
b/ preparing for war
c/ making the USSR a superpower

2.2. Failures
a/ the low productivity of collective agriculture
b/ corruption and inefficiency in industry
c/ economy good at “catching up” but not at innovation
d/ was the system leading to socialism?

Further Reading

 

Stephen F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution (1974) ch. 8 “The Crises of Moderation”
Sheila Fitzpatrick, “Cultural Revolution as Class War” in Sheila Fitzpatrick ed., Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928-1931 (1978)
Michal Reiman, The Birth of Stalinism: The USSR on the Eve of the “Second Revolution” (1987)
Alec Nove, An Economic History of the USSR (1992) esp. chs. 7-9.
R. W. Davies, Stephen Wheatcroft and Mark Harrison eds., The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1913-1945 (1993) esp. ch. 7
Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed (1936)
Erik Van Ree, The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin (2002) ch. 15

 

Websites

 

Video on web:

http://www.archive.org/details/1933-10-23_Russian_Recognition_Nears

http://www.archive.org/details/Communis1952

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