Study Questions on Suny, chapter 10
( I have indicated when questions are directly related to a specific assignments for this week in Daniels and in Von Geldern and Stites. Be sure to see the study questions on those readings!)
Detailed Questions
How did the Stalinists define socialism? Does Suny think that the Stalinist vision of socialism was in keeping with marxism? Explain.
What were the Stalin regime’s priorities in industrialization? (See Daniels, doc. by Kuibyshev and all of the documents by Stalin.)
Explain how economic planning was supposed to work in principle.
Was Stalinist economic planning based upon existing resources and rational goals? Explain.
How would you characterize the "spirit" of the industrialization drive? (See Stalin on the "Bolshevik tempo of industrialization" in the doc. "The Tasks of Business Executives" in Daniels.)
Who did the Stalinists accuse of sabotage in 1928? (See Stalin on wreckers in the doc. "The Tasks of ...")
What is the significance of the 1928 Shakhty trial? The 1930 trial of the "Industrial Party"?
How did Stalin link the idea that there was a real threat from class enemies to the idea that the USSR was moving towards socialism? (Again, see docs. in Daniels.)
What were engineers and administrators being blamed for and why? Why was such scapegoating necessary?
Did purging managers and engineers solve the problems facing industry? Explain.
How and why did Orjonikidze change industrial policy in late 1931, and how did the whole emphasis of the party’s attitude towards technicians and managers change at this point?
How did Stalin interpret the marxist idea of the "withering away of the state"?
What does Suny mean when he says on p. 237 that the industrial economy was based upon "expansion," centralization," and "coercion"? Give examples.
Did industry grow during the First Five Year plan? (At what kind of rate?) Did it grow as much or as fast as the regime wanted it to? Did this growth create problems? Explain.
In what kinds of ways did industrialization transform the working class?
What tensions arose between skilled and "new" workers during the First Five Year Plan?
Did the Party seem to "trust" the new workers? Or the skilled workers? Explain.
Who was supposed to be the "boss" in Stalinist factories? Explain.
What factors limited the authority of managers?
Did workers’ standard of living increase or decrease during the First Five Year Plan? (See also Von Geldern and Stites reading by Ilin.)
Why was Soviet productivity so low? How did the regime try to boost productivity?
Why did the regime institute ration cards and internal passports in 1932?
What gave workers a certain degree of power over the labor process?
Why did Stalin turn against "wage equality" in 1931? (See Stalin doc. "New Conditions—New Tasks" in Daniels)
Why did the regime institute piecework in 1934?
What prevented managers from using new laws against absenteeism, etc., against workers?
What sort of material and psychological incentives did the regime create to promote hard work and productivity during the period of the first plan? (See the Von Geldern and Stotes reading the "First Cruise," the Ostrovsky story, Ilin essay, and Stakhanov essay.)
Who were the new managerial elites of the 1930s? (See Stalin docs. "Tasks of…" and "New Conditions…" in Daniels.)
In what sense were these new managers a "ruling class without tenure"?
What were the "3 good years"? Why were they called this?
Did the problems facing productivity go away during the Second Five Year Plan?
What is significant about Stalin adopting the slogan "Cadres decide everything" in 1935?
Who was Aleksei Stakhanov and what did he do? (See Stakhanov in Von Geldern and Stites)
What was Stakhanovism? Did these methods really increase productivity? Explain.
Why would the regime support a phenomenon like Stakhanovism?
How would you describe the rate of Soviet urbanization in the 1930s?
What were some of the effects of such rapid urbanization?
Were Stalinist cities egalitarian? Explain. (See Ilin in Von Geldern and Stites.)
Big Questions
Historian Moshe Lewin describes the Soviet economic system in the 1930s as "a planned economy without a plan." Would you agree or disagree with this statement? Explain.
Do you think that the Stalinist rapid industrialization program was a success or a failure (or neither)? Be ready to defend your answer!
In what ways were politics tied into the rapid industrialization program? In what ways were foreign policy concerns tied into the rapid industrialization program?
Explain the main economic priorities of the First Five Year Plan.
If the Soviet economy was not actually producing all of the goods required by the First Five Year Plan, why raise the targets and then declare them fulfilled in 4 instead of five years? What sort of non-economic priorities does this suggest?
Why did the regime hunt for class enemies and wreckers when factories and industries fell short of the plan or experienced problems?
In what ways did workers actually impede the plan and why?
What did the regime try to do to break workers’ power over the work process and tie them to their jobs?
Be prepared to argue in favor (or against) this statement: The people in the toughest situation during the soviet industrialization drive were the factory managers and engineers.
During the Second Five Year Plan, the regime searched more actively for psychological and material incentives to get workers to be more productive. How did this compare to changes in policy towards the collective farmers during the same time period (see last weeks notes)?
Be prepared to argue for or against this statement: The rapid pace of Stalinist industrialization actually undermined many of the regime’s own goals.