Russia: Difference between revisions

Following [[Death and state funeral of Vladimir Lenin|Lenin's death]] in 1924, a [[List of Troikas in the Soviet Union|troika]] was designated to take charge. Eventually [[Joseph Stalin]], the [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|General Secretary of the Communist Party]], managed to suppress all opposition factions and consolidate power in his hands to become the country's dictator by the 1930s.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Glassman |first=Leo M. |title=Stalin's Rise to Power |date=April 1931 |pages=73–77 |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |jstor=45336496 |journal=[[Current History]] |volume=34 |number=1|doi=10.1525/curh.1931.34.1.73 |s2cid=248843930 }}</ref> [[Leon Trotsky]], the main proponent of [[world revolution]], was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Getty |first=J Arch. |title=Trotsky in Exile: The Founding of the Fourth International |jstor=151989 |pages=24–35 |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |volume=38 |number=1 |date=January 1986 |journal=Soviet Studies (Europe-Asia Studies)}}</ref> and Stalin's idea of [[Socialism in One Country]] became the official line.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://kar.kent.ac.uk/47659/1/Socialism%20in%20One%20Country%20Redacted.pdf |title=Socialism in One Country: A Study of Pragmatism and Ideology in the Soviet 1920s |publisher=[[University of Kent]] |last=Bensley |first=Michael |year=2014 |access-date=26 June 2021 |archive-date=26 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210626142120/https://kar.kent.ac.uk/47659/1/Socialism%20in%20One%20Country%20Redacted.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> The continued internal struggle in the Bolshevik party culminated in the [[Great Purge]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kuromiya |first=Hirosaki |title=Accounting for the Great Terror |jstor=41051345 |publisher=[[Franz Steiner Verlag]] |journal=Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas |year=2005 |pages=86–101 |volume=53 |number=1}}</ref>

 

Under Stalin's leadership, the government launched a [[command economy]], [[Industrialization in the USSR|industrialisation of the largely rural country]], and [[Collectivization in the USSR|collectivisation]] of [[Agriculture in the USSR|its agriculture]]. During this period of rapid economic and social change, millions of people were sent to [[Gulag|penal labour camps]], including many political convicts for their suspected or real opposition to Stalin's rule;<ref>{{cite journal |last=Rosefielde |first=Steven |title=An Assessment of the Sources and Uses of Gulag Forced Labour 1929–1956 |jstor=151474 |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |pages=51–87 |volume=33 |number=1 |date=January 1981 |journal=Soviet Studies (Europe-Asia Studies)}}</ref> and millions were [[population transfer in the Soviet Union|deported and exiled]] to remote areas of the Soviet Union.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kreindler |first=Isabelle |title=The Soviet Deported Nationalities: A Summary and an Update |jstor=151700 |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |journal=Soviet Studies (Europe-Asia Studies) |volume=38 |number=3 |date=July 1986 |pages=387–405}}</ref> The transitional disorganisation of the country's agriculture, combined with the harsh state policies and a drought,<ref>{{cite book | last=Zadoks | first=J.C. | title=On the political economy of plant disease epidemics: Capita selecta in historical epidemiology | publisher=Wageningen Academic Publishers | year=2008 | isbn=978-90-8686-653-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EBLTDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA171 | access-date=8 December 2022 | page=171 | archive-date=25 December 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221225095407/https://books.google.com/books?id=EBLTDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA171 | url-status=live }}</ref> led to the [[Soviet famine of 1932–1933]]; which killed 5.7<ref>{{cite book|last1=Davies|first1=Robert W.|last2=Wheatcroft|first2=Stephen G.|title=The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia Volume 5: The Years of Hunger |date=2010 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|page=415|doi=10.1057/9780230273979|isbn=9780230238558}}</ref> to 8.7 million, 3.3 million of them in the Russian SFSR.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Wolowyna |first=Oleh |date=October 2020 |title=A Demographic Framework for the 1932–1934 Famine in the Soviet Union |journal=[[Journal of Genocide Research]] |volume=23 |number=4 |pages=501–526 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2020.1834741 |s2cid=226316468}}</ref> The Soviet Union, ultimately, made the costly transformation from a largely agrarian economy to a major industrial powerhouse within a short span of time.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Rosefielde |first=Steven |title=Excess Deaths and Industrialization: A Realist Theory of Stalinist Economic Development in the 1930s |jstor=260849 |journal=[[Journal of Contemporary History]] |year=1988 |volume=23 |number=2 |pages=277–289 |publisher=[[SAGE Publishing]]|doi=10.1177/002200948802300207 |pmid=11617302 |s2cid=26592600 }}</ref>