Questions And Answers On Russian History From Berenson’s Book And Stalin And Khrushchev’s Speeches

Bloody Sunday of 1905

Bloody Sunday of 1905 is referred to the event in which the soldiers of the Russian Imperial Guard started fire on the unarmed demonstrators who were led by Father Georgy Gapon. At that time, the team of the demonstrators were marching towards the Winter Palace for presenting a petition to Tsar Nicholas II, the then Russian Emperor.

Alexander Kerensky was a revolutionist and lawyer who became a key political figure with his involvement in the Russian Revolution of 1917. After the February Revolution of 1917, Kerensky served a number of different roles in the newly formed Russian Government.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of 1918 is marked as the point that ended the participation of Russia in World War I. The treaty was signed between the Russian Bolshevik Government and the Central Powers that consisted of Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, German Empire and Bulgaria.

The Velvet Revolution is referred to the event in 1989, in which there was a non violent transition of power in to the then Czechoslovakia, a sovereign nation in Europe (now divided into Czech Republic and Slovakia). The revolution ended one party rule in the country and started an era of parliamentary republic in the country.

The Kornilov Affair is a widely known military coup d’état in Russia 1917 that was led by the then Commander-in-Chief of Russian Army, General Lavr Kornilov against the Russian Provisional Government headed by Aleksander Kerensky and the Petrograd Soviet of Soldiers’ and Workers’ Deputies.

1. According to Stalin, the main reasons why Soviet Industry did not reach the targeted growth because of the following reasons.

• The industries lacked the ability to make use of the existing possibilities. While setting the target, there were a huge number of possibilities through which the industries could grow but they were not competent enough to utilize the same.
• The country had failed to manage the major resources like factories, mills and mines that are the most productive parts of the industries.

2. Stalin states that the Soviet Economy was free from the “incurable of capitalism”. The main reason he stated was that in the Russian Economy, the power belonged to the working class and the country was also conducting a very planned economy including balanced accumulation and distribution of resources among the different branches of the Russian economy.

3. The main reason Stalin provided regarding the country’s inability to reach the economic growth target is the lack of management expertise among the Bolsheviks. Stalin clearly announced that while they, the Bolsheviks, have a clear objective of reaching high economic growth, it is often not possible for them to manage various operations whereas they are many expertises in signing business papers.

4. Stalin claims that the managers must master the skills of business as well as technology. In addition to signing papers, the managers must also learn how to learn the business, its processes, gathering profits and other techniques that are instrumental towards the growth of national economy.

5. In my personal view, the statement of Stalin (“We are 50 to 100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in 10 years or we will go under”) was not true. At that time, Russia was significantly developed in terms of industry, technology, economy and other fields. This is simply Stalin’s way of justifying the ruthlessness that he showed while developing the strategy for rapid industrialization in the Soviet Union. Moreover, Stalin may also been willing to motivate the country to emphasize further in the industrialization that will help the country to get far ahead of other advanced countries.

Alexander Kerensky

6. Media around the world all reacted very positively towards Stalin’s Five Year Plan. In each of the newspaper reports published, there were detailed praise of how the Five Year Plan has completely transformed Russia in spite of initial fears that the plan will fail eventually.

7. The main goals of the Five Years Plan designed by Stalin were as follows.

• To remove capitalism completely from the country
• To enhance the productions in the main resources like mills, mines and factories
• To execute complete industrialization of the nation
• To improve the managers’ skills regarding handling business and technology
• To reach an economic growth of 35%

8. The key goals of the agricultural policy included industrialization of agriculture and maximization of the output from agriculture in the nation.

The goal of the military policy was “to create all the necessary technical and economic prerequisites for increasing to the utmost the defence capacity of the country, enabling it to organize determined resistance to any attempt at military intervention from abroad, to any attempt at military attack from abroad.”

9. The heavy industry was the focal point of the Five Years Plan as Stalin believed it will be able support the entire plan by providing sufficient infrastructure, transport, assistance in agriculture and others. Stalin stated that the heavy industry would be the backbone of the Five Years Plan and future developments alike.

10. The successes in promoting new industries of the Five Year Plan by 1933, according to Stalin, included the nationalization of all the industries and the ability of the country to grow business to large heights. The country is also far ahead of other countries in terms of creations of new enterprises.

11. Stalin justifies the failure of producing sufficient consumer goods by stating that the heavy industries in the country were not sufficiently developed. The heavy industry needed to provide agriculture with sufficient technical resources that will increase the productivity that in turn will boost the productivity of the consumer goods.

12. For the Second Five Year Plan, Stalin mainly emphasized on the development of water, road and rail transport. He also focussed on improving the quality of the goods produced in the industries.

13. According to Khrushchev, Stalin completely ignored the norms of party life and trampled on the Leninist principle of collective party leadership. He also pointed out that during Stalin’s regime, 70% of elected candidates of the party’s central committee were arrested and shot.

14. As a consequence of labelling the individuals, the abject provocateur Beriya murdered thousands of communists and loyal Soviet people. Stalin himself chose the path of repression and physical annihilation as a part of demonstration of brute force.

15. Gorbachev claimed that the interference of external countries like America significantly played part in the fall of European Communism. While he was trying to construct a new architecture of communist system, the interference of external nations and also the growing dependency of European countries on the external countries led to the fall of the plan.

16. Gorbachev emphasized on long term success of the country and he particularly disliked the idea of Yeltsin to depend on external schemes and strategies as means for instant success. Gorbachev also highlighted that during Yeltsin’s time, Russian economy and industry completely fell through as he emphasized on imports from the external nations. Gorbachev himself had plans for a new Europe and new architecture of mutual security and he say that during Yeltsin’s time, all of these ideas failed miserably. Thus he has been so hostile towards Yeltsin.