THE RUSSIAN ALPHABET

CYRILLIC

THE ROMANOVSCZAR NICHOLAS II

4 MILLION DEATHSMASSIVE POVERTY

 Thus, beginning in the 1860s, Russia began a program of industrial development, which was more heavily directed by the state than was the case in Western Europe or the United States.By the 1890s, Russia’s Industrial Revolution was launched and growing rapidly. It focused particularly on railroads and heavy industry and was fueled by a substantial amount of foreign investment. By 1900, Russia ranked fourth in the world in steel production and had major industries in coal, textiles, and oil. Its industrial enterprises, still modest in comparison to those of Europe,were concentrated in a few major cities—Moscow, St. Petersburg,and Kiev, for example—and took place in factories far larger than in most of Western Europe.Until 1897, a thirteen-hour working day was common. Ruthless discipline and overt disrespect from supervisors created resentment, while life in large and unsanitary barracks added to workers’ sense of injustice.In the absence of legal unions or political parties, these grievances often erupted in the form of large-scale strikes. In 1898, they created an illegal Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party and quickly became involved in workers’ education, union organizing, and, eventually,revolutionary action. By the early twentieth century, the strains of rapid change and the state’s continued intransigence had reached the bursting point, and in 1905, following its defeat in a naval war with Japan, Russia erupted in spontaneous insurrection. Workers in Moscow and St. Petersburg went on strike and created tThe 1905 revolution, though brutally suppressed, forced the tsar’s regime to make more substantial reforms than it had ever contemplated. It granted a constitution, legalized both trade unions and political parties, and permitted the election of a national assembly, called the Duma. Censorship was eased, and plans were under way for universal primary education. 

1917 OCTOBER RVEOLUTION

THE RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR:

THE RED ARMY VS. THE WHITE ARMY

LENIN’S RED BOLSHEVIKS’ VS. ANTI-CMONNUNIST WHITE ARMY SUPPORTERS

BUT AFTER THE RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR, RUSSIA WAS IN COMPLETE DISARRAY. THE RAILROADS WERE GONE! COAL WAS RUNNING OUT URBAN POPULATIONS LOST 25% OF THEIR MEN ONE CITY ALONE LOST 825,000 TO THE RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR

THEN THE BREAD FROM THE UKRAINE DIDN’T ARRIVE IN 1921. LENIN HAS A PROBLEM: HE KNEW THAT THE SAME REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT WHICH LED TO THE COMMUNIST REVOLUTION COULD JUST AS EASILY TAKE HIM OUT.  IN ADDITION, HE HAD BEEN USING “RED ARMY RATIONING” WHEREBY COMMUNIST PARTY MEMBERS AND ARMY OFFICERS WERE GETTING MORE FOOD THAN THE REST. 

  

 LENIN STARTED THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY IN 1921

ALLOWED SOME SMALL PRIVATE BUSINESSES LIKE SHOE STORES OR CABINET MAKERS. 

BUT THE STATE WOULD STILL CONTROL THE BANKS, FOREIGN TRADE AND ANY LARGE SCALE INDUSTRIES.

FOREIGN INVESTMENT WAS ALLOWED!MUCH LIKE CHINA TODAY (THIS IS THE

ONLY WAY!!)

HE ALLOWED PEASANTS TO GROW THEIR OWN FOOD; HE WOULD TAX IT AND THEN THEY COULD KEEP THE REST.

GUESS WHAT! WITH THIS ADDED INCENTIVE FOR FARMING PRODUCTION ROSE 40%

LABOR UNIONS WERE FORMED THE MOST QUALIFIED GOT THE BEST JOBS (OH MY GOD!) PEOPLE LIKE ENGINEERS AND AGRICULTURAL EXPERTS WERE MORE WIDELY SOUGHT AFTER

OF COURSE THIS WAS FOLLOWED BY A MASSIVE PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN WHERE LIBRARIES WERE CLEARED OF “NON-BOLSHEVIK” BOOKS AND ALL POLITICAL FILMS WERE BANNED. RELIGION WAS ESSENTIALLY OUTLAWED AND 30% OF ALL STUDENTS WERE KICKED OUT OF THE UNIVERSITIES.

LENIN’S COMMUNISM WAS THE “STATE CAPITALISM” SO SIMILAR TO CHINA” STATE CAPITALISM” OF TODAY.

LENIN'S NEW ECONOMIC PLAN: 1921

  STALIN’S 5-YEAR PLANS

THERE WERE 13 OF THEM TOTAL THEY MANDATED A SET GOAL FOR FARMING, FOR INDUSTRY, FOR ANIMAL HUSBANDRY WITHIN A SET PERIOD OF TIME; 5 YEARS.

SOME COUNTRIES HAVE HAD 4 YEAR PLANS, LIKE NAZI GERMANY, WHILE OTHERS HAD 10 OR EVEN 12 YEAR PLANS.  CHINA, FOR EXAMPLE, STUCK TO 5 YEAR PLANS 

STALIN’S FIRST 5-YEAR PLANS WERE AIMED AT MAKING THE SOVIET UNION AN INDUSTRAIL POWERHOUSE.

THIS WORKED DURING WWII BUT BECAME A BUREDN AFTERWARDS.

UNFORTUNATLEY, STALIN’S 5-YEAR PLANS WERE CHARACTERIZED BY A PROCESS KNOWN AS COLLECTIVIZATION (1928-1940):

WHEREBY EACH INDIVIDUAL FARMER WAS FORCED TO GIVE HIS OR HER LAND TO THE STATE. THE COMMUNIST SYSTEM WOULD THEN OWN AND ADMINISTER THE LAND AS THEY SAW FIT. THIS HAD SEVERAL PROBLEMS:

#1: NOBODY OWNED ANY OF THE LAND SO THEY HAD NO INCENTIVE TO RUN IT PROPERLY

#2: THE STATE WOULD TELL YOU WHAT YOU COULD OR COULD NOT GROW. THERE WAS NO MARKET ANALYSIS AND NO COMPETITION

 

#3: PEOPLE WOULD RATHER EAT THEIR FOOD THEN SELL IT AND GO BUY OVERPRICED AND POOR QUALITY GOODS. SO PEOPLE IN TH CITIES GOT SQUAT!

#4: YOU MADE THE SAME AMOUNT OF MONEY (NO $$) REGARDLESS OF HOW MUCH OR HOW LITTLE YOU GREW. THIS LED TO WIDESPREAD ABSENTEEISM, ALCOHOLISM AND GENERALLY LOW PRODUCTIVITY.

IN ADDITION, IF YOU WANTED ANY REALLY GOOD FOOD YOU HAD TO USE THE BLACK MARKET WHICH WAS OF COURSE, PUNISHABLE BY DEATH.

NOW, THESE MASSIVE COLLECTIVE FARMS WORK WELL DURING TIMES OF WAR. DURING WWII FOR EXAMPLE, STALIN WAS ABLE TO EXTRACT AS MUCH GRAIN, METAL, COAL ETC THAT WAS NECESSARY FOR THE WAR EFFORT.

BUT COLLECTIVE FARMS ARE FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED FOR PRODUCING FOOD IN TIMES OF PEACE. IN ADDITION, THEY OF COURSE PROHIBIT GROWTH AND TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION. AFTER ALL, WHY WOULD SOMEONE INVENT THE MECHANICAL REAPER WHEN YOU’RE GONNA GET AS MUCH MONEY AS THE NEXT GUY EVEN IF HE’S DRUNK?

ALSO, DURING WWII THE US ALSO COLLECTIVIZED ALL OF ITS “COLLECTIVE EFFORTS”. AFTER THE WAR, HOWEVER, WE WENT BACK TO A CAPITALSITIC SYSTEM. WE WERE THUS ABLE TO USE BOTH METHODOLOGIES!

THIS COLLECTOVIZATION LED TO WIDESPREAD FAMINE IN THE

YEARS:1932-19331946-1947

THE 3RD MOST FAMOUS AND DARK CHRACTERISTICS OF STALIN’S “RULE WITH AN IRON FIST” WERE STALIN PURGES

THE PURGE OF THE ARMY three of five marshals (then 

equivalent to five-star generals)

50 OF 57 ARMY COMMANDERS 154 out of 186 division 

commanders 16 of 16 army commissars 25 of 28 army corps commissars

  EIGHT OF NINE NAVY ADMIRALS

THE PURGE OF THE PEOPLEAccording to the declassified Soviet archives, during 1937 and 1938, the NKVD detained 1,548,366 victims, of whom 681,692 were shot - an average of 1,000 executions a day