Revolutions in Russia

In 1929 Stalin came into the Soviet Union and changed the entire game. After suffering much humiliation from Germany, Joseph Stalin rose to power of the communist party with a loaded agenda to turn the tables around. Stalin began making changes to his nation state through rapid industrialization.  He constructed 5 year plans which aimed to increase the output of products such as iron, steal, coal and machinery. The Communist party built cities from the ground up and brought in peasants to work in mines, factories and offices. To cover the costs of these expenditures and feed the new working regime Stalin merged thousands of privately owned farmlands into large governmentally owned fields. Obviously not everybody would approve of this radical change. The Party had to deploy soldiers to force the kulaks, the more wealthy peasants, into the collective agricultural fields. The kulaks burned and destroyed everything they owned from their fields to their own livestock and equipment in retaliation. Furious, Stalin commanded the poor peasants to rise up against their wealthier counterparts and eventually most of the kulaks were killed in concentration camps. Famine plagued the nation after most of the government's resources were destroyed in the uprising.

What became of the USSR after the massive industrial boom was due to the widespread infiltration of fear and suspicion. This is the part that interests me. Stalin had personal paranoia issues according to our textbook. He exercised his strength and power as a dictator and had many high officials removed and put on trial out of his extreme suspicion or distaste for a particular person. And a snowball effect trickled down thereafter onto the common people, who would accuse innocent neighbors and coworkers. Many were put into jails without trials, but Stalin's popularity only increased when the job market was opened up to more and more citizens who were thus far suppressed by superiors.

I wonder if inspiring such terror can only be achieved in communist societies, and what kind of affect that had on the USSR's nationalism. Stalin wrongly murdered and accused millions of his citizens, yet he was so loved by his people. How could people love their government who was taking away their neighbors and fellow people? I can imagine nationalism had a large part to do with it; how the people could be literally torn apart from each other yet still feel proud and unified. And how better to keep that illusion than through propaganda? I found some interesting pieces. 

[1926] The first poster reads "Liberated women, build up socialism!" This poster reminds women that they have been given new rights at the price of bolstering their socialistic society. It says to me, "Now that you hold the same rights as men, you must engage in the same livelihood." There is not the same air of freedom of choice that accompanied the women's equality movement in the United States.

"Long Live the Mighty Aviation of the Socialism Country!" [1939] This poster envolves many elements that boast the nation's unity and strength in both the land and sky. The people have all rallied together in the streets and are being protected by their fleet of airplanes overhead. Overall this poster is dripping in modesty.

"We will keep the Kulaks from the Collective farms" [1930]

This poster is undoubtedly in favor of the peasants rising up against the Kulaks after Stalin declared the purge of the Kulak class from society.