 March 1921 – Lenin creates NEP ◦ New Economic Policy ◦ Peasants allowed to sell produce openly ◦ Retail stores w/less than 20 employees could be privately owned ◦ Heavy industry, banking and mines remained under gov’t control

 1922 – Lenin and Communists create new state ◦ Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

 Lenin dies in 1924  Power struggle ensues among Politburo ◦ Communist Party’s policy makers  Trotsky ◦ Wanted to end NEP ◦ Industrialization at expense of peasants ◦ Wanted to spread communism abroad

 Joseph Stalin served as party general secretary ◦ Most important position in Communist party ◦ Appointed party officials on national and local levels

 Gained complete control of party by 1929 ◦ Cleansed Politburo of revolutionary Bolshevik elements

 “We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years.”  1928 – calls for command economy ◦ Government made all economic decisions ◦ Political leaders identify needs and ways to fulfill them

 5-Yr Plans ◦ Set impossibly high quotas to increase output  Steel, coal, oil, electricity ◦ Limit production of consumer goods  Severe shortages of housing, food, clothing

 Methods produce results  ◦ 25% increase in steel production ◦ Production of machinery quadrupled ◦ Oil production doubled

 Collective Farms ◦ 1928 – gov’t seizes 25 million privately owned farms ◦ Combined into large, gov’t owned farms  Worked on by hundreds of families  Produced food for the state  Peasants fight takeover ◦ Killed livestock ◦ Burned crops

 Secret Police force peasants to work ◦ 5 – 10 million die  1938 – 90% of peasants work on farms ◦ Produced twice as much wheat as it had in 1928  State farms ◦ Areas where farming is difficult ◦ Operated like factories  Workers receive wages instead of a share of profits

 Women’s roles expanded  People became better educated ◦ Mastered new skills ◦ Economic plans called for skilled workers ◦ University and technical training became key to better life  Advances came at great costs ◦ Personal freedoms limited ◦ Consumer goods in short supply ◦ Dissent prohibited

 Bolshevik Revolution declared men and women equal ◦ Laws were passed to give women rights  5-yr plans forced women to work ◦ State provided child care for working mothers ◦ Some women perform same jobs as men

 Soviet women pay a price ◦ Also had to care for children and do housework  Motherhood is patriotic duty ◦ Provide state with next generation of loyal, obedient citizens

 Mid-1930s Stalin transformed USSR into totalitarian regime ◦ Unopposed as dictator ◦ Opposed individual creativity  Threat to conformity and obedience ◦ Total social control and rule by terror