What Happened to Soviets After Ww2

To what extent had the USSR recovered from the impact of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) by the time of Stalin’s death in 1953? Although VE celebrations started on 24th June 1945, peace was declared on the 9th May in Moscow. There are differing opinions on the amount of deaths that were caused by the Great Patriotic War (for example, Kenez estimates 26-27 million, many of whom were prisoners of war, whereas Hoskings estimated 20-25 million, many of whom were killed indirectly by the war, by means such as famines).

It could be suggested that the USSR simply returned to where it had been previously in the 1930s after the war, for example primary focus for industry was put on “heavy” goods such as oil and coal. But to what extent did life for the Russian improve once the war was over? Social conditions after the war were anything but favourable. 1,170 towns, 70,000 villages and 7 million homes had been destroyed leaving 25 million Russians homeless. This issue was not addressed or rectified and no housing schemes of building projects were started, instead the money was redirected to other areas. So Soviets were left restless as they had nowhere to go.

The peasants were essentially bound to their land as they had no access to funds or passports to travel. The two types of farms faced disadvantages, for example the Kolkhozy farms (collective state farms) had to meet state obligations which were 60-70% of their output and only received trivial rewards in return (such as sacks of potatoes). Even though the war had caused so many deaths, the Politburo remained to see the peasants as disposable after the war. Also Stalin did not trust the peasants as he said they were “too individualistic to make good socialists” and therefore increased the taxes on them.

So this is not recovery as the lifestyle, especially for peasants, got worse. The agricultural output in 1945 was only 60% of what it had been before the war, and as a result food shortages that had occurred previously (due to the farm workers going to the front, and with them taking machinery and horses) simply continued. There was a famine in 1946-47 and this caused widespread starvation, for example in Moldova alone 70,000 Russians died. Due to the famine, food rations were restricted and the numbers eligible for these were educed (21 million reduced to 4. 1 million). To make this even worse Stalin did not acknowledge the famine and banned private farming in 1946 as it was seen as anti-communist. This meant that the small amount of food the peasants may have been able to grow to feed their families was now taken away from them. As a result of this, the USSR could not recover because they had less resources and food. Also Stalin was ignorant, and made the any chance of recovery harder because peasants were not able to feed themselves, so they in turn could not recover.

It was not only in the country where the people suffered, workers in the towns faced inflated targets and reduced wages (further than this they were expected to subscribe to state bonds which totalled several weeks’ wages). So the people were not able to provide for themselves, meaning that they could not recover, as they couldn’t afford to. Consumer goods were very scarce, for example, although there were 341 million knitted garments by 1953, televisions and refrigerators were very rare even though they were now commodities in the west at this time.

Although after the Second World War, life was certainly looking very bleak for the Russians; some fixed prices were reduced in the towns to ensure that the poorest workers could afford food such as bread (which cost half the amount in 1950 as it did in 1947). So recovery had been initiated, however, in general, living conditions did not improve. The Great Patriotic War affected Stalin very negatively, despite the Russian victory. He perceived his personal position and security in a different way to the Russians and saw himself to be very vulnerable. Understandably this was partly due to the success and support that Zhukov faced after the war.

Although it is not clear whether or not Stalin’s health deterioration was a result of the war, he never fully recovered from this experience. Due to his constant paranoia, Stalinism was re-asserted after the war. This had previously been used in the 1930s (involved the state making extensive use of propaganda to establish a personality cult around Stalin to maintain control over the population and to maintain political control for the Communist Party). During the period of fighting, there had been relaxations in censorship and other areas such as the church (who were allowed to openly practice religion again).

This was to ensure support for the leadership of the country and unite the Russian people against the Axis powers. However, after the war, regulations of the Church were once again tightened, to stop it becoming too powerful. The cult of personality reached its peak on Stalin’s 70th birthday in 1949 and this was accompanied by a new programme of censorship (for example newspapers were censored once before publishing and once after) and propaganda. Intellectual life in Russia also suffered shut in order to eradicate opposition, for example archives were shut in the 1930s and original research was discounted.

All areas were affected, including literature where writers who were seen to be non- ideological were purged (by expelling them from the Union of soviet writers). Whether or not this is a sign of “recovery” after the war depends on whose perspective taken – for the Russian people it was a tightening in society that had a negative effect whereas members of the communist party or Stalin’s supporters would see this as “recovery” from the loosening in control and a sign that Stalin’s power was being re-asserted.

The results of Stalin’s paranoia had a negative effect for the Russians, even if they had not been directly aware of it at the time. Due to Stalin’s over cautious approach he refused to research new technologies and exploited new industries and trade with the west. If he had done this; Russia’s economy would have expanded and the economic problems the country faced may well have been solved, or at least improved. Science in the Soviet Union was also under strict ideological control by Stalin and his government, along with art and literature.

There was significant progress in “ideologically safe” domains, owing to the free Soviet education system and state-financed research. However, the most notable legacy during Stalin’s time was his public endorsement of the agronomist Trofim Lysenko, who rejected Mendelian genetics as “bourgeois pseudoscience” and instead supported hybridization theories that caused widespread agricultural destruction and major setbacks in Soviet knowledge in biology. Although many scientists opposed his views, those who publicly came out were imprisoned and denounced.

This also made the prospects of recovery for the USSR very low. The fourth Five Year Plan was launched in 1946 (until 1950) by Voznesensky which aimed to restore production to pre-war levels. During the Great Patriotic War the Russians had effectively produced arms to keep their front well supplied. This obviously involved a shift in production focus and this now needed to be switched back to previous production. New factories were built where they had been located previous to the war but the relocated factories remained in use in the Urals.

This meant that production capacity increased and Soviet gross national product (GNP) grew annually by 8. 9% between 1946 -1950 which shows obvious signs of recovery and is very significant (as in 1939 it was 8. 5%). However, rather than shifting the focus to consumer goods as one might expect, the focus remained on heavy industry. This means that the standard of living did not improve for the Russian people. Further than this, Stalin also failed to solve the agricultural production problems caused by the war (for example the grain harvest in 1952 was less than that of 1940).

The Russians were therefore unable to improve the way they lived, and to add insult to injury many Russian’s savings were wiped out when the country underwent a currency reform in December 1947. Hoskings says that “the shape of the recovery thus froze the soviet economy back into the shape it had assumed in the thirties” which is due to the USSR failing to exploit any new techniques, even though it had UN economic advisors available to it. Due to a lack of interest, no new innovations (such as chemicals and plastics) were investigated.

Instead the money was put to use funding causes such as “Stalin’s grand projects of communism” which built striking new buildings such as the Metro and Moscow University. This was obviously a showcase of communism but did not contribute to the recovery from the Great Patriotic War. During the war the Communist Party had taken a backseat and the focus had been primarily on nationalism rather than communism in order to ensure that patriotism and the general war effort were kept active.

However, after the war, Stalin wanted to re-assert himself as the undisputed leader of the USSR (this was partly due to his paranoia and illness). Instead of re-asserting the Communist party itself, Stalin ruled through a small group of influential magnates (such as Beria and Molotov). From the wider communist parties point of view Russia may not have recovered well “ideologically” after the war, whereas Stalin would have felt that this was an improvement from the leadership previous to the war (and certainly during the war when he was forced to accept suggestions from more experienced military men such as General Zhukov).

Stalin did ensure however, that the soldiers that joined the Communist party during the war were educated in Communist values through the new Central Committee Higher Party School that was set up. Stalin also delegated some areas of control to other groups due to the huge workload he faced, for example the economy was given to the USSR Council of Ministers. However, he also put a strict hierarchy of decision making into practice to ensure that he still essentially made all the decisions.

It still appears however that the improvements made after the war fail to outweigh the negatives both in number and significance. The Great Patriotic War had left Russia severely weakened and the Russia nation crushed. Although the economy did appear to improve slightly after the war (increase of 8. 9% in the GNP) and Stalin re-asserted his control, Russia remained how it had been run in the 1930s previous to the war (no improvements or innovations within industrial production and living conditions remained poor) and therefore Soviet Union had not recovered well by 1953.