1941 Conclusions

• Form Stalin's point of view there were considerable strengths to the USSR in 1941 and the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 confirmed this opinion.
• Stalin had created a personal dictatorship centred on him.

  • This was partially due to his own lust for power but also held a genuine conviction that he was the one person who had the vision and the ability to bring about true socialism in Russia.
• The majority of weaknesses of the Soviet Union in 1941 concerned the suffering of the people.

  • Stalin thought these were necessary sacrifices to ensure the survival of socialism in a hostile world and for many Russians, the defeat of Nazi Germany served as sufficient justification.
• There are even stories of prisoners in the gulags cheering Stalin's name when news of the final victory in 1945 was reported.
• Historians have the benefit of hindsight so they can hold a more objective viewpoint.
• The political and economic system which Stalin created stifled initiative and suppressed creativity.

  • It also brough suffering to the Russian people on a scale never experienced before.
• Collectivisation saddled the USSR with an inefficient and unproductive agricultural system.
• The command economy was ultimately unable to compete with the capitalist systems in the West.
• The political system became stagnant and conservative and was incapable of reforming itself.
• The "Stalin Revolution" produced heroic successes as many people were better off materially and had opportunities they would have never had under the tsarist regime.

  • But it also produced a fearful society in which arrests and trials had a terrible impact on human relationships.
• Life was hard and millions died or were repressed by an authoritarian regime.