Editing Stalinism (section)

=== Economic policy ===
{{Main|Collectivization in the Soviet Union|Holodomor|Kazakh famine of 1930–1933|Industrialization in the Soviet Union}}
[[File:GolodomorKharkiv.jpg|thumb|Starved peasants on a street in [[Kharkiv]] during the [[Soviet famine of 1932–1933]]]]
At the start of the 1930s, Stalin launched a wave of radical economic policies that completely overhauled the industrial and agricultural face of the Soviet Union. This became known as the [[Great Turn]] as Russia turned away from the [[Mixed economy|mixed-economic]] type [[New Economic Policy]] (NEP) and adopted a [[planned economy]]. Lenin implemented the NEP to ensure the survival of the [[socialist state]] following seven years of war ([[World War I]], 1914–1917, and the subsequent [[Russian Civil War|Civil War]], 1917–1921) and rebuilt Soviet production to its 1913 levels. But Russia still lagged far behind the West, and Stalin and the majority of the Communist Party felt the NEP not only to be compromising communist ideals but also not delivering satisfactory economic performance or creating the envisaged socialist society.

According to historian [[Sheila Fitzpatrick]], the scholarly consensus was that Stalin appropriated the position of the [[Left Opposition]] on such matters as [[industrialisation]] and [[collectivisation]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fitzpatrick |first1=Sheila |title=The Old Man |journal=London Review of Books |date=22 April 2010 |volume=32 |issue=8 |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n08/sheila-fitzpatrick/the-old-man |language=en |issn=0260-9592}}</ref> Trotsky maintained that the disproportions and imbalances which became characteristic of Stalinist planning in the 1930s such as the underdeveloped [[consumption (economics)|consumer base]] along with the priority focus on [[heavy industry]] were due to a number of avoidable problems. He argued that the industrial drive had been enacted under more severe circumstances, several years later and in a less rational manner than originally conceived by the Left Opposition.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date=5 January 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-721-5 |page=1141|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky+the+prophet |language=en}}</ref>

Officially designed to accelerate development toward [[communism]], the need for [[industrialization in the Soviet Union]] was emphasized because the Soviet Union had previously fallen behind economically compared to Western countries and also because socialist society needed industry to face the challenges posed by internal and external enemies of communism.{{sfn|Kotkin|1997|p=70-71}} Rapid industrialization was accompanied by mass collectivization of agriculture and rapid [[urbanization]], which converted many small villages into [[industrial cities]].{{sfn|Kotkin|1997|p=70-79}} To accelerate industrialization's development, Stalin imported materials, ideas, expertise, and workers from western Europe and the United States,<ref>{{cite book |author-last1=De Basily |author-first1=N. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WkcrDwAAQBAJ |title=Russia Under Soviet Rule: Twenty Years of Bolshevik Experiment |publisher=Routledge |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-351-61717-8 |series=Routledge Library Editions: Early Western Responses to Soviet Russia |location=Abingdon, Oxon |quote=...&nbsp;vast sums were spent on importing foreign technical 'ideas' and on securing the services of alien experts. Foreign countries, again – American and Germany in particular – lent the U.S.S.R. active aid in drafting the plans for all the undertakings to be constructed. They supplied the Soviet Union with tens of thousands of engineers, mechanics, and supervisors. During the first Five-Year Plan, not a single plant was erected, nor was a new industry launched without the direct help of foreigners working on the spot. Without the importation of Western European and American objects, ideas, and men, the 'miracle in the East' would not have been realized, or, at least, not in so short a time. |access-date=3 November 2017 |orig-year=1938}}</ref> pragmatically setting up [[joint-venture]] contracts with major American [[private enterprise]]s such as the [[Ford Motor Company]], which, under state supervision, assisted in developing the basis of the industry of the [[Soviet economy]] from the late 1920s to the 1930s. After the American private enterprises had completed their tasks, Soviet [[State-owned enterprise|state enterprises]] took over.

[[Fredric Jameson]] has said that "Stalinism was…a success and fulfilled its historic mission, socially as well as economically" given that it "modernized the Soviet Union, transforming a peasant society into an industrial state with a literate population and a remarkable scientific superstructure."<ref>[[Fredric Jameson]]. ''Marxism Beyond Marxism'' (1996). p. 43. {{ISBN|0-415-91442-6}}.</ref> [[Robert Conquest]] disputes that conclusion, writing, "Russia had already been fourth to fifth among industrial economies before World War I", and that Russian industrial advances could have been achieved without collectivization, famine, or terror. According to Conquest, the industrial successes were far less than claimed, and the Soviet-style industrialization was "an anti-innovative dead-end."<ref name="reflections">[[Robert Conquest]]. ''Reflections on a Ravaged Century'' (2000). p. 101. {{ISBN|0-393-04818-7}}.</ref> [[Stephen Kotkin]] said those who argue collectivization was necessary are "dead wrong", writing that it "only seemed necessary within the straitjacket of Communist ideology and its repudiation of capitalism. And economically, collectivization failed to deliver." Kotkin further claimed that it decreased harvests instead of increasing them, as peasants tended to resist heavy taxes by producing fewer goods, caring only about their own subsistence.{{sfn|Kotkin|2014|p=724–725}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fitzpatrick |first=Sheila |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/28293091 |title=Stalin's peasants : resistance and survival in the Russian village after collectivization |date=1994 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-506982-X |location=New York |oclc=28293091}}</ref>{{Rp|page=5}}

According to several Western historians,<ref>[http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/stalin.htm "Genocide in the 20th century"]. History Place.</ref> Stalinist agricultural policies were a key factor in the [[Soviet famine of 1930–1933]]; some scholars believe that [[Holodomor]], which started near the end of 1932, was when the famine turned into an instrument of genocide; the Ukrainian government now recognizes it as such. Some scholars dispute the intentionality of the famine.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Davies|first1=Robert|author-link1=Robert William Davies|last2=Wheatcroft|first2=Stephen|author-link2=Stephen G. Wheatcroft|title=The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia Volume 5: The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture 1931–1933|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4s1lCwAAQBAJ&pg=PR14|year=2009|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|isbn=978-0-230-27397-9|page=xiv}}</ref><ref name="Tauger"/>