Was Stalin a Progressive or a Conservative?

Although Stalin was a progressive in the economic aspect that he implemented the First and Second Five-Year Plans, which developed industry in Russia, as well as in the social aspect that he put forth a new education system, Stalin more so portrayed elements of conservatism. Stalin's social, economic, and political policies and actions that conserved parts of Lenin's regime including the NKVD secret police that executed and exiled opposition to Stalin, slave labor in Gulag camps, the Great Purge which removed many members of the Communist Party and Red Army, and the continuation of Lenin's New Economic Policy were more important than his progressive changes because they influenced his government the most.

Stalin's most significant progressive policy was the series of Five-Year Plans implemented especially the First and Second Five-Year Plans, which sent Russia in the path of industrial development. The First Five-Year Plan was put into action in 1929 and it emphasized heavy industries such as coal, iron, steel, and electricity. Farming methods were also changed from kulak-run farms to collectivization, which grouped 50-100 individual farms into a system of kolkhoz, larger state-owned farms. Collectivization was very successful and it made farming more efficient, since tractors and combined harvesters began to be utilized. By 1932, two thirds of Russian farmland was collectivized and its new efficiency didn't require as many workers on the field. These additional peasants were sent into industry to work in many of the new factories built solely from Russia's agricultural output.

The Second Five-Year Plan was created in 1932 and it established very similar goals to the first, in addition to goals of advancing transportation and communication. The number of railways, roads, and canals in Russia boomed in the next five years and these linked mines with factories, factories with central cities, and the countryside with cities. The successes of these plans are exemplified with the fivefold growth of coal and electricity production from 1928 to 1940. Ultimately, the Five-Year Plans gave way for the Soviet Union to become the second most powerful industrial nation in the world by the end of the 1930s. Although the economy drastically improved, peasants and factory workers suffered from many of the consequences.

Another progressive action that Lenin created was his system of education, which provided literacy to the majority of Russia's youth. Education was necessary to the future growth and success of Soviet Russia. Stalin believed that it would be much easier to influence children about Communism in schools since they determined the future of the USSR. Most of Stalin's schools were created to prepare the children for their future careers as factory workers, and he did this by enforcing harsh discipline, as well as focusing on courses that would provide students with skills they would use in the factories. Ultimately, the goal of the education system was to create a loyal Soviet citizen who was proud of their nation's history and Stalin's new policies and government. This new education system was able to transform a nation that was mostly illiterate into a country with 86 percent literacy in rural areas.

Foreign policy under Stalin was also very progressive, in a way that shows that he took measures to protect the U.S.S.R. from possible invading countries. He assured of this protection by assisting the Spanish Republicans in the Spanish Civil War by sending large quantities of tanks and aircraft and about 850 Soviets. Stalin believed that the only way he could achieve temporary peace with Germany, a country he thought was bound to invade, would be to create a treaty. The Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed on August 28th, 1939, and under its terms, both Germany and Russia promised to remain neutral if either country became involved in a war. This allowed Stalin to invade Finland and regain much of the land lost under the Brest-Litovsk Treaty in 1918. Hence, Stalin progressed Russia by increasing its borders and developing allies.

Stalin's qualities of conservatism outnumber his progressive characteristics. His political conservatism was the most substantial demonstration of this, especially displayed in his policies of the NKVD Secret Police, Cult of Personality, and the Great Purge. As Commissar of Nationalities from November of 1917 to April of 1922, Stalin was greatly influenced by Lenin, the head of Soviet Russia at that time. Once can assume that Lenin and his ideas greatly influenced Stalin and his future policies and Lenin's utilization of terror as a method to stay in power was inherited by Stalin. This idea was first seen by Stalin when he instigated the Red Terror in August, 1918 and 800 socialists were killed without trial by the Cheka. On an even greater scale, Stalin's Purge of the Red Army and Purge of the Communist Party also portrayed his yearn for power and to withhold that power.

A significant tactic that Stalin used to keep dictatorial power was to remove any political figures that stood as competition, or in any way threatened his power. The period in which many of these politicians who posed as a threat were arrested and some killed, was known as the Purge of the Communist Party. Many of those killed were Bolsheviks who played a prominent role in the October Revolution in 1917, including four out of the five politicians who were present in the 1917 Politburo. For example, Sergey Kirov, Lev Kamenev, and Grigory Zinoviev were all removed from the party because of different views and they were seen as possible obstacles to Stalin's dictatorial rule. Sergey Kirov was a staunch Stalinist who rejected several of Stalin's policies such as requests to arrest and execute political dissenters, and Kirov also refused Lenin's request for him to move from Leningrad to Moscow. Consequently, later that year, Kirov was assassinated by Leonid Nikolayev on December 1st, 1934. Stalin tried to prevent any suspicion that might be raised by claiming that Trotsky organized the assassination and Nikolayev worked for Trotsky on part of a conspiracy against the Soviet Government. This manipulation of events portrays Stalin's willingness to do whatever is necessary to retain total control. In September, 1936, Nikolai Yezhov was appointed as the head of the NKVD Secret Police. Under Yezhov, Stalin's orders of arresting the main political figures in the U.S.S.R. who were critical of Stalin were carried out. Interrogations by the Secret Police were extremely exhausting for many of the prisoners and many confessed to political crimes that they didn't commit, which ultimately led to executions of many leading Communist party members.

The Purge of the Red Army was carried out because Stalin claimed he had evidence