Write an essay of approximately two to three pages on the question below;
J. Stalin, “The Tasks of Economic Executives,” 1931
http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/TEE31.html
J. Stalin, “The Results of the First Five-Year Plan,” 1933, Parts I, II and III only
http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/RFFYP33.html
Nikita Khrushchev, The Secret Speech Denouncing Stalin, 1956
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1956khrushchev-secret1.asp
In “The Tasks of Economic Executives” of 1931 and in “The Results of the First Five-Year Plan” Parts I, II and III in 1933, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin outlined the motivations and the result of his policy of rapid industrialization of the USSR. Discuss the reasons given by Stalin in “The Tasks” as to why it was imperative that the Soviet Union industrialize as quickly as possible, and what were the early results of Stalin’s policy as expressed in his speech on “The Results of the First Five-Year Plan,” Parts I, II and III. In claiming that without this rapid industrialization the Soviet Union “would go under” was Stalin in your view merely justifying his own ruthless dictatorship or was there any truth in his claim that in the modern world “weak countries become defeated countries” at the hands of the major industrial states? How according to Stalin in this 1933 speech did the rest of the world view the results of the Five Year Plan?
After Stalin’s death, however, Soviet leader Khrushchev denounced him for a long list of crimes. What according to this denunciation were Stalin’s crimes, why in Khrushchev’s view did Stalin behave in this was manner, and what were some of the consequences of those crimes?
Lastly, many from Khrushchev to those strongly opposed to Communism and the Soviet Union have argued that Stalin’s brutal rule was first and foremost the result of Stalin’s own cruelty and lust for power. Others have argued that Stalin’s crimes were also a result of a Russia’s history as a target of repeated invasions and attempts at colonial domination by its neighbors in which according to Stalin “weak nations become defeated nations” at the hands of more powerful states seeking to take advantage of that weakness. What is your take on this debate, and is any attempt to put Stalinism in a broader context rather than as the responsibility of Stalin and his supporters an effort to shift some of that responsibility for those crimes and abuses from those who committed them?