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Stalin's impacts on the USSR?

Hi, I'm trying to do an essay on Stalin and got a bit stuck so I'm looking for a bit of help :rolleyes:

What impact did Stalin have on the Russian political scene when he was in power?
This is confusing me a bit as I have no idea what the book is talking about :confused:

Also, what was his impact economically?
I know that the five year plans had economic benefits (even though there were some drawbacks) but what exactly was his impact? (if that makes sense)

Thanks..

Reply 1

Mathmos

Major social change through repression.
Purges -

Eliminated all opposition.

Major industrial change - 5 year plans - and so won ww2

Reply 2

Acta Non Verba

Economic:

Five year plans:

Good for two reasons. The most obvious answer is that it increased economic production greatly within the USSR. Secondly, much of the industry was moved east, to Siberia. The good thing about this was that when the Nazis attacked they were not that close to the big factories key for the USSR's war effort.

Politically he does loads. He very effectively turns the USSR into a totalitarian state via what some people call 'the cult of Stalin', e.g., making himself out to be equal (if not superior) to Lenin, Marx, etc. The purges also serve as an example of how he was able to dominate the USSR's political scene by killing his opposition.

What else does he do politically?

He manages to increase the boarders of the USSR by, for instance, taking land from Poland via the Nazi-Soviet pact. (Well, he gained the land, then lost it then gained it again)

He also increases the Soviet sphere of influence into eastern Europe and indeed it's through that influence that those countries become communist states.

Economic consequences of spreading the USSR's influence?

You could argue that this actually harmed the USSR in the long run, as the USSR was forced to set up economic schemes like COMECON in order to support those eastern states. This was very hard for the USSR to do, as they had suffered greatly at the hands of the Nazis. (24 million deaths in total, I think) In the long term, the fall of the USSR was due to its fragile economy and one of the reasons for its fragile economy was 'global overstretch', i.e., trying to prop up too many communist regimes around the world.

I don't know the scope of your course so I'm sorry if some of this isn't relevant.