Joseph Stalin Single Party Paper

1. Discuss the conditions (political/economic/social) in the country that enable/produced the single party state?

Russia by 1918 appeared to be in the hands of the communists (the Bolshevik Party) led by Lenin. The Provisional Government had been overthrown and the Bolsheviks had appeared to have gained power in Russia and that the country's problems seemed to be over. Lenin controlled just a strip of land that ran form Petrograd to Moscow. He did not control any other area in the vast country. There were also many people who hated the thought of communists having control over them and many who wanted the tsar back in power. All the groups that opposed Lenin were called the Whites. A civil war broke out in Russia with the Whites fighting to get rid of the Reds who were the Communists. Russia was also still fighting in World War One. Lenin pulled Russia out of the war with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed in March 1918. The treaty was harsh because Russia was to loose a great deal of land which included sixty million people to the Germans. The land also included twenty-five percent of her farming land and seventy-five percent of her iron ore and coal deposits. But the treaty got Russia out of the war and allowed Lenin the time to concentrate on home issues. In the factories, the government took complete control. The workers who had been given to right to run factories, had that right taken away. Managers ran them and discipline was strict. Food was rationed. Workers and soldiers received the most while civil servants received little (Trueman).

By 1921, Lenin had come through all of these problems and was the head of a communist government in Russia. However in 1921 the conditions of Russia during the time period...