Explaining History Podcast

Stalinist Architecture

Explaining History Podcast

Stalinist Architecture

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1–2 minutes

The October Revolution of 1917 was at once a break with the past, a new beginning and sovietsan end of history, three ideas encapsulated within the dialectic of Marxism and the Hegelian eschatology that Marx’s ideas were based upon. A revolution staged by a radical intelligentsia who claimed to have correctly interpreted the processes of history itself was unprecedented, and because of this it would present specific philosophical and aesthetic challenges to the revolution’s heirs who set about building a new society on the ruins of the old.
The revolution of October 1917 had been a based around what its practitioners believed was a scientific analysis of the laws of history. Lenin was focused in his 1902 treatise on revolution ‘What is to be done’, on where Russia stood in its historical development, where exactly in history she was. The conclusion that he reached was that Russia was mired in here own backward peasant past and that a historical ‘short cut’ was necessary to jolt her into the future[i]. This short cut would be the coup of October 1917 and the state built thereafter would construct socialism, thus ushering in the final phase of human existence, Communism.

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For more than a decade, the Explaining History Podcast has helped listeners around the world make sense of modern history. What began in 2012 as a simple experiment—short, accessible episodes explaining major historical events—has grown into a long-running library of carefully researched, thoughtful explorations of the 20th and 21st centuries.

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3 responses to “Stalinist Architecture”

  1. Explaining History Podcast

    […] Hunger, Housing and StalinStalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician, dictator and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. Read More’s First Five Year Plan Stalin and the Gulags Stalinist Architecture CollectivisationCollectivisation Full Description:
    The policy of forced consolidation of individual peasant households into massive, state-controlled collective farms. It represented a declaration of war by the urban state against the rural peasantry, intended to extract grain to fund industrialization. Collectivisation was a radical restructuring of the countryside that abolished private land ownership. The state seized land, livestock, and tools, forcing independent farmers into kolkhozy. Resistance was met with brutal force, including the “liquidation” of wealthier peasants (Kulaks) as a class.
    Critical Perspective:This policy fundamentally altered the relationship between the people and the land. It treated the peasantry not as citizens to be supported, but as an internal colony to be exploited. By establishing a state monopoly on food production, the regime gained the ultimate lever of social control: the power to grant or withhold the means of survival, leading to man-made famines used to crush regional nationalism and resistance.

    Read more     and the Soviet Peasantry: A […]

    Reply
  2. 15 Essential Quotes for an Essay on Stalin’s Five Year Plans – Explaining History Podcast

    […] How did StalinStalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician, dictator and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. Read More rise to power? The Exile of Leon Trotsky Explaining Lenin’s Policy of War Communism and the New Economic Policy What Were Stalin’s Five Year Plans? Goals, Methods, and Results The Soviet Industrial Revolution: How the Five Year Plans Built a Superpower How to Write an Essay on Stalin’s Five Year Plans Why did Stalin choose collectivisationCollectivisation Full Description:
    The policy of forced consolidation of individual peasant households into massive, state-controlled collective farms. It represented a declaration of war by the urban state against the rural peasantry, intended to extract grain to fund industrialization. Collectivisation was a radical restructuring of the countryside that abolished private land ownership. The state seized land, livestock, and tools, forcing independent farmers into kolkhozy. Resistance was met with brutal force, including the “liquidation” of wealthier peasants (Kulaks) as a class.
    Critical Perspective:This policy fundamentally altered the relationship between the people and the land. It treated the peasantry not as citizens to be supported, but as an internal colony to be exploited. By establishing a state monopoly on food production, the regime gained the ultimate lever of social control: the power to grant or withhold the means of survival, leading to man-made famines used to crush regional nationalism and resistance.

    Read more    ? Forced Collectivization in the USSR: The Brutal Backbone of the First Five Year Plan Collectivisation and the Soviet Peasantry: A Short Guide Pravda and Stalin’s Terror Everyday life and terror – 1937 Stalin and HG Wells Stalinist Architecture […]

    Reply
  3. The Soviet Industrial Revolution: How the Five Year Plans Built a Superpower – Explaining History Podcast

    […] How did StalinStalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician, dictator and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. Read More rise to power? The Exile of Leon Trotsky Explaining Lenin’s Policy of War Communism and the New Economic Policy What Were Stalin’s Five Year Plans? Goals, Methods, and Results The Soviet Industrial Revolution: How the Five Year Plans Built a Superpower How to Write an Essay on Stalin’s Five Year Plans Why did Stalin choose collectivisationCollectivisation Full Description:
    The policy of forced consolidation of individual peasant households into massive, state-controlled collective farms. It represented a declaration of war by the urban state against the rural peasantry, intended to extract grain to fund industrialization. Collectivisation was a radical restructuring of the countryside that abolished private land ownership. The state seized land, livestock, and tools, forcing independent farmers into kolkhozy. Resistance was met with brutal force, including the “liquidation” of wealthier peasants (Kulaks) as a class.
    Critical Perspective:This policy fundamentally altered the relationship between the people and the land. It treated the peasantry not as citizens to be supported, but as an internal colony to be exploited. By establishing a state monopoly on food production, the regime gained the ultimate lever of social control: the power to grant or withhold the means of survival, leading to man-made famines used to crush regional nationalism and resistance.

    Read more    ? Forced Collectivization in the USSR: The Brutal Backbone of the First Five Year Plan Collectivisation and the Soviet Peasantry: A Short Guide Pravda and Stalin’s Terror Everyday life and terror – 1937 Stalin and the Gulags Stalin and HG Wells Stalinist Architecture […]

    Reply

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