Stalinism

“Stalin sought to mobilise the human and material resources of a backward country to catch up with the west by barbarous means” -Historian Alec Nove, 1992
With reference to the quote and your own knowledge, evaluate the impact of Stalinism on the Soviet State to 1938
The methods used by Stalin in his attempt to mobilise the human and material resources of his backward Soviet Russia were barbarous by standards of his country and ironically, broke many of the standards in place of the west, the civilisation he wished to catch up with by these means. His collectivisation of agriculture attempted to mobilise the material resources of the Soviet State, while the 'Great Purge' allowed Stalin to organise his human resources, the impact of Stalinism clearly visible through both the wrongly imprisoned thousand sand loss of political variety as consequences of these barbarous methods.

Collectivisation of the agricultural land in Soviet Russia was a scheme put into operation in 1929 by Stalin with the aim of increasing crop production, to both boost the economy of Russia and allow for   the purchase of machinery the dictator correctly deemed necessary for the industrial growth of Russia in keeping up with the west. While it was a fair idea in theory, the concept was proved much different from the reality through it's brutal execution. The idea of collectivisation was to abolish all individual land rights owned by the peasants and create kolkhozes, collective farms in which individual land and labour were rolled into one. This was seen to be the resolution to the crisis of agricultural distribution that had developed in Soviet Russia since 1927, as three outcomes expected of collectivisation were   increases in food supply for the urban population, raw materials for industrial works and agricultural exports.   As fair as this concept seemed however, equality in an improved Russia was not the result; As collectivisation was voluntary, the scheme was heavily dependant on the...