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Trotsky Vs Stalin Essay

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1. What were some of the key differences between Trotsky and Stalin
Leon Trotsky was Lenin’s “right hand man”; he helped build the Red Army and played a key role in the Bolshevik Revolution. Stalin, on the other hand, had just risen to the general secretary of the Communist party. Another difference was that Trotsky was a scholar who came from the middle class while Stalin was a “thug” and grew up very poor. In addition to physical differences, the two were also different fundamentally. Trotsky, like Lenin, believed in “permanent revolution”. This meant that he believed Socialists could only build the ideal society in the Soviet Union until after the whole world had experienced Socialist revolutions. Stalin, in contrast, believed it was …show more content…

This program, that replaced the NEP, set economic goals for a five year period. The plan brought all industrial and agricultural production under governmental control. In addition, this plan provided housing, healthcare, and other services.

3. How were the Five Year Plans ineffective? What did they nevertheless accomplish?
The Five Year Plans were very inefficient. This is shown by the costs that the plan came with. The terrible working conditions, low wages, and limited food resulted in millions of deaths. The inefficiency of this plan is also evidenced by the collective farms, which were unable to provide a sufficient amount of food. Despite many the negatives, this plan did transform the Soviet Union into an industrial power.

4. What was collectivization? What was the unintended negative outcome thereof?
Collectivization was Stalin’s plan to have the government own the farmland and have all of the peasants come to work on it. This meant that the peasants had to leave their own farms (which sometimes had historic roots) and come work on the government's farm. At theses farms, the peasants couldn’t benefit from their hard work as well (at their old farms if they worked hard they could get more money for their families). This resulted in peasants fighting back against the plans. Thousands of these protesting peasants were killed or arrested and sent to labor camps in

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