p 903-913

No, Stalin's methods were not justified. Killing 54 million people is never justifiable, not even for what seems like necessary economic development. I admit that I don't see another way that Russia could have industrialized in time to meet the German attack, but preparedness for war strikes me not exactly the worthiest of goals. According to totalitarianism, the State is everything, and militarism is also high on the list. One of the major tenets of communism, it seems to me, is that the strength of the state comes from the strength of its people. Stalin's approach is only justifiable to himself under a totalitarian system, not a communist one. Industrialization and collectivization, while allowing the Soviets to beat off Germany, only marginally improved the lives of Russians. This article, while it contains some strange sentence structure, brings up a number of good points on both sides of the argument. It shows to me, however, that collectivization did not drastically change grain harvest outputs (indeed, famines resulted) or unify the peasants in nationalist feeling. The main positive point seems to be that it supported industrialization. And while industrialization made Russia ready for the war with Germany, the huge emphasis on large amounts of fast production in Stalin's Five Year Plan made meeting production targets more important than the goods themselves, in terms of quality and utility, so the system was not sound for the long term. Stalin sacrificed the welfare of the people for a long term goal of strengthening the state, but by compressing the long term into a short amount of time, he weakened his system.