Hello, I'm Mr Marchant, and I'll be your history teacher for today.

I'm really looking forward to starting our learning journey together, and my role will be to make sure that you can meet today's learning objective.

Welcome to today's lesson, which is part of our unit on the Russian Revolution, where we've been asking ourselves, did communism completely transform life in Russia? By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to assess the extent of political and economic change which took place in Soviet Russia in the 1920s and 1930s.

There are five key words which are gonna help us navigate our way through today's lesson.

Those are dictatorship, purge, gulag, industrialization, and collectivization.

A dictatorship is a country where the leaders have absolute power.

A purge involves getting rid of people who do not agree with you.

A gulag was part of a system of work prisons, set up in the USSR.

The process of developing a country's manufacturing industries is known as industrialization.

And collectivization was a policy which reorganised Soviet agriculture to work as a system of large modernised farms. So today's lesson will be split into three parts and we'll begin by focusing on political change in Soviet Russia.

By 1921, the Bolsheviks had emerged victorious from the Russian Civil War.

By this point, the Bolsheviks had renamed themselves as the Communist Party.

The areas under communist control were also renamed in 1922, becoming known as the Soviet Union or the USSR.

Until they were overthrown, tsars had ruled over Russia with absolute power.

Tsars used the secret police and army to help remove any opposition to themselves.

After the February revolution in 1917, the provisional government strengthened Russian's political rights, providing people with increased freedom to oppose the government.

This included abolishing the secret police.

At the end of the Civil War, Lenin's Communist Party made their own political changes.

All parties other than the communists were banned, turning the Soviet Union into a single party dictatorship.

Only the communist party had the legal right to govern the country, those who challenged the communists risk becoming victims of the Soviet Secret Police set up by the Communist Party.

So let's make sure our understanding is secure.

I want you to write the missing key word in the following sentence, "The USSR became a single party blank." So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see what the missing word is.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the missing word was dictatorship.

The USSR became a single party dictatorship.

It was only the communist party that had a legal right to govern in the Soviet Union.

And let's try another question.

Which statement is most accurate? After tsarist rule ended in Russia, there was no longer any use of a secret police force to control opposition.

After tsarist rule ended in Russia, the provisional government still used a secret police force to control opposition.

Or after tsarist rule ended in Russia, the communists still used a secret police force to control opposition.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the correct answer was C.

After tsarist rule ended in Russia, the communists still used a secret police force of their own to control opposition.

In January, 1924, Lenin died.

This began a period of rivalry for power between leading communists.

By 1928, Joseph Stalin had emerged as the leader of the Communist Party and the USSR, defeating rivals in a party such as Leon Trotsky and Nikolai Bukharin.

After becoming leader, Stalin tried hard to ensure that his leadership would remain secure.

In 1929, Trotsky was exiled from the Soviet Union, and Bukharin was forced out of important positions in the Communist Party.

However, Stalin continued to feel insecure and began a period known as the purges in the 1930s, using the secret police to remove those he considered threats.

In 1935, over 1,000 senior communists were arrested.

In 1938, Bukharin was accused of plotting against Stalin, put on trial and executed.

In 1940, one of Stalin's agents assassinated Trotsky.

The purges affected more than just leading communists, though.

In 1937, the Red Army was purged, its commander in chief and several other generals who Stalin had disagreed with during the Civil War were executed.

Even ordinary peasants and workers were purged.

It's been estimated that more than a million people were arrested by the Soviet Secret Police during 1937 and 1938.

Of these people, about half of them were killed.

The remaining victims were sent to labour camps, known as gulags.

By 1938, around 7 million victims were living in gulags, where they were forced to do hard manual work on construction and mining projects.

So let's make sure our understanding of what we've just heard is secure.

Which statement describes the purges most accurately? Only members of the Communist Party were purged.

The purges mainly focused on ordinary people.

Or ordinary people, and those in power were purged.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the correct answer was C.

Ordinary people and those in power were purged.

Although a lot of leading communists were targeted during the purges, many ordinary people such as peasants and industrial workers also found themselves purged.

And now we have a statement on the screen that reads "All victims of the purges were executed".

Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Well done to everybody who said that statement is false, but we need to be able to justify our response.

So two justifications have appeared on the screen.

The first says that millions of victims were sent into exile in foreign countries, and the second says that millions of victims were sent to do forced labour in gulags.

So which one of those two justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Well done to everybody who said that the correct justification was B, millions of victims were sent to do forced labour in gulags.

They often had to do hard manual labour, such as working on mining projects and construction efforts.

So now we're ready to put all of our understanding of political change in the Soviet Union into practise.

We have a statement on the screen that says opposition was severely restricted in the Soviet Union.

I want you to provide two examples which show that the statement is correct.

So pause the video here, write your examples, and press play when you're ready to reflect on your answers.

Okay, well done for all of your effort on that task.

So we had the statement which said "Opposition was severely restricted in the Soviet Union", and I asked you to provide two examples which could show that the statement was correct.

Your answer may have included that the Communist Party was the only legal party in the Soviet Union.

Another example which could support our statement is that Jose's Stalin had former rivals, like Leon Trotsky and Nikolai Bukharin, killed during the purges.

So really well done if your own responses looked something similar to those examples we've just worked through.

And now we're ready to move on to the second part of today's lesson where we are gonna focus on economic concerns in the Soviet Union.

Stalin was concerned about the state of the Soviet economy.

After becoming leader of the Communist Party and the Soviet Union, Stalin once said the history of Russia shows that because of her backwardness, she was constantly defeated.

Today we are 50 or 100 years behind the advanced countries.

So what did Stalin say was wrong with Soviet Russia's economy? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your response.

Well done to everybody who said that Stalin was concerned that Soviet Russia's economy was not modernised enough.

Soviet Russia's economy seemed to be leaving it at risk from other countries.

If Russia continued to fall behind those countries would find it even easier to attack it in future.

So thinking about what we've heard so far, how far behind did Stalin claim Soviet Russia's economy was compared to advanced countries? Was it 10 to 20 years? 50 to 100 years? Or 200 to 300 years? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Well done to everybody who said the correct answer was B.

Stalin claimed that the Soviet economy was 50 to 100 years behind the advanced countries like Britain and the USA.

Stalin was most concerned about two key areas of the economy, agriculture, and industry.

So let's have a think about what Soviet agriculture was like by 1927.

At the time when Stalin was starting to secure his power as a leader.

Most farming was done by peasants on small plots of land.

Very little machinery was used.

In fact, by looking at our table, we can see that very clearly.

The USA and Soviet Union had similar populations in 1927.

But if we look at the number of tractors which existed and were in use in both countries, there were half a million tractors being used in the USA, whereas in the Soviet Union, which actually had a slightly bigger population than Americas, there were only 7,000 tractors in 1927.

So we can see there was a very significant difference in the use of farming machinery.

In 1927 to 1928, the Soviet Union also suffered a grain crisis.

The Soviet government missed its grain collection targets by 2 million tonnes.

So these were all key concerns for Stalin.

So let's check our understanding of Soviet agriculture and why it would create concerns for Stalin.

There's a statement on the screen that says, "The painting shows that Soviet agriculture was not very modernised before 1927." So thinking about the painting you can see, is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Well done to everybody who said that statement is true, but we need to be able to justify our response.

So two justifications have appeared on the screen.

The first says that children are completing some of the farm work, and the second says that handheld tools are being used for all of the work.

Which one of those two justifications is best for supporting our original statement? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Well done to everybody who said that the best justification was B.

We can see in the painting that handheld tools are being used for all of the work.

In other words, there isn't modern machinery such as tractors being used.

And that gives us a good impression of how Soviet agriculture was not very modernised before 1927.

So now we can think about Soviet industry by 1927.

And again, it helps for us to look at some comparisons between the Soviet Union and other countries in the world.

Now, coal output in the USA was 527.

9 million tonnes by 1927.

In Germany, there was 304.

4 million tonnes of coal being produced per year by 1927.

In Britain, it was slightly less, 255.

3 million tonnes being produced.

But in the USSR, only 32.

3 million tonnes of coal were being produced in 1927.

In other words, the coal output of the Soviet Union was only a fraction of much smaller countries, such as Britain and Germany, and significantly short of the amount of coal being produced by the USA, which had a similar population and more comparable size.

If we think about steel production, which is an even better indication of how industrialised a country is, the USA was producing 48 million tonnes of steel per year by 1927.

In Germany, this figure was 16.

3 million tonnes, and in Britain 9.

2 million tonnes.

However, in the Soviet Union, that figure was just 2.

9 million tonnes.

These statistics clearly showed the Soviet union's industry lagging behind that of other advanced countries.

So thinking about what we've just seen and heard, which statement is correct, the USSR produced less coal and steel than the USA Germany and Britain in 1927.

The USSR produced less coal and steel than the USA and Germany, but more than Britain in 1927, or the USSR produced less coal and steel than the USA, but more than Germany and Britain in 1927.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Well done to everybody who said the correct answer was A.

The USSR produced less coal and steel than the USA Germany and Britain in 1927.

It clearly did lag behind some of the leaders in industry.

So now we're ready to put all of our understanding into practise.

So I want you to answer the following question, why was Stalin concerned about the Soviet economy in the late 1920s? Use sentence starters below and evidence for this lesson to help you with your answer.

So your sentence starters are, Stalin was concerned about the Soviet economy in the late 1920s because, for example, pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your response.

Well done for all of your hard work on that task.

So I asked you why was Stalin concerned about the Soviet economy in the late 1920s? Your answer may have included.

Stalin was concerned about the Soviet economy in the late 1920s because he believed it was not modernised enough and had fallen far behind other countries.

For example, the USA had 500,000 tractors in use on its farms in 1927, whereas the USSR had only 7,000 tractors in use at the same time.

So well done if your own answer looks something like that model.

And now we are ready to move on to the third and final part of our lesson for today where we are gonna focus on economic change in the Soviet Union.

Under Stalin, two key policies were introduced with the aim of transforming, in other words, completely changing the economy of the Soviet Union.

These policies were collectivization of agriculture and rapid industrialization.

Stalin's plans for collectivization, involved grouping the land farmed by different peasants together, these collectivised farms would be large enough to use modern machinery like tractors, which would help increase food production.

Analysts estimated that the USSR required 250,000 tractors to fully modernise its agriculture.

These changes would then allow the Soviet state to take a fixed amount of grain from each collective farm, which could be used to feed industrial workers in towns and cities.

Collectivization began in 1928.

Most peasants disliked the idea of having to work on collective farms. And Stalin used the Red Army and Secret Police to force peasants to collectivise.

Nevertheless, whereas just 1% of farms were collectivised in 1927, by 1939, 96% of farms across the Soviet Union had been collectivised.

Soviet collective farms was supplied with a total of 120,000 tractors for farmers to use.

The amount of grain secured by the Soviet state rose every year between 1928 and 1933, from 10,800,000 tonnes of grain to 22,600,000 tonnes.

However, the total amount of grain actually produced in the Soviet Union fell.

Until 1940, the amount of grain produced in the USSR was lower than it had been in 1914.

This led to serious food shortages and famine, especially in Ukraine from 1932 to '33, which killed up to 10 million people.

So thinking about what we've heard so far, which statement is most accurate? Almost all Russian farms were collectivised between 1928 and 1939.

Roughly half of all Russian farms were collectivised between 1928 and 1939, or almost no Russian farms were collectivised between 1928 and 1939.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Well done to everybody who said that the correct answer was A, almost all Russian farms were collectivised between 1928 and 1939, whereas only 1% of farms had been collectivised in 1927, this statistic stood at 96% by 1939.

And let's try another question.

We have a statement that says, "Collectivization led to increases in grain production between 1928 and 1933." Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Well done to everybody who said that statement is false.

But we need to be able to justify our response.

So two justifications have appeared on the screen.

The first says that less grain was produced and the Soviet state was able to secure smaller grain supplies.

The second says, less grain was produced, although the Soviet state was able to secure greater grain supplies.

So which one of those two justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Well done to everybody who said the correct justification was B.

Less grain was produced between 1928 and 1933 although the Soviet state was able to secure greater grain supplies.

The fall in grain production overall was largely the result of peasant resistance to collectivization.

It wasn't popular, but the Soviet state still made sure that it was taking greater amounts of grain.

And let's try one final question.

"Ukrainians call the ears from 1932 to '33 the Holodomor.

Holodomor means death by hunger in Ukrainian.

So why is the period for 1932 to '33 been described in this way?" Is it because collectivization created a widespread famine because opponents of collectivization were starved in Gulags or because the Red Army shot peasants who oppose collectivization? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Well done to everybody who said the correct answer is A.

The years from 1932 to '33 are being called the Holodomor because collectivization created a widespread famine that was responsible for killing up to 10 million people.

By 1922, industrial production in the USSR was not only lower than in Britain, Germany, and the USA, but it was also lower than the levels of industrial production seen in Tsarist Russia.

By 1912, rapid industrialization focused on modernising and increasing manufacturing in the Soviet Union.

Beginning in 1928, Stalin introduced new targets for increased production in Soviet industry.

These were known as the five year plans.

By 1940, the USSR was the world's second largest industrial economy behind only the USA and ahead of both Britain and Germany.

You can see from the table on the screen how the USSR had caught up with a country such as Britain in coal output, though it was still a little bit behind, and how it actually overtaken Britain in areas such as steel production.

Under the five year plans, some new industrial centres, such as the town of Magnitogorsk, where steel and iron was manufactured, had been built from scratch.

In just three years, Magnitogorsk's population grew in 25 people to 250,000 people.

Improvements in industry were important as they helped supply collectivised farms with the increasing numbers of tractors, which they needed.

The quality of Soviet industry remained an issue though.

Many of those employed in Soviet factories were unskilled workers who were unfamiliar with the machines they had to use.

As a result, half of all the tractors produced in the Soviet Union for collective farms soon broke down.

Similarly, huge amounts of the iron and steel manufactured at Magnitogorsk, were found to be unusable.

So thinking about what we've just heard, I want you to write the missing word in the following sentence.

To help you, the Russian version of the missing word has also been written out.

So our sentence says, "New industrial towns like blank grew rapidly as part of Stalin's five year plan." So what's the missing word? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Well done to everybody who said the missing word was Magnitogorsk.

"New industrial towns like Magnitogorsk grew rapidly as part of Stalin's five year plans." And let's try another question.

Which statement is correct? The USSR had become the biggest industrial economy by 1939 ahead of the USA, Germany and Britain, the USSR's industrial economy was bigger than Germany and Britain's by 1939, but smaller than the USA's.

Or the USSR's industrial economy remained smaller than the USA's, Germany's and Britain's by 1939.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Well done to everybody who said that the correct answer was B.

The USSR's industrial economy was bigger than Germany and Britain's by 1939, but smaller than the USA's.

So the USSR had become the second biggest industrial economy in the entire world.

And now we've got a statement on the screen that says, "The five year plans focused equally on improving the quantity and quality of Soviet industrial production." Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Well done to everybody who said that statement is false, but we need to be able to justify our response.

So two justifications have appeared on the screen.

The first says that tractor production in the USSR only increased by 50%, but all of these tractors worked.

The second says that tractor production in the USSR increased significantly, but only half of these tractors worked.

So, which one of those two statements is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that B was the correct answer.

Tractor production in the USSR increased significantly, but only half of these tractors worked.

It means that some historians have argued the five year year plans prioritised quantity over quality.

So now we're ready to put all of our knowledge into practise.

We have a statement that says, "Stalin's policies changed the Soviet economy, but failed to transform it by 1939." Now keep in mind when we talk about if something's transformed, we're asking about whether it's been completely changed.

So how far do you agree with the statement? Write one paragraph about Soviet agriculture and another one about Soviet industry to explain your answer.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your responses.

Okay, lots for you to think about as part of this task.

So really well done for all of your effort.

So we had the statement which said, "Stalin's policies changed the Soviet economy, but failed to transform it by 1939." And I asked how far you agreed with that statement.

Your answer may have included, "Stalin's economic policies did transform Soviet agriculture.

In 1927, just 1% of farms were collectivised and most Soviet farming took place on small individual plots of land.

By 1939, 96% of Soviet farms had been collectivised.

This shows that Stalin's economic policies completely changed the way that Soviet agriculture was organised as farms became much larger and farm workers use modern machinery such as tractors." So well done if your own answer on agriculture looks something like that paragraph there.

Now we also needed a second paragraph discussing industry.

So your answer may have included "Stalin's economic policies change Soviet industry but did not transform it.

In 1927, Soviet industry was smaller than the USA's, Britain's and Germany's.

But by 1939, only the USA had a larger industrial economy." This shows that Stalin's five year plans significantly increased the output Soviet industry.

However, these improvements were not matched by improvements in the quality of Soviet industry.

So the change was not transformational.

What's really key here is that this answer really thinks about what is it that counts as transformation rather than just change.

And it identifies certain continuities that discounts the idea.

And that's really what your own answer had to be grappling with.

So well done for all of your effort on that task, especially if your answers look something like the models, which we've just seen.

And that means we've now reached the end of today's lesson, which puts us in a good position to summarise our learning.

We've seen that the Soviet Union was a single party dictatorship.

Stalin became leader of the Soviet Union after Lenin's death,.

Stalin used the secret police to purge those who might oppose him.

Stalin introduced collectivization and rapid industrialization in 1928 to modernise the Soviet economy.

The Soviet state was able to secure greater amounts of food by the 1930s, but overall agricultural production actually fell.

And the USSR became the second largest industrial economy, but the quality of its industry remained a problem.

So thank you for all of your hard work during today's lesson.

It's been a pleasure to help guide you through it, and I look forward to seeing you again in future as we think further about the Russian revolutions and whether communism really transformed life in Russia.