Kalinin Era

* **Beginning of the Kalinin rule**

The Era of Kalinin began on 7th of November 1923,when during the massive party elections,Mikhail Kalinin won the party elections,scoring nearly 53% of votes against the other candidates in face of-Iosif Stalin and Leon Trotsky. On 8th November,Mikhail Kalinin became the Chairman of the Presidium of the Russian SFSR. Despite some protests by both the Left and Right wings of the Bolshevik Party,thanks to the efforts of Cheka under Felix Dzerzhinskiy,several party members were arrested and the situation overall was stabilized. Already on 1st of December,Comrade Kalinin began his duty as the Chairman of the new Soviet State.

* **Russia on its way to Socialism.** On December 26, 1922, the Council of people's Commissars of Russia issued a decree "on the elimination of illiteracy in the RSFSR" according to which all the population of Soviet Russia aged 8 to 50 years, who could not read or write, was obliged to learn to read in their native language or in Russian (if desired). The people's Commissariat of Education was given the right to involve all literate persons in teaching the illiterate on the basis of labor service. Due to the fact that it was not necessary to send labor resources to rebuild the country, during the period of the Liqbez, the rate of decline in illiteracy was quite high, resulting in about 65 million illiterates being trained by 1935. In 1928-1935, more than 20 million illiterates and about 20 million illiterates were engaged in the registered schools of the Likbez alone. In order to create its own engineering base, the national system of higher technical education was urgently created. In 1934, Russia introduced universal primary education, and mandatory seven-year education in cities. During the period from 1925 to 1935, universities and technical schools trained about 2 million specialists. Many new technologies were mastered. According to the 1939 census, the literacy rate of people aged 16 to 50 was close to 92%. By the early 1940s, the situation with illiteracy in most areas of the RSF was no longer catastrophic.

* **Industrialization**

At the XII all-Russian Congress of Soviets, which was held in December 1924, the policy of industrialization of the country was adopted. The first Economic Development plan began in 1925. The main task of the planned economy was to increase the economic and military power of the state at the highest possible rate,while not breaking the country into famine. First of all, using propaganda, the country's leadership ensured the mobilization of the population in support of industrialization. Komsomol members in particular received it with enthusiasm. There was some shortage of cheap labor, since there was a problem of agricultural overpopulation,and the reluctance of peasants to enlist into the Worker Battallions. The Industrialization began with the Construction of the Gorki Tractor plant in 1925. The Soviet Industrialization was greatly slowed due to the Germans rejecting any forms of trade,and the own domestic problems of Communal Internationale.

Another specific detail of the Soviet Industrialization was that it still saved some of the NEP elements,like acceptance of cooperative enterprises and Economic Stimulation of Factories with money,thus,while slowing the industrial growth,but allowing the party to maintain between both industrial and agricultural growth of the nation. However,there were truly shifts away from the NEP policies. Such as the expansion of the Economic Beuraus and the Creation of State-Planning Apparatus,which calculated the production and construction for each new year,instead of the Stalin-proposed 5 years,in order to give the Buerau more flexibility.

Attention was also paid to the industrialization of agriculture. Thanks to the emergence of domestic tractor construction, in 1929 the USSR reduced import of tractors from abroad, and in 1931 the Kirov plant in Petrograd began to produce the "Universal" row tractor, which became the first domestic tractor exported abroad,however,mostly used in the domestic usage in order to combat the growing famine threat,as the industrialization progressed. In addition to the mechanization of Agroculture,in 1926,RSFSR resumed the policy of GOELRO,or the mass construction of the electric powerplants through the country.

* **Collectivization**

Despite the measures taken during the NEP period, the collectivization of Russia was slow, as collective farms were not widely distributed in the black earth regions and were distributed mostly in the Northern non-black earth regions. Then in 1927 Kalinin organized the "Committee for the collectivization of land" headed by the Commissioner of internal Affairs Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.

By the decision of the Commission, the propaganda pressure on private owners was increased, and an active struggle against the kulaks, including by force, began. At the beginning of 1928, Stalin secured the allocation of significant funds for the purchase of new tractors for collective farms, as well as increased monetary subsidies. Collective farms received tractors - this luxury was not available only to rich peasant unions and farms. As a result of the mechanization of collective farms, the cost of bread production fell and therefore the state lowered the purchase prices, which caused the ruin of small farms even in the southern regions of the country.Though not without problems,as during the Industrialization,there were several debates on whether the collectivization was forced to be done,or taking a more moderate and soft approach,showing that the collective farming is simply better.

Despite mass protests against lower purchase prices, farmers were reluctant to create collective farms. In 1930, it was allowed to create state farms - the last private farms were United.(at least according to the State Propaganda)

The collapse of peasant farms caused a significant influx of cheap labor to the cities, which accelerated the pace of industrialization. One of the consequences of collectivization is considered to be the famine of 1932-1933, as a result of which Russia had to abandon grain exports and switch to temporary imports, thanks to which, according to foreign experts, millions of lives were saved. In addition, the subordination of rural areas to the state made it possible to combat alcohol more effectively, so in 1932 the level of alcohol consumption per capita was only 0.5 liters per capita per year (although official propaganda announced the complete eradication of alcoholism and moonshine).

* **Beginning of Central Asian transformation of nature**

Because Germany took Ukraine and Belarussia, that have been important agricultural areas for Russian Empire. In early 1930s, famine stroke Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The agronomist Trofim Lysenko planned massive shelterbelts and afforestation belts that will cover southern Russia from drought. With the help of British engineers, only in first year of the afforestation campaign was planted 500 000 hectares of forests belt. At the 17th Party Congress in 1934 Lysenko said that they have to duplicate Ukraine and Belorussia in Kazakhstan. Agricultural production have to be boosted in order to achieve full industrialization.

With the ingineering help of British and Frenchallies, only in few years agricultural output doubled. The measures taken led to increase in grain by 30%, vegetables by 70%, grasses by 200% and animal husbandry and mechanized agriculture by 150%.In the next decades, the USSR achieved big construction projects such as hydroelectric dams and irrigation and transport canals. The Turkmenistan hydroelectric dams produced more than 650 MW and supported irrigation and transportation. In 1933, the Moskva-Volga canal was put under construction, in 1936 beginned the canal Volga-Ural, that was finnished in 1944.

* **Party Purges.**

The Rapid Expansion of the Bueracracy and the Party has created the serious danger of rising corruption,improfessionalism and factionalism within,Chairman Kalinin was forced to enact strict measures against those problems,and begin the small campaign of purges within the party. The official purge started in 1935,the Cheka under Genrikh Yagoda began its massive political repressions mostly targeted against the widespread cronyism and corruption,as well as the radical groups of kulaks and reactionaries within the population.

According to the official data-nearly 340 thousand people were arrested and 290 thousand executed in period of 1923-1946,Although according to the German estimates(based on the captured Japanese information in the city of Chita during the Great East Asian War) more than 1 million were directly represed.

Despite questionable and controversiary methods,the party purges allowed the new Soviet State to Concentrate the bueracratic mechanism in the hands of the state,and seriously damage the corruption.

* **Political intervention.**

Right after the Soviet State was formed,and officially recognised on the international arena,the Soviet Union enstablished the ***Internationale.*** The political-economic and military Union between Commune of France,Union of Argentina and Union of Brittain. In 1935,during the Austrian Civil War,the Cheka alongside with Internationale Special Forces provided a wide range of support to the Commune of Budapest,and then the Soviet Republic of Hungary,which helped the Republic to reconquer much of its territory,but thanks to the increased intervention of the Central Powers,the new Soviet State was crushed by the Germans and Romanians,as well as betrayal of some members of the Hungarian Socialist party in favour of the White Hungary Movement.

After that,the RSFSR was involved in the American Civil War,directly interfering into the conflict,by sending one of the Aviation General-Nikolai Krylov,which was shot down in his plane during the battle of Boston against the invading German Weltreich. Despite the failrue of the Revolution to completely consume the America,the RSFSR got a new important ally in the face of SSA.

* **The Great Asian War**

Officially,the Great Asian War started with a conflict on the Amur river on the small bridge near the Novonikolaevsk when the Japanese soldiers opened fire on the Soviet border guards,thus sparking a border conflict,which soon grew into the outright war. The first months of the conflict were marked with a bitter defeats of the Small Red Army forces in the Far East. The Japanese forces were able to caprure Kamchatka and a large section of the Far East and Baikal. The Red Army was forced to retreat in order to organise and concentrate its forces.

However,thanks to the civil unrest in Sinkiang,the Soviet Army in Turkestan was able to advance deeper into Western China and part of Mongolia. the Japanese Imperial Army was forced to wage war on 2 fronts,which resulted in Series of military defeats on all fronts,and the Soviet Armies reaching pre-war borders by 1942,and later march into Manchuria and Coastal Chinese provinces.

The war ended on 5th of August,signing the Treaty of Vladivostok,in which the RSFSR got back all its pre-war territories (Except the island of Sakhalin and Kurils),complete Japanese withdrawal from China,and handing half of the Korean peninsula under the Soviet Control(the second half remained under the Japanese Control,due to the risk of Weltreich entering the war).

* **Formation of the USSR** The Soviet Union has officially been formed on the 7th of November 1944,in the Anniversuary of the October Revolution. The main reason for the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic in the united state was the fact that the economic and military development of the Socialist Countries on former Russian Empire lands greatly varied,while Russia thrusted into the new era with industrialization and collectivization,the Kazakh and Turkestani SSRs lacked behind due to the lack of experienced cadres in the government and the constant risk of national separatism,which often resulted in the large scales of corruption,mismanagement of resources and military failrues. The fact that the Central Asian SSRs werent participating in the global revolutions alarmed Moscow,which forced it to integreate its central asian neighbours. The USSR included:Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic,Kazakh SSR,Turkestani SSFR(later Disbanded into Kyrguz,Tajik,Uzbek and Turkmen SSRs),Mongolian SSR,Chinese SSR,Manchurian SSR,Xinjiang SSR and Korean SSR,with its capital remaining in Moscow. Despite Critics from French and British Syndicalist,Kalinin explained such harsh centralization as a "needed revision for the success of global socialism". The process of rebuilding began through the country,using the newly aquired resources and manpower,for the new republics to catch up with the most developed republic of Soviet Russia.

* **End of the Era** During the year of 1945,Mikhail Kalinin made his last reform in the new centralization wave finally rejecting the last elements of the New Economic Policy in face of foreign concession and Prodnalog on individual peasants. However,as years have passed,the health of Chairman began to worsen,and Mikhail Kalinin,according to some reports of Cheka,began experiencing severe nightmares and couldnt eat for a long time,instead spending his entire free time in the cabinet. On 3rd of June,1946,Mikhail Kalinin has passed away,thus,ending his era,and giving the way to the new Era of Voroshilov.