Russia and Its Neighbors - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 220

not industrial workers. Lenin revised Marx to say that the poor peasants,
who were the vast majority, were natural allies of the industrial workers,
whereas the wealthy peasants were the natural allies of the capitalists.
Lenin considered that a major task for the party was to build an alliance
between the poor peasants and the industrial workers.
Josef Stalin, who came to power in 1924 after the death of Lenin, was
a ruthless dictator. In 1928 he reversed a short experiment in economic
flexibility and mandated government control of the economy. Soon he
ordered collectivization of agriculture, which proved a disaster. The more
prosperous peasants who objected to having their farms seized were exiled
or shot. At this time Stalin began the first Five-Year Plan encompass-
ing all industry. By the 1930s he became obsessed with gaining absolute
power and began a series of purges. Many of the original Communists
were accused of disloyalty, found guilty in show trials, and executed. The
next step was to purge army officers who might be disloyal. Those not shot
were sent to prison camps in Siberia and remote places, a system known
as the gulag. The German invasion in 1941 forced Stalin to moderate his
harshest policies. He needed the support of the people and the skills of
the army officers. After the defeat of Germany in 1945, Stalin returned
to totalitarianism.
After Stalin's death in 1953, power passed to Nikita Khrushchev, who
ended the worst abuses but continued strict control of the Communist
Party. The economy was run according to Five Year Plans, with emphasis
on heavy industries like steel, chemicals, cement, and heavy machinery.
These all polluted the air and water. Later Khrushchev tried to provide more
consumer goods for the ordinary citizen but was only partially successful.
His modest attempts at liberalization threatened the old-line Communists,
who forced him from power in 1964. His successor was Leonid Brezhnev,
who perpetuated the old policies of strict control by the Party and by the
Moscow hierarchy. The consequence was economic stagnation.
This was not a good era for the environment either. Performance contin-
ued to be measured by gross productivity, that is, the more tons of steel or
numbers of tractors manufactured the better. The efficiency in producing
the steel or tractors was not counted. External damage to air or water was
not relevant.
By the time of Brezhnev's death from old age in 1982, he was unable to
cope and nearly senile. But after brief terms by two other old men, who
soon died, even the old-line Communists realized it was time for reform.
They put Mikhail Gorbachev in power. Gorbachev advocated moderate