3. HIGH STALINISM

Question 1

WHAT WERE THE KEY FEATURES OF HIGH STALINISM

Answer 1

• Unchallenged leadership by stalin
• extreme form of dictatorship
• stalin as heroic leader of great patriotic war
• the stalin cult portrayed him as god like
• a secret police state- renewed terror
• cultural purges in the name of ideological purity
• the party and its institutions weakens or ignored
• rivalries and plots amongsts stalins inner circle
• stalin increasingly withdrawn and paranoid
• deep suspicion of any influences outside the USSR
• a lack of policy reform due to stagnation and inertia at the top of government

Question 2

HOW DID STALINS DICTATORSHIP BECOME EVEN STRONGER DURING TH EWAR

Answer 2

• party sidelined, no party congress between 1939 and 52, polituburo only did what stalin wanted
• red army and heroes downgraded, so they would not challenge stalin
• stalins inner circle were kept divided by stalins schemes and their own rivalries
• terror renewed to ensure people gave absolute obedience to the state

Question 3

HOW DID STALIN RUTHLESSLY ENFORCED THE USSRS ISOLATION FROM THE NON SOCIALIST WORLD

Answer 3

• around 15% of 1.8 million returned prisoners of war were sent to the gulags
• any contact with foreigners could get a person denounced and arrested, 1947 law outlawed marriage to foreigners
• foreign travel by soviet citicens was tighly controlled, few allowed to leave the ussr
• sense of terror was persausive and tens of thousands of soviet citicens continued to be arrested during stalins last years

Question 4

HOW WAS THE NKVD UNDER BERIA STRENGTHENED AND RECOGNISED

Answer 4

• The MVD controlled domestic security and the gulags

- The MGB handled counter intelligence and espinage

Question 5

WHAT ZHDANOVISM AND THE CULTURAL PURGE

Answer 5

• Andrei Zhdanov was appointed to lead cultural policy
• insisted that soviet artist and writers followed party lines, the praise of Stalin and soviet achievements and criticism of American commercialism
• those who did not pubically embody socialist realism had to pubically apologise in order to continue working

Question 6

WHAT WAS STALINS CULT OF PERSOANLITY

Answer 6

• building on his reputation as soviet saviour stalin was portrayed as the worlds greatest living genius
• for example it became customary for all books and articles to start and end with a paragraph aknowledging stalins achievements
• stalins victory in patriotic war replaced lenins revolution as greatest acheivement in soviet history
• stalin portrayed as teh man of the people, who was instinctively in touch with what an everage worker was thinking
• towns and cities competed for honour of being named after stalin, even a moment for moscow to be renamed stalindoar
• stalin prizes were launched in the USSR as it flet soviets were being excluded from winning as many prizes as they deserved

Question 7

WHAT WAS THE LENINGRAD AFFAIR

Answer 7

• Stalin was suspicious of the party base in Leningrad because his rivals had often built up a power base
• Stalin did not like the ways Leningraders glorified their heroic struggle to survive their 872 day siege during the great patriotic war, there had been accusations that Stalin could’ve done more to help the city
• 1948, zhadanov appeared to be out of favour with stalin, when he then died in august stalin launched a purge of the leningrad party
• leading party officials such as voznesenski were arretsed, investigated and executed in 1950, most people had owed their positions to Zhdanov
• by 1950 2000 party officials had been dismissed and replaced by pro stalin communists

Question 8

WHAT WERE STALINS PURGES

Answer 8

• leningrad affair was the first major party purge 1938
• the next case was mingrelian case in 51 targetting party officials in georgia who were mainly from the mingrelian ethnic group
• beria was a mingrelian and accusations mainly against followers of beria, many were also accused of conspiring with jewish plotters
• stalin was using the accusation to contain berias power, teh accusation were still being made at the time of stalins death

Question 9

WHAT WAS THE DOCTORS PLOT

Answer 9

• a doctor called lydia timashuk accused the doctors who had treated zhdanov of contributing to his death in august 1948
• in 1952, stalin used this complaint as a reason to arrest many jewish doctors for participants in a zionist conspiracy to harm the ussr on behalf of israel and its ally, the usa
• other jewish people were caught up in the purge including the jewish wives of molotov and kalinin, thousands of ordinary people were also arrested and deproted to the gulag
• nin esenior doctors were condemened to detah but stalins own death saved them from execution