Chapter 23 - 'High Stalinism', 1945-53 Flashcards
Why were many aspects of Stalin’s dictatorship softened during the Great Patriotic War?
The regime sought to mobilise the patriotism of the people
What was ‘High Stalinism’?
The culmination of Stalin’s regime, lasting from 1945-53. It was the most extreme expression of Stalinism
What are the 11 features of High Stalinism?
- Unchallenged leadership by Stalin
- An extreme form of dictatorship
- Stalin as the heroic leader of the Great Patriotic War
- The Stalin cult portrayed him as god-like and apart from others
- A secret police state: renewed terror
- Cultural purges in the name of ideological ‘purity’
- The Party and its institutions weakened or ignored
- Rivalries and plots among Stalin’s inner circle
- Stalin increasingly withdrawn and paranoid
- Deep suspicion of any influence from outside the USSR
- A lack of policy reform due to stagnation and inertia at the top of government
How did Stalin’s dictatorship becoming even stronger than before affect the Party?
It was sidelined; there were no party congresses between 1939 and 59. The Politburo and Central Committee did only what Stalin ordered
How did Stalin’s dictatorship becoming even stronger than before affect the Red Army and its heroes?
They were downgraded so they wouldn’t challenge Stalin e.g. war hero Marshal Zhukov was sent to Odessa to a lower-level command in 1946
How did Stalin’s dictatorship becoming even stronger than before affect Stalin’s inner circle?
They were kept divided by Stalin’s schemes and their own rivalries e.g. Malenkov and Beria plotted against Zhdanov and engineered his downfall in 1948
How did Stalin’s dictatorship becoming even stronger than before affect terror?
It was renewed to ensure people gave their absolute obedience to the state
What is totalitarianism?
A system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state.
Why did Stalin ruthlessly enforce the USSR’s isolation from the non-socialist world?
- For security reasons as the Cold War intensified
- For fear of Soviets losing their ideological commitment (e.g. if they saw how much better people lived in other countries)
What percentage of returned POWs were sent to the gulags and why?
15% of 1.8 million
It was an offence for any Red Army soldier to surrender and there were also suspicions that they might have collaborated with the Germans
What was the Soviet attitude towards foreigners?
Any contact with foreigners could get a person denounced and arrested
Marriage to foreigners outlawed in 1947
What was the Soviet attitude towards foreign travel?
Travel by Soviet citizens was tightly controlled, few were allowed to leave the USSR
How many wartime survivors were sent to the Gulags in total?
12 million
What was terror like in Stalin’s last few years?
The sense of terror was pervasive and tens of thousands of Soviet citizens continued to be arrested, sometimes for no more than a few careless words
What was Lavrentii Beria’s role after the war?
He was:
- NKVD chief
- deputy prime minister
- a full member of the Politburo
- the head of the USSR’s atomic weapons programme
How did the NKVD change under Beria?
It was strengthened and reorganised as two seperate ministries: the MVD and MGB
What was the MVD and what did it control?
The Ministry of Internal Affairs, which controlled domestic security and the gulags
What was the MGB and what did it control?
The Ministry of State Security, which handled counter-intelligence and espionage
What did Andrei Zhdanov insist on?
That Soviet artists and writers follow Party lines: socialist realism, the praise of Stalin and Soviet achievements, and criticism of American commercialism and inequalities
Who was appointed to lead cultural policy in 1946?
Andrei Zhdanov
What happened to those whose work didn’t embody socialist realism?
They had to publicy apologise in order to continue working
How did Zhdanov affect literature?
He purged Zoshchenko’s ‘The Adventures of a Monkey’ (seemed to mock the difficulties of Soviet life) and a collection of poems by Anna Akhmatova (criticised for lacking ideological content)
Both were expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers
How did Zhdanov affect music?
Criticised Shostakovich and Prokofiev for ‘rootless cosmopolitanism’ and ‘anti-socialist tendencies’
Both were removed from their teaching posts and Prokofiev’s wife was imprisoned
How did Zhdanov affect Western cultural influences?
They were blocked
It was impossible to get non-communist newspapers and only a few approved foreign books were translated into Russian
How did Trofim Lysenko hamper Soviet scientific development?
He dominated the Academy of Sciences; new theories or lines of research were suppressed if they somehow contradicted Marxist principles
How was Stalin portrayed?
- The world’s greatest living genius, equally superior in all areas of philosophy, science, military strategy and economics
e.g. it became customary for all books and articles to start and end with a paragraph acknowledging Stalin’s genius on the subject - A man of the people
- Instinctively in touch with what the average worker was thinking
How was Stalin in reality?
- Increasingly isolated
- Often misled by his own propagandists
What became the greatest event in Soviet and Russian history?
Stalin’s victory in the Great Patriotic War
What honour did towns and cities compete for?
Being named after Stalin
There was a movement for Moscow to be renamed Stalinodar
Why were Stalin prizes launched?
It was felt that Soviets were being excluded from winning as many Nobel prizes as they deserved
Why was Stalin suspicious of the Party’s base in Leningrad?
His rivals had often built up a power base there e.g. Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kirov and Zhdanov
What else did Stalin not like about Leningrad?
How the Leningraders glorified their heroic struggle to survive their 872-day siege during the war.
What did the Leningraders accuse Stalin of after the siege?
Not doing enough to help the city, such as airdrops of food or large-scale evacuations
When did Zhdanov appear to be out of favour with Stalin?
1948
When did Zhdanov die and what of?
August 1948, from a heart attack
What did Stalin do after Zhdanov’s death?
Launch a purge of the Leningrad Party (the Leningrad affair)
Who was arrested in the Leningrad affair?
Leading Party officials, most of whom had owed their positions to Zhdanov (e.g. Nikolai Voznesenki) were arrested, interrogated and executed in 1950
When did the Leningrad affair take place?
1940s - early 1950s
What was the outcome of the Leningrad affair by 1950?
2000 Party officials had been dismissed and replaced by pro-Stalin communists
What was the next major Party purge after the Leningrad affair?
The ‘Mingrelian Case’ in 1951
Who did the ‘Mingrelian Case’ target?
Party officials in Georgia who were mainly from the Mingrelian ethnic group
Beria was Mingrelian and the accusations were mainly against his followers, many also accused of conspiring with ‘Jewish plotters’
What was Stalin using the ‘Mingrelian case’ to do?
Contain Beria’s power
Who was accused of what in the Doctors’ plot?
Doctor (and police informer) Lydia Timashuk accused the doctors who treated Zhdanov of contributing to his death
What did Stalin use the Doctors’ plot as an excuse to do?
Arrest many Jewish doctors for participating in a ‘Zionist conspiracy’ to harm the USSR on behalf of Israel and the US
Who else was caught up in the Doctors’ plots?
Other Jewish people, including the wives of Molotov and Kalinin
1000s of ordinary Jewish people also arrested and sent to the gulag
What was the outcome of the Doctors’ plots?
9 senior doctors were condemned to death but weren’t executed because Stalin died
