Government, Propaganda and Foreign Relations

Question 1

What was key to Stalin’s style of government?

Answer 1

Bureaucratic centralism

Question 2

What was bureaucratic centralism?

Answer 2

Government controlled from the centre; this includes the central appointment of district officers and other party officials

Question 3

How was Stalin’s government presented?

Answer 3

As a continuation of Lenin’s legacy

Question 4

What was the driving force in Stalin’s system of government?

Answer 4

Fear: his henchmen were scared, not only of Stalin, but of each other

Question 5

How did the secret police change?

Answer 5

Renamed the OGPU (Joint State Political Directorate) in 1926, the role of the secret police became even more pervasive under Dzerzhinsky’s successor, Menzhinsky

Question 6

How could Stalin justify his use of terror?

Answer 6

Lenin had done so, so Stalin could claim he was just continuing Lenin’s legacy

Question 7

How was propaganda used to ‘sell’ the first Five Year Plan in 1928?

Answer 7

It was portrayed as the work of the all-knowing ‘Great Leader’, Stalin, who was frequently depicted alongside Lenin and Marx

Question 8

Example of a slogan used by Stalin?

Answer 8

‘Stalin is the Lenin of today’

Question 9

What imagery did some propaganda use to appeal to the peasantry?

Answer 9

Used imagery and icons connected to tsarist Russia as these were familiar to traditional peasant society

Question 10

How and why did Stalin perpetuate the cult of Lenin?

Answer 10

Wanted to portray Lenin as a god-like figure in order to portray himself as his disciple and heir

e.g. Stalin insisted on having Lenin’s body embalmed and his tomb turned into a shrine (against the wishes of Lenin’s wife)

Question 11

Who were Stalin’s chief representatives in foreign affairs?

Answer 11

Chicherin and his deputy, Litvinov

Question 12

Who did Stalin support in China?

Answer 12

The Guomindang - revolutionary-nationalist movement (as opposed to the CCP)

Question 13

Example of the GMD being bad

Answer 13

1926 - massacred striking workers in Canton

1927 - viciously suppressed communist-led workers’ revolts

1927 - massacred around 30,000 striking workers in Wuhan

Question 14

Why did Trotsky criticise Stalin’s attitude towards China?

Answer 14

Said Stalin had betrayed the CCP (however, Trotsky’s influence was waning and Stalin’s policy of ‘socialism in one country’ was supported enough that this wasn’t an issue)

Question 15

When was the Treaty of Berlin signed?

Answer 15

1926

Question 16

What was the Treaty of Berlin?

Answer 16

A promise between Russia and Germany to maintain positive diplomatic relations

Litvinov called it ‘an amplification of the Treaty of Rapallo’

Question 17

How did Stalin support the GMD?

Answer 17

Gave them financial backing and military help

Question 18

Economic clauses of the Treaty of Berlin?

Answer 18

Article 3 - promise not to join any economic boycott against the other

Question 19

Political clauses of the Treaty of Berlin?

Answer 19

Article 2 - if either country was attacked by a third party, the other would remain neutral in the conflict

Question 20

How long was the Treaty of Berlin to be in effect for?

Answer 20

5 years

Question 21

Economic benefit for the USSR of good relations with Germany?

Answer 21

In June 1926, the USSR received large financial credits from German banks

Question 22

How had Stalin viewed the Comintern between 1924-29?

Answer 22

Low priority as he had been far more concerned with internal affairs

Question 23

When did Stalin announce his changing attitude to foreign affairs?

Answer 23

At the Sixth Comintern Congress in July 1928, Stalin announced that the time was right for an all-out attack on anti-communist social democratic parties in Europe (what Stalin called ‘social fascists’)

Question 24

What did Stalin instruct the Comintern to do?

Answer 24

Purge ‘weak elements’ (and Trotskysists) to prepare to fight to spread revolution around the world

Question 25

Why might Stalin have changed his attitude towards the Comintern?

Answer 25

Return to genuine revolutionary fervour he had held in 1917-19?

Picking a political fight with Bukharin?

Question 26

How did Stalin change how the Comintern operated?

Answer 26

Put loyalists in charge

Soviet agents were sent abroad to infiltrate foreign communist parties in countries like France, Germany and Italy