High Stalinism Flashcards
How did Stalin’s attitude change from 1946 onwards?
Increased paranoia (partly due to a stroke he suffered in 1946)
Historiography about High Stalinism
Moshe Lewin - High Stalinism began in 1934, after Kirov’s murder
Robert Service - post-1945 Stalinism was a continuation of pre-1941 Stalinism
Key government officials post-1945
Molotov, Malenkov, Mikoyan, Beria, Zhdanov
Example of infighting between government officials
Zhdanov challenged the policies of Malenkov, and Mikoyan set up an investigation condemning Malenkov’s actions. This lead to Malenkov losing his position as Party secretary, and Zhdanov became Stalin’s closest advisor (until Malenkov and Beria engineered his political downfall in 1948)
Example of Stalin’s growing paranoia (Zhukov)
Feared Zhukov’s growing fame and influence, so demoted him to a minor military command in Odessa
How were the institutions of the party undermined?
No party congresses held between 1939 and 1952
The Politburo was reduced to an advisory body
Evidence of Stalin’s fear of returning prisoners of war
Leopold Trepper - had risked his life as a leader of the Red Orchestra (left-wing spy ring operating inside Nazi Germany), but was sent to the gulags upon his return
Evidence of Stalin’s fear of foreigners
Any contact with a foreigner could get a person denounced or arrested.
In 1947, a law was passed outlawing marriage to foreigners
Hotels, restaurants and embassies were under constant surveillance
Who ran the NKVD during High Stalinism?
Lavrentii Beria
How was the NKVD reformed and strengthened post-1945?
Reorganised as two separate ministries: the MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) controlled domestic security and the gulags and the MGB (Ministry of State Security) handled counter-intelligence and espionage
How many people were persecuted in the renewed terror of High Stalinism?
Tens of thousands arrested annually for ‘counter-revolutionary activities’
In total, around 12 million people were sent to gulags
What did Khrushchev say about Stalin’s personality after the war?
He became ‘even more capricious, irritable and brutal; in particular his suspicions grew’
When was the cultural purge launched?
1946, by Andrei Zhdanov
How did the Zhdanovschina begin?
A purge of two literary works: ‘The Adventures of a Monkey’ by satirist Zoshchenko and a collection of poems by Anna Akhmatova.
Zoshchenko and Akhmatova were expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers
Example of another writer being condemned?
Boris Pasternak was condemned for his ‘apolitical’ poems - his girlfriend was sent to the gulag
Example of infamous Russian writer being posthumously condemned
Dostoevsky - his works were attacked for lacking ‘socialist qualities’
What was the standard for the arts reasserted during High Stalinism?
Socialist realism - condemned artists had to make public recantations of their ‘errors’ in order to keep working
Antisemitism was also prevalent, and many Jewish artists were suppressed and Jewish newspapers closed down
Evidence of Soviet music suffering during the cultural purge
The great composers Shostakovich and Prokofiev were criticised for ‘rootless cosmopolitanism’.
They were removed from teaching posts and Prokofiev’s wife was imprisoned
Evidence that scholarship was attacked during the cultural purge
The regime gave Trofim Lysenko complete dominance over the Academy of Sciences. ‘Lysenkoism’ crippled Soviet scientific development
How did the cult of personality impact academia?
It became customary for the first and last paragraphs of any academic article or book to acknowledge Stalin’s genius on the subject
How was Stalin portrayed during the period of High Stalinism?
Portrayed as as a war hero and the world’s greatest living genius
What was the culmination of the Stalin cult?
Stalin’s 70th birthday in 1949, when Moscow’s Red Square was dominated by a giant portrait of Stalin, suspended in the sky and illuminated by search lights.
Examples of towns re-naming themselves after Stalin
Stalingrad, Stalino, Stalinsk, Staliabad and Stalinogorsk
Explain the Leningrad affair
Stalin was cautious to prevent politicians with a power base in Leningrad from becoming too powerful (e.g. Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kirov all had significant influence in Leningrad).
Stalin decided to follow up the removal and death of Zhdanov by purging the Leningrad Party in 1949. It began as an attack on Voznesenski (an economic expert who was promoted by Zhdanov) and escalated to a major purge of all leading officials. Overall, more than 2,000 officials were replaced by loyalists.
What was the ‘Mingrelian case’?
Launched in 1951, the Mingrelian case was a purge of Party officials in Georgia. It had not been settled at the time of Stalin’s death, but it served as a significant limit on Beria’s power (who was of Mingrelian origin).
Explain the Doctors’ plot
The Doctors’ plot was an antisemitic campaign against doctors Stalin believed to be involved in a ‘Zionist conspiracy’. Stalin threatened the Minister of State Security, Ignatiev, with execution if he did not obtain confessions. Hundreds were arrested and thousands of ordinary Jews were deported to gulags. Nine senior doctors were condemned to death, but Stalin died before the executions could be carried out.
