High Stalinism! Flashcards
What is ‘High Stalinism’?
High Stalinism is a term often used for the last stage of Stalin’s rule (1945-1953). It is applied to his form of political and social control after the removal of his opponents.
Why is it hard to say when High Stalinism began?
Because Stalin never stopped seeking out enemies and destroying them.
Which important military general was demoted in High Stalinism?
Zhukov - think of the seige of Leningrad?
Zhukov had held a huge role in saving Leningrad, but he wasn’t very modest about it. In June 1945, he was accused of…?
Bonapartism, just like Trotsky had been. Zhukov was sentenced to internal exile and a low rank military post and he was almost removed from the official history of WW2.
Who built the case against Zhukov?
Beria.
What year did Stalin suffer a mild stroke?
1946.
Stalin was not well in his later years. What was the matter?
He suffered from arthritis, rheumatism, high blood pressure and even suffered a mild stroke in 1946.
What did Stalin’s illnesses mean?
It meant that, to an extent, he was becoming a bit out of touch, and his illness may have contributed to his paranoia.
What did Stalin do to key individuals?
Played them against each other.
High Stalinism was also characterised by…
A renewal of terror!
Stalin ruthlessly enforced isolation from the non-Soviet world. What could be reasons for this?
Potentially out of concern for national security at a time of the emerging Cold War. Also - an obsessive fear of ideological contamination.
Anyone with the knowledge of what came under suspicion?
The outside world.
In 1947, a law was passed concerning foreigners that stated…?
This law banned marriages to foreigners. Hotels, restaurants and embassies were under surveillance with police watching for meetings between Soviet girls and foreign men.
Many former POWs who returned to Russia were considered to have been what?
Collaborators.
What did Order Number 270 state?
It stated that the supposed ‘collaborators’ (POWs) were subject to the fate of traitors. According to Overy, Stalin regarded them as ‘unclean, besmirched [and] potentially traitorous’ and they were placed in labour camps.
By 1953, about 5.5 million POWs were sent back to Russia. How many of these, roughly, were executed or sent to Gulags?
About 1/5.
Beria was known for his sadistic and terrifying personality. What is he thought to be?
One of the cruellest leaders in a regime already known for its intense terror.
Beria was responsible for which Polish massacre?
Katyn massacre.
How many people were murdered in the Katyn massacre?
Around 22,000.
When was the Katyn massacre?
5th March 1940.
Beria was also in charge of what scientific program?
The Soviet Atomic bomb, which came to fruition on the 29th August 1949.
How many people were involved with the Soviet Atomic Bomb project?
Around 330,000 people with 10,000 of them being technicians.
Who was Zhdanov?
- member of the Politburo.
- closely associated with promoting Soviet patriotism.
- viewed as Stalin’s favourite and potential successor.
Zhdanov used his party to decree that Lysenko was correct. What does this show?
The party’s intention to control and define history, philosophy and other forms of culture. Also sought to define laws of nature by proclamation (Lysenko preached fake science).
When did Zhdanov die?
August 1948, with his legacy maintained.
What was the cultural purge?
Stalin was concerned that those who had come from the West would want to implement their own values within the Soviet Union. Therefore, all academic and cultural life was expected to promote the soviet patriotism that had developed during the war. For example, promoting the Russian language.
What continuity can we see with the cultural purge?
Before the war, writers were being expelled and works censored with artists being labelled as ‘harmful’ or ‘okay’. There’s a continuiation of Socialist Realism.
In which years did Zhdanov censor and promote academics and artists to impose socialist realism?
1946 and 1948.
Can you remember two writers who were targetted because of their ‘idealogically harmful’ work, as it questioned the nature of Soviet life?
Anna Akhmatatova and Mikhail Zoschenko.
Who were victims of the cultural purges?
theatres that staged Western plays, philosophers and composers such as Shostakovich.
What did the cultural purge become known as?
The Zhdanovschina.
What were the aims of the cultural purge?
Stalin wanted to have new control over intellectual life.
There was a typical ‘totalitarian’ approach to culture. What was it used for?
It was used to promote the ‘right’ ideology by using culture as propaganda to supress dissent and creative individualism.
What was Stalin fearful of, due to the war?
The spread of ‘bourgeois and decadent’ western values due to the war. This fear increased because people have been in contact with other countries/people/ideology.
How did the Zhdanovschina begin?
With two literacy works published in Leningrad: ‘The Adventures of a Money’ by Stalinist Zoshchenko, and a collection of poems by Akhmatova. Both were purged and expelled from the Union of Soviet of Writers.
What was writer Boris Pasternak condemend for? What happened?
He was condemned for his ‘apolitical’ poems. His girlfriend was also sent to the gulags.
True or false - even dead auhors of Russian literature were attacked?
True! Dostoevsky was attacked for lacking ‘socialist qualities’.
Socialist Realism was now back and being promoted as what?
As the norm in literature, art and cinema.
Director Sergie Eisenstien came under fire for his film ‘Ivan the Terrible’. Why? How is this interesting?
Ivan’s bodyguards were portrayed as thugs, rather than a progressive army. Eisenstien had produced a film on the October rev that had been used as propaganda. Now he was falling out of favour.
What did condemend artists have to do?
They had to make public recognitions of their errors in order to continue working.
Novels, plays and films criticised American commercialism and praised Soviet achievments. This did what?
Heightened fears of Americans - linking to the Cold War and WW2.
There was a promotion of anti-semitism in this new wave of Socialist realism. Can you give some examples?
- Many Jewish artists were surpressed or ignored.
- Jewish newspapers were shut down.
- Nazi wartime atrocities were portrayed as fascist without mentioning Jews.
[link to anti-semitic pogroms from under Tsarism].
What were Shostakovich and Prokofiev were criticised for what?
‘rootless cosmopolitanism’ and ‘anti-socialist tendencies’. Prokofiev’s wife was imprisoned as a way to intimidate him. They found it difficult to get their music performed and were removed from their teaching posts.
In August 1948, Trofin Lysenko was given complete dominance over the Academy of Sciences. What was the result?
Lysenkoism crippled Soviet Scientific development and the study of maths, physics, chemistry and economics were badly affected by ideas based on ‘Marxist principles’.
What were some more effects of this new wave of Socialist Realism?
- Western influences were completely prevented.
- only pro-Soivet foreign writers and artists were allowed into the USSR.
How did WW2 affect people’s perception of Stalin?
He was completely unchallengeable and the victory against the Nazis drove the popularity of his personality cult further and, in turn, emphasised his status as godlike.
What was a negative of Stalin’s cult?
The cult instilled constant fear and demanded obedience from closest advisors. Stalin arrested Molotov’s wife to test his loyalty. Stalin also had to rely on newly appointed, inexperienced - but highly obedient - young people.
Apart from the Stalin cult, Stalin felt that he had to maintain his authority through keeping a permanent atmosphere of fear. This was partly because of…?
His megalomaniac personality.
The Leningrad Affair was the irst key purge since…
The Yezhovschina in 1938.
Why did Stalin prevent Leningrad politicians from becomming too powerful?
Trotsky had always had a powerbase in Leningrad both in 1905 and in 1917.
Kirov’s suspected murder was also a reason.
Why did Stalin resent Leningrad?
- they had a renewed sense of worth following the Leningrad siege 1941-1944.
Was Leningrad posing a threat towards Stalin?
Not really, but his general aim was to cause infighting to cause purges.
What was the Mingrelian case?
- aimed at limiting Beria’s power, who was Mingrelian.
- had anti-semitic undertones, as the Mingrelians were also accused of conspiracy with Jewish plotters.
- remained unresolved when Stalin died in March 1953.
Was Stalin a fan of Israel?
Nope, he said it as a pro-American puppet. These beliefs were reinforced when the Israeli ambassador was cheered on in the USSR streets in 1948.
When was the Mingrelian case?
1951-1952.
What was the trigger for the Doctor’s Plot?
A conspiracy was revealed by Lydia Timashuk, a female doctor. She wrote to Stalin, accussing doctors who treated Zhadnov in 1948 of sloppy methods that contributed to his death.
Stalin arrested many doctors for being part of a…?
‘Zionist conpiracy’ to murder Zhadnov and other party members.
Stalin was an Anti-Zionist. What did this entail?
He claimed that Jewish doctors worked in the interest of America and Israel to harm the USSR, particularly in the medical field.
The Doctor’s Plot sparked a new wave of anti-semitism (absolutely unheard of shock horror etc et). Give some examples!
The director of the Moscow Jewish theatre was mysteriously killed in a car crash in 1948 that was almost certainly arranged by the Secret police.
- Jewish wives of the politburo members were arrested in 1949 and the same year, a new campaign ‘anti-patriotic groups in the arts and universities’ began.
Stalin threatened his minister of state security with execution if he didn’t obtain confessions. What became of this?
Hundreds were arrested, several tortured and thousands of Jewish people were rounded up and put into Gulags.
Anti-Jewish hysteria was used by the press. What did this do?
It provoked the public to fear entering hospitals and shun all Jewish professionals.
Stalin died in 1953. Why was this good for the Doctor’s Plot?
Nine senior doctors were to be executed, having been condemned to death, but Stalin died before this could be official.
