High Stalinism 1945-53

Question 1

Dictatorship during the war and after

Answer 1

Much slackened, persecution of religion less, appeals to patriotism and national unity, feared Germans more than the regime. But after wartime institutions dismantled like the GKO, Zhukov sent away, dictatorship tightened.

Question 2

High Stalinism

Answer 2

Some say increasingly tight control, especially after his minor stroke in 1946, other historians argue just a reversion to what began in 1930s.

Question 3

Example of ministers scheming, consequences

Answer 3

Zhdanov brought fall of Malenkov to gain power so Malenkov and Beria brought his downfall in 1948, divide and rule for Stalin, consolidate his authority.

Question 4

Role of party and government

Answer 4

No party congresses between 39 and 52, Politburo now only advisory, new party members more likely to be bureaucrats.

Question 5

Treatment of POWs and returning soldiers

Answer 5

Not trusted due to engagement with western influences, many returning soldiers screened and arrested such as key Leopold Trepper, tens of thousands of POWs executed or sent to labour camps, often being forcibly repatriated e.g. by British, some chose to commit suicide rather than return.

Question 6

Outlaw of marriage to foreigners

Answer 6

Law passed February 1947.

Question 7

Beria’s role

Answer 7

Head of NKVD, deputy PM, in charge of the atomic bomb project, presided over expansion of Gulags.

Question 8

Reorganisation of the NKVD

Answer 8

Divided into two ministries MVD for domestic security and the gulags and MGB for counter-intelligence and espionage.

Question 9

Numbers sent to camps

Answer 9

Around 12 million wartime survivors sent to labour camps.

Question 10

Zhdanov’s role and function of purge

Answer 10

Coordinated the great cultural purge known as ‘Zhdanovshchina’, for promoting ideology through culture and supressing dissent, feared spread of western influence as ‘bourgeois and decadent’.

Question 11

First purged in Zhdanovshchina

Answer 11

Two literary works, a book by Zoschenko and poems by Anna Akhmatova, even dead writers like Dostoevsky attacked for not having ‘socialist qualities’.

Question 12

Socialist realism

Answer 12

Promoting ‘true’ Soviet art from the 1920, reasserted as the norm, condemned artists had to make public recantations, antisemitism along with anti-westernism prevalent.

Question 13

Music in cultural purge

Answer 13

Composers like Shostakovich and Prokofiev attacked, music often banned from being performed, Prokofiev’s wife was arrested to intimidate him.

Question 14

Scientific work under cultural purge

Answer 14

Trofim Lysenko have complete dominance over science and crippled development, as did sticking to ‘Marxist principles’.

Question 15

Stalin’s 70th birthday

Answer 15

Height of the Stalin cult, giant portrait of him in Moscow’s Red Square.

Question 16

The name Stalin

Answer 16

Many towns renamed like Stalino, Salinabad, Moscow planned to be renamed Stalinodar, ‘Stalin prizes’ introduced to counter ‘Nobel prizes’.

Question 17

Stalin’s feelings towards Leningrad

Answer 17

Mistrust of people with power base there as a rival to Moscow, Trotsky had been prominent, as well as Zinoviev and Kirov, Zhdanov pushed aside 1948 partly because had strong support base in Leningrad.

Question 18

Leningrad after fall of Zhdanov

Answer 18

Followed with a purge of Leningrad party 1949, organised by Malenkov and Beria, over 2000 officials removed from their posts many worse.

Question 19

Further purges after the Leningrad affair

Answer 19

Mingrelian Case in 1951 targeted officials in Georgia, significant as Beria Georgian and limited his power.

Question 20

The doctors’ plot

Answer 20

Plot ‘uncovered’ that Zhdanov’s doctors in 1948 had contributed to his death, 1952 this was used to arrest doctors for being part of a ‘Zionist conspiracy’, driven by intense antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment, 9 senior doctors condemned to death but Stalin died before this could happen.

Question 21

Further Jewish persecution

Answer 21

Director of the Jewish theatre in Moscow died in mysterious car crash, Jewish wives of politburo members such as Molotov arrested.