High Stalinism 1945-53

Question 1

What was high Stalinism?

Answer 1

The culmination of Stalin’s regime 1945-1953 when Stalin’s authority over state, party and people and the cult of personality as the face of the dictatorship, reached its peak - Stalin’s dictatorship seemed unchallengeable
Appeared to be a new, more extreme form of dictatorship

Question 2

What were some of the key features of high Stalinism?

Answer 2

Great emphasis on the role of the leader
High centralised control from Moscow over the P and G
Terror used to control the population
Command economy
Low priority given to the needs of citizens
Strict censorship of media + extensive propaganda
Inequality throughout society e.g. hierarchy both in and out the party
etc

Question 3

During this time why was Stalin basking in glory?

Answer 3

Following being the heroic leader of the Great Patriotic War, presiding over a new world super power - those around him competed for the privilege of fulfilling his will

Question 4

Despite seeming the embodiment of totalitarianism why could not even High Stalinism make the USSR a totalitarian state in every respect?

Answer 4

Despite his authority, 175 million people could never be entirely controlled by one man
Stalin’s rule rested on complex bureaucratic structures , balancing between the party and the government and playing off key subordinates against eachother

Question 5

What had happened to Stalin’s dictatorship during war?

Answer 5

Many aspects of it had been relaxed - persecution of religion was slackened, There had been many appeals to patriotism and national unity. Fear of Stalin’s regime had been overtaken by fear of German invasion so wartime propaganda focused on a ‘better world’ after victory

Question 6

What happened after the war?

Answer 6

Any tendencies towards liberalisation were obstructed
Wartime institutions were dismantled and the GKO (state defence committee) was dissolved in September 1945
The military hierarchy was also downgraded with Marshall Zhukov downgraded to a minor command
Grip on dictatorship tightened and cult intensified

Question 7

From 1945 what did Stalin become?

Answer 7

More reclusive and unpredictable - he was ageing and had been centre of power for 25 years

Question 8

What are the two explanations for high Stalinism?

Answer 8

1) He suffered a mild stroke in 1946 which may have been partly responsible for increasing paranoia in the post war years
2) It was a reversion of the past, not radically new and while his irrational behaviour seemed different from his war time leadership, it was in line with personality traits that had always been present. Some suggested high Stalinism began after murder of Kirov in 1934 - this = a continuation

Question 9

What is dictatorship?

Answer 9

A form of government in which absolute power is exercised by a single person or small clique

Question 10

What is totalitarianism?

Answer 10

A political system that demands absolute obedience of the state and that each and every citizen is subject to central state authority, this means that individuals rights and freedoms cannot exist, all forms of human expression must be dictated by the state and everything individual must be submerged into one mass identity

Question 11

What had Stalin done which continued after 1945 and what is an example?

Answer 11

Played leading figures in the regime off against eachother
Men like Molotov, Malenkov, Mikoyan, Beria and Zhdanov all came in and out of favouring according to Stalin’s desires and scheming rivals

Question 12

What happened when Zhdanov challenged the policy of Stalin’s closest war-time aid, Malenkov and what did these rivalries help to do?

Answer 12

An investigation under Mikoyan was set up which condemned Malenkov’s actions who then lost his position as party secretary and Zhdanov became Stalin’s closest adviser, until Malenkov and Beria schemed against Zhdanov and engineered his political downfall in 1948
Molotov had great power during and after the war but fell out of favour in 1949
Helped to confirm Stalin’s dominance

Question 13

Despite the CC and Politburo meeting regularly what was Stalin often able to do?

Answer 13

Bypass both Government and Party and exert direct central authority

Question 14

How were the Party and its institutions undermined?

Answer 14

No Party congresses were held 1939-52
The Politburo was reduced to an advisory body which waited to be told by Stalin or his spokesperson what ‘official’ line was to be followed
The big decisions were taken in ad hoc gatherings of Stalin’s inner circle

Question 15

Despite party membership remaining high what were members more/ less likely to be?

Answer 15

Less likely to be committed ideologists from the ranks of peasants or workers
The ‘new’ men were obedient bureaucrats who did not show any initiative and avoided ideological debates as Inertia (leaving things as they were) was a key feature of High Stalinism

Question 16

What else was High Stalinism characterised by?

Answer 16

A revival of terror

Question 17

What did Stalin ruthlessly enforce and how ?

Answer 17

Isolation from the non-Soviet world - partly out of concern for national security at a time of the emerging cold war but also due to an obsessive fear of ideological contamination e.g. Stalin’s harsh treatment of prisoners of war and his purges of former army officers, even relatives of those who had spent time outside of the USSR were considered suspect
Anyone with knowledge of the outside world

Question 18

What is an example of dangerous knowledge?

Answer 18

Leopold Trepper, a Polish communist who risked his life as a key member of the Red Orchestra, the left-wing spy ring inside Nazi Germany, upon his return he was awarded a medal as a hero of the SU and immediately after was arrested and deported to a gulag until 1955

Question 19

What was terror like inside the USSR and where especially?

Answer 19

Especially in newly incorporated areas (e.g. Baltic States) as people needed to show unwavering loyalty
Careless words or brief contact with a foreigner could get a person, denounced, arrested and in a gulag
Even friends might be a possible informer against an individual
In Feb 1947 a law was passed outlawing marriages to foreigners

Question 20

What else happened within the USSR?

Answer 20

Hotels, restaurants and embassies were under surveillance with police watching meetings between soviet girls and foreign men - terror was pervasive, innocence was no defence in a secret police state

Question 21

Who was Beria and what was he responsible for?

Answer 21

He was head of the security apparatus in the post war-years
Not only NKVD chief but also deputy prime minister, a full member of the Politburo and the man in charge if developing a Soviet atomic bomb
As Head of the NKVD he presided over the vast expansion of prison labour camps in the Gulag
His psychopathic, sadistic personality left a mark on the USSR

Question 22

What happened to the NKVD after war?

Answer 22

It was strengthened and re-organised as two separate ministries - The MVD (ministry of Internal affairs) which controlled domestic security and the gulags and the MGB (Ministry of State Security) which handled counter intelligence and espionage

Question 23

Were more or less killed than in the Great Terror of the 1930’s and how many wartime survivors were sent to labour camps?

Answer 23

Although far less killed , tens of thousands arrested for ‘counter-revolutionary activities’ during the last years of Stalin
Around 12 million war time survivors were sent to the labour camps in appalling conditions

Question 24

In terms of cultural control what did this period become known as and why ?

Answer 24

Zhdanovshchina, as it was Andrei Zhdanov who coordinated the great cultural purge launched by Stalin in 1946

Question 25

What was this cultural purge typical of?

Answer 25

The totalitarian approach to culture, the promote the ‘right’ ideology by using culture as a medium for propaganda and to supress dissent and creative individualism
Stalin also feared the spread or bourgeoise and decadent western values because of the war

Question 26

What did the Zhdanovshchina begin with?

Answer 26

A purge of two literary works published in Leningrad: The Adventures of a Monkey by satirist Zoshchenko and a collection of poems by Anna Akmatova - the publishers were purged and the authors expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers
Boris Pasternak condemned for his ‘apolitical’ poems and his girlfriend sent to a gulag
Even dead giants of Russia literature like Dostoevsky were attacked for lacking socialist qualities

Question 27

What happened to socialist realism?

Answer 27

Promoted as ‘true’ soviet art in the 20’s and 30’s, was reasserted as the norm in literature and art and cinema
Condemned artists had to make public recantations of their ‘errors’ in order to continue working
Novels, plays and plays that denigrated American commercialism or extolled Soviet achievements were favoured

Question 28

What happened with religion?

Answer 28

Anti-Semitism prevailed - many Jewish artists were supressed or ignored, Jewish newspapers closed down, and Nazi wartime crimes were portrayed as fascist crimes without mentioning Jews

Question 29

What else suffered badly from the Zhdanov purge and how?

Answer 29

Music - great composers like Prokofiev came under criticism for ‘anti-socialist tendencies’ so they found it difficult to get their music performed and were removed from their teaching posts . His wife was imprisoned to intimidate him
Science and scholarship also victimised, in August 1948 the regime gave Lysenko complete dominance over the Academy of sciences so he crippled scientific development and the study of them were badly affected by ideas based on ‘Marxist principles’

Question 30

How was western influence completely blocked?

Answer 30

Non-communist foreign papers were unobtainable, foreign radio transmissions were jammed, only a few ‘approved’ foreign boos were translated into Russia and only pro-Soviet foreign writers and artists were allowed into the USSR, with very few soviet citizens allowed to visit the west

Question 31

What was raised to new heights after 1945 and how?

Answer 31

The Stalin Cult - building on his reputation as the saviour of Russia in wartime, he was portrayed as the worlds greatest living genius, superior in philosophy, economics and military strategy
This image was cultivated in newspapers, books, plays, films etc and it became customary for the first and last paragraphs of any academic article to acknowledge Stalin’s genius on the subject

Question 32

What else was Stalin portrayed as and why was this odd?

Answer 32

A man of the people who knew what everyone was doing and thinking - strange as he had not visited a peasant village or Kolkhoz for 25 years and spent most of his later years at his dacha outside Moscow and in reality he relied on others to provide him with information and was often misled by his own propagandists

Question 33

When did the cult reach a climax?

Answer 33

On his 70th birthday when Moscow’s red square was dominated by a giant portrait of Stalin, suspended in the sky and illuminated by a halo of search lights

Question 34

How else was the Stalin cult shown?

Answer 34

Towns competed with eachother for the privilege of renaming themselves after him e.g. Stalingrad, Stalino
Stalin prizes were introduced to reward artistic or scientific work
Monuments to him appeared all over the USSR

Question 35

In what way was the cult never enough for Stalin?

Answer 35

Neither the cult nor obedience and flattery from his subordinates reduced his obsessive fear for his personal power
Throughout his last years, Stalin ensured that the men around him were in a permanent state of fear of Stalin and of eachother, engineering atmospheres of jealousies and rivalries

Question 36

Why did Stalin want to encourage these atmospheres of jealousies and rivalries?

Answer 36

Either paranoia about possible conspiracies against him; the tactic of divide and rule to prevent any of his subordinates becoming too powerful and simple megalomania (obsessive desire for power)

Question 37

What had their always been between Leningrad and Moscow and why, what was Stalin’s role?

Answer 37

Party rivalries (Leningrad was formerly the capital of Russia) and Stalin always took take to prevent politicians with a power base in Leningrad from becoming too powerful e.g. Trotsky had been powerful in 1905 and 1917 as the leader of the Petrograd Soviet, Zinoviev controlled the Leningrad party until he war removed from power and replaced by Kirov, when Kirov became too powerful he was eliminated

Question 38

What was a key reason Zhdanov was pushed aside in 1948?

Answer 38

Many reasons - a key one = his powerbase in Leningrad, another was Stalin’s resentment of the pride Leningrad took from its heroic role in the Great Siege 1941-44 (Leningrad was declared a hero-city after the three year defence- many people in Leningrad believed the great victory was the special achievement of the defenders of the city, not the whole USSR, this offended Stalin

Question 39

In 1949 what did Stalin follow up the removal and death of Zhdanov with and why?

Answer 39

The purging of the Leningrad party - many Leningraders had been promoted to senior posts in Moscow during Zhdanov’s ascendancy (including Voznesenski - an economic expert who was a rising star in the Politburo) so Stalin, encouraged by Malenkov and Beria wanted to bring the Leningraders to heal

Question 40

How did the Leningrad affair escalate?

Answer 40

From attacks on Voznesenski to a major purge of leading officials - the accusations against them were organised by Malenkov and Beria - all were executed in October 1950, by which time more than 2000 officials from the city had been dismissed from their posts, exiled and replaced by pro-Stalin communists

Question 41

What was the Leningrad affair a return to?

Answer 41

The methods of political control of the late 1930’s, this was the first major purge within the party since 1938

Question 42

In reality the Leningraders never posed a direct political threat to Stalin, so why did he purge them?

Answer 42

His default political approach was to set rival elements within the regime against eachother - shown in the next purge the ‘Mingrelian Case’

Question 43

What was the Mingrelian Case’ and why was it significant

Answer 43

The Georgian Purge launched in 1951 - which targeted party officials in Georgia, who were accused of collaboration with Western powers (these officials were mostly Mingrelians, an ethnic group in Georgia), these accusations significant as they were followers of Beria who was of Mingrelian origin

Question 44

What was the outcome of the Mingrelian case?

Answer 44

It carried on into 1952 but had not been settled by the time Stalin died in 1953 but it did serve its purpose in limiting Beria’s power

Question 45

What was another aspect of the Mingrelian case and why was this significant

Answer 45

The suppression of non-Russian nationalities - the purge also had anti-Semitic overtones because the Mingrelians were charged with having conspired with ‘Jewish plotters’ - later in 1952 anti-Semitism = driving force in the most menacing purge of Stalin’s last years, the doctors plot

Question 46

What was the trigger for action against the Doctors’ plot?

Answer 46

A ‘conspiracy’ revealed by Lydia Timashuk, a female doctor (and also a secret police informer) who wrote to Stalin accusing the doctors who treated Zhdanov in 1948 of sloppy methods contributing to his death

Question 47

Despite nothing being dine about Zhdanov’s death at the time, what did Stalin do in 1952?

Answer 47

Used the file as an excuse to arrest many doctors for being part of a ‘Zionist conspiracy’ to murder Zhdanov and other members of the leadership
Stalin made a big deal of ‘Anti-Zionism’ claiming that Jewish doctors, in the pay of the US and Israel were abusing their position in the medical profession to harm the USSR.

Question 48

Where had the conspiracy supposedly also infiltrated?

Answer 48

The Leningrad party and the Red Army

Question 49

What were some of the attacks on Jews before the doctors plot (as anti-Semitism, which had deep roots in Russia and was stirred up in the post-war years, drove the case)?

Answer 49

The director of a Jewish theatre in Moscow was mysteriously killed in a car crash in 1948 , likely arranged by secret police
The Jewish wives of politburo members Molotov and Kalinin were arrested in 1949, in the same year as a new campaign against anti-patriotic groups in the arts and universities began

Question 50

What was the doctors plot also an excuse for?

Answer 50

Political action - men high in the regime (Beria, Mikoyan, Molotov etc) all feared becoming victim of the new Stalin terror

Question 51

What were the outcomes of the doctors plot?

Answer 51

Stalin, threatened his Minister of State Security (Nikolai Ignateiv) with execution if he did not obtain confessions
Hundreds were arrested, several of them tortured
Thousands or ordinary Jews were also deported to the Gulag
Anti-Jewish hysteria was whipped up the press so that non-Jews feared to enter hospitals and shunned all Jewish-professionals
Nine senior doctors were condemned to death - but they survived

Question 52

Why were the senior doctors that were condemned to death never killed?

Answer 52

Before the executions - Stalin died and the world began to change

Question 53

What was anti-Zionism?

Answer 53

A term directed against the idea of a Jewish state of Israel but was really a code word for anti-Semitic hatred, after a brief change in attitude , Stalin reverted to the belief that any Jews in the USSR were potential enemies