How Did Stalin Exercise Power Over The Communist Party And The Soviet State? Flashcards
How did Stalin establish a power base between 1922 and 26?
Built on trends evident under Lenin.
GENERAL SECRETARY 1922: other’s turned down as boring/ no promotion. PARTY>GOV: gen sec head of party structure and secretariat (day-to-day runnings)— specific powers of influence
VOTES ON PARTY ISSUES: Stalin outvoted/ outmanoeuvred his opponents. Party congresses dominated by Poole who owed loyalty/positions to Stalin
Lenin created party structure, stalin used to full advantage. GS suited Stalin’s skills: “Comrade Card-Index” Sukhanov: “grey blue”— unnoticed.
How did the role of General Secretary help stalin establish a power base between 1922 and 1926?
- coordinated work across all party departments, access to a vast range of info
- access to over 26,000 personal files on party members— useful info used against rivals. Dzerzhinsky reported to him regularly, few Politburo members not under his surveillance.
- decided agenda of party meetings: restricted issues that could be debated
- LENIN ENROLMENT 23-25: over 500,000 workers recruited, doubling party membership. Poorly educated & naive: seen as employment and privilege opportunities, dependent on loyalty to those who let them in Party (Stalin- identified with needs and demands of new members, humble background)
- right to appoint people to party positions: ie supporters— more and more officials loyal as time went on. Powers of patronage. Opposed stalin? Removed from Politburo, replaced by cronies of Stalin (ie Molotov, Kanlinin, Voroshilov, Kirov repacked Zinoviev)
Who were Stalin’s opponents in the Politburo?
Leon Trotsky- obvious successor, arrogant>team player
Gregory Zinoviev- close to Lenin, Party Secretary in Leningrad, orator but vain
Lev Kamanev- lack of principle, Party Secretary in Moscow
Nikolai Bukharin- Lenin: “the golden boy”. Young, intelligent, inexperienced.
Mikhail Tomsky- trade unions, declined with them
Alexei Rykov- chair of Sovnarkom, outspoken=upset, drinker.
How did stalin “deal with the left” in 1926?
Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev) (called for “permanent revolution”- worldwide) (NEP break
- views criticised at the Fifteenth Party Conference
- accused of forming factions: expelled from politburo, demoted
- expelled from Party
- 1928: Zinoviev, Kamenev readmitted to Party after renouncing previous views
- Trotsky stuck to principles: exiled to Alma-Ata, expelled from SU one year later
How did stalin exploit the divisions of industrialisation and the NEP?
Party divided Winter 1927-8 A’s stalin Aimee to launch First Five Year Plan.
Right: removal of NEP cause food production decline- peasants opposition. Early 1928- Right Opposition argued for NEP after 1FYP proposed
Right stood in way of Stalin’s “Socialism in one country”
Defeat right: official directive to party members- The Foundations of Leninism- removing NEP. Brief, easy to read, good for Lenin Enrolment.
How did stalin deal with bukharin?
- Undermined his position (stressing his disagreements w Lenin during early 1920s)
- accused of Trotskyism (criticised the growth of the bureaucracy, as Trotsky did)
- Bukharin arranged secret meeting with Zinoviev and Kamenev in 1928- Stalin accused Bukharin of forming factions; death penalty! SO Bukharin restricted himself to working within official channels to gain support.
- Supporters of the Right in the Moscow Party Branch and Trade Unions removed on Stalin’s orders
- NEP failed to prevent food shortages in the cities, stalin used this to undermine Bukharin.
- stalin approved emergency grain requisitioning to draw attention to NEP problems.
- used support of those who owed positions to him during policy decisions (ie Central Committee meeting April 1929)
- April 1929: Bukharin forced to admit errors of political judgement. Right opposition identified and removed (save Rykov)
What were the “instruments of terror” that stalin used?
Used apparatus of terror Lenin established.
- Party Secretariat: collected info on party members that could be used to condemn them
- the secret police: surveillance, arrests, executions, ran gulag, NKVD by 1934, bureaucratic, dominated police force.
Purges
What happened during the Chitska of 1932-35?
1932- new purge of party membership carried out in response to difficulties during launching of First Five-Year Plan / collectivisation (speed of policy implementation caused concern amongst some local officials)(unhappy with Moscow orders, they ignored them)
Chitska aimed to remove these to speed up policy implementation.
By 1935- 22% of Party removed. Non violent but showed opposition.
What evidence is there of criticisms of stalin by 1932?
•1932- Ryutin issued a highly critical document to Central Committee: personal dictatorship, remove him
•Brutality used to enforce Collectivisation caused criticism: peasant resistance caused serious unrest, esp in Ukraine, Caucasus. •Raised by Stalin’s own wife Alliluyeva.
Party officials critical of unrealistic five year plan targets, said they couldn’t be achieved
•Seventeenth Party Congress 1934: supposed to be “Congress of Victors” celebrating first five year plan BUT moderates put pressure on Kirov to present these criticisms so pace of change could be slowed. Kirov received as well as stalin.
Purges of 30s
Became increasingly violent
Directed at a wide range of people
Key victims: Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin, Tomsky, Rykov
Local level quotas
Absurd accusations: Trotsky, Spy, Assassin
Bizarre purges: reflect Stalin’s paranoid personality? “I trust nobody, not even myself”
Not a state of crisis but increasing criticism was contact of the Great Purge.
What happened to Kirov during 1934 and why was this significant?
(1/12)
MURDER!!!!
Precipitated Great purge
Assassinated by Leonid Nikolayev, Party member with a personal grudge against Party (not appreciating his talents) and Kirov (rumours of an affair between Nikolayev’s wife and Kirov)
Suspicious circumstances: no bodyguard at time of murder, NKVD trained Nikolayev to fire pistol. Carried out on Stalin’s orders?
Official explanation: Kirov’s assassin was a member of an opposition group led by Zinoviev and Kamenev— one arrest led to accusation of others— Z and K arrested, brought to trail Jan 1935, sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.
CATALYST for purging of large sections of Party
What happened during the show trials?
During 1935 and 36, a wave of denunciations and arrests of members of the Left Opposition (permanent revolution in 20s against stalin, rapid industrialisation anti NEP before stalin was ready, Trotsky)
Party members advised to be vigilant against enemies of the people
Led to show trials
The Trial of the Sixteen
Leaders of the left (Zinoviev Kamenev included)
August 1936
Dragged from prison, accidents of working as agents of Trotsky to undermine the state
Confessed, under severe pressure from NKVD, to crimes they couldn’t have carried out, including murder of Kirov
Implicated others in conspiracy, including former leaders of the Right
The Trial of the Seventeen
1937
Purge of Party officials— Karl Radek, Gregory Pyatakov
Accused of working for Trotsky and foreign governments to undermine the soviet economy through wrecking and sabotage
Real plan? Likely criticising five year plans.
The Trial of the Twenty-one
1938
Purge of the Right
Tomsky killed himself before trail
Bukharin and Rykov accused of forming “Trotskyite-Rightist Bloc”— both confessed
No hard evidence of these links with Trotsky BUT Bukharin wrote “Notes of an Economist” criticising Stalin’s economic policies— threat, had to go
