Stalin & his successors

1. Stalin & his successors From totalitarianism to authoritarianism?

2. Book & film reviews • Blanket extension: • Reviews now due in class, Tuesday, March 24th • Quid pro quo: • Use the extra time to improve your writing • Make sure your paper says what you think it is saying • Be sure to proofread • Consult the hints and suggestions & the directions on format and style in the topic sheet

3. Stalin and Stalinism • Crucial period in Soviet history • Collective leadership supplanted by personal dictatorship • USSR transformed • From agrarian to an industrial society • Totalitarian or near totalitarian system • Ravaged by World War II – 27 million dead • Emerges into cold war with west

4. Explaining Stalinism • Context: • Peasants made Russian Revolution • New Economic Policy (NEP), 1921-28, a compromise with the peasantry • Collectivization & forced industrialization • Attempt to proceed with socialist project • Ends compromise • Peasantry forced onto collective farms, into cities, or liquidated or sent into internal exile

5. Soviet Union

6. Rise to power • Lenin impaired 1922, dies 1924 • Collective Leadership emerges in his place • Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the CPSU emerges as successor • Consolidating power, launches USSR on program of rapid collectivization & industrialization • In process, establishes personal dictatorship (replacing collective leadership)

7. Stalin • Deeply suspicious • Fears enemies, internal & external • Purges & show trials remove purported enemies • Ironically, also builds loyal support • New men needed to staff enlarged party & state apparatus • nomenklature or apparatchiki owe positions to Stalin & party

8. Foreign policy • Initially isolated • Anxious to protect Western flank – • Deals with Germany, Nazi regime • Willingly seizes part of Poland • Suspicious of Hitler, yet reluctant to believe that Nazis would attack • Fights ‘Great Patriotic War, allied with Britain & US • Uneasy relationship: • USSR takes brunt of Nazi onslaught • Constant complaint: allies not alleviating eastern front

10. World War II & its aftermath • USSR suffers tremendous losses • Demands • territory • reparations • Sphere of influence or buffer • vis á vis Germany -- control of ‘near abroad’ • Tightly controlled regime re-established • Combination of both personal dictatorship and control, totalitarian in its reach

11. Succession • Stalin dies in 1953 • From natural causes? • Or nothing done to stop it? • Power struggle in the politboro • Laurence Beria, head of NKVD (secret police) liquidated • Nikita Khrushchev’s ascent • Dismissal of Georgi Malenkov • The 20th party congress: • Khrushchev denounces Stalin, Stalinism • Consolidates power: 1957-1963

12. Khrushchev ousted (1964) • Replaced by protégé, Leonid Brezhnev • Brezhnev & others demand end to Khrushchev’s ‘hair-brained’ schemes, • Shake-ups of party and state bureaucracy • Cultivation of virgin lands • Collective leadership put in place • Brezhnev on top, sharing power with cronies • Little change in the party leadership from year to year

13. The Soviet system • Entrenchment of party-state system: • Communist Party (CPSU) is leading & guiding force • Interpenetrates & controls state, which in turn owns & runs the economy • In process, party swells from a small-conspiratorial organization under Lenin to a massive bureaucratic structure • 14+ million members at its peak

14. Structure • Politboro & Central Committee at the centre • Politboro as surrogate cabinet • Central Committee as a shadow government • Preoccupation with • Nomination – control over appointments to both party & state positions • Oversight – shadowing different parts of the state (including the mitary are doing • Party = massive organization extending down to factories, collective farms, neighbourhoods • position of Nomenklatura (those nominated • Privileged access to goods, services

15. Central Planning • GOSPLAN – State planning agency -- at the centre of a command economy • 5 year plans continue • Targets set for all sectors of the economy • Meeting targets: joint responsibility of factory managers & party’s (local) first secretary • Growing problems: • All thumbs & no fingers • Priority to military • Poor quality control: shoddy goods • Chronic shortages in agriculture

16. The changing character of the system Under Stalin, totalitarian or nearly so: • Party & state establish a total or near total grip on society • However, Stalin’s purges devour party (or parts thereof) • Police power & arbitrary terror as substitutes • Party & state rigidify • Change comes from above, if at all

17. After Stalin • Military competition continues • Greater attention to consumer goods However, • Quality uncertain • Access limited • Moscow & Leningrad, urban areas, better off than rural • Elites -- upper echelons-- enjoy privileged access to goods & services

18. Space for dissent • System relaxes • Less arbitrary recourse to terror • Party retains control • Dissent remains proscribed • Boundaries clearer – but shift from time to time • Samizdat --underground literary network circulates manuscripts • Bureaucratic & authoritarian rather than totalitarian

19. Eastern Europe • Similar party-state systems in place in Eastern Europe • Varying degrees of control & accommodation • All regimes initially Stalinist • Tighter grip in East Germany, Czechoslovakia • Looser grip in countries where party is weaker (Poland) or, over the long haul, trusted, Hungary

20. Western Europe Liberal democracies Increasingly affluent Enmeshed in international & transnational structures Under American nuclear umbrella Eastern Europe Party-state systems Economically, most people better off than before Lag behind west Organized as bloc, orchestrated by USSR Under Soviet nuclear umbrella Europe Divided