Stalinism and how Stalin used his power to change Marxism-Leninism
Joseph Stalin was born in Gori, Georgia, on 21 December 1879. His father was a shoemaker and his
mother a domestic servant. He was expelled from school for neglecting his studies and found work at
the City's meteorological observatory over the next decade. Stalin became a famous local revolutionary
by supporting strikers, publishing illegal propaganda and serving several prison terms. He first met
Vladimir Lenin in 1905
Stalin was so committed to Bolshevism that he organised bank raids to boost party funds. He travelled
to Vienna, Stockholm and London at Lenin's request and was made a member of the party's central
committee in 1912. With Lenin's blessing he briefly edited Pravda until he was arrested in 1913
After his contribution to the October Revolution in 1917, Stalin rose to become the first General
Secretary of the Bolshevik Party in 1918. When Lenin died in January 1924, there were two leaders
jockeying for the leadership of the party, Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin. Stalin managed to outdo
Trotsky and to assume power. Once in power he expelled all those that were close to Lenin and
centralised his control of the country until his death
Propaganda: False or exaggerated statements aimed at persuading people to support particular policies
The Great Purges of 1930s
After securing leadership of Russia, Stalin established himself as a dictator. He would not tolerate any
opposition within the Communist Party. The Bolshevik revolutionaries and supporters of Lenin and
Trotsky who dared to challenge him were expelled from the party, imprisoned in labour camps, exiled
from Russia and even assassinated. Stalin was ruthless in his methods to make Russia a classless
society. Thousands of people were executed while several million were subjected to intensive
indoctrination
Stalin's Great Purges of 1930s consisted of efforts to wipe out opposition, which resulted in thousands
of deaths. Most of those accused of opposing Stalin met their fate without being brought to trial.
High-ranking army officers were charged with high treason and given mock trials at which they were
sentenced to death. About 35 000 soldiers were either executed or imprisoned. During this bloodbath
Stalin got rid of almost every notable leader of the 1917 Revolution
It is believed that during his reign of terror more people were killed than in both the First and Second
World Wars combined. Apart from eliminating opposition, Stalin wanted to reduce the size and
influence of the Communist Party so he could implement his Five-Year Plans without challenge
In addition to this cruelty, Stalin made sure that people were indoctrinated and brainwashed in his
communist ideology. He made use of the press to launch propaganda campaigns depicting himself as
Russia's greatest leader and his portraits were prominently displayed in public places
Stalin made sure that his regime was not criticised by having his close friends run the press. In order to
influence his propagandistic theories at schools he had history books rewritten to put him in
favourable light and to give him credit for the October Revolution, which was responsible for placing
the communist government in power. He even had himself credited as the brains behind the reform of
Russia's economic condition during Lenin's rule
Stalin eliminated those who challenged him both within his party and outside. He believed that
indoctrination pointed out the way ahead for future communist leaders by doing away with opposition
to his implementation of policies
1. Why did Stalin initiate the Great Purges
2. Was Stalin responsible for committing genocide in the Soviet Union
3. How did he establish himself as a leader and force his policies on the people
,4. Form several groups. Share ideas on how politicians get support for their ideas. What methods do
they use to convince the public? Do you think political parties use propaganda and do you think it's
right or wrong?
Revelations from the Russian Archives
Having come to power in October 1917 by means of a coup d'état, Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks
spent the next few years struggling to maintain their rule against widespread popular opposition. They
had overthrown the provisional democratic government and were inherently hostile to any form of
popular participation in politics. In the name of the revolutionary cause, they employed ruthless
methods to suppress real or perceived political enemies. The small, elite group of Bolshevik
revolutionaries which formed the core of the newly established Communist Party dictatorship ruled by
decree, enforced with terror
This tradition of tight centralisation, with decision-making concentrated at the highest party levels,
reached new dimensions under Joseph Stalin. As many of these archival documents show, there was
little input from below. The party elite determined the goals of the state and the means of achieving
them in almost complete isolation from the people. They believed that the interests of the individual
were to be sacrificed to those of the state, which was advancing a sacred social task. Stalin's
“revolution from above” sought to build socialism by means of forced collectivisation and
industrialisation, programs that entailed tremendous human suffering and loss of life
Although this tragic episode in Soviet history at least had some economic purpose, the police terror
inflicted upon the party and the population in the 1930s, in which millions of innocent people
perished, had no rationale beyond assuring Stalin's absolute dominance. By the time the Great Terror
ended, Stalin had subjected all aspects of Soviet society to strict party-state control, not tolerating
even the slightest expression of local initiative, let alone political unorthodoxy. The Stalinist leadership
felt especially threatened by the intelligentsia, whose creative efforts were thwarted through the
strictest censorship; by religious groups, who were persecuted and driven underground; and by non-
Russian nationalities, many of whom were deported en masse to Siberia during World War II because
Stalin questioned their loyalty
Although Stalin's successors also persecuted writers and dissidents, they used police terror more
sparingly to coerce the population, and they sought to gain some popular support by relaxing political
controls and introducing economic incentives. Nonetheless, strict centralisation continued and
eventually led to the economic decline, inefficiency, and apathy that characterised the 1970s and
1980s, and contributed to the Chernobyl' nuclear disaster. Mikhail Gorbachev's program of
perestroika was a reaction to this situation, but its success was limited by his reluctance to abolish the
bastions of Soviet power—the party, the police, and the centralised economic system—until he was
forced to do so after the attempted coup in August 1991. By that time, however, it was too late to hold
either the Communist leadership or the Soviet Union together. After seventy-four years of existence,
the Soviet system crumbled
Repression and Terror: Stalin in Control
During the second half of the 1920s, Joseph Stalin set the stage for gaining absolute power by
employing police repression against opposition elements within the Communist Party. The machinery
of coercion had previously been used only against opponents of Bolshevism, not against party members
themselves. The first victims were Politburo members Leon Trotskii, Grigorii Zinovev, and Lev
Kamenev, who were defeated and expelled from the party in late 1927. Stalin then turned against
Nikolai Bukharin, who was denounced as a “right opposition,” for opposing his policy of forced
collectivisation and rapid industrialisation at the expense of the peasantry
, Stalin had eliminated all likely potential opposition to his leadership by late 1934 and was the
unchallenged leader of both party and state. Nevertheless, he proceeded to purge the party rank and
file and to terrorise the entire country with widespread arrests and executions. During the ensuing
Great Terror, which included the notorious show trials of Stalin's former Bolshevik opponents in
1936–1938 and reached its peak in 1937 and 1938, millions of innocent Soviet citizens were sent off to
labor camps or killed in prison
By the time the terror subsided in 1939, Stalin had managed to bring both the party and the public to a
state of complete submission to his rule. Soviet society was so atomised and the people so fearful of
reprisals that mass arrests were no longer necessary. Stalin ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet
Union throughout World War II and until his death in March 1953
Repression and Terror: Kirov Murder and Purges
The murder of Sergei Kirov on December 1, 1934, set off a chain of events that culminated in the
Great Terror of the 1930s. Kirov was a full member of the ruling Politburo, leader of the Leningrad
party apparatus, and an influential member of the ruling elite. His concern for the welfare of the
workers in Leningrad and his skill as an orator had earned him considerable popularity. Some party
members had even approached him secretly with the proposal that he take over as general secretary
It is doubtful that Kirov represented an immediate threat to Stalin's predominance, but he did
disagree with some of Stalin's policies, and Stalin had begun to doubt the loyalty of members of the
Leningrad apparatus. In need of a pretext for launching a broad purge, Stalin evidently decided that
murdering Kirov would be expedient. The murder was carried out by a young assassin named Leonid
Nikolaev. Recent evidence has indicated that Stalin and the NKVD planned the crime
Stalin then used the murder as an excuse for introducing draconian laws against political crime and for
conducting a witch-hunt for alleged conspirators against Kirov. Over the next four-and-a-half years,
millions of innocent party members and others were arrested—many of them for complicity in the vast
plot that supposedly lay behind the killing of Kirov. From the Soviet point of view, his murder was
probably the crime of the century because it paved the way for the Great Terror. Stalin never visited
Leningrad again and directed one of his most vicious post-War purges against the city—Russia's
historic window to the West
Secret Police
From the beginning of their regime, the Bolsheviks relied on a strong secret, or political, police to buttress their
rule. The first secret police, called the Cheka, was established in December 1917 as a temporary institution to be
abolished once Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks had consolidated their power. The original Cheka, headed by
Feliks Dzerzhinskii, was empowered only to investigate “counterrevolutionary” crimes. But it soon acquired
powers of summary justice and began a campaign of terror against the propertied classes and enemies of
Bolshevism. Although many Bolsheviks viewed the Cheka with repugnance and spoke out against its excesses,
its continued existence was seen as crucial to the survival of the new regime
Once the Civil War (1918–21) ended and the threat of domestic and foreign opposition had receded, the Cheka
was disbanded. Its functions were transferred in 1922 to the State Political Directorate, or GPU, which was
initially less powerful than its predecessor. Repression against the population lessened. But under party leader
Joseph Stalin, the secret police again acquired vast punitive powers and in 1934 was renamed the People's
Comissariat for Internal Affairs, or NKVD. No longer subject to party control or restricted by law, the NKVD
became a direct instrument of Stalin for use against the party and the country during the Great Terror of the
1930s
After Stalin's death in 1953 the loyal Beria was purged from the Communist Party and power and later executed.
The secret police remained the most powerful and feared Soviet institution throughout the Stalinist period.
Although the post-Stalin secret police, the KGB, no longer inflicted such large-scale purges, terror, and forced
depopulation on the peoples of the Soviet Union, it continued to be used by the Kremlin leadership to suppress
political and religious dissent. The head of the KGB was a key figure in resisting the democratisation of the late
