Stalinism

This article is about the means of governing and policies implemented by Joseph Stalin. For the political philosophy, seeMarxism–Leninism.For other uses, seeStalinism (disambiguation).

Joseph Stalin,after whom Stalinism is named.

Stalinism(Russian:Сталинизм,Stalinizm,Georgian:სტალინიზმი,Stalinizmi) is thetotalitarianmeans of governing andMarxist–Leninistpolicies implemented in theSoviet Union(USSR) from1927 to 1953by dictatorJoseph Stalin.Stalin had previously made a career as agangsterandrobber,working to fund revolutionary activities, before eventually becomingGeneral Secretary of the Soviet Union.Stalinism included the creation of aone mantotalitarianpolice state,rapidindustrialization,the theory ofsocialism in one country(until 1939), forcedcollectivization of agriculture,intensification of class conflict,acult of personality,and subordination of the interests of foreigncommunist partiesto those of theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union,which Stalinism deemed the leadingvanguard partyofcommunist revolutionat the time.After Stalin's death and theKhrushchev Thaw,a period ofde-Stalinizationbegan in the 1950s and 1960s, which caused the influence of Stalin's ideology to begin to wane in the USSR.

Stalin's regime forcibly purged society of what it saw as threats to itself and its brand of communism (so-called "enemies of the people"), which includedpolitical dissidents,non-Soviet nationalists,thebourgeoisie,better-off peasants ( "kulaks"),and those of theworking classwho demonstrated "counter-revolutionary"sympathies.This resulted in massrepressionof such people andtheir families,including mass arrests,show trials,executions, and imprisonment inforced laborcamps known asgulags.The most notorious examples were theGreat Purgeand theDekulakizationcampaign. Stalinism was also marked by militant atheism, massanti-religious persecution,andethnic cleansingthroughforced deportations.Some historians, such asRobert Service,have blamed Stalinist policies, particularly collectivization, for causingfaminessuch as theHolodomor.Other historians and scholars disagree on Stalinism's role.

Officially designed to accelerate development towardcommunism,the need forindustrialization in the Soviet Unionwas emphasized because the Soviet Union had previously fallen behind economically compared to Western countries and also because socialist society needed industry to face the challenges posed by internal and external enemies of communism.Rapid industrialization was accompanied by mass collectivization of agriculture and rapidurbanization,which converted many small villages intoindustrial cities.To accelerate industrialization's development, Stalin imported materials, ideas, expertise, and workers from western Europe and the United States,pragmatically setting upjoint-venturecontracts with major Americanprivate enterprisessuch as theFord Motor Company,which, under state supervision, assisted in developing the basis of the industry of theSoviet economyfrom the late 1920s to the 1930s. After the American private enterprises had completed their tasks, Sovietstate enterprisestook over.

History

Further information:History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)andRise of Joseph Stalin

Stalinism is used to describe the period during whichJoseph Stalinwas theleaderof the Soviet Union while serving asGeneral Secretaryof theCentral Committeeof theCommunist Party of the Soviet Unionfrom 1922 to his death on 5 March 1953.

Etymology

The termStalinismcame into prominence during the mid-1930s whenLazar Kaganovich,a Soviet politician and associate of Stalin, reportedly declared: "Let's replace Long LiveLeninismwith Long Live Stalinism! "Stalin dismissed this as excessive and contributing to acult of personalityhe thought might later be used against him by the same people who praised him excessively, one of those being Khrushchev—a prominent user of the term during Stalin's life who was later responsible for de-Stalinization and the beginning of the Revisionist period.

Stalinist policies

Modified photointended to showVladimir Leninwith Stalin in the early 1920s

Members of theChinese Communist Partycelebrating Stalin's birthday in 1949

Some historians view Stalinism as a reflection of the ideologies ofLeninismandMarxism,but some argue that it is separate from thesocialistideals it stemmed from. After a political struggle that culminated in the defeat of theBukharinists(the "Party'sRight Tendency"), Stalinism was free to shape policy without opposition, ushering in an era of harshtotalitarianismthat worked toward rapidindustrializationregardless of the human cost.

From 1917 to 1924, though often appearing united, Stalin,Vladimir Lenin,andLeon Trotskyhad discernible ideological differences. In his dispute with Trotsky, Stalin de-emphasized the role of workers in advancedcapitalist countries(e.g., he considered theU.S. working class"bourgeoisified"labor aristocracy).

All otherOctober Revolution1917Bolshevikleaders regarded their revolution more or less as just the beginning, with Russia as the springboard on the road toward worldwide revolution. Stalin introduced the idea ofsocialism in one countryby the autumn of 1924, a theory standing in sharp contrast to Trotsky'spermanent revolutionand all earlier socialistic theses. The revolution did not spread outside Russia as Lenin had assumed it soon would. The revolution had not succeeded even within other former territories of theRussian Empire―such asPoland,Finland,Lithuania,Latvia,andEstonia.On the contrary, these countries had returned tocapitalistbourgeoisrule.

He is an unprincipled intriguer, who subordinates everything to the preservation of his own power. He changes his theory according to whom he needs to get rid of.

Bukharin on Stalin's theoretical position, 1928.

Despite this, by the autumn of 1924, Stalin's notion of socialism inSoviet Russiawas initially considered next toblasphemyby otherPolitburo members,includingZinovievandKamenevto the intellectual left;Rykov,Bukharin,andTomskyto the pragmatic right; and the powerful Trotsky, who belonged to no side but his own. None would even consider Stalin's concept a potential addition to communist ideology. Stalin's socialism in one country doctrine could not be imposed until he had come close to being the Soviet Union'sautocratic ruleraround 1929. Bukharin and theRight Oppositionexpressed their support for imposing Stalin's ideas, as Trotsky had been exiled, and Zinoviev and Kamenev had been expelled from the party.

In a 1936 interview with journalistRoy W. Howard,Stalin articulated his rejection ofworld revolutionand said, "We never had such plans and intentions" and "The export of revolution is nonsense".

Proletarian state

Traditional communist thought holds that the state will gradually "wither away"as the implementation of socialism reduces class distinction. But Stalin argued that theproletarian state(as opposed to thebourgeois state) must become stronger before it can wither away. In Stalin's view,counter-revolutionaryelements will attempt to derail the transition tofull communism,and the state must be powerful enough to defeat them. For this reason,communist regimesinfluenced by Stalin aretotalitarian.Other leftists, such asanarcho-communists,have criticized theparty-stateof the Stalin-era Soviet Union, accusing it of being bureaucratic and calling it areformistsocial democracyrather than a form of revolutionary communism.

Sheng Shicai,a Chinesewarlordwith Communist leanings, invited Soviet intervention and allowed Stalinist rule to extend toXinjiangprovince in the 1930s. In 1937, Sheng conducted a purge similar to theGreat Purge,imprisoning, torturing, and killing about 100,000 people, many of themUyghurs.

Ideological repression and censorship

Main articles:August Uprising,Stalinist repressions in Azerbaijan,Stalinist repressions in Mongolia,Dekulakization,Doctors' plot,Anti-cosmopolitan campaign,Industrial Party Trial,Sharashka,Night of the Murdered Poets,UPTI Affair,Wrecking (Soviet Union),1931 Menshevik Trial,Pavlovian session,Law of Spikelets,Blacklisting (Soviet policy),Shakhty Trial,andKorets–Landau leaflet

Cybernetics:a reactionary pseudoscience that appeared in the U.S.A. after World War II and also spread through other capitalist countries. Cybernetics clearly reflects one of the basic features of the bourgeois worldview—its inhumanity, striving to transform workers into an extension of the machine, into a tool of production, and an instrument of war. At the same time, for cybernetics an imperialistic utopia is characteristic—replacing living, thinking man, fighting for his interests, by a machine, both in industry and in war. The instigators of a new world war use cybernetics in their dirty, practical affairs.

"Cybernetics" in theShort Philosophical Dictionary,1954

Under Stalin, repression was extended to academic scholarship, the natural sciences,and literary fields.In particular, Einstein'stheory of relativitywas subject to public denunciation, many of his ideas were rejected on ideological groundsand condemned as "bourgeois idealism" in the Stalin era.

A policy of ideological repression impacted various disciplinary fields such asgenetics,cybernetics,biology,linguistics,physics,sociology,psychology,pedology,mathematical logic,economicsandstatistics.

Pseudoscientifictheories ofTrofim Lysenkowere favoured over other scientific disciplines during the Stalin era.Soviet scientists were forced to denounce any work that contradicted Lysenko.Over 3,000 biologists were imprisoned, firedor executed for attempting to oppose Lysenkoism and genetic research was effectively destroyed until the death of Stalin in 1953.Due to the ideological influence ofLysenkoism,crop yields in the USSR declined.

Orthodoxy was enforced in thecultural sphere.Prior to Stalin's rule, literary, religious and national representatives had some level of autonomy in the 1920s but these groups were later rigorously repressed during the Stalinist era.Socialist realismwas imposed in artistic production and other creative industries such asmusic,filmalong withsportswere subject to extreme levels of political control.

Historical falsificationof political events such as the October Revolution and the Brest-Litovsk Treaty became a distinctive element of Stalin's regime. A notable example is the 1938 publication,History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks),in which the history of the governing party was significantly altered and revised including the importance of the leading figures during the Bolshevik revolution. Retrospectively, Lenin's primary associates such as Zinoviev, Trotsky,Radekand Bukharin were presented as "vacillating", "opportunists" and "foreign spies" whereas Stalin was depicted as the chief discipline during the revolution. However, in reality, Stalin was considered a relatively unknown figure with secondary importance at the time of the event.

In his book,The Stalin School of Falsification,Leon Trotsky argued that the Stalinist faction routinely distorted political events, forged a theoretical basis for irreconcilable concepts such as the notion of "Socialism in One Country" and misrepresented the views of opponents through an array of employed historians alongside economists to justify policy manoeuvering and safeguarding its own set of material interests.He cited a range of historical documents such as private letters, telegrams, party speeches, meetingminutes,and suppressed texts such asLenin's Testament.British historianOrlando Figesargued that "The urge to silence Trotsky, and all criticism of the Politburo, was in itself a crucial factor in Stalin's rise to power".

Cinematic productions served to foster the cult of personality around Stalin with adherents to the party line receivingStalin prizes.Although, film directors and their assistants were still liable to mass arrests during the Great Terror. Censorship of films contributed to amythologizingof history as seen with the filmsFirst Cavalry Army(1941) andDefence of Tsaritsyn(1942) in which Stalin was glorified as a central figure to theOctober Revolution.Conversely, the roles of other Soviet figures such as Lenin and Trotsky were diminished or misrepresented.

Cult of personality

Main articles:Joseph Stalin's cult of personality,The Fall of Berlin (film),The Unforgettable Year 1919,The Battle of Stalingrad (film),andThe Third Blow

Soviet Azerbaijanposter featuring an enlarged Stalin with workers

In the aftermath of the succession struggle, in which Stalin had defeated bothLeftandRight Opposition,a cult of Stalin had materialised.

From 1929 until 1953, there was a proliferation ofarchitecture,statues,posters,bannersandiconographyfeaturing Stalin in which he was increasingly identified with the state and seen as an emblem of Marxism.In July 1930, a state decree instructed 200 artists to prepare propaganda posters for the Five Year Plans and collectivsation measures.Historian Anita Pisch drew specific focus to the various manifestations of the personality cult in which Stalin was associated with the "Father", "Saviour" and "Warrior" cultural archetypes with the latter imagery having gained ascendency during theGreat Patrotic WarandCold War.

Stalin's monumentin Prague

Some scholars have argued that Stalin took an active involvement with the construction of the cult of personalitywith writers such asIsaac Deutscherand Erik van Ree noting that Stalin had absorbed elements from the cult of Tsars, Orthodox Christianity and highlighting specific acts such asLenin's embalming.Yet, other scholars have drawn on primary accounts from Stalin's associates such asMolotovwhich suggested he took a more critical and ambivalent attitude towards his cult of personality.

The cult of personality served to legitimate Stalin's authority, establish continuity with Lenin as his "discipline, student and mentee" in the view of his wider followers.His successor,Nikita Khrushchev,would later denounce the cult of personality around Stalin as contradictory to Leninist principles and party discourse.

Class-based violence

Stalin blamed thekulaksfor incitingreactionaryviolence against the people during the implementation ofagricultural collectivization.In response, the state, under Stalin's leadership, initiated a violent campaign against them. This kind of campaign was later known asclassicide,though several international legislatures have passed resolutions declaring the campaign a genocide.Some historians dispute that these social-class actions constitute genocide.

Purges and executions

Main articles:Great Purge,Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites",Case of the Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization,Sandarmokh,1937 mass execution of Belarusians,Vinnytsia massacre,1941 Red Army Purge,Leningrad case,Polish Operation of the NKVD,Katyn massacre,Case of the Union of Liberation of Belarus,NKVD prisoner massacres,Estonian Operation of the NKVD,Metro-Vickers Affair,Latvian Operation of the NKVD,Stalin's shooting lists,andFinnish Operation of the NKVD

Left:Lavrenty Beria's January 1940 letter to Stalin asking permission to execute 346 "enemies of the Communist Party and of the Soviet authorities"who conducted" counter-revolutionary, right-Trotskyite plotting and spying activities "
Middle: Stalin's handwriting: "за" (support)
Right: thePolitburo's decision is signed by Stalin

As head of thePolitburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,Stalin consolidated nearly absolute power in the 1930s with a Great Purge of the party that claimed to expel "opportunists" and "counter-revolutionary infiltrators".Those targeted by the purge were often expelled from the party; more severe measures ranged from banishment to theGulag labor campsto execution after trials held byNKVD troikas.

In the 1930s, Stalin became increasingly worried about Leningrad party headSergei Kirov's growing popularity. At the1934 Party Congress,where the vote for the new Central Committee was held, Kirov received only three negative votes (the fewest of any candidate), while Stalin received over 100.After Kirov's assassination, which Stalin may have orchestrated, Stalin invented a detailed scheme to implicate opposition leaders in the murder, including Trotsky,Lev Kamenev,andGrigory Zinoviev.Thereafter, the investigations and trials expanded.Stalin passed a new law on "terrorist organizations and terrorist acts" that were to be investigated for no more than ten days, with no prosecution, defense attorneys, or appeals, followed by a sentence to be imposed "quickly."Stalin's Politburo also issued directives on quotas for mass arrests and executions.Under Stalin, thedeath penaltywas extended to adolescents as young as 12 years old in 1935.

After that, several trials, known as theMoscow Trials,were held, but the procedures were replicated throughout the country.Article 58of the legal code, which listed prohibitedanti-Soviet activitiesas a counter-revolutionary crime, was applied most broadly.Many alleged anti-Soviet pretexts were used to brand individuals as "enemies of the people", starting the cycle of public persecution, often proceeding to interrogation, torture, and deportation, if not death. The Russian wordtroikathereby gained a new meaning: a quick, simplified trial by a committee of three subordinated to the NKVD troika—with sentencing carried out within 24 hours.Stalin's hand-pickedexecutionerVasili Blokhinwas entrusted with carrying out some of the high-profile executions in this period.

Many military leaders were convicted of treason, and a large-scale purge ofRed Armyofficers followed.The repression of many formerly high-ranking revolutionaries and party members led Trotsky to claim that a "river of blood" separated Stalin's regime from Lenin's.In August 1940, Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico, where he had lived in exile since January 1937. This eliminated the last of Stalin's opponents among the former Party leadership.Except forVladimir Milyutin(who died in prison in 1937) and Stalin himself, all of the members ofLenin's original cabinetwho had not died of natural causes before the purge were executed.

Mass operations of the NKVDalso targeted "national contingents" (foreign ethnicities) such asPoles,ethnic Germans,andKoreans.A total of 350,000 (144,000 of them Poles) were arrested and 247,157 (110,000 Poles) were executed.Many Americans who had emigrated to the Soviet Union during the worst of theGreat Depressionwere executed, while others were sent to prison camps or gulags.Concurrent with the purges, efforts were made to rewrite the history in Soviet textbooks and other propaganda materials. Notable people executed byNKVDwere removed from the texts and photographs as though they had never existed. Gradually, the history of the revolution was transformed into a story about just two men, Lenin and Stalin.

In light of revelations from Soviet archives, historians now estimate that nearly 700,000 people (353,074 in 1937 and 328,612 in 1938) were executed in the course of the terror,the great mass of them ordinary Soviet citizens: workers, peasants, homemakers, teachers, priests, musicians, soldiers, pensioners, ballerinas, and beggars.Scholars estimate the total death toll for the Great Purge (1936–1938) including fatalities attributed to imprisonment to be roughly 700,000-1.2 million.Many of the executed were interred inmass graves,with some significant killing and burial sites beingBykivnia,Kurapaty,andButovo. Some Western experts believe the evidence released from the Soviet archives is understated, incomplete or unreliable.Conversely, historianStephen G. Wheatcroft,who spent much of his career researching the archives, contends that, before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening of the archives for historical research, "our understanding of the scale and the nature of Soviet repression has been extremely poor" and that some specialists who wish to maintain earlier high estimates of the Stalinist death toll are "finding it difficult to adapt to the new circumstances when the archives are open and when there are plenty of irrefutable data" and instead "hang on to their oldSovietologicalmethods with round-about calculations based on odd statements from emigres and other informants who are supposed to have superior knowledge. "

Stalin personally signed 357proscriptionlists in 1937 and 1938 that condemned 40,000 people to execution, about 90% of whom are confirmed to have been shot.While reviewing one such list, he reportedly muttered to no one in particular: "Who's going to remember all this riff-raff in ten or twenty years? No one. Who remembers the names now of theboyarsIvan the Terriblegot rid of? No one. "In addition, Stalin dispatched a contingent of NKVD operatives toMongolia,established a Mongolian version of the NKVDtroika,and unleashed abloody purgein which tens of thousands were executed as "Japanese spies", as Mongolian rulerKhorloogiin Choibalsanclosely followed Stalin's lead.Stalin had ordered for 100,000Buddhistlamasin Mongolia to be liquidated but the political leaderPeljidiin Gendenresisted the order.

Under Stalinist influence in theMongolian People's Republic,an estimated 17,000 monks were killed, official figures show.Stalinist forces also oversaw purges of anti-Stalinist elements among the Spanish Republican insurgents, including theTrotskyistalliedPOUMfaction andanarchistgroups, during theSpainish Civil War.

During the 1930s and 1940s, the Soviet leadership sent NKVD squads into other countries to murder defectors and opponents of the Soviet regime. Victims of such plots included Trotsky,Yevhen Konovalets,Ignace Poretsky,Rudolf Klement,Alexander Kutepov,Evgeny Miller,and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) leadership in Catalonia (e.g.,Andréu Nin Pérez).Joseph Berger-Barzilai,co-founder of theCommunist Party of Palestine,spent twenty five years in Stalin's prisons and concentrations camps after the purges in 1937.

Deportations

Main articles:Population transfer in the Soviet Union,Deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union,Deportation of the Balkars,Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush,Deportation of the Meskhetian Turks,Deportation of the Crimean Tatars,Deportation of the Karachays,andDeportation of the Kalmyks

Shortly before, during, and immediately afterWorld War II,Stalin conducted a series ofdeportationsthat profoundly affected the ethnic map of the Soviet Union.Separatism,resistance to Soviet rule, and collaboration with theinvading Germanswere the official reasons for the deportations. Individual circumstances of those spending time inGerman-occupied territorieswere not examined. After the briefNazi occupation of the Caucasus,the entire population of five of the small highland peoples and theCrimean Tatars—more than a million people in total—were deported without notice or any opportunity to take their possessions.

As a result of Stalin's lack of trust in the loyalty of particular ethnicities, groups such as theSoviet Koreans,Volga Germans,Crimean Tatars,Chechens,and many Poles, were forcibly moved out of strategic areas and relocated to places in the central Soviet Union, especiallyKazakhstan.By some estimates, hundreds of thousands of deportees may have died en route.It is estimated that between 1941 and 1949, nearly 3.3 million peoplewere deported toSiberiaand the Central Asian republics. By some estimates, up to 43% of the resettled population died of diseases and malnutrition.

According to official Soviet estimates, more than 14 million people passed through the gulags from 1929 to 1953, with a further 7 to 8 million deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union (including entire nationalities in several cases).The emergent scholarly consensus is that from 1930 to 1953, around 1.5 to 1.7 million perished in the gulag system.

In February 1956,Nikita Khrushchevcondemned the deportations as a violation of Leninism and reversed most of them, although it was not until 1991 that the Tatars,Meskhetians,and Volga Germans were allowed to returnen masseto their homelands. The deportations had a profound effect on the Soviet people. The memory of the deportations has played a significant part in the separatist movements in the Baltic states,Tatarstan,andChechnya,even today.

Economic policy

Main articles:Collectivization in the Soviet Union,Holodomor,Kazakh famine of 1930–1933,andIndustrialization in the Soviet Union

Starved peasants on a street inKharkivduring theSoviet famine of 1932–1933

At the start of the 1930s, Stalin launched a wave of radical economic policies that completely overhauled the industrial and agricultural face of the Soviet Union. This became known as theGreat Turnas Russia turned away from themixed-economictypeNew Economic Policy(NEP) and adopted aplanned economy.Lenin implemented the NEP to ensure the survival of thesocialist statefollowing seven years of war (World War I,1914–1917, and the subsequentCivil War,1917–1921) and rebuilt Soviet production to its 1913 levels. But Russia still lagged far behind the West, and Stalin and the majority of the Communist Party felt the NEP not only to be compromising communist ideals but also not delivering satisfactory economic performance or creating the envisaged socialist society. It was felt necessary to increase the pace of industrialization in order to catch up with the West.

According to historianSheila Fitzpatrick,the scholarly consensus was that Stalin appropriated the position of theLeft Oppositionon such matters asindustrialisationandcollectivisation.Trotsky maintained that the disproportions and imbalances which became characteristic of Stalinist planning in the 1930s such as the underdevelopedconsumer basealong with the priority focus onheavy industrywere due to a number of avoidable problems. He argued that the industrial drive had been enacted under more severe circumstances, several years later and in a less rational manner than originally conceived by the Left Opposition.

Fredric Jamesonhas said that "Stalinism was…a success and fulfilled its historic mission, socially as well as economically" given that it "modernized the Soviet Union, transforming a peasant society into an industrial state with a literate population and a remarkable scientific superstructure."Robert Conquestdisputes that conclusion, writing, "Russia had already been fourth to fifth among industrial economies before World War I", and that Russian industrial advances could have been achieved without collectivization, famine, or terror. According to Conquest, the industrial successes were far less than claimed, and the Soviet-style industrialization was "an anti-innovative dead-end."Stephen Kotkinsaid those who argue collectivization was necessary are "dead wrong", writing that it "only seemed necessary within the straitjacket of Communist ideology and its repudiation of capitalism. And economically, collectivization failed to deliver." Kotkin further claimed that it decreased harvests instead of increasing them, as peasants tended to resist heavy taxes by producing fewer goods, caring only about their own subsistence.

According to several Western historians,Stalinist agricultural policies were a key factor in theSoviet famine of 1930–1933;some scholars believe thatHolodomor,which started near the end of 1932, was when the famine turned into an instrument of genocide; the Ukrainian government now recognizes it as such. Some scholars dispute the intentionality of the famine.

Social issues

The Stalinist era was largely regressive on social issues. Despite a brief period of decriminalization under Lenin, the 1934 Criminal Code re-criminalized homosexuality.Abortion was made illegal again in 1936after controversial debate among citizens,and women's issues were largely ignored.

Relationship to Leninism

Further information:Leninism after 1924

Stalin considered the political and economic system under his rule to beMarxism–Leninism,which he considered the only legitimate successor ofMarxismandLeninism.Thehistoriographyof Stalin is diverse, with many different aspects of continuity and discontinuity between the regimes Stalin and Lenin proposed. Some historians, such asRichard Pipes,consider Stalinism the natural consequence of Leninism: Stalin "faithfully implemented Lenin's domestic and foreign policy programs."Robert Servicewrites that "institutionally and ideologically Lenin laid the foundations for a Stalin [...] but the passage from Leninism to the worse terrors of Stalinism was not smooth and inevitable."Likewise, historian and Stalin biographerEdvard Radzinskybelieves that Stalin was a genuine follower of Lenin, exactly as he claimed.Another Stalin biographer,Stephen Kotkin,wrote that "his violence was not the product of his subconscious but of the Bolshevik engagement with Marxist–Leninist ideology."

A poster of the Stalinist era with the inscription "The whole world will be ours!"

Dmitri Volkogonov,who wrote biographies of both Lenin and Stalin, wrote that during the 1960s through 1980s, an official patriotic Sovietde-Stalinizedview of the Lenin–Stalin relationship (i.e. during theKhrushchev Thawand later) was that the overlyautocraticStalin had distorted the Leninism of the wisededushkaLenin. But Volkogonov also lamented that this view eventually dissolved for those like him who had the scales fall from their eyes immediately before and after thedissolution of the Soviet Union.After researching the biographies in the Soviet archives, he came to the same conclusion as Radzinsky and Kotkin, i.e. that Lenin had built a culture of violent autocratic totalitarianism of which Stalinism was a logical extension. He lamented that, while Stalin had long since fallen in the estimation of many Soviet minds (the many who agreed with de-Stalinization), "Lenin was the last bastion" in Volkogonov's mind to fall, and the fall was the most painful, given the secularapotheosisof Lenin that all Soviet children grew up with.

Proponents ofcontinuitycite a variety of contributory factors, such as that Lenin, not Stalin, introduced theRed Terrorwith its hostage-taking andinternment camps,and that Lenin developed the infamousArticle 58and established the autocratic system in theCommunist Party.They also note that Lenin put aban on factions within the Russian Communist Partyand introduced theone-party statein 1921—a move that enabled Stalin to get rid of his rivals easily after Lenin's death and citeFelix Dzerzhinsky,who, during theBolshevikstruggle against opponents in theRussian Civil War,exclaimed: "We stand for organized terror—this should be frankly stated."

Opponents of this view includerevisionist historiansand manypost-Cold Warand otherwisedissident Soviethistorians, includingRoy Medvedev,who argues that although "one could list the various measures carried out by Stalin that were actually a continuation of anti-democratic trends and measures implemented under Lenin…in so many ways, Stalin acted, not in line with Lenin's clear instructions, but in defiance of them."In doing so, some historians have tried to distance Stalinism from Leninism to undermine the totalitarian view that Stalin's methods were inherent in communism from the start.Other revisionist historians such asOrlando Figes,while critical of the Soviet era, acknowledge that Lenin actively sought to counter Stalin's growing influence, allying with Trotsky in 1922–23, opposing Stalin onforeign trade,and proposing party reforms including the democratization of theCentral Committeeand recruitment of 50-100 ordinary workers into the party's lower organs.

Critics include anti-Stalinist communists such as Trotsky, who pointed out that Lenin attempted to persuade the Communist Party to remove Stalin from his post as itsGeneral Secretary.Trotsky also argued that he and Lenin had intended to lift the ban on theopposition partiessuch as theMensheviksandSocialist Revolutionariesas soon as the economic and social conditions ofSoviet Russiahad improved.Lenin's Testament,the document containing this order, was suppressed after Lenin's death. Various historians have cited Lenin's proposal to appoint Trotsky as aVice-chairman of the Soviet Unionas evidence that he intended Trotsky to be his successor as head of government.In his biography of Trotsky, British historianIsaac Deutscherwrites that, faced with the evidence, "only the blind and the deaf could be unaware of the contrast between Stalinism and Leninism."Similarly, historianMoshe Lewinwrites, "The Soviet regime underwent a long period of 'Stalinism,' which in its basic features was diametrically opposed to the recommendations of [Lenin's] testament".French historianPierre Brouedisputes the historical assessments of the early Soviet Union by modern historians such as Dmitri Volkogonov, which Broue argues falsely equateLeninism,Stalinism andTrotskyismto present the notion of ideological continuity and reinforce the position ofcounter-communism.

Some scholars have attributed the establishment of the one-party system in the Soviet Union to the wartime conditions imposed on Lenin's government;others have highlighted the initial attempts to form a coalition government with theLeft Socialist Revolutionaries.According to historianMarcel Liebman,Lenin's wartime measures such as banning opposition parties was prompted by the fact that several political parties eithertook up armsagainst the newSoviet government,participated in sabotage,collaboratedwith the deposedTsarists,or madeassassination attempts against Leninand other Bolshevik leaders.Liebman also argues that the banning of parties under Lenin did not have the same repressive character as later bans enforced by Stalin's regime.Several scholars have highlighted the socially progressive nature of Lenin's policies, such asuniversal education,healthcare,andequal rights for women.Conversely, Stalin's regime reversed Lenin's policies on social matters such assexual equality,legal restrictions onmarriage,rights of sexual minorities, andprotective legislation.HistorianRobert Vincent Danielsalso views the Stalinist period as a counterrevolution in Soviet cultural life that revivedpatriotic propaganda,the Tsarist programme ofRussificationand traditional,military ranksthat Lenin had criticized as expressions of "Great Russian chauvinism".Daniels also regards Stalinism as an abrupt break with the Leninist period in terms of economic policies in which a deliberated, scientific system ofeconomic planningthat featured formerMenshevikeconomistsatGosplanwas replaced by a hasty version of planning with unrealistic targets, bureaucractic waste,bottlenecksandshortages.

O kulcie jednostki i jego następstwach,Warsaw, March 1956, first edition of the Secret Speech, published for the inner use in thePUWP.

In his "Secret Speech",delivered in 1956,Nikita Khrushchev,Stalin's successor, argued that Stalin's regime differed profusely from the leadership of Lenin. He was critical of thecult of the individualconstructed around Stalin whereas Lenin stressed "the role of the people as the creator of history".He also emphasized that Lenin favored acollective leadershipthat relied on personal persuasion and recommended Stalin's removal as General Secretary. Khrushchev contrasted this with Stalin's "despotism", which required absolute submission to his position, and highlighted that many of the people later annihilated as "enemies of the party... had worked with Lenin during his life".He also contrasted the "severe methods" Lenin used in the "most necessary cases" as a "struggle for survival" during the Civil War with the extreme methods and mass repressions Stalin used even when the revolution was "already victorious".In his memoirs, Khrushchev argued that his widespread purges of the "most advanced nucleus of people" among theOld Bolsheviksand leading figures in themilitaryandscientificfields had "undoubtedly" weakened the nation.According to Stalin's secretary,Boris Bazhanov,Stalin was jubilant over Lenin's death while "publicly putting on the mask of grief".

Some Marxist theoreticians have disputed the view that Stalin's dictatorship was a natural outgrowth of the Bolsheviks' actions, as Stalin eliminated most of the original central committee members from 1917.George Novackstressed the Bolsheviks' initial efforts to form a government with theLeft Socialist Revolutionariesand bring other parties such as the Mensheviks into political legality.Tony Cliffargued the Bolshevik-Left Socialist Revolutionary coalition government dissolved the Constituent Assembly for several reasons. They cited the outdated voter rolls, which did not acknowledge the split among the Socialist Revolutionary party, and the assembly's conflict with theCongress of the Sovietsas an alternative democratic structure.

A similar analysis is present in more recent works, such as those of Graeme Gill, who argues that Stalinism was "not a natural flow-on of earlier developments; [it formed a] sharp break resulting from conscious decisions by leading political actors."But Gill adds that "difficulties with the use of the term reflect problems with the concept of Stalinism itself. The major difficulty is a lack of agreement about what should constitute Stalinism."Revisionist historians such asSheila Fitzpatrickhave criticized the focus on the upper levels of society and the use of Cold War concepts such astotalitarianism,which have obscured the reality of the system.

Russian historianVadim Rogovinwrites, "Under Lenin, the freedom to express a real variety of opinions existed in the party, and in carrying out political decisions, consideration was given to the positions of not only the majority, but a minority in the party". He compared this practice with subsequent leadership blocs, which violated party tradition, ignored opponents' proposals, and expelled theOppositionfrom the party on falsified charges, culminating in theMoscow Trialsof 1936–1938. According to Rogovin, 80-90% of the members of the Central Committee elected at theSixththrough theSeventeenth Congresseswere killed.

The Right and Left Opposition have been held by some scholars as representing political alternatives to Stalinism despite their shared beliefs in Leninism due to their policy platforms which were at variance with Stalin. This ranged from areas related toeconomics,foreign policyandculturalmatters.

Legacy

Main articles:Excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Joseph StalinandPredictions of the collapse of the Soviet Union

Stalin statue in front of theJoseph Stalin Museum, Gori

British prime ministerWinston Churchill,United States presidentFranklin D. Rooseveltand Stalin, the Big Three Allied leaders during World War II at the Yalta Conference in February 1945

In Westernhistoriography,Stalin is considered one of the worst and most notorious figures in modern history.Biographer and historianIsaac Deutscherhighlighted thetotalitariancharacter of Stalinism and its suppression of "socialistinspiration ".Several scholars have derided Stalinism for fosteringanti-intellectual,antisemiticandchauvinisticattitudes within the Soviet Union.

Pierre du Bois argues that the cult of personality around Stalin was elaborately constructed to legitimize his rule. Many deliberate distortions and falsehoods were used.The Kremlin refused access to archival records that might reveal the truth, and critical documents were destroyed. Photographs were altered and documents were invented.People who knew Stalin were forced to provide "official" accounts to meet the ideological demands of the cult, especially as Stalin presented it in 1938 inShort Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks),which became the official history.HistorianDavid L. Hoffmannsums up the consensus of scholars: "The Stalin cult was a central element of Stalinism, and as such, it was one of the most salient features of Soviet rule. [...] Many scholars of Stalinism cite the cult as integral to Stalin's power or as evidence of Stalin's megalomania."

But after Stalin died in 1953, Khrushchev repudiated his policies and condemned hiscult of personalityin hisSecret Speechto theTwentieth Party Congressin 1956, institutingde-Stalinizationand relativeliberalization,within the same political framework. Consequently, the world's communist parties that previously adhered to Stalinism, except theGerman Democratic Republicand theSocialist Republic of Romania,abandoned it and, to a greater or lesser degree, adopted Khrushchev's positions. TheChinese Communist Partychose to split from the Soviet Union, resulting in theSino-Soviet split.Some have described Khrushchev's ouster in 1964 by his formerparty-stateallies as a Stalinist restoration, epitomized by theBrezhnev Doctrineand theapparatchik/nomenklatura"stability of cadres", lasting until the period ofglasnostandperestroikain the late 1980s and thefall of the Soviet Union.

Maoism and Hoxhaism

Mao Zedongfamously declared that Stalin was 70% good and 30% bad.Maoistscriticized Stalin chiefly for his view that bourgeois influence within the Soviet Union was primarily a result of external forces, to the almost complete exclusion of internal forces, and his view that class contradictions ended after the basic construction of socialism. Mao also criticized Stalin's cult of personality and the excesses of the great purge. But Maoists praised Stalin for leading the Soviet Union and the international proletariat, defeating fascism in Germany, and hisanti-revisionism.

Taking the side of theChinese Communist Partyin theSino-Soviet split,thePeople's Socialist Republic of Albaniaremained committed, at least theoretically, to its brand of Stalinism (Hoxhaism) for decades under the leadership ofEnver Hoxha.Despite their initial cooperation against "revisionism",Hoxha denounced Mao as a revisionist, along with almost every other self-identified communist organization worldwide, resulting in theSino-Albanian split.This effectively isolated Albania from the rest of the world, as Hoxha was hostile to both the pro-American and pro-Soviet spheres of influence and the Non-Aligned Movement under the leadership ofJosip Broz Tito,whom Hoxha had also previously denounced.

Trotskyism

Main articles:Trotskyism,Anti-Stalinist Left,The Stalin School of Falsification,andStalin: An Appraisal of the Man and His Influence

Leon Trotskywas the leader of theLeft Oppositionwhich advocated for an alternative set of policies to Stalin.

Leon Trotskyalways viewed Stalin as the "candidate for grave-digger of our party and the revolution" during the succession struggle.American historianRobert Vincent Danielsviewed Trotsky and the Left Opposition as a critical alternative to the Stalin-Bukharin majority in a number of areas. Daniels stated that the Left Opposition would have prioritised industrialisation but never contemplated the "violent uprooting"employed by Stalin and contrasted most directly with Stalinism on the issue ofparty democratization and bureaucratization.Trotsky also opposed the policy of forced collectivisation under Stalin and favoured avoluntary,gradual approach towardsagricultural productionwith greater tolerance for the rights of Soviet Ukrainians.

Trotskyistsargue that theStalinist Soviet Unionwas neithersocialistnorcommunistbut abureaucratizeddegenerated workers' state—that is, a non-capitalist state in which exploitation is controlled by a rulingcastethat, although not owning themeans of productionand not constituting asocial classin its own right, accrues benefits and privileges at the working class's expense. Trotsky believed that theBolshevik Revolutionmust be spread all over the globe's working class, theproletarians,for world revolution. But after the failure of the revolution in Germany, Stalin reasoned that industrializing and consolidating Bolshevism in Russia would best serve the proletariat in the long run. The dispute did not end until Trotsky was murdered in his Mexican villa in 1940 by Stalinist assassinRamón Mercader.Max Shachtman,a principal Trotskyist theorist in the U.S., argued that the Soviet Union had evolved from a degenerated worker's state to a newmode of productioncalledbureaucratic collectivism,wherebyorthodox Trotskyistsconsidered the Soviet Union an ally gone astray. Shachtman and his followers thus argued for the formation of aThird Campopposed to theSovietandcapitalistblocs equally. By the mid-20th century, Shachtman and many of his associates, such asSocial Democrats, USA,identified associal democratsrather than Trotskyists, while some ultimately abandoned socialism altogether and embracedneoconservatism.In the U.K.,Tony Cliffindependently developed a critique ofstate capitalismthat resembled Shachtman's in some respects but retained a commitment torevolutionary communism.Similarly, American TrotskyistDavid Northdrew attention to the fact that the generation of bureaucrats that rose to power under Stalin's tutelage presided over the Soviet Union'sstagnationandbreakdown.

At a time when hundreds of thousands and millions of workers, especially in Germany, are departing from Communism, in part to fascism and in the main into the camp of indifferentism, thousands and tens of thousands of Social Democratic workers, under the impact of the self-same defeat, are evolving into the left, to the side of Communism. There cannot, however, even be talk of their accepting the hopelessly discredited Stalinist leadership.

—Trotsky's writings on Stalinism and fascism in 1933

Trotskyist historianVadim Rogovinbelieved Stalinism had "discredited the idea of socialism in the eyes of millions of people throughout the world". Rogovin also argued that theLeft Opposition,led by Trotsky, was a political movement that "offered a real alternative to Stalinism, and that to crush this movement was the primary function of the Stalinist terror".According to Rogovin, Stalin had destroyed thousands of foreign communists capable of leading socialist change in their respective, countries. He cited 600 activeBulgariancommunists who perished in his prison camps along with the thousands of German communists whom Stalin handed over to theGestapoafter the signing of theGerman-Soviet pact.Rogovin further noted that 16 members of theCentral Committeeof theGerman Communist Partybecame victims of Stalinist terror. Repressive measures were also enforced upon theHungarian,Yugoslavand otherPolish Communistparties.British historian Terence Brotherstone argued that the Stalin era had a profound effect on those attracted to Trotsky's ideas. Brotherstone described figures who emerged from theStalinistparties as miseducated, which he said helped to block the development of Marxism.

Other interpretations

GulagMuseum in Moscow, founded in 2001 by historianAnton Antonov-Ovseyenko

Some historians and writers, such asDietrich Schwanitz,draw parallels between Stalinism and the economic policy ofTsarPeter the Great;Schwanitz in particular views Stalin as "a monstrous reincarnation" of him. Both men wanted Russia to leave the western European states far behind in terms of development. Both largely succeeded, turning Russia into Europe's leading power.Otherscompare Stalin toIvan the Terriblebecause of his policies ofoprichninaand the restriction of common people's liberties.

Some reviewers have considered Stalinism a form of "red fascism".Fascistregimes ideologically opposed the Soviet Union, but some regarded Stalinism favorably for evolvingBolshevisminto a form of fascism.Benito Mussolinisaw Stalinism as having transformed Soviet Bolshevism into aSlavicfascism.

British historianMichael Ellmanwrites that mass deaths from famines are not a "uniquely Stalinist evil", noting that famines and droughts have been acommon occurrenceinRussian history,including theRussian famine of 1921–22,which occurred before Stalin came to power. He also notes that famines were widespread worldwide in the 19th and 20th centuries in countries such as India, Ireland, Russia and China. Ellman compares the Stalinist regime's behavior vis-à-vis theHolodomorto that of theBritish government(towardIrelandandIndia) and theG8in contemporary times, arguing that the G8 "are guilty of mass manslaughter or mass deaths from criminal negligence because of their not taking obvious measures to reduce mass deaths" and that Stalin's "behaviour was no worse than that of many rulers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries".

Memorial to the victims of political repression in the USSR, inSt. Petersburg,made of a boulder from theSolovetsky Islands

David L. Hoffmannquestions whether Stalinist practices of state violence derive from socialist ideology. Placing Stalinism in an international context, he argues that many forms of state interventionism the Stalinist government used, including social cataloguing, surveillance and concentration camps, predate the Soviet regime and originated outside of Russia. He further argues that technologies of social intervention developed in conjunction with the work of 19th-century European reformers and greatly expanded during World War I, when state actors in all the combatant countries dramatically increased efforts to mobilize and control their populations. According to Hoffman, the Soviet state was born at this moment of total war and institutionalized state intervention practices as permanent features.

InThe Mortal Danger: Misconceptions about Soviet Russia and the Threat to America,anti-communist and Soviet dissidentAleksandr Solzhenitsynargues that the use of the termStalinismhides the inevitable effects of communism as a whole on human liberty. He writes that the concept of Stalinism was developed after 1956 by Western intellectuals to keep the communist ideal alive. But "Stalinism" was used as early as 1937, when Trotsky wrote his pamphletStalinism and Bolshevism.

In twoGuardianarticles in 2002 and 2006, British journalistSeumas Milnewrote that the impact of thepost-Cold Warnarrative that Stalin and Hitler were twin evils, equating communism's evils with those ofNazism,"has been to relativize the unique crimes of Nazism, bury those of colonialism and feed the idea that any attempt at radical social change will always lead to suffering, killing and failure."

According to historianEric D. Weitz,60% of German exiles in the Soviet Union had been liquidated during the Stalinist terror and a higher proportion of the KPD Politburo membership had died in the Soviet Union than in Nazi Germany. Weitz also noted that hundreds of German citizens, most of them Communists, were handed over to the Gestapo by Stalin's administration.

Public opinion

Main article:Neo-Stalinism

In modern Russia, public opinion of Stalin and the former Soviet Union hasimproved in recent years.Levada Center had found that favorability of the Stalinist era has increased from 18% in 1996 to 40% in 2016 which had coincided with his rehabilitation by the Putin government for the purpose of socialpatriotismandmilitarisationefforts.According to a 2015Levada Centerpoll, 34% of respondents (up from 28% in 2007) say that leading the Soviet people to victory inWorld War IIwas such an outstanding achievement that it outweighed Stalin's mistakes.A 2019 Levada Center poll showed that support for Stalin, whom many Russians saw as the victor in theGreat Patriotic War,reached a record high in thepost-Soviet era,with 51% regarding him as a positive figure and 70% saying his reign was good for the country.

Lev Gudkov,a sociologist at theLevada Center,said, "Vladimir Putin's Russia of 2012 needs symbols of authority and national strength, however controversial they may be, to validate the newly authoritarian political order. Stalin, a despotic leader responsible for mass bloodshed but also still identified with wartime victory and national unity, fits this need for symbols that reinforce the current political ideology."

Some positive sentiments can also be found elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. A 2012 survey commissioned by theCarnegie Endowmentfound 38% ofArmeniansconcurring that their country "will always have need of a leader like Stalin".A 2013 survey byTbilisi Universityfound 45% ofGeorgiansexpressing "a positive attitude" toward Stalin.

See also

• Anti-Stalinist left
• Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union
• Cybernetics in the Soviet Union
• Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism
• Foreign interventions by the Soviet Union
• Everyday Stalinism
• Leningrad Affair'
• Juche
• Human rights in the Soviet Union
• Mass killings under communist regimes
• Political views of Joseph Stalin
• Soviet Empire
• Hoxhaism
• Stalin's Peasants
• Stalin Society
• Stalinist architecture
• State socialism
• Socialism in one country
• The Stalinist Legacy

References

Sources

• Applebaum, Anne(2003).Gulag: A History.Doubleday.ISBN978-0-7679-0056-0.
• Boobbyer, Phillip (2000).The Stalin Era.Routledge.ISBN978-0-415-18298-0.
• Brackman, Roman (2001).The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life.Frank Cass Publishers.ISBN978-0-7146-5050-0.
• Bullock, Alan(1962).Hitler: A Study in Tyranny.Penguin Books.ISBN978-0-14-013564-0.
• Conquest, Robert(1991).Stalin: Breaker of Nations.New York: Penguin Random House.
• Davies, Sarah(1997).Popular Opinion in Stalin's Russia: Terror, Propaganda and Dissent, 1934–1941.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-52-156676-6.
• Davies, Sarah; Harris, James, eds. (2005).Stalin: A New History.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-1-13-944663-1.
• Davies, Sarah; Harris, James, eds. (2014).Stalin's World: Dictating the Soviet Order.New Haven: Yale University Press.ISBN978-0-30-018281-1.
• Fitzpatrick, Sheila(1996).Stalin's Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village After Collectivization.Oxford: Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-510459-2.
• Fitzpatrick, Sheila (2000).Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s.Oxford: Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-505001-1.
• Gellately, Robert(2007).Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe.Knopf.ISBN978-1-4000-4005-6.
• Getty, J. Arch(1987).Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933–1938.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-52-133570-6.
• Getty, J. Arch (1993).Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-52-144670-9.
• Getty, J. Arch (2013).Practicing Stalinism: Bolsheviks, Boyars, and the Persistence of Tradition.New Haven: Yale University Press.ISBN978-0-30-016929-4.
• Gill, Graeme J. (1998).Stalinism.Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN978-0-312-17764-5.RetrievedOctober 1,2010.
• Kotkin, Stephen(2014).Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928.New York: Penguin Random House.ISBN978-0143127864.
• Kotkin, Stephen (2017).Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941.New York: Penguin Random House.
• Kotkin, Stephen(1997).Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism As a Civilization(1st ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press.ISBN9780520208230.
• Montefiore, Simon Sebag(2004).Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar.Knopf.ISBN978-1-4000-4230-2.
• Overy, Richard J.(2004).The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia.W. W. Norton & Company.ISBN978-0-393-02030-4.
• Peters, Benjamin (2012). "Normalizing Soviet Cybernetics".Information & Culture.47(2): 145–175.doi:10.1353/lac.2012.0009.JSTOR43737425.S2CID144363003.
• Tucker, Robert C.(1992).Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928–1941.W. W. Norton & Company.ISBN978-0-393-30869-3.

Further reading

Main article:Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union

Books

• Bullock, Alan.1998.Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives(2nd ed.). Fontana Press.
• Campeanu, Pavel. 2016.Origins of Stalinism: From Leninist Revolution to Stalinist Society.Routledge.
• Conquest, Robert.2008.The Great Terror: A Reassessment(40th anniversary ed.). Oxford University Press.
• Deutscher, Isaac.1967.Stalin: A Political Biography(2nd edition). Oxford House.
• Dobrenko, Evgeny. 2020.Late Stalinism(Yale University Press, 2020).
• Edele, Mark, ed. 2020.Debates on Stalinism: An introduction(Manchester University Press, 2020).
• Figes, Orlando.2008.The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia.Picador.
• Groys, Boris. 2014.The total art of Stalinism: Avant-Garde, aesthetic dictatorship, and beyond.Verso Books.
• Hasselmann, Anne E. 2021. "Memory Makers of the Great Patriotic War: Curator Agency and Visitor Participation in Soviet War Museums during Stalinism."Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society13.1 (2021): 13–32.
• Hoffmann, David L.2008.Stalinism: The Essential Readings.John Wiley & Sons.
• Hoffmann, David L. 2018.The Stalinist Era.Cambridge University Press.
• Kotkin, Stephen.1997.Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a civilization.University of California Press.
• McCauley, Martin. 2019Stalin and Stalinism(Routledge, 2019).
• Ree, Erik Van. 2002.The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin, A Study in Twentieth-century Revolutionary Patriotism.RoutledgeCurzon.
• Ryan, James, and Susan Grant, eds. 2020.Revisioning Stalin and Stalinism: Complexities, Contradictions, and Controversies(Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020).
• Sharlet, Robert. 2017.Stalinism and Soviet legal culture(Routledge, 2017).
• Tismăneanu, Vladimir.2003.Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political History of Romanian Communism.University of California Press.
• Tucker, Robert C.,ed. 2017.Stalinism: essays in historical interpretation.Routledge.
• Valiakhmetov, Albert, et al. 2018. "History And Historians In The Era Of Stalinism: A Review Of Modern Russian Historiography."National Academy of Managerial Staff of Culture and Arts Herald1 (2018).online
• Velikanova, Olga. 2018.Mass Political Culture Under Stalinism: Popular Discussion of the Soviet Constitution of 1936(Springer, 2018).
• Wood, Alan. 2004.Stalin and Stalinism(2nd ed.).Routledge.

Scholarly articles

• Alexander, Kuzminykh. 2019. "The internal affairs agencies of the Soviet State in the period of Stalinism in the context of Russian historiography."Historia provinciae–the journal of regional history3.1 (2019).online
• Barnett, Vincent. 2006.Understanding Stalinism: The 'Orwellian Discrepancy' and the 'Rational Choice Dictator'.Europe-Asia Studies,58(3), 457–466.
• Edele, Mark. 2020. "New perspectives on Stalinism?: A conclusion." inDebates on Stalinism(Manchester University Press, 2020) pp. 270–281.
• Gill, Graeme. 2019. "Stalinism and Executive Power: Formal and Informal Contours of Stalinism."Europe-Asia Studies71.6 (2019): 994–1012.
• Kamp, Marianne, and Russell Zanca. 2017. "Recollections of collectivization in Uzbekistan: Stalinism and local activism."Central Asian Survey36.1 (2017): 55–72.online
• Kuzio, Taras. 2017. "Stalinism and Russian and Ukrainian national identities."Communist and Post-Communist Studies50.4 (2017): 289–302.
• Lewin, Moshe. 2017. "The social background of Stalinism." inStalinism(Routledge, 2017. 111–136).
• Mishler, Paul C. 2018. "Is the Term 'Stalinism' Valid and Useful for Marxist Analysis?."Science & Society82.4 (2018): 555–567.
• Musiał, Filip. 2019. "Stalinism in Poland."The Person and the Challenges: Journal of Theology, Education, Canon Law and Social Studies Inspired by Pope John Paul II9.2 (2019): 9–23.online
• Nelson, Todd H. 2015. "History as ideology: The portrayal of Stalinism and the Great Patriotic War in contemporary Russian high school textbooks."Post-Soviet Affairs,31(1), 37–65.
• Nikiforov, S. A., et al. "Cultural revolution of Stalinism in its regional context."International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology9.11 (2018): 1229–1241' impact on schooling
• Wheatcroft, Stephen G. "Soviet statistics under Stalinism: Reliability and distortions in grain and population statistics."Europe-Asia Studies71.6 (2019): 1013–1035.
• Winkler, Martina. 2017. "Children, Childhood, and Stalinism."Kritika18(3), 628–637.
• Zawadzka, Anna. 2019. "Stalinism the Polish Way."Studia Litteraria et Historica8 (2019): 1–6.online
• Zysiak, Agata. 2019. "Stalinism and Revolution in Universities. Democratization of Higher Education from Above, 1947–1956."Studia Litteraria et Historica8 (2019): 1–17.online

Primary sources

• Stalin, Joseph. [1924] 1975.Foundations of Leninism.Foreign Languages Press.
• Stalin, Joseph (1951).Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR.Foreign Languages Press.

External links

• "Stalin Reference Archive".Marxists Internet Archive.Retrieved 11 May 2005.
• "Joseph Stalin".Spartacus Educational.
• Joseph Stalin: National hero or cold-blooded murderer?.BBCTeach (resources for school teachers).