Stalinist Politics Research Articles

Stalinist political spectacle and the defeat of the opposition: The Fifteenth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in 1927

AbstractThe Fifteenth Party Congress of the All‐Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) took place in December 1927. It brought to an end the inner‐Party struggle of the Soviet Communist Party by confirming the expulsion of Leon Trotsky, Gregorii Zinoviev and other oppositionists from Party and government posts. The Fifteenth Party Congress marked the domination of Iosif Stalin and his allies over the whole Party and the beginning of Stalinist politics which flourished in the following decades. Despite extensive scholarly interest in this crucial Party congress in the history of the early Soviet Union and the Soviet Communist Party, little has been studied on the organisational aspect of the Fifteenth Congress. This article examines the process of establishing the organisational and institutional mechanisms ahead of the Fifteenth Congress, which enabled Stalin and the Central Committee to unanimously affirm the correctness of the Party line. It also explores how Stalin attained legitimacy as the Party leader during the pre‐Fifteenth Congress discussion and how it was presented at the Fifteenth Congress. Furthermore, this article demonstrates how the ‘memory’ of the Fifteenth Congress was constructed and how the Party leaders institutionalised the meaning of the Fifteenth Congress. Through these examinations, this article will shed fresh light on the Fifteenth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party and will contribute to the study of the rise of Stalinism.

The Stalinist Political Culture of the Second Wave of the Russian Diaspora: A Case Study

This article examines the career of Vladimir Vasil’evich Pozdniakov during the Second World War and the early Cold War. A lieutenant colonel in the Red Army who was arrested during the Great Terror, Pozdniakov was captured on the Eastern front in October 1941. He collaborated with the Germans, first serving as the head of camp police in 1942, then becoming a propagandist in the system of POW camps, and finally serving as a high-ranking officer in the short-lived Russian army under General A. A. Vlasov. He escaped repatriation to the USSR after the war and worked as an intelligence agent in the Gehlen Organization and the CIA while also taking part in anti-communist groups in West Germany. Pozdniakov also acted as an amateur historian of the Vlasov movement. Pozdniakov’s career provides a window on the actions of one individual across the upheavals of war, occupation, and Cold War. Pozdniakov’s actions were shaped by the political culture of the Stalinist 1930s. Like other members of the Soviet party-state and military elite, Pozdniakov was opportunistic, suspicious, and dogmatic – all qualities that were crucial for advancement and mere survival in the Stalinist 1930s. The political culture of the 1930s helps to explain his activities during a time of unprecedented chaos and violence: his willingness to collaborate diligently with the Nazis and then with Germany’s Western conquerors, his constant battles within circles of collaborators and the Russian diaspora, and his hagiographic writing of the history of the Vlasov movement while in postwar exile. Pozdnyakov’s example suggests a new approach to the study of the political culture of the second wave of Russian emigration. Due to the historical context of the formation of the second wave – captivity on the Eastern Front, life and sometimes collaboration during the Nazi occupation and flight from repatriation – its members had no other source of public identity other than the continuing devotion to Vlasov’s semi-fictional Russian liberation army.

Terror as a Tool of Stalin’s Rule Book Review: Syrykh VM. The Legal Nature of Stalin’s Terror: In Compliance with the Directives of the Party, but Contrary to the Law. Moscow: Yurlitinform Publ.; 2020

The paper provides for a critical analysis of the monographic work by famous Marxist legal scholar, Doctor of Law, Professor, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation Vladimir M. Syrykh. As known, there are a lot of works investigating the crimes of Stalinist politics based on open sources that have become available to scientists. Prof. Syrykh cultivates a different, legal view of the activities of Stalinist leadership. As a legal theorist and methodologist, he set himself the goal of analyzing the legal nature of Stalin’s repressive policies and his associates in the 1930s-1950s. The researcher concluded that Stalin’s leadership in the process of building the socialist state turned away from the requirements of the constitution and Soviet legislation, acted contrary to law, replacing it with Directives, which can be qualified as undermining the state system.Reviewers praise the work by Vladimir M. Syrykh, sharing many of his submissions. As reviewers see, the author’s intention was to purge the very idea of socialism from the distortions and perversions brought by Stalin. According to the author, Stalin perverted the creative nature of Marxism and Lenin’s legacy. However, the authors of the review indicate that the policy of terror against the Soviet people coincides with the period of Stalin’s rule, which gives grounds to Prof. Syrykh opponents to claim: 40 years of socialist construction involved violence, coercion and killing thousands of people. The book under review is written to counter such claims.

The Failure of the Stalinist Propagandist: the Trial of Yakov Alperovich, Editor of the Sovetskaya Sibir (1937–1938)

The research featured the biography of Yakov Alperovich, a prominent figure of the Siberian Soviet establishment in the 1920s–1930s. Starting at the social bottom, his career path was a typical example of the dramatic fate that befell most Stalinist officials. The article describes the main steps of his career ladder on the way to political power during the purges of 1937–1938, as well as the changes in the Stalinist politics in the 1930s, which were the ruin of the internal party relations. The author assessed the socio-political atmosphere in the administrative establishment. The study focused on the role of denunciations as a tool against the so-called hostile elements. The dramatic end of Yakov Alperovich, a district committee secretary and an editor, reflects the general tragedy of the Soviet Communists that fell victims to the Stalin's repressions. The article introduces new historical facts and expands the knowledge about Siberia in the Stalin era.

The everyday as the Soviet Gesamtkunstwerk

The notion of the Gesamtkunstwerk as a modern political phenomenon – the merging of art and life and the artistic transformation of life in its totality – has been limited to public political spectacle and the theatrical enactments of state programs. In contrast, this article about the Soviet 1920s and 1930s looks at everyday life or, in Russian, byt, as the primary domain of modern aesthetico-political intervention. The successful ordering of everyday life according to the principles of communism would mean that even the most intimate aspects of citizens’ lives become part of a total work of art, which now encompasses not only the public but also the private sphere. The author traces the evolution of byt reform from the aesthetic associations between bureaucrats and artists of the 1920s to the 1930s mobilization of ordinary citizens as artists who mould their everyday environments in accordance with Stalinist politics.

Неприпустимі «операції» пам’яті: репресії проти греків в Україні

The study illustrates the preparation and conduct of «national operations» during the «Great Terror» of 1937–1938 and shows the course and causes of the so-called «Greek Operation». The motives that guided the Stalinist leadership, repressing the Greek population of Ukraine, in particular, Stalin’s desire to retaliate against the Soviet Greeks for the failure of the special operation in Greece, were noted (in 1935 a monarchy was restored in Greece, which led to the prohibition and deepening of the Communist Party of Greece into the underground, from which it had some plans to spread influence over the Southeast and South America). Inventing a variety of factors and reasons to eliminate economically sound and culturally organized national minority, and therefore «dangerous» and unacceptable for building a homogeneously unified Soviet society in the face of fear for the most part mythical enemy, translating all miscalculations into «fifth column», led to unjustified accusations, mass arrests, terrible sentences to the Greek population of Ukraine.The appeal to the history of Stalin’s repression against the backdrop of Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine is urgent. The «Renaissance of Stalinism» in Russia, even with its imaginative symbolism, which rehabilitates Stalin’s role in political repression, embodies Stalinist themes in the form of visual propaganda, is a component of Russian-Ukrainian memory wars. The manipulation of historical memory, the attempt to interpret contemporary events and processes in the light of ideas inherited from the USSR are part of a strategy to restore Russia’s status as a world leader, where the figure of Stalin and the rehabilitation of Stalinist politics play a lasting role. It should be clearly understood that manipulating commemorative practices in times of war is nothing more than military «operations.» In the case of Stalinist repression, in particular against national minorities, it is not simply an effort to justify them in the past, but a preparation for resolution in the future. The memory of the Great Terror at the center of which is the population of Ukraine is the most important component of our country’s humanitarian security and historical policy.

Negotiating Lives, Redefining Repressive Policies: Managing the Legacies of Stalinist Deportations

Negotiating Lives, Redefining Repressive PoliciesManaging the Legacies of Stalinist Deportations Alain Blum (bio) and Emilia Koustova (bio) Translated by Madeleine Grieve and Catriona Duthreuil Administrative collective exile, implemented in 1940 and 1941 and again from 1944 onward, involved the deportation of hundreds of thousands of people from the western territories annexed by the Soviet Union after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed in August 1939. These forced displacements fitted into a broader policy of Soviet mass deportations, which had started with the collectivization of the countryside in 1929–32. More than six million people were deported and assigned the degrading, restrictive status of "special deportees," "special settlers," or "exiles," a status that evolved during subsequent waves of deportation and over time.1 [End Page 537] It was the task of the Soviet authorities that succeeded Stalin in 1953 to manage this population, scattered over a vast territory but strictly delimited in administrative terms, and to decide whether or not to release people in these categories and reintegrate them into mainstream society. Rather than abolishing the special regime governing the special settlers, the Soviet authorities kept it in place for many years. Decisions about the special deportees were not coordinated with the policy to release and rehabilitate former prisoners, which covered both ordinary criminals and political detainees.2 The timeframes were not the same, and the types of procedures implemented also differed. Although Lavrentii Beria's intention was evidently to follow up the amnesty decree of March 1953 with similar measures applicable to a large percentage of the forcibly displaced population, any such measures were suspended after Beria's arrest.3 While for the camps the authorities opened both individual and collective judicial procedures in the form of sentencing reviews and amnesties, these mechanisms were not extended to the special settlers, who had never been sentenced by a court. Instead, their status had been assigned and their deportation effected on the basis of administrative decisions (orders issued by the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs [NKVD], the USSR Council of Ministers, or the Council of Ministers of the republic concerned), or decisions emanating from an extrajudicial body with sentencing powers—namely, the NKVD Special Conference. The Soviet authorities, extremely wary of this population, dismantled the world of the deportees very slowly, mirroring the gradual nature of its constitution. The system was dismantled by collective decrees and instructions issued by the central government between 1954 and 1965, regulating the [End Page 538] deportees' release and return.4 These decisions took effect last on the western fringes of the Soviet Union. The status of "special settler" did not disappear completely until 1965, some 12 years after Stalin's death. And it was not until perestroika, in 1988 especially, and subsequently in the states that became independent in 1991, that more general legislation finally overturned the Stalinist decisions. Until 1988, therefore, decisions on the release of individuals and the restitution of property were still underpinned by Stalinist political and social categories. Those who had been deported as "bandits," "accomplices of bandits," "members of a bandit's family," and "relatives of kulaks" did not receive the same treatment by the Soviet authorities. Rather than challenge these Stalinist representations, the actions of the authorities only mitigated their impact on the lives of the people concerned. Release did not automatically entail the right of return or the restitution of confiscated property or housing, for which deportees had to make separate demands. During the crucial decade of 1954–65, each wave of collective release of millions of special settlers was decided and organized at the highest level of the state. But these decisions were sometimes anticipated by the republic authorities, which implemented various procedures for the release of certain individuals. State hesitancy and the relative leeway granted to republics led to an entanglement of collective procedures initiated by Moscow and of individual procedures initiated by the republic authorities. In this article, we do not address the mechanisms of collective releases, which are well known.5 We focus instead on individual release procedures and therefore on the practices implemented by the republic governments, as illustrated by the case of Lithuania. The example of Lithuania is at once emblematic...

Politische Justiz unter Stalin im Umbruchjahrzehnt 1928-1938

Courts and administrative justice were decisive instruments of Stalinist rule in the USSR. Especially during Stalin's "Revolution from Above" in the late twenties and early thirties and in the Great Terror of 1937/38 political justice played an important role for the implementation of Stalinist politics. The special features of Stalinist political justice are its fictiousness with many thousands of falsified indictments, the staging of show trials and the coexistence of courts together with extrajudicial punishment "by administrative means".

A Communal Model of Citizenship in Stalinist Politics: Agitators and Voters in Postwar Electoral Campaigns (Kyiv, 1946–53)

SUMMARY: Статья Сергея Екельчика посвящена выборам в Верховный Совет и местные органы власти в послевоенном Киеве, точнее, роли агитаторов во время предвыборной кампании. В статье реконструируется деятельность агитаторов: их назначение, встречи с рядовыми гражданами, пропаганда и сбор жалоб и пожеланий для передачи официальным инстанциям. Как выясняет автор, политическое руководство очень серьезно относилось к предвыборной кампании и вовсе не воспринимало ее как пустой спектакль (как полагали сторонники теории тоталитаризма). С другой стороны, участвовавшие в предвыборной агитации люди (каждый пятнадцатый избиратель становился агитатором) вовсе не обязаны были демонстрировать особую идеологическую сознательность – их работа заключалась в транслировании официозной пропа-ганды. Екельчик предлагает рассматривать деятельность агитаторов как важнейшую социальную практику реализации “коммунальной модели гражданства.” Эта модель отличается от традиционных представлений о гражданстве как формальном статусе определенной категории населения и предполагает, что в сталинском СССР граждане должны были регулярно подтверждать свой статус через ритуалы политического участия (в том числе, в ходе предвыборных кампаний). Выступавшие от лица государства обычные люди, временно назначаемые агитаторами, служили важным передаточным звеном между государственной машиной и пространством частной жизни. Они придавали сталинскому режиму “человеческое лицо” в глазах населения, собирали информацию о настроениях граждан, а также по мере сил пытались решать бытовые проблемы избирателей.

Economic Crisis, Henryk Grossman and the Responsibility of Socialists

AbstractHenryk Grossman's discussion of economic crises was designed to complement his Leninist understanding of politics. For Grossman, as for Marx, the fundamental contradiction of capitalist production is between the unlimited scope for expanding the output of use-values and restrictions imposed by the framework of producing profits. The increasing weight of capitalists' outlays on dead compared to living labour, which is the only source of new value, gives rise to the system's tendency to break down and, hence, to economic crises. Deep financial crises can only be understood in the context of developments in production and particularly movements in the rate of profit. The initial widespread hostility to Grossman's development of Marxist economics can mainly be explained in terms of the logics of Social-Democratic and Stalinist politics. In contrast to dominant views on the Left today, the Marxist tradition in which Grossman stood places the construction of organisations capable of assisting the working class' conquest of political power at the heart of the responsibility of socialists. Grossman's political practice expressed his understanding of the close relationship between capitalism's breakdown tendency and the importance of building a revolutionary party.

Stalinism, Post-Stalinism, and Neo-Capitalism: To Be or Not to Be?

IntroductionAccording to Korea historian Andrei Lankov, Korea is no longer a state, the old society is dead, a neo-capitalist revolution is under-way, and the is proceeding to a market-oriented system. This thesis is advanced Lankov's Asia Times Online articles, such as Cracks Korean 'Stalinism' (2004), Welcome to Capitalism, Korean Comrades (2004), and North Korea: Market Forces Have Female Faces (2005), which were republished as a report Asia Policy titled Natural Death of Korean (2006). Lankov's most recent book, of the DMZ (2007), makes similar arguments, as it is a revised compilation of his newspaper columns for the Asia Times Online and Korea Times. The problems concerning Lankov's theory of post-Stalinism begin with his definition of Stalinism. He employs the following criteria: (1) a brutal and repressive regime, (2) a centrally planned (3) a Leninist party, and (4) a system of political thought control.1 Here the modification or exclusion of a few of these criteria is sufficient to disqualify Korea as being a state. Lankov explains that Korea was the closest possible approximation of an ideal and in many regards it was far more than Josef Stalin's Russia itself-until the economic crisis of 1991 to 1995 and the subsequent famine 1996 to 1999, which resulted from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of economic subsidies.2The changes the Korean Lankov says, have transformed the completely and, perhaps, irreversibly.3 Therefore, has to stretch the definitions describing the Korea of 2004 as 'Stalinist,' for even though it continues to be ruled by a repressive and brutal regime, the peculiarities of Stalinism are now disappearing.4 Specifically, the second, third, and fourth criteria that Lankov identifies are the ones that are apparently withering away. While brutality and repressiveness are essential ingredients Lankov's conception of Korean decisive for him are the nationalized-centralized economic structure of the state, the type of party that rules the state, and state monopoly of information. When one studies Lankov's use of the phrase Stalinism, a number of other terms are found synonym with it. These are communism, central economy, and state-managed economy. Lankov equates Stalinism with socialism, of which there are many different schools. His aforesaid reference to a Leninist party also suggests that he sees the contributions of Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) to classical Marxism -the theory of imperialism and the theory of the revolutionary party-as leading to Stalinism. Similar views can be found the works of well-known anticommunist scholars such as Robert Conquest, Leszek Kolakowski, Martin Malia, Richard Pipes, and Dimitri Volkogonov. Thus, one should not assume that this is an original line of argument or that Lankov is its innovator.Stalinism and Socialism One CountryLankov summarizes his views on Stalinism on the Korea Zone Web site a December 13, 2006, anonymous exchange with the author, who wrote response to Lankov's online article Stalinist Politics vs. Market Place Capitalism. The correspondence provides two conflicting theories of Stalinism. In the first case, the reader defines Stalinism as a nationalist program of socialism one country-not necessarily a totalitarian state regime-whose political and economic policies defend the nation-state system, thus making the final analysis, related to capitalism, which upholds the world division of national states as well:(1) Stalinism must be seen for what it is, namely, a nationalist pseudo-socialist political program based on the theory of socialism one country and not exclusively as a case of a repressive-totalitarian regime. …

Cuestiones sobre Stalin

Stalin has been object of all kind of vilification and he has been severely criticized in all the aspects of his political career. Most historians consider him as an incarnation of evil similar to Hitler. Nevertheless, a dipassionate analysis of his work shows that shades and lights. Except those who see history with blinders, nobody could deny the enormous, scientific and cultural development experienced by the URSS in the thirty years of quinquenial plans proposed by Stalin. It is also impossible to deny the trascendental role played by the Soviet Union in the defeat of Nazism during the Second World War. Besides these expressions of success, there is also the sombre aspect of the repression of the bolshevist party. This paper tries to focus in some aspects of the Stalinist politics different from what is usually offered by the books of history. It as aimed at the need of reinterpreting the history of Stalin away from the platitudes present in the historiography of the topic. We do not pretend to justify anything, but to show the facts are more complex than what some historians want us to believe.

The Peasant Woman in Stalinist Political Art of the 1930s

The Peasant Woman in Stalinist Political Art of the 1930s

The Peasant Woman in Stalinist Political Art of the 1930s

The Peasant Woman in Stalinist Political Art of the 1930s

The Origins of the Stalinist Political System

The Origins of the Stalinist Political System

Graeme Gill. The Origins of the Stalinist Political System. (Soviet and East European Studies, number 74.) New York: Cambridge University Press. 1990. Pp. xv, 454. $64.50

Journal Article Graeme Gill. The Origins of the Stalinist Political System. (Soviet and East European Studies, number 74.) New York: Cambridge University Press. 1990. Pp. xv, 454. $64.50 Get access Gill Graeme. The Origins of the Stalinist Political System. (Soviet and East European Studies, number 74.) New York: Cambridge University Press. 1990. Pp. xv, 454. $64.50. Hiroaki Kuromiya Hiroaki Kuromiya Indiana University, Bloomington Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 96, Issue 5, December 1991, Pages 1584–1585, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/96.5.1584-a Published: 01 December 1991

The Origins of the Stalinist Political System

The Origins of the Stalinist Political System

Reviews of Books

Reviews of Books Get access The Origins of the Stalinist Political System. By GRAEME GILL (Cambridge: U.P., 1990; pp. xv + 450. £45). JOHN KEEP JOHN KEEP Venthône, Switzerland Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume CVI, Issue CCCCXXI, October 1991, Pages 957–959, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/CVI.CCCCXXI.957 Published: 01 October 1991

Ideology and rationality in the Soviet model: a legacy for Gorbachev

I.Introduction 1. Setting the Stage II. Foundations of the Soviet Model 2. Searching for the Economics of Early Soviet Planning 3. Formation of the Stalinist Political System 4. The Bolshevik Order and Russian Tradition 5. Summary: Political Forces III. Attempts at Change 6. The Failure of Intensification 7. The Khrushchev Experience 8. Promoting Patriotism: The Era of Mature Stalinism 9. Summary: The Role of Ideology IV. The Precarious Victory of Stability 10. Stagnation and the Reforms that Never Were 11. The Politics of Stagnation 12. Return to Russia 13. Summary: Rationality and Soviet Man V. A Legacy for Gorbachev 14. Opening Pandora's Box Index.

Physics, Stalinist politics of science and cultural revolution

Physics, Stalinist politics of science and cultural revolution