Mastering Modern World History

by Norman Lowe

  (b) Stalin’s last battles

  Any Soviet citizens who were expecting more freedom and a more relaxed way of life as a reward for their superhuman efforts during the war were quickly disillusioned. Stalin was well aware of the growing unrest and the desire for radical change. Peasants were disgusted with the tiny wages paid on the collectives and were beginning to take land back and farm it for themselves. Industrial workers were protesting about low wages and rising food prices. People in the newly acquired areas – the Baltic states and western Ukraine (see Map 17.1) – bitterly resented Soviet rule and resorted to armed resistance. Stalin was utterly ruthless: nationalist risings were crushed and about 300 000 people deported from western Ukraine. The population of the labour camps more than doubled to about 2.5 million. Peasants and industrial workers once again came under military-style discipline.

  Stalin saw enemies everywhere. Soviet soldiers who had been captured by the Germans were seen as tainted, potential traitors. It seems beyond belief that 2.8 million Red Army soldiers, who had survived appalling treatment in Hitler’s prison camps, returned to their homeland only to be arrested by the NKVD. Some were shot, some were sent to the Gulag and only about a third were allowed home. One of Stalin’s motives for sending so many people to labour camps was to ensure a constant supply of cheap labour for coalmines and other projects. Another category of ‘tainted’ people were those who had come into Allied hands during the final months of the war. They were now suspect because they had seen that life in the west was materially better than in the USSR. About 3 million of them were sent to labour camps.

  The task of rebuilding the country was tackled by the Fourth Five Year Plan (1946–50), which, if the official statistics are to be believed, succeeded in restoring industrial production to its 1940 levels. The outstanding achievement was considered to be the explosion in Kazakhstan, in August 1949, of the first Soviet atomic bomb. However, the great failure of the Plan was in agriculture: the 1946 harvest was less than that of 1945, resulting in famine, starvation and reports of cannibalism. Peasants were leaving the collectives in droves to try to find jobs in industry. Production of all agricultural commodities was down. Even in 1952 the grain harvest reached only three-quarters of the 1940 harvest. As Alec Nove commented: ‘How could it be tolerated that a country capable of making an atomic bomb could not supply its citizens with eggs?’

  Stalin also launched the battle to re-establish control over the intelligentsia, who, Stalin felt, had become too independent during the war years. Beginning in August 1946, Zhdanov, the Leningrad party boss, led the attack. Hundreds of writers were expelled from the union; all the leading composers were in disgrace and their music banned. The campaign continued into the early 1950s, though Zhdanov himself died of a heart attack in August 1948. After Zhdanov’s death, Stalin carried out a purge of the Leningrad party organization, who were all arrested, found guilty of plotting to seize power, and executed.

  The final act in the drama was the so-called Doctors’ Plot. In November 1952 13 Moscow doctors, who had treated Stalin and other leaders at different times, were arrested and accused of conspiring to kill their eminent patients. Six of the doctors were Jewish and this was the signal for an outburst of anti-Semitism. By this time nobody felt safe. There is evidence that Stalin was working up to another major purge of leading figures in the party, with Molotov, Mikoyan and Beria on the list. Fortunately for them, Stalin died of a brain haemorrhage on 5 March 1953.

  Map 17.1 The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics after 1945, showing the 15 republics

  (c) Assessments of Stalin

  When Stalin’s death was announced there was widespread and apparently genuine grief; as he lay in state, thousands of people flocked to see his body, which was later embalmed and placed in a glass case next to Lenin. For 25 years the public had been brainwashed into regarding him as a kind of god, whose opinion on every subject was correct. However, his reputation in the USSR soon went into decline when Khrushchev delivered his sensational speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956, denouncing Stalin’s excesses. In 1961 Stalin’s body was removed from the mausoleum and buried beneath the Kremlin wall.

  How does one begin to assess a phenomenon like Stalin, who was responsible for so many dramatic changes but whose methods were so unorthodox and brutal? Some historians have found positive things to say. Sheila Fitzpatrick points out that under Stalin the USSR ‘was at its most dynamic, engaging in social and economic experiments that some hailed as the future becoming manifest and others saw as a threat to civilization’. Collectivization, the rapid industrialization, the new constitution, the rise of the new bureaucracy, the spread of mass education and social services – all these can be traced directly or indirectly to Stalin. Martin McCauley and Alec Nove believe that the situation was so desperate when he came to power that only extraordinary methods could have brought success. The supreme justification of Stalin and his methods is that he made the USSR powerful enough to defeat the Germans. Geoffrey Roberts argues that in spite of all Stalin’s mistakes and his brutality that caused the deaths of millions of people, without him Russia would probably have lost the war with Nazi Germany – his leadership was irreplaceable. The regime was certainly extremely popular with the top and middle ranks of the bureaucracy, in the various ministries, in the army and navy, and in the security forces. These were people who had risen from the working classes; they owed their privileged positions to Stalin, and they would do their utmost to defend the Soviet state. Stalin was also popular with the majority of ordinary people.

  How did such a brutal leader come to enjoy such popularity? The answer is that he was adept at manipulating public opinion; he rarely admitted to making a mistake and always shifted the blame on to somebody else. He succeeded in giving the impression that injustices would be put right if only he knew about them. Even some of his critics admit that during the war he did much to keep morale high, and deserves some credit for the Soviet victory. After their victory over the Germans, millions of Russians genuinely saw Stalin as a heroic leader who had saved his country. The public believed what it was told, was taken in by the ‘cult of personality’ and was deeply shocked by Khrushchev’s ‘de-Stalinization’ speech in 1956.

  There is no disguising the fact that the policies at best had only mixed success. Collectivization was a disaster; industrial modernization was a success in heavy industry and armaments and enabled the USSR to win the war. On the other hand, Soviet industry failed to produce enough household goods, and much of what was produced was of poor quality. Living standards and real wages in 1953 were lower for most people than when Stalin took control. Many historians believe that more industrial progress could have been made with conventional methods, perhaps even by simply continuing NEP. Even the claim that Russia won the war thanks to Stalin is disputed. In fact his mistakes almost lost the war in the early stages. He ignored warnings of the impending German invasion, which resulted in the loss of the western part of Russia; he ignored the advice of his commanders with the result that millions of soldiers were taken prisoner. Arguably therefore, the USSR won the war in spite of Stalin.

  The worst aspect of Stalinism was that it was responsible for about 20 million deaths, over and above the victims of the war. This happened during collectivization, the famine of 1932–3, the Purges and the Great Terror. During the war he uprooted and deported millions of Volga Germans, Crimean Tartars, Chechens and other nationalities in case they tried to co-operate with the invading Germans. Thousands died on the way, and thousands more perished when they were abandoned at their destinations without any accommodation. Stalin always made sure that other members of the Politburo signed death warrants as well as himself. There were huge numbers of people, from those at the top right down to interrogators, torturers, guards and executioners, who were willing to carry out the orders. Local party bosses – little Stalins – often initiated their own terrors from below. Alexander Yakovlev, the former Soviet ambassador to Canada and later a clo
se colleague of Gorbachev and a Politburo member, recently published an account of the terror and violence which took place during the communist regime. He was once a committed Marxist, but the more he learned about the past, and the longer he experienced life at the top, the more disgusted he became at the corruption, lies and deceit at the heart of the system. Convinced that communism was not reformable, he played an important role, along with Gorbachev, in destroying the system from the inside. He estimates the number of victims of communism after 1917 at between 60 million and 70 million.

  Some historians argue that Stalin was paranoid; psychologically unbalanced. Khruschchev seemed to think so; he claimed that Stalin was a ‘very distrustful man, sickly suspicious’. On the other hand Roy Medvedev believes that Stalin was perfectly sane, but coolly ruthless, one of the greatest criminals in human history, whose main motives were inordinate vanity and lust for power. Fifty years after his death, more information is available from recently opened Soviet archives, though it is clear that many vital records have been destroyed, probably deliberately. Revisionist historians like Arch Getty still maintain that Stalin had no overall plan for terror. Getty believes that the Terror developed out of the anxieties of the entire ruling elite: ‘Their fears of losing control, even of losing power, led them into a series of steps to protect their position: building a unifying cult around Stalin.’ So for Getty, Stalin was not the master criminal, he was just one among the rest of the elite taking the necessary measures to stay in power.

  (d) Was Stalinism a continuation of Leninism?

  The current trend among Russian historians is to demonize both Stalin and Lenin. Alexander Yakovlev condemns both of them and produces ample evidence of their crimes: Stalin simply carried on from Lenin. However, it is important to compare their policies in more detail. Leninism was a complex mixture of a basic ideology, a particular style of leadership and government and a programme of policies:

  Lenin’s ideology and political style were based on the Marxist concept of ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’. However, Lenin also believed that a tightly disciplined party was needed to guide the proletariat after the successful revolution. Under the supervision of the Party, the people would run their own affairs working through the soviets. This was seen as the highest form of democracy: since the Party and the soviets were mainly made up of members of the proletariat, they would know what was best for the people. Lenin also believed that this could only survive and work in Russia if it was accompanied by revolutions in some of the more advanced countries, such as Germany. Towards the end of his life, however, Lenin suggested that NEP would improve people’s lives so much that ‘permanent revolution’ would not be necessary. This brought him closer to Stalin’s theory of ‘socialism in one country’. Dmitri Volkogonov stresses that both Lenin and Stalin were violent and brutal in their methods, Lenin during the Civil War and Stalin’s treatment of the kulaks and the ‘Great Terror’ of the 1930s.

  Nevertheless, there were clear differences between the two: Irina Pavlova maintains that it was only under Stalin that the party apparatus, the bureaucracy, became all-powerful and synonymous with the state. Stalinism could in no way be described as democratic; the new constitution of 1936, with it elections for the Supreme Soviet and its lists of human rights, did nothing to change the fact that Stalin was much more of a dictator then Lenin ever was. While it is true that Lenin used violence, Christopher Read argues that the counter-revolutionary forces were so powerful that the Bolsheviks had no choice if they were to survive. They simply continued to use the same methods that the Tsars had used for centuries. On the other hand, Stalin was under no such threat, and could have used alternative methods of dealing with the opposition, instead of killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Moreover, even at the height of the Civil War, as Robert Tucker points out, Lenin was already thinking about how to deal with Russia’s culture of backwardness, and deciding that the best method was by education, not violence. Trotsky claimed that Stalinism grew out of this backward political culture, not from Lenin’s party, which was essentially democratic.

  As for actual policies, Stalin claimed that collectivization and the Five Year Plans for industry were a natural development from Lenin’s NEP, since Lenin himself had said that although NEP would last a long time, it would not continue forever. Stalinists argue that the First Five Year Plan was similar to Lenin’s War Communism. But in fact there was nothing inevitable about Stalinism: a different leader, Bukharin for example, could have caused the system left by Lenin to have evolved in a completely different way. Bukharin envisaged that private farming should be replaced by farming co-operatives, but that it should be done slowly and certainly not in the violent way that collectivization brought. It was important to win over the peasants so that future peace would be based on an alliance between peasants and industrial workers (hence the hammer and sickle on the Russian flag). In any case, rule by one man was anti-Leninist – it went directly against the idea of rule by the Party on behalf of the working class. In fact there was a clear break between Lenin and Stalin. Many western historians believe that Stalin hijacked the Revolution and betrayed the idealism of Marx and Lenin. Instead of a new, classless society in which everybody was free and equal, ordinary workers and peasants were just as exploited as they had been under the Tsars. The Party had taken the place of the capitalists, and enjoyed all the privileges – the best houses, country retreats and cars. Instead of Marxism, socialism and the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, there was merely Stalinism and the dictatorship of Stalin. Perhaps the fairest conclusion on Stalin and Stalinism is the one by Martin McCauley: ‘Whether one approves or disapproves of it, it was a truly remarkable phenomenon, one that profoundly marked the twentieth century. One can only approve of it if one suspends moral judgement’ (see also Section 16.4(b)).

  FURTHER READING

  Applebaum, A., A History of the Soviet Camps (Penguin/Allen Lane, 2003).

  Brown, A., The Rise and Fall of Communism (Vintage, 2010).

  Conquest, R., The Great Terror: A Reassessment (Pimlico, 2008).

  Figes, O., The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia (Penguin/Allen Lane, 2007).

  Fitzpatrick, S., Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times. Soviet Russia in the 1930s (Oxford University Press, 2001).

  Freeborn, R., A Short History of Modern Russia (Hodder & Stoughton, 1966).

  Getty, J.A., The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks (Yale University Press, 2010).

  Ilic, M. (ed.) Stalin’s Terror Revisited (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).

  Lovell, S., The Shadow of War: Russia and the USSR, 1941 to the Present (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011).

  Lowe, N., Mastering Twentieth Century Russian History (Macmillan, 2002).

  McCauley, M., The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, 1917–1991 (Longman, 3rd edition, 2007).

  McCauley, M., Stalin and Stalinism (Longman, 3rd edition, 2008).

  Medvedev, R. A., Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism (Oxford University Press, 1989).

  Medvedev, Z. A. and R. A., The Unknown Stalin (I. B. Tauris, 2005).

  Merridale, C., Moscow Politics and the Rise of Stalin (Macmillan, 1990).

  Montefiori, S. S., Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (Phoenix, 2007).

  Roberts, G., Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War (1939–1953) (Yale University Press, 2006).

  Sakwa, R., The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, 1917–1991 (Routledge, 1999).

  Service, R., Stalin: A Biography (Macmillan, 2004).

  Service, R., Comrades: A World History of Communism (Macmillan, 2007).

  Service, R., Trotsky: A Biography (Macmillan, 2010).

  Suny, R G., The Soviet Experiment (Oxford University Press, 1998).

  Suny, R. G., The Cambridge History of Russia, vol. 3: The Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2006).

  Tucker, R.C., Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above (Norton, 1992).r />
  Volkogonov, D., Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy (Phoenix, 2000).

  Yakovlev, A., A Century of Russian Violence in Soviet Russia (Yale University Press, 2002).

  QUESTIONS

  How important were the divisions among his opponents in explaining Stalin’s rise to supreme power during the 1920s?

  How accurate is it to talk about the ‘Stalin Revolution’ in economic and political affairs in the USSR during the period 1928 to 1941?

  To what extent did the lives of ordinary people in the USSR improve or worsen as a result of Stalin’s policies during the period 1928 to 1941?

  ‘Agriculture was always the basic weakness of the Soviet economy.’ Assess the validity to this view of the Soviet economy during the Stalin years.

  ‘Stalin’s power during the 1930s was based almost entirely on terror.’ How far would you agree with this view?

  How effective were the Five Year Plans in creating a successful economy in the USSR up to 1941?

  How far would you agree that Stalinism was just a continuation of Leninism?