'High Stalinism', 1945-1953

High Stalinism - Dictatorship and Totalitarianism
what was high stalinism?

High Stalinism was the culmination of Stalin’s regime in the years 1945 to 1953. Stalins cult of personality and totalitarian control reached its absolute peak.

High Stalinism - Dictatorship and Totalitarianism
what is a limitation to stalins control? how did he fix it?

It was difficult to manage 175 million people in a huge soviet nation.

-Stalin therefore relied on a comlex bureaucracy with terror institutions in order to control the people.

High Stalinism - Dictatorship and Totalitarianism
how was repression relaxed during the war?

During the war, Stalin abandoned the terror of the 1930s, in favour of a positive mesasge of unity. there was much appeal to patriotism and teh ‘spirit of the people’

High Stalinism - Dictatorship and Totalitarianism
how did Stalin reject liberalisation after the war? 2 reasons.

While propoganda promised a ‘better world’ after the war, any tendencies to liberlisation were blocked post 1945.

Wartime institutions were abolished and the GKO (state Defence committtee) was dissolved in september 1945.

Control over the military
How did Stalin change the military atfter the war?

after the war, the military hierarchy was downgraded.

-Marshal Zhukov was demoted to a minor command role at faraway Odessa.

High Stalinism - Dictatorship and Totalitarianism
what events may have been changing Stalin’s personal paranoia?

He was ageing (66 years old in 1945)
-Suffered a mild stroke in 1946.

Use of rivalries to control politics
who were the key men in the party?

stalin used rivalries to control the key men of the party, Molotov, Beria, Zhdanov, Malenkov and Mikoyan.

Use of rivalries to control politics
what is an example of Stalin have control over politics in terms of Zhdanov?

Stalin encouraged infighting between Zhdanov, Mikoyan and Malenkov.

Malenkov lost his posisiton as party secretary, and Zhdanov became stalins closester adviser.

Use of rivalries to control politics
what is an example of Stalin control over poitics in terms of Malenkov ?

Malenkov and Beria scehemed against Zhdanaov and engineered his political downfall in 1948.

Use of rivalries to control politics

what happened to molotov?

molotov held great power in the regime during and after the war but fell out of stalins favour in 1949.

Party institutions
how did stalin control the central instutitions of government?

The Central Commitee and the Politburo met regularly but Stalin was often able to bypass both government and party to exert direct central authority.

Party institutions
how did stalin control the party itself? (3 reasons)

-no party congress’s held between 1939 and 1952, politburo became an advisory body.

-big decisions taken in ad hoc gatherings of Stalins inner circle

-new party members were obedient bureaucrats.

NKVD under Beria
what was the role of beria? (3 reasons)

As NKVD cheif, Beria oversaw the expansion of gulags camps.

-in charge of nuclear program

-his sadistic, psychopatic perrsonality exacerbated terror.

NKVD under Beria
how as the NKVD reformed and strengthened?

-reorganised into two seperate ministires, the MVD (internal affairs) and the MGB (managed state security)

NKVD under Beria
what was the nature of NKVD killings and arrrests during high stalinism?

although fewer people were killed than during the Yezhovchina of the 1930s, tens of thousands were arrested anually for ‘counter revolutionary activities’

NKVD under Beria
how many wartime survivors were prosecuted?

during the last years of Stalin, around 12 million wartime survivors were sent to the labour camps, suferring appaling conditions.

Zhdanovism and the cultural purge
what was the role of Zhdanov during high stalinsim? 2 reasons.

Andrei Zhdanov oversaw the Zhdanovschina, a mass cultrual purge from 1946.

-culture was transformed into propoganda to supppress indiivudialism.

Zhdanovism and the cultural purge
how did Zhdanovism begin by purging literature?

publishers purged and writers expelled from union of soviet writers.

Zhdanovism and the cultural purge
how happened to boris? what about dead writers? 2 reasons.

Boris Pasternak, writer, was condemned for his “apolitical poems

-long dead writers such as Dostoevsky were attacked for lacking ‘socialist qualities’

Zhdanovism and the cultural purge
what was the style of art?
-what is an example of censorship? 2 reasons.

-socialist realism promoted in the 1920’s and 1930’s, and re-asserted under the Zhdanovschina in literature, art and cinema.

-Sergei Isenstein created his epic film Ivan the Terrible in the socialist realist style.

Zhdanovism and the cultural purge
what was film like?

films and novels attacked american commercialism.

Zhdanovism and the cultural purge
what happened to jewish culture?

Jewish artists suppressed and ignored, with Nazi atrocities presented as ideological crimes, rather than anti-semetic crimes.

Zhdanovism and the cultural purge
what happened to famous composers? 2 reasons.

-soviet music suffered from teh cultrual purge.

-Shostakovich came under criticsm for anti socialist tendencies.

Zhdanovism and the cultural purge
how did stalin gain control over science? 2 reason.s

in 1948, the regime gained greater control over the academy of sciences.

-study of maths, physics and chemistry was badly effected as it was flooded with marxist principles.

Stalins cult of personality
how was stalin presented in media?

a superior genius of all human endevours.
-it became customary for the first and final paragraphs of any academic article or book to acknowledge stalins genius on the subject.

Stalins cult of personality
how was stalin presented in relation to the people?
-what was the truth?

Stalin was presented as a man of the people who understood the struggles of soviet citizens.
-despite this, he had not visited a kolkhoz for 25 years and spent most of his later years at his dacha outside moscow. stalin had to rely on others to privde him information.

Stalins cult of personality
what happened on stalins birthday? 3 reasons.

-stalnis 70th birthday 1949, moscows red square dominated by a potrait of Stalin, suspended in the sky.

-towns competed to rename themselves to honour stalin. (Stalino, Stalinsk and Stalinabad)

-stalin prizes introduced to counter western nobel prizes.

Leningrad affair
why was stalin sceptical of leningrad?

Leningrad had always been an object of suspicion, as its political base could counteract the centralised authoriity of moscow.

Leningrad affair
how did stalin purge leningrad?

in 1949, stalin started to purge the leningrad party.

-by october 1950, more than 2000 leningrad officials were dismissed, exiled or replaced.

Purges
why was leningrad affair important?

first major purge within the party since 1938.

Purges
what was the next major purge after leningrad affair?

the ‘Mingrelian Case launched in 1951.
-target was party officials in georgia, accused of colloboration with western powers. officials were mostly mingrelians, an ethnic group in georgia. The case continued in 1952 and was not solved even when stlain died in march 1953.

-purge had anti semtiic overtones because mingrelians were charged to have conspired with jewish plotters.

Doctors plot
what was the doctors plot?

a ‘conspiracy’ ws revealed by Lydia Tmashunk, doctor and secret police infomrer, that the doctors who treated Zhdanov in 1948 used sloppy methods which contribute to his death.

in 1952, stalin issued an order to arrest as many docots for being part of a ‘zionist conspiracy’ to murder party officials.

Doctors plot
how did the antisemtism of the doctors plot impact jewish people?

anti semitism was stirred up in russia. the director of the jewish theatre in moscow was mysteriously killed in 1948 car crash.

-the jewish wives of politburo members molotov and kalinin were arrested in 1949, same year sas a campaign against ‘anti patriotic groups’

thousands of ordinary jewish rounded up an deported to gulags.