IB History: The USSR under Joseph Stalin

October Revolution

seizure by Bolsheviks of power in October 1917 from interim provisional government that was in charge of Russia after the abdication of the monarchy

Bolshevik Party

The Russian Communist Party that took power in 1917

Marxism

ideas of revolutionary Karl Marx; human society developed historically as a continuous class struggle between those in economic/political power and those without it.

Politburo

Inner core of 20 leading members of the communist party

1922

By ____, the USSR was a one-party, Leninist state. Membership of that one party was essential for all who held government posts.

Democratic centralism

True democracy in the Bolshevik Party involved the obedience of members to instruction of leaders. 

Absolutism

Authoritarian system returned Russia to *__________*: levels of power are exclusively in the hands of a group or individual

1917–24

Period of Lenin’s rule

One-party state

**Feature of Lenin’s rule**: all parties under than communist were outlawed.

Bureaucratic state

**Feature of Lenin’s rule**: central power increased under Lenin; # of government departments and officials grew

Police state

**Feature of Lenin’s rule**: the Cheka was the first of the big scary secret police organizations in the USSR that imposed government control over the people

Cheka

All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution. Later known by OGPU and KGB.

Ban on factionalism

**Feature of Lenin’s rule**: Lenin prohibited criticism on leadership within the party; ban on free speech.

Destruction of trade unions

**Feature of Lenin’s rule**: Commissar for War Leon Trotsky destroyed independence of trade unions.

Law was politicized

**Feature of Lenin’s rule**: this happened to law, not a means of protecting society, but an extension of public control.

Purges

system of terror used by Lenin, Stalin, and Mao for removing potential threats to authority.

Show trials

Special public court hearings meant as propaganda exercises; public trials of Moscow clergy and SRs were held in 1922.

social revolutionaries

largest of revolutionary parties in Russia before being outlawed after 1917

Concentration camps

**Feature of Lenin’s rule**: facilities that held held rebel peasants and ‘anti-Bolsheviks’

Prohibition of public worship

**Feature of Lenin’s rule**: Orthodox Christian churches were looted and shuttered; State atheism adopted

Nationalization

**Feature of Lenin’s rule**: Private companies and banks were made public

Cultural revolution

**Feature of Lenin’s rule**: Bolsheviks claimed that people could be made into a new species; culture was shaped by the power of the state

International isolation

**Feature of Lenin’s rule**: Lenin expected the Russian revolution to be a prelude to worldwide proletarian uprising; reason for creating the comintern

Comintern

Communist international formed in 1919 in Moscow to organize worldwide revolution; took particular interest in China / influencing young CCP