High Stalinism (1933-1935)

1. High Stalinism (1933-1935)

2. A machine of terror • By 1934 Stalin had consolidated his power • Tools of terror inherited from Lenin were put to use • “Wrecking” and “counterrevolutionary activity”invoked to justify repression • Legal process used to enforce political decisions • Liquidating opponents through scapegoating and falsification • Secret police with unbridled powers • Criminal codes with special class of counterrevolutionary crimes • Show trials under Lenin • 1918 - Persecution of SR’s - Trial of Iulii Martov and the newspaper Vpered • 1920 - August - Menshevik Trial “Tactical Centre” • 1922 - June 8 - August 7 - Trial of Social Revolutionaries • Initial show trials under Stalin • 1928 - Shakhty trial • 1930 - Industrial Party trial • 1931 - “Union Bureau” of Menshevik Party • 1933 - Metropolitan-Vickers Trial - aka “Engineer’s Trial” “Portrait of Stalin in Blood,” 54 mis.http://youtu.be/gtWkn5IhfqU

3. Second five-year plan –1933-37 • Less chaos, many improvements • Increase in income and industrial productivity • 1935 – rationing abolished but consumer goods stillin extremely short supply • Greater productivity • Ex-peasants adjust to industrial workplace • Response to moral appeals, piece-rates • Production norms increased; punishment for noncompliance • Rewards for “shock workers” – “Stakhanovites” • Harsh industrial discipline • Absenteeism • “Wrecking” applied to accidents and failure to meet quotas • Rural conditions remain exceedingly harsh • Peasant lives controlled by collective • No social “safety net” • Collective only provides grain; peasants depend on own plot & animal for food

4. Second five-year plan –education and training • Primary education • Thousands of new schools in countryside • Forced assignment of teachers • Significant reduction in illiteracy • Secondary education • Industrialization required expanded technical training • Increased attention to teaching hard sciences (mathematics, physics) • Goal to replace the old intelligentsia whose loyalties are doubtful with a new, loyal cadre of technical experts

5. Jan. – Feb. 1934 – 17th. Party Congress • The “Congress of Victors” • Stalin’s policies affirmed, declared a “genius” • Peasants fully collectivized • Rapid industrialization underway ...and the rest of the story • Undercurrent of dissatisfaction • Stalin’s autocratic decision-making • Repressions used to support industrializationand collectivization rub many raw • Fear and terror become part of Party life • Self-criticism institutionalized • Of 2,000 delegates to the Congress, more than halfarrested before next Congress in 1939 • Stalin begins promoting up-and-coming favorites • Nikita Khrushchev, later First Secretary of the C.P. (1953-64) • Alexei Kosygin, later Chairman of Council of Ministers (1964-80)

6. Dec. 1934 – Assassination ofSergey Kirov • 1926-34 top Communist Party leader in Leningrad • Popular conciliator, supported by “rightists” • Disputes Stalin’s radical “leftist” methods • Stalin worries about an alliance between Kirov andmoderates: • Bukharin, Piatakov, Kamenev and Ordzhonikidze • December 1, 1934, Kirov shot by Leonid Nikolayev, a “misfit” • Stalin issues decree forbidding appeal of death sentencesfor counterrevolutionary crimes • Executions must take place within 24 hours • December 5 – “Trial of the White Guardists” • 37 shot in Leningrad, 29 in Moscow • December 17 - Zinoviev arrested • December 28-29 – “Leningrad Centre” – Kirov murder trial • Nikolayev and 13 others shot

7. 1935 – The “Warm-up” trials • 1935 - January 15-18 - "Moscow Centre" trial • Zinoviev, Kamenev and 17 others convicted forguiding counter-revolutionary activities ofZinovievites and "fanning" the inclinations of Kirov’s killers • Zinoviev and Kamenev held "morally responsible" for assassinating Kirov • Zinoviev gets 10 years; Kamenev, 5 years • Administrative decisions send 49 others to labor camps and 29 to exile. • 1935 - January 23 – Secret police officials trial • Medved, chief of Leningrad GPU and 11 subordinates accused of dereliction of duty – knew about the Kirov plot but did not properly investigate. • All defendants confess, draw one to ten years imprisonment • 1935 - July 25 - Kamenev and others - Plot against Stalin • Thirty-eight defendants including Kamenev accused of plotting against Stalin • Two defendants shot; Kamenev gets 10 years

8. Marxist-Leninism out,Stalinism in • Personality cult centered on the “Great Leader” • Instead of “withering away” the state gains authorityover all aspects of life • Justifications • Internal threats: Wreckers and counterrevolutionaries • External threats: Western hostility, rise of Nazism • Repudiation of Marxism • Egalitarianism declared “bourgeois” • Internationalism defeated – nationalism revived • Greatly expanded political education • Denounce enemies – foreign and domestic • Tight controls over media • “Socialist realism” in the arts • Censorship – ideas are weapons; dire consequences of nonconformity • No irony or ambiguity; everyone depicted in a stereotypical way • Enthusiastic workers, dastardly enemies, Stalinism as the answer