High Stalinism!

Question 1

What is ‘High Stalinism’?

Answer 1

High Stalinism is a term often used for the last stage of Stalin’s rule (1945-1953). It is applied to his form of political and social control after the removal of his opponents.

Question 2

Why is it hard to say when High Stalinism began?

Answer 2

Because Stalin never stopped seeking out enemies and destroying them.

Question 3

Which important military general was demoted in High Stalinism?

Answer 3

Zhukov - think of the seige of Leningrad?

Question 4

Zhukov had held a huge role in saving Leningrad, but he wasn’t very modest about it. In June 1945, he was accused of…?

Answer 4

Bonapartism, just like Trotsky had been. Zhukov was sentenced to internal exile and a low rank military post and he was almost removed from the official history of WW2.

Question 5

Who built the case against Zhukov?

Answer 5

Beria.

Question 6

What year did Stalin suffer a mild stroke?

Answer 6

1946.

Question 7

Stalin was not well in his later years. What was the matter?

Answer 7

He suffered from arthritis, rheumatism, high blood pressure and even suffered a mild stroke in 1946.

Question 8

What did Stalin’s illnesses mean?

Answer 8

It meant that, to an extent, he was becoming a bit out of touch, and his illness may have contributed to his paranoia.

Question 9

What did Stalin do to key individuals?

Answer 9

Played them against each other.

Question 10

High Stalinism was also characterised by…

Answer 10

A renewal of terror!

Question 11

Stalin ruthlessly enforced isolation from the non-Soviet world. What could be reasons for this?

Answer 11

Potentially out of concern for national security at a time of the emerging Cold War. Also - an obsessive fear of ideological contamination.

Question 12

Anyone with the knowledge of what came under suspicion?

Answer 12

The outside world.

Question 13

In 1947, a law was passed concerning foreigners that stated…?

Answer 13

This law banned marriages to foreigners. Hotels, restaurants and embassies were under surveillance with police watching for meetings between Soviet girls and foreign men.

Question 14

Many former POWs who returned to Russia were considered to have been what?

Answer 14

Collaborators.

Question 15

What did Order Number 270 state?

Answer 15

It stated that the supposed ‘collaborators’ (POWs) were subject to the fate of traitors. According to Overy, Stalin regarded them as ‘unclean, besmirched [and] potentially traitorous’ and they were placed in labour camps.

Question 16

By 1953, about 5.5 million POWs were sent back to Russia. How many of these, roughly, were executed or sent to Gulags?

Answer 16

About 1/5.

Question 17

Beria was known for his sadistic and terrifying personality. What is he thought to be?

Answer 17

One of the cruellest leaders in a regime already known for its intense terror.

Question 18

Beria was responsible for which Polish massacre?

Answer 18

Katyn massacre.

Question 19

How many people were murdered in the Katyn massacre?

Answer 19

Around 22,000.

Question 20

When was the Katyn massacre?

Answer 20

5th March 1940.

Question 21

Beria was also in charge of what scientific program?

Answer 21

The Soviet Atomic bomb, which came to fruition on the 29th August 1949.

Question 22

How many people were involved with the Soviet Atomic Bomb project?

Answer 22

Around 330,000 people with 10,000 of them being technicians.

Question 23

Who was Zhdanov?

Answer 23

• member of the Politburo.
• closely associated with promoting Soviet patriotism.
• viewed as Stalin’s favourite and potential successor.

Question 24

Zhdanov used his party to decree that Lysenko was correct. What does this show?

Answer 24

The party’s intention to control and define history, philosophy and other forms of culture. Also sought to define laws of nature by proclamation (Lysenko preached fake science).

Question 25

When did Zhdanov die?

Answer 25

August 1948, with his legacy maintained.

Question 26

What was the cultural purge?

Answer 26

Stalin was concerned that those who had come from the West would want to implement their own values within the Soviet Union. Therefore, all academic and cultural life was expected to promote the soviet patriotism that had developed during the war. For example, promoting the Russian language.

Question 27

What continuity can we see with the cultural purge?

Answer 27

Before the war, writers were being expelled and works censored with artists being labelled as 'harmful' or 'okay'. There's a continuiation of Socialist Realism.

Question 28

In which years did Zhdanov censor and promote academics and artists to impose socialist realism?

Answer 28

1946 and 1948.

Question 29

Can you remember two writers who were targetted because of their 'idealogically harmful' work, as it questioned the nature of Soviet life?

Answer 29

Anna Akhmatatova and Mikhail Zoschenko.

Question 30

Who were victims of the cultural purges?

Answer 30

theatres that staged Western plays, philosophers and composers such as Shostakovich.

Question 31

What did the cultural purge become known as?

Answer 31

The Zhdanovschina.

Question 32

What were the aims of the cultural purge?

Answer 32

Stalin wanted to have new control over intellectual life.

Question 33

There was a typical 'totalitarian' approach to culture. What was it used for?

Answer 33

It was used to promote the 'right' ideology by using culture as propaganda to supress dissent and creative individualism.

Question 34

What was Stalin fearful of, due to the war?

Answer 34

The spread of 'bourgeois and decadent' western values due to the war. This fear increased because people have been in contact with other countries/people/ideology.

Question 35

How did the Zhdanovschina begin?

Answer 35

With two literacy works published in Leningrad: 'The Adventures of a Money' by Stalinist Zoshchenko, and a collection of poems by Akhmatova. Both were purged and expelled from the Union of Soviet of Writers.

Question 36

What was writer Boris Pasternak condemend for? What happened?

Answer 36

He was condemned for his 'apolitical' poems. His girlfriend was also sent to the gulags.

Question 37

True or false - even dead auhors of Russian literature were attacked?

Answer 37

True! Dostoevsky was attacked for lacking 'socialist qualities'.

Question 38

Socialist Realism was now back and being promoted as what?

Answer 38

As the norm in literature, art and cinema.

Question 39

Director Sergie Eisenstien came under fire for his film 'Ivan the Terrible'. Why? How is this interesting?

Answer 39

Ivan's bodyguards were portrayed as thugs, rather than a progressive army. Eisenstien had produced a film on the October rev that had been used as propaganda. Now he was falling out of favour.

Question 40

What did condemend artists have to do?

Answer 40

They had to make public recognitions of their errors in order to continue working.

Question 41

Novels, plays and films criticised American commercialism and praised Soviet achievments. This did what?

Answer 41

Heightened fears of Americans - linking to the Cold War and WW2.

Question 42

There was a promotion of anti-semitism in this new wave of Socialist realism. Can you give some examples?

Answer 42

- Many Jewish artists were surpressed or ignored. - Jewish newspapers were shut down. - Nazi wartime atrocities were portrayed as fascist without mentioning Jews. [link to anti-semitic pogroms from under Tsarism].

Question 43

What were Shostakovich and Prokofiev were criticised for what?

Answer 43

'rootless cosmopolitanism' and 'anti-socialist tendencies'. Prokofiev's wife was imprisoned as a way to intimidate him. They found it difficult to get their music performed and were removed from their teaching posts.

Question 44

In August 1948, Trofin Lysenko was given complete dominance over the Academy of Sciences. What was the result?

Answer 44

Lysenkoism crippled Soviet Scientific development and the study of maths, physics, chemistry and economics were badly affected by ideas based on 'Marxist principles'.

Question 45

What were some more effects of this new wave of Socialist Realism?

Answer 45

- Western influences were completely prevented. - only pro-Soivet foreign writers and artists were allowed into the USSR.

Question 46

How did WW2 affect people's perception of Stalin?

Answer 46

He was completely unchallengeable and the victory against the Nazis drove the popularity of his personality cult further and, in turn, emphasised his status as godlike.

Question 47

What was a negative of Stalin's cult?

Answer 47

The cult instilled constant fear and demanded obedience from closest advisors. Stalin arrested Molotov's wife to test his loyalty. Stalin also had to rely on newly appointed, inexperienced - but highly obedient - young people.

Question 48

Apart from the Stalin cult, Stalin felt that he had to maintain his authority through keeping a permanent atmosphere of fear. This was partly because of...?

Answer 48

His megalomaniac personality.

Question 49

The Leningrad Affair was the irst key purge since...

Answer 49

The Yezhovschina in 1938.

Question 50

Why did Stalin prevent Leningrad politicians from becomming too powerful?

Answer 50

Trotsky had always had a powerbase in Leningrad both in 1905 and in 1917. Kirov's suspected murder was also a reason.

Question 51

Why did Stalin resent Leningrad?

Answer 51

- they had a renewed sense of worth following the Leningrad siege 1941-1944.

Question 52

Was Leningrad posing a threat towards Stalin?

Answer 52

Not really, but his general aim was to cause infighting to cause purges.

Question 53

What was the Mingrelian case?

Answer 53

- aimed at limiting Beria's power, who was Mingrelian. - had anti-semitic undertones, as the Mingrelians were also accused of conspiracy with Jewish plotters. - remained unresolved when Stalin died in March 1953.

Question 54

Was Stalin a fan of Israel?

Answer 54

Nope, he said it as a pro-American puppet. These beliefs were reinforced when the Israeli ambassador was cheered on in the USSR streets in 1948.

Question 55

When was the Mingrelian case?

Answer 55

1951-1952.

Question 56

What was the trigger for the Doctor's Plot?

Answer 56

A conspiracy was revealed by Lydia Timashuk, a female doctor. She wrote to Stalin, accussing doctors who treated Zhadnov in 1948 of sloppy methods that contributed to his death.

Question 57

Stalin arrested many doctors for being part of a...?

Answer 57

'Zionist conpiracy' to murder Zhadnov and other party members.

Question 58

Stalin was an Anti-Zionist. What did this entail?

Answer 58

He claimed that Jewish doctors worked in the interest of America and Israel to harm the USSR, particularly in the medical field.

Question 59

The Doctor's Plot sparked a new wave of anti-semitism (absolutely unheard of shock horror etc et). Give some examples!

Answer 59

The director of the Moscow Jewish theatre was mysteriously killed in a car crash in 1948 that was almost certainly arranged by the Secret police. - Jewish wives of the politburo members were arrested in 1949 and the same year, a new campaign 'anti-patriotic groups in the arts and universities' began.

Question 60

Stalin threatened his minister of state security with execution if he didn't obtain confessions. What became of this?

Answer 60

Hundreds were arrested, several tortured and thousands of Jewish people were rounded up and put into Gulags.

Question 61

Anti-Jewish hysteria was used by the press. What did this do?

Answer 61

It provoked the public to fear entering hospitals and shun all Jewish professionals.

Question 62

Stalin died in 1953. Why was this good for the Doctor's Plot?

Answer 62

Nine senior doctors were to be executed, having been condemned to death, but Stalin died before this could be official.