What were the Main Features of the Stalinist System

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What were the Main Features of the Stalinist System?

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was born Ioseb Jughashvilli on the 21st of December 1879, in the town of Gori, Georgia. His father was a cobbler and he and Stalin's mother were both ex-serfs. At eight years old Stalin began his education at Gori church school. Stalin was ridiculed for his low social standing, but he learnt to overcome this by intimidating his peers by exploiting their weakness' and to avoid physical confrontation he scorned his tormentors as using violence as a substitute for brains. He began to assert leadership over his peers knowing that no one would challenge him. To overcome his disadvantages and to command respect Stalin strove to be the best at everything he did and he graduated first in his class. At age fourteen he attended Tiflis theological Seminary, although his mother wanted him to become a priest he attended the seminary not out of religious vocation but because it was one of the few educational opportunities open to him. Stalin became involved with the socialist movement while still at the seminary, he was expelled in 1899 for the next decade he worked with the political underground in the Caucasus and was exiled to Siberia several times. He gained a place on Lenin's Bolshevik party's central committee in 1912 and in 1913 adopted the name Stalin. During the civil war Stalin was political commissar of the Red army and after became peoples commissar of nationalities affairs. In April 1922 Stalin became general secretary of the communist party. Lenin's death in 1924 created a power vacuum and subsequently a power struggle. The main feature of the Stalinist system were the one party system, extreme authoritarianism, the cult of Stalin, the use of terror to achieve his goals and mass purges. This essay intends to show that the Stalinist system was a tyrannical authoritarian regime built on the use of terror and Stalin's cult of personality and the terrible consequences this had. It will also assess any aspects of continuity between the Stalinist system and the system under Lenin and attempt to establish whether the Stalinist system was entirely new or whether it was Leninism taken to extremes.

The communist party dominated the Soviet system almost from its conception until the fall of communism in the 1990's.It was the cornerstone and mainspring of the soviet regime. The communist party was virtually indistinguishable from the government and it was the only political party under Stalin that was tolerated. The monopoly on power of the communist party under Stalin was nothing new however. It was created under the Bolsheviks after the October revolution. Lenin and much of the Bolshevik party saw no need to share power. There was potential for a multiparty system between the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and the Srs, but as Nove says "unfortunately Lenin and of his followers at the time did not yet understand the importance of the multiparty system."1 It was the civil war that brought intolerance of others opinions. The international and domestic crisis that followed the civil war threatened the Bolshevik grasp of power and "no party ever having won a civil war is inclined to voluntarily give up power."2 The absence of democratic tradition in Russia also helped play a part in the one party system, the political culture had only a few months experience of solving problems in a democratic manner. The Bolsheviks pursuit of a single party system was a consequence of the civil war, and it was this single party system that Stalin came to control after Lenin's death. The role the party endeavoured to play since its creation was

"the militant, tried vanguard of the soviet people, uniting on a voluntary basis the advanced, most socially conscious part of the working class, collective farm peasantry, and intelligentsia of the USSR... It is the highest form of socio-political organization, the leading and guiding force of Soviet society."3

The party was organized in theory along the lines of intra-party democracy, which give the freedom to criticise and question any leader regardless of position. After the consolidation of Stalin's power this was not possible and the party became an instrument of Stalin.

Stalin's appointment as general secretary in 1922 had enabled him to emerge as virtual dictator by 1928. This in part was due to Stalin's talent for manipulation but also in the potential he saw in the role of general secretary, a post that was considered unglamorous and unwanted and earned Stalin the nickname of "Comrade card index by other party members." 4 Power had become concentrated in the hands of the Bolsheviks during the civil war but the organs of government still had to rely on the expertise of the office holders of the old regime. The party began to develop it own parallel bureaucracy in which cadres gradually dominated administration and policy. The body that dominated this emerging party bureaucracy was the party Secretariat, whoever dominated the secretariat wielded enormous power and influence. Stalin as General Secretary was able to issue administrative directives, organize agendas, make appointments, recommend promotions and dismissals, distribute personnel, and shuffle the cadres as he wished. Stalin used this position to build up a huge power base. Before his death Lenin left what became known as his Testament warning of the concentration of power that Stalin held and recommended he be removed. Lenin's warnings were ignored and Stalin was confirmed in office by a congress he had filled. This was an early sign of Stalin's authoritarian nature.
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"By the time Lenin died, therefore, Stalin had built up a formidable power base within the party apparatus from which he could with relative ease and on plausible pretexts conveniently isolate or neutralize those who stood in his way."5

Stalin also used the party rules against factionalism following the 1921 resolution on party unity to his advantage, Stalin, Zinoviez and Kamenev came together out of fears of Bonapartism in other words that Trotsky would become dictator. By the time they realised the threat was Stalin there was little they could do. Their subsequent alliance with Trotsky was ...

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