Lecture 11 - Lecture 11 Lenin to Gorbachev The Age of...

Lecture 11 Lenin to Gorbachev: The Age of Soviet Communism
A. Lenin’s Death and the Transition to Stalinism (1924 – 29)
 The problem of succession
 No fixed procedure
 Awesome leadership power
 Outgoing leader’s wishes thwarted
 Generational successions: 1953, 1985
 1924: Pillars of the regime
 Peasants (Bukharin)
 Party (Stalin)
 Army (Trotsky)
B. Stalin (1924 – 53) and His Legacy
 Socialism in one country
 The Great Patriotic War 1941 – 45
 Nationalism and patriotism
 Industrialization and Collectivization
 The Planned Economy (5-year plans)
 Party dominance
 The Great Terror
 The GULAG—labour / concentration camps
 The KGB—the secret police
 Purges of the party and the army, 1936 – 38
C. The Bolshevik Revolution and Terror
 Abolition of private property and scientific socialism mean that there is
no objective basis for political disagreement
 Therefore, no need for political contestation or free speech
 Dissent is error or counter-revolutionary, dealt with thorugh re-education