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
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- Winter '11
- Strom
- Communism, Cuban Missile Crisis, Lenin Stalin Khrushchev Brezhnev, Lenin Stalin Khrushchev, Soviet Communism A., longest-serving Soviet Leader
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