In the “Secret Speech” from the Twentieth Party Congress, Khrushchev seems to want to both expose Stalinism for its worst excesses and maintain Stalinism, at least ideologically. In some ways, this complex stance exemplifies Khrushchev’s own strengths and weaknesses. On the former point, the selection from the speech is replete with direct attacks on Stalin, …
Tag Archives: Soviet Union
Nazi Germany and the Great Purges
Among the aspects of the Great Purges in the Soviet Union under I.V. Stalin that have most confused scholars, the purge of the Red Army of some of its highest-ranking and most talented officers must surely rank among the most baffling. The vast majority of scholars agree that the USSR was poorly prepared for the …
Catalysts for the Great Purges
I am prepared to state that I think that two factors that caused the process of the Great Purges to expand significantly as they unfolded were: the appointment of N.I. Yezhov as head of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the secret political police, to conduct the purges; and the increasing threat of Nazi …
Source Analysis: Justifying Stalin’s Great Turn
The rule of Stalin over the Soviet Union was enormously costly in terms of lives lost, but with the exception of the war against Germany from 1941 to 1945, perhaps no period was as deadly for the Soviet people as the collectivization of agriculture and industrialization of the economy launched in 1928 with the …
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Succession to Lenin: Trotsky v. Stalin
There were several factors that contributed to Stalin’s victory over Trotsky in the power struggle that followed Lenin’s death. Among the factors that were central, and would continue to be central as Stalin consolidated his power and moved toward collectivization of agriculture and mass industrialization of the USSR was the New Economic Policy (NEP). Although …
Source Analysis: Lenin’s Rise to Power
That V.I. Lenin left behind volumes of his own writings is helpful in determining his justifications for his historic actions. For example, two of his essays, “The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution,” from April 1917, also known as the “April Theses,”[1]and “Theses on the Constituent Assembly”[2] from six months later, help to …
Inevitable Historicity 