Stalin remained in power until his death in 1953, encouraging the spread of communism. His rule became increasingly paranoid and led to more imprisonments and purges. After his death, the Communist Party dismantled many of his policies and institutions known as de-Stalinization. It aimed to reve...
The first to take control of the Soviet Union was Stalin’s heir apparent Georgy Malenkov, who hadhelped facilitateStalin’s purges in the 1930s. Of all the Soviet leaders, Malenkov is the one who held power for the least amount of time. ...
Joseph Stalin - Soviet Leader, Dictator, Purges: After Lenin’s death, in January 1924, Stalin promoted an extravagant, quasi-Byzantine cult of the deceased leader. Archpriest of Leninism, Stalin also promoted his own cult in the following year by having
However, because of the intense secrecy of the Soviet Union and the cult of personality that was constructed around the Soviet leader, for many years questions of what exactly Joseph Stalin did, including how many Stalin killed in his infamous purges, lingered. Below is an overview of his ...
Admission to the Comintern apparatus, transfer to the Soviet party, party purges and 'verifications of party documents ( proverka )' were key moments in the encounter with Stalinist practices of cadre control. Foreign communists first came across the insistent Soviet demand for autobiographical ...
Stalin's Purges Continuous Week Calendars Unlike the ordinary seven-day week, the continuous week began as a five-day cycle, with each day color-coded and marked with a symbol. The population would be carved up into as many groups, each with its own rest day. The days of the week, as...
(records suggest he was a regular attendant at high-level meetings and at Stalin’s private residence for dinners). Khrushchev admired the dictator – though like other party members he was intimidated by and wary of Stalin. Khrushchev gave tacit support to Stalin’s murderous purges during the...
The party first came to power under the leadership of Nikolai Lenin during the Russian Revolution of 1917. Later, the monopoly of the Communist party was strengthened under the reign of Joseph Stalin. In the late 1930's, a series of purges gave Stalin and his party complete control over ...
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Rus. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, former republic. It was established in 1922 and dissolved in 1991. The Soviet Union was the first state to be based on Marxist socialism (see also Marxism;
David Brandenberger explores how the Party did it in his terrific book Propaganda State in Crisis: Soviet Ideology, Indoctrination, and Terror under Stalin (Yale University Press, 2012). The answer, in short, is badly. At first, the message they sent-clashing -isms, class struggle, "...