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Stalinism is a colloquial term for a brand of political theory and the political and economic system
implemented by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. Hannah Arendt described the system as
totalitarian and this description has become widely used by critics
of Stalinism.
Stalinism as political theory
The term "Stalinism" is sometimes used to denote a brand of communist and
socialist theory, dominating the Soviet Union during the rule of Stalin. The term used in Stalin's Russia and by most of those who uphold its
legacy, however, is "Marxism-Leninism". This reflects the fact that
Stalin himself was not a theoretician and, in contrast to Marx and Lenin, made few if any new theoretical contributions. Rather, Stalinism is more in the order of an
interpretation of their texts. Sometimes, however, the compound terms Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism, or teachings of
Marx/Engels/Lenin/Stalin, are used to imply the heritage and succession. At the
same time, many people who profess Marxism today or Leninism today (in other words, those who support the teachings of Marx/Engels/Lenin) view Stalinism as a
perversion of their ideas; Trotskyists in particular are virulently
anti-Stalinist. Compare Maoism.
The cornerstones of Stalin's theory were:
Economical and political Stalinsm
The term "Stalinism" was first used by anti-Soviet Marxists, particularly Trotskyists, to distinguish the policies of the Soviet Union from those they regard as
more true to Marxism. Trotskyists argue that the Stalinist USSR was not socialist, but a bureaucratized degenerated workers state that is, a state in which
exploitation is controlled by a ruling caste which, while it did not own the means of production and was not a social class in its own right, accrued benefits and privileges at the expense of
the working class.
Building on Lenin's work, Stalin expanded the centralized bureaucratic system of the
Soviet Union during the 1930s. A
series of two five-year plans led to a massive expansion of the Soviet
economy. Large increases were seen in many sectors, especially coal and iron production. Society was brought from a position
decades behind the West to one of near economic and scientific equality within thirty years. Some economic historians now believe
it to be the fastest economic growth ever achieved, even though it came at the cost of millions of lives through forced labor and the mass murder
of Stalin's opponents.
After Stalin's death in 1953, Stalin's successor Nikita Khrushchev repudiated his policies and condemned Stalin's cult of personality at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 and instituted a
process of destalinization and minor liberalisation. Only after that
both the people of the USSR and the rest of the world have slowly become aware what really
happened during Stalin's rule. See Gulag
and History of the Soviet Union:
Part I articles.
Some historians draw parallels between Stalinism and the economic policy of Tsar
Peter the Great. Both men desperately wanted Russia to catch up to
the western European states. Both succeeded to an extent, turning Russia temporarily into Europe's leading power.
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