Totalitarian regime in the USSR. Establishment of a totalitarian political regime in the USSR. cult of personality i.v. Stalin Totalitarian regime 30s

The totalitarian political system in the USSR in the 30s was formed around a single figure - Joseph Stalin. It was he who consistently, step by step, destroyed competitors and objectionable ones, establishing a regime of personal unquestioning power in the country.

Prerequisites for repression

In the early years of its existence, Lenin occupied the leading role in the party. He managed to control various factions within the Bolshevik leadership through his authority. The conditions of the civil war also affected. However, with the advent of peace, it became clear that the USSR could no longer exist in a state of war communism, accompanied by endless repressions.

Shortly before his death, Lenin became the initiator of the New Economic Policy. She helped rebuild the country after several years of military devastation. In 1924, Lenin died, and again found himself at a crossroads.

Fight within the party leadership

The tyrannical political system in the USSR in the 30s developed exactly like this, because the Bolsheviks did not create legitimate tools for the transfer of power. After that, the struggle of his supporters for supremacy began. The most charismatic figure in the party was an experienced revolutionary. He was one of the direct organizers of the October Revolution and an important military leader during the civil war.

However, Trotsky lost the apparatus struggle to Joseph Stalin, whom at first no one took seriously. The Secretary General (then this position was nominal) dealt with all his competitors one by one. Trotsky ended up in exile, but even abroad he was not safe. He would be killed much later - in Mexico in 1940.

In the Union, Stalin began to organize the first demonstrations that demonstrated what repressions would be in the USSR in the 30s. Later, the Bolsheviks of the first draft were convicted and shot. They were the same age as Lenin, had been in exile under the tsar for many years and arrived in Russia in the famous sealed carriage. Were shot: Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin - everyone who was in opposition or could claim first place in the party.

Planned Economy

At the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, five-year plans were introduced. Plans for the development of the national economy of the USSR were strictly regulated by the state center. Stalin wanted to create a new heavy and military industry in the country. The construction of a hydroelectric power station and other modern infrastructure began.

At the same time, Stalin organized several political trials connected with the so-called wreckers, that is, people who deliberately spoiled production. It was a campaign to repress the "technical intelligentsia" class, especially engineers. The process of the Industrial Party passed, then the Shakhty case, etc.

dispossession

The process of industrialization was extremely painful. It was accompanied by pogroms in the village. The political system in the USSR in the 30s destroyed the small prosperous peasantry, who worked on their plots, with the help of which they were fed.

Instead, the state created collective farms in the villages. All peasants began to be driven into collective farms. Dissatisfied were repressed and sent to camps. In the village, denunciation of the “kulaks” who hid their crops from the authorities became frequent. Whole families were exiled to Siberia and Kazakhstan.

Gulag

Under Stalin, all prison camps were merged into the Gulag. This system flourished in the late 1930s. At the same time, the famous 58th political article appeared, according to which hundreds of thousands of people ended up in camps. Mass repressions in the USSR in the 1930s were necessary, firstly, to intimidate the population, and secondly, to provide the state with cheap labor.

In fact, the prisoners became slaves. Their working conditions were inhuman. With the help of convicts, many industrial construction projects were implemented. The coverage of the creation of the White Sea Canal took on a special scale in the Soviet press. The result of such forced industrialization was the emergence of a powerful military-industrial complex and the impoverishment of the countryside. The destruction of agriculture was accompanied by mass starvation.

Great terror

The Stalinist totalitarian regime in the USSR in the 1930s needed regular repressions. By this time, the party apparatus had completely replaced the state authorities. The political system in the USSR in the 30s was formed around the decisions of the CPSU (b).

In 1934, one of the party leaders, Sergei Kirov, was killed in Leningrad. Stalin used his death as a pretext for a purge within the CPSU(b). Massacres began against ordinary communists. The political system of the USSR in the 1930s, in short, led to the fact that the state security agencies shot people according to orders from above, which indicated the required number of death sentences for treason.

Similar processes took place in the army. Leaders who went through the Civil War and had extensive professional experience were shot in it. In 1937-1938. repressions also assumed a national character. Poles, Latvians, Greeks, Finns, Chinese and other ethnic minorities went to the Gulag.

Foreign policy

As before, the foreign policy of the USSR in the 1930s set itself the main goal - to arrange a world revolution. After the Civil War, this plan failed when the war with Poland was lost. For the first half of his reign, Stalin relied on the Comintern in foreign affairs - the community of communist parties around the world.

From Germany, the foreign policy of the USSR in the 1930s began to focus on rapprochement with the Reich. Economic cooperation and diplomatic contacts were strengthened. In 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed. According to this document, the states agreed not to attack each other and divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence.

Soon the Soviet-Finnish war began. By this time, the Red Army had been beheaded by the repressions of its leadership. For example, three of the first five Soviet marshals were shot. The fatal fallacy of this policy reappeared two years later, when the Great Patriotic War began.

Three forms of manifestation: 1) planned economy, subordination of economic interests to the political system (industrialization 1928-32, collectivization 1929-33)

2) mass repression against any manifestation of dissent

3) Establishment of the personality cult of the leader. Propaganda of Stalin's activities and lack of criticism of his decisions.

1. Oguz state (tribal composition, social structure, domestic and foreign policy)

At the end of the IX-XI centuries. Oguz tribes lived on a vast territory from the middle reaches of the Syr Darya to the lower reaches of the Volga. In the Oghuz state of the 9th-10th centuries. there was a process of decomposition of the old tribal institutions, patriarchal-feudal relations developed.

Tribal composition Chinese sources claim that the Bayandur, Imur, and Kai tribes were part of the Oghuz. Arab sources claim that some part of the Kimak tribes were part of the Oguzes. M. Kashgari wrote that the Oguzes consisted of 24 tribes. Al-Marwazi wrote that the Oguzes consisted of 12 tribes. The Oguzes at the time of their initial rationing consisted of 24 tribes, and over time, having united with each other, when their union was created, the number of tribes decreased to 12.

Tot. device Jabgu (yabgu) - the title of the supreme ruler. The title was hereditary

Inals are heirs to the throne, their educators and mentors are atabeks.

The Kol Yerkins are the official advisers of the Jabgu.

Syubashi - military leaders, military advisers to the dzhabgu.

Khatun - wives of rulers. They took part in the administration of the state.

The social structure of the Oguz state is military democracy. The people's assembly of the Oguzes was convened once a year.
With the strengthening of the influence of the feudal aristocracy, instead of the people's assembly, the kol'erkins began to convene a council of the nobility, called kankash. The epic chronicle "Oguzname" testifies that with the flourishing of the Oguz society, power began to belong to the great and small kurultai. At the great kurultai, the kagan planted his sons on his right side "boz ok" (literally: "white arrow"), on the left - representatives of the nobility, leaders - "ush ok" ("three arrows"). The advantage in the election was on the side of the "white arrow".
They were divided into three main groups of tribes and clans, called battle, both and cook. They, in turn, were subdivided into Urugs and aimags. Urugs were tribal and family clans - communities.

Political history: The Oguz state played an important role in the political and military history of Eurasia. In foreign policy, the rulers pursued two goals:
1. seize rich grassland on the banks of the Don River, in the Black Sea region;
2. capture the most important trade routes connecting Europe with Asia and running through the Volga region, Mangystau and Ustyurt. In 965, the Oguzes, in alliance with Kievan Rus (Prince Svyatoslav), defeated the Khazar Khaganate. In "Oguzname" there are the following words: "An agreement was concluded with Saklap (Svyatoslav - author) Urysbek oglu." The Oguz state waged a long war for pasture lands and trade routes in the Black Sea region with the Khazar Khaganate. Russian chronicles testify that in 985 Prince Vladimir, in alliance with the Oghuz (Torks), made a campaign against the Volga Bulgars in the Volga region. . At the end of X and beginning of XI centuries. popular uprisings took place in the state against predatory tax collections.
Especially the uprisings became more frequent during the reign of Khan Ali. The Seljuks wanted to take advantage of this situation and captured the city of Dzhend, but were soon forced to leave the Dzhend region.
During the reign of Khan's heir Ali Shahmalik, the state strengthened.
At the beginning of the XI century. he conquered Khorezm. During the next attack of the Seljuks, the Oguzes were defeated, and Shakhmalik himself died near Khorezm.

Reasons for weakening: Long-term skirmishes Internal contradictions Wars with the Seljuks People's uprisings The Oghuz state finally fell under the blows of the Kypchak tribes. In the middle of the XI century. The Kypchaks finally ousted the Oghuz from the shores of the Syr Darya and the Aral Sea. Thus, in the middle of the XI century. The Oguz state ceased to exist.

The term "totalitarianism" and the adjective "totalitarian" derived from it have been used for any reason in recent years and serve as the most common explanation for what happened in Soviet Russia during the seven decades of its history.

At the same time, most of those who use these words do not even realize what an abundance of explanations, theories and interpretations are hidden behind them. Despite the fact that the concept itself is relatively "young" - he was not yet fifty - some historians have found totalitarian regimes in the ancient world (for example, in Sparta).

Others objected vehemently, arguing that totalitarianism is an exclusively 20th century phenomenon. These are extreme points of view; there have been many in between, looking for "totalitarian tendencies" or "totalitarian ideology" throughout human history.

The term itself appeared in the late 1920s. in fascist Italy. It was often repeated by Benito Mussolini. The Latin "in toto" means "as a whole", and the Italian words "totale", "totalita" - "full", "completely covered", "totality". In other words, it was about the state and society, completely covered by one ideology, fascist, of course, merged in a single desire for a goal determined by the leader (in the Italian version, he was called "Duce"). Of course, in such a state there could be neither opposition, nor democratic institutions, nor simply dissidents.

The irony of history, however, was that even in the best years for the Mussolini regime, Italy was far from the totalitarian ideal. Fascist Germany moved much closer to him, although the German leader, the Fuhrer, who secretly despised his Italian allies, did not like and did not use this word. Well, according to many political scientists, the “most totalitarian” of all totalitarian states turned out to be the Soviet Union.

N. I. Yezhov and I. V. Stalin. Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, heading the internal affairs bodies in 1936 - 1938, was one of the main perpetrators of mass repressions (hence the term - Yezhovism).

And even he did not really correspond to the model that was once drawn by the Duce. But what is not an ideal, but a real totalitarian society and state, how did it differ from the usual one, did it exist at all or remained only a dream of several dictators? Researchers answer these questions in different ways. And yet it is hard to deny that such a definition makes sense, although it refers not so much to the state or society in general, but to a certain type of political regime.

The ideology, economic and social system of fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union differed significantly from each other, but the mechanisms and functions of the political power of all three states were strikingly similar.

After the Second World War, similar regimes were also established in a number of developing countries, the most stable being the Maoist regime in China, and the most monstrous in its senseless brutality, the regime of the so-called Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The very list of countries that survived this test suggests that totalitarianism is born in the most diverse historical, economic, and cultural contexts; it can arise both in a developed European country and in a poor Asian one.

The emergence of totalitarian regimes is associated with the process of modernization. This is a very complex phenomenon, which can be briefly defined as a transition from a traditional, predominantly agrarian society to a developing, urban, industrial society.

At the same time, not only the political or economic system changes, but the entire social structure of society, its culture, psychology, way of life and way of thinking, the person himself changes. Therefore, the concept of modernization is much broader than the concepts of "emergence of capitalism" or "industrial revolution".

Changes of this magnitude are never easy, and in those societies where modernization came later for various reasons, it was accompanied by gigantic upheavals. The emergence of totalitarian regimes is one of the responses that society can give to the challenge posed by protracted modernization.

Russia for centuries, due to certain natural and historical conditions, followed an extensive path of development. This path has its limits, and sooner or later a crisis was bound to come. The painful modernization that the country was going through hastened the onset of this crisis.

First an era of reforms followed, then an era of revolutions (see Alexander II and the reforms of the 60s - 70s of the 19th century, Alexander III and the counter-reforms of the 80s - 90s of the 19th century, the Revolution of 1905 - 1907, the February Revolution 1917). In the storm of 1917 (see October Revolution of 1917) a mass movement arose, led by an underground and, as a result, not numerous party of Bolsheviks, armed with "the only true doctrine", which soon turned into a kind of religion.

Gradually, during the first socialist experiments (see Political and socio-economic transformations of the Bolsheviks in 1917 - 1918), the bloody civil war (see Civil war and military intervention 1918 - 1922) and the difficult post-revolutionary decade, a totalitarian regime was formed, finally established by the early 1930s. For him, as for the regimes that emerged in Italy and Germany, two features are characteristic.

Firstly, totalitarian regimes were distinguished by the amount of power, the desire to control not only the actions, but even the emotions and thoughts of the population, both in the political and in the private sphere. Of course, to one degree or another, such a desire is inherent in any political regime; the difference is only in the degree of this aspiration, in the means that are used to realize it.

Physical culture parade in the 30s. Parades, demonstrations, rallies concealed the essence of the anti-people policy of totalitarianism.

As historical experience shows, the use of even the harshest means, in particular mass terror (see Mass political repressions in the USSR in the 1930s and early 1950s), leads to the achievement of only very conditional control over society. And yet the volume of totalitarian power was noticeably higher than usual.

The Supreme Soviet was considered the supreme power in the USSR. It met twice a year and dutifully voted for proposals from above. Much more important were the party congresses, but even there all the main things were said in the guiding report. In fact, all power in the country was concentrated in the party elite, in particular in the Politburo and in the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the party.

All sectors and levels of the economy, all public organizations, from the Komsomol to the Society of Philatelists, were under the control of the party-state apparatus (see Public organizations). Trade unions, instead of defending the interests of employees from the employer - the state, served (in the words of Lenin) as his "transmission belts", only occasionally standing up for them in the event of a clear injustice committed by any representative of the administration.

Any statement that did not coincide with the official point of view could lead to serious consequences (for example, it could be qualified as “dissemination of information discrediting the Soviet system” - and this was already a criminal offense!). Secondly, regimes of this type arise as a result of mass movements and are capable of creating massive support for themselves over a certain (sometimes very long) period, mobilizing society or a significant part of it in the name of a single - total - goal of national importance.

In Soviet history, this is the construction of the world's first just, happy and rich, socialist, and then communist society, a goal that may be unattainable, but attractive. Unlike traditional dictatorships, totalitarian regimes did not seek to keep the masses "away from politics"; on the contrary, they made significant efforts to politicize them in the appropriate spirit. Apoliticality was seen as a manifestation of latent disloyalty.

But the real life of the state and society was much more diverse and richer than those phenomena and processes that we define as included in the concept of "totalitarianism". Therefore, many historians, agreeing with such a definition of the political regime, object to the use of the term "totalitarian" to refer to a society or even a state.

At first, the totalitarian regime turned out to be an effective tool for accelerated modernization. In the 20s - 50s. Russia has experienced the biggest revolution in its history. The agrarian, rural country has turned into a powerful industrial power (see Industrialization). But at what cost was this achieved! It is not even about the hardships and hardships that millions of people have endured; it is enough to recall the terror that reached its climax in 1937-1938, but which was not interrupted either earlier or later and cost society - along with collectivization, deportations, terrible hunger strikes of the 20s, 30s, 40s. - millions of lives (not to mention the victims of the revolution, civil, Great Patriotic War and several "small" wars).

But already in the 50s. the inability of the regime to adapt to the changed economic and social conditions. In the 30s. the main argument in favor of Stalin's "socialism" was the rapid pace of development.

In the 60s. there was first a lag in development, and then a slowly growing crisis. This was accompanied by a noticeable softening of the regime, which began after the death of its creator, I. V. Stalin, and the gradual “withering away” of the once omnipotent ideology.

By the mid 80s. the regime, which had long ceased to be totalitarian in the exact sense of the word, finally outlived itself and "died" after a short agony.

A totalitarian political regime is a system of state power based on the complete political, economic, ideological subordination of the entire society and the individual to power; total state control over all spheres of life; actual non-observance of human rights and freedoms.

The foundations of the totalitarian regime in the RSFSR and the USSR were laid back in 1918 - 1922 when:

the dictatorship of the proletariat was proclaimed;
in the course of the civil war, all political opposition to Bolshevism was liquidated;
there was a political, economic and military subordination of society to the state (“war communism”).

The concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the poorest peasantry was only a slogan. In fact, by 1922 (the moment the civil war ended and the USSR was formed), the dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party was established in the country:

neither the proletariat nor, moreover, the peasantry determined state policy (in addition, in 1920-1921, a series of workers' and peasants' uprisings against the Bolsheviks took place in Russia, which were brutally suppressed by them);

the system of soviets headed by the All-Russian (All-Union) Congress of Soviets, declared the supreme power in the country, was completely controlled by the Bolsheviks and was a screen for "workers' and peasants' democracy";

the "exploiting classes" (not workers or peasants) were deprived of their rights under the Constitution;

the Bolsheviks turned from a political party into an administrative apparatus; a new influential class, not specified in the Constitution, began to form - the nomenklatura;

under the conditions of a one-party system and state ownership of the nationalized means of production, the nomenklatura became the new owner of plants, factories, goods; a de facto new ruling class standing above the workers and peasants.

Totalitarianism in the 1920s

The emerging totalitarianism of the 1920s had one important feature - the absolute power of the Bolsheviks over society and the state was established, but within the monopoly ruling party of the Bolsheviks, relative democracy still existed (disputes, discussions, equal treatment of each other).

In the second half of the 1920s - 1930s. there was a second stage in the establishment of a totalitarian system - the destruction of democracy within the victorious Bolshevik Party, its subordination to one person - I.V. Stalin.

Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin-Dzhugashvili (1878 - 1953) - a professional revolutionary, a poet in his youth, a clergyman by education, was imprisoned 7 times, made 4 escapes.

The rise of Stalin in the party began after the October Revolution and the Civil War. Stalin led the defense of Tsaritsyn during the Civil War, was People's Commissar for Nationalities in the first Bolshevik government, played an important role in preparing the first Constitution of the RSFSR and building the statehood of the RSFSR and the USSR. I.V. Stalin in the first half of the 1920s. distinguished by the absolute loyalty of V.I. Lenin, personal modesty and inconspicuousness, high professionalism in the performance of painstaking routine organizational work.

Thanks to these qualities, I.V. Stalin was promoted to a new position in the party - General Secretary. This post was created in 1922 and was conceived as a technical (not political) post to organize the work of the party apparatus. However, having taken this position, I.V. Stalin gradually turned it into the center of power in the country.

Death of V.I. Lenin

After the death of V.I. Lenin January 21, 1924 in the party and the state begins a 5-year period of struggle between the key associates of V.I. Lenin for becoming his successor. The main contenders for the highest power in the party and the state were at least six people:

Leon Trotsky;
Nikolai Bukharin;
Grigory Zinoviev;
Joseph Stalin;
Mikhail Frunze;
Felix Dzerzhinsky.

Each of them was a close associate of Lenin, had services to the party, supporters. However, none of them could immediately rise above the others.

Because of this, in 1924 the nominal successor V.I. Lenin - the head of the Soviet government - was the little-known business executive Alexei Rykov, who suited everyone, and between the main contenders, with the appearance of a collective leadership, a struggle began. The struggle took place through the creation of temporary alliances against the leading contender, and then the formation of new ones, in particular:

the Stalin-Kamenev-Zinoviev alliance against Trotsky;
the alliance of Stalin and Bukharin against Zinoviev;
alliance of Stalin and his group against Bukharin and his group. After the death of V.I. Lenina I.V. Stalin was not considered the leading contender and was not even one of the three main candidates for the legacy of V.I. Lenin, which was L. Trotsky, G. Zinoviev and N. Bukharin.

The most obvious and dangerous contender for power in the USSR after the death of V.I. Lenin was Leon Trotsky. Leon Trotsky (Bronstein) during the years of the Civil War was a brilliant military leader, actually led the country after the assassination attempt on V.I. Lenin in 1918. However, most members of the party feared Trotsky for his radicalism, cruelty, desire to make the revolution an ongoing world process and to control peaceful life with the help of military methods.

Therefore, the entire top of the CPSU (b) came out as a united front against Trotsky, for the sake of which the irreconcilable rivals Zinoviev, Stalin and Bukharin united. Trotsky was removed from the leadership of the Red Army (his "horse") and sent to peaceful construction (which he was less capable of). He soon lost his former influence in the party. Grigory Zinoviev (Apfelbaum) was an example of a "margarine communist". He was very popular with the "Nepman" part of the party apparatus. Zinoviev advocated the semi-bourgeois type of power of the Bolsheviks and threw out to the communists the slogan "Get rich!", imputed later to Bukharin.

If Trotsky's coming to power threatened to turn the USSR into a single military labor camp, then Zinoviev's coming to power could lead to the bourgeois disintegration of the party from within. In addition, Zinoviev did not have the moral right to lead the Bolshevik Party - on the eve of the Bolshevik revolution, he publicly issued the date and plan of the uprising, which almost thwarted the revolution.

The entire anti-bourgeois, “solid communist” part of the party apparatus, led by Bukharin (editor-in-chief of Pravda) and Stalin (general secretary of the Central Committee), united against Zinoviev. Through the efforts of the coalition, Zinoviev was compromised and removed from the influential post of head of the Petrograd party organization.

Along with the political annihilation of Trotsky and Zinoviev in 1926, two other dangerous contenders, M. Frunze and F. Dzerzhinsky, were physically destroyed.

Mikhail Frunze (1877 - 1926) - a man externally and internally very similar to Stalin, a hero of the civil war, who had Bonapartist ambitions and enjoyed great authority, died in the prime of life in 1926 during an operation to remove an appendicitis performed by Stalin's doctors;
Felix Dzerzhinsky (1877 - 1926) - the most authoritative leader of the party, one of the founders of the Soviet state and a close associate of Lenin, who enjoyed unquestioned authority in the special services, was considered a "dark horse" in the struggle for power, also died unexpectedly in 1926 during treatment. The decisive struggle for power took place in 1927-1929. between I. Stalin and N. Bukharin.

Nikolai Bukharin was Stalin's most dangerous rival at the final stage of the struggle and a promising contender for the role of leader of the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet state:

Bukharin did not have the radicalism of Trotsky and the petty-bourgeoisness of Zinoviev, he was considered a Leninist, ideologically it was difficult to find fault with him;

after the death of V.I. Lenin Bukharin occupied the niche of Lenin - the main ideologist of the party;

IN AND. Lenin, on the eve of his death, characterized Bukharin as the "darling of the party", while Stalin was criticized for his rudeness and harshness;

since 1917, Bukharin was the editor-in-chief of the Pravda newspaper, the main political mouthpiece of the Bolsheviks, he could really form the opinion of the party, which he succeeded for a long time;

he was the youngest of the candidates - in 1928 he was 40 years old;

the most dangerous thing for Stalin is that Bukharin's (and not Stalin's) nominees occupied key positions in the country (the head of the Soviet government A. Rykov, other members of the top leadership - Tomsky, Pyatakov, Radek, Chicherin and others belonged to the "Bukharin group", and Bukharin in years of NEP pursued its policy through them);

in addition, Bukharin, like Stalin, had the ability to intrigue, strove for power, together with Stalin skillfully removed common rivals from the path (Trotsky, Zinoviev, etc.), participated in the beginning repressions against dissidents (the case of the "Prom Party" ).

NEP

However, Bukharin's "Achilles' heel" was that he and his group were personified with the NEP, and the NEP in 1928-1929. stalled and dissatisfaction with this policy grew in the party. This situation was taken advantage of by Stalin, who, using the still existing internal party democracy, began an active struggle against the NEP, and, at the same time, against Bukharin and his group. As a result, the personal struggle of Stalin and Bukharin for power was transferred to the plane of disputes over the economic development of the country. In this struggle, Stalin and his group won, who convinced the party of the need to stop the NEP and begin industrialization and collectivization. In 1929 - 1930. with the help of the remaining democratic mechanisms in the party and skillful intrigues, the "Bukharin group" was removed from power, and key posts in the state were taken by Stalin's nominees.

The new chairman of the Soviet government (Sovnarkom), instead of A.I. Rykov, became V.M. Molotov is the closest associate of Stalin at that time.

Outwardly, the coming of the Stalin group to power in 1929 was perceived as a victory for the former opposition and the transition of yesterday's leadership to the opposition, which was a normal phenomenon in the party. For the first years, Bukharin and his associates continued their usual way of life, retained a high position in the party, and already criticized Stalin as an opposition, hoping to return to power if his policy failed. In fact, the gradual establishment of the personal dictatorship of I.V. Stalin, curtailment of democratic mechanisms within the party.

Promotion to leadership positions of supporters of I.V. Stalin

After the dismissal of the “Bakharin group” in 1929, supporters of I.V. Stalin. Unlike representatives of the “Leninist guard”, who were often educated and far from life intellectuals with noble roots, Stalin’s nominees, as a rule, did not have a formal education, but possessed a strong practical intellect and an enormous capacity for work and purposefulness.

In a relatively short period of time (1929 - 1931), a new type of leaders brought in by Stalin ousted the Leninist guard from key positions in the party, Soviet and economic apparatus. A feature of Stalin's personnel policy was also the fact that his future nominees, suitable for their data, were recruited from the lowest social classes (the origin was carefully checked) and immediately promoted to the highest posts. It was during the Stalin era that most of the leaders of the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras came to the fore. For example, A. Kosygin, in the rampant repressions from his student days, was elected chairman of the Lensoviet, and at the age of 35 he was appointed Allied People's Commissar, at 32 L. Beria and Sh. Rashidov became the leaders of Georgia and Uzbekistan, A. Gromyko became ambassador to the United States. As a rule, new nominees faithfully served I.V. Stalin (resistance to Stalin was provided by representatives of the "Leninist guard" and practically did not provide "Stalin's youth").

I.V. Stalin in the early 1930s, using the post of General Secretary, which gave the greatest opportunity to nominate cadres loyal to himself and not independent, gradually began to turn into the leader of the new Soviet nomenklatura. The new nomenklatura, still yesterday's workers and peasants, who suddenly became leaders, having been in leadership positions, did not want to return "to the machine" for anything. The nomenklatura, for the most part, idolized I.V. Stalin, and became his main support in the struggle to further strengthen his power. Key associates of I.V. Stalin in the 1930s both loyal comrades from the pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods - V. Molotov, K. Voroshilov, L. Kaganovich, S. Ordzhonikidze, and young nominees - G. Malenkov, L. Beria, N. Khrushchev, S. Kirov, A. Kosygin and others.

XVII Congress of the CPSU (b)

The last case of open opposition by I.V. Stalin and the last attempt to remove him from power was the XVII Congress of the CPSU (b), held in January - February 1934:

I.V. Stalin was criticized for the distortions in the implementation of collectivization;
a significant part of the delegates to the congress voted against Stalin in the elections to the Central Committee of the party following the results of the congress;
this meant a vote of no confidence on the part of the party and the loss of I.V. Stalin the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks;
according to party traditions, the CM was to become the new General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the leader of the party. Kirov - the head of the party organization of Leningrad, who received the largest number of votes in the elections (300 more than I.V. Stalin), as many delegates insisted;
however SM. Kirov - a nominee of I.V. Stalin, refused the post of General Secretary in favor of I.V. Stalin and did not take advantage of the situation;
the election results were rigged and Stalin remained as party leader.

After this event:

party congresses ceased to be held regularly (the 18th congress took place only 5 years later - in 1939, and then the congresses of the Bolshevik party were not held for 13 years - until 1952);
since 1934, the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks began to lose its significance, and I.V. Stalin (from 1952) became one of the Secretaries of the Central Committee;
most of the delegates of the "rebellious" XVII Congress of the CPSU (b) were repressed.

On December 1, 1934, SM was killed in Smolny. Kirov. The killer died during the arrest, and the crime remained unsolved. The assassination of S. Kirov on December 1, 1934:

released I.V. Stalin from a growing competitor;
became the reason for the unfolding of mass political repressions in the country.

7. Political repressions in the USSR began to be carried out since the late 1920s:

one of the first was the trial in the case of the Industrial Party, during which a number of economic leaders were accused of sabotage;
another major trial was the trial of the "Ryutin group" - a group of party and Komsomol workers who openly criticized I.V. Stalin.

However, after the assassination of SM. Kirov repressions acquired a massive and widespread character.

the loudest process of the late 1930s. was the process against the Trotskyist-Zinoviev bloc, during which the former main rivals I.V. Stalin for leadership in the party (L. Trotsky and G. Zinoviev) were accused of being the center of subversive work in the USSR;

soon a nationwide trial took place over the "right deviators" and the Bukharinites;

the “Leningrad case” was also a high-profile trial, during which almost the entire top of the Leningrad party organization, the sober-minded and oppositional I.V., was condemned. Stalin;

mass repressions took place in the ranks of the Red Army - in 1937 - 1940. about 80% of the entire command staff was shot (in particular, 401 colonels out of 462; 3 marshals out of 5, etc.);

during these repressions, recent rivals of I.V. were convicted and shot as enemies of the people. Stalin in the struggle for power - Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, and others, prominent military leaders - Tukhachevsky, Blucher, Yegorov, Uborevich, Yakir, were physically destroyed;

in addition, many other associates of I. Stalin died mysteriously - G. Ordzhonikidze, V. Kuibyshev, M. Gorky, N. Alliluyeva (I. Stalin's wife);

in 1940 L. Trotsky was killed in Mexico.

The standard-bearers of the repressions at their initial stage were two People's Commissars of Internal Affairs of the USSR - Genrikh Yagoda (People's Commissar in 1934 - 1936) and Nikolai Yezhov (People's Commissar in 1936 - 1938). The peak of repression, called "Yezhovshchina". was associated with activities in 1936 - 1938. People's Commissar N. Yezhov. It was under Yezhov that repressions took on a mass and uncontrolled character. Hundreds and thousands of innocent people were arrested every day, many of whom died physically. Yezhov in the NKVD and the OGPU introduced painful and sadistic torture to which the arrested and their families were subjected. Subsequently, the people's commissars of internal affairs and the general commissars of state security, Yagoda and Yezhov, themselves became victims of the mechanism they created. They were removed from their positions and "exposed" as enemies of the people. G. Yagoda was shot in 1938, and N. Yezhov - in 1940.

Lavrenty Beria, who replaced them in 1938, continued their line, but more selectively. Repressions continued, but their mass character by the beginning of the 1940s. decreased. 8. By the end of the 1930s. in the USSR, a situation developed, which was called the “cult of personality” by I.V. Stalin. The cult of personality was:

creating the image of I. Stalin as a legendary and supernatural personality, to whom the whole country owes its prosperity (“the great leader of all times and peoples”).
erection of I.V. Stalin to the rank of the greatest thinkers along with K. Marx, F. Engels and V.I. Lenin;
total praise of I.V. Stalin, the complete absence of criticism;
absolute prohibition and persecution of any dissent;
the widespread dissemination of the image and name of Stalin;
persecution of religion.

In parallel with the "cult of personality" I.V. Stalin, the creation of an equally large-scale “personality cult” of V.I. Lenin:

the image of V.I. was created in many respects far from reality. Lenin, as a brilliant and infallible communist "messiah";

images of Lenin in the form of hundreds of thousands of monuments, busts, portraits were distributed throughout the country;

the people were convinced that everything good and progressive became possible only after 1917 and only in the USSR, was the result of the genius V.I. Lenin;

I.V. Stalin was declared the only student of V.I. Lenin, who implements Lenin's ideas and is the successor of V.I. Lenin.

The cult of personality was supported by the most severe repressions (including criminal prosecution for "anti-Soviet propaganda", which could be any statement that did not coincide with the official point of view). Another way to maintain the cult, besides fear, was to educate the younger generation from childhood, to create an atmosphere of mass euphoria in the country with propaganda and an uncritical perception of reality.

Totalitarianism is a political regime in which the state exercises complete control and strict regulation of all spheres of the life of society and the life of every person, which is provided mainly by force, including the means of armed violence.

The main features of a totalitarian regime are:

1) the supremacy of the state, which is total in nature. The state does not simply interfere in the economic, political, social, spiritual, family and everyday life of society, it seeks to completely subjugate, nationalize any manifestations of life;

2) the concentration of the entirety of state political power in the hands of the leader of the party, entailing the actual removal of the population and ordinary members of the party from participating in the formation and activities of state bodies;

3) monopoly on the power of a single mass party, merging of the party and state apparatus;

4) the dominance in society of one omnipotent state ideology, supporting the masses' conviction in the justice of this system of power and the correctness of the chosen path;

5) centralized system of control and management of the economy;

6) complete lack of human rights. Political freedoms and rights are formally fixed, but are not really present;

7) there is strict censorship over all media and publishing activities. It is forbidden to criticize government officials, state ideology, speak positively about the life of states with other political regimes;

8) the police and special services, along with the functions of ensuring law and order, perform the functions of punitive bodies and act as an instrument of mass repression;

9) suppression of any opposition and dissent through systematic and mass terror, which is based on both physical and spiritual violence;

10) suppression of personality, depersonalization of a person, turning him into a cog of the same type in the party-state machine. The state strives for the complete transformation of a person in accordance with the ideology adopted in it.

As the main factors that contributed to the formation of a totalitarian regime in our country, one can single out economic, political and sociocultural ones.

The accelerated economic development, as noted in one of the previous sections, led to a tightening of the political regime in the country. Recall that the choice of a forced strategy assumed a sharp weakening, if not complete destruction of the commodity-money mechanisms for regulating the economy, with the absolute predominance of the administrative and economic system. Planning, production, technical discipline in the economy, devoid of the levers of economic interest, was most easily achieved by relying on the political apparatus, state sanction, and administrative coercion. As a result, the same forms of strict obedience to the directive on which the economic system was built prevailed in the political sphere.

The strengthening of the totalitarian principles of the political system was also required by the very low level of material well-being of the vast majority of society, which accompanied the forced version of industrialization, attempts to overcome economic backwardness. The enthusiasm and conviction of the advanced sections of society alone was not enough to keep the standard of living of millions of people during a quarter of a century of peacetime at the level that usually exists for short periods of time, in years of war and social catastrophes. Enthusiasm, in this situation, had to be reinforced by other factors, primarily organizational and political, regulation of labor and consumption measures (severe penalties for theft of public property, for absenteeism and being late for work, restrictions on movement, etc.). The need to take these measures, of course, did not in any way favor the democratization of political life.

The formation of a totalitarian regime was also favored by a special type of political culture, characteristic of Russian society throughout its history. It combines a disdainful attitude towards law and law with the obedience of the bulk of the population to power, the violent nature of power, the absence of legal opposition, the idealization of the population of the head of power, etc. (subordinate type of political culture). Characteristic of the bulk of society, this type of political culture is also reproduced within the framework of the Bolshevik Party, which was formed mainly by people who came from the people. Coming from war communism, the "Red Guard attack on capital", the reassessment of the role of violence in the political struggle, indifference to cruelty weakened the sense of moral validity, the justification of many political actions that had to be carried out by the party activists. The Stalinist regime, as a result, did not meet active resistance within the party apparatus itself. Thus, we can conclude that a combination of economic, political, and cultural factors contributed to the formation of a totalitarian regime in the USSR in the 1930s, the system of Stalin's personal dictatorship.

The main characteristic feature of the political regime in the 1930s was the transfer of the center of gravity to party, emergency and punitive bodies. The decisions of the XVH Congress of the CPSU (b) significantly strengthened the role of the party apparatus: it received the right to directly engage in state and economic management, the top party leadership acquired unlimited freedom, and ordinary communists were obliged to strictly obey the leading centers of the party hierarchy.

Along with the executive committees of the Soviets in industry, agriculture, science, culture, party committees functioned, whose role in fact becomes decisive. Under conditions of concentration of real political power in party committees, the Soviets carried out mainly economic, cultural and organizational functions.

The party's ingrowth into the economy and the public sphere has since become a distinctive feature of the Soviet political system. A kind of pyramid of party and state administration was built, the top of which was firmly occupied by Stalin as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Thus, the originally minor position of the general secretary turned into a paramount one, giving its holder the right to supreme power in the country.

The assertion of the power of the party-state apparatus was accompanied by the rise and strengthening of the power structures of the state, its repressive bodies. Already in 1929, so-called "troikas" were created in each district, which included the first secretary of the district party committee, the chairman of the district executive committee and a representative of the Main Political Directorate (GPU). They began to carry out out-of-court trials of the guilty, passing their own sentences. In 1934, on the basis of the OGPU, the Main Directorate of State Security was formed, which became part of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD). Under it, a Special Conference (OSO) is established, which at the union level has consolidated the practice of extrajudicial sentences.

Relying on a powerful system of punitive organs, the Stalinist leadership in the 30s spins the flywheel of repression. According to a number of modern historians, the repressive policy in this period pursued three main goals:

1) a real cleansing of the “decomposed” from the often uncontrolled power of functionaries;

2) suppression in the bud of departmental, parochial, separatist, clan, opposition sentiments, ensuring the unconditional power of the center over the periphery;

3) removal of social tension by identifying and punishing enemies.

The data known today about the mechanism of the "great terror" allow us to say that among the many reasons for these actions, the desire of the Soviet leadership to destroy the potential "fifth column" in the face of a growing military threat was of particular importance.

During the repressions, the national economic, party, state, military, scientific and technical personnel, representatives of the creative intelligentsia were subjected to purges. The number of prisoners in the Soviet Union in the 1930s is determined by figures from 3.5 million to 9-10 million people.

What was the result of the policy of mass repression? On the one hand, it must be admitted that this policy really increased the level of "cohesion" of the country's population, which was then able to unite in the face of fascist aggression. But at the same time, without even taking into account the moral and ethical side of the process (torture and death of millions of people), it is difficult to deny the fact that mass repressions have disorganized the life of the country. Constant arrests among the heads of enterprises and collective farms led to a drop in discipline and responsibility in production. There was a huge shortage of military personnel. The Stalinist leadership itself in 1938 abandoned mass repressions, purged the NKVD, but basically this punitive machine remained untouched.