History Department      

History 309 – CONTEMPORARY EUROPE – October 5, 2005

STALINISM

NOTE: In the “dirty ‘30s,” just at the time when FASCISM seemed the wave of the future, STALINISM reached its terrifying peak in the Soviet Union.  Our task today is to understand the other form of TOTALITARIANISM – Soviet Stalinism.  

TERMS TO KNOW:

  1. “Secretary General” of the Party
  2. Leon Trotsky
  3. Nikolai Bukharin
  4. Josef Stalin
  5. “Socialism in One Country” v. “Permanent Revolution”
  6. “Scissors Crisis”
  7. Second Bolshevik Revolution
  8. Collectivization
  9. “Dizzy with Success”
  10. Five Year Plans
  11. 1936 Constitution
  12. Murder of Kirov (’34)
  13. Great Terror
  14. Purge trials
  15. Byzantine Despotism
  16. NKVD
  17. nomenklatura
  18. Stalin, “The Hard Line”
  19. Stalin, “Liquidation of the Kulaks”
  20. Kopelev, “Terror”
  21. Dolot, “Famine”
  22. Avidienko, “Cult of Stalin”
  23. Yevtushenko, “Literature”
  24. Polyakov, “Attack”
  25. Khrushchev, “Secret Speech”
  26. Razgon, “True Stories”
  27. Koestler, “Darkness at Noon”

 

QUESTIONS

  1. First description:  What – based on the evidence above – were the key characteristics of the Stalinist system?  Make a list of at least FIVE key qualities, and be sure to provide evidence to demonstrate that these qualities really are key!
  2. Next comparison:  compare and contrast Nazism and Stalinism.  Are they more alike than different?  More different than alike?  Make a list of what they have in common; then make a second list of how they’re different; finally decide – are they very similar, or very different?

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