Stalin. Stalin era. Stalinism. Stalin era - pre-war period (1929–1939) Stalinist industrialization 5 Stalin and the era of Stalinism

I.V. Stalin, thanks to his personal qualities that best corresponded to the deep goals of the Bolshevik government, built on the suppression and exploitation of the masses, became the true Leader of the Soviet state.

All of Stalin’s activities were devoted to serving and self-reproduction of the individual form of power of the “leader of the tribe of cog-men,” in which the individual’s personality was replaced by a function. The very life of the Stalinist man-cog depended on the degree of loyalty to the authorities, the party, personally to the Leader and on the ability or inability to perform the function prescribed by the authorities. The quality of function performance determined social status and quality of life Soviet man.

The combination of the Soviet administrative-command System of leadership of the country and a charismatic Leader, free from any social and moral responsibility, created ideal conditions for the functioning of the totalitarian Soviet state and the strengthening of the party-state bureaucratic apparatus, the conductor of the political course of the authorities. Stalin managed to form “a special apparatus consisting of loyal, efficient and rather faceless people, since any manifestations of individuality, even within the framework of personal devotion to the leader, become dangerous. Finally, this apparatus must be under constant threat: everyone must feel that it can be replaced by another. This is the only way to ensure complete loyalty.”

“By the mid-30s. finally established " nomenclature", i.e., a list of positions for which the approval of the highest party authorities, and therefore Stalin personally, was required. Their financial situation was excellent not only in comparison with the majority of the population, but also in comparison with many statesmen of the pre-October era.”

The military-mobilization economy, with its planning and distribution mechanism, ensured by the presence of the Gulag, was also fully consistent with the era.

The strengthening of the totalitarian regime was facilitated by the ideology of the country's life in a hostile environment and the heightened expectation of the inevitability of an imminent war with German fascism. There could not be better conditions for intensifying exploitation and repression against the people, and the Stalinist regime took full advantage of the current situation.

“A new generation grew up, eager to enter politics, to power, to occupy positions. They came from among those who began to engage in politics during the years of struggle with the opposition. Their consciousness required internal enemies, constant struggle. They believed that the places at the top belonged to them, and others did not occupy them by right.”

“A change of personnel in a totalitarian regime could only happen through repression. The reason for them was the murder of S.M. Kirov at the end of 1934." “The first result of this murder was repression against all those who survived the “Red Terror”: former nobles, clergy, officers, merchants, and the old intelligentsia. At the same time, a massive purge of the party took place, during which the survivors were obliged to unquestioningly prove their loyalty to the leadership.”

In 1936 - 1939 political repression continued with the “great terror” against the “old revolutionaries”, against the “red marshals”, which resulted in the destruction of 40 thousand officers and ended with the purge of repressive bodies, party and economic leaders, scientific workers and cultural figures.

In the pre-war years, all social strata of society fell under the “millstone” of Stalin’s repressions; fear and the threat of repression suppressed all free-thinking and personal dignity of the Soviet people, ensuring the continuation of the regime until the death of the Leader.

The country, under totalitarian rule, had to go through the trials of the Great Patriotic War and the difficult years of the post-war restoration of the national economy.

The structure of the Soviet state, the main goal of which was to confront hostile capitalism, and in fact the entire rest of the world, could be and was “effective” only in conditions of life in a state of war, or in anticipation of war. Peaceful life was destroying the foundations of the state, the conditions of peace stimulate in the minds of people the desire to improve living conditions, to develop science, technology and the economy, which the totalitarian regime is not able to provide, which became the reason for the destruction of Stalin’s legacy in the era of the “Khrushchev Thaw”.

Results of the Stalin era.

Government– a totalitarian-repressive model of the Leader’s personal power.

Economic policy– all the country’s resources are in the service of the Soviet state (Leader).

Social politics- complete submission to the will of the Leader, nothing else is given.

Domestic policy- bayonet, whip and cracker.

Living environment– survival in conditions of mass repression, anticipation of war and in conditions of war, in a country destroyed and exhausted by war.

Foreign policy – identification of enemies, search for allies, joint opposition to fascism, definition of a new world order, confrontation of political systems.

Human status- a soldier both at the front and in the rear.

7. “Khrushchev’s Thaw.”

Partial relaxations of the military mobilization economy began during Stalin’s lifetime - “the 8-hour working day, annual leave were restored, mandatory overtime work was abolished,” but still “the main efforts to develop and implement scientific and technological achievements were concentrated in the defense industry.” industry, which has made a major breakthrough primarily in the nuclear missile field.” At the end of 1947, the card system was abolished, with a simultaneous threefold increase in prices relative to the pre-war level. This overstatement allowed the authorities to carry out centralized price reductions in the following years, but these measures did not contribute in any way to increasing the purchasing power of the population, leaving the majority Soviet people in a state of extreme need. The authorities also burdened the workers with annual loans equal to the amount of a monthly salary, thus all workers worked for nothing for 1 month a year.

“The difficulties of life did not affect only an extremely narrow layer of highly paid figures in science, culture, and major production managers. For the upper and middle circles of the party and state apparatus, the system introduced by Stalin in the 1930s continued to operate. the practice of so-called packages, i.e., significant cash payments that were not included in any statements.”

“In cities, communal apartments and barracks have become an integral feature of the times. Semi-basements, although expensive, pompous administrative buildings were being erected all around.”

IN post-war years The Gulag continued to function, replenished with prisoners of war of the Soviet army, liberated from German captivity and millions of repatriated citizens.

N.S. faced such a legacy. Khrushchev, coming to power after Stalin's death.

Having made fundamental changes regarding the role of repressive bodies and the Gulag, their place in the new political course party, Khrushchev left unchanged the command-administrative system of state leadership and the centralized planned-distributive economy of the socialist type.

All actions taken, while maintaining the command-administrative System, were determined to fail and were temporary in nature, for the period of adaptation of the System to existence without a Leader. Once again the authorities applied a policy of half measures. Having abandoned the people to develop virgin lands in the steppe regions of the Orenburg region and Kazakhstan, Central Russian arable lands were left without attention.

In solving the problems of food supply for the country, the authorities moved to abolish Stalinist restrictions for rural residents. Cash wages were introduced on collective farms, collective farms were allowed to purchase equipment, and collective farmers began to be issued passports. One thing remained untouched by the authorities - the collective and state farm system of farming in rural areas, under the watchful supervision of the party and state apparatus. That apparatus which, for the sake of victorious reports and reports, was ready for any tricks, from “additions” to direct violations of laws.

Temporary concessions by the Soviet government to the population, which allowed many people to survive in the post-war years, ended in 1959 with another attack on the private property intentions of the Soviet people, which resulted in persecution of personal subsidiary plots, first of city residents, and then of rural residents. “From 1958 to 1962, the number of cows in private farmsteads decreased from 22 million to 10 million heads. This was a real defeat of the peasantry, which had just begun to recover from Stalinism. Slogans were heard again that the main thing was public, not private, economy, that the main enemy were “speculators and parasites” trading in the markets. Collective farmers were expelled from the markets, and real speculators began to inflate prices.”

In Soviet industry during this period, a scientific and technological revolution was carried out, which began in the Stalin era, in response to the US nuclear threat.

The atomic bombing of Japanese cities by the Americans forced Stalin to concentrate all the scientific and technical potential of the country on creating his own nuclear weapons and rocket technology capable of delivering atomic bombs to the American continent. Most active participation in the creation atomic weapons Repressive bodies also played a role in rocket technology, creating the so-called “sharashkas”, in which convicted scientists and engineers were collected. The Cold War and the confrontation between the former allies in the anti-Hitler coalition had the most serious impact on the growth of the country's scientific and technical potential.

Thus, the main reason for the scientific and technological revolution and the development of industry in the USSR was the need to ensure the country’s defense capability, and therefore to maintain power in the hands of the party and state elite.

No one and nothing could interfere with the solution of this, the main task for the System, including possible financial costs. The entire economy of the country was mobilized to ensure defense capability, primarily heavy industry. Once again, light industry remained outside the scope of the priority tasks of the Soviet government and, therefore, residual funding.

The country's super-efforts were realized by a breakthrough in nuclear technology, which made it possible to create atomic bomb in 1949, build the world's first nuclear icebreaker "Lenin", open an institute nuclear research. Soviet scientists, designers and engineers managed to achieve even greater results in the rocket and space industry, thanks to whose efforts the Soviet Union was the first to launch artificial satellite and send the first cosmonaut into space.

Soviet designers and developers of missile technology solved the main task assigned to them - they provided the country’s “nuclear shield” by creating strategic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads to anywhere in the world.

Getting involved in an "arms race" soviet government doomed category B industry, focused on the production of civilian products, to a miserable existence and technological backwardness, and the country's workers to life in conditions of comprehensive shortages.

The success of the scientific and technological revolution in the defense industries was achieved thanks to the preservation of the mobilization model of functioning at the enterprises of the military-industrial complex and in specialized research institutes, the allocation of unlimited resources to the “chief designers”, their strong-willed, professional and personal qualities.

The main merit of the reign of N.S. Khrushchev from a historical point of view, after all, is the debunking of Stalin’s “personality cult” and the subsequent disbandment of the Gulag, thereby destroying the entire totalitarian system of Soviet power that holds together.

The three basic foundations of the Stalinist totalitarian regime - the charismatic Leader, the military-mobilization economy and the Gulag - collapsed during the Khrushchev era and, as it turned out, the very coexistence of the socialist form of government turned out to be impossible.

The partial preservation of the mobilization model in the military-industrial complex made it possible to make a scientific and technical breakthrough and gain leading positions in the rocket and space industry and the nuclear industry. In all other industries, a systemic technological lag behind the capitalist world began.

The new state of the Soviet economy required changes and Khrushchev attempted to reform the economy. “The existing over-centralized sectoral ministries, according to Khrushchev, were unable to ensure the rapid growth of industrial production. Instead, territorial administrations were established - councils of the national economy. The very idea of ​​decentralizing economic management for such a huge country initially met with positive responses. However, this reform was presented by its authors as a miraculous one-time act capable of radically changing the economic situation in the country.”

« Distinctive feature reforms of this time began to put forward obviously unrealizable goals and objectives, “voluntarism”.

“The task was set to quickly catch up and overtake the most developed capitalist countries in terms of production per capita. Looking into the future, N.S. Khrushchev estimated that this would happen around 1970. In this sense, Khrushchev repeated the techniques of Lenin and Stalin, who also always argued that 10–15 years would be enough to achieve this goal.”

If in the first years of development of virgin lands it was possible to significantly increase the volume of grain crops, but the lean year of 1963 struck and the Soviet Union began to purchase grain abroad. The agricultural policy of the authorities turned the country from the largest exporter of grain at the beginning of the century into a major importer of grain, starting from the 60s and until the beginning of the 21st century.

Attempts to correct the situation in the country by Khrushchev ended in failure. Bread cards appeared again in the country, there was an increase in prices for butter and meat, which caused protests by workers in a number of Soviet cities and ended in tragedy in Novocherkassk.

The policy of the “Khrushchev Thaw” turned out to be unviable under the dominance of socialist principles of government.

Results of the “Khrushchev Thaw”.

Government– command-administrative system of state leadership.

Economic policy– planned-distributive economy, with partial emancipation Agriculture and an attempt to decentralize the economy, the resulting division of the economy into heavy - group A and light - group B, with the leading role of heavy industry.

Social politics– propaganda of the advantages of socialism and a promise to catch up and surpass developed countries in per capita production by 1970.

Domestic policy– rejection of the repressive form of government of the country, stimulation of the scientific and technological revolution in the military-industrial complex, attempts to reform the economy, expansion of acreage through the development of “virgin lands”.

Living environment- expansion of civil liberties, easing the pressure of repressive authorities, “emancipation” of the peasantry, the transition to cash wages in agriculture, the transition to purchasing products from agricultural producers, which caused an increase in prices for butter and meat in the cities, mass protests of workers in the cities.

Foreign policy– a political demonstration of the advantages of socialism, based on achievements in space exploration and the use of nuclear energy. Feeling of military strength. Formation of the status of a Superpower. The confrontation between the USSR and the USA, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear disaster during the Cuban missile crisis.

Human status - semi-free person.

On December 6, 1878, Joseph Stalin was born in Gori. Real name Stalin - Dzhugashvili. In 1888, he entered the Gori Theological School, and later, in 1894, the Tiflis Orthodox Theological Seminary. This time became the period of the spread of Marxist ideas in Russia.

During his studies, Stalin organized and headed “Marxist circles” at the seminary, and in 1898 he joined the Tiflis organization of the RSDLP. In 1899, he was expelled from the seminary for promoting the ideas of Marxism, after which he was repeatedly under arrest and in exile.

Stalin first became acquainted with Lenin's ideas after the publication of the newspaper Iskra. Lenin and Stalin met personally in December 1905 at a conference in Finland. After I.V. Stalin briefly, before Lenin's return, served as one of the leaders of the Central Committee. After the October coup, Joseph received the post of People's Commissar for Nationalities Affairs.

He showed himself to be an excellent military organizer, but at the same time demonstrated his commitment to terrorism. In 1922, he was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee, as well as to the Politburo and Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP. At that time Lenin had already moved away from active work, real power belonged to the Politburo.

Even then, Stalin’s disagreements with Trotsky were obvious. During the 13th Congress of the RCP(b), held in May 1924, Stalin announced his resignation, but the majority of votes received during the voting allowed him to retain his post. The consolidation of his power led to the beginning of the personality cult of Stalin. Simultaneously with industrialization and the development of heavy industry, dispossession and collectivization were carried out in the villages. The result was the death of millions of Russian citizens. Stalin's repressions, which began in 1921, claimed more than 5 million lives over 32 years.

Stalin's policies led to the creation and subsequent strengthening of a harsh authoritarian regime. The beginning of the career of Lavrenty Beria dates back to this period (20s). Stalin and Beria met regularly during the General Secretary's trips to the Caucasus. Later, thanks to his personal devotion to Stalin, Beria entered the leader’s closest circle of associates and during Stalin’s reign he held key positions and was awarded many state awards.

IN short biography Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin must be mentioned about the most difficult period for the country. It should be noted that Stalin already in the 30s. was convinced that a military conflict with Germany was inevitable, and sought to prepare the country as much as possible. But this, given the economic devastation and underdeveloped industry, required years, if not decades.

Confirmation of preparations for war is the construction of large-scale underground fortifications, called the “Stalin Line”. On the western borders, 13 fortified areas were built, each of which, if necessary, was able to conduct fighting in conditions of complete isolation.

In 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was concluded, which was supposed to be in force until 1949. The fortifications, completed in 1938, were then almost completely destroyed - blown up or buried.

Stalin understood that the likelihood of Germany violating this pact was very high, but he believed that Germany would attack only after the defeat of England, and ignored persistent warnings about an attack being prepared in June 1941. This was largely the reason for the catastrophic situation that developed at the front already on the first day of the war.

On June 23, Stalin headed the Headquarters of the High Command. On the 30th he was appointed chairman of the State Defense Committee, and on August 8 he was declared Supreme Commander Armed Forces Soviet Union. During this most difficult period, Stalin managed to prevent the complete defeat of the army and thwart Hitler’s plans for the lightning takeover of the USSR. Possessing a strong will, Stalin was able to organize millions of people. But the price of this victory was high. The Second World War became the bloodiest and most brutal war for Russia in history.

During 1941-1942. the situation at the front continued to remain critical. Although the attempt to capture Moscow was prevented, there was a threat of seizing the territory of the North Caucasus, which was an important energy center. Voronezh was partially captured by the Nazis. During the spring offensive, the Red Army suffered huge losses near Kharkov.

The USSR was actually on the verge of defeat. In order to tighten discipline in the army and prevent the possibility of troops retreating, Stalin’s order 227 “Not a step back!” was issued, which put barrier detachments into action. The same order introduced penal battalions and companies as part of fronts and armies, respectively. Stalin managed to unite (at least for the duration of the Second World War) outstanding Russian commanders, the brightest of whom was Zhukov. For his contribution to the victory, the Generalissimo of the USSR was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1945.

The post-war years of Stalin's rule were marked by a renewal of terror. But at the same time, the restoration of the country’s economy and the destroyed economy proceeded at an unprecedented pace, despite the refusal of Western countries to provide loans. In the post-war years, Stalin carried out many party purges, the pretext for which was the fight against cosmopolitanism.

IN last years During his reign, Stalin was distinguished by incredible suspicion, which was partly provoked by attempts on his life. The first attempt on Stalin's life took place back in 1931 (November 16). It was committed by Ogarev, a “white” officer and employee of British intelligence.

1937 (May 1) - possible coup attempt; 1938 (March 11) - assassination attempt on the leader during a walk in the Kremlin, committed by Lieutenant Danilov; 1939 - two attempts to eliminate Stalin by Japanese secret services; 1942 (November 6) - assassination attempt at Lobnoye Mesto, committed by deserter S. Dmitriev. Operation Big Leap, prepared by the Nazis in 1947, was aimed at eliminating not only Stalin, but also Roosevelt and Churchill during the Tehran Conference. Some historians believe that Stalin's death on March 5, 1953 was not natural. But, according to the medical report, it occurred as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage. Thus ended the most difficult and contradictory era of Stalin for the country.

The leader's body was placed in the Lenin Mausoleum. Stalin's first funeral was marked by a bloody stampede on Trubnaya Square, resulting in the deaths of many people. During the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, many of Joseph Stalin's actions were condemned, in particular his deviation from the Leninist course and the cult of personality. His body was buried near the Kremlin wall in 1961.

For six months after Stalin, Malenkov ruled, and in September 1953 power passed to Khrushchev.

Speaking about Stalin's biography, it is necessary to mention his personal life. Joseph Stalin was married twice. His first wife, who bore him a son, Yakov (the only one who bore his father’s surname), died of typhoid fever in 1907. Yakov died in 1943 in a German concentration camp.

Nadezhda Alliluyeva became Stalin's second wife in 1918. She shot herself in 1932. Stalin's children from this marriage: Vasily and Svetlana. Stalin's son Vasily, a military pilot, died in 1962. Svetlana, Stalin's daughter, emigrated to the United States. She died in Wisconsin on November 22, 2011.

Fifty years have passed since Stalin's death. But Stalin and everything connected with his activities did not become a distant, indifferent past for living people. There are still quite a few representatives of generations alive for whom the Stalin era was and remains their era, regardless of how they feel about it. And most importantly, Stalin is one of those great historical figures who forever remain significant phenomena of our time for all subsequent generations. So the round half-century anniversary is just an excuse to speak out forever current topics. In this essay, I intend to consider not specific facts and events of the Stalin era and Stalin’s life, but only their social essence.

Stalin era. To give an objective description of the Stalin era, it is necessary first of all to determine its place in the history of Russian (Soviet) communism. Now we can state as a fact the following four periods in the history of Russian communism: 1) origins; 2) youth (or maturation); 3) maturity; 4) crisis and death. The first period covers the years from October revolution 1917 until Stalin's election as General Secretary of the Party Central Committee in 1922 or until Lenin's death in 1924. This period can be called Leninist by the role that Lenin played in it. The second period covers the years after the first period until Stalin's death in 1953 or until the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956. This is the Stalinist period. The third began after the second and. continued until Gorbachev came to supreme power in the country in 1985. This is the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period. And the fourth period began with the seizure of supreme power by Gorbachev and ended with the anti-communist coup in August 1991, led by Yeltsin, and the destruction of Russian (Soviet) communism. After the 20th Congress of the CPSU (1956), the idea of ​​the Stalinist period as a period of villainy was firmly established, and about Stalin himself - as the most villainous villain of all the villains in the history of mankind. And now only the exposure of the ulcers of Stalinism and Stalin’s defects is accepted as truth. Attempts to speak objectively about this period and about the personality of Stalin are regarded as apologetics of Stalinism. And yet I will risk stepping back from the revealing line and speaking out in defense of... no, not Stalin and Stalinism, but their objective understanding. I think that I have a moral right to this, since from my early youth I was a staunch anti-Stalinist, in 1939 I was a member of a terrorist group that intended to assassinate Stalin, and was arrested for public speaking against the cult of Stalin and until Stalin’s death he conducted illegal anti-Stalinist propaganda. After Stalin's death, I stopped it, guided by the principle: even a donkey can kick a dead lion. Dead Stalin could not be my enemy. Attacks on Stalin became unpunished, common and even encouraged. And besides, by this time I had already embarked on the path of a scientific approach to Soviet society, including the Stalin era. Below I will briefly outline the main conclusions regarding Stalin and Stalinism, which I came to as a result of many years of scientific research.

Lenin and Stalin. Soviet ideology and propaganda during the Stalin years presented Stalin as “Lenin today.” Now I think this is true. Of course, there were differences between Lenin and Stalin, but the main thing is that Stalinism was a continuation and development of Leninism both in theory and in the practice of building real communism. Stalin gave best presentation Leninism as an ideology. He was a faithful student and follower of Lenin. Whatever their specific personal relationships may be, from a sociological point of view they form a single historical figure. The case is unique in history. I don’t know of another case where one large-scale political figure literally raised his predecessor in power to divine heights, as Stalin did with Lenin. After the 20th Congress of the CPSU, Stalin began to be contrasted with Lenin, and Stalinism began to be seen as a retreat from Leninism. Stalin really “retreated” from Leninism, but not in the sense of betraying it, but in the sense that he made such a significant contribution to it that we have the right to talk about Stalinism as a special phenomenon.

Political and social revolution. The great historical role of Lenin was that he developed the ideology of the socialist revolution, created an organization of professional revolutionaries designed to seize power, led the forces to seize and retain power when the opportunity presented itself, assessed this opportunity and took the risk of seizing power, used power to destruction of existing social system, organized the masses to defend the gains of the revolution from counter-revolutionaries and interventionists, in short, to create the necessary conditions for building a communist social system in Russia. But this system itself took shape after him, during the Stalinist period, and took shape under the leadership of Stalin. The role of these people is so enormous that we can safely say that without Lenin we would not have won socialist revolution, and without Stalin the first communist society of enormous scale in history would not have arisen. Someday, when humanity, in the interests of self-preservation, nevertheless again turns to communism as the only way to avoid destruction, the twentieth century will be called the century of Lenin and Stalin. I distinguish between political and social revolutions. In the Russian Revolution they merged into one. But in the Leninist period the first dominated, in the Stalinist period the second came to the fore. The social revolution did not consist in the fact that the classes of capitalists and landowners were eliminated, that private ownership of land, factories and plants, and the means of production was eliminated. This was only a negative, destructive aspect of the political revolution. The social revolution as such, in its positive, creative content, meant the creation of a new social organization of the masses of the country's multi-million population. It was a grandiose and unprecedented process of uniting millions of people into communist collectives with a new social structure and new relationships between people, a process of creating many hundreds of thousands of business cells of a hitherto unprecedented type and uniting them in the same way into a hitherto unprecedented single whole. It was a grandiose process of creating a new way of life for millions of people with a new psychology and ideology. I would like to draw special attention to the following circumstance. Both critics and apologists of Stalinism portray this process as if Stalin and his associates were only implementing Marxist-Leninist projects. This is a deep misconception. There were no such projects at all. There were general ideas and slogans that could be interpreted and which were actually interpreted, as they say, at random. Neither the Stalinists nor Stalin himself had such projects. Historical creativity took place here in every sense words. The builders of the new society had specific tasks to establish public order, fight crime, combat homelessness, provide people with food and housing, create schools and hospitals, create means of transport, build factories for the production of necessary consumer goods, etc. They did due to vital necessity, due to available resources and conditions, due to objective social laws, about which they did not have the slightest idea, but which they were forced to reckon with in practice, acting on the principle of trial and error. They did not think that they were thereby creating cells of a new social organism with their natural structure and objective social relations independent of their will. Their activities were successful to the extent that they, one way or another, took into account the objective conditions and laws of social organization. In general, Stalin and his comrades acted in accordance with vital necessity and objective tendencies of real life, and not with some ideological dogmas, as the falsifiers attribute to them Soviet history Let me note by the way that the material and cultural values ​​created during the Stalin years were so enormous that the values ​​inherited from pre-revolutionary Russia They look like a drop in the ocean in comparison. What was nationalized and socialized after the revolution was in fact not as significant as is commonly said. The material and cultural basis of the new society had to be created anew after the revolution, using new system authorities. Over time, the specific tasks that forced the builders of the new society to carry out collectivization, industrialization and other large-scale measures faded into the background or exhausted themselves, and the unconscious and unplanned social aspect declared itself as one of the main achievements of this period in the history of Russian communism. The most important, Perhaps the result of the social revolution, which attracted the overwhelming majority of the country's population to the side of the new system, was the formation of business groups, thanks to which people became involved in public life and felt cared for by society and the authorities. The desire of people for a collective life without private owners and with the active participation of everyone was unheard of anywhere and never before. Demonstrations and meetings were voluntary. They were treated like holidays. Despite any difficulties, the illusion that power in the country belonged to the people was the overwhelming illusion of those years. The phenomena of collectivism were perceived as indicators of democracy. Democracy not in the sense of Western democracy, but literally. Representatives of the lower strata of the population (and they were the majority) occupied the lower floors of the social stage and took part in the social performance not only as spectators, but also as actors. The actors on the higher floors of the stage and in more important roles then also for the most part came from the people. History had never known such vertical population dynamics as in those years.

Collectivization and industrialization. There is a strong opinion that collective farms were invented by Stalinist villains for purely ideological reasons. This is monstrous absurdity. The idea of ​​collective farms is not a Marxist idea. It has nothing in common with classical Marxism at all. It was not brought into life from theory. She was born in the very practical life of real, not imaginary, communism. Ideology was only used as a means of justifying one’s historical creativity. Collectivization was not malicious intent, but a tragic inevitability. The process of people fleeing to the cities still could not be stopped. Collectivization accelerated it. Without her, this process would have become, perhaps, even more painful, stretching over several generations. It was not at all as if the top Soviet leadership had the opportunity to choose a path. For Russia, in historical conditions, there was only one choice: to survive or die. And there was no choice regarding the ways of survival. Stalin was not the inventor of Russian tragedy, but only its exponent. Collective farms were evil, but far from absolute. Without them, in those real conditions, industrialization was impossible, and without the latter, our country would have been defeated already in the thirties, if not earlier. But the collective farms themselves had not only disadvantages. One of the temptations and one of the achievements of real communism is that it frees people from the worries and responsibilities associated with property. Although in negative form collective farms played this role for tens of millions of people. Young people got the opportunity to become tractor drivers, mechanics, accountants, and foremen. Outside the collective farms, “intellectual” positions appeared in clubs, medical centers, schools, and machine and tractor stations. The collaboration of many people became social life, which brought entertainment by the very fact of togetherness. Meetings, deliberations, conversations, propaganda lectures and other phenomena of the new life associated with collective farms and accompanying them made people's lives more interesting than before. At the level of culture at which the mass of the population was, all this played a huge role, despite the wretchedness and formality of these events. The industrialization of Soviet society was as poorly understood as collectivization. Its most important aspect, namely the sociological one, fell out of sight of both apologists and critics of Stalinism. Critics viewed it, firstly, according to the criteria of Western economics, as economically unprofitable (in their terms, meaningless) and, secondly, as voluntaristic, dictated by ideological considerations. But apologists did not notice that a qualitatively new phenomenon of super-economy was being born here, thanks to to which the Soviet Union in a surprisingly short time became a powerful industrial power. And what is most striking is that they did not notice the role industrialization played in the social organization of the masses of the population.

Organization of power. During these years, on the one hand, the unification of various peoples scattered over a vast territory into a single social organism took place, and on the other hand, internal differentiation and structural complication of this organism took place. This process necessarily gave rise to the growth and complexity of the system of power and management of society. And in the new conditions it gave rise to new functions of power and management. It was during the Stalin era that that system of party-state power and administration was created. But she was not born immediately after the revolution. It took many years to create it. And the country needed governance from the very first days of the existence of the new society. How was it managed? Of course, before the revolution there was a Russian state apparatus. But it was destroyed by the revolution. Its wreckage and work experience were used to create a new state machine. But again, something else was needed to do this. And this other means of governing the country in the conditions of post-revolutionary devastation and a means of creating a normal system of power was the democracy born of the revolution. When I use the expression “democracy” or “power of the people,” I do not put any evaluative meaning into them. I do not share the illusion that people's power is good. I I mean here only a certain structure of power in certain historical circumstances and nothing more. These are the main features of democracy. The vast majority of leadership positions from the very bottom to the very top were occupied by people from the lower strata of the population. And these are millions of people. A leader who comes from the people addresses in his leadership activities directly to the people themselves, ignoring the official apparatus. For the masses of the people, this apparatus appears as something hostile to them and as an obstacle to their leader-leader. Hence the voluntaristic methods of leadership. Therefore, the top leader can, at his own discretion, manipulate officials of the lower apparatus of official power, remove them, arrest them. The leader looked like a people's leader. Power over people was felt directly, without any intermediate links or disguises. Democracy is the organization of the masses of the population. The people must be organized in a certain way so that their leaders can lead them according to their will. The will of the leader is nothing without appropriate preparation and organization of the population. There were certain means for this. These are, first of all, all kinds of activists, founders, initiators, shock workers, heroes... The mass of people is, in principle, passive. To keep it in tension and move it in the desired direction, you need to isolate a relatively small active part in it. This part should be encouraged, given some advantages, and de facto power over the rest of the passive part of the population should be transferred to it. And in all institutions, unofficial groups of activists formed, which actually kept the entire life of the collective and its members under their supervision and control. It was almost impossible to manage the institution without their support. Activists were usually people who had a relatively low social position, and sometimes the lowest. Often these were disinterested enthusiasts. But gradually this grassroots activist grew into a mafia that terrorized all employees of institutions and set the tone for everything. They had support from the team and from above. And this was their strength. The highest power in the Stalinist system of power was not the state, but the super-state apparatus of power, not bound by any legislative norms. It consisted of a clique of people who were personally obliged to the leader (leader) for their position in the clique and the share of power granted to him. Such cliques formed at all levels of the hierarchy, from the highest, headed by Stalin himself, to the level of districts and enterprises. The main levers of power were: the party apparatus and the party as a whole, trade unions, the Komsomol, organs state security, strength internal order, army command, diplomatic corps, heads of institutions and enterprises performing tasks of special national importance, scientific and cultural elite, etc. State power (councils) was subordinate to the superstate. An important component of Stalin’s power was what came to be called the word “nomenklatura”. The role of this phenomenon was greatly exaggerated and distorted in anti-Soviet propaganda. What is nomenclature actually? In the Stalin years, the nomenclature included specially selected and reliable party workers from the point of view of the central government who exercised leadership large masses people in different parts of the country and different spheres of society. The leadership situation was relatively simple, the general guidelines were clear and stable, the leadership methods were primitive and standard, cultural and professional level leadership of the masses was low, the tasks of the masses and the rules of their organization were relatively simple and more or less uniform. So almost any party leader included in the nomenclature could with equal success lead literature, an entire territorial region, heavy industry, music, and sports. The main task of this kind of leadership was to create and maintain the unity and centralization of the country's leadership, to accustom the population to new forms of relationships with the authorities, and to solve certain problems of national importance at any cost. And the nomenklatura workers of the Stalin period completed this task.

Repression. The question of repression is of fundamental importance for understanding both the history of the formation of Russian communism and its essence as a social system. In them there was a coincidence of factors of various kinds, related not only to the essence of the communist social system, but also to specific historical conditions, as well as natural conditions Russia, its historical traditions and the nature of the available human material. Was World War. The tsarist empire collapsed, and the communists were least to blame for this. A revolution has occurred. The country is in disorganization, devastation, hunger, poverty, and crime is flourishing. A new revolution, this time a socialist one. Civil war, intervention, uprisings. No government could establish basic social order without mass repression. The very formation of a new social order was accompanied by literally an orgy of crime in all spheres of society, in all regions of the country, at all levels of the emerging hierarchy, including the very bodies of power, management and punishment. Communism entered life as liberation, but liberation not only from the shackles of the old system, but also the liberation of the masses of people from elementary restraining factors. Hackwork, fraud, theft, corruption, drunkenness, abuse of official position, etc., which flourished in pre-revolutionary times, literally turned into norms of the general way of life of Russians (now Soviet people). Party organizations, Komsomol, collectives, propaganda, educational authorities, etc. made titanic efforts to prevent this. And they really achieved a lot. But they were powerless without punitive authorities. The Stalinist system of mass repression grew up as a self-protective measure of the new society against the epidemic of crime born by the totality of circumstances. It became a constantly operating factor of the new society, a necessary element of its self-preservation.

Economic revolution. It is too little to say about the economy of the Stalin era that collectivization and industrialization took place in it. It developed a specifically communist form of economy, I would even say a super-economy. I will name its main features. During the Stalin years, a huge number of primary business collectives (cells) were created, which together formed a specifically communist super-economy. These cells were not created spontaneously, not privately, but by decisions of the authorities. The latter decided what these cells were supposed to do, how many hired workers to have and which ones, how to pay them and all other aspects of their life. This was not a matter of complete arbitrariness by the authorities. The latter took into account the real situation and real possibilities. The created economic (household) cells were included in the system of other cells, i.e. they were parts of large economic associations(both sectoral and territorial) and, ultimately, the economy as a whole. They, of course, had some kind of autonomy in their activities. But basically they were limited by the tasks and conditions of the mentioned associations. Above the economic cells, a hierarchical and network structure of institutions of power and management was created, which ensured their coordinated activities. It was organized according to the principles of command and subordination, as well as centralization. In the West, this was called a command economy and was considered the greatest evil, opposing it to its market economy, glorifying it as the greatest good. The communist super-economy, organized and controlled from above, had a specific goal. The last one was as follows. First, to provide the country with material resources that allow it to survive in the outside world, maintain independence and keep up with progress. Secondly, to provide the country's citizens with the necessary means of subsistence. Thirdly, provide all able-bodied people with work as the main and, for the majority, the only source of livelihood. Fourth, to involve the entire working population in labor activities in primary collectives. With this attitude was organically connected the need to plan the activities of the economy, starting from the primary cells and ending with the economy as a whole. Hence the famous Stalinist five-year plans. This planned nature of the Soviet economy caused especially strong irritation in the West and was subject to all sorts of ridicule. And yet it is completely groundless. Soviet economy had its drawbacks. But the reason for them was not planning as such. On the contrary, planning made it possible to contain these shortcomings and achieve successes that in those years were recognized throughout the world as unprecedented. It is generally accepted that the Western economy is more efficient than the Soviet one. This opinion is simply meaningless from a scientific point of view. It is necessary to distinguish between economic and social criteria for assessing the efficiency of the economy. The social efficiency of the economy is characterized by the ability to exist without unemployment and without the ruin of unprofitable enterprises, easier working conditions, the ability to concentrate large amounts of money and effort on solving large-scale problems, and other characteristics. From this point of view, it was Stalin’s economy that turned out to be as efficient as possible, which became one of the factors in victories of epochal and global scale.

Cultural revolution. The Stalinist period was a period of cultural revolution unprecedented in the history of mankind, which affected millions of people in all countries. This revolution was absolutely necessary for the survival of the new society. The human material inherited from the past did not meet the needs of the new society in all aspects of its life, especially in production, in the management system, in science, in the army. Millions of educated and professionally trained people were needed. In solving this problem, the new society demonstrated its advantage over all other types of social systems! what was most easily accessible to him turned out to be what was most difficult to access past history, - education and culture. It turned out that it was easier to give people a good education, to give them access to the heights of culture, than to give them decent housing, clothing and food. Access to education and culture was the most powerful compensation for everyday squalor. People endured everyday difficulties that are now scary to remember, just to get an education and join culture. The craving of millions of people for this was so strong that no force in the world could stop it. Any attempt to return the country to its pre-revolutionary state was perceived as the most terrible threat to this gain of the revolution. In this case, everyday life played a secondary role. You had to personally experience this time to appreciate this state. Then, when education and culture became something taken for granted, familiar and everyday, this state disappeared and was forgotten. But it existed and played its historical role. It didn't come by itself. It was one of the achievements of Stalin's social strategy. It was created deliberately, systematically, systematically. A high educational and cultural level of people was considered a necessary condition for communism in the very foundations of Marxist ideology. At this point, as at many others, practical life needs coincided with the postulates of ideology. During the Stalin years, Marxism as an ideology was still adequate to the needs of the real course of history.

Ideological revolution. Everyone who writes about the Stalin era pays a lot of attention to collectivization, industrialization and mass repression. But during this era, other events of enormous scale also took place, about which little or nothing is written about. These include primarily the ideological revolution. From the point of view of the formation of real communism, it is, in my opinion, no less important than other events of the era. Here we were talking about the formation of the third main support of any modern society along with the system of power and the economy - a single state secular and non-religious) ideology and a centralized ideological mechanism, without which the success of building communism would have been unthinkable. In the Stalin years, the content of ideology was determined, its functions in society were determined, methods of influencing the masses of people, the structure of ideological institutions and developed rules for their work. The culmination of the ideological revolution was the publication of Stalin's work “On Dialectical and Historical Materialism.” There is an opinion that this work was not written by Stalin himself. But even if Stalin appropriated someone else’s work, in its appearance he played a role immeasurably more important than the composition of this rather primitive, from an intellectual point of view, text: he understood the need for such an ideological text, gave it his name and imposed on it a huge historical role. This relatively small article was a real ideological (not scientific, but ideological) masterpiece in the full sense of the word. After the revolution and the Civil War, the party that seized power was faced with the task of imposing its party ideology on the entire society. Otherwise she would not have remained in power. And this practically meant the ideological indoctrination of the broad masses of the population, the creation for this purpose of an army of specialists - ideological workers, the creation of a permanent apparatus of ideological work, the penetration of ideology into all spheres of life. What did you have to start with? Illiterate and ninety percent religious population. Ideological chaos and confusion among the intelligentsia. Party workers are half-educated, bookish and dogmatic, entangled in all sorts of ideological trends. And they knew Marxism itself so-so. And now, when the vitally primary task arose of reorienting ideological work towards the masses of a low educational level and infected with the old religious-autocratic ideology, the party theorists turned out to be completely helpless. We needed ideological texts with which they could confidently, persistently and systematically address the masses. The main problem was not the development of Marxism as a phenomenon of abstract philosophical culture, but the search for the most simple way writing Marxist-figurative phrases, speeches, slogans, articles, books. It was necessary to lower the level of historically given Marxism so that it became the ideology of the intellectually primitive and poorly educated majority of the population. By understating and vulgarizing Marxism, the Stalinists thereby removed from it the rational core, the only thing worthwhile that it had at all. Let the reader pay attention to the ideological chaos that is taking place in today's Russia, to the fruitless search for a certain “national idea”, to the endless complaints about the lack of effective ideology! But the educational level of the population is immeasurably higher than it was at the beginning of the Stalin era, enormous intellectual forces are involved in the search for ideology, and we have decades of experience in this area of ​​world progress! And the result is zero. To appreciate Stalinism in this regard, it is enough to compare those times with the present. Of course, Marxism has become a subject of ridicule over time. But this happened several decades later, and in relatively narrow circles of intellectuals, when the Stalinist ideological revolution had already fulfilled its great historical mission. AND Soviet ideology, born during the Stalinist years, did not die a natural death, but was simply discarded as a result of the anti-communist coup. The ideological state that replaced it was a colossal spiritual degradation of Russia.

Stalin's national policy. One of the many injustices in the assessment of Stalin and Stalinism is that they are also blamed for those national problems that arose as a result of the defeat of the Soviet Union and the Soviet (communist) social system in the countries of this region. Meanwhile, it was during the Stalin years that the best solution to national problems took place out of everything that was known in the history of mankind. It was during the Stalin years that the formation of a new, supranational and truly fraternal (in terms of attitudes and in the main tendency) human community began. Now that the Stalin era has become a part of history, it is more important not to look for its shortcomings, but to emphasize the successes of internationalism that have actually been achieved. I do not have the opportunity to dwell on this topic in this article. I will note only one thing: for my generation, formed in the pre-war years, national problems were considered solved. They began to be artificially inflated and provoked in the post-Stalin years as one of the means of the West’s “cold” war against our country.

Stalin and international communism. The topic of the international role of Stalin and Stalinism is also beyond the scope of the purpose of my article. I will limit myself to just a brief remark. Stalin began his great mission to build a real communist society with a decisive rejection of the generally accepted dogma of classical Marxism, that communism can only be built in many advanced Western countries at the same time, and with the proclamation of the slogan of building communism in one single country. And he carried out this intention. Moreover, he deliberately took the path of using the achievements of communism in one country to spread it throughout the planet. Towards the end of Stalin's rule, communism really began to rapidly conquer the planet. The slogan of communism as the bright future of all humanity began to look more real than ever. And no matter how we feel about communism and Stalin, the fact remains indisputable that no other political figure in history achieved such success as Stalin. And hatred of him still does not fade away, not so much because of the evil he caused (many in this regard surpassed him), but because of this unparalleled personal success of his.

The triumph of Stalinism. The war of 1941-1945 against Nazi Germany was the greatest test for Stalinism and personally for Stalin himself. And it must be recognized as an indisputable fact that they passed this test: the greatest war in the history of mankind against the strongest and most terrible enemy, militarily and in all other aspects, ended in the triumphant victory of our country, and the main factors of victory were, firstly, the communist social system , established in our country as a result of the October Revolution of 1917, and, secondly, Stalinism as the builder of this system and Stalin personally as the leader of this construction and as the organizer of the country’s life during the war years and the commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces. It would seem that all the battles Napoleon as a whole is nothing in comparison with this battle of Stalin. Napoleon was ultimately defeated, and Stalin won a triumphant victory, and contrary to all the forecasts of those years, which predicted an early victory for Hitler. It would seem that the winner is not judged. But with regard to Stalin, everything is done the other way around: the darkness of pygmies of all sorts is making titanic efforts to falsify history and steal this great historical act from Stalin and Stalinism. To my shame, I must admit that I paid tribute to such an attitude towards Stalin as the leader of the country during the years of preparation for the war and during the war, when I was an anti-Stalinist and an eyewitness to the events of those years. Many years of study, research and reflection passed before the question “What would you do if you were in Stalin’s place?” I answered myself: I could not have done better than Stalin. And why not accuse Stalin in connection with the war! To listen to these “strategists” (a poet said about them back in the 19th century: “Everyone fancies himself a strategist, looking at the battle from the outside”), you couldn’t imagine a more stupid, cowardly, etc. person at the pinnacle of power than Stalin in those years . Stalin allegedly did not prepare the country for war. In fact, from the first days of his stay in power, Stalin knew that we could not avoid an attack from the West. And with Hitler coming to power in Germany, I knew that we would have to fight the Germans. Even we, schoolchildren of those years, knew this as an axiom. And Stalin not only foresaw this, he prepared the country for war. But it is one thing to organize and mobilize available resources to prepare for war. And it's another thing to create these resources. And in order to create them in the conditions of the country of those years, industrialization was needed, “and for industrialization, collectivization of agriculture was needed, a cultural and ideological revolution was needed, education of the population was needed, and much more. And all this required titanic efforts over many years. I doubt that any other leadership of the country other than Stalin would have coped with this task. Stalin's did it. It has literally become a cliché to attribute to Stalin that he missed the start of the war, that he did not believe intelligence reports, that he believed Hitler, etc. I don’t know what is more in such statements - intellectual idiocy or deliberate meanness. Stalin was preparing the country for war. But not everything depended on him. We simply did not have time to prepare properly. And the Western strategists who manipulated Hitler, like Hitler himself, were not fools. They needed to defeat the Soviet Union by attacking it before it was better prepared to repel the attack. It's all banal. Could it be that one of the most outstanding political strategists in the history of mankind did not understand such platitudes?! I understood. But he also participated in the global strategic “game” and sought to delay the outbreak of war at any cost. Let's say he lost at this stage of history. But he more than compensated for the failure in other steps. History did not stop there. Stalin is blamed for the defeat of the Soviet army at the beginning of the war and much more. I will not bore the reader with an analysis of this kind of phenomena. I’ll just formulate my general conclusion. I I am convinced that in understanding the overall situation on the planet during the Second World War, including as part of the war of the Soviet Union against Germany, Stalin was head and shoulders above all the major politicians, theorists and commanders who were in one way or another involved in the war. It would be an exaggeration to say that Stalin foresaw and planned everything during the war. Of course, there was foresight, there was planning. But there was no less unforeseen, unplanned and unwanted. It is obvious. But something else is important here: Stalin correctly assessed what was happening and used even our heavy defeats in the interests of victory. He thought and acted, one might say, like Kutuzov. And this was a military strategy that was most adequate to the real and concrete, rather than imaginary, conditions of those years. Even if we assume that Stalin succumbed to Hitler’s deception at the beginning of the war (which I cannot believe), he brilliantly used the fact of Hitler’s aggression to attract world public opinion to his side, which played a role in the split of the West and the formation of the anti-Hitler coalition. Something similar happened in other difficult situations for our country. Stalin’s services in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 are so significant and indisputable that it would be a manifestation of elementary historical justice to return Stalin’s name to the city on the Volga where the most important battle of the war took place. The fiftieth anniversary of Stalin's death is a suitable occasion for this.

Stalin and Hitler. One of the ways to falsify and discredit Stalin and Stalinism is to identify them with Hitler and, accordingly, with German Nazism. The fact that there are similarities between these phenomena does not provide grounds for their identification. On this basis, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin, Bush and many others can be accused of Stalinism. Of course, there was influence here. But Stalin's influence on Hitler was greater than the latter's on the former. In addition, the social law of mutual assimilation of social opponents was in effect here. Such a similarity was once recorded by Western sociologists in relation to the Soviet and Western social systems - I mean the theory of convergence (rapprochement) of these systems. But the main thing is not the similarity of Stalinism and Nazism (and fascism), but their qualitative difference. Nazism (and fascism) is a phenomenon within the Westernist (capitalist) social system, in its political and ideological spheres. And Stalinism is a social revolution in the very foundations of the social system and the initial stage of the evolution of the communist social system, and not just a phenomenon in politics and ideology. It is no coincidence that there was such hatred of the Nazis (fascists) for communism. The masters of the Western world encouraged Nazism (fascism) as anti-communism, as a means of fighting communism. And do not forget that Hitler suffered a shameful defeat, and Stalin won a victory unprecedented in history. And it would not hurt today’s anti-Stalinists to think about the specific historical conditions in which this happened and what tremendous impact this victory had on humanity and on the course of world history. And if we draw analogies with historical figures, then the historical giant Mao Zedong became a follower of Stalin, and Hitler's follower is the historical pygmy Bush Jr. But today’s anti-Stalinists remain silent about such a deep and far-reaching analogy.

De-Stalinization. The actual struggle against the excesses of Stalinism began in the Stalin years, long before Khrushchev’s exorbitantly inflated report at the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU. It was going on in the depths of Soviet society. Stalin himself noticed the need for change, and there was enough evidence of this. Khrushchev's report was not the beginning of de-Stalinization, but the result of the beginning of the struggle for it among the mass of the population. Khrushchev used the de-Stalinization of the country that had actually begun in the interests of personal power. Having come to power, he partly contributed to the process of de-Stalinization, and partly made efforts to keep it within certain limits. He was, after all, one of the figures of the Stalinist ruling elite. On his conscience there were no less crimes of Stalinism than on other close associates of Stalin. He was a Stalinist to the core. And he even carried out de-Stalinization using voluntaristic Stalinist methods. De-Stalinization was a complex and controversial process. And it is absurd to attribute it to the efforts and will of one person with the intellect of an average party official and the habits of a clown. What did de-Stalinization essentially mean, from a sociological point of view? Historical Stalinism as a certain set of principles for organizing the business life of the country, the masses of the population, management, maintaining order, indoctrination, education and training of the country's population, etc. played a great historical role, building the foundations of a communist social organization in the most difficult conditions and protecting them from attacks from outside. But it has exhausted itself, becoming an obstacle to the normal life of the country and its further evolution. The country, partly thanks to and partly in spite of it, has matured the forces and capabilities to overcome it. Precisely to overcome in the sense of moving to a new, higher stage of the evolution of communism. During the Brezhnev years, this stage was called developed socialism. But no matter what they call it, the rise actually happened. During the war years and in the post-war years, the country's enterprises and institutions began to function in many ways in ways that were not Stalinist. Suffice it to say that the number of business collectives of national importance (factories, schools, institutes, hospitals, theaters, etc.) by the middle of the Brezhnev years increased hundreds of times compared to the Stalin years, so the assessment of the Brezhnev years as stagnant is an ideological lie. Thanks to the Stalinist cultural revolution, the human material of the country changed qualitatively. In the sphere of power and management, a state bureaucratic apparatus and a party super-state apparatus have developed, more effective than Stalin’s democracy, and making the latter unnecessary. The level of state ideology no longer corresponds to the increased educational level of the population. In a word, de-Stalinization occurred as a natural process of the maturation of Russian communism, its transition to a routine mature state. The removal of Khrushchev and the coming to his place of Brezhnev occurred as an ordinary performance in the ordinary life of the party ruling elite, as the replacement of one ruling clique by another. Khrushchev's “coup,” despite the fact that it was the highest in terms of changing personalities in power, was, first of all, a social revolution. Brezhnev’s “coup” was such only in the highest spheres of power. It was directed not against the state of society that developed during the Khrushchev years, but against the absurdities of the Khrushchev leadership, against Khrushchev personally, against Khrushchev’s voluntarism, which developed into adventurism. From a sociological point of view, the Brezhnev period was a continuation of the Khrushchev period, but without the extremes of the transition period. As a result of de-Stalinization, the communist dictatorship of the Stalin period was replaced by the communist democracy of the Khrushchev and then Brezhnev periods. I I associate this period with the name of Brezhnev, and not Khrushchev, since the Khrushchev period was only a transition to the Brezhnev period. It was the second that presented an alternative to Stalinism, and the most radical one within the framework of communism. Stalin's style of leadership was voluntaristic: the highest power sought to force those under its power to live and work the way it, the power, wanted. Brezhnev’s style of leadership turned out to be opportunistic: the highest authorities themselves adapted to objectively developing circumstances... Another feature of Brezhnevism is that the Stalinist system of democracy gave way to an administrative-bureaucratic system. And the third feature is the transformation of the party apparatus into the basis, core and skeleton of the entire system of power and management. Stalinism did not collapse, as anti-Stalinists, anti-communists, and anti-Sovietists claimed and still claim. He left the arena of history having won his great role and having exhausted itself in the post-war years. He came down ridiculed and condemned, but misunderstood even in the Soviet years. And now, in conditions of rabid anti-communism and the unrestrained falsification of Soviet history, one cannot count on an objective understanding of it at all. The triumphant pygmies of post-Sovietism, who destroyed Russian (Soviet) communism, in every possible way belittle and distort the actions of the giants of the Soviet past in order to justify their betrayal of this past and themselves look like giants in the eyes of their duped contemporaries.

The text of this report was published in the book. “The End of the Prehistory of Humanity: Socialism as an Alternative to Capitalism” (Omsk, 2004, pp. 207-215) - a collection of materials from the international scientific and practical conference of the same name, held on the basis of the open academic theoretical seminar “Marxian Readings” at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (27-29 May 2003).

Stalin period

Stalin period- a period in the history of the USSR when its leader was actually J.V. Stalin. The beginning of this period is usually dated to the interval between the XIV Congress of the CPSU (b) and the defeat of the “right opposition” in the CPSU (b) (1926-1929); the end comes with the death of Stalin on March 5, 1953. During this period, Stalin actually had the greatest power, although formally in the years 1923-1940 he did not hold positions in the executive power structures. The propaganda of the Stalinist period pathetically called it the Age of Stalin.

Stalin's period in power was marked by:

• On the one hand: the accelerated industrialization of the country, mass labor and front-line heroism, victory in the Great Patriotic War, the transformation of the USSR into a superpower with significant scientific, industrial and military potential, the unprecedented strengthening of the geopolitical influence of the Soviet Union in the world, the establishment of pro-Soviet communist regimes in Eastern Europe and a number of countries in Southeast Asia;
• On the other hand: the establishment of a totalitarian dictatorial regime, mass repressions, sometimes directed against entire social strata and ethnic groups (for example, deportation Crimean Tatars, Chechens and Ingush, Balkars, Kalmyks, Koreans), forced collectivization, which led to early stage to a sharp decline in agriculture and famine of 1932-1933, numerous human losses (as a result of wars, deportations, German occupation, famine and repression), the division of the world community into two warring camps and the beginning cold war.

Characteristics of the period

An analysis of Politburo decisions shows that they main goal there was a maximization of the difference between output and consumption, which required mass coercion. The growth of the accumulation fund entailed a struggle between various administrative and regional interests for influence on the process of preparation and execution of political decisions. The competition of these interests partly smoothed out the destructive consequences of hypercentralization.

Modern researchers believe that the most important economic decisions in the 20s were made after open, broad and heated public discussions, through open democratic voting at plenums of the Central Committee and congresses of the Communist Party.

According to Trotsky’s point of view, as set out in his book “The Revolution Betrayed: What is the USSR and Where is It Going?”, Stalin’s Soviet Union was a degenerated workers’ state.

Collectivization and industrialization

Real prices for wheat on foreign markets fell from 5-6 dollars per bushel to less than 1 dollar.

Collectivization led to a decline in agriculture: according to official data, gross grain harvests decreased from 733.3 million centners in 1928 to 696.7 million centners in 1931-32. Grain yield in 1932 was 5.7 c/ha compared to 8.2 c/ha in 1913. Gross agricultural production was 124% in 1928 compared to 1913, in 1929-121%, in 1930-117%, in 1931-114%, in 1932-107%, in 1933-101% Livestock production in 1933 was 65% of the 1913 level. But at the expense of the peasants, the collection of commercial grain, which the country so needed for industrialization, increased by 20%.

Stalin's policy of industrialization of the USSR required more funds and equipment obtained from the export of wheat and other goods abroad. Greater plans were established for collective farms to deliver agricultural products to the state. mass famine of 1932-33 , according to historians [ Who?], were the result of these grain procurement campaigns. Average level The life of the population in rural areas until Stalin’s death did not reach the levels of 1929 (according to US data).

Industrialization, which, due to obvious necessity, began with the creation of basic branches of heavy industry, could not yet provide the market with the goods necessary for the village. The supply of the city through normal trade was disrupted; in 1924, the tax in kind was replaced by a cash tax. A vicious circle arose: to restore the balance it was necessary to accelerate industrialization, for this it was necessary to increase the influx of food, export products and labor from the village, and for this it was necessary to increase the production of bread, increase its marketability, create in the countryside a need for heavy industry products (machines ). The situation was complicated by the destruction during the revolution of the basis of commercial grain production in pre-revolutionary Russia - large landowner farms, and a project was needed to create something to replace them.

This vicious circle could only be broken through radical modernization of agriculture. Theoretically, there were three ways to do this. One is a new version of the “Stolypin reform”: support for the growing kulak, redistribution in its favor of the resources of the bulk of middle peasant farms, stratification of the village into large farmers and the proletariat. The second way is the elimination of pockets of capitalist economy (kulaks) and the formation of large mechanized collective farms. The third way - the gradual development of labor individual peasant farms with their cooperation at a “natural” pace - by all accounts turned out to be too slow. After the disruption of grain procurements in 1927, when it was necessary to take emergency measures (fixed prices, closing markets and even repression), and an even more catastrophic grain procurement campaign of 1928-1929. the issue had to be resolved urgently. Extraordinary measures during procurement in 1929, already perceived as something completely abnormal, caused about 1,300 riots. The path to creating farming through the stratification of the peasantry was incompatible with the Soviet project for ideological reasons. A course was set for collectivization. This also implied the liquidation of the kulaks.

The second cardinal issue is the choice of industrialization method. The discussion about this was difficult and long, and its outcome predetermined the character of the state and society. Not having, unlike Russia at the beginning of the century, foreign loans as an important source of funds, the USSR could industrialize only at the expense of internal resources. An influential group (Politburo member N.I. Bukharin, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars A.I. Rykov and Chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions M.P. Tomsky) defended the “sparing” option of gradual accumulation of funds through the continuation of the NEP. L. D. Trotsky - forced version. J.V. Stalin initially supported Bukharin’s point of view, but after Trotsky was expelled from the Party Central Committee at the end of the year, he changed his position to the diametrically opposite one. This led to a decisive victory for the supporters of forced industrialization.

The question of how much these achievements contributed to victory in the Great Patriotic War remains a matter of debate. IN Soviet time the view was accepted that industrialization and pre-war rearmament played a decisive role. Critics point out that by the beginning of the winter of 1941, the territory was occupied, in which 42% of the population of the USSR lived before the war, 63% of coal was mined, 68% of cast iron was smelted, etc. As V. Lelchuk writes, “victory had to be achieved cannot be forged with the help of the powerful potential that was created during the years of accelerated industrialization.” However, the numbers speak for themselves. Despite the fact that in 1943 the USSR produced only 8.5 million tons of steel (compared to 18.3 million tons in 1940), while the German industry that year smelted more than 35 million tons (including those captured in Europe metallurgical plants), despite the colossal damage from the German invasion, the USSR industry was able to produce much more weapons than the German industry. In 1942, the USSR surpassed Germany in the production of tanks by 3.9 times, combat aircraft by 1.9 times, guns of all types by 3.1 times. At the same time, the organization and technology of production quickly improved: in 1944, the cost of all types of military products was halved compared to 1940. Record military production was achieved due to the fact that all new industry had a dual purpose. The industrial raw material base was prudently located beyond the Urals and Siberia, while the occupied territories were predominantly pre-revolutionary industry. The evacuation of industry to the Urals, Volga region, Siberia and Central Asia played a significant role. During the first three months of the war alone, 1,360 large (mostly military) enterprises were relocated.

The rapid growth of the urban population has led to a deterioration in the housing situation; a period of “densification” passed again; workers arriving from the village were housed in barracks. By the end of 1929, the card system was extended to almost all food products, and then to industrial products. However, even with cards it was impossible to obtain the necessary rations, and in 1931 additional “warrants” were introduced. It was impossible to buy food without standing in huge lines. According to data from the Smolensk party archive, in 1929 in Smolensk a worker received 600 g of bread per day, family members - 300, fat - from 200 g to a liter of vegetable oil per month, 1 kilogram of sugar per month; a worker received 30-36 meters of calico per year. Subsequently, the situation (until 1935) only worsened. The GPU noted acute discontent among the workers.

Changes in living standards

• The average standard of living throughout the country underwent significant fluctuations (especially associated with the first Five-Year Plan and the war), but in 1938 and 1952 it was higher or almost the same as in 1928.
• The greatest increase in living standards was among the party and labor elite.
• According to various estimates, the standard of living of the vast majority of rural residents has not improved or has worsened significantly.

Introduction of the passport system in 1932-1935. provided for restrictions for residents of rural areas: peasants were prohibited from moving to another area or going to work in the city without the consent of the board of a state farm or collective farm, which thus sharply limited their freedom of movement.

Cards for bread, cereals and pasta were abolished from January 1, 1935, and for other (including non-food) goods from January 1, 1936. This was accompanied by an increase in wages in the industrial sector and an even greater increase in state ration prices for all types of goods. Commenting on the abolition of cards, Stalin said what later became catchphrase: "Life has become better, life has become happier ".

Overall, per capita consumption increased by 22% between 1928 and 1938. Cards were reintroduced in July 1941. After the war and famine (drought) of 1946, they were abolished in 1947, although many goods remained in short supply, in particular there was another famine in 1947. In addition, on the eve of the abolition of cards, prices for ration goods were raised. The restoration of the economy allowed in 1948-1953. repeatedly reduce prices. Price reductions significantly increased the standard of living of Soviet people. In 1952, the cost of bread was 39% of the price at the end of 1947, milk - 72%, meat - 42%, sugar - 49%, butter - 37%. As noted at the 19th Congress of the CPSU, at the same time the price of bread increased by 28% in the USA, by 90% in England, and more than doubled in France; the cost of meat in the USA increased by 26%, in England - by 35%, in France - by 88%. If in 1948 real wages were on average 20% lower than the pre-war level, then in 1952 they were already 25% higher than the pre-war level.

The average standard of living of the population in remote areas major cities and regions specializing in crop production, that is, the majority of the country's population, had not reached the levels of 1929 before the start of the war. In the year of Stalin's death, the average calorie content of the daily diet of an agricultural worker was 17% lower than the level of 1928.

Demography during the Stalin period

As a result of famine, repression and deportations, mortality exceeded the “normal” level in the period 1927-1938. amounted, according to various estimates, from 4 to 12 million people. However, during the 29 years in power, the population of the USSR increased by 60 million people.

Stalin's repressions

Make the following changes to the current criminal procedural codes of the union republics for the investigation and consideration of cases of terrorist organizations and terrorist acts against workers Soviet power: 1. The investigation in these cases should be completed within no more than ten days; 2. The indictment must be served on the accused one day before the hearing of the case in court; 3. Hear cases without the participation of the parties; 4. Cassation appeals against sentences, as well as filing petitions for pardon, should not be allowed; 5. A sentence of capital punishment shall be carried out immediately upon delivery of the sentence.

The mass terror of the Yezhovshchina period was carried out by the then authorities of the country throughout the entire territory of the USSR (and, at the same time, in the territories of Mongolia, Tuva and Republican Spain controlled at that time by the Soviet regime), based on the figures of “planned targets” for identifying and punishing people who harmed the Soviet government (the so-called “enemies of the people”).

During the Yezhovshchina, torture was widely used against those arrested; sentences that were not subject to appeal (often to death) were passed without any trial - and were carried out immediately (often even before the verdict was passed); all property of the absolute majority of arrested people was immediately confiscated; the relatives of the repressed themselves were subjected to the same repressions - for the mere fact of their relationship with them; Children of repressed persons left without parents (regardless of their age) were also placed, as a rule, in prisons, camps, colonies, or in special “orphanages for children of enemies of the people.” In 1935, it became possible to attract minors, starting from the age of 12, to capital punishment (execution).

In 1937, 353,074 people were sentenced to death, in 1938 - 328,618, in 1939-2,601. According to Richard Pipes, in 1937-1938 the NKVD arrested about 1.5 million people, of whom about 700 thousand were executed, that is, on average, 1,000 executions per day.

Historian V.N. Zemskov names a similar figure, arguing that “in the most cruel period - 1937-38 - more than 1.3 million people were convicted, of whom almost 700,000 were shot,” and in another of his publications he clarifies: “according to documented data, in 1937-1938. 1,344,923 people were convicted for political reasons, of which 681,692 were sentenced to capital punishment.” It should be noted that Zemskov personally participated in the work of the commission, which worked in 1990-1993. and considered the issue of repression.

As a result of famine, repression and deportations, mortality exceeded the “normal” level in the period 1927-1938. amounted, according to various estimates, from 4 to 12 million people.

In 1937-1938 Bukharin, Rykov, Tukhachevsky and other political figures and military leaders were arrested, including those who at one time contributed to Stalin’s rise to power.

The attitude of representatives of society who adhere to liberal democratic values ​​is reflected in particular in their assessment of the repressions carried out during the Stalin period against a number of nationalities of the USSR: in the RSFSR Law of April 26, 1991 No. 1107-I “On the rehabilitation of repressed peoples”, signed by the President RSFSR B. N. Yeltsin, it is argued that in relation to a number of peoples of the USSR at the state level, on the basis of nationality or other affiliation “a policy of slander and genocide was pursued”.

War

According to modern historians, arguments about the quantitative or qualitative superiority of German technology on the eve of the war are unfounded. On the contrary, in terms of certain parameters (the number and weight of tanks, the number of aircraft), the Red Army grouping along the western border of the USSR was significantly superior to the similar Wehrmacht grouping.

Post-war period

Soon after the end of the war, repressions were carried out among the highest command staff Armed Forces THE USSR. So, in 1946-1948 according to the so-called. In the “trophy case”, a number of major military leaders from the inner circle of Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov were arrested and put on trial, among whom were Chief Marshal of Aviation A.A. Novikov, Lieutenant General K.F. Telegin.

The ideological split between the communist doctrine that guided the USSR and the democratic principles that guided the “bourgeois” countries, forgotten during the war against a common enemy, inevitably came to the fore in international relations and after Winston Churchill’s famous Fulton speech, none of the former allies tried to hide this split. The Cold War began.

In the states of Eastern Europe liberated by the Soviet Army, with the open support of Stalin, pro-Soviet oriented communist forces came to power, which later entered into an economic and military alliance with the USSR in its confrontation with the United States and the NATO bloc. Post-war contradictions between the USSR and the USA Far East led to the Korean War, in which Soviet pilots and anti-aircraft gunners took direct part.

The defeat of Germany and its satellites in the war radically changed the balance of forces in the world. The USSR turned into one of the leading world powers, without which, according to V. M. Molotov, not a single issue of international life should now be resolved.

However, during the war years, the power of the United States grew even more. Their gross national product rose by 70%, and economic and human losses were minimal. Having turned into an international creditor during the war years, the United States gained the opportunity to expand its economic and political influence on other countries and peoples.

All this led to the fact that instead of cooperation in Soviet-American relations, a time of mutual competition and confrontation was coming. The Soviet Union could not help but be concerned about the US nuclear monopoly in the early post-war years. America saw a threat to its security in the growing influence of the USSR in the world. All this led to the beginning of the Cold War.

However, human losses did not end with the war, in which they amounted to about 27 million. The famine of 1946-1947 alone claimed the lives of from 0.8 to two million people.

In the shortest possible time, the national economy, transport, housing stock, destroyed settlements in the former occupied territory.

State security agencies took harsh measures to suppress nationalist movements that were actively manifested in the Baltic states and Western Ukraine.

The measures taken led to an increase in grain yields by 25-30%, vegetables by 50-75%, and herbs by 100-200%.

In 1952, the cost of bread was 39% of the price at the end of 1947, milk - 72%, meat - 42%, sugar - 49%, butter - 37%. As noted at the 19th Congress of the CPSU, at the same time the price of bread increased by 28% in the USA, by 90% in England, and more than doubled in France; the cost of meat in the USA increased by 26%, in England - by 35%, in France - by 88%. If in 1948 real wages were on average 20% lower than the pre-war level, then in 1952 they were already 25% higher than the pre-war level. In general, during 1928-1952. the greatest increase in living standards was among the party and labor elites, while for the vast majority of rural residents it did not improve or worsened.

The fight against cosmopolitanism

IN post-war period Massive campaigns began against the departure from the “principle of party membership”, against the “abstract academic spirit”, “objectivism”, as well as against “anti-patriotism”, “rootless cosmopolitanism” and “the belittlement of Russian science and Russian philosophy”.

Almost all Jewish places were closed educational establishments, theaters, publishing houses and the media (except for the newspaper of the Jewish Autonomous Region “Birobidzhaner Shtern” ( Birobidzhan star) and the magazine "Soviet Gameland"). Mass arrests and dismissals of Jews began. In the winter of 1953, rumors circulated about the supposed impending deportation of Jews; the question of whether these rumors were true is debatable.

Science in the Stalinist period

Entire scientific fields, such as genetics and cybernetics, were declared bourgeois and banned; in these areas, the USSR, after decades, was still unable to reach the world level. . According to historians, many scientists, for example, academician Nikolai Vavilov and others, were repressed with the direct participation of Stalin. Ideological attacks on cybernetics could also affect the development of the closely related field of computer science, but the resistance of dogmatists was eventually overcome thanks to the position of the military and members of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Culture of the Stalin period

• List of films of the Stalin period

• Stalinist architecture ("Stalinist Empire")

Stalin's time in works of art

see also

Literature

Links

Notes

1. Gregory P., Harrison M. Allocation under Dictatorship: Research in Stalin’s Archives // Journal of Economic Literature. 2005. Vol. 43. P. 721. (English)
2. See review: Khlevniuk O. Stalinism and the Stalin Period after the “Archival Revolution” // Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 2001. Vol. 2, No. 2. P. 319. DOI:10.1353/kri.2008.0052
3. (unavailable link) The misunderstood NEP. Alexander Mechanic. Discussions about economic policy during the years of monetary reform 1921-1924. Goland Yu. M.
4. M. Geller, A. Nekrich History of Russia: 1917-1995
5. Allen R. C. The standard of living in the Soviet Union, 1928-1940 // Univ. of British Columbia, Dept. of Economics. Discussion Paper No. 97-18. August, 1997. (English)
6. Nove A. On the fate of the NEP // Questions of history. 1989. No. 8. - P. 172
7. Lelchuk V. Industrialization
8. MFIT Reform of the defense complex. Military Herald
9. victory.mil.ru The movement of the productive forces of the USSR to the east
10. I. Economics - World revolution and world war - V. Rogovin
11. Industrialization
12. A. Chernyavsky Shot in the Mausoleum. Khabarovsk Pacific Star, 2006-06-21
13. See review: Demographic modernization of Russia 1900-2000 / Ed. A. Vishnevsky. M.: New publishing house, 2006. Ch. 5.
14. CHRONOLOGY OF IMPORTANT EVENTS AND DATES. 1922-1940 "World History
15. The national economy of the USSR in 1960. - M.: Gosstatizdat TsSU USSR, 1961
16. Chapman J. G. Real Wages in the Soviet Union, 1928-1952 // Review of Economics and Statistics. 1954. Vol. 36, No. 2. P. 134. DOI:10.2307/1924665 (English)
17. Jasny N. Soviet industrialization, 1928-1952. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.
18. Post-war reconstruction and economic development USSR in the 40s - early 50s. / Katsva L. A. Distance course History of the Fatherland for applicants.
19. Popov V. Passport system of Soviet serfdom // New world. 1996. № 6.
20. Nineteenth Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Bulletin No. 8, p.22 - M: Pravda, 1952.
21. Wheatcroft S. G. The first 35 years of Soviet living standards: Secular growth and conjunctural crises in a time of famines // Explorations in Economic History. 2009. Vol. 46, No. 1. P. 24. DOI:10.1016/j.eeh.2008.06.002 (English)
22. See review: Denisenko M. Demographic crisis in the USSR in the first half of the 1930s: estimates of losses and problems of study // Historical demography. Collection of articles / Ed. Denisenko M. B., Troitskaya I. A. - M.: MAKS Press, 2008. - P. 106-142. - (Demographic Studies, Vol. 14)
23. Andreev E. M., et al., Population of the Soviet Union, 1922-1991. Moscow, Nauka, 1993. ISBN 5-02-013479-1
24. Resolution of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR on December 1, 1934 // SZ USSR, 1934, No. 64, art. 459
25. Documents on repression
26. Great Russian Encyclopedia. Volume 4. Great Terror.
27. See Explanation to the court and prosecutor's office dated 04/20/1935 and the previous Resolution of the Central Executive Committee and Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated 04/07/1935 “On measures to combat juvenile delinquency”
28. STATISTICS OF THE REPRESSIVE ACTIVITIES OF THE SECURITY BODIES OF THE USSR FOR THE PERIOD FROM 1921 TO 1940.
29. Richard Pipes. Communism: A History (Modern Library Chronicles), p. 67.
30. Internet vs TV screen
31. On the issue of the scale of repression in the USSR // Viktor Zemskov
32. http://www.hrono.ru/statii/2001/zemskov.html
33. Meltyukhov M. I. Stalin's missed chance. The Soviet Union and the struggle for Europe: 1939-1941. - M.: Veche, 2000. - Ch. 12. The place of the “Eastern Campaign” in the German strategy of 1940-1941. and the forces of the parties to the start of Operation Barbarossa. - See discussion. table 45−47 and 57−58.
34. Lektorsky V. A., Ogurtsov A. P.



Stalin era

Stalin era- a period in the history of the USSR when its leader was actually J.V. Stalin. The beginning of this era is usually dated to the interval between the XIV Congress of the CPSU (b) and the defeat of the “right opposition” in the CPSU (b) (1926-1929); the end comes with the death of Stalin on March 5, 1953. During this period, Stalin actually had the greatest power, although formally in the years 1923-1940 he did not hold positions in the executive power structures.

Stalin's period in power was marked by:

• On the one hand: the accelerated industrialization of the country, mass labor and front-line heroism, victory in the Great Patriotic War, the transformation of the USSR into a superpower with significant scientific, industrial and military potential, the unprecedented strengthening of the geopolitical influence of the Soviet Union in the world, the establishment of pro-Soviet communist regimes in Eastern Europe and a number of countries in Southeast Asia;
• On the other hand: the establishment of a totalitarian dictatorial regime, mass repressions, sometimes directed against entire social strata and ethnic groups (for example, the deportation of Crimean Tatars, Chechens and Ingush, Balkars, Kalmyks, Koreans), forced collectivization, which at an early stage led to a sharp decline in agriculture and the famine of 1932-1933, numerous human losses (as a result of wars, deportations, German occupation, famine and repression), the division of the world community into two warring camps and the beginning of the Cold War.

Characteristics of the era

An analysis of Politburo decisions shows that their main goal was to maximize the difference between output and consumption, which required mass coercion. The emergence of surplus in the economy entailed a struggle among various administrative and regional interests for influence on the process of preparing and executing political decisions. The competition of these interests partly smoothed out the destructive consequences of hypercentralization.

Modern researchers believe that the most important economic decisions in the 20s were made after open, broad and heated public discussions, through open democratic voting at plenums of the Central Committee and congresses of the Communist Party.

According to Trotsky’s point of view, which he set out in his book “The Revolution Betrayed: What is the USSR and Where is It Going?”, Stalin’s Soviet Union was a deformed workers’ state.

Collectivization and industrialization

Real prices for wheat on foreign markets fell from 5-6 dollars per bushel to less than 1 dollar.

Collectivization led to a decline in agriculture: according to official data, gross grain harvests decreased from 733.3 million centners in 1928 to 696.7 million centners in 1931-32. Grain yield in 1932 was 5.7 c/ha compared to 8.2 c/ha in 1913. Gross agricultural production was 124% in 1928 compared to 1913, in 1929-121%, in 1930-117%, in 1931-114%, in 1932-107%, in 1933-101% Livestock production in 1933 was 65% of the 1913 level. But at the expense of the peasants, the collection of commercial grain, which the country so needed for industrialization, increased by 20%.

Stalin's policy of industrialization of the USSR required more funds and equipment obtained from the export of wheat and other goods abroad. Greater plans were established for collective farms to deliver agricultural products to the state. mass famine of 1932-33 , according to historians [ Who?], were the result of these grain procurement campaigns. The average standard of living of the population in rural areas did not reach the levels of 1929 until Stalin’s death (according to US data).

Industrialization, which, due to obvious necessity, began with the creation of basic branches of heavy industry, could not yet provide the market with the goods necessary for the village. The supply of the city through normal trade was disrupted; in 1924, the tax in kind was replaced by a cash tax. A vicious circle arose: to restore the balance it was necessary to accelerate industrialization, for this it was necessary to increase the influx of food, export products and labor from the village, and for this it was necessary to increase the production of bread, increase its marketability, create in the countryside a need for heavy industry products (machines ). The situation was complicated by the destruction during the revolution of the basis of commercial grain production in pre-revolutionary Russia - large landowner farms, and a project was needed to create something to replace them.

This vicious circle could only be broken through radical modernization of agriculture. Theoretically, there were three ways to do this. One is a new version of the “Stolypin reform”: support for the growing kulak, redistribution in its favor of the resources of the bulk of middle peasant farms, stratification of the village into large farmers and the proletariat. The second way is the elimination of pockets of capitalist economy (kulaks) and the formation of large mechanized collective farms. The third way - the gradual development of labor individual peasant farms with their cooperation at a “natural” pace - by all accounts turned out to be too slow. After the disruption of grain procurements in 1927, when it was necessary to take emergency measures (fixed prices, closing markets and even repression), and an even more catastrophic grain procurement campaign of 1928-1929. the issue had to be resolved urgently. Extraordinary measures during procurement in 1929, already perceived as something completely abnormal, caused about 1,300 riots. The path to creating farming through the stratification of the peasantry was incompatible with the Soviet project for ideological reasons. A course was set for collectivization. This also implied the liquidation of the kulaks.

The second cardinal issue is the choice of industrialization method. The discussion about this was difficult and long, and its outcome predetermined the character of the state and society. Not having, unlike Russia at the beginning of the century, foreign loans as an important source of funds, the USSR could industrialize only at the expense of internal resources. An influential group (Politburo member N.I. Bukharin, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars A.I. Rykov and Chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions M.P. Tomsky) defended the “sparing” option of gradual accumulation of funds through the continuation of the NEP. L. D. Trotsky - forced version. J.V. Stalin initially supported Bukharin’s point of view, but after Trotsky was expelled from the Party Central Committee at the end of the year, he changed his position to the diametrically opposite one. This led to a decisive victory for the supporters of forced industrialization.

The question of how much these achievements contributed to victory in the Great Patriotic War remains a matter of debate. During Soviet times, the view was accepted that industrialization and pre-war rearmament played a decisive role. Critics point out that by the beginning of the winter of 1941, the territory was occupied, in which 42% of the population of the USSR lived before the war, 63% of coal was mined, 68% of cast iron was smelted, etc. As V. Lelchuk writes, “victory had to be achieved cannot be forged with the help of the powerful potential that was created during the years of accelerated industrialization.” However, the numbers speak for themselves. Despite the fact that in 1943 the USSR produced only 8.5 million tons of steel (compared to 18.3 million tons in 1940), while the German industry that year smelted more than 35 million tons (including those captured in Europe metallurgical plants), despite the colossal damage from the German invasion, the USSR industry was able to produce much more weapons than the German industry. In 1942, the USSR surpassed Germany in the production of tanks by 3.9 times, combat aircraft by 1.9 times, guns of all types by 3.1 times. At the same time, the organization and technology of production quickly improved: in 1944, the cost of all types of military products was halved compared to 1940. Record military production was achieved due to the fact that all new industry had a dual purpose. The industrial raw material base was prudently located beyond the Urals and Siberia, while the occupied territories were predominantly pre-revolutionary industry. The evacuation of industry to the Urals, Volga region, Siberia and Central Asia played a significant role. During the first three months of the war alone, 1,360 large (mostly military) enterprises were relocated.

The rapid growth of the urban population has led to a deterioration in the housing situation; a period of “densification” passed again; workers arriving from the village were housed in barracks. By the end of 1929, the card system was extended to almost all food products, and then to industrial products. However, even with cards it was impossible to obtain the necessary rations, and in 1931 additional “warrants” were introduced. It was impossible to buy food without standing in huge lines. According to data from the Smolensk party archive, in 1929 in Smolensk a worker received 600 g of bread per day, family members - 300, fat - from 200 g to a liter of vegetable oil per month, 1 kilogram of sugar per month; a worker received 30-36 meters of calico per year. Subsequently, the situation (until 1935) only worsened. The GPU noted acute discontent among the workers.

Changes in living standards

• The average standard of living throughout the country underwent significant fluctuations (especially associated with the first Five-Year Plan and the war), but in 1938 and 1952 it was higher or almost the same as in 1928.
• The greatest increase in living standards was among the party and labor elite.
• According to various estimates, the standard of living of the vast majority of rural residents has not improved or has worsened significantly.

Introduction of the passport system in 1932-1935. provided for restrictions for residents of rural areas: peasants were prohibited from moving to another area or going to work in the city without the consent of the board of a state farm or collective farm, which thus sharply limited their freedom of movement.

Cards for bread, cereals and pasta were abolished from January 1, 1935, and for other (including non-food) goods from January 1, 1936. This was accompanied by an increase in wages in the industrial sector and an even greater increase in state ration prices for all types of goods. Commenting on the abolition of cards, Stalin uttered what later became a catchphrase: “Life has become better, life has become more fun.”

Overall, per capita consumption increased by 22% between 1928 and 1938. Cards were reintroduced in July 1941. After the war and famine (drought) of 1946, they were abolished in 1947, although many goods remained in short supply, in particular there was another famine in 1947. In addition, on the eve of the abolition of cards, prices for ration goods were raised. The restoration of the economy allowed in 1948-1953. repeatedly reduce prices. Price reductions significantly increased the standard of living of Soviet people. In 1952, the cost of bread was 39% of the price at the end of 1947, milk - 72%, meat - 42%, sugar - 49%, butter - 37%. As noted at the 19th Congress of the CPSU, at the same time the price of bread increased by 28% in the USA, by 90% in England, and more than doubled in France; the cost of meat in the USA increased by 26%, in England - by 35%, in France - by 88%. If in 1948 real wages were on average 20% lower than the pre-war level, then in 1952 they were already 25% higher than the pre-war level.

The average standard of living of the population in regions remote from large cities and specializing in crop production, that is, the majority of the country's population, did not reach the levels of 1929 before the start of the war. In the year of Stalin's death, the average calorie content of the daily diet of an agricultural worker was 17% lower than the level of 1928 of the year .

Demographics in the era

As a result of famine, repression and deportations, mortality exceeded the “normal” level in the period 1927-1938. amounted, according to various estimates, from 4 to 12 million people. However, during the 29 years in power, the population of the USSR increased by 60 million people.

Stalin's repressions

Make the following changes to the current criminal procedural codes of the union republics for the investigation and consideration of cases of terrorist organizations and terrorist acts against employees of the Soviet government: 1. The investigation in these cases should be completed within no more than ten days; 2. The indictment must be served on the accused one day before the hearing of the case in court; 3. Hear cases without the participation of the parties; 4. Cassation appeals against sentences, as well as filing petitions for pardon, should not be allowed; 5. A sentence of capital punishment shall be carried out immediately upon delivery of the sentence.

The mass terror of the Yezhovshchina period was carried out by the then authorities of the country throughout the entire territory of the USSR (and, at the same time, in the territories of Mongolia, Tuva and Republican Spain controlled at that time by the Soviet regime

), based on the figures of “planned targets” “released into place” by Yezhov to identify and punish people who harmed the Soviet government (the so-called “enemies of the people”).

During the Yezhovshchina, torture was widely used against those arrested; sentences that were not subject to appeal (often to death) were passed without any trial - and were carried out immediately (often even before the verdict was passed); all property of the absolute majority of arrested people was immediately confiscated; the relatives of the repressed themselves were subjected to the same repressions - for the mere fact of their relationship with them; Children of repressed persons left without parents (regardless of their age) were also placed, as a rule, in prisons, camps, colonies, or in special “orphanages for children of enemies of the people.” In 1935, it became possible to attract minors, starting from the age of 12, to capital punishment (execution).

In 1937, 353,074 people were sentenced to death (not all those sentenced to death), in 1938 - 328,618, in 1939-2,601. According to Richard Pipes, in 1937-1938 the NKVD arrested about 1.5 million people, of whom about 700 thousand were executed, that is, on average, 1,000 executions per day.

Historian V.N. Zemskov names a similar figure, arguing that “in the most cruel period - 1937-38 - more than 1.3 million people were convicted, of whom almost 700,000 were shot,” and in another of his publications he clarifies: “according to documented data, in 1937-1938. 1,344,923 people were convicted for political reasons, of which 681,692 were sentenced to capital punishment.” It should be noted that Zemskov personally participated in the work of the commission, which worked in 1990-1993. and considered the issue of repression.

As a result of Yezhov’s activities, they were sentenced to death penalty more than seven hundred thousand people: in 1937, 353,074 people were sentenced to death, in 1938 - 328,618, in 1939 (after Yezhov’s resignation) - 2,601. Yezhov himself was subsequently arrested and sentenced to death. More than 1.5 million people suffered from repression in 1937-1938 alone.

As a result of famine, repression and deportations, mortality exceeded the “normal” level in the period 1927-1938. amounted, according to various estimates, from 4 to 12 million people.

In 1937-1938 Bukharin, Rykov, Tukhachevsky and other political figures and military leaders were arrested, including those who at one time contributed to Stalin’s rise to power.

The attitude of representatives of society adhering to liberal democratic values ​​is reflected in particular in their assessment of the repressions carried out during the Stalin era against a number of nationalities of the USSR: in the RSFSR Law of April 26, 1991 No. 1107-I “On the rehabilitation of repressed peoples”, signed by the President RSFSR B. N. Yeltsin, it is argued that in relation to a number of peoples of the USSR at the state level, on the basis of nationality or other affiliation “a policy of slander and genocide was pursued”.

War

According to modern historians, arguments about the quantitative or qualitative superiority of German technology on the eve of the war are unfounded. On the contrary, in terms of certain parameters (the number and weight of tanks, the number of aircraft), the Red Army grouping along the western border of the USSR was significantly superior to the similar Wehrmacht grouping.

Post-war period

However, human losses did not end with the war, in which they amounted to about 27 million. The famine of 1946-1947 alone claimed the lives of from 0.8 to two million people.

In the shortest possible time, the national economy, transport, housing stock, and destroyed settlements in the former occupied territory were restored.

State security agencies took harsh measures to suppress nationalist movements that were actively manifested in the Baltic states and Western Ukraine.

The measures taken led to an increase in grain yields by 25-30%, vegetables by 50-75%, and herbs by 100-200%. However, with the death of Stalin in 1953, the plan was curtailed.

The fight against cosmopolitanism

In the post-war period, massive campaigns began against the departure from the “principle of party membership”, against the “abstract academic spirit”, “objectivism”, as well as against “anti-patriotism”, “rootless cosmopolitanism” and “the derogation of Russian science and Russian philosophy”.

All Jewish educational institutions, theaters, publishing houses and media were closed (except for the newspaper of the Jewish Autonomous Region “Birobidzhaner Shtern” ( Birobidzhan star) and the magazine "Soviet Gameland"). Mass arrests and dismissals of Jews began. In the winter of 1953, rumors circulated about the supposed impending deportation of Jews; the question of whether these rumors were true is debatable.

Science in the Stalin era

Entire scientific fields, such as genetics and cybernetics, were declared bourgeois and banned, which slowed down the development of these areas of science in the USSR for decades. According to historians, many scientists, for example, academician Nikolai Vavilov and other most influential anti-Lysenkoists, were repressed with the direct participation of Stalin.

Culture of the Stalin era

• List of films of the Stalin era

• Stalinist architecture ("Stalinist Empire")

Stalin era in works of art

see also

Literature

Links

Notes

1. Gregory P., Harrison M. Allocation under Dictatorship: Research in Stalin’s Archives // Journal of Economic Literature. 2005. Vol. 43. P. 721. (English)
2. See review: Khlevniuk O. Stalinism and the Stalin Period after the “Archival Revolution” // Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 2001. Vol. 2, No. 2. P. 319. DOI:10.1353/kri.2008.0052
3. (unavailable link) The misunderstood NEP. Alexander Mechanic. Discussions about economic policy during the years of monetary reform 1921-1924. Goland Yu. M.
4. M. Geller, A. Nekrich History of Russia: 1917-1995
5. Allen R. C. The standard of living in the Soviet Union, 1928-1940 // Univ. of British Columbia, Dept. of Economics. Discussion Paper No. 97-18. August, 1997. (English)
6. Nove A. On the fate of the NEP // Questions of history. 1989. No. 8. - P. 172
7. Lelchuk V. Industrialization
8. MFIT Reform of the defense complex. Military Herald
9. victory.mil.ru The movement of the productive forces of the USSR to the east
10. I. Economics - World revolution and world war - V. Rogovin
11. Industrialization
12. A. Chernyavsky Shot in the Mausoleum. Khabarovsk Pacific Star, 2006-06-21
13. See review: Demographic modernization of Russia 1900-2000 / Ed. A. Vishnevsky. M.: New publishing house, 2006. Ch. 5.
14. CHRONOLOGY OF IMPORTANT EVENTS AND DATES. 1922-1940 » World History
15. The national economy of the USSR in 1960. - M.: Gosstatizdat TsSU USSR, 1961
16. Chapman J. G. Real Wages in the Soviet Union, 1928-1952 // Review of Economics and Statistics. 1954. Vol. 36, No. 2. P. 134. DOI:10.2307/1924665 (English)
17. Jasny N. Soviet industrialization, 1928-1952. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.
18. Post-war reconstruction and economic development of the USSR in the 40s - early 50s. / Katsva L. A. Distance course in the History of the Fatherland for applicants.
19. Popov V. Passport system of Soviet serfdom // New World. 1996. No. 6.
20. Nineteenth Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Bulletin No. 8, p.22 - M: Pravda, 1952.
21. Wheatcroft S. G. The first 35 years of Soviet living standards: Secular growth and conjunctural crises in a time of famines // Explorations in Economic History. 2009. Vol. 46, No. 1. P. 24. DOI:10.1016/j.eeh.2008.06.002 (English)
22. See review: Denisenko M. Demographic crisis in the USSR in the first half of the 1930s: estimates of losses and problems of study // Historical demography. Collection of articles / Ed. Denisenko M. B., Troitskaya I. A. - M.: MAKS Press, 2008. - P. 106-142. - (Demographic Studies, Vol. 14)
23. Andreev E.M., et al., Population of the Soviet Union, 1922-1991. Moscow, Nauka, 1993.
24. Resolution of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR on December 1, 1934 // SZ USSR, 1934, No. 64, art. 459
25. Documents on repression
26. Great Russian Encyclopedia. Volume 4. Great Terror.
27. See Explanation to the court and prosecutor's office dated 04/20/1935 and the previous Resolution of the Central Executive Committee and Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated 04/07/1935 “On measures to combat juvenile delinquency”
28. STATISTICS OF THE REPRESSIVE ACTIVITIES OF THE SECURITY BODIES OF THE USSR FOR THE PERIOD FROM 1921 TO 1940.
29. Richard Pipes. Communism: A History (Modern Library Chronicles), p. 67.
30. Internet vs TV screen