Creating the “New Soviet Citizen” The Soviet Union Creating the “New Soviet Citizen”

Joseph Stalin Head of both the Communist party and Soviet government from 1924 to 1953. Most interested in power and not ideology. By 1928, established himself as absolute dictator. Increasingly paranoid & dangerous.

Stalin’s totalitarian elements Cult of the leader: the all-knowing and all-seeing Father of the People.

Stalin’s totalitarian elements Radical Ideology Marxism-Leninism the driving rationale for Stalin’s power grab. But Stalin altered the ideology to serve his personal nationalist ambitions. Stalinism refers to a brand of communism that is both extremely repressive and nationalistic.

Stalin’s totalitarian elements Organization Soviet communist party effectively solidified Stalin’s power. Party cells operated in every workplace & classroom, with party members reporting on anyone who was not loyal enough. Secret Police – the KGB

Stalin’s totalitarian elements Central Control of all Organizations. News media: no independent press Heavily centralized “command economy.” Stalin’s 1st goal to create an advanced industrial economy.

Command Economy 5 Year Plans were developed to ensure the industrial state. Quotas were set, much too higher, for workers to achieve Farmers lost their land to collective farms where they were expected to work together under government leadership

Results Peasants resisted; killings; exile. Severe agricultural losses & famine. After a decade, more than five million were dead.

Art, film, literature was put in service to the ideology. Soviet art had to praise noble factory workers, the “new Soviet man & woman.”

Stalin’s totalitarian elements Violence & Terror. Brutality on massive scale. Targets: political opponents & party rivals.

Stalin’s totalitarian elements Creation of a Gulag System. Gulags were slave labor camps for critics, former capitalists, non-cooperative peasants & party rivals.

Stalin’s totalitarian elements Political purges from 1934 to 1936 were called the Great Terror or Great Purge. Show trials, with coerced confessions and summary executions, from 1936 to 1938. During his rule, one million direct killings & 12 million deaths in Soviet prisons & slave labor camps.