Leading Russian historian of Stalinism, Doctor of Historical Sciences, chief specialist of the State Archive of Russia and author of works on Soviet history, including the recently published book “Stalin. The life of one leader,” Oleg Khlevnyuk told Lenta.ru about the formation and evolution of Joseph Stalin’s political beliefs. And also about why the peasants suffered the most from the actions of the Bolsheviks, why the leader was unable to build socialism without relying on traditional values and did not prepare a successor for himself.
“Lenta.ru”: In the pre-revolutionary period, did Stalin have his own ideas or did he follow the ideology of the Bolsheviks? Did religious education influence his worldview?
Oleg Khlevnyuk: Stalin, as often happens with people, did not immediately find his path and the value system with which he connected his life. His mother did everything she could to push him out of her social circle and into the top. In her mind, a spiritual career could bring her son a strong and satisfying position in society.
Initially, Joseph followed his mother’s decisions; he studied at a theological school and entered the theological seminary in Tiflis. And already there, under the influence of the surrounding reality and friends, he renounced his political loyalty and jeopardized his career. At first he was interested in the ideas of Georgian nationalism, which was not uncommon in the conditions of Russification and discrimination of the Georgian language carried out by the government. Then he gradually moved towards Marxism, which was also not uncommon, since Marxism was spreading more and more widely in the Russian Empire.
Perhaps, although Stalin himself did not say this, Marxism was really close to him due to the spiritual education he received. Marxism was a kind of faith, but only a faith in heaven on earth. Within Marxism, Stalin sided with the Bolsheviks, with Lenin, because he liked the idea of a militant, strong underground party, in which intellectuals playing an important role in teaching workers. After all, after all, he himself belonged to the number of revolutionary intellectuals.
In general, he was young and active, but, of course, he was not capable of becoming some kind of significant figure; he had to join some group, follow someone. He followed Lenin, which made him what he became several decades later. There was nothing special about Stalin's path to revolution. Quite a typical path.
How important were the ideas of socialism to him when he came to power? Did he want to build real socialism or was realpolitik more important to him? After all, Stalin’s entourage presented him as a pragmatist against the backdrop of idealists.
It is difficult to answer such questions, because they are connected with the inner world of people, with their ideas. And this inner world and its constant changes is not so easy to evaluate in oneself, not to mention others. Of course, Stalin, like other revolutionaries, and the Bolsheviks also, fought for revolution and power. Of course, they, like everyone who goes into politics, had certain ideas. After all, no politician says that he needs power for the sake of power (although, I suspect, this is often the case in reality). A politician needs faith in certain ideals, programs that he can present to the masses. In fact, the desire for power and programs are so firmly welded together that it is difficult to separate them, and the programs themselves are adjusted and changed depending on the tasks of seizing and maintaining power.
The Bolsheviks are a good example. In fact, Lenin, and Stalin was his disciple in this sense, adapted traditional Marxist ideas to the goal of seizing power. Following Marxism, Russia simply could not lay claim to socialism. So they came up with the theory that at first the socialist revolution may win in a country that is not ready for it, but this will give a start to the spread of socialism in more developed countries. And then all together they will move towards socialism. The whole thing was so far-fetched that even some prominent Bolsheviks refused to support Lenin's course towards immediate socialism. Stalin was hesitant at first, but quickly sided with Lenin. In 1917, Stalin called this strategy a creative development of Marxism. He followed it later, that is, he changed theories depending on the needs of strengthening power. In general, I would not divide the Bolsheviks into idealists and pragmatists. Having won power, they all submitted to the goal of maintaining and strengthening it. They proposed different methods and were cruel and power-hungry to varying degrees.
What was the leader's attitude towards the peasantry? Was one of the reasons for collectivization an attempt to “break his back”?
If formulated in general terms, then this was precisely the only reason for collectivization. The Bolsheviks and many other socialists did not like the peasants for many reasons. According to Marxist canons, it was generally impossible to build socialism in a peasant country. Russian experience confirmed this theory.
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Despite periodic unrest, the peasants acted as a loyal support for the tsarist regime, and they were the majority. Then Lenin had the idea to tear the peasants away from power and lure them to the side of the revolution. He came up with the concept of an alliance of the working class with the poor peasantry. This made it possible to hope for the victory of the socialist revolution even in a peasant country.
The peasants truly became the driving force behind the revolutionary events of 1917. However, they followed not so much Lenin's party as their own course. They needed land, and they got it by forcing Lenin to change his own program, which included nationalization of the economy. And when, during the Civil War, the Bolsheviks tried to take away the much-needed bread from the peasants and put the peasants under arms, they responded with armed resistance.
However, they treated the opponents of the Bolsheviks the same way. After their final establishment in power, the Bolsheviks constantly fought with the peasantry for bread. The question arose of what to do. Many in the party believed that it was necessary to act carefully: to establish trade with the peasants. In return, they will be interested in increasing production. This was called the New Economic Policy. It was a difficult path, but, according to many scientists, more effective and reasonable.
At the end of the 1920s, Stalin proposed and implemented his program - he liquidated the peasants as a traditional class, gathered (more precisely, drove) them into collective farms, deprived them of their property and made them hired workers of the state. So, in general terms, we can say that not just an attempt, but the real destruction of the traditional peasantry was the goal of collectivization, which predetermined its extreme cruelty.
In Stalin's first years in power, foreign socialists and white emigrants often reproached him for his lack of ideology, for Fordism and Taylorism. Is this fair?
Of course, different things were written about Stalin and his policies, and the assessments you are talking about can be found in them. Indeed, during the years of the first five-year plan in the USSR, there was a passion for technocratic ideas. The USA was perceived as a model of industrial development that needed to be cleansed of capitalist relations and transferred to Soviet soil.
In other words, in accordance with Marxist ideas, it was believed that socialism would take advantage of the technical achievements of capitalism and open up unprecedented opportunities for their further development. So it was rather a mixture of passions for Fordism and Taylorism with Soviet ideology.
Another thing is that such primitive calculations turned out to be incorrect. To master the machines and equipment purchased in huge quantities in the West, what was required was not enthusiasm, but rather bourgeois knowledge and management experience. In subsequent decades, the Soviet economy constantly suffered from the incompatibility of the goals of economic efficiency and technological progress with ideological anti-market priorities and suspicion of private initiative.
The Great Terror is most often associated with repression of the intelligentsia and the Old Bolsheviks. But at the same time, the majority of those repressed were workers and peasants, ordinary intellectuals. What political or economic motivation was there for their repression?
Yes, the victims of repression, including in 1937-1938, which we often call the Great Terror, were mainly ordinary people. The nomenclature made up a small part of them.
There are different points of view on the causes of terror. On the one hand, it was a necessary method of governance under dictatorship. But on the other hand, why did it at times acquire such a huge scope, as in 1937-1938, and in other periods it was at a certain “usual” level? Various exotic explanations for the causes of terror are widespread in our country. They write that all these millions were real enemies, and therefore they had to be destroyed. It is not true. They write that Stalin was forced to organize terror by malicious bureaucrats who were afraid of the elections scheduled for 1937. There is no real evidence for such theories. Their authors simply want to get Stalin out of harm’s way, to whitewash him, inventing ridiculous versions.
In scientific historiography, as a result of many years of work with a huge number of documents, several indisputable facts have been recorded. The first - terror was mainly of a strictly centralized nature, that is, it was carried out on orders from Moscow in the form of so-called mass operations of the NKVD. Plans were drawn up for arrests and executions by region, and records were kept of the implementation of these plans.
Motives? The most convincing and supported by documents, in my opinion, is the version of Stalin’s preventive purge of the country from the fifth column in the context of an escalating military threat. But here you need to understand an important fact: the overwhelming majority of people arrested and executed were not real enemies not only of their country, but even of the Stalinist regime. It was Stalin who considered them enemies, and therefore ordered their destruction.
From the mid-1930s, Stalin made a turn to the West and wanted to cooperate with France and England, then entered into an agreement with Germany. How did he ideologically justify such a policy and how was it perceived by socialist forces?
After the Nazis came to power in Germany, a real threat of future war arose in Europe. Hitler was dangerous both for the USSR and for Western democracies. On this basis, in the USSR, France and Czechoslovakia, first of all, a movement towards cooperation arose, towards the creation of a system of collective security. The USSR joined the League of Nations in 1934, a kind of prototype of the modern UN, and various treaties were concluded. Moscow aimed the communist parties of Europe to cooperate with the Social Democrats, who had previously been branded along with the fascists. All this was also accompanied by some positive changes within the USSR, since it was important for Stalin to show how much Soviet power differed from Nazism, which many in the world doubted. Overall, these were promising and promising changes. And they were generally perceived positively.
However, for various reasons, this course failed. The blame lay with both Stalin and Western governments. Hitler took advantage of this and offered Stalin friendship. Stalin, for various reasons, about which historians argue a lot, accepted this proposal. And here, of course, various problems arose, including moral and political ones. It was very difficult to explain why it was even possible to cooperate with Hitler’s Germany. There was a radical change in ideological work, in the orientations of the Comintern, which led the communist parties. This topic in relation to Soviet society, by the way, has not been very well researched. What people thought about the alliance with Germany, how they were forced to think differently and trust the Nazis - we don’t know all this very well.
In the early 1940s, Stalin made a turn towards Russianness: there was a reconciliation with Orthodoxy, an appeal to history and cultural figures like Pushkin and Suvorov, and their glorification. Does this mean that Stalin realized that without Russian imperialism, without relying on it, nothing would work out for him?
Yes, such a turn took place, and historians are now studying it quite fruitfully. This was a certain adjustment to the revolutionary course, which assumed that the history of the country begins with the revolution, that all pre-revolutionary values are doomed to die out. Life turned out to be much more difficult. A huge country cannot exist without a deep historical tradition, and people need traditional values, especially cultural and religious ones. The war and the need to unite the nation in the face of the enemy played their most important role. It was during the war years that the famous “reconciliation” of Stalin with the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church took place. Other factors also played a role, for example the need to take into account public opinion in Western allied countries.
At the same time, it is important to understand the relativity of this turn. Yes, clergy and believers were not subjected to such terrible repression as was the case in the 1920s and 1930s, but discrimination and arrests persisted. This trend can be traced in all directions of the course of revival of traditions.
Why, after the end of World War II, Stalin did not want to integrate the USSR into the Western world through the implementation of the Marshall Plan?
This problem is not as well studied as it might seem at first glance. On the one hand, everything seems obvious: Stalin did not intend to become dependent on the West, and the United States intended to help its allies in Europe, but not its opponents. In general, this is true. However, it seems that Stalin himself did not initially deny any forms of assistance; for example, he repeatedly raised the issue of American loans. And the West, under certain conditions, could make concessions.
I am closer to the point of view of those experts who believe that the main role was played by mutual suspicion, mistrust, and dangerous actions on both sides. This growing confrontation has not benefited anyone. This is the main lesson.
In the post-war years, society expected from Stalin that same Brezhnev-era stagnation, a calm, well-fed life. But the leader decided to continue developing the ideas of the revolution. Was this done because he was afraid of the corruption of his system? Is this how he held on to power?
In a sense, we can say that society was waiting for stagnation, if by stagnation we mean the end of repression, a gradual improvement in the material standard of living, and social guarantees. Peasants, as documents show, often openly expressed hopes that the collective farms would now be dissolved and allowed to breathe. The intelligentsia hoped for a weakening of censorship and so on. All this is not difficult to understand. People survived a terrible war, they felt like winners and dreamed of a better life.
Stalin's idea of the future was different. On the one hand, he understood that the state did not have the resources to fully meet the needs of the population - military devastation, the famine of 1946-1947, large expenditures on armaments (the nuclear project), and assistance to new allies in Eastern Europe made their presence felt. On the other hand, Stalin was a conservative and feared that any changes could cause a chain reaction of instability. So he preferred to tighten policy across the board.
The Cold War also contributed to this to a certain extent. The feeling of a besieged fortress arose again. It was not difficult for the Soviet people who survived the terrible war to explain that the threat of a new war required sacrifices and belt-tightening.
Everything changed very quickly immediately after Stalin's death. His heirs continued to spend a lot of money on defense, but they also increased social programs, such as housing construction, exempted peasants from exorbitant taxes, and so on. In other words, they demonstrated that there are different ways to act, it all depends on political will.
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In recent years, Stalin had serious health problems. In addition, many researchers have devoted a huge amount of time to studying his mental health. How did all this - his physical and mental health - influence his decision-making, his activities?
Obviously it did. The famous doctor Alexander Myasnikov, who was invited to see the dying Stalin, wrote in his memoirs: “I believe that Stalin’s cruelty and suspicion, fear of enemies, loss of adequacy in assessing people and events, extreme stubbornness - all this was created to a certain extent by atherosclerosis of the cerebral arteries (or rather, atherosclerosis exaggerated these features). The state was essentially ruled by a sick man.”
Who did Stalin see as his successor? How did you see the USSR in the future - roughly 20-30 years from now? Did he believe in the victory of socialism?
Stalin not only did not prepare a successor, but did everything possible to ensure that such a successor did not exist. It is known, for example, that on the eve of his death he hurled harsh accusations at his closest ally Vyacheslav Molotov, who was perceived in the country and party as the next leader in line to power.
This is not difficult to understand. Stalin was extremely suspicious of any threats to his sole power. He constantly shuffled the deck of his closest associates, subjected them to disgrace, and even shot some of them.
On the eve of his death, attacking his old comrades, he tried to promote new functionaries to leading positions. An expanded Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee was created, in which a significant number of seats were taken by young nominees. However, Stalin did not have time to complete this system, since he died six months later. And immediately after his death, his old comrades took full power into their own hands. True, none of them became Stalin’s successor in the literal sense of the word.
From one-man dictatorship there was a return to a system of collective leadership, which already existed in the 1920s and partly in the early 1930s. This was an important political prerequisite for the relative democratization of the country and the destruction of the main pillars of the Stalinist system.
We can judge Stalin’s ideas about the future from his latest works, in particular from the well-known series of articles “Economic problems of socialism in the USSR.” He considered the ideal a society based on commodity exchange, that is, relatively speaking, living without money, governed by the state, which decides everything, manages everything and distributes everything. Some will call it communism, others - barracks. In any case, such a society is not viable.
Assessments of Stalin's personality are contradictory and there is a huge range of opinions about Stalin, and often they describe Stalin with opposing characteristics. On the one hand, many who communicated with Stalin spoke of him as a widely and diversified educated and extremely intelligent person. On the other hand, researchers of Stalin's biography often describe his negative character traits.
Some historians believe that Stalin established a personal dictatorship; others believe that until the mid-1930s the dictatorship was collective in nature. The political system implemented by Stalin is usually referred to as “totalitarianism.”
According to the conclusions of historians, the Stalinist dictatorship was an extremely centralized regime, which relied primarily on powerful party-state structures, terror and violence, as well as mechanisms of ideological manipulation of society, selection of privileged groups and the formation of pragmatic strategies.
According to Oxford University professor R. Hingley, for a quarter of a century before his death, Stalin wielded more political power than any other figure in history. He was not just a symbol of the regime, but a leader who made fundamental decisions and was the initiator of all any significant government measures. Each member of the Politburo had to confirm his agreement with the decisions made by Stalin, while Stalin shifted responsibility for their implementation to the persons accountable to him.
Of those adopted in 1930-1941. decisions, less than 4,000 were public, more than 28,000 were secret, of which 5,000 were so secret that only a narrow circle knew about them. A significant part of the resolutions concerned minor issues, such as the location of monuments or the prices of vegetables in Moscow. Decisions on complex issues were often made in the absence of information, particularly realistic cost estimates, accompanied by a tendency for designated project implementers to inflate these estimates.
In addition to the Georgian and Russian languages, Stalin read German relatively fluently, knew Latin, ancient Greek, Church Slavonic well, understood Farsi (Persian), and understood Armenian. In the mid-20s, he also studied French.
Researchers note that Stalin was a very reading, erudite person and was interested in culture, including poetry. He spent a lot of time reading books, and after his death his personal library remained, consisting of thousands of books, with his notes in the margins. Stalin, in particular, read books by Guy de Maupassant, Oscar Wilde, N.V. Gogol, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, L.D. Trotsky, L.B. Kameneva. Among the authors whom Stalin admired were Emile Zola and F.M. Dostoevsky. He quoted long passages from the Bible, the works of Bismarck, and the works of Chekhov. Stalin himself told some visitors, pointing to a stack of books on his desk: “This is my daily norm - 500 pages.” In this way, up to a thousand books were produced per year.
Historian R.A. Medvedev, speaking out against “often extremely exaggerated assessments of the level of his education and intelligence,” at the same time warns against downplaying it. He notes that Stalin read a lot, and widely, from fiction to popular science. In the pre-war period, Stalin devoted his main attention to historical and military-technical books; after the war, he moved on to reading political works, such as “History of Diplomacy” and the biography of Talleyrand.
Medvedev notes that Stalin, being the culprit for the death of a large number of writers and the destruction of their books, at the same time patronized M. Sholokhov, A. Tolstoy and others, returns from exile E. V. Tarle, whose biography of Napoleon he treated with great respect interest and personally supervised its publication, suppressing tendentious attacks on the book. Medvedev emphasizes Stalin's knowledge of national Georgian culture; in 1940, Stalin himself made corrections to the new translation of “The Knight in the Skin of the Tiger.”
The English writer and statesman Charles Snow also characterized Stalin's educational level as quite high:
One of the many curious circumstances related to Stalin: he was much more educated in a literary sense than any of his contemporary statesmen. In comparison, Lloyd George and Churchill are surprisingly poorly read people. As, indeed, did Roosevelt.
There is evidence that back in the 20s, Stalin attended the play “Days of the Turbins” eighteen times by the then little-known writer M. A. Bulgakov. At the same time, despite the difficult situation, he walked without personal security or transport. Stalin also maintained personal contacts with other cultural figures: musicians, film actors, directors. Stalin also personally entered into a polemic with the composer D.D. Shostakovich.
Stalin also loved cinema and was willingly interested in directing. One of the directors with whom Stalin was personally acquainted was A.P. Dovzhenko. Stalin liked films by this director such as “Arsenal” and “Aerograd”. Stalin also personally edited the script for the film Shchors. Modern Stalin scholars do not know whether Stalin liked films about himself, but in 16 years (from 1937 to 1953) 18 films with Stalin were made.
L. D. Trotsky called Stalin “an outstanding mediocrity” who does not forgive anyone for “spiritual superiority.”
Russian historian L.M. Batkin, recognizing Stalin’s love of reading, believes that he was an “aesthetically dense” reader, and at the same time remained a “practical politician.” Batkin believes that Stalin had no idea “about the existence of such a “subject” as art”, about the “special artistic world” and about the structure of this world. Using the example of Stalin’s statements on literary and cultural topics given in the memoirs of Konstantin Simonov, Batkin concludes that “everything that Stalin says, everything that he thinks about literature, cinema, etc., is completely ignorant,” and that the hero of the memoirs is “ quite a primitive and vulgar type.” To compare with Stalin’s words, Batkin cites quotes from marginalized people - the heroes of Mikhail Zoshchenko; in his opinion, they are almost no different from Stalin’s statements. In general, according to Batkin’s conclusion, Stalin brought “a certain energy” of the semi-educated and average layer of people to a “pure, strong-willed, outstanding form.” Batkin fundamentally refused to consider Stalin as a diplomat, military leader, and economist.
During Stalin’s life, Soviet propaganda created an aura of “great leader and teacher” around his name. Cities, enterprises, and equipment were named after Stalin and the names of his closest associates. His name was mentioned in the same breath as Marx, Engels and Lenin. He was often mentioned in songs, films, and books.
During Stalin's lifetime, attitudes towards him varied on a spectrum from benevolent and enthusiastic to negative. As the creator of an interesting social experiment, Stalin was regarded, in particular, by Bernard Shaw, Lion Feuchtwanger, Herbert Wells, and Henri Barbusse. Anti-Stalinist positions were taken by a number of communist figures, accusing Stalin of destroying the party and departing from the ideals of Lenin and Marx. This approach originated among the so-called. “Leninist Guard” (F.F. Raskolnikov, L.D. Trotsky, N.I. Bukharin, M.N. Ryutin), was supported by individual youth groups.
According to the position of former USSR President M.S. Gorbachev, “Stalin is a man covered in blood.” 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 grounds of nationality or other affiliation, “a policy of slander and genocide was pursued.”
According to Trotsky’s book “The Revolution Betrayed: What is the USSR and where is it going?” point of view on Stalin's Soviet Union as a deformed workers' state. The categorical rejection of Stalin's authoritarianism, which distorted the principles of Marxist theory, is characteristic of the dialectical-humanistic tradition in Western Marxism, represented, in particular, by the Frankfurt School. One of the first studies of the USSR as a totalitarian state belongs to Hannah Arendt (“The Origins of Totalitarianism”), who also considered herself (with some reservations) a leftist.
Thus, a number of historians and publicists generally approve of Stalin’s policies and consider him a worthy successor to Lenin’s work. In particular, within the framework of this direction, a book about Stalin by Hero of the Soviet Union M.S. is presented. Dokuchaev “History Remembers”. Other representatives of the movement admit that Stalin made some mistakes despite his overall correct policy (R.I. Kosolapov’s book “A Word to Comrade Stalin”), which is close to the Soviet interpretation of Stalin’s role in the history of the country. Thus, in the index of names to the Complete Works of Lenin, the following is written about Stalin: “In Stalin’s activities, along with a positive side, there was also a negative side. While holding the most important party and government posts, Stalin committed gross violations of the Leninist principles of collective leadership and the norms of party life, violations of socialist legality, and unjustified mass repressions against prominent government, political and military figures of the Soviet Union and other honest Soviet people. The Party resolutely condemned and put an end to the personality cult of Stalin and its consequences, alien to Marxism-Leninism, approved the work of the Central Committee to restore and develop Leninist principles of leadership and norms of party life in all areas of party, state and ideological work, took measures to prevent such errors and perversions in future." Other historians consider Stalin to be the undertaker of the “Russophobes” Bolsheviks who restored Russian statehood. The initial period of Stalin’s reign, during which many actions of an “anti-system” nature were taken, are considered by them only as preparation before the main action, which does not determine the main direction of Stalin’s activities. One can cite as an example the articles by I. S. Shishkin “The Internal Enemy”, and V. A. Michurin “The Twentieth Century in Russia through the prism of the theory of ethnogenesis by L. N. Gumilyov” and the works of V. V. Kozhinov. Kozhinov considers repressions to be largely necessary, collectivization and industrialization to be economically justified, and Stalinism itself to be the result of a world historical process in which Stalin just found a good niche. From this follows Kozhinov’s main thesis: history made Stalin, not Stalin, history.
Based on the results of Chapter II, we can conclude that the name of Stalin, even decades after his funeral, remains a factor in the ideological and political struggle. For some people, he is a symbol of the country's power, its accelerated industrial modernization, and merciless fight against abuses. For others, he is a bloody dictator, a symbol of despotism, a madman and a criminal. Only at the end of the 20th century. in the scientific literature this figure began to be considered more objectively. A.I. Solzhenitsyn, I.R. Shafarevich, V. Makhnach condemn Stalin as a Bolshevik - a destroyer of Orthodox Russian culture and traditional Russian society, guilty of mass repressions and crimes against the Russian people. Interesting fact - on January 13, 2010, the Kyiv Court of Appeal found Stalin (Dzhugashvili) and other Soviet leaders guilty of genocide of the Ukrainian people in 1932-1933 under Part 1 of Art. 442 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (genocide). It is alleged that as a result of this genocide in Ukraine, 3 million 941 thousand people died. However, this is more of a political decision than a legal one.
Results of the board
Stalinism is violence and terror that grew out of revolutionary permissiveness. And Stalin, with his difficult, fractured character and specific Eastern mentality, played a huge and truly sinister role here. But people from his circle also made their contribution to the course of these processes - gifted, ambitious, but with scanty education and low culture. They idolized their leader, and they “trampled” him after his death, while keeping the Stalinist system itself almost untouched. Discussing this system, A.N. emphasized. Sakharov, we will inevitably come to the conclusion that it has not completely disappeared even today, especially if we take into account our psychology. The whole point is that she gave a simple little person some kind of exclusive position, making him the “white bone” of society. Therefore, its fragments remain part of Russia’s movement towards the future, some new unknown world.
In the report, Doctor of History. A.S. Senyavsky "What legacy did I.V. Stalin leave: the results of Stalin's rule and their impact on domestic history of the second half of the 20th century." It was noted that in the history of Russia in the 20th century. there is no other historical figure of such magnitude. If Lenin, this “destroyer of the old world,” influenced events mainly ideologically, then Stalin not only during his life for three decades practically created a new society, spreading his influence and ideology throughout the world, but also after his death retained this influence through his legacy - the Soviet system and the “world system of socialism”. Stalin's worldview and methods of activity are not an accident, but a natural product of an entire historical era, largely predetermined by the patriarchy and backwardness of Russia in the conditions of the “modernization imperative” and “marginalization” of society. Liberal alternative in our country at the beginning of the 20th century. was a utopia, the attempt to implement which only provoked a revolutionary explosion. The only real alternative to the left radicals were the right radicals, i.e. a tough dictatorship of the generals, but its country, as is known, also rejected it, accepting the dictatorship of the social outcasts - the Bolsheviks. The moral and psychological shock of the World and Civil Wars by the beginning of the 1920s. turned violence into “the norm of life.” The matrix of internal party norms of underground revolutionaries was transferred to the management system of the entire country. This is where the roots of the repressiveness of the Bolshevik regime as a whole lie, including the period of Stalin’s rule. The leader formed the system, the system adjusted the leader “to itself.” It is scientifically incorrect to evaluate Stalinism from a moral standpoint, because there is no moral politics. Stalinism is an inextricable unity of crimes, failures and historical victories, social suffering, violence, repression and social achievements. Stalinism is a socialized version of the modernization breakthrough of a lagging country under conditions of severe external pressure and “historical time pressure” in which Soviet power found itself. Therefore, any one-sided assessments of him are biased and inadequate.
In reality, Stalin did the following: 1) finally formed the entire Soviet social system with its political, social, economic institutions and principles (socialist statism, nationalization of property, directive-planned economy, etc.); 2) radically changed the doctrinaire ideology of Bolshevism, abandoning the course towards a “world revolution” and turning the international revolutionary movement into an instrument for the real defense of the interests of the USSR; 3) curtailed the NEP and carried out accelerated industrial modernization of the country, using the mobilization of all internal resources in the absence of external ones; 4) in a situation where a new world war was brewing, he prevented the formation of a united front of the Western powers against the USSR; 5) provided fundamental (industrialization) and situational (political strategy, gaining allies, military-political leadership) conditions for victory in World War II; 6) laid the foundation for the transformation of the USSR into a superpower (post-war world order, possession of high scientific, technical, military, nuclear potential). The speaker emphasized that Stalin's repressions have no moral justification, but they should be understood as a product of the era and a continuation of the methods of the Civil War. Russia was not unique in this, since the 20th century was the apogee of violence in world history. Collectivization became an alternative to agrarian “modernization in the Stolypin style.” The latter did not work out in Russia, but led to an aggravation of social hatred, which manifested itself in the revolution of 1917 and in the Civil War. Stalin carried out this modernization, ensuring industrialization at the expense of the countryside, but retaining the social matrices of peasant communal traditionalism as its support. The success of industrialization, despite its incompleteness, allowed the USSR to almost single-handedly resist the military-economic potential of not only Nazi Germany, but also almost all of Western Europe.
Under Stalin, the USSR became a world power, one of the two leaders of opposing social systems, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, a country that controlled the center of Europe, many countries of the disintegrating colonial world, the world communist, labor and, to a large extent, national liberation movements. The borders of the USSR were reliably protected by both geopolitical acquisitions and a powerful army. The main result of Stalin's reign is that Russia has become a modern power. No wonder W. Churchill said: Stalin took Russia with a plow, but left it with a nuclear bomb and missiles. But something else is also important: the Soviet system preserved the “civilizational genotype” of Russia, ensuring the modernization potential for further development on its own sociocultural basis. How it will be used depended both on the system created by Stalin and on the activities of his heirs. In the middle of the 20th century. The USSR was on the rise, almost at the zenith of its power. The potential laid down under Stalin inertly provided our country with several more decades of stable development and rapid transformation into a military-economic superpower. But later it was wasted. Stalin turned out to be able to adapt ideology, politics, and the socio-economic system to the requirements of the time and the current tasks of the USSR. Subsequent leaders turned out to be less flexible and far-sighted.
The system should have been transformed in accordance with historical changes, but this did not happen. Finding out the reasons for this is one of the key tasks of historical science. We have before us a wide field for scientific analysis of the relationship between the natural and the random, the role of social institutions and personality in history. The speaker's categorical verdict on the fundamental inability of the Soviet model for effective transformation seems unfounded and premature. “No other way is given” is the apotheosis of a fatalistic, no-alternative approach to history, “a simple answer to a complex question,” behind which stand the profanation of science and elementary political engagement.
Report by Doctor of Historical Sciences Yu.N. Zhukov was devoted to the problem of Stalin’s legacy in the political sphere and its overcoming. The speaker noted that Stalinism is a complex phenomenon, for the understanding of which several points are important. It merged both the revolutionary heritage and what was never there. The author saw confirmation of this thesis, in particular, in the position of Miliukov, who believed that Stalin actually realized the “ideals of the white movement” (which, by the way, was Miliukov’s argument in favor of appealing to the white emigrants in 1941 with a call to stand up for the defense of the USSR). Stalin's course was fundamentally different from what it was during the times of Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev: the interests of the USSR became the main ones for the country's leadership. Another important point was that no socialism, according to Stalin, could be fully built in the USSR as long as the country was surrounded by capitalism. It is also important that already in the mid-1930s. Stalin attempted to remove the partyocracy from power. Related to this, according to the speaker, were both constitutional reform and an attempt to hold elections on an alternative basis in order to remove the nominees of the period of the revolution and the Civil War from power. It was not Stalin, but the partyocracy that unleashed mass repressions, creating a situation in which alternative elections that did not meet its interests became impossible. Finally, for understanding Stalinism, what is important for understanding Stalinism is the natural, as Zhukov believes, attempt to transform a multinational country into a unitary state, since fragmentation into separate regions along national lines created a threat to the security of the country, which became acutely apparent during the Second World War, when it was necessary to representatives of all nationalities were drafted into the army, and many recruits could not even follow the orders of their commanders due to ignorance of the Russian language. History resolved the dispute between Lenin and Stalin on the national issue in favor of Stalin: the result of Lenin’s national policy and the formation of the USSR was, according to Zhukov, 1991. The speaker also emphasized that he did not find evidence in the archives that Stalin was not omnipotent, since he could not override the decisions of the Politburo and the Central Committee. It is characteristic that Malenkov also tried to limit the power of the partyocracy, depriving it of most privileges and “envelopes”. He proposed stopping the arms race and raising the living standards of the people. And then the September plenum of the Central Committee (1953), in violation of the decisions of the March one, liquidated the system of collective leadership of the party, recreated the post of first secretary of the Central Committee and elected Khrushchev to this post. As a result of these changes, the development of heavy industry again became a priority, and the omnipotence of party officials was strengthened, regardless of their abilities, education and practical experience. How it ended is known.
Doctor of History B.S. Ilizarov presented a report on the topic “Historiosophy of Stalinism.” The speaker emphasized that he had a different view of Stalin, his time and the influence of Stalinism on modern times than the previous speaker. Lenin and his comrades only cleared the “construction site”, while Stalin was the true creator and the only free manager of the USSR. There was an alternative to his policy, but Stalin successfully fought to realize his plans. Contrary to the opinion of Yu.N. Zhukov, Stalin was omnipotent. By the end of the 1920s. he achieved an incredible concentration of power and levers of total control in his hands. The speaker compared the state created by Stalin with the “Tower of Babel,” which lasted for more than seventy years, but collapsed overnight in history, since the “project” itself had irreparable flaws, and the bonding material was human blood. As soon as at least one repressive bond in the structure of the state was weakened, the death of the entire structure became inevitable. But a legacy remains in the social memory of the people; the ideological constructs and Stalinist dogmas imposed on them by the system of propaganda, education and upbringing are preserved. Stalin left behind his “philosophy of history,” his “picture of the world,” which included both the personal biography of the leader and the interpretation of many historical events. This philosophy was recorded in the “Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)”, as well as a number of history textbooks. The history of Russia, and in it the Russian people, was placed at the center of the world process. The apotheosis of the history of Russia and the USSR became the history of one party - the Communist Party, the October Revolution and the Civil War, and the central figure was the “leader of all times and peoples.” Before the collapse of the USSR, the fundamental idea and supporting elements of Stalin’s historiosophy did not change. And today our past “shoots at our present.” Any attempt to establish a new Unitarianism in any form will lead to the same result - to another “Tower of Babel” with all the consequences. In the report “The Polish Version of Stalinism,” Professor E. Duraczynski (Poland), using the example of one of the “Soviet bloc” countries, examined the history of the implementation of the Stalinist model outside the USSR. The speaker noted that Poland, contrary to Moscow’s unification policy, was different from the rest of the Eastern Bloc countries and was “not the most successful student in the school of Stalinism.” But she also had to go through it in 1948-1956. difficult period of totalitarianism. Already at that time, Polish authors outside the country, and since 1956 in Poland itself, used the concept of “Stalinism” in a negative sense and tried to analyze it as a criminal system. E. Duraczynski joins those who define Stalinism as “left-wing totalitarianism” and the post-Stalin era as a period of “communist authoritarianism.”
The speaker dwelt in detail on the historiography of the issue, examining specific Polish works from different times. In Poland, the problems of repression, anti-totalitarian Resistance, and the role of the Roman Catholic Church as a defender of national and human values have been well studied. Many works have been published on the history of the political crisis of 1956, the mass student uprisings of 1970, the workers' protests in 1976, the gigantic strike in August 1980, as well as the birth and activities of the Solidarity trade union led by Lech Walesa.
Without Poland's dependence on Moscow, Stalinism would have been simply impossible there. At the same time, the mechanism of such subordination and its forms changed. After 1956, it became less and less noticeable to society, and in the field of culture almost invisible, although the policy of unification of the Eastern Bloc countries, forced copying of the Soviet system and the introduction of Stalinism, and then “real socialism” continued. But in Poland, not everything worked out as Moscow demanded. This is especially true for villages, churches and cultural spheres. The country's leadership was forced to reckon with the resistance of the peasantry, so it was not possible to carry out collectivization in Poland and in the pro-Soviet bloc it remained the only state dominated by the private sector. Over time, the level of fear also decreased, and by the early 1980s. Most Poles were afraid of almost no one or anything. And here it is worth remembering Stalin himself, who once said that it was easier to ride a cow than to build socialism in Poland, as he understood it. Stalinism in Poland is already a thing of the past. In the village he did not have time to take root, but in other areas he was quickly eradicated, and first of all - in spiritual life. But Stalin left a legacy (not only bad) and a memory of himself: he dictated the Polish borders and thereby saved the country from potential conflicts with Lithuania and Ukraine. In the report, Doctor of History. B.C. Lelchuk's central theme was the legacy of Stalinism in the field of industrialization. They say, he said, that thanks to industrialization the USSR won the war. But this is not serious! Did we fight one on one with Hitler? And what did we manage to do for the army before 1941? It is also necessary to answer the question of what did Lenin and Stalin mean by industrialization? Lenin at the end of the 19th century. introduced the term “industrialization of the population,” which requires not only technology, but also personnel and educated specialists. In other words, we need people who will raise technology in Russia to the world level. Let us now remember the main slogan of the first five-year plan: “Technology decides everything!” It is quite obvious that Stalin, who loved to quote Lenin, moved away from him here. By the end of the five-year plan, however, it turned out that they had bought a lot of technology, but could not master it. Then a new slogan was thrown out: “Cadres who have mastered technology decide everything!” But how many schools for training personnel were opened then? Stalin declared industrialization complete three times - the last time in 1939 202
But the main issue was never resolved: the West has surpassed us even further in labor productivity. In the USSR, almost everything was built by hand and at what cost! There were not enough workers - they began to create camps. The NEP made it possible to solve the problem of savings for industrialization. Why was he discarded? Yes, because Stalin needed a country that unquestioningly obeyed him and only him. Post-war industrialization was also slowed down by Stalin: read “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR.” The example of the atomic bomb is typical: back in 1939, our experts proposed a project that was better than the American one, but it was shelved, and in 1946 the bomb was created according to American drawings. As a result, our industrialization has not yet been completed. Now we need to catch up with post-industrial, “information” societies, and it will be very difficult to do this due to the consequences of the dominance of the command-administrative system. In the speech, Ph.D. G.V. Kostyrchenko “Stalin and the national question in the USSR” touched upon the most acute problem for Russian history, which turned out to be fatal for the fate of the Soviet state in the 20th century. Surprisingly, in pre-revolutionary times, the national issue was perceived by the majority of Russian parties as secondary. Only Social Democracy, especially the Bolsheviks, paid significant attention to it, and it was Stalin, on Lenin’s instructions, who took up its theoretical development. However, it was not original. The Bolsheviks initially preached the inequality of peoples, whose rights depended on their numbers, the size and location of the territories they occupied and other factors. The program of cultural-national autonomy criticized by Stalin was by no means “curious”: it contained a rational scheme for solving national problems on the basis of a homogeneous territorial and administrative division of the country into provinces with the unification and equality of regional and municipal bodies. Only the humanitarian sphere (national culture, education, information, religion) should have been regulated by ethnic communities. National-cultural autonomy was designed on the basis of the principle of extraterritoriality, which was supposed to serve as a factor restraining the national separatism inherent in territorial autonomies.
After the fall of autocracy, Stalin advocated the introduction of “regional autonomy,” but then supported Lenin, who insisted on recognizing the right of nations to self-determination, even to the point of complete separation. In this way, while remaining Unitarians at heart, the Bolsheviks looked for political allies in the struggle for power. When they became the masters of the country, they had no choice but to officially declare the right of nations to self-determination and enshrine the principle of federation in legislation. Within the party itself in 1919, the principle of unitarianism finally triumphed, which finally “separated” political declarations from real policy on the national question. Real unitarism was ensured by the party apparatus, and somewhat later the decorative multi-stage structure of the USSR was erected. Knowing the sad outcome of this experiment, it can be argued: the unrealized Stalinist plan, which provided for the preservation of a unified Russia as the basis of the Soviet state, could have been more viable. The “indigenization of personnel” in the national republics stimulated centrifugal tendencies on the outskirts, which led to the collapse of the multinational state as soon as the central government and unifying structures, especially the party, became paralyzed. Ph.D. A.V. Golubev made a report on the topic “The evolution of foreign cultural stereotypes of Soviet society: Stalinism and 50 years after.” Foreign cultural stereotypes, which have ethnic and foreign policy components, are part of national self-awareness, characterizing a nation’s vision of its place in the world, its attitude towards other cultures and value systems. In the course of modernization, irreversible changes occur in the system of values and culture, and, based on this, the speaker traced the dynamics of the Russian population's perception of the West as both a reference and an alternative cultural-historical type. At the beginning of the 20th century. New politicized stereotypes are replacing traditional ethnic stereotypes of mass consciousness (reflected primarily in folklore), which mainly reflected personal qualities inherent in other nations. The image of a German, an Englishman, a Pole is replaced by the image of Germany, Great Britain, Poland, etc. The First World War turned out to be only a prologue to stronger social, political, cultural, and psychological upheavals. The victory of the 1917 revolution intensified the mythologization of mass consciousness, especially in the era of totalitarianism, which sought to control not only social actions, but also the emotions and thoughts of the population. One of the means used for this was the mobilization of society to achieve a national goal, for which the Stalinist regime put forward a program for the qualitative renewal of the country, i.e. essentially 203
Its modernization program. Thus, there was a general politicization of mass consciousness, consciously pushed through the propaganda system. The picture of the outside world as an arena of struggle between the forces of progress and reaction was the core of the new official mythology. The surrounding world was presented as a source of both a real military threat to the USSR and possible technical or food assistance, an ally in a future war, etc. Having first acted as convinced Westerners, the Bolsheviks, as a result of dogmatization and mythologization of Marxism under the dominance of traditional consciousness, then came to xenophobia, which became an essential characteristic of Soviet political culture. Isolationism dominated much of Soviet history, culminating during the Cold War. The West was perceived as a “dark” danger zone, dominated by hostile forces. But at the same time, the idea of technological progress along Western lines remained attractive. If for some the image of the West, in accordance with official mythology, was painted in gloomy colors, then for others it appeared as a mirror alternative to everything that was happening in the USSR, but with a positive sign. The idea that the USSR was one of the world's main "centers of gravity" for workers of the West and revolutionaries of the East was affirmed in the mass consciousness, which had little correspondence with reality. At the same time, the image of our country was created as a positive alternative to the West. Soviet propaganda emphasized the decisive influence of the USSR on the entire system of international relations and the superiority of Soviet culture over Western culture. Since 1933, the role of the main enemy passed to Hitler's Germany, but after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the outbreak of World War II, at least at the political and propaganda level, it was replaced by Great Britain. During the war years, Germany firmly secured its first place on the list of enemies, and after the war, this place was occupied by the United States of America. In the immediate post-war years, the Soviet leadership actively tried to minimize the consequences of many Soviet people's exposure to everyday life in the West. The "Thaw" has multiplied the channels of information. At the next stage, in 1964-1985. In the USSR, the intensive establishment of contacts between Soviet citizens and foreigners continued. The emergence of elements of civil society and the growth of alternative state sources of information about the West led to the erosion of established foreign policy stereotypes. Representation of the 1930s. about the West as an “anti-world” was replaced by the opposite myth about a world where everything is much better than ours. Since 1985, the stereotypes of the Cold War began to crumble. The disadvantages gave way to advantages, and the definition of “civilized countries” appeared, from which Russia was excluded. The West was expected to provide loans, investments, humanitarian aid and, as a result, a sharp increase in living standards. The results of perestroika and market reforms led to the inversion occurring once again, reviving traditional stereotypes that demonize the West. But the absence of total propaganda, the possibility of real contacts, and the change of generations leads to the fact that the process of blurring stereotypes is accelerating. Ideas about the West are losing their mythological component and becoming more and more adequate to reality. Doctor of History O.Yu. Vasilyeva devoted her report to the topic “The Russian Orthodox Church after Stalin.” Before considering the stated topic, she considered it necessary to make two remarks. One belongs to the Smolensk bishop of the 19th century. To Ioann Sokolov: “The Russian Church outside the walls of the temple is not free from secular power.” The second is to the professor of the Theological Academy L. Voronov, who was subjected to repression during the period of Stalinism: “The Russian Church greatly honors Stalin and everything he did for her during the war years.”
By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the Russian Orthodox Church was practically destroyed in organizational terms: since 1918, local and bishops’ councils had not met, less than 10% of priests remained at large, of the many thousands of pre-revolutionary churches on the territory of the Russian Federation, a little more hundreds. The church was deprived of the rights of a legal entity, and its activities were limited exclusively to the walls of the temple, and even charity was prohibited. But this Russian Church, destroyed by the Bolsheviks, not only did not meet the enemy halfway, but supported the Soviet government. Why? The Russian Orthodox Church was separated from the state, but not from the people. The war became a key moment both in her history and in the history of her new relationship with power. No wonder the period 1943-1953. in the history of state-church relations is called the “golden decade”. Orthodoxy became an important spiritual lever for the redistribution of the world, especially the Orthodox in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, through the creation of a system of Orthodox unity under the auspices of Moscow. The rapid organizational restoration of the Russian Orthodox Church began. A patriarch was elected, a Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church was created, surviving priests were returned from the camps, and the network of operating churches was expanded. During the period of the US nuclear monopoly, the Russian Orthodox Church provided considerable service to its country in solving a number of diplomatic problems. Interchurch relations took on an anti-Vatican orientation. We managed to do a lot. Stalin granted the Russian Orthodox Church the status of a legal entity, opened up for it the possibility of leasing land, constructing buildings, etc., which his heirs later fought against. “Liberal” Khrushchev resumed the fight against religion, tightened state control over the Russian Orthodox Church, increased its taxation, deprived the clergy of the rights of administrative, financial, economic activity in religious associations, etc. Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, like Stalin, did not have a clear concept of relations with the Church, and they ruined much of what was done in 1943-1953. in relations between the Church and the state, including to the detriment of the state itself. This situation, according to the speaker, continues today. The final report on the topic “International relations and foreign policy after Stalin” was made by Doctor of Historical Sciences. L.N. Nezhinsky. He noted that at least since April 1922, when Stalin was elected General Secretary of the Party Central Committee, he had been increasingly involved in shaping the international strategy of the Soviet government. Since the mid-1930s. and literally until the last days of his life, Stalin almost single-handedly solved all the most important problems, consulting only with a narrow circle of people. He was capable of very sharp turns in politics, one of which, and quite justified at that, was a departure from the narrow class approach when creating an anti-Hitler coalition. But after the end of World War II, the class approach prevailed again, which manifested itself in a turn to the Cold War with elements of a hot war (the wars in Korea and Vietnam). The main confrontation took place not only along the West-East line, but also along the USA-USSR line. And here there was a partial return to the old doctrinal principles (capitalism is constantly rotting, imperialism inevitably gives rise to wars, etc.), although some of Stalin’s practical steps diverged from these postulates. As a result, the idea of the need for peaceful coexistence was relegated to the background. Did Stalin's foreign policy reflect the national-state interests of the country in the international arena? The answer to this question is ambiguous. Yes, it did when it comes to emergency measures to eliminate the US nuclear monopoly that threatened the very existence of the USSR, which was planning an atomic attack on the main cities of the USSR. On the other hand, in conditions of severe famine in the country in 1946-1947. Stalin ordered hundreds of thousands of tons of grain to be sent to Czechoslovakia and Romania to support the communists in the elections there.
After Stalin's death, inconsistency was observed in the foreign policy of the USSR both in the conceptual and theoretical views of the country's leaders and in their practical actions. Khrushchev and his supporters seriously changed the foreign policy course of our country, declaring that in the presence of the camp of socialism and non-aligned countries, the fatal inevitability of world war no longer exists and that peaceful coexistence is not a tactical slogan, but the main line of Soviet foreign policy. Diplomats now had to look abroad not only for enemies, but also for those with whom they could cooperate. The attitude towards the Social Democrats (under Stalin - “social fascists”) also changed. A position was put forward on the admissibility of the communists coming to power through peaceful means. But in foreign policy practice, Khrushchev was Stalin’s heir: he suppressed the uprising in Hungary, provoked the Cuban missile crisis, etc. Both Khrushchev and his successor Brezhnev retained the mechanism for developing foreign policy decisions by a small Areopagus from among the country's top leaders. The Politburo did not meet when deciding to deploy missiles in Cuba or when sending troops into Afghanistan, and during the years when Chernenko and Andropov were in power, our relations with the West deteriorated even more. Such an inheritance went to Gorbachev. No matter how you look at him, foreign policy changed radically under him, getting rid of the consideration of the struggle between capitalism and socialism as the dominant feature of world development. The search began for realistic ways to integrate the USSR into the world community, taking into account the interests of all interested parties. These approaches were maintained in the subsequent period. Russian President V.V. Putin also relies on them. Thus, the era of Stalinism in foreign policy ended in the second half of the 1980s. All nine reports (the authors of eight of them were employees of the IRI RAS) aroused considerable interest from the audience, numerous questions to the speakers and lively comments. Discussion took place on a number of topics. Questions, remarks, and speeches in the debate concerned mainly the specification of the positions of the speakers, as well as the connection of some phenomena of the past with the modern situation, the influence of the legacy of the Stalin era on our time. The round table revealed the deep interest of the scientific community in a serious analysis of the problems raised during this meeting. He demonstrated a wide pluralism of opinions about Stalin’s personality, Stalinism and the extent to which the Stalinist legacy has been overcome today. The work of the round table was covered by the press and television, several speakers gave interviews, and in the following days they appeared on a number of television channels. The materials of the round table are being prepared for publication.
A.S. Senyavsky, Doctor of Historical Sciences (Institute of Russian History RAS)
, Competition "Presentation for the lesson"
Presentation for the lesson
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Epigraph:
“We question and interrogate the past so that it can explain our present and hint at our future.” V.G. Belinsky
Lesson objectives:
- introduce various assessments of Stalin’s personality, consider his influence on the era and the influence of the era on Stalin’s personality
- learn how to conduct a discussion, defend your point of view, and treat other people’s opinions correctly
- work on problem solving skills
- teach the ability to analyze various sources of information
Lesson objectives:
Educational:
- repetition and generalization of knowledge on the history of the USSR from 1922 to 1953.
- deepen students' understanding of the role of personality in history.
Educational:
- develop the ability to analyze historical facts and tables;
- compare, draw conclusions, establish cause-and-effect relationships;
- express your idea briefly and prove it;
- compare different points of view;
- encourage students to participate in discussions.
Educational:
- instill an interest in the history of your own country;
- to form students’ own ideas and opinions about events occurring in history
Equipment: presentation, map, worksheets
Problem task:“Is Stalin a product of the era or is the era a product of Stalin?”
Progress of the lesson
1) Statement of the problem.
Analysis of the poem “I come from there...” B. Chichibabina.
Students note the poet’s ambiguous assessment of the Stalin era.
Define the problem: “Is Stalin a product of the era or is the era a product of Stalin?”
The table is filled out on the board during the lesson.
2) Brief Biography of I.V. Stalin until 1922 (student message):
In 1879, a boy was born - Joseph, his father gave him his last name - Dzhugashvili. Having come a long way, he became first Koba, then Stalin. Let's listen to his short biography until 1922. (fill out the table).
3) Solving problematic problems. Acquaintance with various points of view of contemporaries on the era.
1. Dmitrievsky S. wrote: “Stalin, having gradually nullified all the beginnings of Soviet democracy that had been created in the last Leninist years, brought the autocracy of the party in the country to its extreme expression. At the same time, within the party itself, centralization was taken to its extreme expressions...”
What is your point of view on this issue?
Students are led to believe that Stalin's dictatorship was not inevitable from the start.
Student analysis of the stages of the struggle for power in the 20s. (filling out the table).
2. Philosopher A. Tsipko wrote the following about Stalin: “The omnipotence of the revolution, which came to him for no reason, completely corrupted him. But in everything he did there was a protest against everything human. What made him angry? Perhaps this is how the rebellion of mediocrity, which decided to take revenge for all its zeros, was expressed.”
What do you think? Do you agree with this approach to Stalin's personality?
Analysis of the table “Results of Stalin’s industrialization” (working with a map, table).
3. Historian R. Medvedev wrote: “I believe that only those who were imprisoned in camps or died could not be considered victims of repression. In principle, the entire people were victims of repression.”
Do you agree with the historian? Justify your opinion.
Analysis of the table “GULAG System” (filling out the table).
4. The role of Stalin in the Second World War(according to contemporaries)
Students conclude that Stalin’s role in the victory is highly appreciated by his contemporaries.
5. Modern assessments of the role of Stalin.
Working with Worksheet 3 (Assessed by Historians and Political Figures of the Late 20th Century).
6. FOM assessment(preliminary task: make diagrams based on data on the website of the Public Opinion Foundation and analyze them).
Let’s solve the problematic problem: “Is Stalin a product of the era or is the era a product of Stalin?”
Students express their opinions and make a general conclusion: “The era gave birth to Stalin, and then he himself began to shape it.”
Homework: choose 1) a reasoned essay on the issue or compose a historical portrait of Stalin.
Without exaggeration, it can be said that during the Great Patriotic War, Stalin was the main leader of the country; all the main levers of party and state administration were concentrated in his hands. All the most important issues of war, domestic and foreign policy were resolved under his leadership. The results of his activities were of fateful significance for the socialist state, people, and army.
Activities of I.V. Stalin was assessed by many historians, economists, political scientists, sociologists, and philosophers. Among the participants in the discussion we can name such researchers as O. Latsis, G. Lisichkin, I. Popov, N. Shmelev and others. The authors are similar in their assessment of Stalin as an outstanding personality who had a huge influence on the historical process on a global scale. Several approaches can be distinguished in the works of researchers: Stalin is an outstanding figure, under whose leadership the country achieved enormous victories (building socialism, defeating fascism, etc.), but at the same time he was also a person who made mistakes and miscalculations that entailed victims; Stalin is an outstanding villain, a criminal who led the country to the implementation of utopia, destroying millions of people with the help of the totalitarian system he created.
I would like to note the research of Dmitry Volkogonov. Volkogonov admits that he went through three stages in the evolution of his views: disappointment in the idea, intellectual confusion, determination to meet the truth and understand it. He believes that Lenin prepared the ground for the arrival of Stalin: “Stalin is an outstanding student of Lenin, a successor of his work. Both are fighting to realize a utopia, which is objectively doomed to failure. Stalin’s role is assessed as criminal during the Great Patriotic War.” 1
How did his closest comrades and associates evaluate the activities of I.V. Stalin during the Great Patriotic War?
Of great value in resolving this issue are K. Simonov’s records of his conversations with famous commanders. Simonov writes: “For Zhukov, Stalin during the war is a man who took upon his shoulders the most difficult position in a warring state.” 2 Speaking about Stalin’s activities as Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Zhukov noted: “Stalin understood strategic issues from the very beginning of the war. Strategy was close to his usual sphere of politics, and the more directly strategic issues came into contact with political issues, the more confident he felt in them... his intelligence and talent allowed him to master the operational art so much during the war that, calling commanders to him fronts and talking with them on topics related to operations, he showed himself to be a person who understands this no worse, and sometimes better, than his subordinates. At the same time, in a number of cases he found and suggested interesting operational solutions.” 3
Already in the first difficult days of the war, Stalin without hesitation accepted immeasurable responsibility for the fate of the army, the country, for the fate of millions of Soviet people. As the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Stalin had a huge burden of direct participation in the planning, preparation, and leadership of every major operation in the theater of war, heavy, primary responsibility for their success or failure, for the fate of millions of people who participated in these operations.
The name of Stalin is associated with the solution to the grandiose problems of that era, the enthusiasm and heroism of millions of Soviet people. During the years of difficult trials, the people recognized him as a leader capable of saving the country. And Stalin showed tremendous will, firmness, unprecedented energy, and determination in leading the army and the state, in achieving victory over the enemy.
And here is what A.M. Vasilevsky said about Stalin’s activities as Supreme Commander-in-Chief: “The truth must be written about Stalin as a military leader during the war years. He was not a military man, but he had a brilliant mind. He knew how to penetrate deeply into the essence of the matter and suggest military solutions.” 4
Let us also quote Marshal I.S. Konev’s statement: “Stalin’s reaction to our proposal to award him the title of Generalissimo was very interesting. This was after the war. At the Politburo meeting where this issue was discussed, Zhukov, Vasilevsky, myself and Rokossovsky were present. Stalin initially refused, but we persistently put forward this proposal. I've talked about this twice. And I must say that at that moment I sincerely considered it necessary and deserved. We motivated by the fact that, according to the status of the Russian army, a commander who has won great victories and victoriously completed a campaign is awarded such a title.” 5
As the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Stalin had a huge burden of direct participation in the planning, preparation, and leadership of every major operation in the theater of war, heavy, primary responsibility for their success or failure, for the fate of millions of people who participated in these operations. And personal responsibility for fulfilling the main task is whether he, the commander and leader, will be able to lead the country through all the most difficult trials of the war and pave the way to final victory.
History shows that there were no commanders who did not make mistakes and miscalculations in their activities. Stalin also had them. But in general, his activity as Supreme Commander-in-Chief was characterized by a deep creative analysis of the current situation, the ability to make non-standard decisions, the originality of the strategic plan and the greatest perseverance in carrying out the planned military operations. These qualities were clearly manifested when making the most important decisions on the conduct of war, planning operations, in analyzing the state and capabilities of one’s troops, the plans and forces of the enemy, in creating groupings of troops and reserves, in choosing the directions of the main attacks, in a flexible and quick response to changes in the situation, in careful and comprehensive preparation of operations in moral, political, operational, logistical and technical terms, in the skillful selection and timely movement of personnel.
You can endlessly quote government and military figures, scientists and writers. The essence will be the same, if they are honest and responsible persons before history - Stalin created history in the name of the good of peoples, humanity.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was a great thinker, politician, statesman, commander, he fought for the honor and independence of his country, his people. He looked far ahead, directed the course of events, and foresaw the consequences of decisions made. And he never, under any circumstances, liked to rest on his laurels, and did not allow others to do the same.
Notes:
1 D.A. Volkogonov. Seven leaders.- M., 1995.- P.117.
2 K.M. Simonov. Through the eyes of a man of my generation. - M., 1988. - P.358.
3 Ibid. - P.372.
4 Ibid.- P.451.
5 Ibid. - P.405.
Bibliography:
1. D.A. Volkogonov. Seven leaders. - M., 1995.
2. K.M. Simonov. Through the eyes of a man of my generation. - M., 1988.