Lenin
How far was Stalinism the outcome of Leninist political practice?The political system which existed in the Soviet Union under Stalin was a system of terror. The purges of the 1930s sent millions of Russians to their deaths or to the Gulags, the population was scared of the secret police, the NKVD, the forced collectivization of agriculture had wiped out a part of Russian society, the Kulaks. The show trials of the thirties had firmly established Stalin as the leader of the Soviet Union. What requires investigation is how far was this regime of terror a new entity in the Soviet Union or how far it was a continuation the state set up by Lenin after the Russian revolution in 1917.The regime set up by Lenin did have a secret police, the Cheka and it was authoritarian, especially in the the years after the revolution and the civil war. There was forced grain requisitioning during the period of War Communism and political enemies were exiled. That is by no means in question. The difference is that during the Leninist years there was not the wholesale slaughter of millions of Soviet citizens as there was under Stalin in the 1930s. It can be argued therefore, that Stalinism was partly the outcome of Leninist political practice bec
It can be argued, therefore, that Stalinism could not have come from Leninism because of the reversal by Stalin of Lenin's policy. This, in turn lead to the setting up of the 'Red' army. Therefore Stalin was not, by any means, ultimately destined to become the leader of the Soviet Union. In these trials Stalin's political opposition were accused, in the case of Zinoviev and Kamenev of plotting Stalin's murder. Although Lenin had used the secret police to capture political enemies and ensure that opposition was silenced, as in the case of the Krondstadt rebellion, there was not the use of terror on such a large scale as there was under Stalin. The fact that Stalin reverted Lenin's policy of NEP was a significant break with the policy of Lenin. This may go some way to explaining why he felt the need to be so repressive to any potential political enemies. The purpose of these trials was to discredit the people whom Stalin feared as potential opposition, people such as Bukharin, Rykov and Yagoda. The Soviet secret police, or Cheka, was not a product of the civil war itself, it had been set up in December 1917. Bullock then goes on to write about the way in which Stalin was described by those closest to him, words such as,"-chronic suspicion, self-absorption, jealousy, hypersensitivity, megalomania-"This all helps to explain the reasoning behind the terror and the purges, that is, Stalin's psychological make-up. This was extended with the introduction of the NEP and a return to some level of capitalism in agriculture. This process went on from 1924 until 1928 when Zinoviev and Kamenev decided to support Stalin and accept the rule of one party. However to Stalin the peasants were some form of enemy who, especially the Kulaks, needed to be 'liquidated' as a class. Alex De Jonge goes further to say that Lenin had,".
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Acceptance Essays
