The term "Stalinism" refers to the brutal dictatorship which lasted from 1927 to 1953 in
Russia and Eastern European countries. Although he was the leader of Soviet Russia, after the Second World War Stalin soon became the dictator of a Soviet Union which had expanded to most of Eastern Europe. Indeed Stalin along with the Western leaders, rapidly divided up the spheres of influence of the victors of WWII, during unofficial meetings, such as in Churchill's visit to Stalin in October 1944, or official ones, such as the Yalta or the Potsdam meetings, in February and June 1945 respectively. By the end of Potsdam, the satellization of Eastern Europe was nearly complete , and soon the Stalinist system applied to Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland. Stalin's government has been defined as "A totalizing system, legitimized in terms of perfection, managed by convinced utopians and backed up by terror". What were the central features of Stalinism in Eastern Europe?
[...] This was the case in Hungary or Romania for example, where all non-communist parties were absorbed into the government as part of a coalition government, whereas in reality they had no say. Parliaments were expression of party dictates and all ministerial appointments were made amongst communists. Any potentially independent groups such as the middle stratum which consisted of survivors of the ancient elite, the entrepreneurial class, or the intelligentsia were crushed. “Through reform as the carrot and the use of terror as the stick the communists backed by the omnipresent NKVD and the Red Army, crushed all political opposition.” . [...]
[...] These pressures were efficient, as for example in Czechoslovakia we can see that the percentages of collectivized arable land rose from 25% in 1950 to 48% in There was clearly a desire amongst the party for agricultural population to assimilate itself to the urban population, with a purely economic function and target-reaching work organisation. Indeed quotas of production were set by party members, who were not familiar with agriculture, and thus set incoherent demands. This illustrates the party's refusal to acknowledge the fact agricultural work necessitates certain skills for it to be efficient. [...]
[...] Indeed under the process of “domestic atomization” each Eastern European countries' exchanges were controlled by Soviet government. For example, the satellite countries were dependent on Soviet Russia for industrial development. Indeed they were trapped in a client relationship, and needed Soviet supplies for industrial development. The process of Stalinism thus destroyed any national road to socialism by imposing a single model and block discipline. It must be said however that there was some support for the system at different levels of Eastern European society. [...]
[...] The “Muscovite” leaders, who were more trusted than the Native communists, began the mass purges of their parties, with the murder and persecution of nationalist communist leaders such as Koci Xoxe in Albania, who was sentenced to death as a Titoist in mid 1949, or the Polish communist leader Gomulka, who was placed under house arrest in All Eastern European countries but the GDR witnessed the trials of leaders of the communist party. On average 25% of all party members were expelled . [...]
[...] The reactions it fuelled were varied, with on the one hand some support stemming notably from idealists and beneficiaries of the system, and on the other the majority of the population who considered Stalinism to be an alien political system. The main feature of Stalinism in the economic field was the high and rapid industrialization which was made possible with the exploitation of the peasants. In both the industrial and agriculture fields, the organisation was controlled by the centre which proved to be inefficient. [...]
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