Editing Stalinism (section)

== Stalinist policies ==
[[File:Lenin Stalin gorky-02 (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|[[Photo manipulation|Modified photo]] intended to show [[Vladimir Lenin]] with Stalin in the early 1920s<ref>{{cite book|last1=Gilbert|first1=Felix|author-link1=Felix Gilbert|last2=Large|first2=David Clay|title=The End of the European Era: 1890 to the Present|edition= 6th|year=2008|page=213|publisher=[[W. W. Norton & Company]]|location=New York City|isbn=978-0-393-93040-5}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Jones|first1=Jonathan|author-link1=Jonathan Jones (journalist)|title=The fake photographs that predate Photoshop|url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/aug/29/fake-photography-before-photoshop|access-date=27 August 2016|work=The Guardian|date=29 August 2012|quote=In a 1949 portrait, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin is seen as a young man with Lenin. Stalin and Lenin were close friends, judging from this photograph. But it is doctored, of course. Two portraits have been sutured to sentimentalise Stalin's life and closeness to Lenin.}}</ref>]]
[[File:Stalin birthday2.jpg|thumb|left|Members of the [[Chinese Communist Party]] celebrating Stalin's birthday in 1949]]
Some historians view Stalinism as a reflection of the ideologies of [[Leninism]] and [[Marxism]], but some argue that it is separate from the [[Socialism|socialist]] ideals it stemmed from. After a political struggle that culminated in the defeat of the [[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharinists]] (the "Party's [[Right Opposition|Right Tendency]]"), Stalinism was free to shape policy without opposition, ushering in an era of harsh [[totalitarianism]] that worked toward rapid [[industrialization]] regardless of the human cost.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States|url=https://archive.org/details/sovietexperiment00suny|url-access=registration|last=Suny|first=Ronald|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1998|location=New York, New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/sovietexperiment00suny/page/221 221]}}</ref>

From 1917 to 1924, though often appearing united, Stalin, [[Vladimir Lenin]], and [[Leon Trotsky]] had discernible ideological differences. In his dispute with Trotsky, Stalin de-emphasized the role of workers in advanced [[capitalist countries]] (e.g., he considered the [[Working class in the United States|U.S. working class]] "bourgeoisified" [[labor aristocracy]]).{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}}

All other [[October Revolution]] 1917 [[Bolshevik]] leaders regarded their revolution more or less as just the beginning, with Russia as the springboard on the road toward worldwide revolution. Stalin introduced the idea of [[socialism in one country]] by the autumn of 1924, a theory standing in sharp contrast to Trotsky's [[permanent revolution]] and all earlier socialistic theses. The revolution did not spread outside Russia as Lenin had assumed it soon would. The revolution had not succeeded even within other former territories of the [[Russian Empire]]―such as [[Poland]], [[Finland]], [[Lithuania]], [[Latvia]], and [[Estonia]]. On the contrary, these countries had returned to [[capitalist]] [[bourgeois]] rule.<ref>On Finland, Poland etc., Deutscher, chapter 6 "Stalin during the Civil War", (p. 148 in the Swedish 1980 printing)</ref>

{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|bgcolor=|quote=He is an unprincipled intriguer, who subordinates everything to the preservation of his own power. He changes his theory according to whom he needs to get rid of.|source=Bukharin on Stalin's theoretical position, 1928.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sakwa |first1=Richard |title=The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union |date=17 August 2005 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-80602-7 |page=165 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CJ6IAgAAQBAJ&dq=bukharin+he+changes+his+theory+according+to+whom+he+needs+to+get+rid+of&pg=PA165 |language=en}}</ref>}}

Despite this, by the autumn of 1924, Stalin's notion of socialism in [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Soviet Russia]] was initially considered next to [[blasphemy]] by other [[13th Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|Politburo members]], including [[Zinoviev]] and [[Kamenev]] to the intellectual left; [[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]], [[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharin]], and [[Mikhail Tomsky|Tomsky]] to the pragmatic right; and the powerful Trotsky, who belonged to no side but his own. None would even consider Stalin's concept a potential addition to communist ideology. Stalin's socialism in one-country doctrine could not be imposed until he had come close to being the Soviet Union's [[Autocracy|autocratic ruler]] around 1929. Bukharin and the [[Right Opposition]] expressed their support for imposing Stalin's ideas, as Trotsky had been exiled, and Zinoviev and Kamenev had been expelled from the party.<ref>[[Isaac Deutscher|Deutscher, Isaac]]. [1949] 1961. "The General Secretary." Pp. 221–29 in ''Stalin, A Political Biography'' (2nd ed.).</ref> In a 1936 interview with journalist [[Roy W. Howard]], Stalin articulated his rejection of [[world revolution]] and said, "We never had such plans and intentions" and "The export of revolution is nonsense".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Vyshinsky |first1=Andrey Yanuaryevich |title=Speeches Delivered at the Fifth Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, September–October, 1950 |date=1950 |publisher=Information Bulletin of the Embassy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics |page=76 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1VM1AQAAIAAJ&dq=Stalin+we+ever+had+such+plans+and+intentions&pg=PA76 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Volkogonov |first1=Dmitriĭ Antonovich |title=Autopsy for an Empire: The Seven Leaders who Built the Soviet Regime |date=1998 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-0-684-83420-7 |page=125 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S5XlHA_75YwC&dq=Stalin+we+ever+had+such+plans+and+intentions&pg=PA125 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kotkin |first1=Stephen |title=Stalin. Vol II, Waiting for Hitler, 1928–1941 |date=2017 |publisher=London : Allen Lane |isbn=978-0-7139-9945-7 |page=125 |url=https://archive.org/details/stalinvoliiwaiti0000kotk/page/287/mode/1up}}</ref>

=== Proletarian state ===
Traditional communist thought holds that the state will gradually "[[Withering away of the state|wither away]]" as the implementation of socialism reduces class distinction. But Stalin argued that the [[Dictatorship of the proletariat|proletarian state]] (as opposed to the [[Capitalist state|bourgeois state]]) must become stronger before it can wither away. In Stalin's view, [[counter-revolutionary]] elements will attempt to derail the transition to [[Communist society|full communism]], and the state must be powerful enough to defeat them. For this reason, [[Communist state|communist regimes]] influenced by Stalin are [[totalitarian]].<ref>"[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Stalinism Stalinism]." ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''. [1998] 2020.</ref> Other leftists, such as [[Anarcho-communism|anarcho-communists]], have criticized the [[party-state]] of the Stalin-era Soviet Union, accusing it of being bureaucratic and calling it a [[Reformism|reformist]] [[social democracy]] rather than a form of revolutionary communism.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Price |first=Wayne |title=The Abolition of the State |url=https://mirror.anarhija.net/usa.anarchistlibraries.net/mirror/w/wp/wayne-price-the-abolition-of-the-state.a4.pdf |access-date=2 March 2022}}</ref>

[[Sheng Shicai]], a Chinese [[warlord]] with Communist leanings, invited Soviet intervention and allowed Stalinist rule to extend to [[Xinjiang]] province in the 1930s. In 1937, Sheng conducted a purge similar to the [[Great Purge]], imprisoning, torturing, and killing about 100,000 people, many of them [[Uyghurs]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IAs9AAAAIAAJ&q=warlords+and+muslims|title=Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: a political history of Republican Sinkiang 1911–1949|author=Andrew D. W. Forbes|year=1986|publisher=CUP Archive|location=Cambridge, England|isbn=978-0-521-25514-1|page=151|access-date=December 31, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MT2D_0_eBPQC&pg=PA57|title=Oasis Identities: Uyghur Nationalism Along China's Silk Road|last1=Rudelson|first1=Justin Jon|last2=Rudelson|first2=Justin Ben-Adam|last3=Ben-Adam|first3=Justin|date=1997|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-10786-0|language=en}}</ref>

=== Ideological repression and censorship ===
{{Main|August Uprising|Stalinist repressions in Azerbaijan|Stalinist repressions in Mongolia| Dekulakization|Doctors' plot| Anti-cosmopolitan campaign|Industrial Party Trial|Sharashka| Night of the Murdered Poets|UPTI Affair|Wrecking (Soviet Union)|1931 Menshevik Trial|Pavlovian session|Law of Spikelets|Blacklisting (Soviet policy)|Shakhty Trial|Korets–Landau leaflet}}
{{Quote box
|quote='''Cybernetics''': a reactionary pseudoscience that appeared in the U.S.A. after World War II and also spread through other capitalist countries. Cybernetics clearly reflects one of the basic features of the bourgeois worldview—its inhumanity, striving to transform workers into an extension of the machine, into a tool of production, and an instrument of war. At the same time, for cybernetics an imperialistic utopia is characteristic—replacing living, thinking man, fighting for his interests, by a machine, both in industry and in war. The instigators of a new world war use cybernetics in their dirty, practical affairs.
|source="Cybernetics" in the ''Short Philosophical Dictionary'', 1954<ref>Quoted in {{harvnb|Peters|2012|p=150}}. From {{cite book |editor1-first=Mark M. |editor1-last=Rosenthal |editor2-first=Pavel F. |editor2-last=Iudin |title=Kratkii filosofskii slovar |trans-title=Short Philosophical Dictionary |edition=4th  |location=Moscow |publisher=Gospolitizdat |date=1954 |pages=236–237 }}</ref>
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Under Stalin, repression was extended to academic scholarship, the natural sciences,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Service |first1=Robert |title=Stalin: A Biography |date=2005 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-01697-2 |page=307 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hSWK6Dh4wRgC&dq=stalin+repression+natural+science&pg=PA307 |language=en}}</ref> and literary fields.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kemp-Welch |first1=A. |title=Stalin and the Literary Intelligentsia, 1928–39 |date=27 July 2016 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-349-21447-1 |page=222 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P-y-DAAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+repression+natural+science&pg=PA222 |language=en}}</ref> In particular, Einstein's [[theory of relativity]] was subject to public denunciation, many of his ideas were rejected on ideological grounds<ref>{{cite book |last1=Vucinich |first1=Alexander |title=Einstein and Soviet Ideology |date=2001 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-0-8047-4209-2 |pages=1–15, 90–120|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f_-lAYZzP1UC |language=en}}</ref> and condemned as "bourgeois idealism" in the Stalin era.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Daniels |first1=Robert Vincent |title=Russia, the Roots of Confrontation |date=1985 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-77966-2 |page=181 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yhjO-9aB0nwC&dq=stalin+einstein+bourgeois+idealism+theory+of+relativity&pg=PA181 |language=en}}</ref>

A policy of ideological repression impacted various disciplinary fields such as [[genetics]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stanchevici |first1=Dmitri |title=Stalinist Genetics: The Constitutional Rhetoric of T. D. Lysenko |date=2 March 2017 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-351-86445-9 |page=9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qCUlDwAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+genetics+repression&pg=PA9 |language=en}}</ref> [[cybernetics]],<ref name="Univ of North Carolina Press">{{cite book |last1=Zubok |first1=Vladislav M. |title=A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev |date=1 February 2009 |publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-0-8078-9905-2 |page=166 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3j2VJj1hs1EC |language=en}}</ref> [[biology]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Riehl |first1=Nikolaus |last2=Seitz |first2=Frederick |title=Stalin's Captive: Nikolaus Riehl and the Soviet Race for the Bomb |date=1996 |publisher=Chemical Heritage Foundation |isbn=978-0-8412-3310-2 |page=199 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RycjxBr15NAC&dq=stalin+genetics+repression&pg=PA199 |language=en}}</ref> [[Marxism and Problems of Linguistics|linguistics]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Harrison |first1=Selig S. |title=India: The Most Dangerous Decades |date=8 December 2015 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-7780-5 |page=149 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9jbWCgAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+linguistics+repression&pg=PA149 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Gerovitch |first1=Slava |title=From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics |date=17 September 2004 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-57225-5 |pages=41–42 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QirR7QYPFZQC&dq=stalin+linguistics+repression&pg=PA41 |language=en}}</ref> [[physics]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Krylov |first1=Anna I. |title=The Peril of Politicizing Science |journal=The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters |date=10 June 2021 |volume=12 |issue=22 |pages=5371–5376 |doi=10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01475 |pmid=34107688 |s2cid=235392946 |language=en |issn=1948-7185|doi-access=free }}</ref> [[sociology]],<ref name=eaw8-9>Elizabeth Ann Weinberg, ''The Development of Sociology in the Soviet Union'', Taylor & Francis, 1974, {{ISBN|0-7100-7876-5}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=RXwOAAAAQAAJ&q=sociology+disappeared&pg=PA8 Google Print, pp. 8–9]</ref> [[psychology]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ings |first1=Simon |title=Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy, 1905–1953 |date=21 February 2017 |publisher=Open Road + Grove/Atlantic |isbn=978-0-8021-8986-8 |pages=1–528 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OYz1DAAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+Pedology+banned&pg=PT64 |language=en}}</ref> [[pedology]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ings |first1=Simon |title=Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy, 1905–1953 |date=21 February 2017 |publisher=Open Road + Grove/Atlantic |isbn=978-0-8021-8986-8 |pages=1–528 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OYz1DAAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+Pedology+banned&pg=PT64 |language=en}}</ref> [[mathematical logic]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Avron |first1=Arnon |last2=Dershowitz |first2=Nachum |last3=Rabinovich |first3=Alexander |title=Pillars of Computer Science: Essays Dedicated to Boris (Boaz) Trakhtenbrot on the Occasion of His 85th Birthday |date=8 February 2008 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-3-540-78126-4 |page=2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GFX2qiLuRAMC&dq=stalin+repression+mathematics&pg=PA2 |language=en}}</ref> [[economics]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gregory |first1=Paul R. |last2=Stuart |first2=Robert C. |title=Soviet Economic Structure and Performance |date=1974 |publisher=Harper & Row |isbn=978-0-06-042509-8 |page=324 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JyiTAAAAIAAJ&q=stalin+repression+mathematics |language=en}}</ref> and [[statistics]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Salsburg |first1=David |title=The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century |date=May 2002 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0-8050-7134-4 |pages=147–149 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ej9xytYdkyAC |language=en}}</ref>

[[Pseudoscientific]] theories of [[Trofim Lysenko]] were favoured over scientific genetics during the Stalin era.<ref name="Univ of North Carolina Press" /> Soviet scientists were forced to denounce any work that contradicted Lysenko.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wrinch |first1=Pamela N. |title=Science and Politics in the U.S.S.R.: The Genetics Debate |journal=World Politics |date=1951 |volume=3 |issue=4 |pages=486–519 |doi=10.2307/2008893 |jstor=2008893 |s2cid=146284128 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2008893 |issn=0043-8871|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Over 3,000 biologists were imprisoned, fired,<ref name=":2">{{cite book| last1 = Birstein| first1 = Vadim J.| title = The Perversion Of Knowledge: The True Story Of Soviet Science| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=2XqEAAAAQBAJ| publisher = Perseus Books Group| date = 2013| page = | isbn = 978-0-7867-5186-0| access-date = 2016-06-30| quote = Academician Schmalhausen, Professors Formozov and Sabinin, and 3,000 other biologists, victims of the August 1948 Session, lost their professional jobs because of their integrity and moral principles [...]}}</ref> or executed for attempting to oppose Lysenkoism and genetic research was effectively destroyed until the death of Stalin in 1953.<ref name="Soyfer Nature" /><ref name=":3">{{cite book |last1=Soĭfer |first1=Valeriĭ. |title=Lysenko and The Tragedy of Soviet Science |date=1994 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |location=New Brunswick, N.J. |isbn=978-0-8135-2087-2}}</ref> Due to the ideological influence of [[Lysenkoism]], crop yields in the USSR declined.<ref>{{cite web |last=Wade |first=Nicholas |title=The Scourge of Soviet Science |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-scourge-of-soviet-science-1466192179 |website=[[Wall Street Journal]] |date=June 17, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Swedin |first=Eric G. |title=Science in the Contemporary World : An Encyclopedia |url=https://archive.org/details/sciencecontempor00swed |url-access=limited |date=2005 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |location=Santa Barbara, California |isbn=978-1-85109-524-7 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/sciencecontempor00swed/page/n181 168], 280}}</ref><ref name="Soyfer Nature">{{cite journal |last=Soyfer |first=Valery N.  |author-link=Valery Soyfer |title=The Consequences of Political Dictatorship for Russian Science |journal=Nature Reviews Genetics |date=1 September 2001 |volume=2 |issue=9 |pages=723–729 |doi=10.1038/35088598 |pmid=11533721 |s2cid=46277758 }}</ref>

Orthodoxy was enforced in the [[cultural sphere]]. Prior to Stalin's rule, literary, religious and national representatives had some level of autonomy in the 1920s but these groups were later rigorously repressed during the Stalinist era.<ref name="Censorship: A World Encyclopedia">{{cite book |last1=Jones |first1=Derek |title=Censorship: A World Encyclopedia |date=1 December 2001 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-79864-1 |page=2083 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gDqsCQAAQBAJ&q=stalin+mass+censorshipI&pg=PA2092 |language=en}}</ref> [[Socialist realism]] was imposed in artistic production and other creative industries such as [[music]], [[film]] and [[sport]] were subject to extreme levels of political control.<ref name="Censorship: A World Encyclopedia"/>

[[Historical negationism|Historical falsification]] of political events such as the October Revolution and the Brest-Litovsk Treaty became a distinctive element of Stalin's regime. A notable example is the 1938 publication, [[History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course|''History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)'']],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Suny |first1=Ronald Grigor |title=Stalin, Falsifier in Chief: E. H. Carr and the Perils of Historical Research Introduction |journal=Revolutionary Russia |date=2 January 2022 |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=11–14 |doi=10.1080/09546545.2022.2065740 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09546545.2022.2065740 |language=en |issn=0954-6545}}</ref> in which the history of the governing party was significantly altered and revised including the importance of the leading figures during the Bolshevik revolution. Retrospectively, Lenin's primary associates such as Zinoviev, Trotsky, [[Radek]] and Bukharin were presented as "vacillating", "opportunists" and "foreign spies" whereas Stalin was depicted as the chief discipline during the revolution. However, in reality, Stalin was considered a relatively unknown figure with secondary importance at the time of the event.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bailey |first1=Sydney D. |title=Stalin's Falsification of History: The Case of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty |journal=The Russian Review |date=1955 |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=24–35 |doi=10.2307/126074 |jstor=126074 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/126074 |issn=0036-0341|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

In his book, ''[[The Stalin School of Falsification]]'', Leon Trotsky argued that the Stalinist faction routinely distorted political events, forged a theoretical basis for irreconcilable concepts such as the notion of "Socialism in One Country" and misrepresented the views of opponents through an array of employed historians alongside economists to justify policy manoeuvering and safeguarding its own set of material interests.<ref name="The Stalin School of Falsification">{{cite book |last1=Trotsky |first1=Leon |title=The Stalin School of Falsification |date=13 January 2019 |publisher=Pickle Partners Publishing |isbn=978-1-78912-348-7 |pages=vii-89 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PF2LDwAAQBAJ&q=stalin+school |language=en}}</ref> He cited a range of historical documents such as private letters, telegrams, party speeches, meeting [[minutes]], and suppressed texts such as [[Lenin's Testament]].<ref name="The Stalin School of Falsification"/> British historian [[Orlando Figes]] argued that "The urge to silence Trotsky, and all criticism of the Politburo, was in itself a crucial factor in Stalin's rise to power".<ref>{{cite book |last=Figes |first=Orlando |title=A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924 |pages=802 |publisher=[[Pimlico]] |date=1997}}</ref>

Cinematic productions served to foster the cult of personality around Stalin with adherents to the party line receiving [[USSR State Prize|Stalin prizes]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nicholas |first1=Sian |last2=O'Malley |first2=Tom |last3=Williams |first3=Kevin |title=Reconstructing the Past: History in the Mass Media 1890–2005 |date=13 September 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-99684-2 |pages=42–43 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-bjaAAAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+film+directors+cult+of+personality&pg=PA42 |language=en}}</ref> However, film directors and their assistants were still liable to mass arrests during the Great Terror.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nicholas |first1=Sian |last2=O'Malley |first2=Tom |last3=Williams |first3=Kevin |title=Reconstructing the Past: History in the Mass Media 1890–2005 |date=13 September 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-99684-2 |pages=42–43 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-bjaAAAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+film+directors+cult+of+personality&pg=PA42 |language=en}}</ref>
Censorship of films contributed to a [[mythology|mythologizing]] of history as seen with the films ''First Cavalry Army'' (1941) and ''[[The Defense of Tsaritsyn|Defence of Tsaritsyn]]'' (1942) in which Stalin was glorified as a central figure to the [[October Revolution]]. Conversely, the roles of other Soviet figures such as Lenin and Trotsky were diminished or misrepresented.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nicholas |first1=Sian |last2=O'Malley |first2=Tom |last3=Williams |first3=Kevin |title=Reconstructing the Past: History in the Mass Media 1890–2005 |date=13 September 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-99684-2 |pages=42–43 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-bjaAAAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+film+directors+cult+of+personality&pg=PA42 |language=en}}</ref>

=== Cult of personality ===
{{Main|Joseph Stalin's cult of personality|The Fall of Berlin (film)|The Unforgettable Year 1919| The Battle of Stalingrad (film)|The Third Blow}}
[[File:Poster of Azerbaijan 1938. Constitutions.jpg|right|thumb|150px|[[Soviet Azerbaijan]] poster featuring an enlarged Stalin with workers]]

In the aftermath of the succession struggle, in which Stalin had defeated both [[Left Opposition|Left]] and [[Right Opposition]], a cult of Stalin had materialised.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fitzpatrick |first1=Sheila |title=The Shortest History of the Soviet Union |date=6 February 2023 |publisher=Pan Macmillan |isbn=978-93-90742-78-3 |page=116 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2KynEAAAQBAJ&q=Sheila+Fitzpatrick.+A+Brief+History+of+the+Soviet+Union+%3D+Sheila+Fitzpatrick.+The+Shortest+History+of+the+Soviet+Union. |language=en}}</ref> From 1929 until 1953, there was a proliferation of [[architecture]], [[statues]], [[posters]], [[banners]] and [[iconography]] featuring Stalin in which he was increasingly identified with the state and seen as an emblem of Marxism.<ref name="Introduction">{{cite journal |last1=Pisch |first1=Anita |title=Introduction |journal=The Personality Cult of Stalin in Soviet Posters, 1929–1953 |date=2016 |pages=1–48 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1q1crzp.6 |publisher=ANU Press|jstor=j.ctt1q1crzp.6 |isbn=978-1-76046-062-4 }}</ref> In July 1930, a state decree instructed 200 artists to prepare propaganda posters for the Five Year Plans and collectivsation measures.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Pisch |first1=Anita |title=The personality cult of Stalin in Soviet posters, 1929–1953 |date=2016 |publisher=ANU Press |isbn=978-1-76046-062-4 |pages=87–190 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1q1crzp.8 |chapter=The rise of the Stalin personality cult|jstor=j.ctt1q1crzp.8 }}</ref> Historian Anita Pisch drew specific focus to the various manifestations of the personality cult in which Stalin was associated with the "Father", "Saviour" and "Warrior" cultural archetypes with the latter imagery having gained ascendency during the [[Soviet Union in World War II|Great Patrotic War]] and [[Cold War]].<ref name="Introduction" />

[[File:PomnikStalina-Praga1.jpg|thumb|left|150px|[[Stalin Monument (Prague)|Stalin's monument]] in Prague]]

Some scholars have argued that Stalin took an active involvement with the construction of the cult of personality<ref>{{cite book |last1=Saxonberg |first1=Steven |title=Transitions and Non-Transitions from Communism: Regime Survival in China, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam |date=14 February 2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-02388-8 |page=111 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zQw-RWxrPSUC&dq=stalin+built+a+cult+around+himself&pg=PA111 |language=en}}</ref> with writers such as [[Isaac Deutscher]] and Erik van Ree noting that Stalin had absorbed elements from the cult of Tsars, Orthodox Christianity and highlighting specific acts such as [[Death and state funeral of Vladimir Lenin|Lenin's embalming]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ree |first1=Erik van |title=The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin: A Study in Twentieth Century Revolutionary Patriotism |date=27 August 2003 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-78604-5 |pages=1–384 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tLZy9dhBsPgC&dq=stalin+lenin+embalmed+cult+of+personality&pg=PT191 |language=en}}</ref> Yet, other scholars have drawn on primary accounts from Stalin's associates such as [[Vyacheslav Molotov|Molotov]] which suggested he took a more critical and ambivalent attitude towards his cult of personality.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Davies |first1=Sarah |last2=Harris |first2=James |title=Stalin's World: Dictating the Soviet Order |date=14 October 2014 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-18281-1 |page=134 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TQiSBAAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+cult+of+personality+molotov&pg=PA134 |language=en}}</ref>

The cult of personality served to legitimate Stalin's authority, and establish continuity with Lenin as his "discipline, student and mentee" in the view of his wider followers.<ref name="Introduction" /><ref>{{cite book |last1=Stone |first1=Dan |title=The Oxford Handbook of Postwar European History |date=17 May 2012 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-956098-1 |page=465 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PHD3TsVlqKAC&dq=stalin+cult+of+personality+legitimise&pg=PA465 |language=en}}</ref> His successor, [[Nikita Khrushchev]], would later denounce the cult of personality around Stalin as contradictory to Leninist principles and party discourse.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Claeys |first1=Gregory |title=Encyclopedia of Modern Political Thought (set) |date=20 August 2013 |publisher=CQ Press |isbn=978-1-5063-0836-4 |page=162 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1qjlCAAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+cult+of+personality+legitimise&pg=PA162 |language=en}}</ref>

=== Class-based violence ===
Stalin blamed the [[kulak]]s for inciting [[reactionary#20th century|reactionary]] violence against the people during the implementation of [[Collective farming|agricultural collectivization]].<ref>Zuehlke, Jeffrey. 2006. ''Joseph Stalin''. [[Twenty-First Century Books]]. p. 63.</ref> In response, the state, under Stalin's leadership, initiated a violent campaign against them. This kind of campaign was later known as ''[[classicide]]'',<ref>[[Jacques Sémelin|Sémelin, Jacques]], and [[Stanley Hoffmann|Stanley Hoffman]]. 2007. ''Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide''. New York: [[Columbia University Press]]. p. 37.</ref> though several international legislatures have passed resolutions declaring the campaign a genocide.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://holodomormuseum.org.ua/en/recognition-of-holodomor-as-genocide-in-the-world/|title=Worldwide Recognition of the Holodomor as Genocide|date=October 18, 2019}}</ref> Some historians dispute that these social-class actions constitute genocide.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Davies|first1=Robert|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4s1lCwAAQBAJ&pg=PR14|title=The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia Volume 5: The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture 1931–1933|last2=Wheatcroft|first2=Stephen|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|year=2009|isbn=978-0-230-27397-9|page=xiv|author-link1=Robert William Davies|author-link2=Stephen G. Wheatcroft|access-date=September 20, 2020}}</ref><ref name="Tauger">{{cite journal |last=Tauger |first=Mark B. |url=https://carlbeckpapers.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/cbp/article/download/89/90 |title=Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the Soviet Famine of 1931–1933 |journal=The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies |issue=1506 |year=2001 |pages=1–65 |issn=2163-839X |doi=10.5195/CBP.2001.89 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170612213128/https://carlbeckpapers.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/cbp/article/download/89/90 |archive-date=12 June 2017  |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/03/the-future-did-not-work/378081/ |title=The Future Did Not Work |last=Getty |first=J. Arch|author-link=J. Arch Getty |date=2000 |website=[[The Atlantic]] |access-date=September 20, 2020}}</ref>

=== Purges and executions ===
{{Main|Great Purge|Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites"|Case of the Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization|Sandarmokh|1937 mass execution of Belarusians|Vinnytsia massacre|1941 Red Army Purge|Leningrad case| Polish Operation of the NKVD|Katyn massacre|Case of the Union of Liberation of Belarus|NKVD prisoner massacres|Estonian Operation of the NKVD|Metro-Vickers Affair|Latvian Operation of the NKVD|Stalin's shooting lists|Finnish Operation of the NKVD}}
{{multiple image|align=right|direction=horizontal|width=100|image1=Execute 346 Berias letter to Politburo.jpg|caption1=|image2=Execute 346 Stalins resolution.jpg|caption2=|image3=Execute 346 Politburo passes.jpg|footer=Left: [[Lavrenty Beria]]'s January 1940 letter to Stalin asking permission to execute 346 "[[Enemy of the people|enemies of the Communist Party and of the Soviet authorities]]" who conducted "counter-revolutionary, right-Trotskyite plotting and spying activities"<br />Middle: Stalin's handwriting: "за" (support)<br />Right: the [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Politburo]]'s decision is signed by Stalin}}
As head of the [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]], Stalin consolidated nearly absolute power in the 1930s with a Great Purge of the party that claimed to expel "opportunists" and "counter-revolutionary infiltrators".<ref name="Figes">[[Orlando Figes|Figes, Orlando]]. 2007. ''The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia''. {{ISBN|0-8050-7461-9}}.</ref>{{sfn|Gellately|2007}} Those targeted by the purge were often expelled from the party; more severe measures ranged from banishment to the [[Gulag#Formation and expansion under Stalin|Gulag labor camps]] to execution after trials held by [[NKVD troika]]s.<ref name="Figes" /><ref>[[Ian Kershaw|Kershaw, Ian]], and [[Moshe Lewin]]. 1997. ''Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison''. Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]]. {{ISBN|0-521-56521-9}}. p. 300.</ref><ref>[[Leo Kuper|Kuper, Leo]]. 1982. ''Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century''. [[Yale University Press]]. {{ISBN|0-300-03120-3}}.</ref>

In the 1930s, Stalin became increasingly worried about Leningrad party head [[Sergei Kirov]]'s growing popularity. At the [[17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|1934 Party Congress]], where the vote for the new Central Committee was held, Kirov received only three negative votes (the fewest of any candidate), while Stalin received over 100.{{sfn|Brackman|2001|p=204}}<ref group="lower-roman">An exact number of negative votes is unknown. In his memoirs, [[Anastas Mikoyan]] writes that out of 1,225 delegates, around 270 voted against Stalin and that the official number of negative votes was given as three, with the rest of ballots destroyed. Following [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s "[[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences|Secret Speech]]" in 1956, a commission of the central committee investigated the votes and found that 267 ballots were missing.</ref> After Kirov's assassination, which Stalin may have orchestrated, Stalin invented a detailed scheme to implicate opposition leaders in the murder, including Trotsky, [[Lev Kamenev]], and [[Grigory Zinoviev]].{{sfn|Brackman|2001|pp=205–206}} Thereafter, the investigations and trials expanded.{{sfn|Brackman|2001|p=207}} Stalin passed a new law on "terrorist organizations and terrorist acts" that were to be investigated for no more than ten days, with no prosecution, defense attorneys, or appeals, followed by a sentence to be imposed "quickly."{{sfn|Overy|2004|p=182}} Stalin's Politburo also issued directives on quotas for mass arrests and executions.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Harris |first1=James |title=The Anatomy of Terror: Political Violence under Stalin |date=11 July 2013 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-965566-3 |page=15 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8190eftcnDwC&dq=Stalin+quotas+police&pg=PA15 |language=en}}</ref> Under Stalin, the [[death penalty]] was extended to adolescents as young as 12 years old in 1935.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mccauley |first1=Martin |title=Stalin and Stalinism: Revised 3rd Edition |date=13 September 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-86369-4 |page=49 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oQ7dAAAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+death+penalty+12+years+old&pg=PA49 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Wright |first1=Patrick |title=Iron Curtain: From Stage to Cold War |date=28 October 2009 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-162284-7 |page=342 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ps5wZUFnE7IC&dq=stalin+death+penalty+12+years+old&pg=PA342 |language=en}}</ref>{{sfn|Boobbyer|2000|p=160}}

After that, several trials, known as the [[Moscow Trials]], were held, but the procedures were replicated throughout the country. [[Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)|Article 58]] of the legal code, which listed prohibited [[Anti-Sovietism|anti-Soviet activities]] as a counter-revolutionary crime, was applied most broadly.{{sfn|Tucker|1992|p=456}} Many alleged anti-Soviet pretexts were used to brand individuals as "enemies of the people", starting the cycle of public persecution, often proceeding to interrogation, torture, and deportation, if not death. The Russian word [[:wikt:troika|''troika'']] thereby gained a new meaning: a quick, simplified trial by a committee of three subordinated to the NKVD troika—with sentencing carried out within 24 hours.{{sfn|Overy|2004|p=182}} Stalin's hand-picked [[executioner]] [[Vasili Blokhin]] was entrusted with carrying out some of the high-profile executions in this period.<ref>[[Timothy Snyder|Snyder, Timothy]]. ''Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.'' [[Basic Books]], 2010. {{ISBN|0-465-00239-0}} p. 137.</ref>{{multiple image
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| caption2          = [[Nikolai Yezhov]], shown walking with Stalin in the top photo from the 1930s, was killed in 1940 and following his execution was edited out of the photo by Soviet censors<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/commissar_vanishes/vanishes.htm|title=Newseum: The Commissar Vanishes|access-date=July 19, 2008|archive-date=June 11, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080611034558/http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/commissar_vanishes/vanishes.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> (such retouching was a common occurrence during Stalin's rule)
}}

Many military leaders were convicted of treason, and a large-scale purge of [[Red Army]] officers followed.<ref group="lower-roman">The scale of Stalin's purge of [[Red Army]] officers was exceptional—90% of all generals and 80% of all colonels were killed. This included three out of five Marshals; 13 out of 15 Army commanders; 57 of 85 Corps commanders; 110 of 195 divisional commanders; and 220 of 406 brigade commanders, as well as all commanders of military districts.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}}

Carell, P. [1964] 1974. ''Hitler's War on Russia: The Story of the German Defeat in the East''  (first Indian ed.), translated by [[Ewald Osers|E. Osers]]. Delhi: B.I. Publications. p. 195.</ref> The repression of many formerly high-ranking revolutionaries and party members led Trotsky to claim that a "river of blood" separated Stalin's regime from Lenin's.<ref>[[Robert C. Tucker|Tucker, Robert C.]] 1999. ''Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation'',  (''[[American Council of Learned Societies]] Planning Group on Comparative Communist'' Studies). [[Transaction Publishers]]. {{ISBN|0-7658-0483-2}}. p. 5.</ref> In August 1940, Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico, where he had lived in exile since January 1937. This eliminated the last of Stalin's opponents among the former Party leadership.{{sfn|Overy|2004|p=338}}

[[Mass operations of the NKVD]] also targeted "national contingents" (foreign ethnicities) such as [[Polish people|Poles]], [[ethnic Germans]], and [[Koreans]]. A total of 350,000 (144,000 of them Poles) were arrested and 247,157 (110,000 Poles) were executed.{{sfn|Montefiore|2004|p=229}} Many Americans who had emigrated to the Soviet Union during the worst of the [[Great Depression]] were executed, while others were sent to prison camps or gulags.<ref>Tzouliadis, Tim. August 2, 2008.) "[http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7537000/7537585.stm Nightmare in the workers paradise]." [[BBC]].</ref><ref>Tzouliadis, Tim. 2008. ''The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia''. [[Penguin Press]], {{ISBN|1-59420-168-4}}.</ref> Concurrent with the purges, efforts were made to rewrite the history in Soviet textbooks and other propaganda materials. Notable people executed by [[NKVD]] were removed from the texts and photographs as though they had never existed.

In light of revelations from Soviet archives, historians now estimate that nearly 700,000 people (353,074 in 1937 and 328,612 in 1938) were executed in the course of the terror,<ref>{{cite book|editor=McLoughlin, Barry|editor2=McDermott, Kevin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8yorTJl1QEoC&pg=PA141|title=Stalin's Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union|publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]]|year=2002|isbn=978-1-4039-0119-4|page=141}}</ref> the great mass of them ordinary Soviet citizens: workers, peasants, homemakers, teachers, priests, musicians, soldiers, pensioners, ballerinas, and beggars.<ref>{{cite book|editor=McLoughlin, Barry|editor2=McDermott, Kevin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8yorTJl1QEoC&pg=PA6|title=Stalin's Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union|publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]]|year=2002|isbn=978-1-4039-0119-4|page=6}}</ref><ref name=":1">Kuromiya, Hiroaki. 2007. ''The Voices of the Dead: Stalin's Great Terror in the 1930s.'' [[Yale University Press]]. {{ISBN|0-300-12389-2}}.</ref>{{Rp|4}} Scholars estimate the total death toll for the Great Purge (1936–1938) including fatalities attributed to imprisonment to be roughly 700,000-1.2 million.<ref>{{Citation |title=Introduction: the Great Purges as history |date=1985 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511572616.002 |work=Origins of the Great Purges |pages=1–9 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/cbo9780511572616.002 |isbn=978-0-521-25921-7 |access-date=2021-12-02|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Homkes|first=Brett|date=2004|title=Certainty, Probability, and Stalin's Great Purge|url=https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1032&context=mcnair|journal=McNair Scholars Journal}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ellman |first1=Michael |title=Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments |journal=Europe-Asia Studies |date=2002 |volume=54 |issue=7 |pages=1151–1172 |doi=10.1080/0966813022000017177 |jstor=826310 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/826310 |issn=0966-8136|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Shearer |first1=David R. |title=Stalin and War, 1918–1953: Patterns of Repression, Mobilization, and External Threat |date=11 September 2023 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-00-095544-6 |page=vii |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CCHMEAAAQBAJ&dq=great+purge+1.2+million&pg=PR7 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Nelson |first1=Todd H. |title=Bringing Stalin Back In: Memory Politics and the Creation of a Useable Past in Putin's Russia |date=16 October 2019 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4985-9153-9 |page=7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oJGyDwAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+great+purge+1.2+million&pg=PA7 |language=en}}</ref> Many of the executed were interred in [[Mass graves from Soviet mass executions|mass graves]], with some significant killing and burial sites being [[Bykivnia]], [[Kurapaty]], and [[Butovo firing range|Butovo]].<ref>[[Timothy Snyder|Snyder, Timothy]] (2010) ''Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.'' [[Basic Books]], {{ISBN|0-465-00239-0}} p. 101.</ref>
Some Western experts believe the evidence released from the Soviet archives is understated, incomplete or unreliable.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Rosefielde, Stephen|url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/RSF-New_Evidence.pdf|title=Stalinism in Post-Communist Perspective: New Evidence on Killings, Forced Labour and Economic Growth in the 1930s|journal=Europe-Asia Studies|volume= 48|issue= 6|year= 1996|doi=10.1080/09668139608412393|page=959}}</ref><ref>[http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/CNQ-Comments_WCR.pdf Comment on Wheatcroft] by [[Robert Conquest]], 1999.</ref><ref>Pipes, Richard (2003) ''Communism: A History (Modern Library Chronicles)'', p. 67. {{ISBN|0-8129-6864-6}}.</ref>{{sfn|Applebaum|2003|p=584}}<ref>{{cite journal|author=Keep, John|year=1997|doi=10.4000/chs.1014|journal= Crime, Histoire & Sociétés|title=Recent Writing on Stalin's Gulag: An Overview|pages=91–112|volume= 1|issue=2|doi-access=free}}</ref> Conversely, historian [[Stephen G. Wheatcroft]], who spent much of his career researching the archives, contends that, before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening of the archives for historical research, "our understanding of the scale and the nature of Soviet repression has been extremely poor" and that some specialists who wish to maintain earlier high estimates of the Stalinist death toll are "finding it difficult to adapt to the new circumstances when the archives are open and when there are plenty of irrefutable data" and instead "hang on to their old [[Sovietologist|Sovietological]] methods with round-about calculations based on odd statements from emigres and other informants who are supposed to have superior knowledge."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wheatcroft|first=S. G.|author-link=Stephen G. Wheatcroft|year=1996|title=The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45|url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/WCR-German_Soviet.pdf|journal=[[Europe-Asia Studies]]|volume=48|issue=8|pages=1319–53|doi=10.1080/09668139608412415|jstor=152781}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=Wheatcroft, S. G.|s2cid=205667754|year=2000|title=The Scale and Nature of Stalinist Repression and its Demographic Significance: On Comments by Keep and Conquest|url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/WCR-Comments_KEP_CNQ.pdf|journal=Europe-Asia Studies|volume=52|issue=6|pages=1143–59|doi=10.1080/09668130050143860|pmid=19326595}}</ref>

Stalin personally signed 357 [[proscription]] lists in 1937 and 1938 that condemned 40,000 people to execution, about 90% of whom are confirmed to have been shot.<ref name="Ellman">{{cite journal|author=Ellman, Michael|s2cid=53655536|year=2007|title=Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932–33 Revisited|url=http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/soviet/famine/ellman1933.pdf|journal=Europe-Asia Studies|volume=59|issue=4|pages=663–93|doi=10.1080/09668130701291899|access-date=April 6, 2014|archive-date=October 14, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071014232729/http://www1.fee.uva.nl/pp/mjellman/|url-status=dead}}</ref> While reviewing one such list, he reportedly muttered to no one in particular: "Who's going to remember all this riff-raff in ten or twenty years? No one. Who remembers the names now of the [[boyar]]s [[Ivan the Terrible]] got rid of? No one."<ref>[[Dmitri Volkogonov|Volkogonov, Dmitri]]. 1991. ''Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy''. New York. p. 210. {{ISBN|0-7615-0718-3}}.</ref> In addition, Stalin dispatched a contingent of NKVD operatives to [[Mongolian People's Republic|Mongolia]], established a Mongolian version of the NKVD ''troika'', and unleashed a [[Stalinist repressions in Mongolia|bloody purge]] in which tens of thousands were executed as "Japanese spies", as Mongolian ruler [[Khorloogiin Choibalsan]] closely followed Stalin's lead.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|2}} Stalin had ordered for 100,000 [[Buddhist]] [[lama]]s in Mongolia to be liquidated but the political leader [[Peljidiin Genden]] resisted the order.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Baabar |first1=Bat-Ėrdėniĭn |title=History of Mongolia |date=1999 |publisher=Monsudar Pub. |isbn=978-99929-0-038-3 |page=322 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xXxxAAAAMAAJ |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kotkin |first1=Stephen |last2=Elleman |first2=Bruce Allen |title=Mongolia in the Twentieth Century |date=12 February 2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-46010-7 |page=112 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FWmmBgAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+100,000+order+mongolia&pg=PA112 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Dashpu̇rėv |first1=Danzankhorloogiĭn |last2=Soni |first2=Sharad Kumar |title=Reign of Terror in Mongolia, 1920–1990 |date=1992 |publisher=South Asian Publishers |isbn=978-1-881318-15-6 |page=44 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Aw4cAAAAIAAJ&q=stalin+100,000+order+mongolia |language=en}}</ref>

Under Stalinist influence in the [[Mongolian People's Republic]], an estimated 17,000 monks were killed, official figures show.<ref name="reuters">{{cite news |last=Thomas |first=Natalie |date=2018-06-04 |title=Young monks lead revival of Buddhism in Mongolia after years of repression. |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-mongolia-monks-idUKKCN1J104O |work=Reuters. |access-date=2023-07-06}}</ref> Stalinist forces also oversaw purges of anti-Stalinist elements among the Spanish Republican insurgents, including the [[Trotskyist]] allied [[POUM]] faction and [[anarchist]] groups, during the [[Spanish Civil War]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sakwa |first1=Richard |title=Soviet Politics: In Perspective |date=12 November 2012 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-90996-4 |page=43 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SQSiM2vPO54C&dq=spanish+civil+war+stalin+purged+nin&pg=PA43 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Whitehead |first1=Jonathan |title=The End of the Spanish Civil War: Alicante 1939 |date=4 April 2024 |publisher=Pen and Sword History |isbn=978-1-399-06395-1 |page=81 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7aLsEAAAQBAJ&dq=andreu+nin+stalin+purges&pg=PA81 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Service |first1=Robert |title=Comrades!: A History of World Communism |date=2007 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-02530-1 |page=212 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Frgm5QodnFoC&dq=andreu+nin+stalin+purged&pg=PA211 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kocho-Williams |first1=Alastair |title=Russia's International Relations in the Twentieth Century |date=4 January 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-15747-9 |page=60 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vu2kOJbrCuMC&dq=spanish+civil+war+stalin+purged+nin&pg=PA61 |language=en}}</ref>

During the 1930s and 1940s, the Soviet leadership sent NKVD squads into other countries to murder defectors and opponents of the Soviet regime. Victims of such plots included Trotsky, [[Yevhen Konovalets]], [[Ignace Poretsky]], Rudolf Klement, [[Alexander Kutepov]], [[Evgeny Miller]], and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification ([[POUM]]) leadership in Catalonia (e.g., [[Andreu Nin Pérez|Andréu Nin Pérez]]).<ref>{{cite journal|author=Ellman, Michael|s2cid=13880089|year=2005|url=http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/soviet/famine/ellman.pdf|title=The Role of Leadership Perceptions and of Intent in the Soviet Famine of 1931–1934|journal=Europe-Asia Studies|page=826|volume=57|issue=6|doi=10.1080/09668130500199392|access-date=April 6, 2014|archive-date=February 27, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090227181110/http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/soviet/famine/ellman.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> [[Joseph Berger-Barzilai]], co-founder of the [[Communist Party of Palestine]], spent twenty five years in Stalin's prisons and concentrations camps after the purges in 1937.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date=5 January 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-721-5 |page=1443|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky+the+prophet |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Wasserstein |first1=Bernard |title=On the Eve: The Jews of Europe Before the Second World War |date=May 2012 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-4165-9427-7 |page=395 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HJSQZJKHX_8C&dq=Joseph+Berger-Barzilai+purge&pg=PA395 |language=en}}</ref>

=== Deportations ===
{{Main|Population transfer in the Soviet Union|Deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union|Deportation of the Balkars|Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush|Deportation of the Meskhetian Turks|Deportation of the Crimean Tatars|Deportation of the Karachays|Deportation of the Kalmyks|}}
<!-- Please add factual material to the main article and keep only summary here. -->
Shortly before, during, and immediately after [[World War II]], Stalin conducted a series of [[Forced settlements in the Soviet Union|deportations]] that profoundly affected the ethnic map of the Soviet Union. [[Separatism]], resistance to Soviet rule, and collaboration with the [[Operation Barbarossa|invading Germans]] were the official reasons for the deportations. Individual circumstances of those spending time in [[German-occupied Europe|German-occupied territories]] were not examined. After the brief [[Battle of the Caucasus|Nazi occupation of the Caucasus]], the entire population of five of the small highland peoples and the [[Crimean Tatars]]—more than a million people in total—were deported without notice or any opportunity to take their possessions.{{sfn|Bullock|1962|pp=904–906}}

As a result of Stalin's lack of trust in the loyalty of particular ethnicities, groups such as the [[Koryo-saram|Soviet Koreans]], [[Volga Germans]], Crimean Tatars, [[Chechens]], and many Poles, were forcibly moved out of strategic areas and relocated to places in the central Soviet Union, especially [[Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic|Kazakhstan]]. By some estimates, hundreds of thousands of deportees may have died en route.{{sfn|Boobbyer|2000|p=130}} It is estimated that between 1941 and 1949, nearly 3.3 million people{{sfn|Boobbyer|2000|p=130}}<ref>Pohl, Otto, ''Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR, 1937–1949'', {{ISBN|0-313-30921-3}}.</ref> were deported to [[Siberia]] and the Central Asian republics. By some estimates, up to 43% of the resettled population died of diseases and malnutrition.<ref>{{cite web|title=Soviet Transit, Camp, and Deportation Death Rates|url=http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.TAB1B.GIF|access-date=June 25, 2010}}</ref>

According to official Soviet estimates, more than 14 million people passed through the gulags from 1929 to 1953, with a further 7 to 8 million deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union (including entire nationalities in several cases).<ref>{{cite journal|author=Conquest, Robert |title=Victims of Stalinism: A Comment|journal=Europe-Asia Studies|volume=49|issue=7|year=1997|pages=1317–1319|quote=We are all inclined to accept the Zemskov totals (even if not as complete) with their 14 million intake to Gulag 'camps' alone, to which must be added 4–5&nbsp;million going to Gulag 'colonies', to say nothing of the 3.5 million already in, or sent to, 'labour settlements'. However taken, these are surely 'high' figures.|doi=10.1080/09668139708412501}}</ref> The emergent scholarly consensus is that from 1930 to 1953, around 1.5 to 1.7 million perished in the gulag system.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Wheatcroft, Stephen G.|year=1999|title=Victims of Stalinism and the Soviet Secret Police: The Comparability and Reliability of the Archival Data. Not the Last Word|url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/WCR-Secret_Police.pdf|journal=[[Europe-Asia Studies]]|volume=51|issue=2|pages=315–345|doi=10.1080/09668139999056|author-link=Stephen G. Wheatcroft}}</ref><ref>[[Steven Rosefielde|Rosefielde, Steven]]. 2009. ''Red Holocaust.'' [[Routledge]], 2009. {{ISBN|0-415-77757-7}}. pg. 67: "[M]ore complete archival data increases camp deaths by 19.4 percent to 1,258,537"; pg 77: "The best archivally based estimate of Gulag excess deaths at present is 1.6 million from 1929 to 1953."</ref><ref>[[Dan Healey|Healey, Dan]]. 2018. "[https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/ou_press/golfo-alexopoulos-illness-and-inhumanity-in-stalin-s-gulag-i363rKPYOp Golfo Alexopoulos. 'Illness and Inhumanity in Stalin's Gulag']" (review). ''[[The American Historical Review|American Historical Review]]'' 123(3):1049–51. {{doi|10.1093/ahr/123.3.1049}}.</ref> In February 1956, [[Nikita Khrushchev]] condemned the deportations as a violation of Leninism and reversed most of them, although it was not until 1991 that the Tatars, [[Meskheti]]ans, and Volga Germans were allowed to return ''en masse'' to their homelands.

=== Economic policy ===
{{Main|Collectivization in the Soviet Union|Holodomor|Kazakh famine of 1930–1933|Industrialization in the Soviet Union}}
[[File:GolodomorKharkiv.jpg|thumb|Starved peasants on a street in [[Kharkiv]] during the [[Soviet famine of 1932–1933]]]]
At the start of the 1930s, Stalin launched a wave of radical economic policies that completely overhauled the industrial and agricultural face of the Soviet Union. This became known as the [[Great Turn]] as Russia turned away from the [[Mixed economy|mixed-economic]] type [[New Economic Policy]] (NEP) and adopted a [[planned economy]]. Lenin implemented the NEP to ensure the survival of the [[socialist state]] following seven years of war ([[World War I]], 1914–1917, and the subsequent [[Russian Civil War|Civil War]], 1917–1921) and rebuilt Soviet production to its 1913 levels. But Russia still lagged far behind the West, and Stalin and the majority of the Communist Party felt the NEP not only to be compromising communist ideals but also not delivering satisfactory economic performance or creating the envisaged socialist society.

According to historian [[Sheila Fitzpatrick]], the scholarly consensus was that Stalin appropriated the position of the [[Left Opposition]] on such matters as [[industrialisation]] and [[collectivisation]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fitzpatrick |first1=Sheila |title=The Old Man |journal=London Review of Books |date=22 April 2010 |volume=32 |issue=8 |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n08/sheila-fitzpatrick/the-old-man |language=en |issn=0260-9592}}</ref> Trotsky maintained that the disproportions and imbalances which became characteristic of Stalinist planning in the 1930s such as the underdeveloped [[consumption (economics)|consumer base]] along with the priority focus on [[heavy industry]] were due to a number of avoidable problems. He argued that the industrial drive had been enacted under more severe circumstances, several years later and in a less rational manner than originally conceived by the Left Opposition.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date=5 January 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-721-5 |page=1141|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky+the+prophet |language=en}}</ref>

Officially designed to accelerate development toward [[communism]], the need for [[industrialization in the Soviet Union]] was emphasized because the Soviet Union had previously fallen behind economically compared to Western countries and also because socialist society needed industry to face the challenges posed by internal and external enemies of communism.{{sfn|Kotkin|1997|p=70-71}} Rapid industrialization was accompanied by mass collectivization of agriculture and rapid [[urbanization]], which converted many small villages into [[industrial cities]].{{sfn|Kotkin|1997|p=70-79}} To accelerate industrialization's development, Stalin imported materials, ideas, expertise, and workers from western Europe and the United States,<ref>{{cite book |author-last1=De Basily |author-first1=N. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WkcrDwAAQBAJ |title=Russia Under Soviet Rule: Twenty Years of Bolshevik Experiment |publisher=Routledge |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-351-61717-8 |series=Routledge Library Editions: Early Western Responses to Soviet Russia |location=Abingdon, Oxon |quote=...&nbsp;vast sums were spent on importing foreign technical 'ideas' and on securing the services of alien experts. Foreign countries, again – American and Germany in particular – lent the U.S.S.R. active aid in drafting the plans for all the undertakings to be constructed. They supplied the Soviet Union with tens of thousands of engineers, mechanics, and supervisors. During the first Five-Year Plan, not a single plant was erected, nor was a new industry launched without the direct help of foreigners working on the spot. Without the importation of Western European and American objects, ideas, and men, the 'miracle in the East' would not have been realized, or, at least, not in so short a time. |access-date=3 November 2017 |orig-year=1938}}</ref> pragmatically setting up [[joint-venture]] contracts with major American [[private enterprise]]s such as the [[Ford Motor Company]], which, under state supervision, assisted in developing the basis of the industry of the [[Soviet economy]] from the late 1920s to the 1930s. After the American private enterprises had completed their tasks, Soviet [[State-owned enterprise|state enterprises]] took over.

[[Fredric Jameson]] has said that "Stalinism was…a success and fulfilled its historic mission, socially as well as economically" given that it "modernized the Soviet Union, transforming a peasant society into an industrial state with a literate population and a remarkable scientific superstructure."<ref>[[Fredric Jameson]]. ''Marxism Beyond Marxism'' (1996). p. 43. {{ISBN|0-415-91442-6}}.</ref> [[Robert Conquest]] disputes that conclusion, writing, "Russia had already been fourth to fifth among industrial economies before World War I", and that Russian industrial advances could have been achieved without collectivization, famine, or terror. According to Conquest, the industrial successes were far less than claimed, and the Soviet-style industrialization was "an anti-innovative dead-end."<ref name="reflections">[[Robert Conquest]]. ''Reflections on a Ravaged Century'' (2000). p. 101. {{ISBN|0-393-04818-7}}.</ref> [[Stephen Kotkin]] said those who argue collectivization was necessary are "dead wrong", writing that it "only seemed necessary within the straitjacket of Communist ideology and its repudiation of capitalism. And economically, collectivization failed to deliver." Kotkin further claimed that it decreased harvests instead of increasing them, as peasants tended to resist heavy taxes by producing fewer goods, caring only about their own subsistence.{{sfn|Kotkin|2014|p=724–725}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fitzpatrick |first=Sheila |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/28293091 |title=Stalin's peasants : resistance and survival in the Russian village after collectivization |date=1994 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-506982-X |location=New York |oclc=28293091}}</ref>{{Rp|page=5}}

According to several Western historians,<ref>[http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/stalin.htm "Genocide in the 20th century"]. History Place.</ref> Stalinist agricultural policies were a key factor in the [[Soviet famine of 1930–1933]]; some scholars believe that [[Holodomor]], which started near the end of 1932, was when the famine turned into an instrument of genocide; the Ukrainian government now recognizes it as such. Some scholars dispute the intentionality of the famine.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Davies|first1=Robert|author-link1=Robert William Davies|last2=Wheatcroft|first2=Stephen|author-link2=Stephen G. Wheatcroft|title=The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia Volume 5: The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture 1931–1933|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4s1lCwAAQBAJ&pg=PR14|year=2009|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|isbn=978-0-230-27397-9|page=xiv}}</ref><ref name="Tauger"/>

=== Social issues ===
The Stalinist era was largely regressive on social issues. Despite a brief period of decriminalization under Lenin, the 1934 Criminal Code re-criminalized homosexuality.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2017-11-10 |title=1917 Russian Revolution: The gay community's brief window of freedom |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41737330 |access-date=2023-05-29}}</ref> Abortion was made illegal again in 1936<ref>{{Cite web |title=When Soviet Women Won the Right to Abortion (For the Second Time) |url=https://jacobin.com/2020/03/soviet-women-abortion-ussr-history-health-care/ |access-date=2023-05-29 |website=jacobin.com |language=en-US}}</ref> after controversial debate among citizens,<ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-08-31 |title=Letters to the Editor on the Draft Abortion Law |url=https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1936-2/abolition-of-legal-abortion/abolition-of-legal-abortion-texts/abolition-of-legal-abortion/ |access-date=2023-05-29 |website=Seventeen Moments in Soviet History |language=en-US}}</ref> and women's issues were largely ignored.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mamonova |first=Tatyana |title=Women and Russia: Feminist Writings from the Soviet Union |location=Oxford |publisher=Basil Blackwell Publisher |year=1984 |isbn=0-631-13889-7}}</ref>