At the end of the 1920s, a dramatic new phase in economic development
began when Stalin decided to carry out a program of intensive socialist
construction. To some extent, Stalin pressed economic development at
this point as a political maneuver to eliminate rivals within the party.
Because Bukharin and some other party members would not give up the
gradualistic NEP in favor of radical development, Stalin branded them
"right-wing deviationists" and during 1929 and 1930 used the
party organization to remove them from influential positions. Yet
Stalin's break with the NEP also revealed that his doctrine of building
"socialism in one country" paralleled the line that Trotsky
had originally supported early in the 1920s. Marxism supplied no basis
for Stalin's model of a planned economy, although the centralized
economic controls of the war communism years seemingly furnished a
Leninist precedent. Between 1927 and 1929, the State Planning Committee
(Gosudarstvennyy planovyy komitet--Gosplan) worked out the First
Five-Year Plan (see Glossary) for intensive economic growth; Stalin
began to implement this plan--his "revolution from above"--in
1928.
The First Five-Year Plan called for rapid industrialization of the
economy, with particular emphasis on heavy industry. The economy was
centralized: small-scale industry and services were nationalized,
managers strove to fulfill Gosplan's output quotas, and the trade unions
were converted into mechanisms for increasing worker productivity. But
because Stalin insisted on unrealistic production targets, serious
problems soon arose. With the greatest share of investment put into
heavy industry, widespread shortages of consumer goods occurred, and
inflation grew.
To satisfy the state's need for increased food supplies, the First
Five-Year Plan called for the organization of the peasantry into
collective units that the authorities could easily control. This
collectivization program entailed compounding the peasants' lands and
animals into collective farms (
kolkhozy; sing.,
kolkhoz
--see Glossary) and state farms (
sovkhozy; sing.,
sovkhoz
--see Glossary) and restricting the peasants' movement from these farms.
The effect of this restructuring was to reintroduce a kind of serfdom
into the countryside. Although the program was designed to affect all
peasants, Stalin in particular sought to eliminate the wealthiest
peasants, known as kulaks. Generally, kulaks were only marginally better
off than other peasants, but the party claimed that the kulaks had
ensnared the rest of the peasantry in capitalistic relationships. In any
event, collectivization met widespread resistance not only from the
kulaks but from poorer peasants as well, and a desperate struggle of the
peasantry against the authorities ensued. Peasants slaughtered their
cows and pigs rather than turn them over to the collective farms, with
the result that livestock resources remained below the 1929 level for
years afterward. The state in turn forcibly collectivized reluctant
peasants and deported kulaks and active rebels to Siberia. Within the
collective farms, the authorities in many instances exacted such high
levels of procurement that starvation was widespread.
By 1932 Stalin realized that both the economy and society were under
serious strain. Although industry failed to meet its production targets
and agriculture actually lost ground in comparison with 1928 yields,
Stalin declared that the First Five-Year Plan had successfully met its
goals in four years. He then proceeded to set more realistic goals.
Under the Second Five-Year Plan (1933-37), the state devoted attention
to consumer goods, and the factories built under the first plan helped
increase industrial output in general. The Third Five-Year Plan, begun
in 1938, produced poorer results because of a sudden shift of emphasis
to armaments production in response to the worsening international
climate. In general, however, the Soviet economy had become
industrialized by the end of the 1930s. Agriculture, which had been
exploited to finance the industrialization drive, continued to show poor
returns throughout the decade.
The Purges
The complete subjugation of the party to Stalin, its leader,
paralleled the subordination of industry and agriculture to the state.
Stalin had assured his preeminent position by squelching Bukharin and
the "right-wing deviationists" in 1929 and 1930. To secure his
absolute control over the party, however, Stalin began to purge leaders
and rank-and-file members whose loyalty he doubted.
Stalin's purges began in December 1934, when Sergey Kirov, a popular
Leningrad party chief who advocated a moderate policy toward the
peasants, was assassinated. Although details remain murky, many Western
historians believe that Stalin instigated the murder to rid himself of a
potential opponent. In any event, in the resultant mass purge of the
local Leningrad party, thousands were deported to camps in Siberia.
Zinov'yev and Kamenev, Stalin's former political partners, received
prison sentences for their alleged role in Kirov's murder. At the same
time, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (Narodnyy
komissariat vnutrennikh del--NKVD), the secret police agency that was
heir to the Cheka of the early 1920s, stepped up surveillance through
its agents and informers and claimed to uncover anti-Soviet conspiracies
among prominent long-term party members. At three publicized show trials
held in Moscow between 1936 and 1938, dozens of these Old Bolsheviks,
including Zinov'yev, Kamenev, and Bukharin, confessed to improbable
crimes against the Soviet state. Their confessions were quickly followed
by execution. (The last of Stalin's old enemies, Trotsky, who supposedly
had masterminded the conspiracies against Stalin from abroad, was
murdered in Mexico in 1940, presumably by the NKVD.) Coincident with the
show trials of the original leadership of the party, unpublicized purges
swept through the ranks of younger leaders in party, government,
industrial management, and cultural affairs. Party purges in the
non-Russian republics were particularly severe. The Yezhovshchina
("era of Yezhov," named for NKVD chief Nikolay Yezhov) ravaged
the military as well, leading to the execution or incarceration of about
half the officer corps. The secret police also terrorized the general
populace, with untold numbers of common people punished after spurious
accusations. By the time the purges subsided in 1938, millions of Soviet
leaders, officials, and other citizens had been executed, imprisoned, or
exiled.
The reasons for the period of widespread purges, which became known
as the Great Terror, remain unclear. Western historians variously
hypothesize that Stalin created the terror out of a desire to goad the
population to carry out his intensive modernization program, or to
atomize society to preclude dissent, or simply out of brutal paranoia.
Whatever the causes, the purges must be viewed as having weakened the
Soviet state.
In 1936, just as the Great Terror was intensifying, Stalin approved a
new Soviet constitution to replace that of 1924. Hailed as "the
most democratic constitution in the world," the 1936 document
stipulated free and secret elections based on universal suffrage and
guaranteed the citizenry a range of civil and economic rights. But in
practice the freedoms implied by these rights were denied by provisions
elsewhere in the constitution that indicated that the basic structure of
Soviet society could not be changed and that the party retained all
political power.
The power of the party, in turn, now was concentrated in the persons
of Stalin and the members of his handpicked Politburo. As if to
symbolize the lack of influence of the party rank and file, party
congresses were convened less and less frequently. State power, far from
"withering away" after the revolution as Karl Marx had
prescribed, instead grew. With Stalin consciously building what critics
would later describe as a cult of personality, the reverence accorded
him in Soviet society gradually eclipsed that given to Lenin.
Mobilization of Society
Concomitant with industrialization and collectivization, society also
experienced wide-ranging regimentation. Collective enterprises replaced
individualistic efforts across the board. Not only did the regime
abolish private farms and businesses, but it collectivized scientific
and literary endeavors as well. As the 1930s progressed, the
revolutionary experimentation that had characterized many facets of
cultural and social life gave way to conservative norms.
Considerations of order and discipline dominated social policy, which
became an instrument of the modernization effort. Workers came under
strict labor codes demanding punctuality and discipline, and labor
unions served as extensions of the industrial ministries. At the same
time, higher pay and privileges accrued to productive workers and labor
brigades. To provide greater social stability, the state aimed to
strengthen the family by restricting divorce and abolishing abortion.
Literature and the arts came under direct party control during the
1930s, with mandatory membership in unions of writers, musicians, and
other artists entailing adherence to established standards. After 1934
the party dictated that creative works had to express socialistic spirit
through traditional forms. This officially sanctioned doctrine, called
"socialist realism," applied to all fields of art. The state
repressed works that were stylistically innovative or lacked appropriate
content.
The party also subjected science and the liberal arts to its
scrutiny. Development of scientific theory in a number of fields had to
be based upon the party's understanding of the Marxist dialectic, which
derailed serious research in certain disciplines. The party took a more
active role in directing work in the social sciences. In the writing of
history, the orthodox Marxist interpretation employed in the late 1920s
was modified to include nationalistic themes and to stress the role of
great leaders to create legitimacy for Stalin's dictatorship.
Education returned to traditional forms as the party discarded the
experimental programs of Lunacharskiy after 1929. Admission procedures
underwent modification: candidates for higher education now were
selected on the basis of their academic records rather than their class
origins. Religion suffered from a state policy of increased repression,
starting with the closure of numerous churches in 1929. Persecution of
clergy was particularly severe during the purges of the late 1930s, when
many of the faithful went underground (see The Russian Orthodox Church,
ch. 4).
Foreign Policy, 1928-39
Soviet foreign policy underwent a series of changes during the first
decade of Stalin's rule. Soon after assuming control of the party,
Stalin oversaw a radicalization of Soviet foreign policy that paralleled
the severity of his remaking of domestic policy. To heighten the urgency
of his demands for moderniza-tion, Stalin portrayed the Western powers,
particularly France, as warmongers eager to attack the Soviet Union. The
Great Depression, which seemingly threatened to destroy world capitalism
in the early 1930s, provided ideological justification for the
diplomatic self-isolation practiced by the Soviet Union in that period.
To aid the triumph of communism, Stalin resolved to weaken the moderate
social democratic parties of Europe, which seemed to be the communists'
rivals for support among the working classes of the Western world.
Conversely, the Comintern ordered the Communist Party of Germany to
aid the anti-Soviet National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi
Party) in its bid for power, in the hopes that a Nazi regime would
exacerbate social tensions and produce conditions that would lead to a
communist revolution in Germany. In pursuing this policy, Stalin thus
shared responsibility for Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933 and its
tragic consequences for the Soviet Union and the rest of the world.
The dynamics of Soviet foreign relations changed drastically after
Stalin recognized the danger posed by Nazi Germany. From 1934 through
1937, the Soviet Union tried to restrain German militarism by building
coalitions hostile to fascism. In the international communist movement,
the Comintern adopted the "popular front" policy of
cooperation with socialists and liberals against fascism, thus reversing
its line of the early 1930s. In 1934 the Soviet Union joined the League
of Nations, where Maksim Litvinov, the Soviet commissar of foreign
affairs, advocated disarmament and collective security against fascist
aggression. In 1935 the Soviet Union formed defensive military alliances
with France and Czechoslovakia, and from 1936 to 1939 it gave assistance
to antifascists in the Spanish Civil War. The menace of fascist
militarism to the Soviet Union increased when Germany and Japan (which
already posed a substantial threat to the Soviet Far East) signed the
Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936. But the West proved unwilling to counter
German provocative behavior, and after France and Britain acceded to
Hitler's demands for Czechoslovak territory at Munich in 1938, Stalin
abandoned his efforts to forge a collective security agreement with the
West.
Convinced now that the West would not fight Hitler, Stalin decided to
come to an understanding with Germany. Signaling a shift in foreign
policy, Vyacheslav Molotov, Stalin's loyal assistant, replaced Litvinov,
who was Jewish, as commissar of foreign affairs in May 1939. Hitler, who
had decided to attack Poland despite the guarantees of Britain and
France to defend that country, soon responded to the changed Soviet
stance. While Britain and France dilatorily attempted to induce the
Soviet Union to join them in pledging to protect Poland, the Soviet
Union and Germany engaged in intense negotiations. The product of the
talks between the former ideological foes--the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression
Pact (also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) of August 23,
1939--shocked the world. The open provisions of the agreement pledged
absolute neutrality in the event one of the parties should become
involved in war, while a secret protocol partitioned Poland between the
parties and assigned Romanian territory as well as Estonia and Latvia
(and later Lithuania) to the Soviet sphere of influence. With his
eastern flank thus secured, Hitler began the German invasion of Poland
on September 1, 1939; Britain and France declared war on Germany two
days later. World War II had begun.
The security that Stalin bought with the German treaty was
short-lived. Hitler repudiated the agreement in 1941, and Russian,
Belorussian, and Ukrainian territory subsequently became the scene of
fierce fighting and the eventual repulsion of a huge Nazi invasion
force. Stalin was able to rally patriotic support for the war effort,
and Soviet forces entered Berlin triumphantly in April 1945. Together
with the United States, the Soviet Union entered the postwar era as a
superpower.
Prelude to War
When German troops invaded Poland, the Soviet Union was ill prepared
to fight a major war. Although military expenditures had increased
dramatically during the 1930s and the standing army was expanded in
1939, Soviet weaponry was inferior to that of the German army. More
important, eight of the nation's top military leaders, including Marshal
Mikhail Tukhachevskiy, had been executed in 1937 in the course of
Stalin's purges; thus the armed forces' morale and effectiveness were
diminished. The time gained through the pact with the Nazis was
therefore critical to the recovery of Soviet defenses, particularly
because Hitler's forces had overrun much of Western Europe by the summer
of 1940. To strengthen its western frontier, the Soviet Union quickly
secured the territory located in its sphere of interest. Soviet forces
seized eastern Poland in September 1939; entered Estonia, Latvia, and
Lithuania in October 1939; and seized the Romanian territories of
Bessarabia (later incorporated into the Moldavian Republic) and northern
Bukovina (later added to the Ukrainian Republic) in June 1940. Only
Finland resisted Stalin's program of expansion, first by refusing to
cede territory and then by putting up a determined defense along the
Mannerheim Line when the Red Army invaded in November 1939. The
Soviet-Finnish War (also known as the Winter War) of 1939-40 exposed
grave deficiencies in Soviet military capabilities, which Hitler
undoubtedly noted.
As the European war continued and the theaters of the conflict
widened, Hitler began to chafe under his pact with the Soviet Union. The
German dictator refused to grant Stalin a free hand in the Balkans,
instead moving the German forces deeper into Eastern Europe and
strengthening his ties with Finland. Hitler thus prepared for war
against the Soviet Union under a plan that he officially approved in
December 1940. At this point, however, Stalin still apparently believed
that the Soviet Union could avert war by appeasing Germany. To achieve
this goal, regular shipments of Soviet materials to Germany continued,
and the Soviet armed forces were kept at a low stage of readiness. But
despite Stalin's efforts to mollify Hitler, Germany declared war on the
Soviet Union just as 180 German divisions swept across the border early
on the morning of June 22, 1941.
The Great Patriotic War
The German blitzkrieg, known as Operation Barbarossa, nearly
succeeded in breaking the Soviet Union in the months that followed.
Caught unprepared, the Soviet forces lost whole armies and vast
quantities of equipment to the German onslaught in the first weeks of
the war. By November the German army had seized the Ukrainian Republic,
besieged Leningrad, the Soviet Union's second largest city, and
threatened Moscow itself (see fig. 5). The Great Patriotic War, as the
Soviet Union and then Russia have called that phase of World War II,
thus began inauspiciously for the Soviet Union.
By the end of 1941, however, the German forces had lost their
momentum. German movements were increasingly restricted by harsh winter
weather, attacks from bands of partisans, and difficulties in
maintaining overextended supply lines. At the same time, the Red Army,
after recovering from the initial blow, launched its first
counterattacks against the invaders in December. To ensure the army's
ability to fight the war, the Soviet authorities moved thousands of
factories and their key personnel from the war zone to the interior of
the country--often to Central Asia--where the plants began producing war
matériel. Finally, the country was bolstered by the prospect of
receiving assistance from Britain and the United States.
After a lull in active hostilities during the winter of 1941-42, the
German army renewed its offensive, scoring a number of victories in the
Ukrainian Republic, Crimea, and southern Russia in the first half of
1942. Then, in an effort to gain control of the lower Volga River
region, the German forces attempted to capture the city of Stalingrad
(present-day Volgograd) on the west bank of the river. Here, Soviet
forces put up fierce resistance even after the Germans had reduced the
city to rubble. Finally, Soviet forces led by General Georgiy Zhukov
surrounded the German attackers and forced their surrender in February
1943. The Soviet victory at Stalingrad proved decisive; after losing
this battle, the Germans lacked the strength to sustain their offensive
operations against the Soviet Union.
After Stalingrad, the Soviet Union held the initiative for the rest
of the war. By the end of 1943, the Red Army had broken through the
German siege of Leningrad and recaptured much of the Ukrainian Republic.
By the end of 1944, the front had moved beyond the 1939 Soviet frontiers
into Eastern Europe. With a decisive superiority in troops and weaponry,
Soviet forces drove into eastern Germany, capturing Berlin in May 1945.
The war with Germany thus ended triumphantly for the Soviet Union.
In gaining the victory, the Soviet government had to rely on the
support of the people. To increase popular enthusiasm for the war,
Stalin reshaped his domestic policies to heighten patriotic spirit.
Nationalistic slogans replaced much of the communist rhetoric in
official pronouncements and the mass media. Active persecution of
religion ceased, and in 1943 Stalin allowed the Russian Orthodox Church
to name a patriarch (see Glossary) after the office had stood vacant for
nearly two decades. In the countryside, authorities permitted greater
freedom on the collective farms. Harsh German rule in the occupied
territories also aided the Soviet cause. Nazi administrators of
conquered Soviet territories made little attempt to exploit the
population's dissatisfaction with Soviet political and economic
policies. Instead, the Nazis preserved the collective farm system,
systematically carried out genocidal policies against Jews, and deported
others (mainly Ukrainians) to work in Germany. Given these
circumstances, the great majority of the Soviet people chose to fight
and work on their country's behalf, thus ensuring the regime's survival.
The war with Germany also brought about a temporary alliance with the
two greatest powers in the "imperialist camp," namely Britain
and the United States. Despite deep-seated mistrust between the Western
democracies and the Soviet state, the demands of war made cooperation
critical. The Soviet Union benefited from shipments of weaponry and
equipment from the Western allies; during the course of the war, the
United States alone furnished supplies worth more than US$11 billion. At
the same time, by engaging considerable German resources, the Soviet
Union gave the United States and Britain time to prepare to invade
German-occupied Western Europe.
Relations began to sour, however, when the war turned in the Allies'
favor. The postponement of the European invasion to June 1944 became a
source of irritation to Stalin, whose country meanwhile bore the brunt
of the struggle against Germany. Then, as Soviet armies pushed into
Eastern Europe, the question of the postwar order increased the friction
within the coalition. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Stalin
clashed with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston
Churchill over Stalin's plans to extend Soviet influence to Poland after
the war. At the same time, however, Stalin promised to join the war
against Japan ninety days after Germany had been defeated. Breaking the
neutrality pact that the Soviet Union had concluded with Japan in April
1941, the Red Army entered the war in East Asia several days before
Japan surrendered in August 1945. Now, with all common enemies defeated,
little remained to preserve the alliance between the Western democracies
and the Soviet Union.
The end of World War II saw the Soviet Union emerge as one of the
world's two great military powers. Its battle-tested forces occupied
most of Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union had won island holdings from
Japan and further concessions from Finland (which had joined Germany in
invading the Soviet Union in 1941) in addition to the territories seized
as a consequence of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. But these
achievements came at a high cost. An estimated 20 million Soviet
soldiers and civilians perished in the war, the heaviest loss of life of
any of the combatant countries. The war also inflicted severe material
losses throughout the vast territory that had been included in the war
zone. The suffering and losses resulting from the war made a lasting
impression on the Soviet people and leaders that influenced their
behavior in the postwar era.
The end of the common cause again exposed the underlying hostility
between the capitalist countries and the Soviet Union. And the favorable
position in which the Soviet Union finished World War II rapidly made it
the prime postwar threat to world peace in the eyes of Western policy
makers. The so-called Cold War that emerged from that situation featured
Soviet domination of all of Eastern Europe, the development of nuclear
weapons by the Soviet Union, and dangerous conflicts and near-conflicts
in several areas of the world.
Reconstruction Years
Although the Soviet Union was victorious in World War II, its economy
had been devastated in the struggle. Roughly a quarter of the country's
capital resources had been destroyed, and industrial and agricultural
output in 1945 fell far short of prewar levels. To help rebuild the
country, the Soviet government obtained limited credits from Britain and
Sweden but refused assistance proposed by the United States under the
economic aid program known as the Marshall Plan (see Glossary). Instead,
the Soviet Union compelled Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe to supply
machinery and raw materials. Germany and former Nazi satellites
(including Finland) made reparations to the Soviet Union. The Soviet
people bore much of the cost of rebuilding because the reconstruction
program emphasized heavy industry while neglecting agriculture and
consumer goods. By the time of Stalin's death in 1953, steel production
was twice its 1940 level, but the production of many consumer goods and
foodstuffs was lower than it had been in the late 1920s.
During the postwar reconstruction period, Stalin tightened domestic
controls, justifying the repression by playing up the threat of war with
the West. Many repatriated Soviet citizens who had lived abroad during
the war, whether as prisoners of war, forced laborers, or defectors,
were executed or sent to prison camps. The limited freedoms granted in
wartime to the church and to collective farmers were revoked. The party
tightened its admission standards and purged many who had become party
members during the war.
In 1946 Andrey Zhdanov, a close associate of Stalin, helped launch an
ideological campaign designed to demonstrate the superiority of
socialism over capitalism in all fields. This campaign, colloquially
known as the Zhdanovshchina ("era of Zhdanov"), attacked
writers, composers, economists, historians, and scientists whose work
allegedly manifested Western influence. Although Zhdanov died in 1948,
the cultural purge continued for several years afterward, stifling
Soviet intellectual development. Another campaign, related to the
Zhdanovshchina, lauded the real or purported achievements of past and
present Russian inventors and scientists. In this intellectual climate,
the genetic theories of biologist Trofim Lysenko, which were supposedly
derived from Marxist principles but lacked a scientific foundation, were
imposed upon Soviet science to the detriment of research and
agricultural development. The anticosmopolitan trends of these years
adversely affected Jewish cultural and scientific figures in particular.
In general, a pronounced sense of Russian nationalism, as opposed to
socialist consciousness, pervaded Soviet society.
Onset of the Cold War
Soon after World War II, the Soviet Union and its Western allies
parted ways as mutual suspicions of the other's intentions and actions
flourished. Eager to consolidate influence over a number of countries
adjacent to the Soviet Union, Stalin pursued an aggressive policy of
intervention in the domestic affairs of these states, provoking strong
Western reaction. The United States worked to contain Soviet expansion
in this period of international relations that came to be known as the
Cold War.
Mindful of the numerous invasions of Russia and the Soviet Union from
the West throughout history, Stalin sought to create a buffer zone of
subservient East European countries, most of which the Red Army (known
as the Soviet army after 1946) had occupied in the course of the war.
Taking advantage of its military occupation of these countries, the
Soviet Union actively assisted local communist parties in coming to
power. By 1948 seven East European countries--Albania, Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia--had communist
governments. The Soviet Union initially maintained control behind the
"Iron Curtain" (a phrase coined by Churchill in a 1946 speech)
through the use of troops, security police, and the Soviet diplomatic
service. Inequitable trade agreements with the East European countries
permitted the Soviet Union access to valued resources.
Soviet actions in Eastern Europe generated hostility among the
Western states toward their former ally, but they could do nothing to
halt consolidation of Soviet authority in that region short of going to
war. However, the United States and its allies had greater success in
halting Soviet expansion in areas where Soviet influence was more
tenuous. British and American diplomatic support for Iran forced the
Soviet Union to withdraw its troops from the northeastern part of that
country in 1946. Soviet efforts to acquire territory from Turkey and to
establish a communist government in Greece were stymied when the United
States extended military and economic support to those countries under
the Truman Doctrine, a policy articulated by President Harry S. Truman
in 1947. Later that year, the United States introduced the Marshall Plan
for the economic recovery of other countries of Europe. The Soviet Union
forbade the countries it dominated from taking part in the program, and
the Marshall Plan contributed to a reduction of Soviet influence in the
participating West European nations.
Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union became
especially strained over the issue of Germany. At the Potsdam Conference
of July-August 1945, the Allied Powers confirmed their decision to
divide Germany and the city of Berlin into zones of occupation (with the
eastern sectors placed under Soviet administration) until such time as
the Allies would permit Germany to establish a central government.
Disagreements between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies soon arose
over their respective occupation policies and the matter of reparations.
In June 1948, the Soviet Union cut off the West's land access to the
American, British, and French sectors of Berlin in retaliation for steps
taken by the United States and Britain to unite Germany. Britain and the
United States thereupon sponsored an airlift that kept the beleaguered
sectors provisioned until the Soviet Union lifted the blockade in May
1949. Following the Berlin blockade, the Western Allies and the Soviet
Union divided Germany into two countries, one oriented to the West, the
other to the East. The crisis also provided the catalyst for the Western
countries in 1949 to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO--see Glossary), a collective security system under which
conventional armies and nuclear weapons would offset Soviet forces.
While the Soviet Union gained a new satellite nation in the German
Democratic Republic (East Germany), it lost its influence in Yugoslavia.
The local communists in Yugoslavia had come to power without Soviet
assistance, and their leader, Josip Broz Tito, refused to subordinate
the country to Stalin's control. Tito's defiance led the Communist
Information Bureau (Cominform--founded in 1947 to assume some of the
functions of the Comintern, which had been abolished in 1943) to expel
the Yugoslav party from the international communist movement in 1948. To
avert the rise of other independent leaders, Stalin purged many of the
chief communists in other East European states.
In Asia the Chinese communists, headed by Mao Zedong and assisted by
the Soviet Union, achieved victory over the Guomindang in 1949. Several
months afterward, in 1950, China and the Soviet Union concluded a mutual
defense treaty against Japan and the United States. Hard negotiations
over concessions and aid between the two communist countries served as
an indication that China, with its independent party and enormous
population, would not become a Soviet satellite, although for a time
Sino-Soviet relations appeared particularly close. Elsewhere in Asia,
the Soviet Union pursued a vigorous policy of support for national
liberation movements, especially in Malaya and Indochina, which were
still colonies of Britain and France, respectively. Thinking that the
West would not defend the Republic of Korea (South Korea), Stalin
allowed or encouraged the Soviet-equipped forces of the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) to invade South Korea in 1950.
But forces from the United States and other members of the United
Nations came to the aid of South Korea, leading China to intervene
militarily on behalf of North Korea, probably at Soviet instigation.
Although the Soviet Union avoided direct participation in the conflict,
the Korean War (1950-53) motivated the United States to strengthen its
military capability and to conclude a peace treaty and security pact
with Japan. Chinese participation in the war also strengthened China's
independent position relative to the Soviet Union.
The Death of Stalin
In the early 1950s, Stalin, now an old man, apparently permitted his
subordinates in the Politburo (enlarged and renamed the Presidium in
October 1952) greater powers within their respective spheres. Also at
the Nineteenth Party Congress, the name of the party was changed from
the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) to the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union (CPSU--see Glossary). Indicative of the Soviet leader's
waning strength was top aide Georgiy Malenkov's presentation of the
political report to the congress in Stalin's stead. Although the general
secretary took a smaller part in the day-to-day administration of party
affairs, he maintained his animosity toward potential enemies. In
January 1953, the party newspaper announced that a group of
predominantly Jewish doctors had murdered high Soviet officials,
including Zhdanov. Western historians speculate that the disclosure of
this "doctors' plot" may have been a prelude to an intended
purge directed against Malenkov, Molotov, and secret police chief
Lavrenti Beria. When Stalin died in March 1953, under circumstances that
remain unclear, his inner circle, which for years had lived in dread of
their leader, secretly rejoiced.
During his quarter-century of dictatorial control, Stalin had
overseen impressive development in the Soviet Union. From a
comparatively backward agricultural society, the country had been
transformed into a powerful industrial state. But in the course of that
transformation, many millions of people had been killed, and Stalin's
use of repressive controls had become an integral function of his
regime. The extent to which Stalin's system would be maintained or
altered would be a question of vital concern to Soviet leaders for years
after his passing.
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