Unit One - High Stalinism

Impacts of the war

SOCIAL
- gender imbalance makes role of women more important
- Soviet nationalism
- new terror
- cult of personality built up again

ECONOMIC
- 4th Five Year Plan (FYP) - very effective
- quantitative targets, not qualitative
- labour intensive
- war-time allied aid lost
- industrial production in 1950 almost 70% higher than 1940
- sphere of influence stripped USSR of its assets
- most historians argue the remarkable extent of post-war recovery
- Agriculture absolutely terrible & neglected - inefficient & ill-judged, prices too low, excessive centralisation
- too great a focus on the A-Bomb
- Lynsenkoism held technology back

COLD WAR
- isolationist
- political paranoia
- sphere of influence
- Soviet Nationalism
- anti-'cosmopolitanism'

OTHER
- Stalinism?
- Authoritarianism?

Which were the greatest impacts of the war? Did the war have a positive or negative effect?

Political developments


STALIN'S ROLE
- totality of control debated
- never lost control
- role of paranoia
- role of party decreasing
- most believe his position was firm and absolute
- dealt with colleagues on a one-to-one basis

CULT OF PERSONALITY
- STALIN: "I am clearly Lenin's pupil"
- presented as fatherly
- height of influence was 1949, for his 70th birthday
- Laver suggests he disliked this but recognised its ideological importance

GOVERNMENT
- same basic structure as 1936
- state positions held little meaning and some suggest that everyone was picked for their contrasting views, so that they could never agree on a coup against Stalin

PARTY
- 10% of population were members
- ideological commitment or career advancement
- controlled all areas of Soviet Life

And, those are the important aspects of post-war Stalinism.

As always, if you have a question, ASK! :)

- HistGrrl x