Stalinisme

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• Leerjaar 3

The Sovjet-Union 

under Stalin

1924-1953

Stalin did not have a happy childhood: the family lived in abject poverty. He went to school, but was eventually sent away

...because he had not taken an exam and he found revolutionary ideas (by Marx) very interesting. 

Stalin

• Was actually called Ioseb Dzhugashvili
  
• Brute force of the communist party
  
• Killed or ousted competitors within the party.

Stalin knew that Lenin preferred others to lead the country.

These opponents were eliminated in a power struggle, literally.

Stalin zal het economisch achtergebleven land snel industrialiseren

en de Sovjet-Unie laten uitgroeien tot een wereldmacht.

Maar dit had een erg hoge prijs..

Het land werd een totalitaire staat met Stalin als dictator

Stalin used everything to increase and maintain his power in the country, such as censorship.

Stalin determined what appeared in newspapers as well as history books: former allies were 'written out'

Pictures were manipulated to make it look like his opponents had never existed

...or that they had done such bad things that they should never be thought of again

Showprocesses

Opponents are (usually) falsely accused and sentenced to heavy penalties in an unfair trial.

In these kinds of show trials, the outcome was certain before the trial had even begun: guilty!

Goelag

Millions of 'opponents' ended up in a gulag, a penal camp.

In these 'education camps', prisoners had to perform forced labour, under very harsh conditions.

Some of these camps did not even have fences, because escape was pointless: the cold and the wolves would kill you eventually

• Exact numbers are unknown, but between 1936 and 1950, probably 12 million people died in the gulags.

• Mostly as a result of the terrible conditions, a combination of: hunger, cold and heavy physical exertion

The great purge

Stalin saw opponents everywhere, especially in people who had important roles in the administration or army.

Between 1934 and 1938, Stalin had around 1 million 'opponents' arrested and convicted.

The Soviet Union was thus 'purified'.