Editing Stalinism (section)

== Relationship to Leninism ==
{{further|Leninism after 1924}}
Stalin considered the political and economic system under his rule to be [[Marxism–Leninism]], which he considered the only legitimate successor of [[Marxism]] and [[Leninism]]. The [[historiography]] of Stalin is diverse, with many different aspects of continuity and discontinuity between the regimes Stalin and Lenin proposed. Some historians, such as [[Richard Pipes]], consider Stalinism the natural consequence of Leninism: Stalin "faithfully implemented Lenin's domestic and foreign policy programs."<ref>{{cite book |first=Richard|last=Pipes|title=Three Whys of the Russian Revolution|pages=83–4}}</ref> [[Robert Service (historian)|Robert Service]] writes that "institutionally and ideologically Lenin laid the foundations for a Stalin [...] but the passage from Leninism to the worse terrors of Stalinism was not smooth and inevitable."<ref>{{cite journal|title=Lenin: Individual and Politics in the October Revolution|journal=Modern History Review|volume=2|year=1990|number=1|pages=16–19}}</ref> Likewise, historian and Stalin biographer [[Edvard Radzinsky]] believes that Stalin was a genuine follower of Lenin, exactly as he claimed.<ref name="Radzinsky">[[Edvard Radzinsky]] ''Stalin: The First In-depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives'', Anchor, (1997) {{ISBN|0-385-47954-9}}.</ref> Another Stalin biographer, [[Stephen Kotkin]], wrote that "his violence was not the product of his subconscious but of the Bolshevik engagement with Marxist–Leninist ideology."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/11/understanding-stalin/380786/|title=Understanding Stalin|website=The Atlantic|date=2014-10-14|access-date=2015-04-04|author=Anne Applebaum}}</ref>
[[File:Ves mir budet nash.jpg|thumb|A poster of the Stalinist era with the inscription "The whole world will be ours!"]]

[[Dmitri Volkogonov]], who wrote biographies of both Lenin and Stalin, wrote that during the 1960s through 1980s, an official patriotic Soviet [[de-Stalinized]] view of the Lenin–Stalin relationship (during the [[Khrushchev Thaw]] and later) was that the overly [[autocratic]] Stalin had distorted the Leninism of the wise ''[[Grandparent|dedushka]]'' Lenin. But Volkogonov also lamented that this view eventually dissolved for those like him who had the scales fall from their eyes immediately before and after the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]]. After researching the biographies in the Soviet archives, he came to the same conclusion as Radzinsky and Kotkin (that Lenin had built a culture of violent autocratic totalitarianism of which Stalinism was a logical extension). 

Proponents of [[Continuity of government|continuity]] cite a variety of contributory factors, such as that Lenin, not Stalin, introduced the [[Red Terror]] with its hostage-taking and [[internment camps]], and that Lenin developed the infamous [[Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)|Article 58]] and established the autocratic system in the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]].<ref name="Pipes">{{cite book|first=Richard|last=Pipes|title=Communism: A History|url=https://archive.org/details/communismhistory00pipe|url-access=registration|year=2001|isbn=978-0-8129-6864-4|pages=[https://archive.org/details/communismhistory00pipe/page/n90 73]–74|publisher=Random House Publishing }}</ref> They also note that Lenin put a [[Ban on factions in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|ban on factions within the Russian Communist Party]] and introduced the [[one-party state]] in 1921—a move that enabled Stalin to get rid of his rivals easily after Lenin's death and cite [[Felix Dzerzhinsky]], who, during the [[Bolshevik]] struggle against opponents in the [[Russian Civil War]], exclaimed: "We stand for organized terror—this should be frankly stated."<ref>George Leggett, ''The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police''.</ref>

Opponents of this view include [[revisionist historians]] and many [[Post–Cold War era|post–Cold War]] and otherwise [[dissident Soviet]] historians, including [[Roy Medvedev]], who argues that although "one could list the various measures carried out by Stalin that were actually a continuation of anti-democratic trends and measures implemented under Lenin…in so many ways, Stalin acted, not in line with Lenin's clear instructions, but in defiance of them."<ref>Roy Medvedev, ''Leninism and Western Socialism'', Verso, 1981.</ref> In doing so, some historians have tried to distance Stalinism from Leninism to undermine the totalitarian view that Stalin's methods were inherent in communism from the start.<ref>Moshe Lewin, ''Lenin's Last Testament'', University of Michigan Press, 2005.</ref> Other revisionist historians such as [[Orlando Figes]], while critical of the Soviet era, acknowledge that Lenin actively sought to counter Stalin's growing influence, allying with Trotsky in 1922–23, opposing Stalin on [[foreign trade]], and proposing party reforms including the democratization of the [[Central Committee]] and recruitment of 50-100 ordinary workers into the party's lower organs.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Figes |first1=Orlando |title=A people's tragedy : a history of the Russian Revolution |date=1997 |publisher=New York, NY : Viking |isbn=978-0-670-85916-0 |pages=796–801 |url=https://archive.org/details/peoplestragedyhi00fige/page/796/mode/2up}}</ref>

Critics include anti-Stalinist communists such as Trotsky, who pointed out that Lenin attempted to persuade the Communist Party to remove Stalin from his post as its [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|General Secretary]]. Trotsky also argued that he and Lenin had intended to lift the ban on the [[List of political parties in the Soviet Union|opposition parties]] such as the [[Mensheviks]] and [[Socialist Revolutionaries]] as soon as the economic and social conditions of [[Soviet Russia]] had improved.<ref name="books.google.com">{{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 |pages=528 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky+the+prophet |language=en}}</ref>  [[Lenin's Testament]], the document containing this order, was suppressed after Lenin's death. Various historians have cited Lenin's proposal to appoint Trotsky as a [[Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union|Vice-chairman of the Soviet Union]] as evidence that he intended Trotsky to be his successor as head of government.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Danilov |first1=Victor |last2=Porter |first2=Cathy |title=We Are Starting to Learn about Trotsky |journal=History Workshop |date=1990 |issue=29 |pages=136–146 |jstor=4288968 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4288968 |issn=0309-2984}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Daniels |first1=Robert V. |title=The Rise and Fall of Communism in Russia |date=1 October 2008 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-13493-3 |page=438 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=27JGzAoMLjoC&dq=Victor+Danilov+Trotsky&pg=PA438 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Watson |first1=Derek |title=Molotov and Soviet Government: Sovnarkom, 1930–41 |date=27 July 2016 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-349-24848-3 |page=25 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xhm_DAAAQBAJ&dq=Trotsky+chairman+rykov&pg=PA25 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The prophet unarmed: Trotsky, 1921–1929 |date=1965 |publisher=New York, Vintage Books |isbn=978-0-394-70747-1 |page=135 |url=https://archive.org/details/prophetunarmed00isaa/page/134/mode/2up?q=promote+rykov+}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Dziewanowski |first1=M. K. |title=Russia in the twentieth century |date=2003 |publisher=Upper Saddle River, N.J. : Prentice Hall |isbn=978-0-13-097852-3 |page=162 |url=https://archive.org/details/russiaintwentiet0000dzie/page/162/mode/1up?view=theater}}</ref> In his biography of Trotsky, British historian [[Isaac Deutscher]] writes that, faced with the evidence, "only the blind and the deaf could be unaware of the contrast between Stalinism and Leninism."<ref>{{cite book|first=Isaac|last=Deutscher|title=Trotsky: The Prophet Unarmed|url=https://archive.org/details/prophetunarmedtr0000unse_c1b0|url-access=registration|year=1959|pages=[https://archive.org/details/prophetunarmedtr0000unse_c1b0/page/n497 464]–5}}</ref> Similarly, historian [[Moshe Lewin]] writes, "The Soviet regime underwent a long period of 'Stalinism,' which in its basic features was diametrically opposed to the recommendations of [Lenin's] testament".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lewin |first1=Moshe |title=Lenin's Last Struggle |date=4 May 2005 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |isbn=978-0-472-03052-1 |page=136 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iheBbViwVksC |language=en}}</ref> French historian [[Pierre Broue]] disputes the historical assessments of the early Soviet Union by modern historians such as Dmitri Volkogonov, which Broue argues falsely equate [[Leninism]], Stalinism and [[Trotskyism]] to present the notion of ideological continuity and reinforce the position of [[anti-communism|counter-communism]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Broue. |first1=Pierre |title=Trotsky: a biographer's problems. In The Trotsky reappraisal. Brotherstone, Terence; Dukes, Paul,(eds) |date=1992 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-0-7486-0317-6 |pages=19, 20}}</ref>

Some scholars have attributed the establishment of the one-party system in the Soviet Union to the wartime conditions imposed on Lenin's government;<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rogovin |first1=Vadim Zakharovich |title=Was There an Alternative? Trotskyism: a Look Back Through the Years |date=2021 |publisher=Mehring Books |isbn=978-1-893638-97-6 |pages=13–14 |language=en}}</ref> others have highlighted the initial attempts to form a coalition government with the [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries|Left Socialist Revolutionaries]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Carr |first1=Edward Hallett |title=The Bolshevik revolution 1917–1923. Vol. 1 |date=1977 |publisher=Penguin books |isbn=978-0-14-020749-1 |pages=111–112 |edition=Reprinted}}</ref> According to historian [[Marcel Liebman]], Lenin's wartime measures such as banning opposition parties was prompted by the fact that several political parties either [[left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks|took up arms]] against the new [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Soviet government]], participated in sabotage, [[Collaborationism|collaborated]] with the deposed [[absolute monarchy|Tsarists]], or made [[Assassination attempts on Vladimir Lenin|assassination attempts against Lenin]] and other Bolshevik leaders.<ref name="Leninism Under Lenin">{{cite book |last1=Liebman |first1=Marcel |title=Leninism Under Lenin |date=1985 |publisher=Merlin Press |isbn=978-0-85036-261-9 |pages=1–348 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OQjzAAAAMAAJ |language=en}}</ref> Liebman also argues that the banning of parties under Lenin did not have the same repressive character as later bans enforced by Stalin's regime.<ref name="Leninism Under Lenin" /> Several scholars have highlighted the socially progressive nature of Lenin's policies, such as [[Universal access to education|universal education]], [[universal healthcare|healthcare]], and [[Women in Russia|equal rights for women]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Adams |first1=Katherine H. |last2=Keene |first2=Michael L. |title=After the Vote Was Won: The Later Achievements of Fifteen Suffragists |date=10 January 2014 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-5647-5 |page=109 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oyaxYvSG6gAC&dq=lenin+universal+literacy+after+the+vote+was+won&pg=PA109 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Ugri͡umov |first1=Aleksandr Leontʹevich |title=Lenin's Plan for Building Socialism in the USSR, 1917–1925 |date=1976 |publisher=Novosti Press Agency Publishing House |page=48 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gXknAQAAMAAJ&q=lenin+universal+literacy |language=en}}</ref> Conversely, Stalin's regime reversed Lenin's policies on social matters such as [[gender equality|sexual equality]], legal restrictions on [[marriage]], rights of sexual minorities, and [[abortion|protective legislation]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Meade |first1=Teresa A. |author-link=Teresa Meade |last2=Wiesner-Hanks |first2=Merry E. |title=A Companion to Gender History |date=15 April 2008 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-0-470-69282-0 |page=197 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZtQP5why918C&dq=stalin+criminalize+abortion+religion+nationalism&pg=PA197 |language=en}}</ref> Historian [[Robert Vincent Daniels]] also views the Stalinist period as a counterrevolution in Soviet cultural life that revived [[Soviet patriotism|patriotic propaganda]], the Tsarist programme of [[Russification]] and traditional, [[military ranks]] that Lenin had criticized as expressions of "Great Russian chauvinism".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Daniels |first1=Robert V. |title=The End of the Communist Revolution |date=November 2002 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-92607-7 |pages=90–94 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZKeJAgAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+abortion+criminalised&pg=PA94 |language=en}}</ref> Daniels also regards Stalinism as an abrupt break with the Leninist period in terms of economic policies in which a deliberated, scientific system of [[economic planning]] that featured former [[Menshevik]] [[economists]] at [[Gosplan]] was replaced by a hasty version of planning with unrealistic targets, bureaucractic waste, [[Bottleneck (production)|bottlenecks]] and [[shortages]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Daniels |first1=Robert V. |title=The End of the Communist Revolution |date=November 2002 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-92607-7 |pages=90–92 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZKeJAgAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+abortion+criminalised&pg=PA94 |language=en}}</ref>

[[File:First edition of Krushchev's "Secret Speech".jpg|thumb|180px|''O kulcie jednostki i jego następstwach'', Warsaw, March 1956, first edition of the Secret Speech, published for the inner use in the [[PUWP]].]]
In his "[[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences|Secret Speech]]", delivered in 1956, [[Nikita Khrushchev]], Stalin's successor, argued that Stalin's regime differed profusely from the leadership of Lenin. He was critical of the [[Joseph Stalin's cult of personality|cult of the individual]] constructed around Stalin whereas Lenin stressed "the role of the people as the creator of history".<ref name="archive.org">{{cite book |last1=Khrushchev |first1=Nikita Sergeevich |title=The Crimes Of The Stalin Era, Special Report To The 20th Congress Of The Communist Party Of The Soviet Union. |date=1956 |pages=1–65 |url=https://archive.org/details/TheCrimesOfTheStalinEraSpecialReportToThe20thCongressOfTheCommunistPartyOfTheSovietUnion.}}</ref> He also emphasized that Lenin favored a [[collective leadership]] that relied on personal persuasion and recommended Stalin's removal as General Secretary. Khrushchev contrasted this with Stalin's "despotism", which required absolute submission to his position, and highlighted that many of the people later annihilated as "enemies of the party ... had worked with Lenin during his life".<ref name="archive.org" /> He also contrasted the "severe methods" Lenin used in the "most necessary cases" as a "struggle for survival" during the Civil War with the extreme methods and mass repressions Stalin used even when the revolution was "already victorious".<ref name="archive.org" /> In his memoirs, Khrushchev argued that his widespread purges of the "most advanced nucleus of people" among the [[Old Bolsheviks]] and leading figures in the [[military]] and [[Science and technology in the Soviet Union|scientific]] fields had "undoubtedly" weakened the nation.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Khrushchev |first1=Nikita Sergeevich |last2=Khrushchev |first2=Serge_ |title=Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev |date=2004 |publisher=Penn State Press |isbn=978-0-271-02861-3 |page=156 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uv1zv4FZhFUC&dq=stalin+weaken+soviet+union+old+bolsheviks&pg=PT170 |language=en}}</ref> According to Stalin's secretary, [[Boris Bazhanov]], Stalin was jubilant over Lenin's death while "publicly putting on the mask of grief".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kuromiya |first1=Hiroaki |title=Stalin |date=16 August 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-86780-7 |page=60 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BRV4AAAAQBAJ&dq=Stalin+swearing+Lenin+testament&pg=PA59 |language=en}}</ref>

Some Marxist theoreticians have disputed the view that Stalin's dictatorship was a natural outgrowth of the Bolsheviks' actions, as Stalin eliminated most of the original central committee members from 1917.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Grant |first1=Alex |title=Top 10 lies about the Bolshevik Revolution |url=https://www.marxist.com/top-10-lies-about-the-bolshevik-revolution-part-one.htm |website=In Defence of Marxism |language=en-gb |date=1 November 2017}}</ref> [[George Novack]] stressed the Bolsheviks' initial efforts to form a government with the [[Left Socialist Revolutionaries]] and bring other parties such as the Mensheviks into political legality.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Novack |first1=George |title=Democracy and Revolution |date=1971 |publisher=Pathfinder |isbn=978-0-87348-192-2 |pages=307–347 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bLMgAQAAIAAJ |language=en}}</ref> [[Tony Cliff]] argued the Bolshevik-Left Socialist Revolutionary coalition government dissolved the Constituent Assembly for several reasons. They cited the outdated voter rolls, which did not acknowledge the split among the Socialist Revolutionary party, and the assembly's conflict with the [[All-Russian Congress of Soviets|Congress of the Soviets]] as an alternative democratic structure.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Cliff |first1=Tony |title=Revolution Besieged. The Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly) |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1978/lenin3/ch03.html |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref>

A similar analysis is present in more recent works, such as those of Graeme Gill, who argues that Stalinism was "not a natural flow-on of earlier developments; [it formed a] sharp break resulting from conscious decisions by leading political actors."{{sfn|Gill|1998}} But Gill adds that "difficulties with the use of the term reflect problems with the concept of Stalinism itself. The major difficulty is a lack of agreement about what should constitute Stalinism."{{sfn|Gill|1998|p=1}} Revisionist historians such as [[Sheila Fitzpatrick]] have criticized the focus on the upper levels of society and the use of Cold War concepts such as [[totalitarianism]], which have obscured the reality of the system.<ref>{{cite book|title=Beyond Totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism Compared|last1=Geyer|first1=Michael|author1-link=Michael Geyer|last2=Fitzpatrick|first2=Sheila|author2-link=Sheila Fitzpatrick|year=2009|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-72397-8|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3wzDPQAACAAJ|doi=10.1017/CBO9780511802652}}</ref>

Russian historian [[Vadim Rogovin]] writes, "Under Lenin, the freedom to express a real variety of opinions existed in the party, and in carrying out political decisions, consideration was given to the positions of not only the majority, but a minority in the party". He compared this practice with subsequent leadership blocs, which violated party tradition, ignored opponents' proposals, and expelled the [[Left Opposition|Opposition]] from the party on falsified charges, culminating in the [[Moscow Trials]] of 1936–1938. According to Rogovin, 80-90% of the members of the Central Committee elected at the [[6th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks)|Sixth]] through the [[17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|Seventeenth Congresses]] were killed.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rogovin |first1=Vadim Z |title=Was There an Alternative? 1923–1927: Trotskyism: a Look Back Through the Years |date=2021 |publisher=Mehring Books |isbn=978-1-893638-96-9 |pages=494–495 |language=en}}</ref> The Right and Left Opposition have been held by some scholars as representing political alternatives to Stalinism despite their shared beliefs in Leninism due to their policy platforms which were at variance with Stalin. This ranged from areas related to [[socialist economics|economics]], [[foreign policy]] and [[cultural]] matters.<ref>"While Trotsky was strongly biased toward industrial development, there is little basis to suppose that he would have adopted Stalin’s forcible collectivization, slapdash economic planning, anti expert campaigns, or cultural know-nothingism. Neither Trotsky nor Bukharin would have pursued anything like Stalin’s pseudo-revolutionary “[[third period]]” foreign policy and his connivance in the advent of [[Hitler]], another product of his political manoeuvring against the Bukharinists."{{cite book |last1=Daniels |first1=Robert V. |title=The Rise and Fall of Communism in Russia |date=1 October 2008 |publisher=Yale University Press |page=396 |isbn=978-0-300-13493-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=27JGzAoMLjoC |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Day |first1=Richard B. |title=The Blackmail of the Single Alternative: Bukharin, Trotsky and Perestrojka |journal=Studies in Soviet Thought |date=1990 |volume=40 |issue=1/3 |pages=159–188 |doi=10.1007/BF00818977 |jstor=20100543 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20100543 |issn=0039-3797}}</ref>