STALIN'S POLITICAL POLICIES & IMPACTS
Stalin and the Show Trials
In the Soviet Union Nickolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolai Krestinsky and Christian Rakovsky were arrested and accused of being involved with Leon Trotsky in a plot against Stalin. They were all found guilty and were eventually executed. In January, 1937, Yuri Piatakov, Karl Radek, Grigori Sokolnikov, and fifteen other leading members of the Communist Party were put on trial. They were accused of working with Leon Trotsky in an attempt to overthrow the Soviet government with the objective of restoring capitalism. Robin Page Arnot, a leading figure in the British Communist Party, wrote: "A second Moscow trial, held in January 1937, revealed the wider ramifications of the conspiracy. This was the trial of the Parallel Centre, headed by Piatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov, Serebriakov. The volume of evidence brought forward at this trial was sufficient to convince the most sceptical that these men, in conjunction with Trotsky and with the Fascist Powers, had carried through a series of abominable crimes involving loss of life and wreckage on a very considerable scale."
Edvard Radzinsky, the author of Stalin (1996) has pointed out: "After they saw that Piatakov was ready to collaborate in any way required, they gave him a more complicated role. In the 1937 trials he joined the defendants, those whom he had meant to blacken. He was arrested, but was at first recalcitrant. Ordzhonikidze in person urged him to accept the role assigned to him in exchange for his life. No one was so well qualified as Piatakov to destroy Trotsky, his former god and now the Party's worst enemy, in the eyes of the country and the whole world. He finally agreed I to do it as a matter of 'the highest expediency,' and began rehearsals with the interrogators."
One of the journalists covering the trial, Lion Feuchtwanger, commented: "Those who faced the court could not possibly be thought of as tormented and desperate beings. In appearance the accused were well-groomed and well-dressed men with relaxed and unconstrained manners. They drank tea, and there were newspapers sticking out of their pockets... Altogether, it looked more like a debate... conducted in conversational tones by educated people. The impression created was that the accused, the prosecutor, and the judges were all inspired by the same single - I almost said sporting - objective, to explain all that had happened with the maximum precision. If a theatrical producer had been called on to stage such a trial he would probably have needed several rehearsals to achieve that sort of teamwork among the accused."
Yuri Piatakov and twelve of the accused were found guilty and sentenced to death. Karl Radek andGrigori Sokolnikov were sentenced to ten years. Feuchtwanger commented that Radek "gave the condemned men a guilty smile, as though embarrassed by his luck." Maria Svanidze, who was later herself to be purged by Joseph Stalin wrote in her diary: "They arrested Radek and others whom I knew, people I used to talk to, and always trusted.... But what transpired surpassed all my expectations of human baseness. It was all there, terrorism, intervention, the Gestapo, theft, sabotage, subversion.... All out of careerism, greed, and the love of pleasure, the desire to have mistresses, to travel abroad, together with some sort of nebulous prospect of seizing power by a palace revolution. Where was their elementary feeling of patriotism, of love for their motherland? These moral freaks deserved their fate.... My soul is ablaze with anger and hatred. Their execution will not satisfy me. I should like to torture them, break them on the wheel, burn them alive for all the vile things they have done."
Purge of the Red Army
Stalin now decided to purge the Red Army. Some historians believe that Stalin was telling the truth when he claimed that he had evidence that the army was planning a military coup at this time. Leopold Trepper, head of the Soviet spy ring in Germany, believed that the evidence was planted by a double agent who worked for both Stalin and Adolf Hitler. Trepper's theory is that the "chiefs of Nazi counter-espionage" took "advantage of the paranoia raging in the Soviet Union," by supplying information that led to Stalin executing his top military leaders.
Stalin became convinced that the leaders of the Red Army were involved in a plot to overthrow him. In June, 1937, Mikhail Tukhachevsky and seven other top commanders were charged with conspiracy with Germany. William Stephenson, head of the British Security Coordination (BSC), who was aware of what was going on later pointed out: "Late in 1936, Heydrich had thirty-two documents forged to play on Stalin's sick suspicions and make him decapitate his own armed forces. The Nazi forgeries were incredibly successful. More than half the Russian officer corps, some 35,000 experienced men, were executed or banished. The Soviet chief of Staff, Marshal Tukhachevsky, was depicted as having been in regular correspondence with German military commanders. All the letters were Nazi forgeries. But Stalin took them as proof that even Tukhachevsky was spying for Germany. It was a most devastating and clever end to the Russo-German military agreement, and it left the Soviet Union in absolutely no condition to fight a major war with Hitler." Tukhachevsky was found guilty and executed on 11th June, 1937. It is estimated that 30,000 members of the armed forces were killed. This included fifty per cent of all army officers.
By the beginning of 1938, most of the intelligence officers serving abroad had been targeted for elimination had already returned to Moscow. Joseph Stalin now decided to remove another witness to his crimes, Abram Slutsky. On 17th February 1938, Slutsky was summoned to the office of Mikhail Frinovsky, one of those who worked closely with Nikolai Yezhov, the head of ADT. According to Mikhail Shpiegelglass he was called to Frinovsky's office and found him dead from a heart attack.
Simon Sebag Montefiore, the author of Stalin: The Count of the Red Tsar (2004): "Yezhov was called upon to kill his own NKVD appointees whom he had protected. In early 1938, Stalin and Yezhov decided to liquidate the veteran Chekist, Abram Slutsky, but since he headed the Foreign Department, they devised a plan so as not to scare their foreign agents. On 17 February, Frinovsky invited Slutsky to his office where another of Yezhov's deputies came up behind him and drew a mask of chloroform over his face. He was then injected with poison and died right there in the office. It was officially announced that he had died of a heart attack." Two months later Slutsky was posthumously stripped of his CPSU membership and declared an enemy of the people.
Joseph Stalin told Nikolai Yezhov that he needed some help in running the NKVD and asked him to choose someone. Yezhov requested Georgy Malenkov but Stalin wanted to keep him in the Central Committee and sent him Lavrenty Beria instead. Simon Sebag Montefiore commented: "Stalin may have wanted a Caucasian, perhaps convinced that the cut-throat traditions of the mountains - blood feuds, vendettas and secret murders - suited the position. Beria was a natural, the only First Secretary who personally tortured his victims. The blackjack - the zhgtrti - and the truncheon - the dubenka - were his favourite toys. He was hated by many of the Old Bolsheviks and family members around the leader. With the whispering, plotting and vengeful Beria at his side, Stalin felt able to destroy his own polluted, intimate world."
Robert Service, the author of Stalin: A Biography (2004) has argued: "Yezhov understood the danger he was in and his daily routine became hectic; he knew that the slightest mistake could prove fatal. Somehow, though, he had to show himself to Stalin as indispensable. Meanwhile he also had to cope with the appointment of a new NKVD Deputy Commissar, the ambitious Lavrenti Beria, from July 1938. Beria had until then been First Secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia; he was widely feared in the south Caucasus as a devious plotter against any rival - and almost certainly he had poisoned one of them, the Abkhazian communist leader Nestor Lakoba, in December 1936. If Yezhov tripped, Beria was ready to take his place; indeed Beria would be more than happy to trip Yezhov up. Daily collaboration with Beria was like being tied in a sack with a wild beast. The strain on Yezhov became intolerable. He took to drinking heavily and turned for solace to one-night stands with women he came across; and when this failed to satiate his needs, he pushed himself upon men he encountered in the office or at home. In so far as he was able to secure his future position, he started to gather compromising material on Stalin himself.... On 17 November the Politburo decided that enemies of the people had infiltrated the NKVD. Such measures spelled doom for Yezhov. He drank more heavily. He turned to more boyfriends for sexual gratification."
Source: http://spartacus-educational.com/RUSstalin.htm
Stalin and the Use of Propaganda
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Through his ideology and policies, and the influence that they had on the various communist regimes around the world, Joseph Stalin, as a political figure had acquired enough name and fame. Some historians claim that Stalin himself behaved rather modestly in public; however, owing to the powerful position that he held in the communist world, a peculiar 'cult of personality' was automatically built around him.
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Especially, in the USSR, Stalin received massive media attention, and soon enough he began being portrayed as the 'all-knowing leader' by the Soviet propagandists.
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The 'cult of personality' that had developed around Stalin was always one of the most visible elements of Soviet politics of that time; however, it became more prominent when lavish celebrations were held throughout the USSR on his 50th birthday (December 1929).
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From then on, Stalin became a favorite subject of the Soviet press; his name and images began to appear so fervently in the media that he seemed almost omnipresent.
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Initially (before and during the WWII) when Stalin was known to make several public appearances from time to time, the Soviet press took on the responsibility to show the world how their leader was socially and emotionally linked with the common people. For this purpose, several newspapers often published letters written by farmers and industrial workers, praising Stalin for bringing hope and happiness in their lives.
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After the end of the WWII, Stalin's public appearances decreased to a great extent. But his cult was still widespread and so, the propagandists moved on to promote him as a 'father figure'. Newspapers and magazines often published his photographs with children, and he himself also often went to several schools and orphanages to distribute gifts amongst kids. This gesture also earned him substantial media coverage.
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According to experts, promoting Stalin as the "father" mingled the aspects of religion with those of the cult of personality, and the main purpose behind doing so was to deviate the attention of people away from the church and towards Stalin.
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The relationship between Lenin and Stalin was also an important aspect that helped build Stalin's image in the mass media. The Soviet press maintained that Stalin was the constant companion of Lenin until the latter's death, and that the former's ideals are rooted in those of Leninism. Though Stalin's policies, more often than not, seemed to be in complete contrast with those of Lenin, he always claimed of having been a faithful follower of his predecessor's ideals, and thus, indirectly kept on implying that his rule was also as flawless as that of Lenin.
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Over the years, Stalin became so powerful and popular that he tended to completely overshadow Lenin. In the later representations, Stalin was not shown alongside Lenin, but was portrayed independently, indicating that he was the only leader responsible for the success and well-being of the Soviet Union. In fact, since 1936, Stalin came to be known as the Father of Nations.
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Stalin's propaganda by the Soviet press led to the leader gaining popularity in the popular culture as well. He became a favorite subject of writers, painters, poets, musicians, and filmmakers. Numerous imposing statues of Stalin were installed at public places throughout the USSR, and a number of Soviet villages, towns, and cities were renamed after him. As if all this was not enough, several pompous titles were conferred upon him, which he, rather modestly, accepted. These included Brilliant Genius of Humanity, Gardener of Human Happiness, Coryphaeus of Science, and Great Architect of Communism, amongst others. Furthermore, post the WWII, Stalin's name was also included in the new national anthem of the USSR that was first broadcasted on the Soviet radio on 1 January 1944.
Source: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/stalinism-the-use-of-propaganda-by-joseph-stalin.html