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Pre-leadership Leader of the Soviet Union Political ideology Works
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Stalinism (Russian: сталинизм, stalinizm) is the totalitarian[1][2][3] means of governing and Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1924 to 1953 by dictator Joseph Stalin and in Soviet satellite states between 1944 and 1953. Stalinism included the creation of a one man[4][5] totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory of socialism in one country (until 1939)[citation needed], forced collectivization of agriculture, intensification of class conflict, a cult of personality,[6][7] and subordination of the interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which Stalinism deemed the leading vanguard party of communist revolution at the time.[8] After Stalin's death and the Khrushchev Thaw, a period of de-Stalinization began in the 1950s and 1960s, which caused the influence of Stalin's ideology to begin to wane in the USSR.
Stalin's regime forcibly purged society of what it saw as threats to itself and its brand of communism (so-called "enemies of the people"), which included political dissidents, non-Soviet nationalists, the bourgeoisie, better-off peasants ("kulaks"),[9] and those of the working class who demonstrated "counter-revolutionary" sympathies.[10] This resulted in mass repression of such people and their families, including mass arrests, show trials, executions, and imprisonment in forced labor camps known as gulags.[11] The most notorious examples were the Great Purge and the Dekulakization campaign. Stalinism was also marked by militant atheism, mass anti-religious persecution,[12][13] and ethnic cleansing through forced deportations.[14] Some historians, such as Robert Service, have blamed Stalinist policies, particularly collectivization, for causing famines such as the Holodomor.[12] Other historians and scholars disagree on Stalinism's role.[15]
Scholars also disagree over what role the Soviet Union played in the tragedy. Some scholars point to Stalin as the mastermind behind the famine, due to his hatred of Ukrainians (Hosking, 1987). Others assert that Stalin did not actively cause the famine, but he knew about it and did nothing to stop it (Moore, 2012). Still other scholars argue that the famine was just an effect of the Soviet Union's push for rapid industrialization and a by-product of that was the destruction of the peasant way of life (Fischer, 1935). The final school of thought argues that the Holodomor was caused by factors beyond the control of the Soviet Union and Stalin took measures to reduce the effects of the famine on the Ukrainian people (Davies & Wheatcroft, 2006).