History 1401E Lecture 7: The rise of stalin and his cult of personality #6
7 Nov 2018
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The rise of stalin and his cult of personality. Lenin and the foundations of soviet totalitarianism. He is in the midst of a civil war and many of the policies are conducted in the threat of total failure. He seized power mainly by conspiratorial means. Much of opposition was fabricated to establish necessary" war measure. Doesn"t have a lot of time to make major government changes. Takes stalin, his successor, to really take things to the next level. No idea to know where he would take things. By 1924 lenin dies from a stroke and in 1929 stalin comes into power for the soviet union. End point for marxist/leninist form of totalitarianism. Stalin was an extension of communist ideology. This was the view of stalinism during the cold war. But as well the enemies in the west would point to the horrors of stalinist rule. Problem with this is that it is quite clear lenin did not believe this.
