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Positive and negative consequences of Stalin's rule. An objective review of Stalin's reign (Pros and Cons)

Please name the pros and cons of Stalin's rule and got the best answer

Answer from Ўriy Maksimov[guru]
In reality, Stalin did the following: 1) finally formed the entire Soviet social system with its political, social, economic institutions and principles (socialist statism, state ownership, directive-planned economy, etc.); 2) radically changed the doctrinaire ideology of Bolshevism, abandoning the course of "world revolution" and turning the international revolutionary movement into an instrument of real defense of the interests of the USSR; 3) curtailed the NEP and carried out a forced industrial modernization of the country, using the mobilization of all internal resources in the absence of external ones; 4) in the situation of an imminent new world war, he prevented the formation of a united front of the Western powers against the USSR; 5) provided fundamental (industrialization) and situational (political strategy, gaining allies, military-political leadership) conditions for victory in World War II; 6) laid the foundation for the transformation of the USSR into a superpower (post-war world order, possession of a high scientific, technical, military, nuclear potential). The speaker emphasized that there are no moral justifications for Stalinist repressions, but they should be understood as a product of the era and a continuation of the methods civil war. Russia in this was not something unique, since the 20th century is the apogee of violence in world history. Collectivization became an alternative to agrarian "Stolypin-style modernization." The latter did not work out in Russia, but led to an aggravation of social hatred, which manifested itself in the revolution of 1917 and in the Civil War. Stalin carried out this modernization, ensuring industrialization at the expense of the countryside, but retaining as his support the social matrices of peasant communal traditionalism. The success of industrialization, for all its incompleteness, allowed the USSR almost single-handedly to resist the military and economic potential of not only fascist Germany, but almost all of Western Europe.
Under Stalin, the USSR became a world power, one of the two leaders of opposing social systems, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, a country that controlled the center of Europe, many countries of the disintegrating colonial world, the world communist, labor and, to a large extent, national liberation movement. The borders of the USSR were reliably protected by both geopolitical acquisitions and a powerful army. The main result of Stalin's rule is that Russia has become a modern power. No wonder W. Churchill said: Stalin took Russia with a plow, and left it with a nuclear bomb and missiles. But something else is also important: the Soviet system preserved the "civilizational genotype" of Russia, providing the modernization potential for further development on its own socio-cultural basis. How it will be used depends both on the system created by Stalin and on the activities of his heirs.
Vasily Solovyov
Sage
(17614)
Would you both like to live under Stalin?

Answer from Maximyss[guru]
Almost nothing but cons!!!


Answer from Vasily Solovyov[guru]
What other advantages can a cannibal have??!


Answer from Chinese miner[guru]
well, except for tens of millions you rot in the camps, then he is a lamb


Answer from VadiK[active]
"+" - Won the war, raised the economy....
"-" - For the sake of all this, repressions had to be carried out


Answer from Alexander Chuzhinov[newbie]
-During World War II, he killed a lot of people, not believing intelligence. Even when attacked already. + was cruel and strict control over everything.


Answer from Vlad Shtrafbat[guru]
It's complicated! Everyone has their own point of view, their own sources of knowledge about those times! But there are indisputable advantages that even his enemies cannot but recognize! This is the Great War won! Create a superpower! The best education in the world! And the most powerful army!


Answer from Valery Shipitsyn[guru]
In short, he carried out industrialization, and minus- mass repression!


Answer from .Unknown Unknown[guru]
there are no cons, only pros, there are so many of them that it’s impossible to list them all


Answer from Mitrich[guru]
The result of Stalin's rule is that we now live, no matter what


Answer from Ђ@nice@[guru]
Plus one - he could keep everyone in his fist. And there are too many downsides to such a fist.


Answer from Daria (DFH)[guru]
Plus - that in the end Stalin died. Minus - this did not happen about twenty years earlier.


Answer from Alena Vern[guru]
He brought the country to its knees, it still will not rise ... Through fear, he absorbed slavery and apathy into the peoples for centuries ...


Answer from Alisa Svetloyarova[guru]
+ country - a great economically strong power
- Thousands of lost lives.
Everything is simple.


Answer from OleSlav[guru]
One big plus - created a superpower. There has never been a more effective ruler in Russia, even Peter the Loshok.
Everything that is said about repressions is greatly exaggerated, the population of the country grew at a tremendous pace, despite the loss of 20 million in the war against the background of growth, it was unnoticeable
And repression is sometimes necessary, if you look at the current elite


Answer from GALINA GRIDASOV[guru]
It is more correct to speak not about the rule of Stalin, but about the period of development of the state (USSR) from 1922 to 1953. This period is divided into 2 stages (if I may say so). 1922 - 37, 39 - this period is actively Russian-hating, and the period 1939-41 to 1953 is national-Bolshevik. After the collapse of their hopes for a world revolution, the radical Western revolutionaries who came to power had to deal with the economy and development of a separate state (Russia). This discussion is long and rather complex. In short: Cons - (in the 1st period) - a low economic level, a drop in population, a drop in the level of defense capability (in the presence of a huge army that needs to be maintained), terror and the destruction of the national identity of the state-forming Russian people. The 2nd period is about the same, with a change in the vocabulary of the authorities, towards national patriotism. Pluses - the creation of plantation agriculture, which allows, with sin in half, to feed the country. The development of modern industry and energy (more or less meeting the requirements of the time. Creation and maintenance of a more or less combat-ready army. In general, the conversation is long and difficult. And not on the Internet.


Answer from imsky[guru]
he was one of the best apparatchiks
minus these are his anti-people laws


Answer from Armen Ghezalyan[newbie]
Pros:
1) fight against illiteracy (construction of new schools)
2) the country's nuclear missile shield was created (after the war)
3) space exploration
4) great attention to the development and education of children (clubs, children's camps, circles, sections, houses of pioneers, etc.)
5) before the Second World War, under the leadership of Stalin, the "industrial revolution" (the country took 2nd place in the world in terms of industrial production)
6) prevented the unification of Western countries against the USSR
7) laid the foundations for the future power of the USSR in various sectors of the economy (industry in the first place)
8) one of the lowest prices for consumer goods, utilities
Minuses:
1) policy of great terror:
- destruction of intelligence
- destruction of the leadership of the army
- the destruction of scientific thought (if ideas were put forward that differed from the official policy and guidelines of the party)

The usual norm for Stalin to read literature was about 300 pages a day. He was constantly educating himself. For example, while being treated in the Caucasus, in 1931, in a letter to Nadezhda Aliluyeva, forgetting to inform about his health, he asks him to send textbooks on electrical engineering and ferrous metallurgy.

Stalin's level of education can be assessed by the number of books he read and studied. How much he read in his life, apparently, it will not be possible to establish. He was not a collector of books - he did not collect them, but selected them, i.e. in his library were only those books that he intended to somehow use in the future. But even those books that he selected are difficult to take into account. In his Kremlin apartment, the library contained, according to witnesses, several tens of thousands of volumes, but in 1941 this library was evacuated, and how many books were returned from it is unknown, since the library in the Kremlin did not recover. Subsequently, his books were in the dachas, and an outbuilding was built under the library in the Middle. Stalin collected 20,000 volumes for this library.

The range of education can be assessed from the following data: After his death, books with his marks were transferred from the library at the Middle Dacha to the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. There were 5.5 thousand of them! In addition to dictionaries and several geography courses, this list included books by both ancient and modern historians: Herodotus, Xenophon, P. Vinogradov, R. Winner, I. Velyaminov, D. Ilovaisky, K.A. Ivanova, Guerrero, N. Kareeva, 12 volumes of Karamzin's "History of the Russian State" and the second edition of the six-volume "History of Russia from Ancient Times" by S.M. Solovyov (St. Petersburg, 1896). And also: the fifth volume of the "History of the Russian Army and Navy" (St. Petersburg, 1912). “Essays on the history of natural science in extracts from the original works of Dr. F. Dannsman” (St. Petersburg, 1897), “Memoirs of Prince Bismarck. (Thoughts and memories)(St. Petersburg, 1899). About a dozen issues of the "Bulletin of Foreign Literature" for 1894, "Literary Notes" for 1892, "Scientific Review" for 1894, "Proceedings of the Public Library of the USSR. Lenin, vol. 3 (M., 1934) with materials about Pushkin, P.V. Annenkov, I.S. Turgenev and A.V. Sukhovo-Kobylin, two pre-revolutionary editions of A. Bogdanov's book "A Short Course in Economics", a novel IN AND. Kryzhanovskaya(Rochester) "Web" (St. Petersburg, 1908), G. Leonidze's book "Stalin. Childhood and adolescence” (Tbilisi, 1939. in Georgian), etc.

According to the current criteria, Stalin, according to the scientific results achieved, was a doctor of philosophy as early as 1920. His achievements in economics are even more brilliant and still unsurpassed by anyone.

Stalin's personal archive was destroyed shortly after his death.

Stalin always worked ahead of time, sometimes several decades ahead. His effectiveness as a leader was that he set very distant goals, and today's decisions became part of large-scale plans.

Under Stalin, the country was in the most difficult conditions, but in the shortest possible time it rushed forward sharply, and this means that at that time there were a lot of smart people in the country. And this is true, since Stalin attached great importance to the mind of the citizens of the USSR. He was the smartest person, and he was sick of being surrounded by fools, he wanted the whole country to be smart. The basis for the mind, for creativity is knowledge. Knowledge about everything. And so much has never been done to provide people with knowledge, to develop their minds, as under Stalin.

Stalin did not fight with vodka, he fought for people's free time. Amateur sports were developed extremely and precisely amateur. Each enterprise and institution had sports teams and athletes from its employees. More or less large enterprises were required to have and maintain stadiums. Everyone and everything played.

Stalin preferred only Tsinandali and Teliani wines. It happened that he drank cognac, but just vodka was not interested. From 1930 to 1953, the guards saw him “in zero gravity” only twice: at S.M. Shtemenko and at the wake of A.A. Zhdanov.

In all cities of the USSR, parks remained from Stalin's time. They were originally intended for mass recreation of people. They must have had a reading room and games rooms (chess, billiards), a beer and ice-cream shops, a dance floor and summer theaters.

Under Stalin, discussions were freely held on all the fundamental questions of life: on the foundations of the economy, social life, and science. Weismann's genetics, Einstein's theory of relativity, cybernetics, the organization of collective farms were criticized, any authorities of the country were criticized in the most severe way. It is enough to compare what satirists wrote about then and what they began to write about after the 20th Congress.

If the Stalinist planning system had been preserved and still reasonably improved, and I.V. Stalin understood the need to improve the socialist economy (after all, it was not for nothing that his work “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” appeared in 1952), if the task of further raising the standard of living of the people was put in the first place (and in 1953 there were no obstacles to this ), by 1970 we would have been in the top three countries with the most high level life.

The backlog of the economy that Stalin created, his plans, the people prepared by him (both technically and morally) were so outstanding that neither Khrushchev's fool, nor Brezhnev's apathy could waste this resource.

During the first 10 years of being in the first echelons of power in the USSR, Stalin submitted his resignation three times.

Stalin looked like Lenin, but his fanaticism did not extend to Marx, but to the specific Soviet people - Stalin fanatically served him.

In the ideological struggle against Stalin, the Trotskyists simply had no chance. When Stalin proposed to Trotsky in 1927 to hold an all-party discussion, the results of the final all-party referendum were stunning for the Trotskyists. Of the 854,000 party members, 730,000 voted, of which 724,000 voted for Stalin's position and 6,000 for Trotsky.

Not the last role in the creation of the State of Israel was played by Stalin's support in the voting on the UN resolution.

Stalin severed diplomatic relations with Israel only because something like a grenade was blown up on the territory of the USSR mission in Israel. Mission members were injured by this explosion. The Israeli government rushed to the USSR with an apology, but the Stalinist USSR did not forgive anyone for such an attitude towards itself.

Despite the rupture of diplomatic relations, national mourning was declared in Israel on the day of Stalin's death.

In 1927, Stalin passed a decree that the dachas of party workers could not be more than 3-4 rooms.

Stalin treated the guards very well, and to the attendant staff. Quite often he invited them to the table, and once he saw that the sentry at the post was getting wet in the rain, he ordered to immediately build a fungus at this post. But it had nothing to do with their service. Here Stalin did not tolerate any concessions.

Stalin was very frugal with himself - he didn’t have anything superfluous from clothes, but he wore out what he had.

During the war, Stalin, as expected, sent his sons to the front.

In the Battle of Kursk, Stalin found a way out of a hopeless situation: the Germans were going to use a "technical novelty" - the Tiger and Panther tanks, against which our artillery was powerless. Stalin recalled his support for the development of A-IX-2 explosives and new experimental PTAB bombs, and gave the task: by May 15, i.e. by the time the roads are dry, make 800,000 of these bombs. 150 factories of the Soviet Union rushed to fulfill this order and did it. As a result, near Kursk, the German army was deprived of striking power by Stalin's tactical novelty - the PTAB-2.5–1.5 bomb.

After the war, Stalin gradually reduced the role of the Politburo only to the level of an organ for the leadership of the party. And at the XIX Congress of the CPSU (b) this abolition of the Politburo was recorded in the new charter.

Stalin said that he sees the party as an order of swordsmen, numbering 50 thousand people.

Stalin wanted to remove the party from power altogether, leaving only two things in the care of the party: agitation and propaganda and participation in the selection of personnel.

My famous phrase“cadres decide everything” Stalin said in 1935 at a reception in honor of graduates of military academies: “We talk too much about the merits of leaders, about the merits of leaders. They are credited with everything, almost all of our achievements. This is, of course, false and wrong. It's not just the leaders. ... In order to set technology in motion and use it to the bottom, we need people who have mastered technology, we need cadres capable of mastering and using this technique according to all the rules of art ... That is why the old slogan<техника решает все>... must now be replaced by a new slogan, the slogan that<кадры решают все>».

Original this publication is located at: http://cyberdengi.com/articles/view/informary/8/238

It so happened that today our society in its attitude to I. V. Stalin- split in two.
Some demonize this historical figure and hate her fiercely, while others, on the contrary, deify Stalin's personality and almost pray to him.
There are many reasons for such a strange split of the nation! ..
But the main one, in my opinion, is a huge deficit OBJECTIVE and UNPARTIAL historical information about the life and work of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin and the entire party environment of that era (the first half of the twentieth century). Moreover, the deficit of this OBJECTIVE INFORMATION we observe against the backdrop of an emotionally colored propaganda both on the part of Stalin's opponents and on the part of his defenders ...

- Stalin, this is a murderer of his own people, a bloody tyrant and a murderer! - yelling alone, splashing with saliva.
- Stalin, this is the best ruler of Russia for the entire time of its existence! - foaming at the mouth object their opponents. - Stalin is the savior of the Russian people! ..

The hatred of the former is understandable - indeed, mass repressions and purges took place (which few families in Russia did not touch).
But let's ask clarifying questions:

- Is it only Stalin who is to blame for these repressions?
- By what year did Stalin have real power over the country?
- What is the real number of repressed and dead, and what is their social composition? ..

The list of questions can go on and on!

The deification of his idol by the second is also understandable - he accepted the country with a plow, passed it with an atomic bomb; he was not noticed in acquisitiveness, after death only an overcoat and boots remained; moreover, if in the end it was not Stalin who won, but Trotsky, there would be hundreds of times more repressed and destroyed, and Russia would no longer exist on the world map as a country ...

WHERE IS THE TRUTH?!

It seems to me that the truth here, as always, lies somewhere ...
Personally, I see many pluses from Stalin's activities, but there are also enough minuses. Pluses, nevertheless, more - and tangibly!
I am opposed to hasty conclusions (all the more so based not on facts, but on propaganda and emotions) and I believe that the personality of Stalin and his role in history must be carefully studied and cleared of that huge amount of mythological layers that have piled up since Khrushchev and beyond. the entire subsequent period.

In any case, I DEFINITELY AGAINST - both the deification of Stalin and his demonization!

At the moment, I am inclined to the point of view that Stalin brought much more benefits to the country as a whole than he made mistakes.
It is impossible not to take into account the fact that the policy itself, the situation itself was then such that either - rigidity and strength, dictatorship, or - the destruction of the country.
If "Dima Medvedev" had been in Stalin's place, the country would have been instantly torn to shreds! (And the dead people, in the end, would be many times more).
But portraying Stalin as "pink and fluffy" is also not worth it, I think (there are a lot of undeniable facts of his rigidity and even cruelty).
In a word - quite an adequate politician of his time!
And of course - by no means a demon, not a murderer, not a bloodsucker, as the liberals and the West are trying to portray ...

By the way, I really liked the book for its objectivity. Nikolai Starikov "Stalin. Let's remember together" .

Also a six part movie. Vladimir Chernyshev "Stalin with us" :

Part - I. Series 1-2.

Part - II. Series 3-4.

Part - III. Series 5-6.

This (film) is already for real OBJECTIVE and UNPARTIAL view of Stalin, I think. Neither a plus nor a minus, everything is objective, reasonable and without emotions / propaganda. I strongly recommend viewing to anyone who is interested in historical truth, and not embedded in consciousness from childhood STAMPS...

The "Levada Center" noted a record high positive attitude of the people to Stalin. His historical role in the life of the country was positively assessed by 70% of citizens against only 19% of negative assessments. These are the highest positive figures since 2003. At the same time, to the question "How do you personally feel about Stalin in general," the vast majority of citizens - 51% - noted the options "with admiration", "with respect", "with sympathy", on the contrary, only 14% said "with hostility", " with fear," "with disgust," writes RBC. And this is also the highest figure since 2001.

In addition, an increase in "justification of the victims of Stalin's repressions" was also noted - 46% are ready to "justify" this by the results and victories obtained, but 45% are not ready. However, the scrap is still marked.

Specialists of the sociological organization explain this by a certain consolidation of ideas at the level of a new social norm. On the other hand, there is an explanation that a positive image of Stalin is formed and supported by the federal media. In general, one can argue with both statements - most recently, the president said from the main TV channels, and in parallel with this, a show began, where the Soviet leadership, in particular Stalin, is already habitually put in a disadvantageous light. And there are many such examples. And how can one simply call a positive attitude towards the leader “normal” when the retirement age, taxes and tariffs are being raised around, which was not the case under the Soviets? The point is far from being in the media and not in the image of Stalin - the authorities themselves, by their actions, turn the eyes of citizens towards a more just Soviet system. This was told by the historian, academician of the International Academy of Sciences, publicist Andrey Fursov.

—How fair are these poll numbers, in your opinion?

— I think the polls are fair and, moreover, these numbers will grow. What is the reason for such attention with a "plus" sign to the Soviet past and personally to Stalin? There are several factors here: the Stalin era was an era of achievements that the current government, even if it has 300 years ahead of it, cannot achieve; the Stalin era was a cruel era, but it was popular socialism; the Stalin era gave people truly working social elevators. I'm no longer talking about Soviet Union was a superpower that it recovered in just 10 years after the end of the Great Patriotic War. Although in the West we were prophesied 20-25 years. And this happened in the last years of Stalin's life.

Then some said that in the last years of his life, Stalin "completely lost his mind," "became paranoid." But it's not. He was really wrong, because in the fall of 1945 he suffered either a stroke or a heart attack, age made itself felt - he really made a number of serious mistakes in foreign and domestic policy from 1945 to 1953, and yet, the pros outweigh the cons. The country rose to its feet under his leadership.

If we recall the period from 1917 to 1937, in 20 years the country has taken second place in the world as a military-industrial power. And what happened to us in the 20 years after 1991? We moved down and became a raw material appendage of the West.

- The popularity of the Soviet period and in particular Stalin is growing from the unfair surrounding reality?

- There is such a background that is negative today - this is a colossal social inequality, an increase in crime, in fact, idle social elevators. What is very important - for almost a quarter of a century, dirt has been poured on Soviet history and on Stalin - but this dirt does not stick. That is, everything turns out as Stalin said (he said this several times in a conversation with Kollontai and in a conversation with Shaginyan), the meaning is that in our era and on me personally and on my grave, Stalin said, they will inflict a lot of dirt, but The wind of history will blow it all away. And so it happened. As de Gaulle said: "Stalin did not go into the past - he dissolved into the future."

Therefore, Stalin's assessment is in fact an assessment of the current structure of Russia with the opposite sign.

- Sociologists explain this by the allegedly positive image of Stalin supported in the federal media - can you agree with this point of view?

- I didn’t really notice something that the federal media are so actively supporting the image of Stalin. Another thing is that the tone has changed - less dirt is being poured, yes, some more or less positive things appear in the federal media, but this is a reaction to changes in society. It's a consequence. The media have to do it.

Moreover, the international situation encourages this. So there is absolutely nothing surprising in this regard.

—And how can one explain the scrapping in "justifying the victims of Stalin's repressions"?

- It can be explained by the same reasons, but the fact is that the question is posed incorrectly - what does "justified" or "unjustified" mean? And who is the judge, who is the prosecutor, who is the lawyer? No new social system has arisen without bloodshed, without the suppression of those who resist.

For example, the British Empire or the Roman Empire arose with sacrifices in the name of the selfish interests of a small group of the population, so any social system arises on the basis of severe repression and suppression. And, of course, when a mass process is launched, the innocent also suffer, alas, this is true.

—You can also remember the 90s - are those losses justified by the results obtained?

- The so-called losses of the 90s are the most natural pogrom and expropriation of the population. And in 1991, this whole gang of Yeltsin, Gaidar, Chubais and others like them did not set any goals, except for personal enrichment and the creation of a class of oligarchs. That is, there was no dream, no desire to create a society of equality - it was an attempt to create such a "quasi-America". I want to remind you that President Yeltsin, speaking in America, said: "God bless America." And I think when the real history of the late 20th and early 21st centuries is written, Yeltsin's rule will be the most shameful in Russian history. And it will be more shameful than the Tushino flights during the first turmoil, more shameful than the rule of the Februaryists and the Provisional Government - because Yeltsin's rule was the rule traitor and traitors.

- And the reason for Stalin's increasing popularity turned out to be, probably, including those unpopular "reforms" with which we have been bombarded since mid-2018?

- It's not just about unpopular "reforms". Case in an unpopular fashion. Because Russia cannot be a capitalist country - it never was. A capitalist structure is possible in Russia, but a capitalist Russia in itself is impossible.

Capitalist Russia is a combination of banditry and genocide. In this respect, it is not a matter of unpopular "reforms" - they are just the "icing" on that disgusting cake that took shape in 1991. That's why I think popularity Soviet era and personally Stalin will grow.

Board results

Stalinism is violence and terror that grew out of revolutionary permissiveness. And Stalin, with his difficult, broken character and specific Eastern mentality, played a huge and truly sinister role here. But people from his environment also contributed to the course of these processes - gifted, ambitious, but with a meager education and low culture. They idolized their leader, and they "trampled" him after his death, while keeping the Stalinist system itself almost untouched. Discussing this system, A.N. Sakharov, we will inevitably come to the conclusion that it has not completely disappeared even today, especially if we have in mind our psychology. The thing is that it gave a simple little man some kind of exclusive position, making him the "white bone" of society. Therefore, fragments of it remain part of Russia's movement towards the future, some new unknown world.

In the report, d.h.s. A.S. Senyavsky "What legacy did I.V. Stalin leave: the results of Stalin's rule and their impact on the national history of the second half of the 20th century." It was noted that in the history of Russia of the XX century. there is no other historical figure of such magnitude. If Lenin - this "destroyer of the old world" influenced events mainly ideologically, then Stalin not only during his lifetime for three decades practically created a new society, spreading its influence and ideology throughout the world, but even after his death he retained this influence through his legacy - the Soviet system and the "world system of socialism". Stalin's worldview and methods of activity are not an accident, but a natural product of an entire historical era, largely predetermined by the patriarchy and backwardness of Russia in the conditions of the "modernization imperative" and the "marginalization" of society. The liberal alternative in our country at the beginning of the 20th century. was a utopia, an attempt to implement which only provoked a revolutionary explosion. The only real alternatives to the left radicals were the right-wing radicals, i.e. tough general dictatorship, but her country, as you know, also rejected, accepting the dictatorship of the social marginals - the Bolsheviks. The moral and psychological shock of the world and civil wars by the beginning of the 1920s. made violence the norm. The matrix of inner-party norms of underground revolutionaries was transferred to the system of government of the whole country. It is here that the roots of the repressiveness of the Bolshevik regime as a whole, including the period of Stalin's rule, lie. The leader formed the system, the system adjusted the leader “for itself”. It is scientifically incorrect to evaluate Stalinism from the standpoint of morality, because there is no moral politics. Stalinism is an inseparable unity of crimes, failures and historical victories, social suffering, violence, repression and social achievements. Stalinism is a socialized version of the modernization breakthrough of a backward country under conditions of severe external pressure and the "historical time pressure" in which the Soviet government found itself. Therefore, any one-sided assessments of him are biased and inadequate.

In reality, Stalin did the following: 1) finally formed the entire Soviet social system with its political, social, economic institutions and principles (socialist statism, state ownership, directive-planned economy, etc.); 2) radically changed the doctrinaire ideology of Bolshevism, abandoning the course of "world revolution" and turning the international revolutionary movement into an instrument of real defense of the interests of the USSR; 3) curtailed the NEP and carried out a forced industrial modernization of the country, using the mobilization of all internal resources in the absence of external ones; 4) in the situation of an imminent new world war, he prevented the formation of a united front of the Western powers against the USSR; 5) provided fundamental (industrialization) and situational (political strategy, gaining allies, military-political leadership) conditions for victory in World War II; 6) laid the foundation for the transformation of the USSR into a superpower (post-war world order, possession of a high scientific, technical, military, nuclear potential). The speaker emphasized that there are no moral justifications for Stalin's repressions, but they should be understood as a product of the era and a continuation of the methods of the Civil War. Russia in this was not something unique, since the 20th century is the apogee of violence in world history. Collectivization became an alternative to agrarian "Stolypin-style modernization." The latter did not work out in Russia, but led to an aggravation of social hatred, which manifested itself in the revolution of 1917 and in the Civil War. Stalin carried out this modernization, ensuring industrialization at the expense of the countryside, but retaining as his support the social matrices of peasant communal traditionalism. The success of industrialization, for all its incompleteness, allowed the USSR almost single-handedly to resist the military and economic potential of not only fascist Germany, but almost all of Western Europe.

Under Stalin, the USSR became a world power, one of the two leaders of opposing social systems, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, a country that controlled the center of Europe, many countries of the disintegrating colonial world, the world communist, labor and, to a large extent, national liberation movement. The borders of the USSR were reliably protected by both geopolitical acquisitions and a powerful army. The main result of Stalin's rule is that Russia has become a modern power. No wonder W. Churchill said: Stalin took Russia with a plow, and left it with a nuclear bomb and missiles. But something else is also important: the Soviet system preserved the "civilizational genotype" of Russia, providing the modernization potential for further development on its own socio-cultural basis. How it will be used depends both on the system created by Stalin and on the activities of his heirs. In the middle of the XX century. The USSR was on the rise, almost at the zenith of its power. The potential laid down under Stalin inertially provided our country with several more decades of stable development and rapid transformation into a military-economic superpower. But later it was wasted. Stalin turned out to be capable of adapting ideology, politics, and the socio-economic system to the requirements of the time and the current tasks of the USSR. Subsequent leaders proved to be less flexible and far-sighted.

The system was supposed to be transformed according to historical changes, but this did not happen. Finding out the reasons for this is one of the key tasks of historical science. Before us is a wide field for scientific analysis of the relationship between regularity and chance, the role of social institutions and the individual in history. The categorical verdict of the fundamental inability of the Soviet model for effective transformation seems to the speaker to be unfounded and premature. "There is no other way" - the apotheosis of a fatalistic, non-alternative approach to history, "a simple answer to a complex question", behind which stand the profanation of science and elementary political engagement.

Report by Doctor of History Yu.N. Zhukov was devoted to the problem of Stalin's legacy in the political sphere and its overcoming. The speaker noted that Stalinism is a complex phenomenon, for the understanding of which several points are important. It merged both the revolutionary heritage and what it never was. The author saw confirmation of this thesis, in particular, in the position of Milyukov, who believed that Stalin actually realized the "ideals of the white movement" (which, by the way, was Milyukov's argument in favor of appealing to white émigrés in 1941 with a call to stand up for the defense of the USSR). The Stalinist course was fundamentally different from what it was in the days of Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev: the interests of the USSR became the main ones for the country's leadership. Another important point was that no socialism, according to Stalin, can be fully built in the USSR as long as the country is surrounded by capitalism. It is also important that already in the mid-1930s. Stalin made an attempt to remove the partyocracy from power. According to the speaker, both the constitutional reform and the attempt to hold elections on an alternative basis were connected with this in order to remove the nominees from the period of the revolution and the Civil War from power. It was not Stalin, but precisely the partyocracy that unleashed mass repressions, creating a situation in which alternative elections that did not meet its interests became impossible. Finally, for understanding Stalinism, a natural, as Zhukov believes, attempt to turn a multinational country into a unitary state is important, since fragmentation into separate regions along national lines created a threat to the country's security, which was most acutely revealed during the Second World War, when it was necessary recruit representatives of all nationalities into the army, and many recruits could not even follow the orders of commanders because of their lack of knowledge of the Russian language. History resolved the dispute between Lenin and Stalin on the national question in favor of Stalin: the result of Lenin's national policy and the formation of the USSR was, according to Zhukov, 1991. The speaker also stressed that he did not find evidence in the archives that Stalin was not omnipotent, since he could not step over the decisions of the Politburo and the Central Committee. Characteristically, Malenkov also tried to limit the power of the partocracy, depriving it of most of the privileges and "envelopes". He suggested stopping the arms race and raising the living standards of the people. And then the September plenum of the Central Committee (1953), in violation of the decisions of the March one, liquidated the system of collective leadership of the party, recreated the post of first secretary of the Central Committee and elected Khrushchev to this post. As a result of these changes, the development of heavy industry again became a priority, the omnipotence of party officials was strengthened, regardless of their abilities, education and practical experience. How it ended is known.

Doctor of History B.S. Ilizarov presented a report on the topic "The Historiosophy of Stalinism." The speaker emphasized that he had a different view of Stalin, his time and the influence of Stalinism on the present than the previous speaker. Lenin and his comrades-in-arms only cleared the "construction site", while Stalin was the true creator and the only free manager of the USSR. There was an alternative to his policy, but Stalin successfully fought for the implementation of his plans. Contrary to the opinion of Yu.N. Zhukov, Stalin was omnipotent. By the end of the 1920s. he has achieved an incredible concentration of power and levers of total control in his hands. The speaker compared the state created by Stalin with the "Tower of Babel", which lasted more than seventy years, but collapsed in a historic overnight, because there were irreparable flaws in the "project" itself, and human blood was the bonding material. As soon as at least one repressive bond was weakened in the structure of the state, the death of the entire structure became inevitable. But the legacy remains in the social memory of the people, the ideological constructs and Stalinist dogmas are preserved, imposed on them by the system of propaganda, education and upbringing. Stalin left his "philosophy of history", his "picture of the world", which included both the personal biography of the leader and the interpretation of many historical events. This philosophy was recorded in the "Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks", as well as in a number of history textbooks. The history of Russia was placed at the center of the world process, and in it the Russian people. The apotheosis of the history of Russia-USSR was the history of one party - the Communist Party, the October Revolution and the Civil War, and central figure- "the leader of all times and peoples." Before the collapse of the USSR, the fundamental idea and supporting elements of Stalinist historiosophy did not change. And today our past "shoots at our present." Any attempt to establish a new unitarism in any form will lead to the same result - another "Tower of Babel" with all the consequences. In his report "The Polish Version of Stalinism", Professor E. Durachinski (Poland), using the example of one of the countries of the "Soviet bloc", examined the history of the implementation of the Stalinist model outside the USSR. The speaker noted that Poland, contrary to Moscow's policy of unification, was different from the rest of the countries of the Eastern Bloc and was "not the most successful student in the school of Stalinism." But she also had to go through in 1948-1956. difficult period of totalitarianism. Already at that time, Polish authors outside the country, and since 1956 in Poland itself, used the concept of "Stalinism" in a negative sense and tried to analyze it as a criminal system. E. Durachinsky joins those who define Stalinism as "left totalitarianism" and the post-Stalin era as a period of "communist authoritarianism."

The speaker dwelled in detail on the historiography of the issue, considering specific Polish works of different times. In Poland, the problems of repressions, anti-totalitarian resistance, the role of the Roman Catholic Church as a defender of national and human values ​​are well studied. Many works have been published on the history of the political crisis of 1956, mass student protests in 1970, workers' protests in 1976, a giant strike in August 1980, as well as on the birth and activities of the Solidarity trade union headed by Lech Walesa.

Without Poland's dependence on Moscow, Stalinism in it would have been simply impossible. At the same time, the mechanism of such subordination and its forms changed. After 1956, it became less and less noticeable for society, and in the field of culture, it was almost invisible at all, although the policy of unifying the countries of the Eastern Bloc, forcibly copying the Soviet system and introducing Stalinism, and then "real socialism" continued. But in Poland, far from everything turned out the way Moscow demanded. This is especially true of the village, the church and the sphere of culture. The country's leadership was forced to reckon with the resistance of the peasantry, so it was not possible to carry out collectivization in Poland, and in the pro-Soviet bloc it remained the only state dominated by the private sector. Over time, the level of fear also decreased, and by the beginning of the 1980s. most Poles were not afraid of almost anyone and nothing. And here it is worth remembering Stalin himself, who once said that it is easier to saddle a cow than to build socialism in Poland, as he understood it. Stalinism in Poland is already a thing of the past. In the village, he did not have time to take root, but in other areas he was quickly outlived and, first of all, in the spiritual life. But Stalin left a legacy (not only bad) and a memory of himself: he dictated the Polish borders and thereby saved the country from potential conflicts with Lithuania and Ukraine. In the report, d.h.s. B.C. Lelchuk, the central theme was the legacy of Stalinism in the field of industrialization. They say, he said, that thanks to industrialization, the USSR won the war. But this is not serious! Did we fight one on one with Hitler? And what did we manage to do for the army before 1941? It is also necessary to answer the question of what was meant by industrialization by Lenin and Stalin? Lenin at the end of the 19th century. introduced the term "industrialization of the population", which requires not only equipment, but also personnel, educated specialists. In other words, we need people who will raise technology in Russia to the world level. Let us now recall the main slogan of the first five-year plan: "Technology decides everything!" It is quite obvious that Stalin, who liked to quote Lenin, departed from him here. By the end of the five-year plan, however, it turned out that the technicians had bought a lot, but could not master it. Then a new slogan was thrown: "Cadres who have mastered technology decide everything!" But how many training schools were opened then? Stalin declared industrialization completed three times - the last time in 1939. 202

But main question was never resolved: the West overtook us even more in terms of labor productivity. In the USSR, almost everything was built by hand and at what cost! There were not enough workers - they began to create camps. NEP made it possible to solve the problem of accumulation for industrialization. Why was it discarded? Yes, because Stalin needed a country that would unquestioningly obey him and only him. Post-war industrialization was also slowed down by Stalin: read "The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR". The example of the atomic bomb is typical: back in 1939, our specialists proposed a project that was better than the American one, but it was shelved, and in 1946 the bomb was created according to American drawings. As a result, our industrialization has not yet been completed. Now it is necessary to catch up with already post-industrial, "information" societies, and it will be very difficult to do this because of the consequences of the domination of the command-administrative system. In the speech, Ph.D. G.V. Kostyrchenko "Stalin and the national question in the USSR" touched upon the most acute problem in Russian history, which turned out to be fatal for the fate of the Soviet state in the 20th century. Surprisingly, in pre-revolutionary times, the national question was perceived by the majority of Russian parties as secondary. Only the Social Democracy, especially the Bolsheviks, paid significant attention to it, and it was Stalin, on the instructions of Lenin, who took up its theoretical development. However, he was not original. The Bolsheviks initially preached the inequality of peoples, whose rights were made dependent on their numbers, the size and location of the occupied territories, and other factors. The program of cultural and national autonomy criticized by Stalin was by no means "curious": it contained a rational scheme for solving national problems on the basis of a homogeneous territorial and administrative division of the country into provinces with the unification and equality of regional and municipal bodies. Only the humanitarian sphere (national culture, education, information, religion) was to be regulated by ethnic communities. National-cultural autonomy was projected on the basis of the principle of extraterritoriality, which was supposed to serve as a deterrent to national separatism inherent in territorial autonomies.

After the fall of the autocracy, Stalin advocated the introduction of "regional autonomy", but then supported Lenin, who insisted on recognizing the right of nations to self-determination, up to and including complete secession. In this way, while remaining unitarians at heart, the Bolsheviks sought political allies in their struggle for power. When they became the masters of the country, they had no choice but to officially declare the right of nations to self-determination and to enshrine the principle of federation in legislation. Within the party itself, in 1919, the principle of unitarism finally triumphed, which finally "divorced" political declarations and real politics in the national question. Real unitarism was provided by the party apparatus, and a little later, a decorative multi-stage structure of the USSR was erected. Knowing the sad outcome of this experiment, it can be argued that the unrealized Stalinist plan, which provided for the preservation of a united Russia as the basis of the Soviet state, could be more viable. The "indigenization of cadres" in the national republics stimulated centrifugal tendencies on the outskirts, which led to the collapse of the multinational state, as soon as the paralysis of the central government and unifying structures, primarily the party, set in. Ph.D. A.V. Golubev made a presentation on the topic "The Evolution of Foreign Cultural Stereotypes of the Soviet Society: Stalinism and 50 Years After". Foreign cultural stereotypes that have ethnic and foreign policy components are part of the national self-consciousness, characterizing the nation's vision of its place in the world, its attitude to other cultures and value systems. In the course of modernization, irreversible changes occur in the system of values ​​and culture, and, based on this, the speaker traced the dynamics of the perception of the West by the Russian population as both a reference and an alternative cultural-historical type. At the beginning of the XX century. new politicized stereotypes are replacing the traditional ethnic stereotypes of mass consciousness (reflected primarily in folklore), which mainly reflected the personal qualities inherent in other nations. The image of a German, an Englishman, a Pole is replaced by the image of Germany, Great Britain, Poland, etc. First World War turned out to be only a prologue to stronger social, political, cultural, psychological upheavals. The victory of the 1917 revolution strengthened the mythologization of mass consciousness, especially in the era of totalitarianism, which sought to control not only social actions, but also the emotions and thoughts of the population. One of the means used for this was the mobilization of society to achieve a national goal, in which the Stalinist regime put forward a program for the qualitative renewal of the country, i.e. essentially 203

its modernization program. Thus, there was a general politicization of mass consciousness, deliberately pushed through the propaganda system. The picture of the outside world as an arena of struggle between the forces of progress and reaction was the core of the new official mythology. At the same time, the surrounding world was presented as a source of both a real military threat to the USSR and possible technical or food assistance, an ally in a future war, and so on. First speaking as convinced Westernizers, the Bolsheviks, as a result of the dogmatization and mythologization of Marxism under the dominance of traditional consciousness, then came to xenophobia, which became an essential characteristic of Soviet political culture. Isolationism dominated most of Soviet history, culminating in the Cold War. The West was perceived as a "dark" danger zone dominated by hostile forces. But at the same time, the idea of ​​Western-style technological progress remained attractive. If for some the image of the West, in accordance with the official mythology, was drawn in gloomy colors, then for others it appeared as a mirror alternative to everything that was happening in the USSR, but with a positive sign. In the mass consciousness, the notion that the USSR was one of the main world "centers of attraction" for the workers of the West and the revolutionaries of the East was affirmed, which did not correspond much to reality. At the same time, the image of our country as a positive alternative to the West was created. Soviet propaganda emphasized the decisive influence of the USSR on the entire system of international relations, the superiority of Soviet culture over Western culture. Since 1933, the role of the main enemy passed to Nazi Germany, but after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the outbreak of World War II, at least on the political and propagandistic level, Great Britain replaced it. During the war years, Germany firmly secured the first place on the list of enemies, and after the war, this place was taken by the United States of America. In the first post-war years, the Soviet leadership actively tried to minimize the consequences of many Soviet people's acquaintance with the everyday life of the West. "Thaw" multiplied channels of information. At the next stage, in 1964-1985. In the USSR, the intensive establishment of contacts between Soviet citizens and foreigners continued. The formation of elements of civil society, the growth of alternative state sources of information about the West led to the erosion of established foreign policy stereotypes. Representation in the 1930s about the West as an "anti-world" was replaced by a reverse myth about a world where everything is much better than ours. Since 1985, the Cold War stereotypes have begun to crumble. The minuses were replaced by pluses, the definition of "civilized countries" appeared, from which Russia was excluded. They expected loans, investments, humanitarian aid from the West and, as a result, a sharp increase in living standards. The results of perestroika and market reforms led to the fact that the inversion occurred once again, reviving the traditional stereotypes that demonized the West. But the absence of total propaganda, the possibility of real contacts, the change of generations leads to the fact that the process of blurring stereotypes is accelerating. Ideas about the West lose their mythological component and become more and more adequate to reality. Doctor of History O.Yu. Vasilyeva devoted her report to the topic "The Russian Orthodox Church after Stalin." Before considering the stated topic, she considered it necessary to make two remarks. One belongs to the Bishop of Smolensk in the 19th century. Ioann Sokolov: "The Russian Church outside the walls of the temple is not free from secular power." The second - to the professor of the Theological Academy L. Voronov, who was subjected to repressions during the period of Stalinism: "The Russian Church greatly honors Stalin and everything that he did for her during the war years."

By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the ROC came up almost organizationally destroyed: since 1918, the local and bishops' councils did not meet, less than 10% of priests remained free, out of many thousands of pre-revolutionary churches on the territory Russian Federation a little more than a hundred survived. The church was deprived of the rights of a legal entity, and its activities were limited exclusively by the walls of the temple, and even charity was prohibited. But this Russian Church, destroyed by the Bolsheviks, not only did not meet the enemy, but supported the Soviet government. Why? The ROC was separated from the state, but not from the people. The war became a key moment both in its history and in the history of its new relations with the authorities. No wonder the period 1943-1953. in the history of state-church relations is called the "golden decade". Orthodoxy has become an important spiritual lever for the redistribution of the world, especially Orthodox Eastern and Southeastern Europe, through the creation of a system of Orthodox unity under the auspices of Moscow. The rapid organizational restoration of the ROC began. A patriarch was elected, a Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church was created, the surviving priests were returned from the camps, and the network of existing churches expanded. During the period of the US nuclear monopoly, the Russian Orthodox Church rendered a considerable service to its country in solving a number of diplomatic tasks. Interchurch relations took an anti-Vatican direction. A lot has been done. Stalin granted the Russian Orthodox Church the status of a legal entity, opened up for it the possibility of renting land, constructing buildings, etc., which his heirs later fought against. The "liberal" Khrushchev resumed the fight against religion, toughened state control over the ROC, increased its taxation, deprived the clergy of the rights of administrative, financial, economic activities in religious associations, etc. Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov did not have, like Stalin, a clear concept of relations with the Church, and they ruined much of what was done in 1943-1953. in relations between the Church and the state, including to the detriment of the state itself. This position, according to the speaker, remains today. The final report on the topic "International Relations and Foreign Policy after Stalin" was made by Doctor of Historical Sciences. L.N. Nezhinsky. He noted that at least since April 1922, when Stalin was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee of the party, he was increasingly involved in the formation of the international strategy of the Soviet government. Since the mid 1930s. and literally until the last days of his life, Stalin almost single-handedly solved all the most important problems, consulting only with a narrow circle of people. He was capable of very sharp turns in politics, one of which, and quite justified, was to move away from the narrow class approach in creating the anti-Hitler coalition. But after the end of the Second World War, the class approach prevailed again, which manifested itself in the turn to the "cold war" with elements of the "hot" (war in Korea and Vietnam). The main confrontation took place not only along the West-East line, but also along the US-USSR line. And here there was a partial return to the old doctrinal principles (capitalism constantly rots, imperialism inevitably gives rise to wars, etc.), although some of Stalin's practical steps diverged from these postulates. As a result, the idea of ​​the need for peaceful coexistence was relegated to the background. Did Stalin's foreign policy reflect the national-state interests of the country in the international arena? The answer to this question is ambiguous. Yes, it did when it comes to emergency measures to eliminate the US nuclear monopoly that threatened the very existence of the USSR, which was planning an atomic attack on the main cities of the USSR. On the other hand, in the conditions of the most severe famine in the country in 1946-1947. Stalin instructed to send hundreds of thousands of tons of grain to Czechoslovakia and Romania to support the communists there in the elections.

After Stalin's death, inconsistency was observed in the foreign policy of the USSR both in the conceptual and theoretical views of the country's leaders and in their practical actions. Khrushchev and his supporters seriously changed the foreign policy of our country, declaring that in the presence of the camp of socialism and non-aligned countries, the fatal inevitability of world war no longer exists and that peaceful coexistence is not a tactical slogan, but the main line of Soviet foreign policy. Diplomats now had to look abroad not only for enemies, but also for those with whom they could cooperate. The attitude towards the Social Democrats (under Stalin - "social fascists") also changed. A provision was put forward on the admissibility of the coming of the communists to power by peaceful means. But in foreign policy practice, Khrushchev was Stalin's heir: he crushed the uprising in Hungary, provoked the Cuban Missile Crisis, and so on. Both Khrushchev and his successor Brezhnev retained the mechanism of developing foreign policy decisions by a small Areopagus from among the top leaders of the country. The Politburo did not meet either when deciding on the deployment of missiles in Cuba or when troops were sent into Afghanistan, and during the years when Chernenko and Andropov were in power, our relations with the West worsened even more. Such a legacy went to Gorbachev. No matter how you treat him, but under him, foreign policy has changed dramatically, getting rid of the consideration of the struggle between capitalism and socialism as the dominant of world development. A search began for realistic ways to include the USSR in the world community, taking into account the interests of all interested parties. These approaches were retained in the subsequent period. President of Russia V.V. Putin also relies on them. Thus, the era of Stalinism in foreign policy ended in the second half of the 1980s. All nine reports (authors of eight of them are staff members of the IRI RAS) aroused considerable interest from the audience, numerous questions to the speakers and lively comments. A number of topics were discussed. Questions, remarks, speeches in the debate mainly concerned the concretization of the positions of the speakers, as well as the connection of some phenomena of the past with the current situation, the influence of the legacy of the Stalin era on our time. The "round table" revealed the deep interest of the scientific community in a serious analysis of the problems posed during this meeting. He demonstrated a wide pluralism of opinions about the personality of Stalin, Stalinism, and how the Stalinist legacy has been overcome today. The work of the "round table" was covered by the press and television, several speakers gave interviews, and in the following days spoke on a number of television channels. Materials of the "round table" are being prepared for publication.

A.S. Senyavsky, Doctor of Historical Sciences (Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences)