History of The Communist Party of The Soviet Union - Stalinism

Stalinism

The labor camps were expanded into the infamous Gulag system under Stalin in his war against so-called "class enemies". Stalin also undertook massive resettlements of Kulaks, similarly to the Tsarist penal system of ssylka (resettlement in remote areas) which had been established to deal with political dissidents and common criminals without executing them.

As Stalin consolidated his rule the party itself ceased to be a serious deliberative body under Stalin with Party Congresses, particularly after the Great Purge, being little more than show pieces in which delegates would sing the praises of Stalin in what became a cult of personality. No party congresses were held at all between 1939 and 1952. The role of the secret police became paramount in Soviet society and within the party with party members closely monitored to ensure their adherence to Stalin. Similarly the Central Committee and even the Politburo became rubber stamps for Stalin's dictatorship and without any ability to challenge his power or question his decision.

At the 1952 party congress, Stalin had Molotov and Mikoyan removed from the Politburo and diluted the power of executive members by replacing the body with a twenty-five member Presidium (plus eleven candidates) that was twice the old Politburo's size. However, an informal Bureau of the Presidium, comparable to the old Politburo, was established in order to make decision-making more manageable. This bureau consisted of Stalin, Lavrentiy Beria, Georgy Malenkov, Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin, Kliment Voroshilov, Lazar Kaganovich, Maksim Saburov, and Mikhail Pervukhin, with future decision-making limited in practice to the first four or five of these.