dedi an unforgiving light dine burcaudlaue system the Soviet Union, under in and his heirs.
At the same time, he This work was not prompted storian's intellectual curisin. lor tnere are cellall sons to be drawn from it, otably Loal wick all id and done, democratic chanisms is must be created in the „ena coal : will enthat people like Stalin most of those around can never again hold *== or assume control of subjects, ¡ede: comments: 'Not people -as ed here was born a minal or a scoundrel; 1l ambition, vanity and ::hatled them from one me lo the next.
Each choice taken led ta a further choice to be The first and decisive ep taken was to support Stalin LO e ruggles of the 1920s. Trotsky and his supporters ught against the bureauralisation of the Commu*: Party and the Soviet Their defeat set the Hic.
ge for the establishment Stalin's rule of terror.
In this regime, Medvedev's actress nose to Neverthes great power. Nevertheat any point a wrong ricipate 100 per cent in Te DresSIons. suspicion in the forbidly suspicious mind the dictator, could have nt them to their deaths.
fact, there was a high factor in being close to calin and many tried to oid such an honour.
To survive the summits of power in Stalin's regime medal participate in terrible crimes.
The Stalinist terror of 1930s fell with particular ferocity on the Libtary cadre. The leaderwap of the armed forces smashed Some 30.000 ofticers an d ritary commissars were •ad — all this on the eve che most destructive war During this perior was People': Cahis level of military Timissar Defence.
perence was low, his as a civil war and his zin made him an ideal is renead for the armed Voroshilov Medes did not initiate the military but he his stalt. committed suicide in 1937 protest against the Some of Stalin's intimates not assented to the repressions, but played an active role in them. Kaganovich was one In the 1930s, he was hailed in the Soviet press as "Stalin's commissar' and chief trouble-shooter.
Medvedev reports that: 'During the investigations that were carried out alter the twentieth congress of 1956 dozens of letters from Kaganovich to the NKVD were discovered. ComDicle with lists of the party workers whom he wanted arrested. In many cases he personally checked draft verdicts made arbitrary alterations. He knew what he was doing.' Stalin built up a cult around himself, but there also smaller cults around some of his They often competed in having towns, collective farms named atter them Molotov's fiftieth birthday March 1940 saw a big step forward in the promotion of his name. The biggest industrial centre in the country, the city of Perm, was renamed Molotov, map of the USSR suddenly sprouted two Molotovsks, Molotovabad, Cape Molotov Molotov Peak. as well as thousands of Molotov kolkhozes (collective farms), enterprises and institutes.
Following, Stalin's death enerally supported Khrust hev in his efforts to destro Lavrenty Beria, the organiser of Stalin's repressive pparatu since 1938.
kovan ano sov e dorsed Khrushchev's moves towards de-stalinisation The rest had mixed feelings.
If their opposition was muted around the twentieth congress, it surfaced strongly the year.
Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovich Deronceo SU called Anti-Party Group tried unseat WECO Khrushchev in Khrushchev defeated them by securing the overwhelming backing of the full central committee.
The plotters feared the worst. Kaganovich phoned Khrushchev, virtually begging. not to bi SOOL Khrushchev assured him that, despite their he his Ccs. associates would simply be THE EURO-COMMUNIST line pursued by the Communist Party at least since 1968 has dulled the sensibilities of many on the left to the full horror of the crimes of the Soviet bureaucracy. But the reemergence of a virulently-stalinist wing of the CP around the Morning Star makes it more urgent to remember just what the Soviet leadership represents historically. And just who Chernenko and Gorbachev are the descendants of.
The two books reviewed here gather together important new material on the Stalin period and its aftermath in the USSR.
Socialist Action 1 March 1985 11