Renewed Terror (AQA A-Level History): Revision Notes
Renewed Terror
Overview of post-war repression
The period of High Stalinism witnessed a marked resurgence of state terror. Stalin imposed strict isolation from non-Soviet influences, driven partly by concerns about national security following the Second World War, but also by an obsessive fear that exposure to the outside world would lead to ideological contamination. A climate of suspicion and fear permeated Soviet society, particularly affecting those who had encountered life beyond Soviet borders.
Treatment of returned prisoners of war and former officers
Stalin's regime meted out severe punishment to Soviet citizens who returned from captivity or service abroad. Returned prisoners of war faced brutal mistreatment rather than welcome. Former army officers who had spent time outside the USSR became targets of Stalin's purge of former army officers. Even the relatives of those who had contact with the non-Soviet world fell under suspicion. Anyone possessing knowledge of conditions beyond Soviet borders risked arrest and deportation to the gulag.
The Paradox of Soviet "Heroes"
Rather than receiving gratitude for their service and survival, returned POWs and officers were viewed as potential threats to ideological purity. The regime's logic was brutal: exposure to non-Soviet conditions made these individuals dangerous, regardless of their loyalty or sacrifice during the war.
The Case of Leopold Trepper
Leopold Trepper, a Polish Communist who led the Red Orchestra spy network inside Nazi Germany, exemplifies the harsh treatment awaiting returning heroes. Despite his crucial intelligence work against the Nazis:
- Upon return, he received a Hero of the Soviet Union medal
- He was immediately arrested
- He was imprisoned in the gulag
- He gained release only in 1955, after Stalin's death
This case demonstrates that even the most dedicated service to the Soviet cause offered no protection against Stalin's paranoia.
Surveillance and control in newly incorporated territories
Within the USSR, especially in areas recently absorbed such as the Baltic States and Western Ukraine, citizens needed to demonstrate absolute loyalty in every aspect of daily life. A careless remark or brief interaction with a foreigner could result in denunciation and arrest, followed by transportation to the gulag. The possibility that friends or colleagues might serve as informers meant that anyone could be singled out and condemned.
The February 1947 Marriage Law
In February 1947, the regime passed legislation outlawing marriages to foreigners. Hotels, restaurants and embassies operated under police surveillance to monitor meetings between Soviet women and foreign men. This law demonstrated the extent to which Stalin's regime sought to control even the most personal aspects of citizens' lives.
Terror became pervasive throughout society, creating an atmosphere where trust evaporated and fear dominated daily interactions.
The secret police state
Understanding the Secret Police State
A secret police state describes a system in which innocence provided no protection against persecution. Under Stalin's rule in this period, the mere accusation of disloyalty could lead to imprisonment, regardless of actual guilt. The apparatus of state security operated with near-total impunity, creating an atmosphere where citizens lived in constant fear of arbitrary arrest.
The key characteristic: being innocent was no defence.
Contemporary testimony: Harrison Salisbury's observations
Eyewitness Account: The Atmosphere of Fear in 1949
Harrison Salisbury, an American journalist who worked in Moscow during the war, returned to the USSR in 1949. His recollections, recorded in the 1992 Thames TV documentary series on Stalin, provide valuable contemporary perspective on the dramatic transformation of Soviet society:
What Salisbury Observed:
- The atmosphere of camaraderie from the wartime alliance had completely vanished
- Friends from his earlier posting either failed to answer telephone calls or abruptly ended conversations upon recognising his voice
- On Gorky Street, acquaintances who had previously been friendly looked straight through him rather than acknowledge his presence
- He was regarded as a dangerous spy by police and government
- Any Russian making contact with him risked arrest and probable exile to Siberia
This testimony demonstrates how thoroughly Stalin's regime had re-established an atmosphere of paranoia and isolation by the late 1940s.
The NKVD under Beria
At the centre of the post-war security apparatus stood Lavrentii Beria, whose influence extended far beyond his role as head of the NKVD. Beria simultaneously held positions as deputy prime minister, full member of the Politburo, and director of the Soviet atomic bomb programme. As NKVD chief, Beria presided over a vast expansion of the prison labour camp system in the gulag. His sadistic and psychopathic personality cast a long shadow over the USSR.
Reorganisation of the security apparatus
Post-War Security Apparatus Restructuring
The NKVD underwent restructuring into two separate ministries during the post-war years:
MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs)
- Controlled domestic security operations
- Administered the gulag system
MGB (Ministry of State Security)
- Handled counter-intelligence work
- Managed espionage activities
- Would later become the KGB
Although the number of executions remained lower than during the Great Terror of the 1930s, the scale of imprisonment remained enormous. Approximately 12 million wartime survivors were dispatched to labour camps, where they endured appalling conditions. Tens of thousands received arrest annually for 'counter-revolutionary activities' throughout Stalin's final years.
Khrushchev's later revelations
Khrushchev's Secret Speech (1956): Revealing Stalin's Paranoia
Nikita Khrushchev's Secret Speech, delivered to a closed session of the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 (after international delegates and journalists had departed), provides illuminating analysis of Stalin's state of mind during this period.
Key Revelations from Khrushchev:
Following the war, Stalin became increasingly capricious, irritable and brutal. His suspicions intensified to reach unbelievable proportions. Stalin appeared to perceive ordinary people as potential enemies. After the war, Stalin separated himself even further from collective leadership, making all decisions alone without consulting or considering others' views.
According to Khrushchev, Stalin's unbelievable level of suspicion was exploited by Beria, described as the "abject provocateur and vile enemy" who had murdered thousands of Communists and loyal Soviet citizens.
This assessment, though delivered three years after Stalin's death, helps explain the mechanisms through which terror operated during the High Stalinism period.
Zhdanovism and the cultural purge
Origins and nature of the Zhdanovshchina
New controls over intellectual and cultural life emerged under the direction of Andrei Zhdanov, who coordinated a major cultural purge launched by Stalin in 1946. This period became known as the Zhdanovshchina. The purge exemplified the 'totalitarian' approach to culture: promoting 'correct' ideology through cultural products whilst simultaneously suppressing dissent and creative individualism.
Stalin harboured particular fears about the spread of 'bourgeois and decadent' Western values, concerns intensified by wartime contact with Allied forces and exposure to life beyond Soviet borders.
Literary purges
The Zhdanovshchina commenced with attacks on two literary works published in Leningrad. Zoshchenko's satirical work "The Adventures of a Monkey" and a collection of poems by Anna Akhmatova faced condemnation. Publishers received purges and the authors suffered expulsion from the Union of Soviet Writers.
The Persecution of Boris Pasternak
Another prominent writer, Boris Pasternak, faced condemnation for his 'apolitical' poetry. The regime's tactics for silencing him were brutal:
- He was condemned for lacking political content in his work
- Authorities sent his girlfriend to the gulag as a method of intimidating him
- This case exemplifies how the regime used loved ones as leverage against intellectuals
The attack extended even to long-deceased literary figures: Russian literary giants such as Dostoevsky faced criticism for lacking 'socialist qualities'.
Re-establishment of socialist realism
Socialist realism, which had been promoted as 'true' Soviet art during the 1920s and 1930s, was re-asserted as the mandatory norm in literature, art and cinema. Film director Sergei Eisenstein faced severe criticism for his epic production "Ivan the Terrible", accused of portraying Ivan's bodyguards as thugs rather than as a 'progressive army'. Artists who received condemnation were compelled to make public recantations of their 'errors' to continue working.
The Cultural Straitjacket of Socialist Realism
Under the Zhdanovshchina, all cultural production had to conform to strict ideological requirements:
- Novels, plays and films had to either denigrate American commercialism or extol Soviet achievements
- The cult of Stalin had to permeate all cultural output
- Any deviation from these norms resulted in condemnation and forced public recantation
Anti-Semitic Persecution:
- Many Jewish artists faced suppression or dismissal as representatives of 'rootless cosmopolitanism'
- Newspapers closed down
- The regime deliberately avoided mentioning Jews when documenting wartime atrocities
- Many Jewish victims were portrayed simply as 'fascist crimes' without acknowledging their identity
Attacks on music
Soviet music suffered severely under the Zhdanov purge. The renowned composers Shostakovich and Prokofiev came under vitriolic criticism for 'rootless cosmopolitanism' and 'anti-socialist tendencies'. Authorities deemed their compositions insufficiently grounded in 'socialist' tradition and found them difficult to perform, leading to their removal from teaching positions. Prokofiev's wife was imprisoned as a means of intimidating him.
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953): A Composer's Persecution
Sergei Prokofiev, a young composer who had left Russia in 1918 to reside in the United States, returned to the USSR in 1935. His return would ultimately prove tragic:
Timeline of Persecution:
- 1946: Became a target of Zhdanov's cultural purge alongside Shostakovich and Khachaturian
- 1946-1948: Many of his compositions were banned from performance
- 1948: Authorities arrested his wife Lina on espionage charges
- 1949: Underwent partial rehabilitation but never fully regained his former position
- 1953: Lina was released after Stalin's death
- March 1953: Prokofiev died on the same day as Stalin
This case demonstrates how the regime destroyed the lives and careers of even internationally acclaimed artists.
Impact on science and scholarship
Science and scholarship became additional victims of ideological enforcement. In August 1948, Trofim Lysenko received complete control over the Academy of Sciences. 'Lysenkoism' crippled Soviet scientific development, particularly affecting the study of mathematics, physics, chemistry and economics through spurious ideas grounded in 'Marxist principles'.
Isolation from Western influence
The Iron Curtain of Information Control
Western influence faced comprehensive blocking through systematic measures:
- Non-communist foreign newspapers became unobtainable
- Foreign radio transmissions were jammed
- Only a limited selection of 'approved' foreign books received translation into Russian
- Solely pro-Soviet foreign writers and artists gained permission to enter the USSR
- Very few Soviet citizens received authorisation to visit the West
This systematic isolation reinforced Stalin's control over information and prevented Soviet citizens from accessing alternative perspectives. The USSR became an intellectual prison, cut off from global developments in science, culture, and ideas.
Stalin's cult of personality
Intensification after 1945
The Stalin cult reached unprecedented heights following 1945. Building upon his reputation as Russia's wartime saviour, propaganda portrayed Stalin as the world's greatest living genius, equally superior in all areas of philosophy, science, military strategy and economics. This image received cultivation through newspapers, books, plays, films, radio broadcasts and speeches. It became customary practice for opening and closing paragraphs of any academic article or book to acknowledge Stalin's genius on the subject, regardless of the topic.
The Divine Stalin: Propaganda and Veneration
According to historian Gregory Freeze, Stalin received god-like veneration during the post-war years:
- He appeared as the hero of plays, folksongs and symphonies
- Canals and dams bore his name
- Propaganda described him as 'the father of all the peoples' and 'the best friend of all children'
The Paradox of the "Man of the People":
Despite never visiting a peasant village or kolkhoz for 25 years, and spending most of his later years at his dacha outside Moscow, Stalin was portrayed as a 'man of the people' who understood everyone's thoughts and activities. In reality, he relied on others to supply him with information, and his own propagandists often misled him.
Celebrations and monuments
The Stalin cult reached its climax at his seventieth birthday in December 1949, when Moscow's Red Square was dominated by a giant portrait of Stalin, suspended in the sky and illuminated by searchlights.
The Cult of Personality: Monuments and Renaming
Towns competed for the privilege of renaming themselves in Stalin's honour:
- Stalingrad
- Stalino
- Stalinsk
- Stalinabad
- Stalinogorsk
(The proposal to rename Moscow 'Stalinodar' never received implementation)
Other Manifestations of the Cult:
- 'Stalin prizes' were introduced to reward artistic or scientific work, designed to counter-balance the Western Nobel prizes
- The Great Leader received everlasting ovations at public events
- Photographs underwent retouching to remove pockmarks from his face
- Monuments to him appeared throughout the USSR
- Artists received commissions to celebrate mythic great moments in his earlier career
Atmosphere of fear and rivalry
The Stalin cult never satisfied Stalin himself. Neither the adulation from the public nor slavish obedience and flattery from his subordinates reduced his obsessive fear regarding his personal power. Throughout his final years, Stalin ensured that men around him remained in a permanent state of fear, both of Stalin himself and of each other. Stalin deliberately engineered an atmosphere of poisonous jealousies and personal rivalries.
Stalin's Motives for Creating Fear and Division
His motives for creating this toxic environment were mixed:
- Paranoia: Obsessive fear about possible conspiracies against him
- Divide-and-rule tactics: Preventing any subordinate from becoming too powerful by keeping them in competition with each other
- Megalomania: Straightforward delusions of grandeur and need for absolute control
Further purges lay ahead, demonstrating that Stalin's appetite for terror remained undiminished even as he aged.
Key Points to Remember:
Post-War Terror and Isolation:
- The post-war period saw renewed terror driven by fears of ideological contamination from Western contact
- Returned POWs, former officers and anyone with foreign connections faced severe punishment
- The February 1947 law outlawed marriages to foreigners
- Harrison Salisbury's 1949 testimony documents the atmosphere of pervasive fear
The Security Apparatus under Beria:
- Beria controlled a reorganised security apparatus divided into MVD (domestic security and gulags) and MGB (counter-intelligence)
- Approximately 12 million people were sent to labour camps
- Tens of thousands were arrested annually for 'counter-revolutionary activities'
- Khrushchev's 1956 Secret Speech later revealed Stalin's extreme paranoia during this period
The Zhdanovshchina Cultural Purge:
- The 1946 Zhdanovshchina enforced strict cultural conformity under Andrei Zhdanov's direction
- Writers (Zoshchenko, Akhmatova, Pasternak), composers (Shostakovich, Prokofiev) and artists faced condemnation
- Socialist realism became the mandatory artistic style
- Western influence was systematically blocked through censorship and jamming
- Science suffered under Lysenko's pseudo-Marxist theories from August 1948
Stalin's Cult of Personality:
- Stalin's personality cult reached unprecedented intensity after 1945, portraying him as a universal genius
- His seventieth birthday in December 1949 prompted extravagant celebrations including a giant illuminated portrait in Red Square
- Towns were renamed in his honour (Stalingrad, Stalino, etc.)
- Stalin prizes were introduced to counter-balance Nobel prizes
- Despite the adulation, Stalin deliberately maintained an atmosphere of fear and rivalry among his subordinates