The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (260 page)
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Authors: Iain McLean
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Stakhanovism
Named after a prodigiously productive miner publicized by the Soviet authorities in the mid-1930s, Stakhanovism represented an attempt to maximize output by competitive record-breaking among politically motivated workers. It was despised by many employees who saw it as a management ploy to reduce piece-rates. Management itself was often opposed because of the disruptive effects record-breaking could have on overall performance.
SWh
SWh
Stalinism
Stalinism has come to stand for the whole of the repressive Soviet political system under Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) from at least 1928 until his death, although many commentators extend the term to include the period before
perestroika
. He has been held personally responsible, as a total and arbitrary autocrat, for millions of deaths and for the ‘deviations of socialism’ that went on under his rule. In recent years, however, a new historiography has appeared which seeks to distinguish Stalin and Stalinism from a range of competing ideological positions in Soviet politics. Many of the tenets of ideological Stalinism are considered by these historians to have lost ground in the 1930s, though adherents of this position continued to exercise influence and power throughout the Soviet period.
Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili adopted the name Stalin (man of steel) as a pseudonym while in the Bolshevik underground before the revolution. He was a Georgian by birth and his education came first from an orthodox school and then a seminary where he learned Russian. He joined the Social Democratic Movement after his expulsion from the seminary in 1899. Stalin was not considered a significant theoretician among the intellectual Bolsheviks, though he had published works on the nationalities question among others, and
Trotsky
in particular is famously said to have laughed at his writings. However, he possessed considerable organizational skills and acted as editor of
Pravda.
He did not play a significant role in the October 1917 Revolution, despite latter-day efforts to paint him in at Lenin's right hand. However, until 1922 he occupied the positions of People's Commissar for Nationality Affairs and People's Commissar for State Control, and was a member of both the Communist Party's organizational bureau (
Orgburo
) and the Politburo. After his move from the government in 1922, he became General Secretary of the Communist Party. Though this position was regarded at the time as mainly administrative, Stalin was able to use the patronage available in the post and the network of connections he established to advance his power in the leadership struggles which followed Lenin's death.
Between 1924 and 1928, Stalin steered a middle course. He first opposed the Left Opposition to the line of the New Economic Policy (NEP), headed by Trotsky and later supported by Kamenev and Zinoviev . Following the defeat of these potential rivals, Stalin then adopted many of their positions in 1928 in his battle against
Bukharin
. Many commentators have treated Stalin's shifting position in this period as a sign of his relentless and wholly personal drive for power. However, other scholars have seen a greater consistency in his position from 1929–38 when, though less extreme than some of his allies such as Zhdanov, he advocated strong central party control over both the regions and the various sectors of the growing economic bureaucracy.
The political difficulty for the Communist Party during NEP was that it had nothing significant to do: the regime depended on a deal with the peasantry, among whom the party had little support, and industry was run by (frequently bourgeois or Menshevik) experts in central bodies such as Gosplan and in the factories by the manager or technical director. Stalin was able to tap and mobilize growing disaffection with this position among party officials and cited dissatisfaction among workers with the pace of industrial development and supply of produce in support. The Stalinist revolution launched against NEP in 1929 was all encompassing: collectivization in agriculture, including the mobilization of 25,000 workers to the countryside; rapid industrialization with extraordinary targets set for output; and a cultural revolution, in which bourgeois experts would be quickly replaced by ‘red directors’.
The slogans and motivations of this period were highly political—enthusiasm and creativity—as were the explanations for failure—wreckers and saboteurs. The central institutions of the period were the Communist Party, the party dominated Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate (Rabkrin) and the OGPU (Unified State Political Directorate). However, alongside these bodies, a new set of management institutions was being formed out of the old Supreme Council for the National Economy (VSNKh). Despite the claim that great success was achieved in the First Five Year Plan, fulfilled in four years between 1928–32, there is considerable evidence of chaos and failure in the economy resulting from the highly politicized Stalinist programme. Gradually, ideological Stalinism of this sort was challenged by managerialism as the party itself underwent a degree of bureaucratization.
A considerable debate has taken place among scholars about the meaning, in this context, of the assassination of Kirov in 1935 and the fratricidal party infighting that followed. One school of thought blames Stalin for the death of Kirov , whom he had killed because of personal rivalry for the leadership. Stalin subsequently used Kirov's death as an excuse to launch purges against other opponents in the leadership, including Bukharin , Kamenev , and Zinoviev . The other school is neutral on who killed Kirov but maintains that the purges were politically motivated and connected to the battle between managerialists in the apparatus and their allies in the regions, and those advocating strong central party political control. On this account, ideological Stalinism was set back in 1938 by the establishment of a bureaucratic stranglehold over policymaking, though it remained a significant force in Soviet politics thereafter, as the anti-bureaucratic campaigns launched by Zhdanov in 1948, Khrushchev between 1957 and 1964, and Gorbachev after 1985 prove.
If this latter account is true, then it is ironic that Khrushchev in his secret speech to the twentieth party congress in 1956 and at the twenty-second congress in 1962, should have identified Stalin so completely with the Soviet system as it had evolved. Clearly, Khrushchev was taking a considerable political and personal risk in revealing the scale of repression that occurred under Stalin's rule. At the same time, by laying all of the blame for the ‘deviations of socialism’ at Stalin's feet Khrushchev was concealing the truth in order to limit the loss of legitimacy to the system itself. However, reforming the institutions that emerged in the Stalin period proved a far more difficult task, and Khrushchev's efforts to do so resulted in his ouster. Moreover the legacy of anger among all the repressed peoples and the loss of faith of the public in the ‘friendliness’ of socialism were never overcome.
SWh
perestroika
. He has been held personally responsible, as a total and arbitrary autocrat, for millions of deaths and for the ‘deviations of socialism’ that went on under his rule. In recent years, however, a new historiography has appeared which seeks to distinguish Stalin and Stalinism from a range of competing ideological positions in Soviet politics. Many of the tenets of ideological Stalinism are considered by these historians to have lost ground in the 1930s, though adherents of this position continued to exercise influence and power throughout the Soviet period.
Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili adopted the name Stalin (man of steel) as a pseudonym while in the Bolshevik underground before the revolution. He was a Georgian by birth and his education came first from an orthodox school and then a seminary where he learned Russian. He joined the Social Democratic Movement after his expulsion from the seminary in 1899. Stalin was not considered a significant theoretician among the intellectual Bolsheviks, though he had published works on the nationalities question among others, and
Trotsky
in particular is famously said to have laughed at his writings. However, he possessed considerable organizational skills and acted as editor of
Pravda.
He did not play a significant role in the October 1917 Revolution, despite latter-day efforts to paint him in at Lenin's right hand. However, until 1922 he occupied the positions of People's Commissar for Nationality Affairs and People's Commissar for State Control, and was a member of both the Communist Party's organizational bureau (
Orgburo
) and the Politburo. After his move from the government in 1922, he became General Secretary of the Communist Party. Though this position was regarded at the time as mainly administrative, Stalin was able to use the patronage available in the post and the network of connections he established to advance his power in the leadership struggles which followed Lenin's death.
Between 1924 and 1928, Stalin steered a middle course. He first opposed the Left Opposition to the line of the New Economic Policy (NEP), headed by Trotsky and later supported by Kamenev and Zinoviev . Following the defeat of these potential rivals, Stalin then adopted many of their positions in 1928 in his battle against
Bukharin
. Many commentators have treated Stalin's shifting position in this period as a sign of his relentless and wholly personal drive for power. However, other scholars have seen a greater consistency in his position from 1929–38 when, though less extreme than some of his allies such as Zhdanov, he advocated strong central party control over both the regions and the various sectors of the growing economic bureaucracy.
The political difficulty for the Communist Party during NEP was that it had nothing significant to do: the regime depended on a deal with the peasantry, among whom the party had little support, and industry was run by (frequently bourgeois or Menshevik) experts in central bodies such as Gosplan and in the factories by the manager or technical director. Stalin was able to tap and mobilize growing disaffection with this position among party officials and cited dissatisfaction among workers with the pace of industrial development and supply of produce in support. The Stalinist revolution launched against NEP in 1929 was all encompassing: collectivization in agriculture, including the mobilization of 25,000 workers to the countryside; rapid industrialization with extraordinary targets set for output; and a cultural revolution, in which bourgeois experts would be quickly replaced by ‘red directors’.
The slogans and motivations of this period were highly political—enthusiasm and creativity—as were the explanations for failure—wreckers and saboteurs. The central institutions of the period were the Communist Party, the party dominated Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate (Rabkrin) and the OGPU (Unified State Political Directorate). However, alongside these bodies, a new set of management institutions was being formed out of the old Supreme Council for the National Economy (VSNKh). Despite the claim that great success was achieved in the First Five Year Plan, fulfilled in four years between 1928–32, there is considerable evidence of chaos and failure in the economy resulting from the highly politicized Stalinist programme. Gradually, ideological Stalinism of this sort was challenged by managerialism as the party itself underwent a degree of bureaucratization.
A considerable debate has taken place among scholars about the meaning, in this context, of the assassination of Kirov in 1935 and the fratricidal party infighting that followed. One school of thought blames Stalin for the death of Kirov , whom he had killed because of personal rivalry for the leadership. Stalin subsequently used Kirov's death as an excuse to launch purges against other opponents in the leadership, including Bukharin , Kamenev , and Zinoviev . The other school is neutral on who killed Kirov but maintains that the purges were politically motivated and connected to the battle between managerialists in the apparatus and their allies in the regions, and those advocating strong central party political control. On this account, ideological Stalinism was set back in 1938 by the establishment of a bureaucratic stranglehold over policymaking, though it remained a significant force in Soviet politics thereafter, as the anti-bureaucratic campaigns launched by Zhdanov in 1948, Khrushchev between 1957 and 1964, and Gorbachev after 1985 prove.
If this latter account is true, then it is ironic that Khrushchev in his secret speech to the twentieth party congress in 1956 and at the twenty-second congress in 1962, should have identified Stalin so completely with the Soviet system as it had evolved. Clearly, Khrushchev was taking a considerable political and personal risk in revealing the scale of repression that occurred under Stalin's rule. At the same time, by laying all of the blame for the ‘deviations of socialism’ at Stalin's feet Khrushchev was concealing the truth in order to limit the loss of legitimacy to the system itself. However, reforming the institutions that emerged in the Stalin period proved a far more difficult task, and Khrushchev's efforts to do so resulted in his ouster. Moreover the legacy of anger among all the repressed peoples and the loss of faith of the public in the ‘friendliness’ of socialism were never overcome.
SWh
standing committee
Standing committees in the UK House of Commons exist to examine
bills
in detail after they have passed their second reading in the House so as to render them ‘more generally acceptable’ (Erskine May) before they receive their third reading. All committees are composed in proportion to party strength in the House, although membership is reconstituted for each bill according to MPs' skills and interests. Internationally, ‘standing committee’ more often refers to a committee which in the United Kingdom would be called a select committee.
JBr
bills
in detail after they have passed their second reading in the House so as to render them ‘more generally acceptable’ (Erskine May) before they receive their third reading. All committees are composed in proportion to party strength in the House, although membership is reconstituted for each bill according to MPs' skills and interests. Internationally, ‘standing committee’ more often refers to a committee which in the United Kingdom would be called a select committee.
JBr
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