Stalinism facts for kids
Stalinism is the means of governing and related policies implemented from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin (1878–1953). Stalinist policies and ideas that were developed in the Soviet Union included rapid industrialization, the theory of socialism in one country, a totalitarian state, collectivization of agriculture, a cult of personality and subordination of the interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, deemed by Stalinism to be the leading vanguard party of communist revolution at the time.
Stalinism promoted the escalation of class conflict, utilizing state violence to forcibly purge society of the bourgeoisie, whom Stalinist doctrine regarded as threats to the pursuit of the communist revolution. This policy resulted in substantial political violence and persecution of such people. "Enemies" included not only bourgeois people, but also working-class people with counter-revolutionary sympathies.
Stalinist industrialization was officially designed to accelerate the development towards communism, stressing the need for such rapid industrialization on the grounds that the Soviet Union was previously economically backward in comparison to Western countries and asserting that socialist society needed industry in order to face the challenges posed by internal and external enemies of communism. Rapid industrialization was accompanied by mass collectivization of agriculture and by rapid urbanization. Rapid urbanization converted many small villages into industrial cities. To accelerate the development of industrialization, Stalin imported materials, ideas, expertise and workers from Western Europe and the United States and pragmatically set up joint-venture contracts with major American private enterprises, such as the Ford Motor Company, which under state supervision assisted in developing the basis of the industry of the Soviet economy from the late 1920s to the 1930s. After the American private enterprises had completed their tasks, Soviet state enterprises took over.
Images for kids
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Joseph Stalin, after whom Stalinism is named.
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Members of the Chinese Communist Party celebrating Stalin's birthday in 1949
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A poster of the Stalinist era with the inscription "The whole world will be ours!"
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Stalin statue in front of the Joseph Stalin Museum, Gori
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British prime minister Winston Churchill, United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt and Stalin, the Big Three Allied leaders during World War II at the Yalta Conference in February 1945
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See also
In Spanish: Estalinismo para niños
