Stalin’s Dictatorship USSR, 1924-1941
Stalin’s Dictatorship: USSR, 1924-1941
GCSE History Revision Notes
By Dane O’ Neill
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Stalin’s Dictatorship: USSR, 1924-1941
Contents
The Rise of a Personal Dictator: Joseph Stalin 6
The Background of Stalin and Trotsky 6
The Death and Funeral of Lenin 7
Stalin vs. Trotsky – The Struggle for Power 7
Stalin vs. Trotsky – Differences in policies 7
Lenin’s Funeral: Stalin Tricks Trotsky 7
Stalin’s rise to Power in Russia, 1920s 8
Stalin gains total control of Russia: Censorship, Propaganda, and Government in the late 1920s. 9
Stalin and the one-party government 9
Propaganda: Developing Stalin’s ‘Cult of Personality’ 9
Stalin Suppresses Lenin’s Testament 10
Stalin controls the military 11
The control of the Communist Party over the government in the 1930s 12
The Soviet Constitution (1936), AKA the Stalin Constitution 12
Problems with the structure of government 12
The First Purges, 1930-1933 13
Problems with Collectivisation: Kulaks resist 13
The Great Purges, 1936-1939 14
Causes: The assassination of Kirov, 1934 14
The Purges escalate: The Great Purges; Show Trials; 14
‘The Great Purges’ in Depth: The Show Trials 15
Show Trial #1: The Trial of Kamenev, Zinoviev, & 16 other ‘Old Bolsheviks’ (August 1936) 16
Show Trial#2: Radek, Pyatakov, & 17 other ‘Old Bolsheviks’ (1937) 16