page_title: Communist Party of the Soviet Union
section_title: Stalinism
hierarchical_section_title: Communist Party of the Soviet Union / Ideology / Marxism–Leninism / Stalinism
caption_attribution_description: English: Image of Joseph Stalin from 1937
context_page_description: The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the founding and ruling political party of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union. The CPSU was the sole governing party of the Soviet Union until 1990, when the Congress of People's Deputies modified Article 6 of the most recent 1977 Soviet constitution, which had granted the CPSU a monopoly over the political system.
  The party started in 1898 as the Bolsheviks, a majority faction from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, led by Vladimir Lenin, who seized power in the October Revolution of 1917. After 74 years, it was dissolved on 29 August 1991 on Soviet territory, soon after a failed coup d'état by hard-line CPSU leaders against Soviet president and party general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. It was outlawed entirely three months later on 6 November 1991 on Russian territory.
  The CPSU was a communist party based on democratic centralism. This principle, conceived by Lenin, entails democratic and open discussion of policy issues within the party, followed by the requirement of total unity in upholding the agreed policies. The highest body within the CPSU was the Party Congress, which convened every five years.
context_section_description: Stalinism, while not an ideology per se, refers to Stalin's thoughts and policies. Stalin's introduction of the concept "Socialism in One Country" in 1924 was an important moment in Soviet ideological discourse. According to Stalin, the Soviet Union did not need a socialist world revolution to construct a socialist society. Four years later, Stalin initiated his "Second Revolution" with the introduction of state socialism and central planning. In the early 1930s, he initiated the collectivization of Soviet agriculture by de-privatizing agriculture and creating peasant cooperatives rather than making it the responsibility of the state. With the initiation of his "Second Revolution", Stalin launched the "Cult of Lenin"—a cult of personality centered upon himself. The name of the city of Petrograd was changed to Leningrad, the town of Lenin's birth was renamed Ulyanov (Lenin's birth-name), the Order of Lenin became the highest state award and portraits of Lenin were hung in public squares, workplaces and elsewhere. The increasing bureaucracy which followed the introduction of a state socialist economy was at complete odds with the Marxist notion of "the withering away of the state". Stalin explained the reasoning behind it at the 16th Congress held in 1930;
  We stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which represents the mightiest and most powerful authority of all forms of State that have ever existed. The highest development of the State power for the withering away of State power —this is the Marxian formula. Is this contradictory? Yes, it is contradictory. But this contradiction springs from life itself and reflects completely Marxist dialectic.
  At the 1939 18th Congress, Stalin abandoned the idea that the state would wither away. In its place, he expressed confidence that the state would exist, even if the Soviet Union reached communism, as long as it was encircled by capitalism. Two key concepts were created in the latter half of his rule; the "two camps" theory and the "capitalist encirclement" theory. The threat of capitalism was used to strengthen Stalin's personal powers and Soviet propaganda began making a direct link with Stalin and stability in society, saying that the country would crumble without the leader. Stalin deviated greatly from classical Marxism on the subject of "subjective factors"; Stalin said that Party members of all ranks had to profess fanatic adherence to the Party's line and ideology, if not, those policies would fail.
caption: Stalinism, while not an ideology per se, refers to the thoughts and policies of Stalin
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