Building on Lenin's work, Stalin expanded the centralized bureaucratic system of the Soviet Union during the 1930's. A series of two five year plans lead to a massive expansion of the Russian economy. Large increases were seen in many sectors, especially coal and iron production. The society was brought from a position decades behind the West to one of near economic and scientific equality within thirty years. Some economic historians now believe it to be the fastest economic growth ever achieved. The costs were horrendous, however. The system was dependent on a regime of unprecedented brutality towards its own citizens. Hundreds of thousands who objected were killed. Whole classes such as the Kulacks?, middle class land owning farmers, were wipped out. Millions more died becuase of logistical failures involving food distribution and failed crops. A never before seen level of control over the speech and thoughts of the population was implemented. The rapid and often slapdash industrialization also caused many of the world's worst environmental problems as well as dangerous working conditions for millions.
While the system was devastating to Russia it is almost certainly responsible for defeating Nazism. Without the staggering economic production that Stanlinism brought to Russia the nation would have been easily overrun by the German forces. After the Second World War Stalinism was exported to the Soviet Union's new Eastern European satellite states. Many of these regimes were just as repressive as Stalin's.
After Stalin's death in 1953, Stalin's successor Kruyshev? repudiated his policies and condemed Stalinism. While the repression was somewhat reduced, the control economy continued. Bureaucratic morrases and falling standards eventually came to light after the system started to crumble under peristoika (or opening) of the 1980s and came to full light after the collapse of the Soviet system in the early 1990s.
Many parallels can be seen between Stalinism and the economic policy of the earlier Czar [Peter the Great]?. Both desperately wanted Russia to catch up to the western European states. Both succeeded to an extent, turning Russia temporarily into Europe's leading power. In both cases it only took a few decades for the forced economic growth to evaporate, and for Russia to once more be one of the poorest nations in Europe.
Stalinism is today very often used today as a term of derision by more democratic Marxists to condemn the totalitarian variety that still exists in states such as North Korea and Vietnam.
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