Stalinism

Stalinism is the means of governing and related policies implemented by Joseph Stalin. Stalinist policies in the Soviet Union included: state terror, rapid industrialization, the theory of socialism in one country, a centralized state, collectivization of agriculture, cult of personality, and subordination of interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union—deemed by Stalinism to be the most forefront vanguard party of communist revolution at the time.

Stalinism promoted the escalation of class conflict, utilizing state violence to forcibly purge society of claimed supporters of the bourgeoisie, regarding them as threats to the pursuit of the communist revolution that resulted in substantial political violence and persecution of such people. These included not only bourgeois people but also working-class people accused of counter-revolutionary sympathies.

Stalinist industrialization was officially designed to accelerate the development towards communism, stressing that such rapid industrialization was needed because the country was previously economically backward in comparison with other countries; and that it was needed in order to face the challenges posed by internal and external enemies of communism. Rapid industrialization was accompanied with mass collectivization of agriculture and rapid urbanization. Rapid urbanization converted many small villages into industrial cities. To accelerate the development of industrialization, Stalin pragmatically created joint venture contracts with major American private enterprises, such as Ford Motor Company, that under state supervision assisted in developing the basis of industry of the Soviet economy from the late 1920s to 1930s. After the American private enterprises completed their tasks, Soviet state enterprises took over.