This is part ten of the Explaining History study course based on the AQA A level history module Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia 1917-53.

In this episode we explore the power struggle between StalinStalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician, dictator and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. Read More, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin and discuss the political ideas that Stalin believed in. We examine the ideas of permanent revolution and socialism in one countrySocialism in One Country Full Description:Stalin’s central ideological innovation, asserting that the Soviet Union should strengthen itself internally rather than waiting for a global socialist revolution. It was the ideological wedge used to isolate and defeat Leon Trotsky. Socialism in One Country was a nationalist turn in communist theory. Trotsky and the “Left Opposition” believed the Russian Revolution could not survive without revolutions in the West. Stalin argued that the USSR had the resources to build a socialist fortress alone. Critical Perspective:This theory justified the isolationism and xenophobia of the Stalinist era. It turned the USSR into a besieged fortress, where every failure was attributed to “foreign spies” and “wreckers.” It transformed the international communist movement from a tool of global liberation into a tool of Soviet foreign policy, where the interests of foreign communist parties were always sacrificed to protect the Soviet state.
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• I will be running a livestream Q&A for students on Wednesday November 20th. You can access it here, subscribe to the channel to get your reminder.
• https://youtube.com/live/knBuNLBD-bU?feature=share (in case the link doesn’t work)

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