The Late Stalin Period

Many historians credit Stalin's paranoid personality for the horrific course of events that unfolded during his tenure as the head of the Community Party in the USSR (Kershaw, 2004, p. 12). For example, historians argue that Stalin was about to launch another set of purges when he died in 1953. Despite the power of Stalin's personality to control so forcefully the apparatus of the state, he never succeeded in destroying this apparatus. At least one historian argues that Stalin's personal power had begun to threaten the political apparatus that had made Stalin possible. But even this historian agrees with Suny that the worst excesses of Stalinist terror ended almost immediately upon Stalin's death (Suny, 1998, p. 388), and the Communist Party apparatus reasserted its control (Kershaw, 2004, p. 12).

What becomes clear from Soviet society at the time of Stalin's death is that although Stalin seemed to transcend the party apparatus, the party apparatus remained a strong force in Soviet civil and political society. In fact, the party became even more centralized in the post-war period leading up to Stalin's death. Military service served as a new form of bond for party members, which also meant that non-veteran party members were at a disadvantage (Suny, 1998, p. 368). The elite of the party apparatus also remained largely confined to the urban areas; rural party leaders were often poorly educated and relatively powerless. Moreover, even though Stalin rule

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