The War Within: Factional Strife and Politics of Control in the Soviet Party State (1944–1948)

• Autores: Daniel Stotland
• Localización: Russian History, ISSN 0094-288X, Vol. 42, Nº. 3, 2015, págs. 343-369
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This work contests that the shift in the Soviet policies, usually referred to as Zhdanovshchina, was not the function of the war's end and the response to bipolar confrontation between the Soviet Union. Rather, the rise of Andrei Zhdanov began during the war itself and was the result of the ongoing cyclical conflict within the party state between the pragmatist faction of Georgii Malenkov advocating the focus on the technological expertise of the Soviet administrative elite and Zhdanov's faction intent on prioritizing political education and ideological purity. The paper, drawing heavily on the archival materials, will analyze the failure of the ideologues to roll back the gains made by the technocrats under the pressure of the early wartime crisis. Zhdanov's reform program utilized a universalist approach, which was an attempt to use the ideological purification of the party as a vehicle to restore the Kremlin's political control over the provinces and the technocrats. Both the provincial party bosses and the chiefs of the economic Ministries achieved a considerable degree of autonomy during the war, a compromise made by Moscow in order to allow a more efficient mobilization of resources. Yet the dream of maintaining adequate economic performance through increased political education quickly turned out to be a mirage. Under the rising pressure of post-war reconstruction to retain the productivity, the wartime compromises proved increasingly durable. Faced with the united opposition of the technocrats, the provincial party bosses, and the Ministerial apparatus Zhdanov's reforms, and his political fortunes, floundered and collapsed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]