alled and executed. In 1937 Stalin moved into a position of complete dictatorship with the subjection of the Politburo to a special commission of which he was head and on which sat only the most loyal and fully obedient lackeys – namely Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich and Yezhov. From this point until his death, Stalin’s power was absolute. As Maclean describes:“It was greater power than that exercised by Lenin or by any of his Imperial predecessors, power unquestioned and absolute, power ruthlessly used, power that reached out into the remote valleys of the Caucasus and Pamirs and across the frozen Siberian tundra, power supported by an active and ubiquitous secret police. ‘Imagine Jenghiz Khan with a telephone’ Tolstoi had said towards the end of his life. His prophecy had more than been fulfilled”. On the political level Stalin certainly became far more powerful than Lenin was. Lenin was never an absolute dictator and mostly operated as leader of the Party but still within it. With him the dictatorship was of the party and not in spite of it. Stalin simply left the Party behind in a blaze of fear and terror. Eventually he hovered above it. Unlike Lenin who was completely against his deification before or after his death, Stalin in life actively encouraged his “Cult of Personality”, that would later be so denounced by Khrushchev. In the main, the use of violence and terror is a major similarity in Lenin and Stalin’s political practice with the only difference being that Lenin used it mainly against external opponents while Stalin used it against everyone and on an infinitely greater scale. “One death is a tragedy,” he would say. “A million just statistics.” The best example of Stalin’s violent excess can be seen in his economic practice. The main events of Stalin’s economic practice were the 5 year plans, collectivization and industrializat...
