leonid brezhnev ruled the soviet union with sole power in a regime of terror.
who ruled the soviet union with sole power in a regime of terror?
leonid brezhnev
stalin's legacy is largely negative, with the soviet union under him characterised as a totalitarian state and stalin its authoritarian leader. various biographers have described stalin as a dictator, an autocrat, an oriental despot, or accused him of practicing caesarism. a man who "perhaps [...] determined the course of the twentieth century" more than any other individual, described as "one of the most notorious figures in history" and possessing "that rare combination: both 'intellectual' and killer", the "ultimate politician" and the "most elusive and fascinating of the twentieth-century titans" and "one of the most powerful figures in human history", stalin initially ruled as part of the party oligarchy which he turned into a personal dictatorship in 1934 and became absolute dictator between march and june 1937. as such, stalin built a "personal dictatorship within the bolshevik dictatorship", concentrated an "unprecedented political authority in his hands" and being described "closer to personal despotism than almost any monarch in history". however, contemporary archival research shows that the motivation behind the purges was not stalin attempting to establish his own personal dictatorship. rather, evidence suggests he was committed to building the socialist state envisioned by lenin. the real motivation for the terror was an overexaggerated fear of counter-revolution. others also cautioned against "over-simplistic stereotypes" that portrayed stalin as an omnipotent and omnipresent tyrant who controlled every aspect of soviet life through repression and totalitarianism, noting that "powerful though he was, his powers were not limitless" and that stalin's rule depended on his willingness to conserve the soviet structure he had inherited. it has also been observed that stalin's ability to remain in power relied on him having a majority in the politburo at all times. furthermore, it was noted that at various points, especially in his later years, there were "periodic manifestations" in which the party oligarchy threatened his autocratic control. stalin denied to foreign visitors that he was a dictator, stating that those who labelled him as such did not understand the soviet governance structure. several historians have criticized the totalitarian twins concept and comparisons between communism/socialism and fascism or stalinism and nazism as cold war concepts that focus upon the upper levels of society and which use have obscured the reality of the system. with the collapse of the soviet union and the release of the archives, some of the heat has gone out of the debate and politicization has been reduced. for instance, it has been argued that the soviet political system was not completely controlled from the center and that both lenin and stalin only responded to political events as they arose. some also questioned the previously published findings that stalin organized himself the murder of sergey kirov to justify his campaign of great terror. others argued that mass deaths from famines are not a "uniquely stalinist evil" and compared the behavior of the stalinist regime vis-à-vis the holodomor to that of the british empire (towards ireland and india) and even the g8 in contemporary times, arguing that the latter "are guilty of mass manslaughter or mass deaths from criminal negligence because of their not taking obvious measures to reduce mass deaths" and that a possible defense of stalin and his associates is that "their behaviour was no worse than that of many rulers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries".
authoritarian socialism
for the fifth time, sole power was sent to dubai in early spring. he started favourite for the meydan sprint but was unable to recover after failing to obtain a clear run in the straight and finished twelfth behind sir maximilian. on 28 march sole power made his fifth bid to win the al quoz sprint for which his opponents included amber sky, peniaphobia and sir maximilian, as well as bundle of joy from hong kong, green mask from the united states, hototo from bahrain, caspar netscher (mill reef stakes, german 2,000 guineas, nearctic stakes) and stepper point (flying five) from england and farmah (premio carlo e francesco aloisi) from france. sole power started slowly but produced a strong late run to take the lead inside the final furlong and won by half a length from peniaphobia, with green mask taking third ahead of amber sky. hughes called the winner "a wonderful little horse. i thought he ran too lacklustre (on his last start at meydan), but eddie lynam’s done something and it’s worked a treat" whilst sabena power said "i’m so thrilled. he surprises us all the time – he’s fantastic". on his return to europe, the gelding finished sixth in the greenlands stakes at the curragh on 23 may.
sole power