Conclusion

Abstract

No one at the time could have dated the establishment of the Stalinist political system to a specific month or year. The consolidation of the new order was not a logical or linear process. The streamlining of party administration, for example, followed three years of often chaotic populism. And the Soviet regime was still precarious in 1932. Although a political crisis has been averted, and the Ryutin group’s leaders were in exile or behind bars, there was little cause for celebration within the leadership. The economy was in a serious and unstable condition. Despite the glossy official figures for increased production, industry lurched from crisis to crisis.¹ Famine loomed in the countryside.² In the cities, including relatively privileged Moscow, there were food shortages, and tense industrial relations leading to strikes and poor productivity.³ Despite substantial investment, the housing crisis in Moscow, as in other major cities, continued to worsen.⁴ Transport was in chaos.⁵ In all, there was little to suggest that Stalin’s bureaucratic system of government could last, or that he would occupy the post of party leader until his death three decades later.