Phenomenon of Stalinism in Modern Scientific Discourse: Problems, Paradoxes, Controversies.

Abstract

The role and place of the phenomenon of Stalinism in the views of Soviet, Russian, Ukrainian and foreign political thought are analyzed. The content of the
concept of “Stalinism” is revealed and the author’s vision of the disclosure of its essence is offered. The features of the functioning of Stalinism in the paradigm of the “conservative revolution” are considered. The author offers his own definition of Stalinism. Stalinism is a socio-political system that defined the principles, forms of coexistence and interrelationship between the individual and the state, society and power through mechanisms of state institutions in order to build: a) in the socio-economic sphere — models of a kind of socially-oriented state monopoly feudalism through the mechanism of non-market relations using the “front” elements of the socialist economy based on the cultivation of “shock” labor in terms of equitable distribution and consumption for the general population; b) in the cultural and spiritual sphere — an ideologically homogeneous society based on the proclaimed corporate idea of building socialism in the USSR through the use of pseudo-socialist rhetoric in the organization of total ideological and propaganda work. Actions for the destruction and isolation of the “enemies of the people” were aimed at creating a unified collective consciousness of a socially homogeneous (ideally) human mass;
c) in the political sphere — the structure of a rigid hierarchy of monopoly partystate government on the basis of legitimizing the authoritarian model of personality cult JV Stalin. To this end, the use of punitive mechanisms of the repressive apparatus to suppress and destroy real and imagined political opponents was introduced. At present, the antagonism of scientific positions, a constant of social psychology, is determined by the extreme degree of maximalism in rejecting polar points of view. This objective process of development of Ukrainian society requires re31 searchers to have a very prudent scientific position on the consideration of Stalinism in the complex of scientific approaches. These approaches will ultimately help to form an integrative assessment of this contradictory, non-linear socio-political phenomenon and the phenomenon of our history, the consequences and recurrences
of which still affect the dramatic development of events in our country.