Investor Presentaiton
201
situation.² Naturally, he also defends himself and his actions when he claims "opportunists of
all kinds are always inclined to belittle the role and importance of the Party when it comes to
positive results of work, at the same time they are always inclined to exaggerate the guilt of the
Party and its leadership when difficulties and malfunctions appear in economic and social
construction."
"202
203
In 1932, Stalin's dictatorship also reached a new level. Along with the growth of
Stalin's dictatorship and the enforcement of his 'revolution from above' was a noticeable change
in the Soviet Union's policy towards Jews. As Gitelman describes, there was a clear link
between Stalin's modernization goals and the change in nationality policy. This was primarily
because:
Stalin's ambitious plans demanded the centralization of political power, economic
resources, and mass energies ... The regime could not afford to tolerate, let alone
encourage, multiple ethnic loyalties in the USSR, and it now perceived the 'flowering of
various national cultures' as a potentially centrifugal force which would distract the
energies of the various nationalities from the central task of the modernization of the
entire country.20
204
This 1930s ideological change about nationalities was intended to help centralize power under
Stalin during his modernization efforts, but it had negative effects on national groups in the
Soviet Union. As a result of this change, by 1930, Stalin had deemed the work of the Evkom and
the Evsektsiia successful and the assimilation of the Jews being 'complete.'
205 The Evsektsiia
201
Kaganovich, Pamiatnye zapiski, 413.
202 Ibid, 337.
203 Rees, Iron Lazar, 123.
204 Gitelman, Assimiliation, Acculturation, and National Consciousness, 16.
205 Yuval-Davis, "Marxism and Jewish Nationalism," 101.
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