Why Did The Soviet Union Stay In Power Essay

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The length of time the Soviet regime ruled over Russia was quite remarkable for how oppressive the government was to its own people. There are numerous factors that played a role in how the Soviet Union stayed in power for so long, but I think there are only a few reasons that established its power for the 74 years. The first factor that helped the Soviet regime to stay was the fear and terror that was installed in the citizens of Russia at this time. When the gulags became popular during the Stalin era everyone in the country had to be somewhat concerned of being arrested. People would have to continually prove their loyalty to communist Soviet Union or people would think they are a “foreign agent”. I think an important quote from Lovell is “… all members of Soviet society were guilty until proved innocent” (p.43). Lovell also says that just because you proved your innocence once and that you are loyal doesn’t mean you are in the clear. You have to …show more content…

The government would arrest anyone if they had the slightest suspicion that they were going to go against the government in any way. Any opposition to the government at this time was not tolerated. Most of the time if there was an opposition rising the Soviet government would try to shut it down as fast as it could so it wouldn’t grow anymore. The state also controlled the press and everything they saw including the propaganda. So essentially the entire Soviet population was being in a sense brain washed by their own government. In their propaganda, the Soviet would always try to create an enemy from something. During World War II this would have been the Nazis and during the Cold war it would have been the United states and other capitalist states. The propaganda would also create an illusion that ordinary working people had political power within the government which tried to create more

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