In the last years of his life, Joseph Stalin began to pay less time to the issues of the USSR management and weakened the grip. At the same time, he retained the impact on the key levers of power. The last years of Stalin’s life was described in an interview with Lente.ru Doctor of Historical Sciences, Chief Researcher of the Institute of Soviet and Post-Soviet History, Professor of the School of Historical Sciences HSE Oleg Glevniuk.
Responding to the question of reducing Stalin’s participation in the management of the state, Glevnuk noted that the head of the USSR paid less time to operational issues. “Key government bodies (Presidium and the Bureau of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR) carried out operational management of the country mainly without the participation of the head of state. By the way, after his death, it made it possible to ensure a smooth transition from the Stalinist dictatorship to collective leadership,” he said.
According to Oleg Glevniuk, the decline in Stalin’s activity does not allow us to talk about the loss of the actual head of the USSR. “Stalin to the very stroke on March 1, 1953 tightly held two most important levers of power in his hands – state security bodies and party apparatus. He personally coordinated and carefully tracked all the major punitive shares of Chekists like the infamous doctors’ entity,” said Glevnuk.
Earlier, the Russian Ministry of Defense declassified data on the protection of Moscow using water barrier. A special operation has become one of the reasons for the failure of German offensive in 1941.