Stalinization

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The process of adopting the authoritarian political model associated with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ; the forceful imposition of centralized, dictatorial control over a society
2. Transforming a state into a one-party system modeled on Soviet rule under Joseph Stalin ; the act of enforcing rigid, autocratic government control over a population
3. Bringing a nation under the harsh, centralized dictatorship characteristic of Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union ; the establishing of total state control through coercion and suppression

Etymology: Stalinization takes its core from the name of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet leader who ruled the Soviet Union from the late 1920s until his death in 1953. The name itself was a revolutionary alias: "Stalin" is a Russian word meaning "man of steel," which he adopted as a pen name, and it became the name by which the world knew him. The word is built simply by attaching the suffix "-ization" to "Stalin," the same ending that turns many nouns into verbs and nouns of process, as in "modernization" or "industrialization." Its meaning is therefore the process of making something resemble Stalin's rule, or of imposing Stalinist political and economic methods on a country, institution or movement. Formed in English from a proper name, it follows a pattern used for similar political coinages.

Antonyms: destalinization