the political system and methods used by Joseph Stalin when he was the leader of the former Soviet Union, or any similar political system. The main features of Stalinism were that all plans and policies were made by Stalin himself and a small group of followers, the Communist Party was the only party allowed, and violence and fear were used to prevent any opposition. Method of rule, or policies, of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union and his imitators elsewhere in the Soviet bloc. On taking power, Stalin brooked no dissent from party policies, of which he assumed the role of sole infallible interpreter. He postponed the struggle for world proletarian revolution, focusing instead on "socialism in one country." He decreed the wholesale collectivization of Russian agriculture and a program of rapid industrialization, which, though broadly effective, resulted in the deaths of many millions. Purges in the 1930s (see Purge Trials) resulted in the deaths of millions more, as opponents were branded traitors and executed or sent to the Gulag. After Stalin's death Nikita Khrushchev repudiated Stalinism (1956) as an aberration. See also Leninism, Trotskyism