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Russia A-LEVEL History! Lenin to Yeltsin 1917-91 > Control - Terror > Flashcards

Control - Terror Flashcards

1
Q

Outline uses of terror by different leaders:

A

Lenin = established use of terror - set a precedent

Stalin = key feature of the Stalinist regime

Khrushchev = reeled it in, part of destalinisation and socialist legality

Brezhnev = no return to terror on such a scale but quelled any counterrevolution

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2
Q

When and where was Cheka established?

A

December 1917
In Moscow - based in the Lubyanka building

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3
Q

Who established Cheka

A

Lenin

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4
Q

Cheka leader:

A

Dzerzhinsky

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5
Q

What powers were the Cheka given in the civil war? 1918-21

A

Powers to operate outside of the law - little interference with other government bodies
Means quick and effective to eliminate any “threats”
But also helped the bolsheviks hold power

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6
Q

When were the waves of arrests under Lenin?

A

August 1918 - after assassination attempt by Fanya Kaplin

1921-22 = RED TERROR (socialist revolutionaries and Mensheviks attacked

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7
Q

How many ‘opponents were killed by the end of the civil war?

A

200,000

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8
Q

When was the Cheka reorganised into the GPU?

A

1922 - after the civil war

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9
Q

When did the secret police become the OGPU

A

1923

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10
Q

What changed as the Cheka became the GPU then OGPU

A

Growing independence from other government organisations - soon it only took orders from the leaders in the politburo.

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11
Q

Under Stalin what was the secret police called and what power did it have?

A

1934 OGPU merged with an enlarged interior ministry and became more powerful - now known as NKVD

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12
Q

Who were the main opponents under Stalins collectivisation?

A

Kulaks (wealthier peasants) and peasants who opposed collectivisation - all deported to gulags

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13
Q

Who were the gulags run by?

A

The secret police

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14
Q

When did number of identifications do political opponents increase under Stalin?

A

1936 - After show trials of Zinoviev and Kamenev
And after purges of the right of the party like Bukharin - members of the red army accused of working with foreign countries = denunciations to the secret police.

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15
Q

Describe arrests by the secret police:

A
  • opponents taken in middle of the night - disorientating
  • taken to Lubyanka building
  • tortured until confessed
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16
Q

What would happen for high profile victims?

A
  • show trials
  • admit trials on camera to be used as propaganda
  • then sentenced to death
    (Would admit in exchange for family not being arrested OR naming associates)
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17
Q

When did Yagoda become head of the secret police?

A

1934 - ambitious and keen to prove loyalty to Stalin

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18
Q

Describe Yagodas time as head of the NKVD

A
  • rapid expansion of gulag (transformed into system of forced labour)
  • influenced Stalin to agree to no interference form courses
  • achieved building of White Sea Canal
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19
Q

Gulags under Yagoda:

A
  • provided a pool of labour and economic resource
  • hostile environments (Siberia) = die from extreme cold or starvation
  • even guards died from cold
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20
Q

White Sea Canal - Yagoda

A
  • 141- mile canal
  • 180,000 labourers
  • hand dug
  • under budget and completed in 2 years

TOO shallow to be useful though so FAILURE

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21
Q

Yagodas influence in the Great Purge 1936:

A

Increased:
- tasked with arresting party members with Trotskyite links

22
Q

How did Yagoda fall from power?

A
  • accused of failing to safeguard Kirov (murdered)
  • didn’t peruse opposition with enough enthusiasm
  • Yagoda removed from office
  • shot in 1938
23
Q

Who was Yagodas replacement?

A

Yezhov

24
Q

How was yezhov noticed by Stalin?

A

Had an affinity for personally torturing opponents

25
Q

Yezhovs nickname

A

The “Bloody Dwarf”

26
Q

What was characteristic about Yezhovs time as head of the secret police?

A

Most excessive phase of purges - framed the purges as ideologically fuelled by accusing those arrested as opposed to communism and the government.

27
Q

Arrests under Yezhov:

A
  • process sped up
  • Trioka courts dealt with cases
  • eg: Karelian Trioka in sept.1937 processed 231 prisoners every day
28
Q

Quota arrests:

A

July 1937 :
- Introduced by Yezhov
- considered the gulags to be underused and underfilled
- quotas for executions of prisoners
- medals given to officers who fulfilled BUT executed if didn’t meet

29
Q

Surveillance of general public:

A

By NKVD increased under Yezhov
- plain clothes officers
- number of staff recruited quadrupled (needed more for torture!)

30
Q

Who was considered as opponents under Yezhov?

A

Anyone who didn’t show sufficient commitment to revolutionary cause!

Nobody was safe - including the secret police

31
Q

When was NKVD leadership purged?

A

Under yezhov

32
Q

Why was Stalin concerned over Yezhov

A
  • Too enthusiastic for torture!
  • terror had gone slightly too far - demoralising the population (bad for when war was looming)
  • excessive drinking and over worked
33
Q

How was Yezhov dismissed?

A
  • 1938
  • Stalin accused him of being responsible for the excesses of the purges
  • Beria undermined him
  • used as a scapegoat to reduce level of terror
34
Q

Berias personal qualities:

A
  • good at organisation
  • flatterer
  • pervert
  • presented as uncle-like figure
  • reformed secret police
35
Q

How/why did Beria reform the NKVD?

A
  • indiscriminate/quota arrests and executions = waste of time and manpower
  • public trials only held when solid evidence stood
  • made police more conventional
  • made gulag more profitable
36
Q

Murder of Trotsky:

A

Oversaw by Beria - Mexico 1940
Killed with ice pick

37
Q

How did Beria make the gulag more efficient?

A
  • wanted to make gulag profitable
  • 1939 = improved food rations for max work effort
  • matched prisoners to jobs = max work
  • put scientists (1000) to work - including in aviation and soviet space program
  • early released cancelled for continued use of expertise
38
Q

Evidence for a more effective gulag under Beria:

A

Gulag economic activity grows from 2 billion roubles (1937) to 4.5 billion (1940).
By 1950 1/3 of gold and timber produced by gulag.

39
Q

Secret police during WWII:

A
  • 1941 - powers to supervise Red Army (monitor disloyalty and desertion)
  • forcibly removed/deported national minorities with dubious connections to the soviet state
  • 1943 departments to root out traitors in areas fallen to the Germans (including SMERSH - spies)
  • Order 270 names all returning prisoners captured by the Germans as traitors - detention camps and to clear minefields
40
Q

SMERSH

A
  • Branch of NKVD in the war to root out hostile enemies in the Red Army
  • spies rooted out
  • 1943
  • later became branch of KGB to arrange assassinations of opponents and dissidents.
41
Q

How did Beria use the post war rivalry?

A
  • rivalry began as Stalins health failed
  • Beria used role to launch new wave of purges (gain Stalins favour)
  • targeted Leningrad branch of the party - 2000 members imprisoned in 1949
42
Q

Migrelian affair

A
  • 1951
  • purge of Mingrelian ethnicity (Beria was Mingrelian)
  • took place in Georgia
43
Q

Doctors Plot

A
  • January 1953
  • group of Doctors arrested for ‘trying to assassinate Stalin’
  • most of the accused were Jewish
44
Q

Berias position after Stalins death:

A
  • huge power and influence
  • part of power struggle within collective leadership
  • controlled secret police, gulags, links to industry
    (Politburo eliminated him - lead by khruschev 1953)
45
Q

What happened after Beria was removed from power?

A

Politburo moved quickly to limit the secret police

Converted it into the Soviet Security and Intelligence Service - the KGB

Khrushchev dismantled gulag system, freed prisoners, forced labour never used again

46
Q

What was the KGB

A
  • committee for state security (1954)
  • controlled the secret police, brought them back under party control
  • dealt with internal security, intelligence gathering, espionage
  • run like the military with ranks
47
Q

Who was the head of the KGB after 1967?

A

Yuri Andropov

48
Q

Did people inn the gulags think that Stalin was responsible for terror?

A

No, they thought he’d put a stop to it if he knew - Stalin was completely separated from terror (helped by the fact he didn’t create the camps - Lenin did)

49
Q

What evidence is there for Stalins personal involvement on terror?

A
  • signing death warrants, adding personal comments, adding names himself
  • Stalin set the NKVD quotas - if not met he added names to lists
  • integral to policies of collectivisation (eg: elimination of kulaks)
  • Stalin set parameters for the purges (eg: illegally eliminating Kirov to kick off Great Purge of the Party and to get rid of Yezhov) - all very calculated
  • after Stalin died the gulags were dismantled
  • doctors plot is example of Stalins paranoia and atisemitism
50
Q

Were Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria responsible for developing terror?

A

Stalin more responsible:
- all powerful leaders BUT got to that point via willingness to follow Stalins wishes
- none had much influence on target (decided by Stalin)
Each were to blame:
- all 3 had sadistic tendencies and didn’t seem to have a moral conscience
- named those on ‘lists’ who were a personal threat to position
- had influence in implementing terror and operating the gulag

Russia A-LEVEL History! Lenin to Yeltsin 1917-91 (19 decks)

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