Chapter 17 - Dictatorship and Stalinism 1929-1941

Question 1

What were the two reasons for the brutal repression imposed by Stalin?

Answer 1

1. In order to force through Stalin’s policies and destroy any opposition
2. Because of Stalin’s paranoid fears for his own survival

Question 2

What did Party purges look like under Lenin?

Answer 2

They usually led to people losing their Party membership, not to their arrest, imprisonment or execution

Question 3

When did the Cheka change its name and what to?

Answer 3

1922-1934 it was called the OGPU (the Department of Political Police)

Question 4

What does NKVD stand for?

Answer 4

the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs

Question 5

What did the NKVD take over the supervision of?

Answer 5

The Gulag

Question 6

What was the Gulag?

Answer 6

A network of forced prison labour camps

Question 7

What happened to the OGPU in 1934?

Answer 7

Its functions were transferred to the NKVD which carried out normal police duties and secret police work

Question 8

What was another form of repression other than arrests and show trials in the 1930s?

Answer 8

The enforced famine in the Ukraine was an ‘economic terror’ intended to bring about submission

Question 9

When did the five early purges and trials carried out under Stalin’s regime take place?

Answer 9

1928
1929
1930
1932
1933

Question 10

What trial/purge took place in 1928?

Answer 10

The Shakhty trial

Question 11

Who was targeted in the 1928 trial/purge?

Answer 11

Managers and technicians of the Shakhty coal mine who had questioned the rapid pace of industrialisation.
Five were executed and others imprisoned

Question 12

What is a likely explanation for the 1928 purge/trial?

Answer 12

To warn others not to criticise the Five Year Plans

Question 13

What trial/purge took place in 1929?

Answer 13

Trotsky was expelled from the USSR

Question 14

Why was this individual targeted in the 1929 trial/purge?

Answer 14

While others from the Left Opposition had admitted their ‘mistakes’ to Stalin, Trotsky had never done so

Question 15

What is a likely explanation for the 1929 purge/trial?

Answer 15

To remove the leader of the Left Opposition

Question 16

What trial/purge took place in 1930?

Answer 16

The ‘Industrial Party’ trial

Question 17

Who was targeted in the 1930 purge/trial?

Answer 17

A group of senior industrialists and economists accused of planning a coup and plotting to wreck the Soviet economy

Question 18

What is a likely explanation for the 1930 purge/trial?

Answer 18

To link the Five Year Plans’ economic problems to ‘wrecking’

Question 19

What trial/purge took place in 1932?

Answer 19

Martemyan Ryutin imprisoned; Kamenev and Zinoviev expelled from the Party

Question 20

Who was targeted in the 1932 purge/trial and why?

Answer 20

Ryutin criticised Stalin and collectivisation in a long document known as the ‘Ryutin Platform’. Stalin said Ryutin intended to asassinate him and wanted him executed. Kirov and others argued against this. Ryutin was imprisoned for 10 years instead. Kamenev, Zinoviev and 14 others were expelled from the Party for not reporting Ryutin’s document earlier

Question 21

What is a likely explanation for the 1932 purge/trial?

Answer 21

To remove Ryutin and purge those suspected of supporting him

Question 22

What trial/purge took place in 1933?

Answer 22

The Party purge

Question 23

Who was targeted in the 1933 trial/purge?

Answer 23

In 1933, the Communist Party had 3.2 million members, many of whom had joined after membership rules were relaxed in 1929. Over 570,000 ‘Ryutinites’ were expelled

Question 24

What is a likely explanation for the 1933 purge/trial?

Answer 24

To try to restrict Party membership to Stalin’s supporters

Question 25

When did Stalin's policies come under attack and why?

Answer 25

At the Seventeenth Party Congress (Jan-Feb 1934) Some members of the Politburo wanted a slower pace of industrialisation and an easing-off of grain requisition

Question 26

How did Sergei Kirov's beliefs change?

Answer 26

He'd previously been one of Stalin's closest allies but now sided with those opposing him His speech at the Congress recieved a standing ovation

Question 27

Why was Kirov a threat to Stalin?

Answer 27

He was the leader of the Leningrad Party and had a strong power base there so his popularity was a threat

Question 28

What happened to Stalin's position and why?

Answer 28

His position of General Secretary was abolished and Stalin, Kirov, Zhdanov and Kaganovich were all made 'Secretaries of Equal Rank' May have happened with Stalin's approval as a way to share the blame for the USSR's problems

Question 29

What happened to the people who attended the Seventeenth Party Congress?

Answer 29

Many were targeted in the purges that followed

Question 30

What happened to Kirov?

Answer 30

Shot by a man called Nikolayev on the 1 December 1934 Stalin blamed the murder on a Trotskyite threat to overthrow the Party

Question 31

What happened after Kirov's death?

Answer 31

A day after, the head of the NKVD (Yagoda) was given powers to arrest and execute anyone found guilty of 'terrorist plotting' 100+ Party members were shot and 1000s were arrested and sent to prison camps

Question 32

What happened to Kamenev and Zinoviev?

Answer 32

They (and 17 others) were arrested, accused of causing terrorism and sentenced to 5-10 years of imprisonment in Jan 1935

Question 33

What legislative change occured in June 1935?

Answer 33

The death penalty was extended from applying to those engaged in subversive activity to applying to anyone aware of subversive activity who didn't report it

Question 34

How was Kirov's death used?

Answer 34

As an excuse/reason for the regime to begin widespread purges

Question 35

What did the show trials emphasise and what did they help justify?

Answer 35

Emphasised the threat to the regime from 'enemies of the state' and helped to justify the harsh and repressive methods used by the regime to subdue such enemies. Also used to shift the blame for social and economic problems

Question 36

What did the NKVD do in the months leading up to a show trial?

Answer 36

Ensured that the accused signed a confession Sleep deprivation, beatings, starvation and torture were common

Question 37

What legislative change was made in April 1935 and how did the NKVD use it?

Answer 37

It was made legal for those over 12 to be punished in the same way as adults, including the death penalty The NKVD used this to extract confessions by threatening to charge the defendant's children

Question 38

When was the first major show trial held?

Answer 38

August 1936

Question 39

What was the first major show trial?

Answer 39

Kamenev, Zinoviev and 14 others K and Z accepted responsibility for Kirov's murder and pleaded guilty to planning Stalin's murder Both were executed

Question 40

What was the outcome of the first major show trial for Stalin?

Answer 40

It eliminated his old rivals and provided scapegoats for Kirov's murder

Question 41

When was the new constitution introduced?

Answer 41

1936

Question 42

Who drafted the new constitution?

Answer 42

Bukharin

Question 43

What was the new constitution intended to do?

Answer 43

Celebrate the triumphs of previous years and declare that socialism had been achieved in the USSR

Question 44

What did the new constitution proclaim about the USSR?

Answer 44

It proclaimed the USSR to be a federation of 11 Soviet Republics, each with its own 'supreme soviet' which met together in the new 'Supreme Soviet' that replaced the Congress of Soviets

Question 45

What were five examples of rights set out in the new constitution?

Answer 45

- Each republic had some rights of jurisdiction, including primary education - Ethnic groups were promised autonomy within the Union, with support for national cultures and languages - Elections every 4 years and voting rights for everyone over 18 (including 'former people' (the old bourgeois elite)) - Civil rights such as freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom of press, freedom of religion and the right to free speech - Citizens expected to work and guaranteed work, plus the right to education and social welfare

Question 46

Were the rights of the constitution followed?

Answer 46

No, they were largely ignored e.g. republics were allowed to leave the Union according to the constitution but Stalin didn't allow it to happen

Question 47

How did Soviet citizens use the constitution?

Answer 47

When making complaints e.g. citizens complaining about anti-religious discrimination referred to their constitutional right to freedom of religion