R5.2 The Yezhovshchina

Question 1

What happened in July 1937?

Answer 1

Stalinist terror intensified with the issue of NKVD Order 00447, drawn up by Nikolai Yezhov

Question 2

The Order had Small NKVD committees created at regional levels, for what purpose?

Answer 2

To find Kulaks and classify them into two categories: Category 1 (Kulaks), and Category 2(anti-soviet elements).
-Category 1 were sentenced to death by shooting
-Category 2 were sent to Gulags

Question 3

An arrest list was drawn up, including artists, scientists and writers. Within a month of this list, how many arrests and people were sent to the gulag?

Answer 3

100,000 arrested and 14,000 sent to the Gulag

Question 4

What made the NKVD arrests particularly terrifying?

Answer 4

The pressure to achieve the quota of arrests was so great that individuals would be selected at random and many standard citizens were arrested in amidst the chaos

Question 5

How did the NKVD create an atmosphere of suspicion and fear?

Answer 5

It relied on secret informers and historians estimate there was 1 informer per 400 inhabitants

Question 6

What happened in May-June 1937?

Answer 6

The Military Purge

Question 7

What did the Military Purge involve?

Answer 7

-In 1937 Stalin arrested key military figures such as Marshal Mikhail and Yan Gamarnik, them with 6 other military higher ups were executed
-Approximately 50% of officer corps in all three services, as well as a substantial amount of military intelligence were executed

Question 8

What was the numbers of inmate numbers in Gulags between 1935 to 1938?

Answer 8

800,000 in 1935 and somewhere between 5-9 million in 1938

Question 9

What were conditions in Gulags like?

Answer 9

Apalling, meagre rations and inadequate clothing/food. It was overcrowded and work expectations were far too high, mortality rates were 4 and 6 times higher than the rest of the USSR

Question 10

What did Stalin do in the 1930s regarding minorities?

Answer 10

-Russian language made compulsory in the 1930s
-Wave of national deportations 1937
-In 1941, over 400,000 Volga Germans deported to Siberia and Central Asia

Question 11

What was the Yezhovshchina like for Jews?

Answer 11

Anti-semitism was revived and 2 million jews were incorcoporated ito the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1940

Question 12

How did the Yezhovshchina slow down?

Answer 12

At the end of 1938, the Yezhoshchina had threatened to destabilise the state and industry and administration suffered.

Question 13

How did Stalin end the Yezhovshchina?

Answer 13

Yezhov was used as a scapegoat, accused as excessive and shot in February 1940

Question 14

How and when was Trotsky killed?

Answer 14

August 1940, Trotsky was tracked down by Stalinist agents, living in Mexico city. NKVD agent agent Ramon Mercarder plunged an ice pick into his head

Question 15

What could have been a key moment towards the institutionalisation of terror in the 30s?

Answer 15

Suicide of Stalins wife 1932

Question 16

What are some explanations for terror being institutionalised?

Answer 16

-Was always an integral part of communist system, Stalin simply intensified it
-Terror was response to real life threat of military coup involving Germans
-Terror was self-escalating “fear fed on fear”
-Terror was work of over-zealous officials in the provinces, and the drive for terror wasn’t exclusively Stalins

Question 17

What was the Impact of purges on Army officers?

Answer 17

There was a great loss of Army officers and around 23,000 officers were shot or dismissed, and many had to be recruited to match the increase in size of the Red Army from just under 1 million personnel in 1936 to over 5 million by 1941

Question 18

What is an argued positive and negative of the massive purges?

Answer 18

Negative - many skilled personnel in society were lacking such as teachers, engineers and specialists
Positive - “ordinary people” were given a chance to “shake up” their managers, to be more accountable and more responsive to needs