The great purge

Question 1

Casues: Kirov’s murder

Who was Sergie Kirov and why would stalin dislike him?
What did Stalin use Kirov’s death to do?

Answer 1

Sergie Kirov
* associated with the group of moderates acting as opposition to stalin in 1932. head of party in leningrad,

Why stalin disliked him
* Kirov formed the union of marxist Lenninists, (an opposition group of bukharin, torotsky and zinoniev supporters.)
* outvoted stalin by 298 votes in the central committe vote, officials urged kirov to stand against stalin for general secretary

Murder
* murdered in December 1934, Stalin used this to claim the party was under attack and used this fear to hunt down his enemies.

Question 2

Cuases of the purge: Economic

Answer 2

Failing industrial and agricultural policy:

• senior gov figures were aware of the policies problems which undermined stalins gov authority
• stalin accused workers of being ‘wreckers’ and ‘sabotuers’ to avoid the blame
• Satlin sent ‘wreckers/sabotuers’ to gulags, creating an army of slave labour he could use to build factories or mines

Question 3

Kinds of persecution

Answer 3

Public trials

• against Trotsky, Zinoviev and Bukharin in 1937. Public demonstrations.

Secret trials
* Red army leaders tried in 1937 for plotting agaisnt the government.

• They lasted 1928-40, with the hieght of the purges being 1937

Question 4

Targets

Answer 4

Who were targetted:

• Junior army officers (37,000. Shot or sent labour camp)
• Political opposition
• All admirals of the Navy (shot)
• Army’s senior officers

Question 5

Consquences of the purges

Answer 5

NKVD
* political police became a powerfull organisation in the regime. Beria (NKVD cheif from 1938) became a powerfull gov figure

Opposition
* elminated Stalins rivals from the 20s
* imprisoned/killed generation of commmunists who knew Lenin. (removed all cp members who could claim indipendant authority)

New members
* established that stalin has the right to use terror
* created a generation of communists who owed their positions to Stalin (loyal)

Question 6

Show trials
(Yagoda)

Answer 6

Trial of 16 (1936)
* organised by Yagoda (head of NKVD), execution of zinoniev, kamenev and 14 supporters

Trial of the 17 (1937)
* organised by Yagoda, led to the execution of and imprisonment of 17 former Tortsky supporters

Question 7

Show trials
(Beria)

Answer 7

Trial of the 21 (1938)
* organised by Beria, targetted Bukharin and former head of secret police (Yagoda)

Question 8

Purge vitcims: Trotsky

Answer 8

Trotsky
* 1940
* Long time critic of Stalin
* Killed in his home in Mexico city

Question 9

Purge victims:Yezhov

Answer 9

Yezhov, head of NKVD
* 1939
* treason - being british spy
* shot

Question 10

Purge victims:general victims

Answer 10

An estimated 24 million people:
* purge lasted from 1929-39
* accused of: being Kulaks, having bourgeois views ect.
* Sent to labour camps where around 13 million died.