The Terror Flashcards
Purges under Lenin
- 1918 - 50,000 people killed by the Cheka under Felix Dzherzhinsky
- 1921 - 150,000 members of the old government and parties killed
- 1921-8 - 450,000 counter-revolutionaries killed
Shakty Trial 1928
55 engineers charged as saboteurs for failing to meet production quotas
Industrial Planning and Research Trial 1930
Gosplan officials put on trail for poor planning
Ryutin Purges 1933-4
- Ryutin removed from the party, but Politburo members including Kirov and Ordzhonikidze argue against Stalin having him executed
- Stalin begins to believe organised resistance is still possible
- 33% of the Party are expelled
- 600,000 members are eventually executed
Congress of Victors 1934
- Seventeenth Party Congress
- Kirov gains more votes for head of the Central Committee than Stalin
- Kirov gains 1,225 votes, whilst Stalin gains only 927 (275:3)
- Kirov’s supporters also push him to take over the role of General Secretary
Removal of important Bolsheviks
- Dec 1934 - Kirov (supposedly) murdered by Leonid Nikolayev
- 1934 - Zinoviev and Kamenev are put on a show trial and executed with 14 others
- 1936 - Yagoda is replaced with Yezhov when the trial of Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky takes too long to carry out. Tomsky commits suicide
- 1938 - Bukharin, Rykov and Yagoda are executed
Purging of the Party 1936-8
Approximately 850,000 members purged at Stalin’s personal intervention
NKVD 1936
- Order 00447 gives an arrest quota of 259,450 people
- 28% were to be shot
- The rest were to be given 8-10 years in the gulags
Arrest rates 1936-8
-1936:
131,000 arrests
1,118 executions
-1937:
936,000 arrests
353,000 executions
-1938:
639,000 arrests
329,000 executions
Military Purges 1937-8
- 11 of 18 War Commissars shot
- 3 of 5 Marshalls
- 91 of 101 Military Council members
- 14 of 16 Army Commanders
- All Navy admirals
- General Tukhachevsky killed
- 35,000 (50%) officers
Party Card
- All Party members had to carry a card
- The cards gave members preferential treatment in regards to housing, food rationing and employment
- Before the violence, undesirable members would have their cards taken for “checking” and not given back, removing them from the Party
Kulak purges
- 1928-9
- Kulaks no longer exist as a class by 1932
Stalin’s paranoia
- All other main contenders in the power struggle had been removed by this point in time
- Older party members knew how critical Lenin had been of him in his testament
- He lacked control over the Red Army and OGPU
- Yagoda (the new head of the secret police) fueled these suspicions
Terror on the economy
- Economic issues blamed on political enemies
- Stalin claimed that there were “wreckers” working for his old party rivals
- Gulags supplied a large amount of slave labour (“white coal”)
Kirov murder
- Dec 1934
- Kirov (supposedly) murdered by Leonid Nikolayev
- The Soviet press blames a “Trotskyist-Zinovievite” terror group
- The murder had rid Stalin of his main rival and allowed him to blame it on two others
Mechanisms of control
- Border guards, labour camps and secret police
- Decree Against Terrorist Acts signed only two hours after Kirov’s murder
- Stalinists placed in important positions
Political impact of the Terror
- Stalin’s position secured
- Criticisms diverted away from Stalin via propaganda and scapegoats
- Existing and potential opposition removed
- Older party members replaced with younger, more radical ones
- Administration halted
Economic impact of the Terror
- Little leadership due to the lack of managers and Gosplan officials
- Statistics distorted due to exaggeration
- Coal production increases in the Donbas region
- Gulags provide sufficient labour
- Economic status grows exponentially compared to pre-Stalin Russia
Social impact of the Terror
- 500,000 convicted and 405,000 sent to labour camps under Yagoda (1935-6)
- An entire generation of intellectuals and professionals between 30-45 years old essentially removed
- Poles, Romanians and Latvians targeted
- 95% of victims were men
Impact of the Terror on women and children
- Women could lose their jobs or be arrested
- Children and students either expelled from university or publically humiliated by teachers and the Komsomol
Impact of the Terror on coal production
(In the Donbas region)
1932: 45 million tonnes produced
1936: 80 million tonnes provided
Reasons for targeting certain people
- Non-political reasons (76%)
- Being spies or linked to spies (1%)
- Being Zinovievites (3%)
- Being former White Guards or kulaks (20%)
Leaders of the Cheka
- Felix Dzerzhinsky (1917-8)
- Yakov Peters (1918) - Replaced later with Dzherzhinsky again
Leaders of the OGPU
- Felix Dzerzhinsky (1923 - July 1926)
- Vyacheslav Menzhinsky (July 1926 - May 1934)
