3.2 Secret Police Flashcards
Cheka, 1917
Lenin
Targeted ‘enemies of evolution’, organised Red Terror during CW, 200k shot 1921-22
Torture methods, outside law
‘Iron Felix’ Dzerzhinsky’
OGPU, 1923
Reorganisation of Cheka by Lenin
More professional & bureaucratic
Established Gulag system
Answered to Lenin independently, separate from gov. & Party
Dzerhinsky 1926, then Menzhinsky
NKVD, 1934
Set by Stalin, completely outside of law
Expanded Gulag system
Yagoda, Yezhov & Beria
Victim of its own terror, 1937 Purge of Purgists
Yagoda killed 1938, Yezhov 1940
Chief executioner was Vasily Blokhin
KGB, 1953
Professional, sophisticated secret intelligence service
Key role in Cold War espionage
Under Party control, Andropov 1967-82
NO terror, controlled through oppression of dissidents
Terror: Stalin
set up NKVD, manipulated leaders -> ‘mafia-like’ behaviour
personally set up death quotas & signed thousands of warrants
terror necessary to carry out policies
complex persecution, paranoia
Terror: Yagoda 1934-36
set precedents, became ruthless e.g Menzhinksy
NKVD became more efficient and independent
More powerful than Party & state, purged them
Laid foundations for Great Terror, expanded Gulag & supervised Volga Don Canal (20,000 deaths)
Still, disappointed Stalin
Arrested & executed 1938 (accused of Trotskyite)
Terror: Yezhov 1936-38
Radicalised NKVD (expanded Gulag), then purged it
Great Purge 1937-38, ‘Yezhovschina’ had 10% of adult male population arrested, 700,000 executed
Judgement & execution squads: Troikas
Dismissed 1938 because terror was unsustainable
Arrested 1939, executed 1940
Terror: Beria 1938-53
had Trotsky assassinated 1940
organised mass deportations & killings WW2 _> e.g 100,000 Kalmyks deported to Gulag
Katyn Forest Massacre 1940
gulag econ production: 2B roubles 1937-> 4.5 1940
P Soviet nuclear programme 1945, Excessive flattery of Stalin
Continued terror 1945 (Doctor’s Plot, Leningrad affair…) but voluntarily ends it 1953
Accused of being a British spy & executed
Dissident: Sakharov
“My country and the world” 1975, banned in Russia & won Nobel Prize
Nuclear scientist
In communication with international media, popular & respected in USSR -> could not arrest
Internal exile to Gorki 1980, under KGB surveillance
Dissident: Solzhenitsyn
“A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”
Nobel Prize for Literature 1970
“The Gulag Archipelago” 1973, arrested for treason 1974 and exiled
Political Dissident Movements
People tried to hold gov accountable under law
Claimed USSR betrayed 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights and 1975 Helsinki Agreements
Sakharov & Solzhenitsyn
Reasons for Dissidence, 1953-85
Popular discontent due to underdevelopment in econ, Western influence, de-Stalinisation, (dismantling of terror)
Repression against religion and ethnic groups
Dissidents
Political dissident movement
Religious groups & Refusniks : Soviet Jews who were denied opportunity to move to Israel, had support of US Congress
Nationalists who wanted recognition (Ukrainians, Latvians, Georgians…)
Intellectuals - independent way of thinking
Actions against dissidents
Surveillance & harassment by KGB, threatened by expulsion
house searches, arrests & labelling, discrimination
sent to psychiatric hospitals
Mid 1970s: 10,000 political prisoners
70,000 people received warnings in 1970s, prevented the formation of 2,000 subversive groups
Impact of Dissidents
bad publicity for USSR internationally (cases smuggled)
pushed KGB to more sophisticated monitoring
Realisation that popular discontent was due to econ reasons (which Androp. tried to fix by focusing on alcoholism & absenteeism)
Brezhnev
Still willing to arrest & imprison critics e.g trial of Pyotr Yakie 1972
Dissidence tools
Samizdat: illegal, self-published criticisms of system
Magnitizdat: self-published music with tape recorder
Protests: e.g Red Square 1968 against Czech Spring only 7 people
Soviet society was stable by 1985
Soviet society was unstable by 1985
not enough communication with public (gerontocracy)
alcoholism & absenteeism shows need to cope
gov vulnerable to absence of terror
no consolidated, long lasting leadership after Brezhnev
