3.2 Use of Terror under Stalin

Question 1

What did the government use when inflicting terror?

Answer 1

Mass arrests, imprisonments and force and violence.

Question 2

Why did the government inflict terror?

Answer 2

To destroy real or imagined enemies to terrify the population so become incapable of oppposing the government

Question 3

1931

Answer 3

Ex mensheviks shot as wreckers

Question 4

1932

Answer 4

Stalin fails to persuade Politburo to have Ryutin shot

Question 5

1934

Answer 5

Murder of Kirov

Question 6

1936

Answer 6

Explosion at Kemerovo coal mines

Question 7

When did the first show trials happen and who was shot?

Answer 7

1934, Zinoviev and Kamenev were shot

Question 8

When was the start of Yezhovschina?

Answer 8

1937

Question 9

1937

Answer 9

Operational Order 00447 issued to NKVD and the purge of military and mass arrests started.

Question 10

When was the last great show trial?

Answer 10

1938 and Bukharin was shot

Question 11

1938

Answer 11

Yezhov arrested end of him and his time

Question 12

1939

Answer 12

About 7 million people are imprisoned in labour camps.

Question 13

What did the NKVD do?

Answer 13

Destroyed anyone considered to be an enemy of communist rule

Question 14

What happened to OGPU in 1934?

Answer 14

They were reorganised and chnaged their initials to NKVD

Question 15

Type of work the NKVD did.

Answer 15

Intimidating people, arresting people, forcing confessions out of arrested people, running prisons, executing people.

Question 16

What was the converyer system?

Answer 16

Repeated interrogation to make arrested person confess.

Question 17

What were the troikas?

Answer 17

NKVD officers that were put into three man teams to decide on people’s guilt and punishments.

Question 18

What happened in 1935 Under Article 58 of the Criminal Code?

Answer 18

People were arrested for betraying Soviet Union as ‘enemies of the people’.

Question 19

What type of things were people arrested for?

Answer 19

Stamp collecting (link to foreign countries), speaking to foreigners, failingto cut Trotsky’s photos out of textbooks, accidently scribbling on photos of Stalin in newspaper, failing to meet factory production targets.

Question 20

Why did they arrest so many people?

Answer 20

They had strict quotas they needed to reach so they would just kill random people just to fulfill their target.

Question 21

What were the reasons behind the purges?

Answer 21

To cover up problems in the economy, to control peasants and workers better, to remove old rivals within the Communist Party, to control local Communist Party bosses, to protect the government if a war broke out, to blame others for the assassination of Kirov in December, the weakness of the communist government.

Question 22

What did the government do when an accident happened?

Answer 22

They made it seem like ‘enemies’ were doing this and directed the blame on anyone they disliked.

Question 23

What were the labour camps called?

Answer 23

Gulags

Question 24

Why was Stalin paranoid?

Answer 24

He had made it to the top but then became paranoid about any possible rivals,this was one of many reasons for the purges.

Question 25

Use of Gulags?

Answer 25

The Gulags was the state system of labour camps. By 1941 there were 8 million in the camps, with perhaps a further million in prisons.

Question 26

Why were the ‘old Leninists’ destroyed?

Answer 26

The Bolsheviks who had built the Communist Party with Lenin were dead. No one now could challenge Stalin. New party members all owed their position to Stalin

Question 27

Why was there chaos in the government and economy after the purges?

Answer 27

The loss of so many experienced managers,administrators and specialists left the government and industry with a serious shortage of skills.

Question 28

How were the armed forces weakened?

Answer 28

There was no evidence of any millitary plot against Stalin, but the purge of the military killed off most of Stalin’s experienced officers. Soldiers arrested by the NKVD often accused their officers in turn.This loss of military leadership and experience seriously weakened the armed forces and was to prove a significant setback when Germany invaded Russia in 1941.

Question 29

What did people do in the Gulags?

Answer 29

Prisoners were slave labourers and had to extract resources and build infrastructure for the Soviet Union.

Question 30

Where were the prisoners from?

Answer 30

The people sent to Gulags were from all parts of Soviet society.

Question 31

What was life like in the Gulags?

Answer 31

Inmates had only thin uniforms,miserable food and shacks to live in.They endured long hours of hard physical labour. The death toll was very high perhaps 2 million people.

Question 32

Where were the camps situated?

Answer 32

Camps were spread right across the USSR, including many in northern and eastern parts of the Soviet Union, where winters were severe.

Question 33

Why were show trials significant?

Answer 33

They were important because they justified all mass arrests. Ordinary people were convinced that the enemies were everywhere.They also gave ordinary workers the power to denounce their managers and the people they did not like to the NKVD.

Question 34

Who would have show trials?

Answer 34

Only high profile leading party members.

Question 35

What was the purpose of show trials?

Answer 35

The public declarations of guilt were meant to make the Soviet people believe the country really was under attack by enemies of the people.These enemies could then be blamed for all the Soviet Union’s problems.

Question 36

What was a Stakhanovite?

Answer 36

A super keen enthusiatic worker who gained rewards by producing more than other workers.

Question 37

Why were executions used to to control people better?

Answer 37

So they could remove any people who were not trusted by the state.For example new people to the country using false papers in order to reinvent themselves had started to come to the cities.

Question 38

Why did Stalin want to remove people within the Communist Party?

Answer 38

Although Stalin had won the power struggle other leading communists became critical of Stalin due to problems in the country so Stalin did not feel secure

Question 39

Why did Stalin need to control Communist Party bosses?

Answer 39

Because there were many corrupt people within the Party as they were friendly with the NKVD commanders and would be able to cover their mistakes and punish others.

Question 40

Why was Stalin desperate to blame people for Kirov’s assassination?

Answer 40

Kirov resisted any attempts by Stalin to move him from Leningrad to Moscow thus highlighting that Kirov was a barrier to Stalin getting what he wanted so it is highly likely that Stalin had him assassinated.

Question 41

How did the purges have a faltering start?

Answer 41

Whoever refused to implicate Zinoviev and Kamenev were arrested the shot.The head of the NKVD Yagoda was arrested then later on shot for being too slow to track down enemies of the Soviet Union.

Question 42

When did the ‘Time of Yezhov end’?

Answer 42

November 1938 when he was shot.

Question 43

How was the development of the Soviet Union brought back?

Answer 43

Experienced members of the government,factory managers and skilled scientists had been swept away along with huge numbers of other. Causing a loss of skills and experience.

Question 44

How many people died during ‘The great terror of the 1930s’?

Answer 44

One million people were shot,two million died in camps and also about seven million people died during the 1930s due to collectivistaion.