AL Topic 2 facts

Question 1

when did the Stalin cult get underway?

Answer 1

1929-33

Question 2

what happened with the Stalin cult from 1929-33?

Answer 2

• began with Stalin’s 50th birthday where he received 350 official greetings
• he began to be portrayed as Lenin’s faithful pupil and companion
• length of applause for him at conferences got longer
• however he was rarely portrayed alone

Question 3

when was the Stalin cult established?

Answer 3

1933-39

Question 4

what happened during the Stalin cult from 1933-39?

Answer 4

• Stalin was praised for his success in the 1st 5YP
• he was individually portrayed as the vozhd (leader)
• former heroes of revolution were portrayed as traitors
• Krushchev was first to use the term ‘Stalinism’ in 1936

Question 5

when was the height of the Stalin cult?

Answer 5

post 1945

Question 6

what happened during the height of the Stalin cult (post 1945)?

Answer 6

• Stalin’s image was everywhere
• his childhood home became a shrine
• portraits suggest an increasingly God-like status
• his 70th birthday celebrations went from 21 December 1949 to August 1951
• a giant portrait was suspended over Moscow

Question 7

what was the history of the All-Union communist party or ‘The Short Course’?

Answer 7

published as the main historical textbook for educational institution in 1938. Stalin was named author. It sold 34m copies by 1948

Question 8

what is the Stalin cult like in Russia today?

Answer 8

After his death Krushchev made an attack on the cult beginning the policy of destalinisation. Many Russian people however still admire and respect Stalin

Question 9

what were the Union of Soviet writers and the Union of Artists?

Answer 9

all writers and artists had to belong to these groups from 1932

Question 10

who murdered Sergei Kirov?

Answer 10

Leonid Nickolayev- developed a hatred of Kirov as he felt he had not recognised his worth

Question 11

when was Sergei Kirov murdered?

Answer 11

1 December 1934

Question 12

what were motives for killing Kirov?

Answer 12

• Nickolayev wife may have been having an affair with Kirov
• The NKVD thought Stalin wanted Kirov murdered
• Kirov wanted to relax the terror but the NKVD did not want this

Question 13

why may Stalin have ordered the assassination of Kirov?

Answer 13

• Borisov, Kirov’s bodyguard died on the way to being questioned in a truck with NKVD men but no one else was hurt
• Stalin saw him as an opponent

Question 14

what were the 3 stages of the purges of the 1930s?

Answer 14

• The chitska
• The show trials
• The Yezhovshchina

Question 15

when and what was the Chitska?

Answer 15

1932-35- 20% of the party expelled non-violently

Question 16

what were the show trials?

Answer 16

saw prominent old Bolsheviks publicly tried and executed

Question 17

what was the Yezhovshchina?

Answer 17

named after Yezhov, the head of the NKVD, which was a period of mass terror from 1937 to 1938 when many were denounced and imprisoned

Question 18

what are the possible explanations for the terror?

Answer 18

• increasing control over party
• responding to threat of war
• deflecting blame for economic problems
• supplying slave labour
• consolidating the power of the NKVD

Question 19

how did the terror help Stalin gain control of the party?

Answer 19

• by 1939 the party had 1.5mil members and only 8.3% had joined before the end of 1920; 70% joined after 1929
• 81% of delegates at the 1934 Party Congress had joined the party before 1920; in 1939 this dropped to 19%

Question 20

what happened during the purges from 1928-1932?

Answer 20

• 1928- managers and technicians at the Shakhty coal mine questioned the pace of industrialisation and were accused of counter-revolutionary activity. They were given a show trial and imprisoned and 5 executed
• 1929- Trotsky expelled from USSR. Bukharin removed from Politburo
• 1931- Stalin enrolment
• 1932- Stalin’s wife committed suicide

Question 21

what happened during the purges 1932-1936?

Answer 21

• 1932 purge of ‘undesirable elements’ (22% of party were expelled)
• 1935-6 half a million members expelled
• January 1935- Zinoviev and Kamenev arrested
• April 1935- children over 12 can have same punishments as adults including death penalty
• August 1936- the first show trial including Zinoviev and Kamenev

Question 22

what happened during the purges 1937-1940?

Answer 22

• January 1937- the trial of 17, 13 sentenced to death
• May 1937- the purge of the Red Army began Yukhachevsky and leading officers were shot
• July 1937- NKVD order no.00447 against ‘anti-soviet elements’. A form of social cleansing and within a month 100,000 had been arrested
• March 1938- The trial of 21 (Bukharin, Rykov) 18 executed
• March 1939- Stalin declared an end to the mass purges

Question 23

what happened to Trotsky?

Answer 23

a hitman murdered him in mexico in August 1940 on Stalin’s orders

Question 24

who were the victims of the purges?

Answer 24

• leading party members
• senior military officers
• NKVD
• national minorities

Question 25

how many did Dmirti Volkogonov estimate to be killed and imprisoned during the purges?

Answer 25

7 million executed and another 16.5million imprisoned