Attacks On Opponents Of The Government

Question 1

What changed with regards to opposition between 1917-85?

Answer 1

Communists approach to opposition changed

The nature of opposition changed

Question 2

What did Lenin introduce in 1917?

Answer 2

The Cheka
Target counter-revolutionaries

Initially, he argued it would be a short-term measure till the communists consolidated their power

Question 3

What was Lenin’s definition of counter-revolutionary?

What impact did this have?

Answer 3

Very broad

So under Lenin, the Cheka targeted:

• supporters of the former Tsar
• Trade Unions demanding higher pay for workers
• socialists in Rival Political Parties

Question 4

What did the Cheka’s activities include before 1921?

Answer 4

• requisitioning grain during the civil war
• closing down opposition newspapers
• torturing and executing opponents of the regime, including people trading on the black market
• executing deserters from the Red Army

Question 5

How did the Cheka act during the NEP?

Answer 5

They attacked people they believed to be taking advantage of the freedom to trade.

‘Class enemies’:

• traders who became rich
• women who wore western clothes and makeup
• young people who danced to western music, such as jazz

Question 6

What did the Cheka organise under Lenin to do with rival socialist parties?

Answer 6

Organised show trials of their former leaders

Question 7

How was Stalin’s use of the secret police different from Lenin’s?

Answer 7

Significantly.

He used the secret police against the Party.
He used Terror much more widely— sending millions to his gulags.

Led by yagoda, yezhov, Beria

Question 8

Tell me about Genrikh Yagoda plz

Answer 8

Became head of Stalin’s secret police 1934.

Important role in the Great Terror: collabed with Stalin in turning the secret police against the Party.
YET
Under him the sp tended to treat Communist officials with respect

The purge of Stalin’s opponents occurred slowly under yagoda: sooooo stalin was critical of his leadership.

Question 9

Tell me about yezhov.

Answer 9

Responsible for a aSSIVE ESCALATION of the terror.

Replaced yagodas agents with new officers, willing to use torture much more widely
Responsible for the worst years of the Great Terror: 1936-38.

The GT became known as “Yezhovshchina”— the whole of society was engulfed in is terror.
This period: Around 1.5 million people (10% of male adult population) were arrested by the NKVD:
• Around 635,000 deported
• over 680,000 executed

Question 10

What were the show trials?

Answer 10

The Moscow Show Trials were the most obvious sign of the Great Terror. Each removed the leaders of one of the party’s factions (that had opposed Stalin in the 20s):

• The Trial of the 16 (Yagoda organised, 1936)— execution of Zinoviev and his allies
• The Trial of the 17 (Yezhov organised, 1937)— execution/imprisonment of Trotsky’s main supporters
• The Trial of the 21 (Beria organised, 1938)— execution of Bukharin and his former allies, including Yagoda

Designed to humiliate his opponents before punishing them

Question 11

What was Beria’s role in the secret police?

Answer 11

Took over in 1938 as the Great Terror was winding down

WWII— organised the mass deportations and mass executions of ethnic groups, such as
• the Chechens (stalin did not trust)

After the war— he was put in charge of soviet efforts to build a nuclear bomb
^^^^ highly successful in this role (first atomic bomb tested successfully in 1949)