Chapter eighteen - The Yezhovshchina Flashcards
What happened after order 00447?
Within a month, 100,000 had been arrested and 14,000 were sent to the gulags - pressure became so much that NKVD committees began selecting individuals at random
How many people were executed between 37 and 38?
650,000 due to anti-Bolshevik activities
How many party members were expelled between 36 and 38?
850,000 - only 10% of the original 1920 membership survived
What was the military purge?
23,000 experienced officers removed from their positions. The Red Army grew from 1 to 5 million in preparation for war.
Numbers within the gulags?
1935 - 800,000
1938 - 8 million
How many died in the gulags?
1934 -53 - over 1 million died in the gulags
What was the quota in order 00447?
Arbitrary arrest of 250,000, of which 28% were to be shot
When was order 00447?
July 1937 - drawn up by Yezhov and approved by the Politburo
How many informers were there?
Estimation that there was one informer to every 400 inhabitants
Military commanders that were executed?
May 1937 - he ordered the arrest of Tukhachevsky (Chief of staff and deputy commissar for defence) and Gamarnik (head of Red Army’s political commissars). They were accused of espionage and plotting with Trotsky, together with six other top military commanders executed in June 1937.
What was the great purge of the Red Army?
Included 2 Marshals of the Soviet Union (the highest military rank since 1935), 11 war commissars, all 8 admirals and those that replaced them, and all but one of the senior air force commanders.
How many officer corps were purged?
Approximately 50% of the officer corps in all three services, as well as a substantial number of military intelligence were executed or imprisoned, although around a quarter of those imprisoned were reinstated by the middle of 1940
What happened to the Comintern official who spoke out against the terror?
June 1937 - Pyatnitsky spoke out and the following morning Yezhov ‘unearthed’ evidence that he had been an agent of the tsarist secret police. He was removed from the central committee, stripped of Party membership, arrested and executed in October 1938
What happened to the military officials who refused to approve executions of those they believed evidence?
1937 - 38 - Up to 74 military officials were shot
What happened to Bukharin?
Third show trial in March 1928
Bukharin held out for three months and sent 34 personal letters to Stalin but threats to his wife and young son eventually broke him down
What were the numbers in the gulags?
From approximately 800,000 in 1935 to anything between 5.5 and 9.5 million by the end of 1938
What were the conditions in the gulags?
Meagre rations, inadequate clothing, poor and overcrowded accommodation, excessive work - some worked to death. Mortality rates were between 4 and 6 times higher than those in the rest of the USSR
What were the deportations of minorities?
1937 - a large Korean minority was deported from the Far Eastern region to Central Asia when war with Japan threatened
Poles and Germans were deported from near the Western frontiers
Extensive purges were carried out in the newly annexed parts of Poland and the Baltic States in 1939 and 40.
In 1941, over 400,000 Volga Germans were deported to Siberia and Central Asia
What happened to the party leadership of the non-Russian republics?
They were entirely replaced in 1937 and 38 with those who were more prepared to bow to Moscow’s wishes
Anti-Semitic attitudes?
2 million Jewish people were incorporated into the Soviet union in 1939 and 40 as a result of the invasion of Eastern Poland and the Baltic Republics, many rabbis and religious leaders were arrested in these areas
What was Trotsky doing in exile?
He had been in exile since 1929 and he maintained a high profile with a constant output of writing, which justified his past behaviour and criticised Stalin. In The Revolution Betrayed (1937) Trotsky wrote about the rapid degeneration of the Communist party
What happened to Yezhov?
Stalin used Yezhov as a scapegoat, accusing him of excessive zeal and the 18th Party Congress declared that the mass cleanses were no longer needed. Yezhov was arrested and secretly shot in February 1940. He was replaced by Beria
What happened to Trotsky?
August 1940 - Trotsky had been tracked down to Mexico city. Agent Mercador posed as an admirer to get into his study and plunged an ice pick into Trotsky’s head. He received a sentence of 20 years for the attack but his mother was awarded the order of Lenin
When did Stalin’s wife commit suicide?
1932
