Communist Control And Terror

Question 1

What three types of opposition did the Bolsheviks face

Answer 1

• other political groups on the right and the left of politics
• opponents throughout the empire - tsarists officers to capricious peasants
• ideological opposition - bourgeoisie and upper class

Question 2

How did the Mensheviks and SRs destroy themselves

Answer 2

In October 1917 when they walked out. On October 27th the sovnarkom banned the opposition press and ordered the arrest of kadet, Mensheviks and sr leaders.

Question 3

What was the Cheka from 1918
What was the Cheka renames in 1922 and 1923
Who was it controlled by from 1934 to 1943

Answer 3

Controlled units of the red army and military. Wand province had its own Cheka with officials reporting straight to Lenin or the politburo.

Renamed - GPU
1923- OGPU ( joint state political dictator)

• by the NKVD

Question 4

What happened in 1918 that was used as an excuse to target the bourgeoisie
How were they attacked

Answer 4

The attempt of Lenin’s life.

• made to give confessions and names of accomplices were obtained by torture and so. Egan terror that left hardly any group untouched.

Question 5

What were the Cheka giving the authority to do in September 1918

What happened to remaining Mensheviks and SRs

Answer 5

Authority to find, question, arrest and destroy the families of any suspected traitors.

They were branded traitors and 500 were shot in Petrograd alone

Question 6

Why did red terror escalate

Who suffered along side the bourgeoisie

How many priests ?

Answer 6

The local Cheka agents took matters into their own hands.

• merchants, traders, professors, prostitute and peasants all suffered as did family and friends and sometimes the whole village. Priests, Jews, Catholics and muslims were persecuted.
• 8000 were executed in 1921 for refusing to hand over valuable church possessions that were supposedly needed for the famine.

Question 7

What was the estimated amount of people who were shot 1918-1821

Give one example of a method of torture

Answer 7

500,000 and a million were shot. Others tortured or sent to labour camps.

• in kharkov they put victims hands in boiling water and kept topping it up until the blisters were so bad the skin started to peel off.

Question 8

What were the shakhty show trail

Answer 8

1928- 53 engineers at the shakhty coal mine were accused of counter revolutionary activity after there was a decline in productivity. They were given show trails where they were made to confess. 5 were executed and 44 received a long prison statement.

Question 9

Why were the gulags created

Answer 9

To use prisoners more effectively. Gulags were in remote areas such as the north and Siberia where gold, oil and timber were found. The camps could of 50,000 prisoners.

Question 10

Who was yagoda

Answer 10

Join bols in 1907 member of the Cheka in 1920
Deputy chair man of the OGPU
1930 he was in charge of labour camps
Prepared the first show trail in 1936 but was dismissed in 1936 and replaced by Yezhov.
Arrested in 1937 accused of being a Trotskyite
Sentenced to death

Question 11

What was one of the most significant gulag projects

Answer 11

The construction of the White Sea canal joining the Baltic Sea and the White Sea. Which was dug with no more than axes, saws and hammers in freezing cold temperatures. 100,000 employed on this task but 25,000 died in the 1931-32 winter.

Question 12

What was the crisis of 32

Answer 12

Stalins wife committed suicide - she left a note criticising Stalin and showed her sympathy for his political enemies. This made Stalin more paranoid.

Famine in the country side

Workers strikes in industrial towns

His old opponent BuKharin was re elected to the central committee in 1930 the same year as some of those who had formerly supported Stalin in the leadership struggle were rebelled or criticising the way collectivisation was being Carried out.

Two opposition groups emerged- old Bolsheviks eg- Smirnoff who was discovered to be having meeting about stalins removal so was all arrested by the OPGU and Smirnoff removed from the party.
Other group was the ryutin platform disagreed with statins political direction and personality. Ryutin even sent an appeal urging stalins removal. Stalin called for execution but was overruled by the politburo, particular Kirov, the Lenin grad party state sec.

24 exiled from the party and sent to Moscow

Old Bolsheviks such as Zinoviev and kamenev were exiled simply for knowing of the groups existence and failing to report to the police.

Ryutin got 10 years in prison. Shot on stalins orders in 1937.

Question 13

What did Stalin announce in 1933 after his wife and the ryutin affair

How many of the party were labelled ryutins

Answer 13

A gerneral purge of the party over the next 2 years.

18%

Question 14

Who was Kirov

Answer 14

Early recruit of the SDs
Joined the central committee in 1923
Supported Stalin in leadership struggle and replaced zinoviev as party sec in Leningrad in 1926.
Good speaker and popular with the party

Question 15

What was the Kirov affair

Answer 15

17th party congress
In the election to the central committee Stalin received 150 negative votes

Split between who wanted to maintain the pace of industrialisation and who wanted to stop forcible grain seizure and increase workers rations (including Kirov) opened. Only 2 of the politburo supported Stalin. It is unlikely that Kirov wanted to challenge Stalin as he was eye close to him. B
Kirov received a long standing ovation for his speech suggesting a more moderate approach.

Question 16

Despite the Kirov affair what was another issue which arose from the 17th party congress

Answer 16

Abolition of the title general sec
Stalin, Kirov, zhdanov and kaganovich were all given the title sec of equal rank .
Stalin may have supported this to spread the responsibility for economic crisis but in theory it meant Stalin was no longer any more important than other secretaries.

Question 17

What happened to Kirov

Answer 17

Murdered in 1934. Circumstances were suspicious and Stalin was quick to blame trotskyites led by zinovievites to over throw the party. A decree was published the day after giving head of NKVD Yagoda to arrest and execute anyone found guilty of terrorist plotting.
Around 6500 were arrested under this law.

Question 18

What happened to Zinoviev and kamenev

Answer 18

Arrested and accused of instigating terrorism and sentence to between 5-10 years.
843 former associates of Zinoviev were also arrested, exiled or placed in camps
250,000 party members were expelled as anti Leninist.
1936 a show trail including Zinoviev and kamenev and 14 others were found guilty of being in a Trotsky inspired plot to murder Stalin.

Question 19

What happened to Yagoda and why

Answer 19

Replaces as NKVD chief by Yezhov as he had not been active enough in unsolving the Trotsky conspiracy to murder Stalin.

Question 20

What happened in may/June 1937 to 8 sensory military commanded

What happened to high commanders

Answer 20

All of whom were heros of the civil war were arrested, tortured and forced to make false confessions and shot.

512/767 were executed - 29 died in prison, 13 committed suicide and 59 placed in jail

Question 21

What was the largest major political show trail 1938

Answer 21

21 Bolsheviks were interrogated and Bukharin, Rykov and Yagodha and 13 others were sentenced to be shot for conspiring the Trotsky - Zinoviev terrorist organisation to assassinate leaders. Bukharin made the mistake of trying to defend himself this only infuriated his accusers and he was shot.

Question 22

What was yehovshchina

Answer 22

Pages of the ordinary people 1937-38
A list of over 250,000 was drawn up, including artists, musicians, scientists and writers as well as managers. A quota system was established and each region was expected to find a propitious of opposition.
Ordinary citizens were encouraged to root the enemy. Everyone lived in fear as the arrests were random.

Question 23

What happened to the leading party members

Answer 23

17th Party congress- 70% of the central committee were arrested and shot
Old Bolsheviks were removed through show trails
The party members were encouraged to criticise and denounce others leading to high levels of party purges

Question 24

What happened to minority nationalities

Answer 24

Leaders of nation republics were charged for treason or other offences and removed.
In Georgia 4/5 party secs lost their post
350,000 people from minority ethnic groups were put on trails including 140,000 poles.

Question 25

What happened to arm forces

Answer 25

8 senior generals, 3/5 marshals and all 11 war commissars, all 8 ad rials were shot
All but one airforce commander, 50% of the officer corps in all 3 services and a substantial number in military intelligence were also tired many were shot

Question 26

What happened to mangers, engineers and scientists

Answer 26

Executed

Question 27

What happened to peasants and industrial workers

Answer 27

Kulaks represented 50% of all arrests and more than half of the total number of executions

Question 28

What happened to relatives of the purged

Answer 28

Liable to be arrested, deported or shot

Question 29

Why did the purges stop

What did the 18th party congress declare

Answer 29

Because industry and administration began to suffer. Stalin used yezhov as a scape goat

That the mass cleansings were no longer needed. Around 1.5 million cases were reviewed. 450,000 quashes 128,000 home from gulags.

Question 30

What position was Stalin in after his purges

Answer 30

Supreme power, his politically rivals had gone and quashing of sentenced and release of many prisoners but faith back into the system. Yezhov was scapegoated for the troubles.