★ Kirov's Murder, Machinery of Terror and the Show Trials

Question 1

★ What is a Police State?

Answer 1

★ A totalitarian state controlled by a political police force that secretly supervises the citizens’ activities

Question 2

★ What is State Terror?

Answer 2

★ A means of controlling the population and removing opposition through fear, Stalin made terror an instrument of control

Question 3

★ What is a Purge?

Answer 3

★ The removal of anyone deemed as a political enemy

Question 4

★ Who was the head of the Cheka and what does the Cheka do?

Answer 4

★ Felix Dzerzhinsky
★ Was set up in December 1917
★ Secret police similar to the NKVD under Stalin

Question 5

★ How did the use of terror differ between Lenin and Stalin?

Answer 5

★ Lenin: Methods of terror were only used to crush opponents outside of the party as a means of class warfare against the Kulaks and engineers accused of sabotage

★ Stalin: Used terror inside the party

Question 6

★ How and why has opposition developed?

Answer 6

★ Rapid industrialisation, low wages, strict control and harsh punishments, and overcrowded, insanitary and violent cities
★ Violence of forced collectivisation and famine of the 1932-3
★ Hatred high in ‘former people’ (priests, industrialists)
★ Opposition within the party over the brutal regime - Stalin’s wife committed suicide in 1932 in protest

Question 7

★ What form did this opposition take?

Answer 7

★ Local parties wouldn’t implement central commands, argued back & wouldn’t hunt down kulaks or get rid of specialists –> 22% of party members lose their membership
★ Ryutin platform in 1932 –> 200 page document criticising Stalin, wanted him executed but the politburo didn’t allow this
★ Similar situation with Smirnov, but the Politburo refused to imprison or execute him

Question 8

★ What was the Seventeenth Party Congress?

Answer 8

★ Stalin wished to push ahead with the economic groundwork in the Second FYP despite the rest of the party’s want for industrialisation to slow down
★ Kirov openly opposed Stalin and wanted to stop forced collectivisation and increasing rations to workers
★ Kirov got a standing ovation that equalled Stalin’s and Stalin and Kirov were both given the title of Secretary of Equal Rank rather than Stalin’s General Secretary, threatening Stalin’s position

Question 9

★ How did Kirov’s murder happen?

Answer 9

★ 1 December 1934 at the party headquarters in Leningrad
★ Left his personal bodyguard downstairs
★ Usual guards were absent from the corridors
★ Assassin Leonid Nikolayev shot Kirov in the back of the neck and then fainted beside the body

Question 10

★ Who was Leonid Nikolayev?

Answer 10

★ Assassin, seen as a nervous man with poor health
★ Expelled in March 1934 for a breach of discipline but later is reinstated
★ Developed a hatred of the party bureaucracy which he felt didn’t recognise his worth
★ Was married to Milde Draule who may have been having an affair with Kirov
★ Diary found that he planned the murder, may have acted out of dissastisfaction

Question 11

★ What happened just before the murder?

Answer 11

★ Had a great deal of support at the Seventeenth Party Congress and more people voted for him than Stalin
★ Head of NKVD in Leningrad was Medved with his deputy Zaporozhets. Alleged that before Kirov’s murder Zaporozhets brought in personnel from Moscow and put them in Key posts without Medved’s permission, Stalin refused to have these personnel removed
★ Prior to the murder, Nikolayev had been arrested twice in Kirov’s neighbourhood and had been freed both times by Zaporozhets
★ Alleged that an NKVD officer posed as Nikolayev’s friend and practised shooting with him

Question 12

★ What happened after the murder?

Answer 12

★ Stalin came to Leningrad to interrogate Nikolayev, who pointed at the NKVD men and said they murdered Kirov
★ A key witness was going to be Borisov, Kirov’s bodyguard, but when he was on the way to the Smolny Institute in a truck with NKVD men, they got into an accident and only he was killed, NKVD men were killed later in the purges
★ Leading Leningrad NKVD men accused of negligence for not protecting Kirov were sent to labour camps but were giving privileged treatment and short sentences, later shot during the purges
★ In the 3rd Show Trial in 1938, Yagoda was accused of being involved in the murder by making it easy for Nikolayev to get close to Kirov, he pleaded guilty

Question 13

★ What were some possible motives behind Kirov’s murder?

Answer 13

★ Stalin’s motives: Get rid of an enemy
★ Nikolayev’s motives: Disgruntled with party and his wife’s alleged affair with Kirov
★ NKVD’s possible motives (not exactly known): Thought Stalin wanted Kirov dead, Kirov wanted to relax the terror but the NVKD didn’t want to see this happen, did not intend for Nikolayev to actually kill Kirov but stop him at the last minute as justification for their continuing role against enemies of the state

Question 14

★ What were the Show Trials?

Answer 14

★ Trials were held in courtrooms where foreign journalists were invited to broadcast these confessions (Ex. Zinoviev in 1936)

Question 15

★ Who was the judge at the Show Trials?

Answer 15

★ Andrei Vyshinsky: Encouraged the procurement of confessions, which included interrogation and torture. In court, he would dehumanise the defendants and little to no evidence would be relied on in the trials

Question 16

★ What was the main purpose of the Show Trials?

Answer 16

★ To get rid of his opponents in the power struggle (Bukharin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev)

Question 17

★ When/what was the first major show trial?

Answer 17

★ August 1936
★ Zinoviev and Kamenev were accused of alliance with Trotsky, stirring up discontent and planning to kill Stalin
★ 14 others accused
★ No material evidence, all were sentenced to death including Trotsky in absentia
★ Half way through the trial, Stalin visited Tomsky, who along with Rykov and Bukharin were under investigation for complicity with Zinoviev, Tomsky ordered Stalin to leave and then shot himself

Question 18

★ Who was Yagoda replaced with?

Answer 18

★ Yezhov

Question 19

★ What other purges were there?

Answer 19

★ Trial of 17, Jan 1937: 17 prominent communists accused of plotting with Trotsky with 13 sentenced to death
★ Military purge, May-June 1937: Mikhail Tukhachevsky & Yan Gamarnik accused of espionage and plotting with Trotsky, were executed alongside 6 other top military commanders
★ The Trial of 21: March 1938, included Bukharin, Rykov and Yagoda, Tomsky committed suicide beforehand

Question 20

★ How did Stalin distract his people from the purges?

Answer 20

★ Contrasted the good and heroic with evil traitors
★ Pioneering flights were being made by Soviet aviators over the Arctic, first was greeted with a parade 4 days before the first show trial
★ Second flight took place at the same time as the Military purges
★ Before the Third show trial, an Arctic explorer was kept on ice for 9 months so he could arrive home to a mas welcome just after Bukharin’s execution

Question 21

★ What was Stalin’s constitution in 1936?

Answer 21

★ Stalin claimed his constitution was the most democratic in the world
★ Proclaimed the USSR to be a federation of 11 Soviet Republics
★ Each republic had its own supreme Soviet
★ Promised local authority to ethnic groups
★ Elections would involve all citizens
★ Although the constitution did acknowledge the right for any Union-republic to leave, Stalin didn’t allow this to happen in practice
★ Happened in the same year as the first Show Trial and was drafted by Bukharin

Question 22

★ What was the Yezhovschina

Answer 22

★ The Great Purges under the leadership of Yezhov, where it reached its limit
★ By August 1937, 100,000 arrested and 14,000 in gulags

Question 23

★ What was Yezhov known as?

Answer 23

★ “ Bloodthirsty Dwarf, Iron Hedgehog, The Poison Dwarf “
★ Said to have a repellent personality & sadistic inclinations

Question 24

★ How did Stalin further the terror?

Answer 24

★ Spring 1937, said that traitors had infiltrated the party at every level and encouraged lower-ranking party members to criticise and denounce those in higher positions.
★ This led to a flood of accusations, with people using terror to settle scores

Question 25

★ How was terror widened in scope?

Answer 25

★ July 1937, Politburo passed a resolution condemning Anti-Soviet Elements in Russian society, Yezhov drawing an arrest list of 250,000 of these elements, including scientists, artists, writers and musicians
★ A huge media campaign was started, encouraging ordinary people to criticise party officials, bureaucrats and managers to seek out hidden enemies
★ Suspects that were arrested, workmates, friends, family members would be listed as accomplices and could be arrested
★ Many arrests came between 11pm and 3am, with NKVD officers driving around in black vehicles

Question 26

★ Who was Yezhov replaced with?

Answer 26

★ Beria
★ Slowed down terror
★ Stalin blamed Yezhov and the NKVD for the excesses of terror

Question 27

★ What were Gulags?

Answer 27

★ Built to provide cheap labour for Stalin’s huge industrial projects and to house class enemies
★ Inmates were between 5.5 million to 9.5 million by the end of 1938

Question 28

★ How did Stalin treat national minorities?

Answer 28

★ 1937, a large Korean minority was deported from the Far Eastern region to Central Asia when war with Japan was threatened
★ Poles and Germans were also deported from near the Western frontiers and extensive purges were carried out in the newly annexed parts of Poland and Baltic States in 1939 and 1940
★ In 1941, over 400,000 Volga Germans were deported to Siberia and Central Asia

Question 29

★ Who was responsible for the purges of the 1930s?

Answer 29

★ Stalin: Suicide of his wife, his vindictive and paranoid personality, Stalin was personally responsible for promoting the purges

★ Bolshevik leaders: Have always used terror to consolidate power, believed all means were justified to defend the revolution

★ Local Party activists: Acted on their own agendas, promoted terror

★ Ordinary individuals: Terror escalated out of control as individuals chose to denounce others, who in turn denounce others

Question 30

★ What is the Totalitarian view of the purges?

Answer 30

★ Stalin’s personality was central to the way the purges were carried out and were used to establish control over the party
★ Was the architect and planner of the purges
★ Sought to get rid of old Bolsheviks

Question 31

★ What is the Revisionists view of the purges?

Answer 31

★ Stalin was responsible for the terror but his personality alone is not a sufficient explanation
★ Did not have a masterplan
★ Machinery of terror was not well organised