Purges, show trials, the cult of Stalin and the revision of history

Question 1

Explain why Stalin carried out the purges, and why Kirov was murdered.

Answer 1

• Stalin was concerned that his enemies were plotting to overthrow him. E.g. he believed the Red Army or secret police had too much power, and could overthrow him.
• He wanted forced labour for his projects and he could blame failed projects or setbacks on sabotage.
• He wanted people to feel insecure and fear him
• Sergey Kirov stood against Stalin in the election for Party Secretary- a position Stalin had had since 1923. Kirov was murdered in 1934.
• A change in the laws meant that the accused had no rights to defence and appeal
• Leonid Nikolayev, Kirov’s assassin, implicated politicians like Kamenev and Zinoviev, who became victims of the purges.
• Apparently there was a ‘Trotskyite-Zinovievite’ terror group who was behind the assassination
• The purges were motivated by the desire to remove the old Bolsheviks, who weren’t sufficiently converted to Stalin’s form of socialism

Question 2

Describe the effects the purges had on the people of the Soviet Union.

Answer 2

• Stalin gained total control over the Soviet Union and potential rivals were removed.
• The USSR became militarily weak, with military officers being purged.
• Many able scientists, administrators and engineers were purged.
• No one felt safe and some people took advantage to denounce their neighbours or workmates to get their jobs.
• 1 in 18 people were arrested.

Question 3

Identify the reasons for and the impact of the show trials

Answer 3

The main reason for the trials were to enable Stalin to remove Bolsheviks who were aware of how Stalin played no role in the revolution. He also publicised the trials and accused the people on trial of plotting to murder Lenin and Kirov. In this way he could justify the purges.

He also publicised the trials as a warning. It showed possible rivals the force that Stalin would use and the support that he had, further tightening his grip on the Soviet Union. He was able to discredit Trotsky and other political enemies in the process.

Question 4

Outline how Stalin used terror to achieve and maintain his dictatorship.

Answer 4

Stalin used the purges to get rid of his rivals, such as Kirov’s supporters in 1934, and the Old Bolsheviks in the show trials of 1936.

Furthermore, citizens were scared and many reported their neighbours and workmates, and he got forced labour from imprisoning his enemies in gulags.

Question 5

Outline how Stalin used the Cult of Personality.

Answer 5

• Stalin’s image was used to reassure people that they had a strong leader
• Stalin’s image was everywhere and places were named after him.
• History was changed in favour of Stalin. At conferences, he received longer applause and poems, films, plays and novels were written about him.
• He was seen as a god-like all-powerful leader, especially after the Second World War.

Question 6

Explain the imposition of socialist realism on Soviet culture.

Answer 6

• Writers had to be members of the Party-controlled Union of Soviet Writers if they wanted their work published. Books already published which didn’t follow the Party line were changed or destroyed.
• In art, abstract art was forbidden and paintings and posters had to illustrate the achievements of socialism and portray the workers and peasants as heroes of the revolution.

Question 7

Describe how Stalin revised history and the effect this had on the USSR.

Answer 7

Stalin glorified his own part in the Bolshevik Revolution and he removed the achievements of rivals such as Trotsky. He also made people believe he was a close friend, and follower, of Lenin.

Question 8

How did the NKVD scare the populace, and what role did Nikolai Yezhov play.

Answer 8

In 1934 the secret police were renamed the NKVD. In 1936 it was led by Nikolai Yezhov. In his first six months as head of the NKVD, he purged over three thousand of his own personnel. He took delight in cruelty and he was nicknamed the ‘Iron Commissar’ or the ‘bloody dwarf’. He headed the NKVD at the height of the purges. He was eventually purged and replaced in 1940.

Question 9

What were the conditions in the gulags.

Answer 9

The gulags were labour camps set up in Siberia and the Artic North, temperatures reached minus fifteen and twenty. Although prisoners were sent for a specific number of years, many would have their sentences extended over and over again. Men and women were sent to the gulags and many women were raped. Those who gave birth in the labour camps, had to give up their babies for adoption.