Reasons for the Purges Flashcards
Economy stats
ATM LEARN TOP2
36-38 peak when economy at worst at the same time
1928 1936 1937
Rolled steel (million tons). 3.4 12.5. 13.0. Tractors (thousand 15 hp units) 1.8 173.2 66.5.
Economy (non stats)
- Economic difficulties in the Soviet Union - Wants scapegoats or cheap labour (for this argument you need to find peak of problems causing peak difficulties• In mid 30s production figures falling off and Five Year plans failing behind schedule and a downturn in soveit economy from 1936 due to technical difficulties so Stalin needed scapegoats. Workers alsooften happy to blaime managers
Stalin wanted more power
Stalin declared end to purges in 1939
Stalin got Trotsky killed 1940
1936 - Kamenev and Zinoviev show trial. Show Trial attempt to cause fear as could have just killed them, off
13 million deaths 1929-1939? (Maybe insane as are that many a threat but maybe he wanted to create fear)
• Millions of kulaks or “class enemies” killed or sent to Labour camps with many workers accused of sabotage and wrecking sent to the gulag (usually falsely accused)
24 million in gulags 1929-1939?
Every member of the 1924 Politburo dead except Stalin
3/5 Marshalls (including Takhachewky)
8/8 Admirals
• No need to kill (apparently) 10 million by 1939 (ordinary people)
Communist Party out of control
Many joined Communist Party not due to ideological reason but for considerable advantages and privileges that came with the party card.
Stalin wanted to deal with party problems such as
Khrushchev stated that 98 out of the 139 (70%) members of the Central Committee elected at the Seventeenth Party Congress (1934) were arrested and shot. Of the 1966 in congress, 1108 were arrested. This was a congress that was in favour of Kirov instead of Stalin.
* Local party not wanting to ‘find’ kulaks as they believed they were valuable men - Not Communist * In large industrial towns local party bosses wanted to reach production targets so didn’t want to purge specialists * By 1939 party had 1.5 million full members (population 170m) and only 8.3% had joined by the end of 1920 and 70% had joined after 1929 * Party Congress comparisons: PROBABLY NOT NEEDED * In 1934 81% of delegates had joined the party before 1920 * In 1939 19% of delegates had joined the party before 1920 * 1939 Congress unlike 1934 had no debate, discussion or criticism.
Stalin’s Mentally Ill
September 1894 Stalin became an atheist - Religion largely has a positive impact on mental health but this argument doesn’t prove anything as you can be religious and mentally ill
November 8 1932 Suicide of Alliluyeva his second wife so if Purges got bad here this argument is strong. - Apparently regularly visited her grave according to guards
September 1888 By this time his father’s business had failed, he had become an alcoholic, and regularly beat up Stalin and his mother
1889 Stalin’s family had moved 9 times as his parents became increasingly poor
NKVD check
Secret Police
• Yezhovshchina (time period of his purging) named after Yezhov Yagundo arrested 1937, the head of NKVD which was a period of mass terror from 1937 to 1938 where party members, state officials, members of the armed forces, industrial directors, professionals and other sections of society were denounced, arrested and imprisoned. Many were executed and many more died in Soviet Labour Camps
Historians
Isaac Deutscher: due to threat of war, Stalin purged the opposition who might interfere with his war plans and war could unite people against Stalin and overthrow him.
Stephen Cohen: Stalin knew old Bolsheviks could see he was not Lenin’s equal.
Sheila Fitzpatrick: the Purges came from “below” – the Purges were the result of decisions made by the Communist leadership in reaction to a series of crises in the mid-1930s.
Threat of War
- The threat of war - Stalin Centric View
Timing works
Counter:
* Just another threat * Prospect of war looked increasingly liked when Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933
By the late 1930s Stalin believed war was likely
his promises made in Mien Kamph
-To do with Jews and I think abou 1939 - Purging high here
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mein-Kampf
Book published many times but first in 1925 has Hitler’s racist views about Jews and declares need for German living Space - proved he was a threat to Stalin when he became chancellor as living space requires war. - shows hate towards ussr.
R Manning “The industrial showdown, which set in at a time when the USSR could least afford it, when a two-front war without allies seemed to be the Soviets’ inevitable fate, shaped the course of the Great Purges at least as much, if not more so, as the terror in turn influenced the operation of the economy.”
Killer arguement
Stalin stops the purges which is a killer argument
Trotsky’s Death
He was killed in 1940
Checks
How many party officals were purged ✅
Kirov murdered many believe by Stalin organised the assianation as Kirov got more votes than Stalin at seventeenth party congress
Mass Terror
• the NKVD
* they held a strong powerbase in Russia, with further strength of spies in America and Britain. * The Soviet Union used the NKVD as a tool of mass terror; however, it began to slip from Stalin’s grasps in the early 1930s. this was because leader of the NKVD Yagado gained further control of the secret police in 1934. Stalin noticed this and by 1937 he was arrested and according to figures provided by D Volkogov in 1988, a further 23,000 NKVD workers who supported Yagoda perished by the end of the 1930s. • the Purges * it was estimated that between the years of 1936 and 1938, under Stalin’s regime roughly 700,000 opposition members of the Bolshevik party and other organisations were killed. This removed vital opposition against Stalin as a leader strengthening his grip of power within the Soviet Union. During the great purge he also suppressed ethnic minorities and the persecution of unaffiliated persons. * Stalin was accused of using the death of Kirov as an instrument for political control, According to Alexander Orlov, a senior figure in the NKVD: "Stalin decided to arrange for the assassination of Kirov and to lay the crime at the door of the former leaders of the opposition
Kirov murdered many believe by Stalin organised the assianation as Kirov got more votes than Stalin at seventeenth party congress
* the Gulags * The notorious prisons, which incarcerated about 18 million people throughout their history, operated from the 1920s until shortly after Stalin's death in 1953. They were pivotal in improving control of the Soviet Union for Stalin because he not only used it to improve output within industries, but he suppressed ethnic minorities.
Suppression of inter-party opposition views.
• Central Committee
* Khrushchev stated that 98 out of the 139 (70%) members of the Central Committee elected at the Seventeenth Party Congress (1934) were arrested and shot. Of the 1966 in congress, 1108 were arrested. This was a congress that was in favour of Kirov instead of Stalin. * Kamenev and Zinoviev * 1926 - When Kamenv and Zinoviev sided with Trotsky, Stalin eradicated all of the 3 as they were factionalising which was illegal in the party.
Purges economic Flashcard ✅
NKVD Details ✅
More than 23,000 NKVD men perished at the end of 1930s
not really - Hitler becoming chancellor in 33 made war inevitable, his promises made in Mien Kamph
-To do with Jews and I think abou 1939 - Purging high here
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mein-Kampf
Book published many times but first in 1925 has Hitler’s racist views about Jews and declares need for German living Space - proved he was a threat to Stalin when he became chancellor as living space requires war. - shows hate towards ussr.
How did the Purges end and how did Stalin stop it?✅
1938 and he just stopped it
Arguments
Economy- Great Purge 1936-38 and when economy worse or improving the least
Stalin- He ended the Purges, unlike Nicholas chose to find scapegoats, wanted no opposition
Communist Party - Growing opposition and many joining not for ideology
Threat of War
Mentally Ill About the timing
NKVD- Unsure but could he to do with switch in power?
1936-38
- the Purges
- it was estimated that between the years of 1936 and 1938, under Stalin’s regime roughly 700,000 opposition members of the Bolshevik party and other organisations were killed.
Date of Great Purge
1936-1938
