Secret Police Flashcards
How did Yagoda expand the use of the OGPU?
Lubyanka torturing
OGPU merged with NKVD 1934
Arrested Party members linked with Trotsky
What happened to the Gulag under Yagoda?
Rapid expansion
White Sea canal(10,000 deaths)
Gulag used as a system of forced labour
How many people did Yezhov kill?
1.5 million (10%of male population)
What type of people were targeted in the Yezhovshina?
95% rich white men
What changes did Beria make to the Gulag?
Wanted to make the Gulag more profitable for Soviet economy
How much did economic activity grow in the Gulag under Beria?
2 billion roubles in 1937 to 4.5 billion roubles in 1940
How did the NKVD change when Beria replaced Yezhov?
Interrogations only made when evidence was found
What happened in 1942 to the Kalmyks?
Mass deportation as Stalin feared they would welcome German invasion (53,000/130,000 survived)
What was SMERSH and how many poles did they kill?
Branch of secret police used to root out hostile elements in Red Army, 4000 killed 1943
What and when was the Leningrad Affair?
1949, Purge against launched by Stalin in Leningrad Party, 200 Party members arrested
What and when was the Mingrelian Affair?
1951, Purge of Party in Georgia (Mingrelian ethnicity )
What was the Doctor’s Plot?
Anti-semitic movement due to an attempt to poison Stalin
Why was Beria arrested and executed in 1953?
He controlled the secret police, espionage and Gulag system (tremendous power)
How did the secret police change after Beria?
Firmly under Party control
Khrushchev dismantled Gulag system and Lubyanka
No return of mass terror
What were the 5 types of dissidents?
Political, religious, refuseniks, nationalists and intellectuals
What actions were taken against dissidents?
Surveillance and harassment, internal exile, arrest, warnings, psychiatry
How many political prisoners were there by the 1970’s?
10,000
What was the criminal code of 1960?
Abolished night time interrogations and limited KGB power
Who was Sakharov? What were his achievements and what happened to him?
Nuclear fissicist, creator of hydrogen bomb and wrote my country my world, Internal exile into Gorky 1980
Who wasSolzhenitsyn? What were his achievements and what happened to him?
Member of Russian Orthodox Church, Wrote Gulag Archipelago, forced into exile to America in 1973
What was the Samizdat?
Illegal, self published materials that were publicised in the West
How did the 1948 UN Declaration on Human Rights affect the USSR’s treatment of dissidents?
Committed all members of state to promote human rights and fundamental freedoms
How did the Helsinki Agreement of 1975 affect the USSR’s treatment of dissidents?
Committed countries across Europe to respect human rights, Dissidents used this to show that treatment of dissidents was in breach of Soviet obligations
What was the law and order campaign?
1979, policies introduced to fix growing non-conformity, (Afghanistan and economic decline)
What happened in 1968 ate Red square?
7 people showed up to the protest
What changes did Andropov make to reduce the economic decline?
Visited factories, promoted younger members to theParty, anti alcholosim and abseentism, discipline
