STALIN OPPOSITION 1924-41 Flashcards
OPPOSITION TO STALIN AND THE PURGES
He extended the use of terror and class warfare, as practised by Lenin, to enforce collectivisation through the destruction of the kulaks and maintain his five-Year Plans for industry. He accomplished this by
sending bourgeois managers, specialists and engineers, whom he accused of machine-breaking and sabotage, to labour camps.
OPPOSITION TO STALIN AND THE PURGES
The Shakhty show trial of 1928 was a clear indication of Stalin’s determination to find a scapegoat for the chaos caused by his own economic policies, while delivering the message that the regime had to maintain its vigilance against those who were set to destroy it. This heralded
an industrial terror which deprived hundreds of bourgeois specialists of their jobs and, often, lives.
OPPOSITION TO STALIN AND THE PURGES
By 1929, Soviet prisons could no longer cope with the numbers of kulaks, bourgeois specialists, wreckers, saboteurs and other opponents’ that arrived and Yagoda was commissioned to investigate ways in which the prison population could be put to better use. This proposal involved building on the
corrective-labour camps established by Lenin by creating a series of new camps, of c50,000 prisoners each, in remote areas of the north and Siberia, where diamonds, gold, platinum, oil, nickel, coal and timber were all to be found.
these are the gulags
OPPOSITION TO STALIN AND THE PURGES
By offering minimum ‘per capita’ funding and imposing economies of scale it was believed these ‘gulags’ could contribute to economic growth, while at the same time offering appropriate correction’ for the prisoners. The camps were to be placed under the direct authority of
the OGPU (the political police until 1934, when the NKVD took control). By then, they housed a million people.
THE CRISIS OF 1932
In November 1932, Stalin’s wife, Nadezhda, committed suicide. She left a note criticising Stalin’s policy and showing her sympathy for Stalin’s political enemies.
this ‘unhinged’ Stalin, who now felt that even those closest to him could be betraying him behind his back - saying one thing but believing another. The suicide, which was reported to the public as death from appendicitis, came at the end of a bad year. In 1932 there had been
famine in the countryside and a spate of workers’ strikes in the industrial towns, primarily driven by economic factors, but also bringing voiced criticisms of the five year plan and Stalin’s leadership.
THE CRISIS OF 1932
Stalin’s position was far from secure. His old opponent, Bukharin, had been re-elected to the Central Committee in June 1930; the same year as
some of those who had formerly supported Stalin in the leadership struggle against Bukharin were expelled for criticising the way collectivisation was being carried out.
THE CRISIS OF 1932
In 1932, two opposition groups emerged within the Party elite. An informal group of old Bolsheviks, which included Smirnov, was discovered to have held meetings at which they had debated Stalin’s removal. They were quickly arrested by the OGPU and Smirnov expelled from the Party.
A second group was led by
Ryutin, (former Moscow Party Secretary and a ‘rightist’) and their criticisms became known as the ‘Ryutin Platform’. They disapproved of Stalin’s political direction and personality and some of their papers were found in Nadezhda’s room.
THE CRISIS OF 1932
Ryutin even sent an appeal, signed by a number of prominent communists, to the Central Committee urging Stalin’s removal. Ryutin and his circle were arrested, and it has been suggested that Stalin called for their immediate execution but was over-ruled the Politburo and, in particular, by Kirov, the Leningrad Party Secretary.
this again shows the precariousness of Stalin’s position at this time. Nevertheless,
24 were expelled from the Party and exiled from Moscow, while several other old Bolsheviks, including Zinoviev and Kamenev, were also expelled and exiled, simply for knowing of the group’s existence and failing to report it to the police. Ryutin was sentenced to ten years in prison. He was shot, on Stalin’s orders, in 1937.
THE CRISIS OF 1932
If Nadezhda’s suicide had not already ‘unhinged’ Stalin, the Ryutin affair certainly did. In April 1933, he announced a general purge of the Party and over the next two years, he conducted a paranoid struggle in which over
18% of the Party membership were branded ‘Ryutinites’ and purged.
Most of these were relatively new Party members whose loyalty Stalin felt unsure of; he thought them mere careerists.
THE KIROV AFFAIR, 1934
At the 17th Party Congress in 1934, which coincided with the tenth anniversary of Lenin’s death, Stalin announced that the anti-Leninist opposition’ (by which he meant those that had opposed his own policies and leadership) had been defeated.
Bukharin, Rykov, and others who had challenged Stalin in the leadership struggle, all admitted their errors’ to give the impression of unity at the top.
THE KIROV AFFAIR, 1934
However, in the elections to the Central Committee, Stalin received c150 negative votes (although only three were officially recorded). A split opened up between those who wanted to maintain the pace of industrialisation, and others within the Politburo, including Kirov, who spoke about stopping forcible grain seizures and increasing workers’ rations. Nevertheless, only
two of the Politburo firmly supported Stalin (Molotov and Kaganovich), while Kirov received a long, standing ovation for his speech advocating a more moderate approach.
THE KIROV AFFAIR, 1934
A further issue which also arose from the 17th Party Congress was the abolition of the title of General Secretary. Stalin and Kirov, along with Zhdanov and Kaganovich, were all given the title
what did it mean
Secretary of Equal Rank. Stalin may have supported this, in order to spread the responsibility for the economic crisis; but it meant, in theory at least, that Stalin was no more important than the other secretaries.
THE KIROV AFFAIR, 1934
Kirov was murdered in December 1934. The circumstances were suspicious and Stalin (who may well have been implicated) was quick to claim that this was part of a Trotskyite conspiracy, led by ‘Zinovievites, to overthrow the Party. A decree was published a day after the assassination, giving Yagoda, head of the NKVD,
powers to arrest and execute anyone found guilty of terrorist plotting. Around 6500 people were arrested under this law in December.
THE KIROV AFFAIR, 1934
In January 1935, Zinoviev, Kamenev and 17 others were arrested and accused of instigating terrorism and sentenced to between five and ten years imprisonment. Some 843 former associates of Zinoviev were also arrested in January/February 1935. During the course of that year,
11,000 ‘former people were arrested, exiled or placed in camps and 250,000 Party members were expelled (after investigation by the NKVD) as ‘anti-Leninists.
THE GREAT PURGES, 1936-38
While Stalin was creating a new, and seemingly more liberal, constitution for the Soviet Union in 1936, he was also busy preparing for a new purge; one that would be more far-reaching than ever before.
In August 1936,
a show trial involving Zinoviev, Kamenev and 14 others took place. Its purpose, like that of others which followed, was not only to gain confessions and convictions, but to ‘prove the existence of political conspiracies. All 16 were found guilty of involvement in a Trotsky-inspired plot to murder Stalin and other Politburo members. All were executed - together with 160 ‘accomplices.
A month later, Yagoda was replaced by Nikolai Yezhov as NKVD chief, as it was claimed Yagoda had not been active enough in uncovering this conspiracy.
