STALIN OPPSOITON 1941-53 Flashcards
19 . opposition, in wartime:
Another characteristic of the Communist State was its intolerance of opposition. Lenin had created the Cheka and developed a prison camp system to deal with both his ideological and political enemies. As well as attacking the SRs, Mensheviks and burzhui, he carried out non-violent purges of his Party leading to the expulsions of 150,000 Party members in 1921. Furthermore, he introduced a ban on factions in 1921.
Stalin, again, extended and intensified Leninist intolerance. He continued
changes in stalin compared to lenin
ideological class warfare - mostly directed at the kulaks and bourgeoisie. Also, his political attacks were far more brutal than anything seen under Lenin. Within the circumstances of the one-party state he attached those within the Communist Party whom he saw as potential enemies and rivals. No leading Bolshevik or Party member lost his life from political vindictiveness, nor was made to stand up and give a public ‘confession’ of his crimes by Lenin.
19 . opposition, in wartime:
During the Stalinist purges the OGPU and NKVD arrested millions of ordinary citizens and 600,000 Party members were executed.
The correction camps developed into gulags providing slave labour and, as with so many aspects of Stalinist rule, persecution was on a far more monumental scale. Yet even Stalin could not exert perfect control.
There is plenty of evidence of rural hostility,
and the welcome which some Soviet citizens (particularly from the ethnic minorities) gave to the invading Germans in 1941, speaks for itself.
19 . opposition, in wartime:
WARTIME OPPOSITION
Although there was no outright opposition to Stalin’s authority within the USSR, not all Russians were supportive and the NKVD never abandoned its vigilance.
Hitler had nurtured some hope that the invasion would spark an anti-Stalinist revolt. He was disappointed in this, but in the wake of the invasion, large numbers of those in national minority areas,
particularly Estonia, Lithuania, Belorussia and the Ukraine, welcomed the German soldiers as liberators after the harsh Stalinism of the 1930s. Thousands in these areas became collaborationists. Some acted as Hilfswillige, others fought.
19 . opposition, in wartime:
The Russian Liberation Movement under Andrey Vlasov, for example, was formed in the Ukraine. This became a division of the Waffen-SS and at its peak had
50,000 soldiers, fighting against their former Red Army comrades. Probably over a million including 250,000 Cossacks) joined Hitler’s side but, as Slavs, many were only allowed to perform lesser jobs.
19 . opposition, in wartime:
In the greater part of unoccupied USSR, winning the war relied, in some measure, on the continuation of pre-war terror tactics’ - both for the army and for the civilian population. When the Germans threatened Stalingrad in July 1942, Stalin issued order
227, Not One Step Backwards. Any soldier who fell behind or tried to retreat was to be shot on sight, and more than 150,000 were sentenced to death under this order. Penal battalions were created from those who broke discipline and were thus labelled cowards. They were sent to the front to undertake the most dangerous jobs, such as clearing minefields, and supposedly to ‘redeem’ themselves.
19 . opposition, in wartime:
Casualty rates of c50 per cent were normal for such groups. Blocking units equipped with
machine guns were also added to the NKVD units in the rear of action, to prevent desertion or retreat.
20.; destruction of ‘supposed’ opposition
THE LENINGRAD CASE, 1949
In 1949, Stalin decided to take a stand against the Leningrad party, which had always shown some independence in its views and actions, and some of whose members had been promoted to senior positions in Moscow during the time of Zhdanov’s ascendancy. On the basis of false evidence,
several leading officials were arrested, including the Head of Gosplan and Voznesensky, an economic reformer who held a position in the Politburo.
(After Stalin’s death it was found that four of those arrested, including Voznesensky, were executed.)
20.; destruction of ‘supposed’ opposition
ANTI-SEMITISM
Although Stalin had initially favoured the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine at the end of the war, when Israel turned out to be pro-USA, he reverted to his former anti-Semitic stance, fearing that all Jews within the USSR were potential enemies. This feeling was reinforced by the arrival of the Israeli ambassador to the USSR, Meir, in 1948. She was enthusiastically cheered by Soviet Jews wherever she went.
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The director of the Jewish theatre in Moscow, Mikhoels, was mysteriously killed in a car accident in 1948 - almost certainly arranged by the MVD.
The Jewish wives of Politburo members Molotov and Kalinin were arrested in 1949 and a new campaign against anti-patriotic groups’ was launched the same year, mainly affecting cultural areas and the universities.
20.; destruction of ‘supposed’ opposition
THE MINGRELIAN CASE (GEORGIAN PURGE) 1951-52
In 1951 a purge was launched in Georgia, directed against the followers of Beria, the head of the NKVD. They were accused of collaboration with Western powers. Beria was himself of Mingrelian ethnic extraction and, although many aspects of this purge remain unclear and it was still in progress when Stalin died, it seems likely that the ‘Mingrelian Case’ was aimed
at weakening the authority of Beria. (It did, however, also have some anti-Semitic overtones.)
20.; destruction of ‘supposed’ opposition
THE DOCTORS’ PLOT, 1952
A new conspiracy was discovered when Timashuk - a female doctor in the Kremlin hospital and part-time MGB informer - wrote to Stalin two days before Zhdanov’s death in 1948, accusing nine highly-placed doctors of failure to diagnose and treat Zhdanov professionally. At the time, nothing was done, but in 1952, Stalin reopened the file and
ordered the arrest of the doctors, accusing them of a Zionist conspiracy to murder Zhdanov and other members of the Soviet leadership.
Stalin put it about that Jews, in the pay of the USA and Israel, were using their positions in the medical profession to harm the USSR and had infiltrated the Leningrad party association, the MGB and the Red Army.
THE DOCTORS’ PLOT, 1952
Stalin threatened his Minister of State Security, Ignatiev, with execution if he did not obtain confessions, and hundreds of doctors were arrested and tortured. However, the purge went still further.
Thousands of ordinary Jews were also rounded up and deported from the cities to the remote regions of the USSR where a new network of Labour camps was rapidly established.
Anti-Jewish hysteria was also whipped up by the press, so that non-Jews feared to enter hospitals and shunned all Jewish professionals.
The nine named doctors were duly condemned and sentenced to execution, but before this could take place, Stalin died.
The news must have brought relief to those at the top who seemed to be lined up as the victims of yet another purge - Beria, Molotov and Kaganovich
