Stalin's Terror State

Question 1

When did Stalin become that vozhd (supreme leader) of the Soviet Union?

Answer 1

1929

Question 2

When did the purges begin?

Answer 2

1932

Question 3

How many ‘anti-bolsheviks’ had been arrested under Lenin?

Answer 3

tens of thousands

Question 4

What was the trial of the Ryutin group in 1932?

Answer 4

Had published an attack on Stalin:

- were publicly tried and expelled from the party

Question 5

How many members of the party were excluded between 1933-1934 on the grounds that they were ‘Ryutinites’?

Answer 5

1 million = 1/3rd of total membership

Question 6

What were the methods of early party purges?

Answer 6

Get any suspected members party cards and not hand them back if they were suspected

Question 7

Why is 1934 an important year in the purges?

Answer 7

When Stalin began to terrorise not just obvious opponents but colleagues and party members

Question 8

Who was the NKVD directly answerable to?

Answer 8

Stalin

Question 9

What new type of court was set up in 1934?

Answer 9

A special military court to deal with ‘serious crimes’ = similar to AIII

Question 10

Why might it be the case that Stalin was involved in Kirov’s murder?

Answer 10

• he was a highly popular figure in the party
• was elected into the politburo by the CA in 1934
• was known to be unhappy with many of Stalin’s policy
  = dissatisfied members may rally around him in opposition

Question 11

What was the Decree against Terrorist Acts?

Answer 11

Signed 2 hours after Kirov’s death
- gave the NKVD limitless powers in pursing enemies of the state and the party
= hunting down Kirov’s murderers caused a fresh purge on the party to begin

Question 12

Why were new members of the party during ‘the Stalin enrolment’ eager to support the elimination of the anti-stalinist elements of the party?

Answer 12

• owed their position directly to Stalin

- improved their chances of promotion

Question 13

Out of 1996 delegates who attended the Party Congress in 1934, how many were executed in the next 3 years?

Answer 13

1108

Question 14

Out of the 139 Central Committee members elected at the 1934 PC how many survived?

Answer 14

41

Question 15

When was the Great Purge?

Answer 15

1936-39

Question 16

What did the secret letter sent from the CPSU headquarters in 1936 contain?

Answer 16

Warning all the local party branches of a terrorist conspiracy by the ‘Trostkyite-Kamenevite-Zinovievite-Leftist Counter-Revolutionary Bloc’
- instructed party officials to begin rooting out suspected agents and sympathisers

Question 17

Why were Kamenev and Zinoviev put on trial?

Answer 17

Charged with involvement in Kirov’s death + plotting to overthrow the Soviet state
= both men pleaded guilty

Question 18

Why did Kamenev and Zinoviev confess?

Answer 18

• revealed that torture was used

- sense of demoralisation of having been accused and disgraced by the party

Question 19

What did the confessions of Z and K create?

Answer 19

An atmosphere in which innocent victims submitted in open court to false charges = if great men accepted their fate then lesser men would also have to

Question 20

Who were the ‘anti-Soviet Trotskyist Centre’?

Answer 20

17 communists, denounced as this, were charged with spying for Nazi Germany

Question 21

What happened during the third of the major show trials 1938?

Answer 21

Bukharin and Rykov and 18 other ‘Trotskyite-Rightists’ were publicly arraigned on a variety of counts, including sabotage, spying and conspiracy to commit murder

Question 22

What were 2 of the major things claimed in the 1936 Constitution?

Answer 22

• Socialism had been established - no longer ‘classes’

- The basic civil rights of freedom of expression. assembly and worship were guaranteed

Question 23

Why were the parties powers not described in the Constitution?

Answer 23

Meant they could not be restricted

Question 24

What happened in May 1937 when Vyshinsky announced that ‘a gigantic conspiracy’ had been uncovered in the Red Army?

Answer 24

Tukhachevsky the talented Chief of General Staff was arrested along with 7 other generals, all of whom had been ‘heroes of the Civil War’
- accused of having spied for Germany and Japan

Question 25

How many army commanders were removed 1937-38?

Answer 25

14/16

Question 26

How does the purge of the armed forces show Stalin’s mental instability?

Answer 26

Left the USSR’s defence completely crippled

- services were undermanned and staffed by inexperienced or incompetent replacements

Question 27

How many ordinary people were arrested during Stalin’s purges?

Answer 27

1 in 8

Question 28

On average how many loved ones did each family in the USSR loose?

Answer 28

1

Question 29

How was there a quota system in the purges?

Answer 29

The number of people to be arrested was laid down in sets of quotas - numbers not the names that mattered

Question 30

What was the purpose of terrorising ordinary people?

Answer 30

To frighten the nationalities into abandoning any thoughts of challenging Moscow’s control and to force waverers into full acceptance of forced industrialisation

Question 31

What was the ‘Leningrad affair’ 1949?

Answer 31

Leading party and city officials were arrested, tried on charges of attempting to use Leningrad as an opposition base, and shot

Question 32

What was the Doctors Plot 1953?

Answer 32

Kremlin announced the Jewish-dominated medical centre has planned to murder Stalin and the other Soviet leaders
= deaths prevented due to Stalin’s death

Question 33

In 1934 how many people were executed?

Answer 33

1 million

Question 34

By 1937 how many people had been deported to labour camps and how many of these died?

Answer 34

7-8m, 4m died

Question 35

Between 1944-46 what did the ‘screening’ of returned prisoners of war lead to?

Answer 35

10m sent to camps, 5-6m died in captivity

Question 36

Why did many members of the party welcome the purges?

Answer 36

• opportunity to settle old scores

- a way of advancing themselves by filling the jobs vacated by victims

Question 37

What benefits did the nomenklatura have?

Answer 37

• plentiful food rations
• luxury accommodation
• motor cars
• top quality education for their children