State Terror Flashcards
What was ‘high Stalinism’?
The culmination of Stalin’s regime from the 1940s when Stalin’s authority over state, party and the people was at its peak
What was the Cheka?
All-Russian Extraordinary Commission - the Bolshevik security force/secret police set up in December 1917. Routinely used extra-legal violence and torture.
What was the OGPU?
Joint State Political Directorate - secret police agency established in 1923 to suppress counter-revolution, to uncover political dissidents and, from 1928, to enforce collectivisation of farming.
What was the NKVD?
People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs - Soviet secret police agency set up in 1934, mainly concerned with political offenders. Used extensively during Stalin’s purges.
What was the initial role of the OGPU?
Organising dekulakisation - including the deportation of 10 million peasants
What was the second role of the OGPU?
Organising prison labour camps that contributed to the construction of projects such as Magnitogorsk
What was the final role of the OGPU?
Spying on workers and peasants and organising show trials of so-called saboteurs who held back production.
Who was Ryutin?
Member of the Central Committee from 1927 who supported moderate policies. Expelled from the Party in 1930 for criticising collectivisation.
He circulated a document called ‘Stalin and the Crisis of the Proletarian Dictatorship’ among Party members in 1932.
Consequences of Ryutin’s dissidence
Ryutin imprisoned for a 10 year term
Zinoviev, Kamenev and 14 others were expelled from the party for failing to report the existence of the document
By 1934, 20% of the party had been branded ‘Ryutinites’ and expelled in a non-violent purge
(Stalin had called for the execution of those involved in the ‘Ryutin Platform’ but was overruled e.g. by Kirov)
What year were gulags reorganised into a national network?
1934
What was the significance of the Congress of Victors?
Held during 17th Party Congress in 1934 intended to celebrate Stalin’s economic achievements.
When Congress voted to elect the Central Committee, Kirov topped the polls, not Stalin.
Stalin became aware that a group of old Bolsheviks were trying to persuade Kirov to run as General Secretary
These events were evidence to Stalin that the Party needed to be purged
How many votes did Kirov get at the Congress of Victors?
1,225 compared to Stalin’s 927
When was Kirov murdered and what was the significance of this?
December 1934
Stalin used Kirov’s murder as a pretext and justification for the Great Purges
How many people sent to prison camps 1931-1936?
Rise from 105,683 in 1931 to 219,418 in 1936
Reasons for the Great Terror
Congress of Victors
Terror economics
Kirov’s murder
Paranoia
Explain paranoia as a factor behind the Great Terror
Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev had all held high positions in the Party and had fallen from power - Stalin believed it was entirely possible that he could suffer the same fate.
He was also worried about the old Bolsheviks, who knew Lenin did not want him to take power (he had suppressed Lenin’s will in 1924)
Feared that the Red Army and secret police had too much power - Yagoda tried to win Stalin’s favour by fuelling his suspicions and therefore deepening his paranoia - e.g. compiling extensive reports on discontent in the countryside and collected intelligence that suggested many Party officials questioned Stalin’s policies
Explain Kirov’s murder as a factor behind the Great Terror
The murder was pinned on Leonid Nikolayev who was claimed to be working for a Trotskyite-Zinovievite terror group - Stalin could use this as a pretext to hunt down this ‘terror group’, which justified the execution of Party members for opposing Stalin’s policies
Explain terror economics as a factor behind the Great Terror
Allowed Stalin to blame ongoing economic problems on political enemies, accusing them of ‘wrecking’ (economic sabotage)
Purges provided a huge reserve of cheap labour due to huge prison camp population (e.g. Magnitogorsk built largely by prison workers)
When was the trial of the sixteen?
1936
Who was put on trial at the trial of the sixteen?
Zinoviev and Kamenev for Kirov’s murder, plotting to overthrow the Five-Year Plans, conspiring with foreign powers to overthrow the government and conspiring with Trotsky.
What happened to Zinoviev and Kamenev after the trial?
Both shot (and Trotsky sentenced to death in absentia)
What was set out in the Stalin Constitution?
A whole host of rights which was, according to Bukharin, ‘the most democratic in the world’.
When was the Stalin Constitution?
1936
Examples of rights set out in the Stalin Constitution
Freedom from arbitrary arrest
Freedom of religion
The right to demonstrate
Universal suffrage for over 18s (raised to 23 in 1945)
Why was universal suffrage limited?
The ban on all parties other than the Communist Party remained.
What were Stalin’s intentions with his constitution?
May have been to impress foreign powers (‘most democratic in the world’)
May have been Stalin’s intention to stabilise a society he deemed purged and transformed
What was the irony of the drawing up of the Stalin Constitution?
Drawn up by Bukharin and Radek, both of whom went on to perish in the purges.
Why did Yagoda fall out of favour?
Yagoda had expressed reservations about the purges after the executions of Zinoviev and Kamenev.
There had been a secret report in 1928 in which Bukharin had claimed that Yagoda supported the right of the Party
When did Yezhov replace Yagoda?
1936
When was the trial of the seventeen?
1937
What crimes did the trial of the seventeen deal with?
Dealt with Trotsky’s former allies.
What methods did Yezhov use for the trial of the seventeen?
First instance of Yezhov’s ‘conveyor belt system’
Torture, sleep deprivation and questioning were continued relentlessly until the defendents confessed.
What was the outcome of the trial of the seventeen?
Thirteen were executed and the other 4 were sent to gulags.
Examples of who was put on trial in 1937? (Trial of 17)
Radek, Pyatakov
How did the Communist Party attempt to justify the terror?
‘Doctrine of sharpening class struggle’ tried to excuse to terror with ideological justification - officially adopted in 1937
When was the trial of the twenty-one?
1938
Who was notably put on trial in the trial of the twenty-one?
Bukharin, Rykov, Yagoda
What were the defendants in the trial of the twenty-one accused of?
Attempting to overthrow socialism and the murder of Kirov
Bukharin was personally charged with attempting to assassinate Lenin
Outcome of the trial of the twenty-one?
Bukharin and Rykov shot (Tomsky was meant to be put on trial but committed suicide beforehand)
Significance of the show trials
Stalin had shown that there would be no mercy for those who opposed him
The trials eliminated the last remaining Communists who had been close to Lenin
What was the reality of the Stalin constitution?
Promised rights = largely ignored
For example, Stalin did not allow republics to leave the Union, despite the constitution acknowledging their right to do so
What was Order 00447?
Gave the NKVD the power to pursue mass terror. The NKVD were given quotas of how many anti-Soviet elements were expected to be arrested according to region.
When was Order 00447 issued?
July 1937
What was the short term impact of Order 00447?
Within one month, around 100,000 people had been arrested and 14,000 sent to gulags.
What was the longer-term impact of Order 00447?
By 1938, 575,000 people had been arrested.
People were encouraged to report on their colleagues, friends and family and the pressure to meet quotas meant people started to be arrested randomly.
How did the gulags change under Stalin?
More were built during the 30s to house Stalin’s enemies.
Gulag population rose to well over 5.5 million by 1938.
Gulags no longer used for reeducation, but to work prisoners to death.
How did Stalin treat national minorities?
When war with Japan became a threat, he deported the Korean minority in the far east to Central Asia.
He also deported 400,000 Volga Germans to Siberia and Central Asia.
Purged the Party leadership of non-Russians.
When was the Military Purge?
May-June 1937
What was the Military Purge?
Stalin ordered a purge of the military as he was scared of the possibility of a military coup. 8 top military commanders, including Tukhachevsky, were accused of plotting with Trotsky.
What was the impact of the Military Purge?
Two ‘Marshals of the Soviet Union’, 11 war commissars, 8 admirals and all but one of the senior air force commanders were purged
74 military officials were shot for refusing to approve the execution of those they believed to be innocent
Approximately 50 percent of all officers in the armed forces were executed or imprisoned
Define the Yezhovschina
A period between 1936 and 1940 when Yezhov ked the NKVD and a series of purges
How did the purges end?
Purges slowed at the end of 1938. Trotsky was assassinated in 1940 - his death signalled the end of the threat from old Bolsheviks who had opposed Stalin
How did Stalin’s title change in 1934?
The title of ‘General Secretary’ was abolished and Stalin, Kirov, Zhdanov and Kaganovich were all given the title ‘Secretary of Equal Rank’ (good because it spread responsibility for economic failure but bad because it meant, in theory, that Stalin was no more important than the other secretaries)
What was the immediate aftermath of Kirov’s murder?
A decree was issued the next day giving Yagoda unlimited powers to arrest an execute anyone found guilty of ‘terrorist plotting’ - over a hundred party members were shot
What happened to Kamenev and Zinoviev in January 1935?
They were arrested for instigating terrorism
How had Stalin previously used terror during the leadership challenge?
In 1929, Trotsky was expelled from the USSR and Bukharin was removed from the Politburo
How had Stalin used terror in 1930 and 1931?
1930 - Expelled some of his former supporters from the Party for criticising the excesses of collectivisation
1931 - put a group of former Mensheviks and SRs on trial
How did the NKVD’s power grow in 1934?
Ordinary police were put under the control of the NKVD and the labour camps were reorganised into a national system of gulags
How was the trial of the 16 an example of terror?
No material evidence was presented, yet all the defendants were sentenced to death and executed on 25 August 1936
Why was Yagoda replaced?
Accused of not being active enough in uncovering the ‘conspiracy’ and failed to secure the confessions of Rykov and Bukharin
Example of somebody speaking out against the Military Purge?
Osip Pyatnitsky (Comintern official and member of the Central Commitee) spoke out and the following morning, Yezhov ‘unearthed’ evidence that Pyatnitsky had been an agent of the tsarist secret police
He was removed from the Central Committee, stripped of Party membership, arrested, imprisoned and executed in October 1938
Surge in inmate numbers in gulags between 1935-38
c800,000 to 5.5 million
Mortality rates in gulags
Between four and six times higher than the rest of the USSR
Evidence of antireligious campaigns during the Yezhovschina
Direct persecutions of Muslims in the Central Asian republics after 1928
How had Stalin used terror/show trials in 1928?
Shakhty trial - fifty-three engineers and managers were accused of conspiring with the former owners of the coal mines in the industrial area of Donbass to sabotage the Soviet economy
Outcome - most defendants were forced to ‘confess’ in the pre-trial stage (usually under torture)
