Strengths and Weaknesses of the Terror

Question 1

Political: Party recruits

Answer 1

Less than a quarter of communist party recruits since 1920 survived the purges although this meant people would be loyal to Stalin

Question 2

Political: Stalin’s rivals

Answer 2

Bukharin, Rykov, Zinoviev and Kamenev all tried and shot. Stalin all purged ‘Old Bolsheviks’ because they knew he wasn’t prominent during the revolution and had all challenged him during 1934 to cause unite/stability.

Question 3

Army Weakness: removal of officers

Answer 3

23,000 officers shot or dismissed but many reinstated

Question 4

Army Weakness: inexperience

Answer 4

1/4 of a million new officers recruited to replace the dismissals so they lacked experience and training, leading the failures in the first months of the war in 1941. Three quarters of officers had been in their post less than a year at the start of war.

Question 5

Army Weakness: purge of generals

Answer 5

Tukhachevsky was innovative, modernising and thought of improving tactics but he and 7 other generals were arrested and shot in 1937

Question 6

Army Weakness: military coup

Answer 6

Stalin was convinced there was a plot to overthrow him: the Red Army had been in talks with Germans about tactics, and he attached war commissars to army to avid a coup

Question 7

Political Weakness: Overy

Answer 7

‘restore political domination over armed forces at the expense of military modernisers’

Question 8

Social weakness: the Yezhov years 1936-8

Answer 8

Over 7 million arrested and 1 million executed.

Question 9

Social weakness: deaths in 1936-39

Answer 9

10-15million died from torture, execution, exile or labour camps, not including the famine.

Question 10

Social weakness: Conquest 1936-8

Answer 10

les than 10% of those arrested/sent to camps survived

Question 11

Social W/Ind S: Kolyma Camp

Answer 11

-45 degrees, but rich in gold, gold needed to exchange directly with West for technology/machinery

Question 12

Industrial Weakness: Initiative

Answer 12

Stifled initiative and innovative ideas within industry and armies and removed factory managers/skilled workers who could effectively work the machinery as well as scientists and specialists.

Question 13

Political Strength: siege mentality

Answer 13

The harshness/severity caused a siege mentality which benefited in light of war

Question 14

Social: Didn’t affect everyone

Answer 14

People still criticised aspects of life/work