Terror in the 1930s Flashcards
How did Lenin establish the cheka from 1917?
- It had extensive records on the population as a sharp sword of the revolution
- From 1922-34, security functions were carried out by the OGPU who also supervised a network of labour camps from 1918 to replace tsarist prison camps
How did Stalin extend its use during the power vacuum?
- In 1929, Trotsky was expelled from the USSR and Bukharin from the politburo
- To enforce collectivisation through the destruction of the kulaks
What happened in 1930?
- He expelled critics of collectivisation and 1931, a group of former Mensheviks and SRs were put on trial
- In pushing the five year plans, he sent specialists and engineers, whom he accused of machine breaking and sabotage, to labour camps
What happened at Shakhty coal mine?
In 1928, managers and technicians were questioned about the ace of industrialisation and given a public show trial as they were forced to confess, 5 were executed and many received long prison sentences
What was the industrial party show trial?
In 1930, a random group of industrialists, Mensheviks and SRS were accused of sabotage
What was the metro-Vickers trial?
In 1933, British specialists were found guilty of wrecking activities
What happened after the famine and the end of the first 5 year plan?
- It encouraged opposition from Ryutin who wanted changes in policy through Stalin and the crisis of the proletariat dictatorship which was circulated to party members in March 1932
- It called for Stalin’s removal
- Stalin wanted to execute the traitors but over-rued especially by Kirov so Ryutin was imprisoned for 10 years and Zinoviev, Kamenev and 14 others were expelled as they didn’t report the document
- 24 expulsions were in the following month and by 1934, 1/5 th of the party were Ryutins and expelled in a Chistka
What happened in 1932?
Pressures increased for Stalin as his wife committed suicide due to abuse and affair rumours
What happened to internal security in 1934?
It was passed to the NKVD led in turn by Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria and ordinary people were put in their control and labour camps were a national network called gulags
Why was Kirov a threat to Stalin?
- At the 17th party congress in 1934, a split was formed between Stalin, Molotov and Kaganovich who wanted to maintain the pace of industrialisation and Kirov who wanted to stop grain seizures and increasing worker’s rations later receiving a standing ovation
- Stalin, Kirov, Zhadanov and Kaganovich al received secretary of equal rank titles, in practice, it was favoured t deflect blame on economic struggles but in theory, it diminished Stalin’s importance
What happened when Kirov was murdered?
-It was on the 1st of the December 1934 in Leningrad party headquarters y Leonid Nikolayev who was an expelled party member and whose husband, he had an affair with. He had no connection to the NKVD. However, Kirov’s bodyguard and some NKVD men ere shot before they could give evidence. Some men were sentences due to failing to protect Kirov but it was short and they were treated leniently
What did Yagoda do in 1938?
He pleaded guilty to allow Nikolayev to reach Kirov when he was on trial
What was Stalin’s reactions?
- He claimed it was a Trotskyite plot to overthrow the party
- A decree was published the next day which gave Yagoda the power to arrest and execute anyone of terrorist plotting
How did terror increase as a result of Kirov’s murder?
- Over 100 party members were shot and thousands arrested and sent to prison camps
- In January 1935, Zinoviev, Kamenev and 17 others were accused of instigating terrorism and sentenced for between 5-10 years
- Soon after, 12 NKVD members in Leningrad were found guilty and imprisoned
- in June 1935, the death penalty was extended to anyone aware of subversive activity showing no limit to his power
How were show trials a political tool?
-Foreign journalists were invited to prove that Stalin and the USSR were facing enemies from the state justifying authority
- They were staged as the verdict was already decided so the accused had to admit guilt against the revolution and people
- Interrogation was used from subtle pressures, promises, starvation, physical and mental torture as well as threats to the defendant and his family
What law was passed in April 1935?
Children over the age 12 who were found guilty in trials were subjected to the same punishment as adults meaning that confessions could be coerced through false charges to children
What was Zinoviev, Kamenev +14 others trial like from the 19th-24th of August 1936?
- Zinoviev and Kamenev were secretly tried in 1935
- It was the first mass show trial for being in an alliance with Trotsky, stirring up discontent and plotting to kill Stalin
- Zinoviev announced I an fully and utterly guilty and Kamenev blamed the lust of power
- Vishinsky sentenced all defendants to death in the cellars of Lubyanka prison in Moscow on the 25th
- Trotsky was sentenced to death in absentia
- Yagoda oversaw proceedings
What happened on the 16th of August?
After Kamenev refused confess, Stalin waited for a signed confession by visiting Tomsky but it forced his suicide
What happened in September 1936?
Yagoda was replaced by Yezhov due to his passive participation especially in securing confessions from Rykov and Bukharin
What happened on the 30th of January 1937?
Radek and 17 others were tried for forming a Trotskyite centre to conduct sabotage, wrecking and terrorist activities to ruin the soviet economy and working with Japan and Germany to overthrow the government and 13 were sentenced to death
What was the 1936 constitution?
It was drafted by Bukharin and was introduced to celebrate triumphs and to mark that socialism had been achieved and the USSR was the most democratic in the world
What structural changes did it bring?
The federation of soviet republics grew from 7 to11, the congress was replaced with a supreme soviet made up of the soviet of the union and of nationalities and each republic had its own supreme soviet, promised local autonomy for ethnic groups supporting cultures and languages as well as 4 year elections
How did voting change?
Anyone over 18 could vote but it was changed to 23 in 1945 including the former people so it wouldn’t bedominated by part representatives
What did the statement of civil rights give?
Freedom of speech, religion, press and from arbitrary arrest as citizens were expected to work to be guaranteed the right to work, education and social welfare. The republics were given rights of jurisdiction including primary education
How was the constitution in practice?
- It was democratic to impress foreigners but rights were ignores
- The central control exercised over the republic’s budgets ensured primacy of union laws and little regional independence
- The right of union -republics to leave was acknowledges, Stain didn’t allow it to happen in practice as party leaders in Georgia in 1951 were urged for it
- The supreme soviet only met twice a year so it was viewed as a forum to impart decisions to localities instead of debating
What was the NKVD order 00447 issued in July 1937?
It was drafted by Yezhov and approved by the politburo to establish NKVD regional committees to seek out former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements. The committees:
- Classified Kulaks and other anti-Soviet elements into two categories
- the first were killed by shooting
- the second were sent to gulag labour camps
- worked to a system of quotas - upper quotas established by areas and social classes
What were quotas like?
- An arrest list was drawn up from artists, musicians, scientists, writers, managers and administrators
- In theory, the quotas could not be surpassed but in practice, they were easily as Yezhov and Stalin intervened
- Within a month, 100,000 had been arrested and 14,000 sent to a gulag
What happened by the autumn of 1937?
The pressure to arrest was so high, committees selected based on how easily they would confess especially those dangerous to society like gypsies or former members of other political parties. Party officials and thousands of ordinary people were denounced and swept into arrests
How did this affect ordinary people?
- Communal efforts were encouraged to find hidden enemies from neighbours, workers, family and friends
- The NKVD relied on informers to keep up with quote as the was one per 400 people creating a climate of fear through pressure
How were people treated?
- Confessions were extracted by threats, physical and mental torture
- Beatings and sending victims from one interrogator to another was common
When were some officers initially incriminated?
In the 1936-7 show trials due to a fear of a military coup
What happened in May 1937 and what did this lead to?
- Tukhachevsky and Yan Gamarik were arrested due to espionage and plotting with Trotsky
- With 6 other top military commanders, they were executes in June
- This led to the great purge of the red army which included two marshals of the soviet union (the highest rank created in 1935), 11 war commissars, 8 admirals (and those that replaced them), all but one senior air force commanders, 50% of officer corps in all services and a large number of military intelligence however in 1940, 1/4 of those imprisoned were reinstated
How did the military purges affect terror in the party?
- In June 1937, Osip Pyatnitsky spoke out and Yezhov found evidence the next day that he was an agent of the secret tsarist police force
- He was removed from the central committee, stripped of party membership, arrested, imprisoned and executed in October 1938
- During 1937-8, 74 officials were shot for refusing to execute those who they believed to be innocent
What was the trial of 21 in March 1938 with Rykov and Bukharin?
- They were accused on espionage, sabotage, belonging to a rightist group, accused of plotting to kill Lenin in 1918 and working with Japan and Germany
- Included Yagoda and Tomsky but they had already committed suicide
- Bukharin held out to confess for 3 months as he sent 34 letters to Stalin but threats to his young family made him confess
- He and 17 others were executed
What were some impacts of purges in the party?
- It removed individuals who stood in the way of a promotion or show an individual’s zealous devotion to Stalin
- The order of July 1937 against anti-Soviet elements led to low-ranking members denounce those above them while higher officials and secretaries accused those on the ground
- By the end of 1938, 1/3 of all party members were purged due to being part of a Trotskyite conspiracy
How much did gulags grow in terms of people?
c800,000 in 1935 to between 5.5 and 9.5 million by the end of 1938 especially through intellectuals
How did gulags treat people?
- People either worked to death or were shot outright
- Anti-Soviet enemies were shown no mercy as re-education and early release was not an option
- Meagre rations, inadequate clothing, poor and overcrowded accommodation, a lack of healthcare, high work expectations higher than urban workers and a mortality rate between 4 and 6 times higher than the rest of the USSR
What happened to Koreans in 1937?
They were deported from the eastern region to Central Asia when there were threats for war with Japan
What happened to Poles and Germans?
- They were deported from near the Western front as by 1941, over 40,000 Volga Germans were deported to Siberia and central Asia
- Extensive purges in Poland and the Baltic states between 1939 and 1940
What happened to national communists who were against policies?
They may be against centralisation through Russian being compulsory everywhere, were replaced especially in 1937 so by 1938, the entire party leadership of non-Russian republics were loyal to Moscow
What as Anti-Semitism like?
- Attitudes rose especially in rural areas against saboteurs
- When 2 million were incorporated in the USSR during the outbreak of war, many rabbis and religious leaders were arrested
What was minority hatred like?
-Limited mass scale as it was difficult to organise
- Stalin’s anti-religious campaigns spread into Ukraine and Belorussia as there was a direct persecution of Muslims in the Central Asian republic after 1928
How did the purges end?
- Purges did continue into world war II but the pace slowed down after 1938
- The Yezhovshchina proved detrimental to the state through industry and administration
- Yezhov was used as a scapegoat accusing him of excessive zeal and in the 18th part congress, Stalin declared mass cleansing were no longer needed. Yezhov was subsequently arrests, tortured, secretly tried and shot in February 1940 and replaced by Beria
What happened when Trotsky was tracked down in 1940?
- He was found in a fortified house on the outskirts of Mexico city
- In May, assassins were hired , the broke in and opened fire but Trotsky escaped unharmed
What did Mercador do?
He carried out the assassination and in August, he posed as an admirer of Trotsky and wanted advice on his political writings but instead plunged an ice pick into his head. Mercador received a sentence of 20 years for the attack but his other was award with the order of Lenin for her son’s service. Stalin thus ensured that the last of the old Bolsheviks would no longer have a claim
Who was to blame for terro?
- Stalin was known to be violent but other than his attitude towards collectivisation, there was no indication of the scale but the catalyst could be placed in his wife’s suicide
- Paranoid with his own position and wanted to eliminate the old guard
- Citizens believed the purges were protection from traitors limiting soviet progress painting Stalin as a hero
- Those who were anxious about terror didn’t want to blame Stalin
- Stalin applied terror more ruthlessly and on a larger scale than Lenin
- Terror was necessary to promote economic change by removing kulaks, slave labourers and scapegoats for mistakes
- Local officials and party activists had their own agenda and believed Stalin would want the promotion of terror as their actions would be unchecked
- It was a response to a threat of a military coup with the Germans due to suspicions of Stalin because of the contract between them
- Terror was self-escalating and was used by individuals to settle personal score creating a climate of fear
What was the impact of terror for Stalin and his inner circle?
- Stalin was in a position of supreme power as a dictator by removing political rivals
- The central committee, which had before 1936, controlled membership through expulsions who failed to match standards of discipline lost this power
- The expulsion of 850,000 members between 1936-38 was due to personal intervention of Stalin and the NKVD an the reasons for dismissal were more arbitrary
- By 1939, less than 10% of members joined before 1920; less than a quarter of recruits since 1920 survived the purges
What were the impacts in the army?
- 23,000 officers were shot or dismissed
- Many new officers had to be recruited to increase the size of the army from 1 million in 1936 to 5 million by 1941
- It was hard to find and train officers and the military failures of 1941 can be blamed on the purges
What happened in wider society due to the purges?
- There was a lack of teachers, engineers and specialists during rapid industrialisation when their skills were needed
- Its impact was dependent on areas and the zeal of local officials and ordinary people could now become managers and officials making them more accountable and responsive to needs
