TERROR UNDER STALIN Flashcards
What were the first purges called?
Ryutin Purges
Who was Yezhov?
Chief of the control commission - the branch of the central committee responsible for party discipline.
Who was Yagoda?
Head of the newly formed NKVD, the state security force.
Who was Beria?
Replaced Yagoda as head of NKVD. Front runner to attain power after Stalin.
When was Kirov murdered?
December 1934.
Who assassinated Kirov?
Nikolayev.
What was Nikolayev’s association to the Communists?
He joined at 16, but after some trouble in the party was expelled in March 1934.
What was the supposed motive behind Nikolayev assassinating Kirov?
His wife was a secretary at the party headquarters, and he believed she was having an affair with Kirov.
What had happened regarding Kirov by the summer of 1934?
Kirov and Stalin had fallen out over a number of issues.
What are the three theories about the Kirov murder?
- Nikolayev acted alone.
- Nikolayev acted alongside the NKVD.
- Nikolayev was instructed by the NKVD and with Stalin’s knowledge.
What were the purges of the people aiming to do?
Achieve the goals of the five year plans.
How did the purging of the people link to nationalities?
Used as a way of forcing regions and nationalities into total subordination to Stalin.
How much of the population were arrested during the purges?
One in 18 of the population was arrested during Stalin’s purges.
How badly affected were the population by the purges?
Almost every family in the USSR suffered the loss of at least one member.
What was the trial of 16?
Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev along with thirteen others confessed to the murder of Kirov under torture.
When was the trial of 17? What was it?
1937 - alleged plot with the Germans.
Who in particular was purged in the purge of the party?
The “Old Bolsheviks”.
How many officers were purged in the purge of the military?
35,000 or 50%.
What was announced regarding the army in 1937?
Giant conspiracy in the Red Army.
When were the ‘Great Purges’?
1936-9.
When was the Leningrad Affair? What was the Leningrad Affair?
January 1949, Leningrad Trade fair organised by Leningrad leaders who were heroes from WWII.
What was the Gosplan?
Economic planning.
What impact did the purges have on foreign opinion? What was the impact of this?
Foreign opinion was horrified - impacted trade and diplomacy having economic impacts.
What were gulags?
Slave labour camps.
What was the first major work project organised by the Gulag?
A 500 kilometre canal from the White Sea to the Baltic Sea. Nearly 300,000 prisoners are set to work.
What were prisoners known as?
Zeks.
How many hours a day would zeks work?
Up to 14 hours.
What was the issue with malnutrition in the gulags?
Zeks were barely fed enough to sustain such difficult labour.
What were conditions like for women in the gulags?
Male employees and prisoners abused women. Some female prisoners took on “camp husbands” for protection and companionship.
What did Stalin say about the gulags?
“The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic”.
What was the issue with the Leningrad affair?
It was falsely portrayed as a scheme to use the federal budget from Moscow for Leningrad.
What did some believe Stalin manipulated Marxism-Leninism to serve?
His own megalomania, as shown by his repressive policies and the imposition of the cult of personality.
Where did many of Stalin’s ‘new recruits’ find careers and opportunities in the early 1920s?
Nomenklatura.
How did Stalin make it clear the Communist party still dominated the union and republican governments?
In Article 126 of the Stalin constitution, which stated that the party was the ‘nucleus of all the public and state organisations of the working people’.
How much of the NKVD had been purged by the start of WW2?
20,000 members.
