TERROR UNDER STALIN

Question 1

What were the first purges called?

Answer 1

Ryutin Purges

Question 2

Who was Yezhov?

Answer 2

Chief of the control commission - the branch of the central committee responsible for party discipline.

Question 3

Who was Yagoda?

Answer 3

Head of the newly formed NKVD, the state security force.

Question 4

Who was Beria?

Answer 4

Replaced Yagoda as head of NKVD. Front runner to attain power after Stalin.

Question 5

When was Kirov murdered?

Answer 5

December 1934.

Question 6

Who assassinated Kirov?

Answer 6

Nikolayev.

Question 7

What was Nikolayev’s association to the Communists?

Answer 7

He joined at 16, but after some trouble in the party was expelled in March 1934.

Question 8

What was the supposed motive behind Nikolayev assassinating Kirov?

Answer 8

His wife was a secretary at the party headquarters, and he believed she was having an affair with Kirov.

Question 9

What had happened regarding Kirov by the summer of 1934?

Answer 9

Kirov and Stalin had fallen out over a number of issues.

Question 10

What are the three theories about the Kirov murder?

Answer 10

• Nikolayev acted alone.
• Nikolayev acted alongside the NKVD.
• Nikolayev was instructed by the NKVD and with Stalin’s knowledge.

Question 11

What were the purges of the people aiming to do?

Answer 11

Achieve the goals of the five year plans.

Question 12

How did the purging of the people link to nationalities?

Answer 12

Used as a way of forcing regions and nationalities into total subordination to Stalin.

Question 13

How much of the population were arrested during the purges?

Answer 13

One in 18 of the population was arrested during Stalin’s purges.

Question 14

How badly affected were the population by the purges?

Answer 14

Almost every family in the USSR suffered the loss of at least one member.

Question 15

What was the trial of 16?

Answer 15

Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev along with thirteen others confessed to the murder of Kirov under torture.

Question 16

When was the trial of 17? What was it?

Answer 16

1937 - alleged plot with the Germans.

Question 17

Who in particular was purged in the purge of the party?

Answer 17

The “Old Bolsheviks”.

Question 18

How many officers were purged in the purge of the military?

Answer 18

35,000 or 50%.

Question 19

What was announced regarding the army in 1937?

Answer 19

Giant conspiracy in the Red Army.

Question 20

When were the ‘Great Purges’?

Answer 20

1936-9.

Question 21

When was the Leningrad Affair? What was the Leningrad Affair?

Answer 21

January 1949, Leningrad Trade fair organised by Leningrad leaders who were heroes from WWII.

Question 22

What was the Gosplan?

Answer 22

Economic planning.

Question 23

What impact did the purges have on foreign opinion? What was the impact of this?

Answer 23

Foreign opinion was horrified - impacted trade and diplomacy having economic impacts.

Question 24

What were gulags?

Answer 24

Slave labour camps.

Question 25

What was the first major work project organised by the Gulag?

Answer 25

A 500 kilometre canal from the White Sea to the Baltic Sea. Nearly 300,000 prisoners are set to work.

Question 26

What were prisoners known as?

Answer 26

Zeks.

Question 27

How many hours a day would zeks work?

Answer 27

Up to 14 hours.

Question 28

What was the issue with malnutrition in the gulags?

Answer 28

Zeks were barely fed enough to sustain such difficult labour.

Question 29

What were conditions like for women in the gulags?

Answer 29

Male employees and prisoners abused women. Some female prisoners took on “camp husbands” for protection and companionship.

Question 30

What did Stalin say about the gulags?

Answer 30

“The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic”.

Question 31

What was the issue with the Leningrad affair?

Answer 31

It was falsely portrayed as a scheme to use the federal budget from Moscow for Leningrad.

Question 32

What did some believe Stalin manipulated Marxism-Leninism to serve?

Answer 32

His own megalomania, as shown by his repressive policies and the imposition of the cult of personality.

Question 33

Where did many of Stalin’s ‘new recruits’ find careers and opportunities in the early 1920s?

Answer 33

Nomenklatura.

Question 34

How did Stalin make it clear the Communist party still dominated the union and republican governments?

Answer 34

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’.

Question 35

How much of the NKVD had been purged by the start of WW2?

Answer 35

20,000 members.