The secret police under Stalin Flashcards
The Soviet secret police was transformed under Stalin - expand on this claim
Lenin had used the Cheka, GPU and OGPU to attack the enemies of the Party. Moreover, he used terror much more widely, sending millions to his Gulags. In order to justify the radical extension of terror, he developed a new doctrine that led to a change in the culture of the secret police
What were Stalin’s reasons for maintaining terror under the NKVD?
Due to his paranoia and his need to maintain his narcissistic self image as the hero of the revolution
The NKVD under Genrikh Yagoda
Yagoda played an important role in the Great Terror: he collaborated with Stalin in turning the NKVD against the Communist Party. In that sense his appointment as NKVD chief was a turning point in Soviet politics
Who was the leader of the NKVD from 1936-38?
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov
Terror under Nikolai Yezhov
Yezhov played an important role in radicalising the NKVD. Under Yezhov the Great Terror spread to engulf the whole of the Soviet Government
In order to justify more extensive terror, Stalin put forward a new theory…
the doctrine of sharpening class struggle. Stalin argued that as socialism advanced. the class struggle intensified. Capitalists, he argued, fought harder as socialism succeeded. This theory turned Lenin’s assumptions on their head and provided the justification for ever increasing terror
What did Yezhov’s reforms reflect?
His reforms reflected the doctrine of sharpening class struggle by turning the secret police into a ruthless organisation capable of enforcing ever growing terror
Under Yezhov, the NKVD implemented the “Great Terror” which…
- Accelerated the “arrest to imprisonment” process
- Increased executions
- Widened surveillance of the Soviet population
What did Yezhov introduce to speed up the process of getting confessions from the NKVD’s victims?
The “conveyor belt system”
What did the “conveyor belt system” involve?
The system involved groups of NKVD agents working in shifts around the clock. This meant torture and interrogation could continue relentlessly until prisoners confessed
Yezhovchina
Under Yezhov the terror attacked all aspects of Soviet life: the Party, the army, industry and collective farms. The result, between 1937 and 1938, was what historian Donald Rayfield describes as the “Yezhov bloodbath”
This period became known as “Yezhovchina”, meaning that the whole of Soviet society was engulfed in Yezhov’s terror
Yezhovchina transformed the government districts of Moscow and Leningrad into…
ghost towns. Mass arrests of government officials left entire apartment blocks empty
Yezhovchina - mass terror example
During this period, around 1.5 million, approximately ten per cent of the male adult population, were arrested by the NKVD. Of these around 635,000 were deported, often to Siberia, and over 680,000 were executed
How did the terror cause massive economic problems?
Deporting and executing factory managers, economic planners and government officials removed the experts needed to run Stalin’s command economy. Therefore during the first years of the Third Five-Year Plan production rated either declined or stagnated
How did Stalin emerge from the terror?
Stalin emerged from the terror stronger than ever. The terror removed almost everyone from government who had fought in the Civil War or who had worked with Lenin, and therefore could claim to have authority independent from Stalin. Moreover, Stalin replaced these officials with his own supporters, people who owed loyalty to him alone
