The Terror

Question 1

Purges under Lenin

Answer 1

• 1918 - 50,000 people killed by the Cheka under Felix Dzherzhinsky
• 1921 - 150,000 members of the old government and parties killed
• 1921-8 - 450,000 counter-revolutionaries killed

Question 2

Shakty Trial 1928

Answer 2

55 engineers charged as saboteurs for failing to meet production quotas

Question 3

Industrial Planning and Research Trial 1930

Answer 3

Gosplan officials put on trail for poor planning

Question 4

Ryutin Purges 1933-4

Answer 4

• Ryutin removed from the party, but Politburo members including Kirov and Ordzhonikidze argue against Stalin having him executed
• Stalin begins to believe organised resistance is still possible
• 33% of the Party are expelled
• 600,000 members are eventually executed

Question 5

Congress of Victors 1934

Answer 5

• Seventeenth Party Congress
• Kirov gains more votes for head of the Central Committee than Stalin
• Kirov gains 1,225 votes, whilst Stalin gains only 927 (275:3)
• Kirov’s supporters also push him to take over the role of General Secretary

Question 6

Removal of important Bolsheviks

Answer 6

• Dec 1934 - Kirov (supposedly) murdered by Leonid Nikolayev
• 1934 - Zinoviev and Kamenev are put on a show trial and executed with 14 others
• 1936 - Yagoda is replaced with Yezhov when the trial of Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky takes too long to carry out. Tomsky commits suicide
• 1938 - Bukharin, Rykov and Yagoda are executed

Question 7

Purging of the Party 1936-8

Answer 7

Approximately 850,000 members purged at Stalin’s personal intervention

Question 8

NKVD 1936

Answer 8

• Order 00447 gives an arrest quota of 259,450 people
• 28% were to be shot
• The rest were to be given 8-10 years in the gulags

Question 9

Arrest rates 1936-8

Answer 9

-1936:
131,000 arrests
1,118 executions

-1937:
936,000 arrests
353,000 executions

-1938:
639,000 arrests
329,000 executions

Question 10

Military Purges 1937-8

Answer 10

• 11 of 18 War Commissars shot
• 3 of 5 Marshalls
• 91 of 101 Military Council members
• 14 of 16 Army Commanders
• All Navy admirals
• General Tukhachevsky killed
• 35,000 (50%) officers

Question 11

Party Card

Answer 11

• All Party members had to carry a card
• The cards gave members preferential treatment in regards to housing, food rationing and employment
• Before the violence, undesirable members would have their cards taken for “checking” and not given back, removing them from the Party

Question 12

Kulak purges

Answer 12

• 1928-9

- Kulaks no longer exist as a class by 1932

Question 13

Stalin’s paranoia

Answer 13

• All other main contenders in the power struggle had been removed by this point in time
• Older party members knew how critical Lenin had been of him in his testament
• He lacked control over the Red Army and OGPU
• Yagoda (the new head of the secret police) fueled these suspicions

Question 14

Terror on the economy

Answer 14

• Economic issues blamed on political enemies
• Stalin claimed that there were “wreckers” working for his old party rivals
• Gulags supplied a large amount of slave labour (“white coal”)

Question 15

Kirov murder

Answer 15

• Dec 1934
• Kirov (supposedly) murdered by Leonid Nikolayev
• The Soviet press blames a “Trotskyist-Zinovievite” terror group
• The murder had rid Stalin of his main rival and allowed him to blame it on two others

Question 16

Mechanisms of control

Answer 16

• Border guards, labour camps and secret police
• Decree Against Terrorist Acts signed only two hours after Kirov’s murder
• Stalinists placed in important positions

Question 17

Political impact of the Terror

Answer 17

• Stalin’s position secured
• Criticisms diverted away from Stalin via propaganda and scapegoats
• Existing and potential opposition removed
• Older party members replaced with younger, more radical ones
• Administration halted

Question 18

Economic impact of the Terror

Answer 18

• Little leadership due to the lack of managers and Gosplan officials
• Statistics distorted due to exaggeration
• Coal production increases in the Donbas region
• Gulags provide sufficient labour
• Economic status grows exponentially compared to pre-Stalin Russia

Question 19

Social impact of the Terror

Answer 19

• 500,000 convicted and 405,000 sent to labour camps under Yagoda (1935-6)
• An entire generation of intellectuals and professionals between 30-45 years old essentially removed
• Poles, Romanians and Latvians targeted
• 95% of victims were men

Question 20

Impact of the Terror on women and children

Answer 20

• Women could lose their jobs or be arrested

- Children and students either expelled from university or publically humiliated by teachers and the Komsomol

Question 21

Impact of the Terror on coal production

Answer 21

(In the Donbas region)

1932: 45 million tonnes produced
1936: 80 million tonnes provided

Question 22

Reasons for targeting certain people

Answer 22

• Non-political reasons (76%)
• Being spies or linked to spies (1%)
• Being Zinovievites (3%)
• Being former White Guards or kulaks (20%)

Question 23

Leaders of the Cheka

Answer 23

• Felix Dzerzhinsky (1917-8)

- Yakov Peters (1918) - Replaced later with Dzherzhinsky again

Question 24

Leaders of the OGPU

Answer 24

• Felix Dzerzhinsky (1923 - July 1926)

- Vyacheslav Menzhinsky (July 1926 - May 1934)

Question 25

Leaders of the GUGB (department of the NKVD)

Answer 25

• Genrikh Yagoda (1934-6)
• Nikolai Yezhov (1937-8)
• Lavrenty Beria (1938-45)

Question 26

Stalinists in important positions

Answer 26

• Vyshinsky (Prosecutor)
• Poskrebyshov (Secretariat)
• Zhdanov (Party leader in Leningrad)

Question 27

Political issues in Georgia

Answer 27

(1937-9) Two state prime ministers and four-fifths of regional secretaries are removed from their posts