The Yezhovshchina

Question 1

What happened from July 1937?

Answer 1

Stalinist terror took on a new intensity with the issue of NKVD order 00447 that was drawn up by Yezhov and approved by the Politburo who ordered the establishment of small NKVD committees at regional levels as well as at Republic level, to search out ‘former Kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements’

Question 2

What were the committees to do?

Answer 2

Classify Kulaks and other anti-Soviet elements into two categories
Subject the first category to death by shooting
Send the second category to the gulag labour camps
Work to a system of quotas - with upper quotas established by area and social classes

Question 3

What else was drawn up?

Answer 3

An arrest list including artists, musicians, scientists and writers, as well as managers and administrators

Question 4

What was difficult in theory but proved easy?

Answer 4

To exceed the quotas but in practice it proved easy to obtain Yezhov ‘s personal approval to exceed the limits and in some cases Stalin intervened personally to allow more arrests

Question 5

Within a month how many had been arrested and what had happened by autumn?

Answer 5

Over 100,000 and 14,000 sent to gulags
By autumn 1937 the pressure to achieve arrests was so great that the NKVD committees started selecting individuals almost at random (targeting those who might confess most easily)

Question 6

Who were the NKVD keen to root out?

Answer 6

Those considered dangerous to society, such as those belonging to suspect groups like gypsies or former members of other political parties. Party officials were often denounced as well as thousands of ordinary people being arrested

Question 7

What were people encouraged to do?

Answer 7

Root out ‘hidden enemies’ - to check up on neighbours or fellow workers, and even watch their friends and family for signs of oppositional thoughts

Question 8

What did the NKVD rely on to keep up their quotas of arrests?

Answer 8

Informers so an atmosphere of suspicion and fear was created
Estimated that there was only one informer for every 400 inhabitants but the concentration of informants varied with perception often stronger than reality

Question 9

How were confessions abstracted?

Answer 9

By threats or physical and mental torture
Beatings and the ‘conveyor belt’ system, where a victim was passed from one interrogator to another until he or she was mentally or physically broken were common

Question 10

What did the red terror coincide with?

Answer 10

A series of national show trials, often referred to as ‘the Great Purges’

Question 11

What was the trial of 17th January 1937?

Answer 11

A show trial of 17 prominent communists who were accused of plotting with Trotsky (who was living in exile), spying and sabotaging. After delivering their ‘confessions’ 13 were sentenced to death

Question 12

What happened after some officers had been incriminated in show trials of 1936 and 1937?

Answer 12

Stalin feared they might try and mount a military coup so in May 1937 he ordered the arrest of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky (chief of staff and deputy commissar for defence) and Yan Gamarnik (head of the Red Army’s political commissars). They were accused of espionage and plotting with Trotsky so together (with six other top military commanders) were executed in June 1937

Question 13

What did this first military trial open the way for?

Answer 13

A ‘Great Purge’ of the Red Army, which included two further ‘Marshalls of the Soviet Union’, 11 war commissars, all 8 admirals (and those that replaced them), all but one senior air force commander, about 50% of the officers corps in all three services as well as a substantial number in military intelligence, being executed and imprisoned

Question 14

What happened to those imprisoned during the Great Purge of the Red Army?

Answer 14

By mid 1940 around 1/4 had been reinstated.

Question 15

What happened in June 1937 when Osip Pyatnitsky (Comintern official and member of the CC) voiced concerns about the trials/purges?

Answer 15

The following morning, Yezhov ‘unearthed’ evidence that Pyatnitsky had been an agent of the tsarist secret police. He was removed from the CC, stripped of party membership, arrested, imprisoned for a year and executed in October 1938

Question 16

1937-38 how many officials were shotfor refusing to approve the execution of people whom the officials believed innocent?

Answer 16

74 million

Question 17

Who was targeted in the 21st March 1938?

Answer 17

A group of 21 prominent communists, accused of belonging to rightist and Trotskyite bloc were interrogated in the third show trial of March 1938.
Among these = Bukharin, Rykov, Yagoda ( and Tomsky was due to be put on trail but committed suicide first)

Question 18

What were the accusations of the March 1938 trial?

Answer 18

The group of ‘Old Bolsheviks’ faced fabricated claims of, for example, plotting to kill Lenin in 1918 and conspiring with the Japanese and the Germans to divide the USSR.

Question 19

Did Bukharin confess at the 1938 trial and what were the other outcomes?

Answer 19

He proved a tough opponent for NKVD interrogators as he held out for three months (and sent 34 personal letters to Stalin) but threats to his young wife and infant son eventually wore him down
While others made full confessions at the trial, Bukharin would only admit the ‘sum total of crimes’ - refusing to confess to specific allegations
He professed his loyalty to the end but he and 17 other were executed

Question 20

What happened to Tukhachevsky’s family?

Answer 20

His wife was jailed and executed , his mother and one sister died in prison. Three other sisters managed to survive prison but their husbands were executed along with his two brothers

Question 21

What did the purges provide an opportunity to do?

Answer 21

Settle old scores and remove those who stood in the way of a promotion or simply to show devotion to Stalin, as party members were often denounced by their colleagues

Question 22

What did the order of July 1937 against ‘anti-Soviet elements’ lead to?

Answer 22

Led to lower ranking party members denouncing those above them and higher officials / secretaries denouncing those on the ground
1/3 of all party members had been purged by the end of 1938, many of which were accused of ‘Trotskyite conspiracy’

Question 23

From the 1930’s what were more of built and why?

Answer 23

Gulags to provide cheap labour for Stalin’s huge industrial projects, as well as to house political prisoners and ‘class enemies’ such as the Kulaks. From 1937 with the Great purges and the spread of the terror the gulags took on a new , more sinister aspect

Question 24

What did gulag inmate numbers rise to and from 1935 - 1938?

Answer 24

From around 800,000 in 1935 to anything between 5.5 and 9.5 million by the end of 1938
The numbers of intelligentsia in the gulags increased

Question 25

What did the gulags become and what else changed?

Answer 25

Places in which prisoners were intentionally worked to death or just murdered 
Prisoners were no longer regarded as being capable of 're-education' and the possibility of early release for good behaviour disappeared 
The term 'class enemies' was replaced with 'anti-Soviet enemies' who were shown no mercy
Even camp commandants were not immune from the persecution and many were purged

Question 26

What were conditions in the gulag like for those which didn’t face immediate execution?

Answer 26

There were small rations (that could be reduced at the smallest provocation), inadequate clothing, poor and overcrowded accommodation and a lack of health care
Work expectations were high, the physical demands excessive and the hours of work far greater than that of town workers
Mortality rates were between 4 and 6 times higher than the rest of the USSR

Question 27

Why was Stalin’s rule difficult for the various nationalities in the USSR and what is an example of this?

Answer 27

The republics suffered because of Stalin’s economic changes and the terror, with a wave of national deportations from 1937
In 1937 a large Korean minority was deported from the Far Eastern region to Central Asia when war with Japan threatened
Poles and Germans were also deported from near the Western frontier and extensive purges were carried out in the newly annexed parts of Poland and the Baltic States in 1939-40

Question 28

What happened in 1941 surrounding national minorities?

Answer 28

Over 400,000 Volga Germans were deported to Siberia and Central Asia

Question 29

What happened to national communists within the republics who showed distaste for centralising policies?

Answer 29

They were purged - virtually the entire party leadership of non-Russian republics was replaced 1937-38 by those more prepared to bow to Moscow’s wishes

Question 30

What did the years of the Yezhovshchina also see?

Answer 30

Anti-Semitic attitudes revived - especially in rural areas during the campaigns against saboteurs. When 2 million Jews were incorporated into the SU 1939-40, as a result of the invasion of Eastern Poland and Baltic republics, many rabbis and religious leaders were arrested in these areas

Question 31

Despite there being no evidence for mass national minority discontent at this time, what was life for Soviet citizens outside Russia like?

Answer 31

It became increasingly difficult - Stalin’s anti-religious campaigns for e.g. spread into Ukraine and Belorussia and there was direct persecution of Muslims in the Central Asian republics after 1928

Question 32

When and why did the purges slow down?

Answer 32

Pace slowed down after the end of 1938 but continued well into the Second World War because the Yezhovshchina had threatened to destabilise the state and both administration and industry suffered
Stalin used Yezhov as a scapegoat, accusing him of excessive zeal and at the 18tg party congress declared that the ‘mass cleansings’ were no longer needed

Question 33

What happened to Yezhov following this scapegoating?

Answer 33

He was arrested, tortured, secretly tried and shot in February 1940. He was replaced by Lavremtii Beria

Question 34

What happened leading up to Trotsky’s death?

Answer 34

Trotsky had been tracked down by Stalinist agents, living in a fortified house on the outskirts of Mexico City. In May, hired assassins had broken in and open fired but Trotsky escaped unharmed

Question 35

Who carried out the successful assassination and what happened?

Answer 35

Ramon Mercador - gained access to house by posing as an admire keen to get Trotsky’s views on a political paper he had written. Once in Trotsky’s study he plunged an ice pick into Trotsky’s head

Question 36

What happened to Mercador as a consequence and what had it allowed Stalin to do?

Answer 36

He received a 20 year sentence for the attack but his mother was rewarded the ‘Order of Lenin’ in honour of his son’s services
Stalin ensured that the last of the old Bolsheviks who might have had a greater claim to leadership was gone

Question 37

In what three ways was Stalin responsible for the purges and terror?

Answer 37

He was crucial in both starting and ending the purges (temporarily until they resumed during and after ww2)
Stalin had always been a man of action/violence (key moment leading to institutionalisation of the terror may have been suicide of Stalin’s wife in 1932)
His personality made him suspicious, vindictive and paranoid, obsessed with reinforcing his own position and removing his rivals

Question 38

What was Stalin personally responsible for?

Answer 38

Promoting and ending the purges - many Soviet citizens apparently believed the official party line that Stalin was a heroic leader, protecting his people from traitors trying to hold back soviet progress. Many of those anxious in the terror persuaded themselves that Stalin was not personally responsible

Question 39

What were two other explanations for the terror?

Answer 39

The terror was in integral part of the communist system - the revolution, its aftermath and civil war saw the regime born in terror and then maintained by terror, so Stalin’s application of terror was somewhat justified in order to ensure that the socialist state remained intact
Terror was a necessary part of the economic change and was needed to remove Kulaks, provide slave labour and scapegoats for mistakes

Question 40

What were two other explanations for the terror?

Answer 40

It was the work of over-zealous officials in the provinces, who acted ruthlessly and followed their own independent agenda so it didn’t come exclusively from Stalin. Local party activists promoted terror, confident it was what Stalin wanted so their actions wouldnt be checked
Terror was a response to the real threat of a military coup involving the Germans (contacts between the Red Army and Nazis that arose from the Rapallo and Berlin treaties had made Stalin suspicious)

Question 41

What is the final explanation of the terror?

Answer 41

The terror was self-escalating, it almost took on a life of its own as individuals used it to settle personal scores, get rid of rivals etc and fear fed on fear. For those in fear of being denounced, it was better top prove loyalty by denouncing someone else first.

Question 42

By the end of the terror what sort of position was Stalin in?

Answer 42

In a position of supreme power - he was a dictator with absolute control over the Party and a subservient populace

Question 43

Despite Stalin removing high profile rivals, what must be remembered?

Answer 43

Most of the high profile victims such as Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin etc had lost power and political influence before the terror

Question 44

How had Stalin’s control over the central committee changed as a result of the terror?

Answer 44

Before 1936 the CC had controlled membership through expulsion of those who had failed to match the high standards of discipline that party membership demanded but in the terror it lost this power
The expulsion of 850,000 members between 1936-38 was due to the personal interventions of Stalin and Yezhov’s NKVD and the reasons for dismissal were more arbitrary

Question 45

By 1939 what was party membership like?

Answer 45

Less than 10% of party membership had joined before 1920 and less than 1/4 of recruits since 1920 survived the purges

Question 46

What was the loss of experienced army officers like?

Answer 46

Around 23,000 officers were shot or dismissed(some later reinstated) and many new officers had to be recruited to match the increase in the size of the Red Army in the late 1930’s (which had increased from under 1 million in 1936 to 5 million by 1941)

Question 47

Why did the loss of officers have such a big impact and what shows this?

Answer 47

It was difficult to find and train this number of officers and military failures in the first months of war in 1941 is at least partly attributed to the purges

Question 48

How were other areas of society also deprived of skilled personnel?

Answer 48

Teachers, engineers and specialists were all persecuted at a time when rapid industrial change demanded their expertise

Question 49

What two things is it important to remember in relation to suffering during the purges?

Answer 49

Different areas suffered to greater or lesser extents depending on the zeal of local officials
While some elements of society suffered more greatly than others, there were also the positive outcome that ‘ordinary people’ had been given an opportunity to ‘shake up’ their managers and officials - making them more accountable and therefore more responsive to needs.