The Yezhovshchina Flashcards
When was NKVD Order 00447 issued?
July 1937
Explain the July 1937 NKVD Order
It established a small NKVD committees
these could classify anti-soviet elements into 2 categories:
death by shooting
entry to the gulag labour camps
What did the NKVD committees have to work to meet?
Quotas which were often exceeded
By August 1937, in one month, how many had been arrested and sent to Gulags by the NKVD committed.
100,000 arrested
14,000 sent to Gulags
What is the estimated ratio between informers and inhabitants
1 informers to 400 inhabitants
When was the Trial of 17?
January 1937
How many in the trial of 17 were sentenced to death?
Who were they and what were they accused of?
13/17
Accused of plotting with Trotsky
prominent communists including Karl Radek- editor of Izvstiya and one of the framers for 1936 constitution
When were the military purges?
May-June 1937
Why did the military purges occur?
Some officers were incriminated under show trials of 1936/1937 so there was a threat of a military coup
Who did Stalin order to be arrested first under the military purges and when?
May 1937
Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky- Deputy commissar for Defence
Yan Gamarnik- Head of Red Army Political Commissars
+ 6 top military men executed in June 1937
Approximately what % of officer corps in all 3 services were executed for imprisoned ?
But how many of these were reinstated?
50%
1/4 of imprisoned were reinstated by the middle of the 1940
Under the Great Purge of the Red Army, name some ppl who were targeted
11 war commissars
all 8 admirals and their replacements
Marshals of the Soviet Union - highest military rank
all bar one of senior air force commanders
Between 1937 and 1938 how many military officers were shot for refusing to approve execution.
74
Name a concreate example of someone who opposed the purges and what happened to them
June 1937 Osip Pyatnitsky- member of central committee and comintern spoke out and then the next day evidence of his involvement as a ‘tsarist secret police’. Executed October 1938
When was the trial of 21?
March 1938
Name the prominent communist in the Trial of 21 in 1938
Bukharin
Rykov
Yagoda
Tomsky
During the trial of 21, how long did Bukharin hold out for and why did he finally cave?
Held out for 3 months
Threats to his wife and young son made him cave
During the trial of 21 how many letters did Bukharin send to Stalin?
34
How many out of the 21 were executed?
18
How much of the party by 1938 was purged?
1/3 of all party members
How many were in Gulags in 1935
800,000
How many were in Gulags in 1938
5.5-9.5 million
What were those who opposed Stalin called?
Anti-soviet enemies or class enemies
Describe the conditions of the camps?
meagre rations
inadequate clothing, poor and overcrowded accommodation
What were the mortality rates of the Gulags compared to the rest of the Soviet Union?
4-6 times higher
In 1941 how many Volga Germans were deported to Serbia and Central Asia?
over 400,000
How many Jews were incorporated in the Soviet Union in 1939-1940?
2 million
How was Yezhov used as a scapegoat?
accused of excessive zeal and tried, tortured shot in Feb 1940 in secret.
When/ Where/ was Trotsky found?
August 1940
Mexico City
Who assassinated Trotsky and how was he treated?
Ramon Mercador
Sentenced for 20 years but his mother got ‘Order of Lenin’
How many Party members were expelled between 1936-1938
850,000 members
By 1939 what % of the party membership that joined before 1920 survived?
less than 10%
How many of the recruits since 1920
less than a quarter
In the late 1930s how many officers were shot or dismissed ?
23,000
Compared size of the Red Army in 1936 and 1941
Size of the Red Army increased from 1 million in 1936 to 5 million by 1941.
