Yeschovina Complete

Question 1

What was NKVD order 00047?

Answer 1

Drawn up by Yezhov and approved by the Poliburo eho ordered the establishment of small NKVD committees at regional levels as well as Republic levels to search out ‘former Kulaks’

Question 2

Role of NKVD committes?

Answer 2

Classify Kulaks and other anti Soviet elements into 2 categories
Subject first category to death by shooting
Send second to gulag camps
Work to a system of quotas- upper established by area and social classes

Question 3

Who did the arrest list of NKVD include?

Answer 3

Artists, musicians, scientists and managers

Question 4

Within a month how many had been arrested?

Answer 4

100,000

Question 5

How many sent to Gulags?

Answer 5

14,000

Question 6

Impact of pressure to arrest people?

Answer 6

NKVD started targeting individuals at random- targeting those who might confess most easily

Question 7

What type of individuals were considered dangerous to society?

Answer 7

Gypsies and members of other political parties

Question 8

What did NKVD rely on to make arrests?

Answer 8

Informers

Recent historians say for every 400 people there was 1 informer

Question 9

What was the conveyor belt?

Answer 9

A victim was passed from one interrogator to another until they were physically and mentally broken

Question 10

Show trial 17th Jan 1937?

Answer 10

17 prominent communists were accused of plotting with Trotsky who was living in exile abroad, spying and sabotaging the industry. After delivering their confessions 13 were sentenced to death

Question 11

Military Purge May-June 1937?

Answer 11

Stalin ordered the arrest of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky- Deputy Commissar for defence- accused of espionage and plotting with Trotsky and along with 6 other top military commanders were executed in June 1937

Question 12

Impact of military trial?

Answer 12

Opened the way for the ‘Great Purge’ of Red Army

Question 13

Victims of Red Army purge?

Answer 13

2 further Marshals, 11 war commissars, 8 admirals and all but one of senior air force commanders

Question 14

What percentage of officer corps were either executed or imprisoned?

Answer 14

50%

Question 15

In 1937-1938 what were 74 million officials shot for?

Answer 15

Refusing to approve the execution of people whom the officials believed were innocent

Question 16

21st March trial 1938?

Answer 16

Trial of B and R and Yagoda
Group of old Bolsheviks faced wild and fabricated claims for example plotting to kill Lenin in 1918 and conspiring with Germans and Japanese to dismember the USSR
17 were executed

Question 17

Why was B a tough opponent for NKVD?

Answer 17

He held out for 3 months- sent 34 personal letters to S
Threats to his wife and young son eventually wore him out
B would only admit to the sum total of crimes and refused to confess to specific allegations

Question 18

What did purges provide opportunites for?

Answer 18

Settle old scores, remove those who stood in the way of a promotion, to show an individuals devotion to S

Question 19

By 1938 how many party members had been purged?

Answer 19

1/3

Question 20

Gulag numbers in 1935?

Answer 20

800000

Question 21

Gulag numbers by 1938?

Answer 21

Between 5.5 and 9.5 million

Question 22

What disappeared in gulags?

Answer 22

Prisoners being able to reeducated or released early for good behaviour

Question 23

Conditions in Gulags?

Answer 23

Meagre rations - which could be further reduced on slightest provocation, inadequate clothing, poor and overcrowded accomodation, no health care’ medical provision

Question 24

Death rates in Gulags?

Answer 24

4 times higher than any where else in USSR

Question 25

How did anti sematic attitudes revive during times of Yeschovina?

Answer 25

When 2 million Jews were incorporated into USSR in 1939 many rabbis and religious leaders were arrested- potential saboteurs

Question 26

When did pace of purges slow down?

Answer 26

1938

Question 27

Downfall of Yeshov?

Answer 27

S used him as a scape goat accusing him of zeal and 18th party declared that mass cleansings were no longer needed
Yeshov was arrested, tortured, secretly tried and shot in Feb 1940

Question 28

Downfall of Trotsky?

Answer 28

August 1940- tracked down by Stalinist agents and in May hired assassins broke in and opened fire by Trotsky escaped unharmed
Mercador= successful assassinator, posed as an admirer but drove an ice pick in to Trotsky’s head- recieved 20 year prison sentence

Question 29

What was Mercador mother awarded?

Answer 29

Order of Lenin to honour her sons service

Question 30

Influence of S in terror?

Answer 30

Earliest B days he was a man of action

Did Stalin’s wife lead to intensified purges

Question 31

Influence of personality?

Answer 31

Suspicious, vindictive and even paranoid

Obsessed with reinforcing his own position and eliminating rivals and getting revenge of political rivals

Question 32

How did people view purges?

Answer 32

Many who were anxious about excesses during terror persuaded themselves that Stalin was not responsible- he was a heroic leader protecting his people from traitors