Yezhovshchina Flashcards
When was the trial of 17?
1937
When was the purge of the military?
May-June 1937
When does Beria replace Yezhov as security chief?
March 1938
What year does the pace of terror slow down?
1939
When was the assassination of Trotsky in Mexico?
1940
When is the trial of 21?
March 1938
from what month and year did Stalin terror take a new intensity with the issue of NKVD Order 00447?
July 1937
Who drew up NKVD Order 00447 which was subsequently approved by the Politburo?
Yezhov
NKVD Order 00447 was drawn up by Yezhov and approved by the Politburo, what was thus ordered to be established?
a small NKVD committee at regional levels as well as at Republic level to search out former kulaks criminals and other anti-Soviet elements
What did the Order 00447 do?
it ordered the removal of Anti-Soviet elements
Arrest lists were drawn up under NKVD Order 00447, what did this include? (4)
artists, musicians scientists and writers
Within a month of the NKVD Order 00447 how many arrests had been made, sent to gulags?
100,000 arrests and 14,000 sent to gulag camps
By when was the pressure to achieve arrest quota’s os great that the NKVD committees began selecting individuals almost at random?
by the autumn 1937
What was everyone encouraged to root out?
hidden enemies
What did the NKVD rely on to keep up quota’s of arrests?
informers
Modern historians have estimated that there was only one informer to every ____ inhabitants?
400
How were confessions extracted from victims?
by threats or physical and mental torture using beatings and a ‘conveyor belt’ system whereby one interrogator to another until he or she was mentally or physically broken
Who was the editor of Izvestiya?
Radek
Radek, the editor of Izvestiya was one of the trial of 17; how many years was he imprisoned for?
10 years
when was the trial of 1937?
January 1937
Who was the 1937 trial of 17?
17 prominent communists who were accused of plotting with Trotsky, spying and sabotaging
how many of the trial of 17 in 1937 were sentenced to death?
13
While Trotsky was in exile in Mexico, on hearing of the Trial of the 17, his account was intended for publication, what had he said?
That he could not believe that people would believe that the Old Bolsheviks, hero’s of the civil war and the builders of the party would be guilty of espionage, saboteurs and fascists
When were the military purges?
May-June 1937
Who did Stalin order the arrest of in May 1937 after fearing they might try to mount to a military coup? (2)
Marshal Tuckhachevsky
and
Yan Gamarnik
When was Marshal Tuckhachevsky and Yan Gamarnik executed together with 6 other top military commanders during the military purges?
June 1937
The trial of Marshal Tuckhachevsky, Yan Gamarnik and 6 other top military commanders opened the way for a “great purge” of the Red Army which included how many
- Marshals of the Soviet Union
- war commissars
- admirals
- senior air force commanders
2 more Marshals of the Soviet Union
11 war commissars
8 admirals
and all but one air force commanders
What % of officer corps in all three services were executed or imprisoned?
50%
What fraction of those officer corps imprisoned were reinstated by the middle of the 1940’s?
1/4
What happened to Pyatnitsky, Comintern official and member of the Central Committee ?
he spoke out about the army purges, the following morning Yezhov unearthed evidence that he had been an agent of the tsarist secret police. Stripped of party membership and executed in 1938
During 1937-1938, how many officials were shot for refusing to approve the execution of people whom they had believed to be innocent?
74 million
Between what years were 74 million officials shot of refusing to approve the execution of people whom they believed to be innocent?
1937-1938
When was the trial of 21?
March 1938
Who were the 4 main defendants in the trial of 21 in 1938?
Bukharin, Rykov, Yagoda and Tomsky
What was Yagoda’s position prior to his arrest?
former head of the secret police
How many personal letters did Bukharin send to Stalin while arrested before the trial of 21 March 1938?
34
After 3 months arrest and 34 personal letters to Stalin why did Bukharin eventually give in to the interrogators?
after threats to his wife and infant son
As of 1935 what was the highest military rank?
Marshal of the Soviet Union
Marshal Tuckhachevsky was accused if esponiage and plotting with Trotsky, what happened to his family as a result?
His wife was arrested and executed in 1941, jobs mother and one sister died in prison and his 3 sisters husbands were shot as were his brothers
What was Marshal Tuckhachevsky accused of and executed for?
espionage and plotting with Stalin
When was Yagoda tried and executed in the trial of 21?
1938
What happened to Yagoda’s family after his execution?
they were shot, imprisoned or exiled
What did Yagoda’s removal ensure Stalin had full control of?
the NKVD
What had the purges provided an opportunity for party members?
to settle old scores and denounce their colleagues
What did the Order00447 1937 against ‘anti-Soviet elements’ lead lower-ranking Party members to denounce?
to denounce those above them such as higher officials and secretaries
By the end of 1938 what fraction of all Party members had been purged?
1/3rd
By the end of 1937 1/3rd of all Party members had been purged, what were many accused of?
Trotskyite conspiracy
From what year was Trotsky in exile abroad?
1929
What did Trotsky write in 1937 which mentioned that Stalin had created an over-bureaucratic state?
The Revolution Betrayed
What year did Trotsky write ‘The Revolution Betrayed’ which mentioned that Stalin had created an over-bureaucratic state?
1937
In what decade were more gulags built in order to provide cheap labour for Stalin’s huge industrial projects?
1930’s
There was a huge surge in inmate numbers following the Great Purges and spread of terror in the late 1930’s leading to an increase from 800,000 in 1935 to how many by the end of 1938 according to historian Robert Conquest?
between 5.5-9.5 million
Which historian claimed that the number of inmates in gulags increased from 800,000 in 1935 to between 5.5-9.5 million by the end of 1938?
Robert Conquest
What had the gulags become by the end of 1938?
they became places which deliberately worked to death the labourers or outright murdered them
Ironically, even who were not themselves immune to the persecution of the gulags and many purged?
camp commandants themselves
How was the work conditions of the gulags? (3)
- expectations high
- physical demands excessive
- hours of work in excess
What were the mortality rates in the gulags in comparison to those in the USSR?
4-6 x higher
From what year was there a wave of national deportations?
1937
In 1937 who were deported from the Far Eastern region to Central Asia when war with Japan threatened?
a Korean minority
Where were purges carried out in 1939 and 1940 to the nationalities?
to the newly annexed parts of Poland and the Baltic States
Poles and germans were deported from near the Western frontiers, purges were carried out in the annexed parts of Poland and the Baltic Sea in what 2 years?
1939 and 1940
IN 1941 how many Volga Germans were deported to Siberia and Central Asia?
400,000
IN what year was 400,000 Volga Germans deported to Siberia and Central Asia?
1941
Where had collectivisation have a devastating effect on the economy?
in some republics
Which republic’s agriculture decimated when it was force to produce cotton to supply Russian industry?
Uzbekistan
Why did Stalin adopt a ruthless policy of centralisation in the 1930s?
because of resistance to economic change
In the 1930’s Stalin adopted a ruthless policy of centralisation in the 1930’s because of resistance to economic change such as making what compulsory everywhere?
Russian
Virtually the entire party leadership of the non-Russian republics were replaced in what years by those more prepared to bow to Moscow’s wishes?
1937-1938
The years of the Yezhovchina, what was also seen to be revived especially in rural areas during campaigns against ‘saboteurs’?
anti-Semitic attitudes
When 2 million Jews were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1939-1940 as a result of the invasion of Eastern Poland and the Baltic republics, who were arrested in these areas?
many rabbis and religious leaders
How many Jews were incorporated into the Soviet Union 1939-1940 as a result of the invasion of Eastern Poland and Baltic republics in which many rabbis and religious leaders were arrested?
2 million
Where did Stalin’s anti-religious campaigns spread?
into the Ukraine and Belorussia
Where was there a direct persecution of Muslims after 1928?
Central Asia republics
Why did the pace of the Yezhovchina slow down by the end of 1938?
as this had threatened to destablise the State and both industry and administration suffered
Who did Stalin use as a scapegoat for industrial and administration failings at the Eighteenth Party Congress?
Yezhov
When was Yezhov executed for his ‘mass cleansing’s’ which Stalin denounced him for in the Eighteenth Party Congress for causing the industry and administration to suffer?
1940
Who replaced Yezhov as head of the NKVD?
Beria
Mercador was the assassin who killed Trotsky in 1940 with an ice pick and sentenced to 20 years in Mexico for this crime; how was his mother rewarded for her sons service?
she was given the “order of Lenin”
During the war in 1944 who organised the deportation of ‘suspect’ nationalities including the Crimean Tatars?
Beria
What in 1932 may have led to Stalin’s institutionalisation of the terror?
the suicide of his wife
Arguably, why was terror a necessary part of the process of economic change which had taken place since the 1920’s?
it was needed to remove the kulaks, provide slave labour and scapegoats for mistakes and failures
How can it be said that Terror did not come exclusively from Stalin?
as Local party activists promoted terror, knowing their actions would not be checked
What had made Stalin suspicious in regards to a german coup?
the contacts between the red Army and the Nazi’s following the Rapallo and Berlin treaties
How can the Terror be said to be self-escalating?
as it took on a life of its own, used by individuals to settle personal scores. Fear fed on fear.
What institution which had before 1936, controlled membership through expulsions of those who failed to match the high standards of disciple that Party membership demanded and lost its power?
the Central Committee
How many party members were expelled from 1936-1938?
850,000
Why were 850,000 party members expelled from 1936-1938?
because of the personal interventions of Stalin and Yezhov’s NKVD
By 1939 what % of the Party membership had joined before 1920?
less than 10%
What fraction of new recruits since 1920 survived the purges?
less than 1/4
How many officers were shot or dismissed?
23,000
What must take fault for the evident military failures in the first months of the war in 1941?
the effect of the purges
When were teachers, engineers and specialists all persecuted?
at a time when rapid industrial change demanded their expertise
