Causes
Stalin wanted a united, 'sovietised' society with him as leader.
Believed USSR had 10 yrs to catch up before Germany invaded (correct).
Increasingly paranoid &power-mad; saw plots everywhere.
Features of the Terror
1. Secret Police - CHEKA/ OGPU/ NKVD
§58 of Criminal Code: Arrests for 'counter-revolutionary' acts (eg. failing to report damage to public property).
After 1930, NKVD used 'TROIKAS' (3 officers) to convict without trials or lawyers/ used torture.
Mass operations (eg against Poles killed 111,000).
Assassination (aka 'wet business') of Stalins opponents of (eg Trotsky, 1940).
Secret agents watched out for 'enemies of the people'.
Also ran the GULAG and conducted the Purges
2. The Great Purge, 1936-38
Purges began in 1929 vs kulaks; restarted after Kirovs 1934 murder (prob. ordered by Stalin) → mass arrests.
'Great Purge' = 'YEZHOVSHCHINA' (after NKVD chief Yezhov, 'the Bloody Dwarf')
Official figures: 680k executions, 116k GULAG deaths. Actually probably >1m
Targets included:
◦ Political Opponents: Show Trials → Zinoviev, Kamenev (1936); Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky (1938).
◦ Army: 1937 → Marshal Tukhachevsky + 7 generals shot → admirals + ½ top officers executed/imprisoned.
◦ Church: >85k Orthodox priests shot in 1937; hundreds of churches destroyed.
◦ Ethnic groups: 1937-38 'national operations' = mass executions &deportations.
◦ Ordinary people: 18m sent to GULAG; millions died. 'APPARATCHIKS' got best jobs, flats, holidays.
3. GULAG
Lenin's idea (re-education) → Stalin's system of repression, forced labour &social cleansing.
400+ camps, 18m ZEKS (prisoners) 1923-61, 1.5m+ deaths.
Deadly conditions: 20-hr shifts, starvation, extreme cold, epidemics, brutality.
Broke human spirit → 'reduced to BEASTS' in 3 wks.
4. Orthodox Church
Communists: Religion = 'opiate of the masses'.
1928: Stalin criticises failure vs religion. 1932: Calls for 'atheist 5-Year Plan'.
1929 Law on RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATIONS → bans religious meetings.
1928-40: Orthodox churches ↓ from 30k to >500; monasteries closed by NKVD.
200k monks, nuns, priests executed; >85k priests shot in 1937.
81% tax on Church revenues = priest poverty.
Anti-religious propaganda &fabricated scandals.
'League of the MILITANT GODLESS' pressured members to join.
Criticising Patriarch Sergei = arrest.
5. Russification/ persecution of ethnic minorities
USSR = multi-ethnic (4m Kazakhs, 4m Uzbeks, 3m Tatars, 2.5m Jews, 183+ other groups).
Early Bolshevik policy (KORENIZATSIYA): Allowed local leadership &languages.
1929 → Ukrainian resistance to collectivisation = purges. 500 academics convicted. Schools, newspapers closed.
1932-33 famine (HOLODOMOR) killed 5m Ukrainians. Not intentional but was weaponised vs nationalism.
Stalin's motives for 1937-38 purges:
◦ Feared ethnic groups = spy rings
◦ Wanted 'SBLIZHENIE' ('coming
together') of Soviet peoples.
◦ Uprooted minorities to prevent uprisings.
◦ Historians: Martin (1998) → 'ethnic cleansing'; Weitz (2002) → racism/genocide.
1937-38 → NKVD deports entire ethnic groups (eg. Volga Germans, Crimean Tatars). 250k executed.
1938 → Russian = compulsory in schools.
1939-40 → Asian ethnic groups forced to adopt Russian alphabet &spellings.
WW2 → 1m from Caucasus &Crimea resettled in Central Asia.
Some historians: USSR = colonial empire, 'prison-house of nations'.
6. Cult of Stalin
Propaganda everywhere: images, statues, continuous praise.
Places renamed after Stalin.
Mothers taught children Stalin = 'wisest man of the age'.
History rewritten → Stalin = hero of the Revolution, purged enemies ERASED (eg. Trotsky).
Strict censorship to protect Stalin's image.
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