THE GREAT PURGE, THE GREAT TERROR, YEZHOVCHINA

• Stalin began to become paranoid. He feared being overthrown or the threat of a counter revolution.

• He formed a secret police called the NKVD to remove any and all possible threats. The secret police later became known as the KGB.

• All of the old heroes of the revolution or basically anybody with popular support was charged with treason.

• They were either killed or sent to gulags in Siberia. They would die either way.

• 1 in 5 officers of the army ended up being executed. This caused many problems when WWII started

• They were also often put on trial called "Show Trials." Here the people were forced to admit that they had done what they were charged with, even if they were innocent.

• If somebody did not plead guilty, they would bring in family member's and close friends, and threaten to kill them on the spot if they did not plea guilty.

•It’s worth mentioning that the great terror 1937-39 wasn’t a domestic policy but it was the most important method by which domestic policies were achieved and opposition suppressed.•It made people afraid and people who were terrified to be obedient.•Those who were not afraid of Stalin would be frightened of the dangers he told them existed: fear of invasion, fear of counter-revolution, and the fear of Stalin being removed by his enemies.

Kirov’s murder (pag. 123) gave Stalin chances to purge the party and to introduce new laws.

http://russiapedia.rt.com/of-russian-origin/stalins-purges/

•The system of appeal was removed so the death sentence were carried out immediately.•The purge of engineers and managers to punish anyone who could be blamed for failure to achieve quotas.•The purge of the party to ensure all members were loyal to Stalin. The purge within the party started after Ryutin criticized Stalin’s leadership.

http://www.executedtoday.com/2012/01/10/1937-martemyan-ryutin-for-his-affair/

•The purge of the military in 1937 targeted the officers of the armed forces.•Party branches received orders to arrest a specific number of enemies of the state, whether these existed or not.•In 1936, Zinoviev and Kamenev were accused of having plotted Kirov’s murder, they were tried and executed.

•Genrikh Yagoda, the head of the Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), was replaced by Nikolai Yezhov in 1936.

•According to Robert Service 681.692 people were executed during 1936-38.

•Bukharin and Rykov were put on trial and executed after having confessed to betraying the party.

•By 1938 the quotas were slowly reduced. Yezhov was demoted, imprisoned and executed in February 1939.

•It’s said that the worsening situation in Europe made Stalin shift his attention to foreign affairs.

•Orlando Figes mentions that in a regime so repressive, the only way to survive was to feel identified strongly with Stalin, that even the punishment could not change the belief in his righteousness.

THE CONSTITUTION OF 1936

http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/1936toc.html

http://www.soviethistory.org/

•It is also called “The Stalin Constitution”, it was a document that guaranteed freedom of press, thought, the right to public assembly and all other basic human rights.

•Anything against the interests of the workers was forbidden.

•The constitution gave the impression that USSR was a liberal state, because Stalin was concerned about its image abroad.

POPULAR POLICIES

Many were popular and bought him support, for example:

When he opposed the NEP in 1927, he had the workers on his side, who had felt a return to capitalism.The punishment of the kulaks probably supported by peasants who resented their richer neighbors.Nobody questioned the execution of leading Bolsheviks when they publicly confessed their guilt.

•During the 30s the population increased, there were more opportunities for education and job promotion.

•The terror brought employment and even promotion for those who were not sent to the gulags or shot.

•Paintings, photographs and statues ensured Stalin’s image recognizable throughout the Soviet Union.•Stalin’s speeches were broadcast and printed in Pravda.•The use of language was really important, enemies were defined as kulaks and Trotskyists (rich peasants and someone who had had any connection with Trotsky)

WAS STALIN A TOTALITARIAN LEADER?

•Having survived the upheaval of the famine, collectivization, and rapid industrialization, Stalin was dismayed by the votes cast for Kirov and began to doubt the continued support of his colleagues.

(Kirov was head of the Party in Leningrad. It was rumored that the Party wanted Kirov to replace Stalin as leader. At the Congress of leading members Kirov showed himself more popular than Stalin when putting forward the view that it was time to slow down the drive towards industrialization and to improve relations with the peasants.)

•Stalin once stated “I trust no one, not even myself”. It’s said he had an inferiority complex and thought he was less educated, less intellectual and less popular than the other Bolsheviks.

FORM OF GOVERNMENT AND IDEOLOGY•The USSR followed the left-wing ideology of communism.

•According to Marxism, the proletariat were meant to rule the country, but this did not happen when the Communist Party had so much control.

•The excuse given was that Russia was too backward and people had to be educated to have the correct values.

•The Politburo in practice had become limited to a quintet of Stalin, Molotov, Mikoyan, Beria (pag. 128) and Malenkov. Indeed, it was often reduced to Stalin and Molotov consulting each other.

WORLD WAR II

Allies

USA, Russia, and Great Britain, along with France, China, Canada. Poland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, the Netherlands, Czechslovakia, Belgium, Denmark and Norway also joined the allies.

Axis

Germany, Italy, and Japan. The axis also included minor powers such as Finland, Slovenia, Hungary, Manchkuo, Romania, Thailand, Persia.

Neutral

- Eire (Republic if Ireland), Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Afghanistan, Portugal. 

- Denmark was officially neutral but was occupied by Germany throughout the war.

- Chile, Argentina, Andorra, Guatemala, Liechtenstein, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. 

- While the Northern Irish fought on the Allied side, the remainder of Ireland stayed neutral.

• Stalin feared a two-front war against Germany and Japan, and that fear became real when these two countries signed the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936.

• Litvinov was appointed Commissar for External Affairs in 1930, he was an expert in foreign policy, not an area of expertise for Stalin.

• Litvinov proposed the collective security, and then the USSR joined the League of Nations in 1934.

• The Soviet Union was always looking for an alliance with Britain and France, but Britain in particular didn’t want a close alliance with the Soviets.

• Litvinov was replaced by Vyacheslav Molotov in 1939.

• The famous Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed in August 1939, which they agreed to carve up Poland; it was shocking to see two enemies signing a treaty of non-aggression.

• For many Polish the option was to end up in a Nazi concentration camp or in a Russian gulag.

• One of the wartime atrocities carried out by the NKVD was the Katyn Massacre in 1940, more then 4000 army officers, police officers, prison guards, and others leaders were taken to the Katyn forest in Russia and were shot and buried in mass graves.

• Stalin wanted to secure the north and wanted Finnish territory, Finland refused, Winter War broke out.

• Even though some Finnish territory was lost, more than 200000 Red Army soldiers were killed, and Hitler noticed the weakness of the Russian army due to the purges.

REASONS FOR STALIN’S VICTORY1.The USSR was already a planned economy in 1941.

2.Stalin made it clear to the Army that retreat or defeat in battle was not an option.

3.The conflict was labeled “The Patriotic War”, people fought to save Mother Russia rather than an ideology, the use of effective propaganda and the Orthodox church was restored.

4.Stalin re-settled large numbers of Chechens, Balkans, Karachais, Crimean Tatars, Balts, Ukrainians and Cossacks in order to avoid serious rebellions.

5.Many factories could be dismantled and the infrastructure along with the workforce shipped east of the Urals, re-assembled and brought back into production.

6.External help received was also important. Stalin received substantial aid from the USA.

7.The end of the siege of Stalingrad coincided with the defeat of the Germans in El Alamein in Africa.

8.German forces had to be diverted to Italy.

9.Nationalism played an important part in the victory of the USSR.