Stalin’s Personal Dictatorship – The Great Terror Page 1
THE GREAT TERROR
What were the causes of the Great Terror?
LINK: HOW DOES THIS LINK TO WANTING TO INTRODUCE THE GREAT TERROR?
Stalin caused the Purges because he sat at the top of a totalitarian system. He had the power and
he gave the orders, therefore he must have caused the purges. But why did he cause the purges?
IDEOLOGY
Occupation of the Rhineland, 1939:
In 1939 Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland.
The West did nothing to prevent this and Stalin assumed that the West wanted a
strong Germany in central Europe to act as an anti-communist force.
Stalin feared that German influence was reaching the USSR and therefore he
needed to purge the people to remove all traces of capitalism.
Class Struggle:
Stalin used the policy of “sharpening of class struggle” to justify his actions – as
socialism advanced, class struggle intensified and therefore it is ideologically justified
to increase the Terror by planning greater attacks on enemies.
Kulaks, Nepmen and bourgeoisie experts were rooted out as class enemies
Bukharin’s Secret Report of 1928 implied that Yagoda, Head of the NKVD, was
actually a Rightist – thus, Stalin replaced him with Yezhov but on the basis that
Yagoda wasn’t radical enough and had pushed the NKVD four years back on
meeting its targets.
Children were encouraged to inform on their parents if they suspected capitalist
tendencies.
Stalin issued the removal of anti-Soviet elements by producing a list of 250K
Anti-soviets.
Jews were also considered too cosmopolitan as they had more loyalty to
themselves than to the Party. They were also open to foreign influence.
o 12-4% of Jews fell in senior management from 1945-51.
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POLITICAL STRENGTHENING
Ryutin Affair, 1932:
Ryutin produced a 200-page document (Stalin and the Crisis of Proletarian
Dictatorship) that criticised Stalin’s economic policies – he was a Rightist and
believed in Bukharin’s policies.
Stalin demanded that he be executed but senior communists objected this.
Stalin saw this as a weakening of power and a betrayal from those closest to
him.
Congress of the Victors, 1934:
This was intended to be a celebration of Stalin's economic achievements. The
Congress worried Stalin for several reasons.
When the Congress voted to elect the Central Committee, Kirov, rather than
Stalin topped the poll. Kirov (1,225), Stalin (927). The vote indicated that Kirov
was more popular than Stalin in the Communist Party.
A group of old Bolsheviks approached Kirov following the vote and tried to
persuade him to stand as General Secretary. (Kirov refused, but Stalin found out
about the plan).
Stalin mistrusted Kirov because of his popularity and because he was the party
leader of Leningrad – his power base was the former centre of opposition to
Stalin’s. Stalin never felt that he had total control over Leningrad, and the fact
that Kirov did just added to the lack of Stalin’s support.
Within the Party:
In 1932, the Right called for a more conciliatory approach to collectivisation, as
there was a lot of unrest in the countryside.
Party officials, such as Radek, began to criticize the unrealistic targets set for
the FYP’s.
RA officers were concerned about the effect forced collectivization had on the
morale of the soldiers.
This posed a threat to Stalin’s economic policies an encouraged him to purge
potential opponents.
Also, the Left criticized the concentration of power in Stalin’s hand.
These events were evidence that Stalin was losing hold over his support base
and therefore had to purge the Party in order to strengthen his own political
power.
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PARANOIA
After the death of his second wife in 1932, Stalin became more reclusive and cut himself off
from his offices. He became paranoid and started to see opposition everywhere; he even
once said “I trust no one, not even myself”.
Stalin’s paranoia led to his setting targets for arrests, executions and exiles. The Terror
became indiscriminate as the NKVD set out to meet the targets.
Stalin thought that those closest to him would turn on him and his rivals would take
advantage of his decline to remove him from power.
o The Doctor’s Plot is evidence of Stalin’s paranoia. The doctors thought Stalin
should reduce his workload to regain his deteriorating health. Stalin feared that
the doctors were trying to assassinate him, so he had them arrested and
imprisoned.
Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin all held leading positions but lost their power –
Stalin feared that he might be next. He didn’t want to be forgotten from history once
he died.
He did not trust his former rivals and did not believe that they were fully converted to
his ideas of socialism, such as old Bolsheviks under Lenin’s rule.
o ACTION TAKEN: This led to the Trials of the 1930’s.
He worried about members of the Party who had been members before the Civil War.
They knew the truth about his rise to power and Lenin's view that he did not deserve
to be General Secretary.
Stalin feared the Red Army and the secret police had too much power. His lack of
control over these bodies made Stalin fear assassination attempts.
o The increase in defence resources during the 930’s gave the army even more
power and Stalin wanted to remove this power through purges.
o ACTION TAKEN: 3/5 marshals, 14/16 army commanders, 37K officers were
purged. The navy’s lost all its admirals due to purges
Leningrad was Stalin’s weak point because he didn’t have a strong hold over them.
Due to the Leningrad Siege, which lasted for 900 days, people were very discontent
with Stalin. Thus Stalin initiated the Leningrad affair where he used torture to extract
confessions of treason from the party
o ACTION TAKEN: there were 2000 arrests and 1000 members were sacked.
Prisoners of war had also betrayed the motherland by surrendering to the Nazi’s. He
feared that there were spies in their ranks and therefore they could not be trusted.
Stalin even feared that the NKVD’s influence was growing too much because of the
purging power they held. He then began to purge the purger’s themselves.
o 1938: Yagoda was shot.
Yezhov was arrested and replaced by Beria.
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ECONOMICAL
Stalin claimed that there was widespread sabotage. Evidence of machines breaking down and
missing targets also support his statement.
He began to purge workers because he wanted to ensure that the remaining workers were
completely loyal to him and would work harder to speed up industrialization.
o 1928-31: Many industrial specialists were arrested an executed for sabotage and
espionage
Also, The purges provided cheap labour. The people sent by Stalin to prison camps were a
source of slave labour.
o Prisoners of War were deemed traitors because they had experienced the capitalist
way of life but actually Stalin used them for slave labour.
FEAR OF INVASION
Stalin knew that economically and militarily, the USSR lagged behind the Western countries.
Stalin feared that the West could easily overthrow the USSR.
He needed to make sure that that the soviet system was free of spies. Thus he purged
the army, party, NKVD and wider society to remove anyone who sympathized with
Germany, would welcome German invasion or had links with Germany.
Stalin thought that some people would welcome German invasion and so he moved
whole groups of people to prevent them from falling into the hands of the advancing
Nazi’s.
o Kalmyks – 130K moved to Siberia and only 53K survived the brutal treatment
o Chechens – 460K burn alive because they couldn’t be moved in seven days.
He also feared that military bases had links with foreign countries.
o The Rapallo Treaty, a secret agreement with the RA and Germany, proved this
true.
o He feared that the army could seize power and make a deal with Hitler in order to
prevent complete invasion.
SOCIAL CHAOS
Though Stalin was at the top of the totalitarian system, locally the system was more
independent.
There was a lot of corruption and deviation from party line.
The OGPU was divided and factional. Stalin needed to prevent them from fighting each
other thus he formed the NKVD, which had a united goal to purge others in order to regain
control over the system.
Stalin needed to bring the system back into line, thus he purged it in order to maintain
Control
