Focused notes for A Level History, Pearson Edexcel option 1.E, on the Soviet Secret Police. Explore the evolution, roles, and impacts of the secret police from Lenin’s Cheka to the KGB under Gorbachev. Includes detailed analysis of methods, key figures, and the influence on Soviet society, with c...
3.2 THE SECRET POLICE
CHEKA 1917
● Created as an “emergency committee”
○ Suggests it was meant to be temporary
● Rooted out enemies of the revolution
○ aristocracy + church + middle classes + mensheviks
● Organised the Red Terror during the civil war
○ Granted power to act with minimal interference from legal bodies
○ 200,000 opponents shot 1921 to 1922
● Increased terror after assassination attempt on Lenin 1918
● Led by Felix Dzherzinsky
GPU 1922
● Cheka was reorganised into the GPU in 1922 after the civil war
OGPU 1923
● Growing independence of the secret police from other institutions
● Only took orders from the leadership of the Communist Party
NKVD 1934
● OGPU merged with the Interior ministry to become the NKVD
● Dealt with opposition to collectivisation and FYPs
○ Opposition was sent to the gulags
● Ran completely outside the law
KGB 1954
● Far more professional and effective than the NKVD
● Brought under party control by Khrushchev
○ Subject to the law due to socialist legality
○ New criminal code 1960 → abolished night time interrogations and limited the powers of the KGB
● Couldn’t use terror (executions)
○ Instead would place prisoners in mental asylums
01) TERROR UNDER STALIN
YAGODA 1934 TO 1936
● Keen to prove loyalty to Stalin
● Expanded the gulag system
○ No longer used to “reform class enemies” → now used as cheap labour aiding USSR to rapidly industrialise
○ Shift from ideology to economic considerations
● Responsible for the White Sea Canal
○ 180,000 labourers from gulags used to create the canal
■ dug by hand instead with machines
○ Completed under budget and in less than 2 years
■ However was a huge failure as they didn’t dig deep enough, making it useless for most shipping
○ 10,000 prisoners died
● Great Purge 1936
○ Arrested all “trotskyite opposition”
● Accused of not pursuing the opposition with sufficient enthusiasm and useless in safeguarding Kirov 1936
● Yagoda was removed from office in 1936 and shot in 1938
YEZHOV 1936 TO 1938
● Also known as “the bloody dwarf”
● Created “Troikas”
○ Sped up the process of arrest, trial and imprisonment
○ Troikas were made up of three people, one of them being the NKVD boss
○ September 1937 → one troika processed 231 prisoners each day
● Expanded the number of people in the gulag
○ Introduced quotas in 1937 for the execution of prisoners
● Introduced plain clothed officers to increase surveillance
○ Number of detectives x4
○ Extra staff employed to torture
, ● Attended a politburo meeting with blood on the cuffs of his shirt
Yezhovshchina 1937 to 1938
● 10% of the male adult population were arrested by the NKVD.
● Yezhovshchina transformed government districts of Moscow and Leningrad into ghost towns.
● Mass arrests of government officials left apartments empty.
His removal
● By 1938 Stalin became concerned that the levels of terror were demoralising the population
○ Stalin accused Yezhov of being responsible for the excessive purges - scapegoat
○ Yezhov dismissed and shot in 1938
BERIA 1938 TO 1953
● Impressive organisation skills
● Public trials were only held when solid evidence was found
● Oversaw Trotsky's murder in Mexico 1940
● Improved the gulag system for economic purposes
○ 1939 food rations for inmates improved
■ Get maximum work out of prisoners
○ Used technical skills of inmates for specialist tasks
■ 1,000 scientists put to work on various projects
○ Gulag economic activity increased from 2 billion roubles (1937) to 4.5 billion roubles (1940)
○ ⅓ of countries gold mined by the Gulag
Changes to the role of the secret police during WWII
● 1941 they were granted supervision over the red army
○ Dealt with desertions and disloyalty
● Deported local minorities whose loyalty was to the Soviet state was considered suspect
○ E.g Crimean Tartars
● By 1943 the Red Army had to control overseas ex German territories
○ Beria set up special departments to root out traitors
○ Killed more than 4,000 polish officers
● Soviet prisoners of war (soviet troops which escaped from german capture) were sent to gulags
○ “Order 270” treated these troops as traitors
○ Some forced to clear minefields by simply walking through areas where mines had been laid by the enemy
After the War
● The ‘Leningrad Affair’ 1949
○ Stalin launched a purge against officials in the Leningrad Party.
○ Stalin claimed that the Leningrad Party acted independently as if it were an island in the Pacific.
○ Over 2,000 members imprisoned or exiled
● The Doctors’ Plot’ 1952 to 1953
○ Many of Stalin’s medical staff were arrested for trying to poison Stalin.
○ Anti-semitism may have been a cause for this purge as many doctors were Jewish, and Stalin was a well known
anti-Semite.
○ Stalin died before the doctors could be prosecuted.
02) THE SUPPRESSION OF DISSIDENTS 1967 TO 1982
ANDROPOV AS HEAD OF THE KGB
● In 1967, Brezhnev promoted Andropov to lead the KGB.
● In Khrushchev’s period, heads of the KGB had been very low profile, and so the position had been a dead end.
● Under Andropov, this changed, the head of the KGB returned to become a leading position in government.
● Andropov’s role was much smaller than that of previous Secret Police officers.
REASONS FOR DISSIDENCE
● People’s confidence increased due to the absence of terror
● USSR expanded its borders onto satellite states
○ Harder to maintain control of western influence
● Development of technology
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