Stalin’s Personal Dictatorship – The Great Terror Page 1

THE GREAT TERROR

Who was to blame for causing the Terror?

Nabilah Chowdhury

WANING SUPPORT/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 strength of his support base.

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.

Actions taken to strengthen political position:

By issuing the murder of Kirov (blaming Nikolayev), Stalin had a legitimate excuse to arrest and used the murder as an opportunity to purge any traitors or opponents:

Trial of the Sixteen, 1936: Show trials held for members of the Left Opposition, including Kamenev, Zinoviev and 14 others. 43 of their allies also disappeared.

Trial of the Seventeen, 1937: Trotsky’s former supporters confessed as being traitors. 13 were executed and 4 were sent to Gulags.

Trial of the Twenty-One, 1938: Bukharin and Rykov were charged with Kirov’s murder and attempting to assassinate Lenin.

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Nabilah Chowdhury

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 felt unable to trust many within the Communist Party. He acted to remove those he saw as threats.

He did not trust his rivals and did not believe that they were fully converted to his ideas of socialism, such as old Bolsheviks under Lenin’s rule.

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 – there were 2000 arrests and 1000 members sacked.

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. He also feared that these military bases had links with foreign countries. The Rapallo Treaty, a secret agreement with Germany, proved this true. The increase in defence resources during the 930’s gave the army even more power and Stalin wanted to remove this power through purges.

Stalin also feared that the army could seize power and make a deal with Hitler in order to prevent complete invasion.

3/5 marshals, 14/16 army commanders, 37K officers were purged.The navy’s lost all its admirals due to purges

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.

Kalmyks – 130K moved to Siberia and only 53K survived the brutal treatmentChechens – 460K burn alive because they couldn’t be moved in seven days.

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. 1938: Yagoda was shot.

Yezhov was arrested and replaced by Beria.

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.

Yagoda, second in command of the OGPU attempted to win Stalin's favour by reporting discontent with collectivisation. (Yagoda played on Stalin's paranoia).

Also, Bukharin’s secret Report of 1928 implied that Yagoda was actually a Rightist – Yezhov played on these fears and replaced Yagoda in 1936.

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. The NKVD even drew a list of German sympathisers in the USSR.Yezhovshchina occurred during 1936-38; these were the worst years of the purges and Yezhov managed to kill 3000 of his own personnel.This earned him the nickname of The Bloody Dwarf.

The Doctor’s Plot occurred when Stalin thought that those closest to him would turn on him and his rivals would take advantage of his decline and remove his from power. This was all because the doctors thought Stalin should reduce his workload to regain maximum health. The doctors were arrested and imprisoned.

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Nabilah Chowdhury

TERROR ECONOMICS

TERROR ECONOMICS

In 1932, the Right called for a more conciliatory approach to collectivisation, as there was a lot of unrest in the countryside. This posed a threat to Stalin’s economic policies.The Great Terror allowed Stalin to blame economic problems on political enemies. (problems of the Five-Year Plans could be blamed on “wreckers” in the workforce).Stalin claimed the “wreckers” were working for Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev and were working to sabotage Russia's economy. Stalin was able to create scapegoats for economic problems.The purges provided cheap labour. The people sent by Stalin to prison camps were a source of slave labour. Prisoners of War were deemed traitors because they had experienced the capitalist way of life but actually Stalin had economic motives fro imprisoning them – he needed slave labour.

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 its enemies.

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Nabilah Chowdhury

IDEOLOGY

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 its enemies.

Although the higher levels of the party suffered the most, the wider society was also purged.Kulaks, Nepmen and bourgeoisie experts were rooted out as class enemiesChildren 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.

IDEOLOGY

However, these accusations were usually based on:Personal grudges – Neighbours denounced each other in order to prove their loyalty to the partyJob opportunities – people tried to remove each other from their jobs by accusing them

At one point, the purges were over fulfilled but officials requested for higher targets so that they could continue denouncing friends, families and enemies.1937-39: 2/3 of 1.3 million inmates were labelled as “political criminals” or “socially harmful”¾ of a million people were executed rather than sent to gulags.

Jews were also considered too cosmopolitan as they had more loyalty to themselves than to the Party. They were too open to foreign influence.12-4% of Jews fell in senior management from 1945-51.

SCAPEGOATS

1937-38: 39K army officials + 3K navy killed for not alerting Stalin about Germany’s plans for invasion when in reality he needed someone to blame for the USSR’s early defeats.

1938, Yezhov was dismissed because Stalin needed a scapegoat for the excess of the purges.

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POTENTIAL QUESTIONS

Q1. How far do you agree that Stalin’s paranoia was the main cause of the Great Terror? Causes

Stalin’s paranoia stemmed from the root that he believed he still had enemies. Stalin feared the pro Trotsky Red Army and secret police who had a lack of control and could potentially assassinate him. Stalin feared what had happened to his previous rivals who had power and fell would also occur to him further fuelling his paranoia. Stalin was also unable to trust members in his party and his paranoia further increased when he was outvoted by Kirov. Acting on this fear Stalin decided to remove those he saw as a threat and thus the great terror began. Stalin greatly feared older members of the party too as they knew the truth of Stalin’s rise to power and what Lenin’s testament contained which would have ruined Stalin’s career. Under Yagoda’s influence of suggesting communists questioned Stalin, his paranoia further developed and caused the emergence of the great terror. Undoubtedly Stalin felt he had to perform the mass purges because of his paranoia that he would be removed from power. As Stalin was in control this must be the main cause of the great terror as his desire to remain in power was the drive for allowing the great terror to happen.The Congress of victors was a short term cause of the great terror and only added to the main cause of Stalin’s paranoia. Kirov beat Stalin in the votes to elect a central committee which showed Kirov was more popular than Stalin. Older Bolsheviks also tried to persuade Kirov to become General Secretary and despite refusing Stalin found out and believed a purge was necessary. The doubts and paranoia on his mind were further exacerbated by the congress which clearly shows that it...

The main reason for the Great purges was that Stalin felt threatened by the growing opposition towards him. There was so much opposition to him that he couldn’t help but feel isolated and so obviously wanted to replace the hostile opposition with people who supported him and were loyal.

There are two sides to the argument however. Some people argue that the purges came from the secret police, the bureaucracy. They argue that fear of the bureaucracy is what led many people to denounce others. People were so afraid for their own and their families safety that they denounced others to show that they were loyal to socialism and protect themselves from the purges. Even at party level, members were quick to denounce others to avoid punishment themselves. So arguably the purges came from the bottom up. However, the secret police was controlled by Stalin, as were all levels of the party, and you could arguably say that the secret police only killed who they were ordered to kill. Power was heavily centralised within the party and even though others might have carried out the murders, it was Stalin who ordered them. He signed death warrants of many people, and so must be held

Nabilah Chowdhury

Stalin’s Personal Dictatorship – The Great Terror Page 6

responsible. The secret police only killed members of the public and other party members because they themselves were afraid of being killed if they refused to do what Stalin said.

Another example of why Stalin was paranoid was the Ryutin platform. This was where party member Ryutin wrote a 200-page document which heavily criticised Stalin’s regime. It had an entire chapter on him, and called Stalin a hypocrite, a “counter-revolutionary†�, and “evil†�. It said Stalin had ruined the socialist construction of the Soviet Union. This document was handed out among party members in Moscow, and members such as Kamenev and Zinoviev were known to have read it. It led to a lot of opposition within the party to Stalin, which obviously made Stalin worried about his power. He was afraid of being overthrown. He was paranoid. The Ryutin Platform led to the arrest of many “old†� Bolsheviks, and their eventual execution, which leads us to the conclusion that Stalin did indeed purge people because he was paranoid about their opposition to him.

The old Bolsheviks did indeed pose a large problem to Stalin. He felt threatened by their knowledge of him and the revolution. They all knew that the propaganda about him was lies. They all knew that he did virtually nothing in the 1917 revolution. They knew the real history and not the one in the textbooks which had been edited by Stalin. Stalin was aware of this and was extremely paranoid about it. He knew full well that his political career would be ruined if all the old Bolsheviks decided to go against party unity and overthrow him. So he purged them. By the end of the thirties, the party had completely changed and most of the members had joined since 1929; the old Bolsheviks were, “almost to a man/woman†�, all dead. Was this just a mere coincidence? Most likely not.

Also, in terms of the general population, many began to dislike Stalin because of things that went wrong within the country. When deprivations “instead of disappearing, became more severe†�, and when food supplies didn’t materialise, Stalin emerged as an easy scapegoat. This was due to the sheer amount of propaganda which said Stalin WAS the Bolshevik party, and so while being responsible for all the good it did, it also meant that anything bad that happened could be attributed to him. So as Stalin discovered this growing opposition in the population, so the amount of purges grew. He was paranoid about any sort of mass uprising and could justify purging the causes of unrest by saying they were anti-Bolshevik and anti-revolution, while perhaps just being anti-Stalin.

So overall the evidence overwhelmingly points to Stalin being threatened by opposition as the main cause of the purges. Perhaps there were some who were genuinely trying to sabotage the revolution, but it appears that anybody who opposed Stalin, even while still being communists, even Bolsheviks, were either sent to gulags or killed.

Nabilah Chowdhury

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NEP Other factors were responsible for collectivization

E

NEP h

Decreased

The

Nabilah Chowdhury