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.
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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