AREA 3 : THE PURGES UNDER STALIN

1. What were the Purges?

• To purge means to remove. Lenin had purged the Party by removing people, but he had simply sacked them.
• Under Stalin, to purge came to mean, in many cases, to remove through execution.
• In the 1930s Stalin began to face criticism, and opposition, from those who were worried about the pace and effects of his economic reforms. Stalin decided to remove such critics. The purges, therefore, began in the early 1930s with an attack on managers and workers -- who were accused of wrecking the Five-Year Plans – and kulaks who opposed collectivization. There were also attacks on members of the Party who were considered disloyal to Stalin.
• However, in 1934 the purges increased and most sectors of society were affected. This period became known as the Great Purge, and some claim every single family in Russia lost at least one member during this period.

2. Why did the purges take place?

• There were many reasons or the purges:

(a)    Stalin had risen to power through plotting against others. He, therefore, assumed that other politicians acted in the same way, and so his enemies within the Party had to be plotting against him. He had to act before they did. He was paranoid about plots and probably suffered from a persecution complex.

(b)   Stalin was keen to portray himself as the Great Leader and the man who had worked alongside Lenin. However, there were many “Old Bolsheviks” who had served in Lenin’s government and who knew what role Stalin had really played. As long as they remained alive, Stalin could not successfully rewrite history.

(c)    Stalin needed to have a co-operative workforce as he needed mass labour for his industrial and agricultural projects, He needed to scare people into submission and also needed to have scapegoats to blame if things went wrong. By purging people, it would appear that there were saboteurs and people would blame them for failures, rather than Stalin.

(d)   Stalin was convinced that the West would attack sooner or later. This fear increased after Hitler came to power in 1933. Stalin believed that unless Russia industrialized quickly, Communism, and he, would not survive. Anyone who put the survival of communism and its leader at risk was clearly a traitor and deserved to be eliminated.

(e)    However, the purges may not have been entirely down to Stalin. He certainly started them, but then others saw them as a route to power or vengeance. People began denouncing others simply to get their job or to get their own back on someone. Stalin found the momentum got out of control.

3. How did the purges begin?

• The purges began almost as soon as Stalin assumed control of the country. Ordinary Russians who spoke their minds, or who were simply in the wrong class, made up most of the victims of the N.K.V.D., Stalin’s secret police. Eight and a half million people were arrested by the N.K.V.D. in the 1930s, of whom about a million were shot. Others, around 7 million, simply disappeared. In 1939, there were 7 million prisoners living in the camps. Stalin was not a man to tolerate opposition.
• Most of the victims belong to the period known as The Great Purge, or The Terror, that began in 1934 and lasted until 1938-39. However, people had died before the Great Purge. In 1928 55 engineers from the Shakhty mines in the Donbas were accused of sabotage and 5 were shot, whilst he rest were imprisoned.
• The event that sparked off the Great Purge was the murder of Sergei Kirov in 1934.
• Since the summer of 1932, Stalin had been aware that opposition to his policies had been growing. A leading Communist, Ryutin, even had the courage to publish a document criticising Stalin and calling for the readmission of Trotsky to the party. When the issue was discussed at the Politburo, Stalin demanded Ryutin's execution. Sergei Kirov, leader of the party in Leningrad, and up to this time, a staunch Stalinist, argued against the death penalty being used. When the vote was taken, the majority of the Politburo supported Kirov against Stalin. Ryutin, to Stalin’s annoyance, was merely expelled from the Party and sent into exile.
• It soon became obvious that Kirov was extremely popular within the Party and with leading members of the Politburo. Kirov, who many felt was being groomed for the future leadership of the party by Stalin, began to take a much more independent line at Politburo meetings. In the spring of 1934, Kirov put forward a "policy of reconciliation". He wanted to release people from prison who had opposed the government's policy on collective farms and industrialisation. Once again, Stalin found himself in a minority in the Politburo. When Kirov repeated his criticisms of Stalin’s policies at the Seventeenth Party Congress, he was warmly applauded and in the election to the Central Committee he apparently received more votes than Stalin, but Stalin had the results fixed. There was talk of Kirov replacing Stalin. Stalin felt threatened. He began to grow concerned by Kirov's willingness to argue with him in public. He feared that this would undermine his authority in the party.
• In the summer of 1934 Kirov and Stalin went on holiday together. Stalin, who treated Kirov like a son, used this opportunity to try to persuade him to remain loyal to his leadership. Stalin asked him to leave his job in Leningrad to join him in Moscow. Stalin wanted Kirov in a place where he could keep a close eye on him. When Kirov refused, Stalin knew that he had finally lost control over his protégé.
• In December 1934, Kirov was killed. Historians are divided on Stalin's role. Some take the view that evidence of Stalin's involvement was manufactured by supporters of Trotsky trying to discredit Stalin.
• Whatever the truth of Kirov's death, it was very advantageous to Stalin. Not only had his main rival been killed but it also gave Stalin the opportunity to claim that it had been planned by Trotsky. Stalin called on the Politburo to give support for a purge of the party. The Politburo agreed; the policy of reconciliation had come to an end.

   4. Who were affected by The Great Purge?

• People had been persecuted before Kirov's death, but now the persecution was on a grand scale. The period after Kirov's death is referred to as The Great Purge . During this period millions of Russian people (politicians, doctors, writers, generals, peasants, industrial workers, people from every walk of life) were arrested by Stalin's agents.
• Immediately after Kirov's death the N.K.V.D. was ordered to speed up its investigation of cases of "terrorism". This was, in fact, an instruction to round up and put on trial anti-Stalinist Communists. The ground was prepared well in Moscow and Leningrad by the appointment of two new young Stalinists as heads of the Communist Parties in the two great cities. In Leningrad, Zhdanov, carried out a purge of tens of thousands of Kirov supporters who were soon on their way to Siberian labour camps. In Moscow, Nikita Khrushchev, became Party Secretary and did the same. Yezhov, the head of the N.K.V.D., arranged for 300 known supporters of Trotsky to be taken in for questioning.
• Stalin knew that Kirov had built up a base of supporters in Leningrad and so Zhdanov arrested 40,000 of Kirov’s supporters in the city. Other Communist Party members suspecting of favouring Kirov or of having doubts about Stalin were arrested throughout 1934.
• In 1935 Stalin began to purge senior members of the Party. He had remembered how Kirov had been cheered at the 17^th Party Congress and so eliminated over half of the delegates at that conference; he also remembered how the Central Committee had favoured Kirov’s policy and so eliminated over 70% of the members. Party branches were ordered to investigate members for signs of disloyalty or pro-Trotsky views. As a result thousands were expelled from the party. The numbers of people being interrogated and forced to confess escalated at an alarming rate. It has been estimated that between 1934 and 1939, over a million members of the party were executed.
• In 1936 Stalin was ready to finally eliminate his old rivals. Men like Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin had been expelled from the Party, but they were still alive and knew too much. They had to be eliminated. Stalin decided to put them on trial in front of the world’s media. Stalin organised three major show trials. The Zinoviev / Kamenev trial of 1936 was followed by another "show trial" in January 1937. This time 17 major figures were accused of conspiring with Germany and Japan to overthrow the Soviet government. The third trial in March 1938, involved right-wing members of the party, including their leader, Bukharin. There were two main reasons for these “Show Trials” : they would totally discredit these men, and they would convince people that there were enemies everywhere and that they had to be eliminated and Stalin was right to carry out purges to destroy such enemies. 14 of the “Old Bolsheviks” were accused of ridiculous crimes, such as plotting to assassinate Stalin and murdering Kirov. To the amazement of the world, these men confessed to these outrageous allegations and implicated Trotsky. The question is why did they confess?
• Before interrogation, prisoners were kept in a cell without windows. A strong electric light was kept on at all times. Guards would force them to stand to ensure that they did not get any sleep. This action kept the prisoners tired and exhausted which affected their ability to think clearly. The main objective of the interrogation was to encourage the prisoners to confess to certain crimes. The N.K.V.D. also wanted those being interrogated to give details of crimes committed by their friends. These confessions were then shown to other prisoners in an attempt to persuade them to make statements admitting their guilt. If these tactics did not work, the N.K.V.D. had several other methods that persuaded people to make false confessions. Physical torture was sometimes used. On other occasions, the families of prisoners were arrested. In June 1934 Stalin had passed a decree that made the whole family responsible for crimes committed by an individual. Under this law, even children over the age of twelve could be executed. Many prisoners agreed to confess to crimes they had not carried out in order to save the lives of their families. When all else failed, the prisoners were offered a deal. Sign a confession and receive a promise that if found guilty, you would not be sentenced to death. The alternative was to be shot without trial.
• At first, the reporters found it difficult to believe such confessions. Yet they were freely admitting it in court. Given the confessions that they made in court, it was not surprising that all the defendants were found guilty.
• Stalin did not keep his promise that they would not be executed and the day following their trial, Kamenev and Zinoviev were shot by the N.K.V.D. in 1936.
• Stalin had now purged all the main figures on the left-wing of the Bolsheviks except for Trotsky. He, however, still did not feel secure. It was clear that all senior figures left in the party were scared of him. They were so frightened of Stalin they were unlikely to speak out against him. If they wanted him removed they would have to plot in secret. Therefore Stalin became suspicious of everyone. When N.K.V.D. brought reports of close colleagues who had been named by prisoners in their confessions, Stalin assumed they were guilty.
• In 1937 Stalin’s paranoia turned to the army. He became convinced that there were plots to overthrow him. It may well be that some were plotting or it could have been part of a Nazi plan to make Stalin fear he armed forces so he would purge them and so weaken Russia and thereby increase the chances of Germany winning in any war with Russia.
• In 1937 the army, air force and navy was purged. Its most famous victim was Marshall Tukhachevsky, a hero of the Civil War, and Commander-in-Chief of the army. He was followed by two more of the country's five Marshals of the Soviet Union, three out of four full generals, 60 out of 67 corps commanders and 136 out of 199 divisional commanders. About a third of the entire officer corps disappeared, and in total 30,000 members of the armed forces were executed.
• What was left of the army was certainly loyal, and probably always had been, but it was so severely weakened that the Red Army was swept aside in the first months of the war against Germany.
• By 1938 Stalin had carried out an extensive purge and had removed those who remembered Lenin or who could pose a threat. He now called a halt to the purges, as he felt they were getting out of control.
• However, there was still one group that could pose a threat as they knew too much. The purges had been carried out by the NKVD, under its head Yezhov.
• The last stage of the terror was the purging of the N.K.V.D. Stalin wanted to make sure that those who knew too much about the purges would also be killed. Stalin announced to the country that "fascist elements" had taken over the security forces which had resulted in innocent people being executed. Stalin appointed Beria as the new leader of the N.K.V.D. and he was instructed to find out who was responsible. After his investigations, Beria arranged the executions of all the senior figures in the N.K.V.D., including the former heads, Yagoda and Yezhov.. Yagoda had been tortured and made a startling confession to having murdered his predecessor, assisting in Kirov's murder, admitting foreign spies into the N.K.V.D. and even planning a military coup together with the assassination of the whole Politburo.
• But there was still one person Stalin wanted to eliminate : his old rival Trotsky. In 1939 Stalin called a halt to the Terror. But the work had been thoroughly done. The Politburo was now made up entirely of Stalin's men. Finally on 20 August 1940, one of Stalin's secret agents travelled to Mexico where he cut open Trotsky's head with an ice-axe while he was working at his desk. At the time of his death, Trotsky was writing a biography of Stalin. The blood splattered manuscript revealed that Trotsky's last words were : "Stalin's first qualification was a contemptuous attitude towards ideas. The idea had ... "

5. Who carried out the Purges?

• The purges were carried out by Stalin’s secret police, the NKVD (the secret police had been known as the Cheka under Lenin; had been renamed OGPU in 1922 and became known as the NKVD in 1934)
• The murder of Kirov had led to an expansion of the numbers and powers of the NKVD as they were ordered to hut down the saboteurs, terrorists and traitors. They had the power to arrest and execute anyone without charge or trial.
• The NKVD were assisted by a network of informers. It is said that if four people met, at least one would be a spy for the NKVD. Children were told to spy on their parents and neighbours on one another. If you did not inform on them, they might inform on you. When people were denounced, they would be arrested in the early hours by NKVD agents driving around in black cars, this led to the NKVD becoming known as the “black ravens”.
• Yet they themselves were then purged.

6. What happened to those who were purged?

• Some were immediately executed, but others were set to the gulags, the labour camps, set up in areas like Siberia.
• Here they were forced to undertake hard labour, especially on the great engineering projects, such as dams and canals.
• As many as 13 million people probably died in these camps from the cold, over-work and hunger.
• In 1928 there had been 30,000 prisoners in the gulags; by 1938, there were 7 million.

7. What were the effects of the purges?

• Fear became a part of everyday living -- fear of the knock on the door in the middle of the night, fear of the tap on the shoulder. Women lost their husbands, sisters and sons; children their fathers, mothers and friends.
• When Gorbachev (Russian leader, 1985-91) decided on a policy of open-ness, the KGB (the new name for the secret police) opened many of its files and revealed the following information about the purges for just the period 1937-38:

• The purges ensured that Stalin was in control. He had removed potential rivals. The purge of senior officials allowed Stalin to promote younger men into positions of authority. These men had been trained to be completely loyal to Stalin. Stalin preferred this new generation of communists to have become members of the party after the Russian Revolution had taken place in 1917. The last thing that Stalin wanted was people with strong convictions who remembered the socialist ideas of the pre-Revolutionary Marxists. Stalin required men who were pragmatic and willing to change their views to suit the political needs of the time. It did mean, however, hat they lacked originality or the ability to take decisions independently.
• The country had been seriously weakened as a result of the purge of the armed forces. This helped the Germans to make major advances in the early stages of the war and to come within a few miles of capturing both Moscow and Leningrad. The survival of Russia owed everything to the weather and Hitler’s incompetence.
• The purges affected industrialization and farming improvements as they led to the purge of scientists, administrators, experts and engineers.
• It is said that no family escaped the Terror. Even Stalin’s own family was affected as his cousins and in-laws were purged. His wife even killed herself in protest at Stalin’s actions. Nobody was safe from the NKVD.
• People could not trust anyone. The NKVD had files on over half the urban population containing information provided by relatives, work colleagues, friends and neighbours.
• The country stagnated as nobody would act without orders.

CLICK ON BUTTON TO RETURN TO MAIN MENU