The End of the Purges

By Melinda and ClarissaIB History

Bandung International School

Stalin stopped the terror

1938, Yezhov had been replaced by Beria

Arrested slowed down But central committee and army still being

purged in 1939

1940, all of the old Bolsheviks had been wiped out Trotsky was murdered by Stalin’s hit man Going to World War II, purges much reduced

Purges Destabilized Russian

Administrative system were falling apart

Negative effect on industrial production

Stalin blamed Yezhov and the NKVD for the excesses of the terror

Source Analysis

“The worst thing is when you have no one waiting for you, when no one needs you. I and my brothers might have had children and grandchildren, families. The accursed Tamerlaine (Stalin) smashed and trampled everything. He took the future away from citizens who were not born because he killed their mothers and fathers. I’m living out my life alone and I still cant understand how it was that we didn’t see that ‘our’ leader was a monster; how the people could let it happen.”

—Stepan Ivanovich Semenov, a Muscovite, who spent 15years in camps. His wife died in prison and his brothers were shot

Who were the victims of the Purges???

Writers and Artists

It was easy to step out of line

1933, Osip Mandelstam composed a sixteen-line poetic epigram about Stalin

Yagoda was struck by the poem Recited it to Stalin

Mandelstam was arrested Defended by Bukharin wasn’t shot or sent to labor

camp Exiled for 3 years

When he returned Tried to write a poem praising Stalin, but never published

Leading Party Members

Congress favored Kirov over Stalin

70% members of the Central Committee at Seventeenth party arrested and shot

1,108 out of 1,966 delegates arrested

Party Officials

Radek and Pyatakov Accused of working for Trotsky and foreign

governments to weaken the Soviet economy Real cream: to criticize the Five-Year-Plans

Party and state leaders

Charged with treason or bourgeois nationalism

2 state prime ministers

4 out of 5 regional party secretaries

Thousands of lesser officials Lost their posts

The Secret Police

Yagoda replaced by Yezhov AKA “The bloody dwarf” Oversaw most excessive phrases of purges 1936 –

1938 Purged his own personnel Yezhovchina stopped and dismissed himself 1938

Scapegoat

Kulak and Nepmen

“Joke”

First Man: What do you think of our great leader Stalin?

Second Man: Exactly the same as you, comrade.

First Man: In that case I must arrest you.

NKVD

Yagoda: head of NKVD Arrested 1937 Responsible of a lot of people’s

death A soviet remark:

‘low moral’ and ‘sadistic inclinations’

Enemies saw purges paranoid tendencies of Stalin Mistrusted everyone (including

fam. Members)

Trotsky: Stalin’s betrayal and creation of personal dictatorship

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The Red Army (1937 – 1938)

3 out of 5 marshals

14 out of 15 army commanders

37,000 officers shot/imprisoned

Accusation of armed forces links with foreign countries

Can be true contact with German army Only evidence

Peasantry morale decreased (collectivization) detrimental effect on army morale

Senior military officers

Tukhachevsky: chief of General Staff

11 war commissars

3 out of 5 marshals of the USSR

Admirals commanding fleets (replacements)

All but one of senior commander of air force

Overall: 35,000 officers: imprisoned or shot 11,000 reinstated middle of 1940

Managers, engineers and scientists

Almost all managers were purged

Railways hard hit Physicists and biologists arrested as well

Peasants, industrial workers and more

Arrested, imprisoned, shot (A LOT OF THEM) Included: children, colleagues, subordinates,

relatives, wives, friends and associates

Most died during collectivization and the famine

Contact abroad: foreign trade officials, diplomats, raliwaymen, sportsmen

Former Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries

Priests, members of religious groups

Media, artists and historians

Estimates of victims of the Great Terror 1937 – 1938 By Robert Conquest (1990)

Arrests 7-8 million

Executions 1-1.5 million

Population of camps 7-8 million

Died in camps 2 million

1932 – 1933: Famine 7 million

1929 – 1953: Deaths (total) 20 million

Take to account that these results have been from different time frames!!!

Historiography

"Stalin was a true Leninist in that he faithfully followed his patron's political philosophy and practices. Every ingredient of what has come to be known as Stalinism save one -- murdering fellow Communists -- he had learned from Lenin, and that includes the two actions for which he is most severely condemned: collectivization and mass terror. Stalin's megalomania, his vindictiveness, his morbid paranoia, and other odious personal qualities should not obscure the fact that his ideology and modus operandi were Lenin's. A man of meager education, he had no other source of ideas.“

—Richard Pipes, Russia under the Bolshevik Regime

Bibliography

Corin, Chris. "The end of the purges." In Communist Russia Under Lenin and Stalin, by Chris Corin, 219. London: John Murray, Ltd, 2002.

Corin, Chris. "Who were the victims?" In Communist Russia Under Lenin and Stalin, by Chris Corin, edited by Ian Dawson, 220. London: John Murray, Ltd, 2002.

Philips. "The Purges."

Remembering Stalin's Great Purge Victims. Performed by RT. 2009.