Following a tumultuous revolution, the Soviet Union went directly from one form of chaos the another. For almost all of the 1930’s the Soviet Union experienced what is now known as the Great Terror. Starting with Sergei Kirov’s murder on December 1, 1934, the country underwent a period of mass hysteria as the government sought to catch and imprison all members involved with Comrade Kirov’s murder. What started as a simple manhunt for Kirov’s murderer evolved into a country wide cleansing of all past and present oppositionists and their relatives. To put the terror into perspective, during 1937 and 1938, the NKVD detained about 1.5 million people, of whom about 700,000 were shot, which averaged to about 1,000 executions per day. During this …show more content…
Even today, it is hard to pinpoint exactly why Kirov was murdered and who orchestrated the endeavor. But many agree that Nikolaev was not the mastermind behind the hit. Roy Medvedev, a historian who lived through the terror as a teenager, seem to believe that Stalin was NOT as removed from Kirov’s murder as he led the world to believe. And to truly understand this accusation, it is important to note the history between the two men. The two shared a friendly relationship until their viewpoints digressed on the issue of repression against the peasants. At the time, Stalin was a staunch supporter of intensified repression against the peasants while Kirov on the other hand, called for restraint (Medvedev). Furthermore, Kirov believed in flexible policies and opposed convictions against former oppositionists. However, during the 17th Party Congress in 1934, a number of leading party members formed an illegal bloc that suggested the transfer of Stalin as general secretary with Kirov, who was a much more popular party member (Medvedev). Although Kirov refused to take Stalin’s position, it cannot be argued that Stalin felt threatened by the popularity of Kirov. In addition, the 17th Party Congress showed a growing lack of …show more content…
In January 1935, the first political trial of former opposition leaders were held, and most were sentenced to prison instead of death (Medvedev). Compared to what is to follow, these sentences appear to be very light. However, events took a turn for the worse when the first Moscow Show Trial occurred on August 19, 1936 (Medvedev, 354). The main defendants of the trial were leaders of the New Opposition, former Trotskyist leaders, and other nonmajor figures. But the party members started to get a taste of repression when they realized that the defendants were deprived of the right to lawyers and were quickly convicted and executed. What was also strange during the trial was the fact that the defendants willingly and smoothly told about their roles in the assassination of Kirov and about plans to kill Stalin and others (Medvedev, 355). Towards the end of Let History Judge, Medvedev goes into depth about the most common conspiracies people have about Stalin’s role in the repression. And the theories range from Stalin being mentally ill to Stalin having a secret agenda of starting an anti-communist revolution. But it seems undisputed that Stalin “wanted absolute power and unlimited submission to his will” (Medvedev, 585). From this, it seems fairly safe to conclude that Roy Medvedev attributes much of the Great Terror to Stalin and his lust for absolute
I believe Stalin's main reason for starting the terror was to keep politicians and citizens from organizing and overthrowing Stalin with a revolution, much like the way Stalin ove...
As relations changed between Russia and the rest of the world, so did the main historical schools of thought. Following Stalins death, hostilities between the capitalist powers and the USSR, along with an increased awareness of the atrocities that were previously hidden and ignored, led to a split in the opinions of Soviet and Western Liberal historians. In Russia, he was seen, as Trotsky had always maintained, as a betrayer of the revolution, therefore as much distance as possible was placed between himself and Lenin in the schoolbooks of the 50s and early 60s in the USSR. These historians point to Stalin’s killing of fellow communists as a marked difference between himself and his predecessor. Trotsky himself remarked that ‘The present purge draws between Bolshevism and Stalinism… a whole river of blood’[1].
In conclusion, many soviets citizens appeared to believe that Stalin’s positive contributions to the U.S.S.R. far outweigh his monstrous acts. These crimes have been down played by many of Stalin’s successors as they stress his achievements as collectivizer, industrializer, and war leader. Among those citizens who harbor feelings of nostalgia, Stalin’s strength, authority , and achievement contrast sharply with the pain and suffering of post-revolutionary Russia.
The Communist Party was one of the main sections in Soviet society that was impacted profoundly by Stalin’s terror. In 1935, the assassination of Sergei Kirov, a faithful Communist and Bolshevik party member that had certain popularity, threatening Stalin’s consolidation of power, initiated The Great Purge. His death, triggering three important, widely publicised ‘show trials’ in Moscow, ultimately encouraged the climate of terror during the Great Purge. Bolsheviks Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates were accused of conspiring against Stalin and the government, with each confessing to their supposed crimes, which were then broadcast around the world. It was later discovered that these confessions were forced after long months of psychological abuse and cruel acts of torture. As Stalin...
Originally platformed by Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin took control of the communist party in 1924 when Lenin died of a stroke. Communist ideals were heavily in opposition to classical liberal values; Whereas Liberalism stressed the importance of the individual, Communism sought to better the greater good of society by stripping many of the individual rights and freedoms of citizens. Communism revoked the class structure of society and created a universal equality for all. This equality came with a price however. Any who opposed the communist rule were assassinated in order to keep order within society. Joseph Stalin took this matter to the extreme during an event known as the Great Purge. The Great Purge, also known as The Great Terror, began in 1936 and concluded in 1938. During these two years, millions of people were murdered and sent to labour camps in Siberia for opposing the Communist party and the ultimate dictator, Stalin himself. In some cases, even those who did not oppose the regime were killed. Sergey Kirov was a very popular member of the communist party and Stalin saw this as a possible threat to his ultimate power. As a result, Stalin order Kirov to be executed. Stalin furthered his violation of individual rights by introducing the NKVD who worked closely with the russian secret police force. One of the primary goals of the secret police was to search out dissidents who were not entirely faithful to the communist regime. This violation of privacy caused histeria en mass in the Soviet Union and millions were killed as a result. The Soviet union resisted liberalism to such an extreme that it resulted in the deaths of millions of people, leading to some of the darkest days in russian
In 1934, Sergey Kirov a rival to Stalin was murdered. Stalin is believed to have been behind the assassination, he used it as a pretext to arrest thousands of his other opponents who in his words might have been responsible for Kirov’s murder. These purges not only affected those who openly opposed Stalin but ordinary people too. During the rule of Stain o...
...ns of anti-Bolsheviks and according to Service, 500,000 sent to the Gulags through 1917-21. Pipes highlights the significance of the Red Terror as ‘a prophylactic measure designed to nip in the bud any thoughts of resistance to the dictatorship.’ Lenin also used class warfare to terrorise the middle classes and hostile social groups. This played well with the workers and soldiers and made it difficult to criticise the new government. As a result, Lenin’sintroduction of the Cheka (1917) and the emergence of the Red Terror (1918) ensured his rule was absolute not only within the party but across the Soviet Union.
It is significant to understand what the KGB was and what it did, since this book is centered around the actions of this organization. The KGB was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until its collapse in 1991. The KGB was also considered to have been a military service and was governed by army laws and regulations. Its main focuses included foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, operative-investigatory activities, guarding the State Boarder of the USSR and the leadership of the Soviet Government, organization and ensuring of government communications as well as fighting off nationalism and anti-Soviet activities. The KGB failed to rebuild most of its U.S. illegal resident networks, and the last major illegal resident was betrayed by his own assistant in 1957. Recruitment then put emphasis on mercenary agents. This approach was successful in espionage that was specifically scientific...
In order to conclude the extent to which the Great Terror strengthened or weakened the USSR, the question is essentially whether totalitarianism strengthened or weakened the Soviet Union? Perhaps under the circumstances of the 1930s in the approach to war a dictatorship may have benefited the country in some way through strong leadership, the unifying effect of reintroducing Russian nationalism and increased party obedience. The effects of the purges on the political structure and community of the USSR can be described (as Peter Kenez asserts) as an overall change from a party led dictatorship to the dictatorship of a single individual; Stalin. Overall power was centred on Stalin, under whom an increasingly bureaucratic hierarchy of party officials worked. During the purges Stalin's personal power can be seen to increase at the cost of the party.
When most people hear the name Joseph Stalin, they usually associate the name with a man who was part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. He was willingly to do anything to improve the power of the Soviet Union’s economy and military, even if it meant executing tens of millions of innocent people (Frankforter, A. Daniel., and W. M. Spellman 655). In chapter three of Sheila Fitzpatrick’s book, Everyday Stalinism, she argues that since citizens believed the propaganda of “a radiant future” (67), they were able to be manipulated by the Party in the transformation of the Soviet Union. This allowed the Soviet government to expand its power, which ultimately was very disastrous for the people.
Volkov, Solomon, and Antonina W. Bouis. Shostakovich and Stalin: the extraordinary relationship between the great composer and the brutal dictator. New York: Knopf, 2004. Print.
Following the death of Josef Stalin in 1953, the harsh policies he implemented in not only the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but also its many satellite nations began to break down. There was a movement to distance all of the socialist nations from Stalin?s sadistic rule. In the Peoples? Republic of Hungary, there was much disillusionment with this Stalinist absolutism (Felkay 50). This disillusionment with the Soviet ideal of socialism lead the people of the fledgeling socialist state of Hungary to rise up in revolt, but ill-preparedness and the strength of the Soviet Red Army put down the insurrection within several days.
During Stalin’s regime, the individual Russian was the center of his grand plan for better or worse. Stalin wanted all of his people to be treated the same. In the factory the top producer and the worst producer made the same pay. He wanted everyone to be treated as equals. His goal to bring the Soviet Union into the industrial age put tremendous pressure on his people. Through violence and oppression Stalin tried to maintain an absurd vision that he saw for the Soviet Union. Even as individuals were looked at as being equals, they also were viewed as equals in other ways. There was no one who could be exempt when the system wanted someone imprisoned, killed, or vanished. From the poorest of the poor, to the riches of the rich, everyone was at the mercy of the regime. Millions of individuals had fake trumped up charges brought upon them, either by the government or by others who had called them o...
The Great Terror, an outbreak of organised bloodshed that infected the Communist Party and Soviet society in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), took place in the years 1934 to 1940. The Terror was created by the hegemonic figure, Joseph Stalin, one of the most powerful and lethal dictators in history. His paranoia and yearning to be a complete autocrat was enforced by the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the communist police. Stalin’s ambition saw his determination to eliminate rivals such as followers of Leon Trotsky, a political enemy. The overall concept and practices of the Terror impacted on the communist party, government officials and the peasants. The NKVD, Stalin’s instrument for carrying out the Terror, the show trials and the purges, particularly affected the intelligentsia.