The Terror

1. The Terror

2. Forms of Terror • Secret Police The CHEKA, which became the OGPU in 1922, and then the NKVD in 1934 was used to terrorise and control the population • The First Purges 1930-33 This included anyone who opposed industrialisation, and the kulaks who opposed collectivisation

3. The Great Purges 1934-39 These purges were aimed at different groups of people: Political Opponents 1934: Kirov Stalin ordered his assassination and used this as a way to arrest thousands of his opponents 1934–1939: Show Trials Opponents such as Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin pleaded guilty to impossible charges of treason

4. The Army In 1937 the Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army and seven leading generals were shot, and between 1938-39 half the Army’s officers were imprisoned or executed The Church Religious leaders were imprisoned and churches were closed down Ethnic Groups Stalin enforced Russification of all the Soviet Union Ordinary People Most people lived in fear, whilst those who remained loyal to Stalin, the “Apparatchiks” got all the new flats, jobs etc.

5. Cult of Stalin Anything that might reflect badly on Stalin was censored Places were named after him Children were taught that he was “the wisest man of the age” Propaganda in the form of pictures and statues was used, and history books were re-written in order to make Stalin the hero of the revolution and remove names such as Trotsky.

6. Why were they used? • Stalin believed that Russia had to be united, with him as leader if it was to be strong. • Stalin believed Russia had 10 years to catch up with the western world before Germany invaded. • Stalin became increasingly paranoid and power-mad • The Terror can be seen as part of an aggressive programme by Stalin to create a dictatorship in the USSR. • The Terror provided reason to remove any opposition and force people to submit. • The other view is that Stalin was carrying on the work that Lenin had started.

7. What was the relationship between industrialisation and ‘The Terror’? • Rapid industrialisation meant that many peasants left the land to work in towns or industrial centres. • These workers had to be fed, so agricultural production also had to increase. • Stalin ordered the collectivisation of farming, a policy pursued intensely between 1929-33. • Almost all the crops collectivisation they produced would be given to the government at low prices to feed the industrial workers.

8. In the drive to industrialise Stalin often adopted harsh methods. These included forced labour, punishments for those who failed to reach targets and the elimination of those who didn’t fit into his plans. • Many kulaks didn’t want to give up their own farms and resisted collectivisation, destroying their animals and equipment in protest. Millions were sent to prison camps. • Stalin was able to enforce his power in the countryside and he got hold of the resources he needed to turn the Soviet Union into an industrial power.

9. Shakhty Trials of 1928 • Industry also provided reason for a series of show trials including the ‘Shakhty’ trials. More than 50 people were arrested and put on trial for supposedly spying on the Shakhty mines. • 11 were sentenced to death, though 6 of these sentences were reduced. • It was made a criminal offence for a factory to produce poor quality goods and many managers of plants and factories were imprisoned as a result.

10. Impact of The Terror • Russification – Russia came to dominate the whole USSR • Orthodox Church attacked • Twenty million arrested – perhaps half died • Terror – People lived in fear of the Secret Police • Industry grew – the Terror provided free slave labour, but technology and science were held back by loss of top engineers and scientist • Stalin Cult – Stalin was depicted as the “wisest man of the age”

11. Gulags – In 1939 almost 3 million people were in these labour camps where the struggle to survive another day seemed to be the norm • Army and navy – weakened by purges of leading officers • Purges – political opponents eliminated; 1 in 20 Soviet subjects were arrested. The result was predictably widespread confusion and fear. People began to spy on their neighbours and denounce them to the authorities.

12. Strands of Continuity • Stalinism and Leninism • Lenin put a ban on factions within the Communist Party and introduced the one-party state in 1921 - a move that enabled Stalin to get rid of his rivals easily after Lenin's death. • Lenin used to purge his party of “unfaithful” Communists, a method used extensively by Stalin during the 1930s. • The radical methods of Stalin’s modernisation program were mainly the further development of Lenin’s war communism; extensive nationalisation, forceful grain collection from the countryside and harsh direction of labour.

13. Stalinism and Tsarism • Tsarist Russia from the 1850s was effectively a police state too, as it had a vested interest in the maintenance of fear and terror in order to secure an autocracy. • If public opposition to the autocracy arose the sentence would be hard labour or death. • As late as 1901 there was up to 3900 political exiles in Siberia, similar though not to the scale of Stalin’s gulags.