Key features

• Purge of the Communist party


  Destruction of the old Bolshevik party

  Estimated 1 million party members purged

  1934 - 70% of central committee later executed/imprisoned

  Seventeenth party congress - 1108 of them purged
• Purge of the armed forces

  Tortured until they confessed

  Killed rather than imprisoned because of the chance they could come back (shot)

  1937 - 8 generals arrested, charged with plotting against Stalin with Germany + Japan

  Weren't trusted as they were appointed by Trotsky
• Control of the people

  Ordinary people denounced - work colleagues, family, friends, etc.

  People believed society to be full of traitors and turned on each other.

  'Target' of 28% found guilty to be executed, rest sent to the Gulags.

  'Ravens' made arrests between 11pm and 3am : People were very fearful of them, and they drove around in black cars at night randomly knocking on peoples doors to announce them 'guilty'

  Op order 00447, 250,000 identified as 'enemies of the state'