Stalin's purges

• 1932 trial of Ryutin groups
• 1933-34 nearly 1 million members were excluded from the CPSU on the grounds of being Ryutinites
• suspect individuals had their party cards taken from them 'for checking', they were not given these back
• 1st Dec 1934, Sergi Kirov secretary of Leningrad Soviet, is assassinated by Leonid Nicolaev. Strong possibility that Stalin is involved
• Kirov's murder was openly blamed on the Trotskyites and leftists
• 'decree against terrorist acts' the NKVD now had limitless powers in pursuing enemies of the party; suspected conspirators were rounded up and either imprisoned or executed
• The Stalin enrolment 1931-4: CPSU recruited high proportion of skills workers, ambitious, allowed privileged positions to Stalin so willing to support the Purges (Stalin brings in men who supports him)
• The great purge 1936-9: Stalin claimed Soviet Union under 'the enemy within'.

  • purge of the party
  • armed services
  • people
• Purge of the party (left)

  • rumours spread of Trotskyite threat
  • Kamenev and Zinoviev arrested 1935; accused of opposition
  • trial and pleaded guilty
• purge of the party (right)

  • Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky investigated
  • 17 communists charged spying for Nazis, incriminating Bukharin
  • 1938 Bukharin and Rykov put on trial to murder Stalin
  • Yagoda (former head of NKVD put on trial)
• Purge of armed forces 1937-9

  • 1937 Vyshninsky announced 'gigantic conspiracy' in red army
  • chief of general staff arrested with 7 other generals
  • trial held and accused of spying for Germany and japan
  • 1937 all shot
• purge of the armed forces:

  • all 11 war commissars removed
  • 3/5 marshals in USSR removed
  • 75/80 supreme military council executed
  • 14/16 army commanders removed
  • 2/3 of 280 divisional commanders removed
  • half of commissioned officer corps, of 35,000, imprisoned or shot
• purge of navy and air force:

  • all serving admirals shot
  • thousands of naval officers sent to labour camps
  • 1 of senior commanders of air force survived
• by killing of all experienced and commanders it leaves Russia inexperienced for war
• purge of the people:

  • legal and academic professionals, foreign communists, Kulaks purged
  • 1/18 arrested
  • Yezhov followed police of deliberate repression
  • NKVD arrested and dragged numerous people at same time
  • 1941 8 million in Gulags
• purge of the people:

  • quotas on how many should be purged
• Later purges 1941-53: great patriotic war

  • Stalin blamed military failure in the great patriotic war on internal sabotage
  • soviet troops purged at end of the war
  • returning POWs executed or sent to labour camps
  • whole communities executed on grounds of supporting Hitler
• Later purges 1941-53: Leningrad affair

  after 1947, Stalin shared central committee and Politburo

  leading party an official who had been rewarded during siege of Leningrad, tried of charges of attempting to use city as opposition> shot
• Later purges: purge of the jews

  • antisemitism was tradition
  • Stalin's daughter had an affair with jew> reason for purge
  • Stalin ordered a pogrom
  • early 1953 'The doctors plot' announcing all Jewish doctors planning to murder Stalin
  • mass purge plan> stalins death prevented
• Kulaks and forced collectivisation killed 7 million
• Gulags killed 12 million
• purges killed 1.2 million
• 1930-36 killed 7 million
• 1937-8 killed 3 million
• 1939-53 killed 10 million
• in red army 37,000 officers killed and 3/5 marshals
• over 3000 members of secret police killed
• Between 1928-30 11% cleansed from party
• by 1936 40,000 members expelled from party
• elections in 1934, 166 of 12000 delegates did not vote for Stalin> he felt under threat
• the 1936 constitution allowed freedom of religion, press and assembly, Ex-Kulaks and priests given right to vote> made USSR seem democratic
• Ezhov proposed by end of 1937:

  • arrest 25,000 of Politburo league
  • in each district target of 28% to be shot
• 3% of 1934 central committee alive in 1939
• Ezhov principal agent in purges was arrested, close to purges
• 1/18th population arrested
• 1934 NKVD replaced the GPU