1928-1932 - The Early Purges

• In 1928, Stalin launched his policies of rapid industrialisation and collectivisation.

  • Those who opposed fell fowl of the OGPU and the Red Army.
• Collectivisation was met with fierce resistance from thousands of peasants.
• Any peasant resisting collectivisation was liable to be labelled a kulak.
• Thousands of peasants were shot, millions were arrested and taken to gulags or to the new industrial towns and cities to work as forced labour.
• In some extreme cases, the Soviet air force was called in to bomb remote villages which refused to collectivise.
• Peasant resistance was very damaging to Soviet agriculture with millions of animals being slaughtered and less grain being harvested.
• By 1934, the peasant resistance had been crushed by the repressive reaction of the Soviet regime.
• There was less overt opposition to the First Five Year Plan but the implementation of the policy was accompanied by an increase in the level of terror.
• Undoubtedly, there were those who tried to disrupt the Five Year Plans but nowhere near as many as claimed by the government.
• Often the victims of these early purges were managers, engineers and specialists who were now described as "bourgeois class enemies".
• Terror was also used to motivate managers and workers to meet the demanding targets set by Gosplan.