R5 Stalinism, politics and control

• Machinery of State Terror

  Emerged under Lenin, Cheka created Dec 1917, OGPU 1922-1934

  1929 Trotsky exiled, Bukharin fired from Politburo

  Gulags and show trials

  Shakhty Trial 1928, managers accused of counter revolutionary activity forced to confess, 5 killed

  Industrial Party trial Nov 1930, industrialists, Mensheviks, SRs accused of sabotage

  Metro-Vickers trial 1933, British specialists found guilty of wrecking

  
  

  Ryutin opposed collectivisation after 1FYP, fired 1930, published Ryutin Platform March 1932, Kirov overruled his execution but he was imprisoned and then killed in Jan 1937

  Zinoviev, Kamenev and 14 other communists expelled
• Genrikh Yagoda


  Became head of NKVD in 1934

  Prepared first major show trial in 1936 of Kamenev and Zinoviev

  Replaced by Yezhov in 1936, put on show trial in 1937 accused of Trotskyism, executed
• Nikolay Yezhov


  Elected to CC in 1934, took over NKVD in September 1936

  Loyal to Stalin, was his "little blackberry"

  1937-1938 did the Yezhovshchina, 75% of the government and military purged

  Fell out of favour with Stalin in 1938, killed in February 1940
• Lavrentiy Beria


  Became head of NKVD in August 1938, rumour that he personally strangled Yezhov to death

  Oversaw the 1939 Katyn Massacre

  Expanded gulag system
• Kirov's Murder


  17th Party Congress in 1934, a split formed between the Politburo over pace of industrialisation, Kirov was very against grain seizures, got a long applause

  Kirov, Zhdanov, Kaganovich and Stalin become Secretaries of Equal Rank

  Kirov was murdered in December 1934 by a party member who suspected him of having an affair with his wife. Stalin claimed there was a Trotskyist plot and the killer implied the NKVD knew, Kirov's bodyguard and some NKVDs were killed in car crash - Very sketchy

  A day after, Yagoda was given powers to arrest and kill anyone guilty of terrorist plotting, over a hundred party members were killed, thousands more imprisoned

  June 1935 death penalty extended to "counter revolutionaries"
• Stalinism and the Church

  Marx described religion as "the opium of the people", Lenin allowed freedom of worship but restricted the Church's earthly power

  Under Stalin, teaching of religion in school was forbidden, churches destroyed, pilgrimages to Mecca and wearing of veils banned 1935

  1936 constitution criminalised religious propaganda but gave priests the right to vote since 1918, many priests purged

  By 1941, 40,000 churches and 25,000 mosques closed and turned into schools, cinemas, stuff

  Religion stayed strong, 1937 census found that 500,000 were still religious
• Stalinism and Women


  Lenin had promised a new liberation for women, involved more women in workforce, abortion legalised in 1929

  Stalin concerned with falling population and juvenile crime, begins the Great Retreat

  Women were expected to be more traditional, big strong workers were now more feminine

  June 1936 - Abortion illegal, divorce and contraception harder to get, mothers got tax exemptions for having more children, child support at 60% of income, cheaters shamed in the news, decrees against prostitution and homosexuality

  Prostitution, divorce, abortion and depopulation continued
• Stalinism and Education


  1920s had free education with no exams, very high drop out rate

  Stalin needed new skilled workers, CC changed education in the 1930s

  Old quota brought in lots of working class children, this was banned in favour of selection for all, military training before the war, practical work for FYPs for the less able

  Teachers watched by NKVD, could be arrested if students failed

  By 1941, almost all of Russia was literate, a literate could be brainwashed easier

  USSR became known for its science graduate
• Stalinism and Youth Organisations

  1926 - Komsomol started for 10-28 years olds, becomes closely affiliated with party in 1939, formed shock brigades and helped build Magnitogorsk and Komsomolsk

  Some young people were more interested in western culture like cinema, fashion and jazz
• Stalinism and working men

  Purges meant there was more room at the top

  Wage differentials from 1931, skilled workers were paid more but this changed back from 1940-41 as war approached

  Stakhanovite movement

  Unskilled workers moved around to avoid a bad work record

  Little privacy, lots of crime and a minor misdemeanour could get you purged

  Coming from a former bourgeois family could get you purged
• Urban and Rural Differences

  More control over the countryside than before, more propaganda because of rise in literacy

  Basic certainties of rural life like religion, tradition and cooperation were questioned, people moved into the cities

  Collectivisation was accepted in the 1930s, peasants now had tractors and villages had schools and clinics

  Peasants viewed as inferior

  Great Famine of 1932-33 brought refugees and shortages to cities

  No privacy in kommunalka, some lived in their factories and landlords spied on tenants, party members had privacy

  Many cities had no sewage or street lights, high crime rates, black markets

  1937 - some private trade allowed to try resolve shortages

  Things overall better in cities but everything sucked by 1941
• Socialist Man and Woman


  The party wanted to create a new type of citizen, one who was well educated and intelligent but incapable of independent thought and susceptible to propaganda

  No private life, no religion, would celebrate things like Stalin's birthday

  Scientist Trofim Lysenko claimed that if someone acquires the right traits, they would be passed on to the next generation, anyone who opposed him was purged
• Impact of Cultural Change


  Komsomol led the attack on bourgeoisie values, spread proletarian culture and joined shock brigades

  Leading soviet artists were not popular outside of USSR

  Many were silent or were silenced, some were sent to work in industry and agriculture to punish them and expose them to true Soviet values

  Mid 1930s - attack on the avant garde, Shostakovich's "Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District" was called "chaos instead of music" in Pravda, Shostakovich avoided arrest but his composer was arrested and a director who defended him was tortured and shot and his wife was stabbed to death

  Russians loved the cinema but preferred Classical Hollywood to Soviet Propaganda about like building factories and stuff
• Similarities and differences between Lenin's and Stalin's USSR

  Lenin had a better reputation than Stalin in the long run but Stalin had more of an impact

  Some believe Lenin's excesses like the Red Terror were a response to a desperate situation, Stalin's excesses are much less excusable

  Stalin relied on a system of terror that was established by Lenin

  Stalin brought Russia into an international situation in the 1930s that Lenin could not have foreseen, fused Russian Nationalism with Soviet Socialism

  Lenin debated policy with the Politburo, Stalin controlled everything

  Old Bolsheviks were purged, new generation owed everything to Stalin

  Stalin fully collectivised agriculture
• Show trials


  Foreign journalists invited to staged trials to prove Stalin was facing enemies of the state

  Confessions were pressured by torture and threats

  April 1935 - children over 12 can be tried as adults
• Trial of the Sixteen

  19-24 August 1936

  They had already been tried in secret in 1935, Stalin accused them and 14 others of Trotskyism and tried them again for propaganda purpose

  All were sentenced for death, Yagoda was also replaced by Yezhov in September for not uncovering the conspiracy quick enough
• Trial of the Twenty-One

  March 1938

  Included Bukharin, Rykov and Yagoda

  Charged with killing Kirov, plotting to kill Lenin and Stalin, sabotaging mines and spying for foreign intelligence agencies

  18 of them were killed, Bukharin was executed last and was forced to watch the other ones be killed first
• The Stalin Constitution

  1936

  Declared that socialism had been achieved, communism was next

  The most democratic constitution in the world according to Stalin

  Promised autonomy to the republics and voting for all citizens over 18 including former people

  Statement of civil rights

  Was probably made to impress foreigners because literally none of the promises were kept
• Mass Terror and Repression at Local Levels

  July 1937 - NKVD Order 00447, small NKVD local groups hunted kulaks and other anti soviet elements by a system of quotas

  Some groups had their quotas increased so they could arrest or kill more people, within a month there were 100,000 arrests and 14,000 people sent to gulags. By autumn 1937, NKVD arrested random people to meet quotas

  Neighbours were encouraged to turn people in , gypsies and former rivals of the party were targeted
• Mass Terror and Repression at a Central Level

  Trial of 17 January 1937 - 17 prominent communists accused of plotting with Trotsky, 13 were killed

  Military purge May-June 1937 - Stalin feared a military coup and purged the military , 50% of all officers were executed or imprisoned

  Not great considering WWII was on the way

  Trial of the 21 March 1938 - Bukharin and Rykov killed

  Purges allowed party members to settle old scores or make space for a promotion

  A third of all party members had been purged by the end of 1938
• Gulags


  Built from the 1930s to provide cheap labour for Stalin's industrial projects

  Huge surge in inmate numbers, 800k in 1935, 5.5-9.5 million by 1939

  Terrible conditions, forced labour, many were worked to death
• Treatment of National Minorities

  Collectivisation was devastating for the republics

  Russian was made compulsory everywhere

  Wave of deportations from 1937

  Revival of antisemitism, many rabbis arrested

  Persecution of Muslims in central Asian Republics after 1928
• End of the Purges and the Death of Trotsky

  Yezhovshchina slowed down after 1938 when it threatened to destabilise the country

  Stalin used Yezhov as a scapegoat, he was arrested tortured, tried in secret and shot to death in Feb 1940, then replaced by Beria

  Aug 1940 Spanish Communist Ramon Mercader pretended to be a fan of Trotsky's, got into his house and plunged an ice pick into his skull. Mercader was imprisoned for 20 years but his mum got an Order of Lenin award
• Responsibility for Terror and Purges

  Stalin started and ended the purge and was never a stranger to violence, he used to rob banks to fund the Bolsheviks

  The suicide of his wife in 1932 may have made him more unhinged and paranoid

  He was obsessed with eliminating rivals and Old Bolsheviks

  Terror was an integral part of Russian regimes

  Terror was needed to provide slave labour and remove kulaks

  Over zealous local officials

  Fear fed on fear, terror was self escalating