Stalin’s constitution of 1936

Freedom from arbitrary arrest  Soviet Union as a federal state

Freedom of speech with 11 autonomous republics
Free press  Ethnic autonomy
Right to demonstrate
Respect for privacy and personal correspondence  Supreme Soviet legislative
Employment for all body with elected representatives
Universal suffrage for over 18
Free elections and secret ballots  Equality and joint ownership of
means of production

★ Appearance of democracy for international consumption

★ Rights applied only to Communists to assure one-party dominance
★ “proof that socialism and democracy are invincible”

Chistki (cleansing) with non-violent methods

Reshape party as members required to renew party cards, 20% members
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Public show trials, execution
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NKVD mass terror denounced, arrested, imprisonment, executed, labour camps Gulag
Targets for purges:
Kulaks
Ex-Mensheviks
Old Bourgeois intelligentsia
Potential rivals
Popular, prominent figures
Expulsion for drunkenness, corruption and lack of activity
Workers and engineers accused of sabotage
Critical or dissatisfied
Replace potential sources of opposition in the Party by replacing them with nomenklatura.

Consequences for purges

Soviet labour camps Gulag
Execution
Imprisonment
Show trials
Denounced

Reasons for joining Communist party:

Lenin Enrolment 1924
Larger rations
Access to consumer goods

Lenin – terror outside party

Stalin – terror inside party