Depth Study:

Russia, 1905-41

How did Stalin gain and hold on to power?

 Learning Objectives

At the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

❏ Assess Stalin’s succession of power and mechanisms used to control the Soviet Union

Important Keywords

PURGE GULAG
POLITBURO CULT OF PERSONALITY
GREAT TERROR INDUSTRIALISATION
COMMUNISM COLLECTIVISATION
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Stalin’s dictatorship: use of terror and the Purges

Watch the documentary about

Stalin and the Red Terror. Be
guided by the given questions:

1. Why did Stalin launch the

purges?
2. What were the methods
used to control the Soviet
Union?
3. How did it affect the Soviet
life?

Access the video using this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=KqfcpNrcGb0
Apparatus of Terror
As you read through the following slides, create a mind map that contains information on the following topics:
(we will add to this over the next few lessons)

1.  Secret Police (Cheka became OGPU (1922) and finally NKVD (1934)

2.  The First Purges, 1930-33 (opposition to industrialization + kulaks against collectivization)

 
3.  The Great Purges, 1934-39 (Political opponents – show trials)
- The Army
- The Church
- Ethnic groups (Russification)
- Ordinary people (Gulags)

4. Cult of Stalin
Apparatus of Terror – How did the purges begin?
Many Communists, especially Old Bolsheviks, had been
deeply disturbed by the violence of collectivization in the early Show Trials
1930s. They were shocked by the mass slaughter and human
misery it had brought about. Some, including Stalin’s wife,
were so disillusioned that they committed suicide during the
dreadful famine in 1932-33.

By 1934, when things started to improve, a large group in the

Communist Party thought that it was time to slow down the
drive towards industrialization and to improve relations with the
peasants. Sergei Kirov, a leading Communist, put forward
these views at the Seventeenth Party Congress. There was
talk of removing Stalin as leader, and Kirov seemed to be
emerging as a popular alternative.

Shortly after the Congress, Kirov was shot outside his office in
Leningrad. Stalin claimed that there was a conspiracy to
murder him and destroy the Party. Using the atmosphere
created by the murder, he ordered arrests.
Apparatus of Terror – Purges
In 1936, Stalin purged the Communist Party to rid himself of anyone
that might oppose him. The first to go were the old enemies – Zinoviev
and Kamenev. Along with 14 others, they were accused of organizing
the murder of Kirov and planning to assassinate Stalin.
They were put on trial in full view of the world in ‘show trials’ designed
to show that the state and Stalin were right – a conspiracy existed. The
trials were broadcast on radio and the confessions were to laughable
charges, including plans to murder Lenin!
One of the hotels where the plotters were supposed to have met was
demolished years before and Smirnov, another ‘plotter’, had actually
been in jail at the time. Between 1936-38, thousands of Communist
Party members were denounced in meetings and expelled from the
Party.
Denouncing others was a good way to get a better job in the
Party. Denunciations usually led to arrest, torture and execution.
Under torture, people often implicated others and the cycle of
arrests continued.
The second main show trial took place in 1937, when senior Party
members were accused of industrial sabotage and spying. The
third and last great show trial in 1938 included Bukharin, Rykov
and Yagoda. It as too dangerous to have men like Bukharin
around, who knew so much about the old revolutionary days. He
was shot alongside Yagoda (previous head of NKVD).
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Stalin’s dictatorship: use of terror and the Purges

About 15 to 30 thousand
1934 were executed, while 1.8
million WWII Red Army
Prominent political figures veterans were exiled and
including Kamenev and branded as traitors. The
Zinoviev were also arrested. purge of the military
Moreover, became known as the
1108 of 1937 Great Terror. Image of Gulag women living in

1996
barracks
In June, Stalin ordered 1940
delegates were a military purge of the Gulag stands for
Glavnoe Upravlenie
purged in three Red Army after In August, Ramon ispravitel’no-trudovykh
years. Marshal Mikhail Mercader, a Spanish LAGerei (Main
Tukhachevsky, along Administration of
Over the coming years, 98 with other high-ranking
communist, killed
Corrective Labour
Trotsky by stabbing
139
Camps) and was a
out of elected officials, were found him in the head with bureaucratic institution
guilty of a German- an ice-pick. under the rule of Stalin.
delegates of the Central
funded coup.
Committee were executed.
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Stalin’s dictatorship: use of terror and the Purges
Aside from
suppression of
GULAG
How did the Gulags work? political enemies,
A system of forced labour
it was also a way
camps built and operated in
to efficiently
the most extreme
boost
geographical locations in
industrialisation
Russia. Prisoners worked
through labour
forcefully under harsh and
supply.
unsanitary conditions
experiencing torture, famine,
and death. When it was first
established in 1919, at the
time of Lenin, there were
about 84 camps, which
significantly increased under Possible political enemies and opposition were
Stalin’s rule. imprisoned in these camps. Moreover, ethnic
minorities were also subjected to exile in the
later years.

Stalin’s dictatorship: use of terror and the Purges
During the Great Terror, about
20% of the USSR’s population
was arrested, Most came from
the middle and lower classes of
kulaks. Like Hitler’s SS, Stalin
created the NKVD or the
People's Commissariat for
Internal Affairs - squads who
arrest and execute suspected
opponents.
NKVD officers, August 1937
10
1923 to 1953
The operations of the NKVD
expanded outside the USSR. By the time of Stalin’s death,
In Spain and Poland,
about 18 million people
thousands of anarchists
were executed. Some who were sent to gulags.
were arrested were taken to
forced labour camps,
Moreover, about 6 to 7
known as gulags. The million people were placed
sentence was considered in exile villages. All in all, an
tantamount to death.
estimated 25 million
people experience
imprisonment under Stalin’s
rule.
Image of prisoners in a Soviet Gulag
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Stalin’s dictatorship: use of terror and the Purges

Initially, kulaks who opposed Prisoners worked without

collectivisation and common safety equipment. They used
criminals were sent to the simple tools like axes and
gulags. After the Great Purge, hammers.
political prisoners were
transported to the gulags.

LIFE IN A GULAG
Moreover, educated people They were exposed to cold
including doctors, scientists, weather conditions.
writers, and students became
targets. Men, women, and
children all experienced harsh Despite long workdays, food
living conditions in labour rations were limited.
camps. They were forced to
work on construction and
industrial sites like the Moscow- Most camps were
Volga Canal, the White Sea-Baltic overcrowded and
Canal and the Kolyma Highway. unsanitary.