Stalin’s
Purges: 1934-1938. |
Between 1934 and 193 millions of people were arrested and killed,
either by execution (sometimes torture) in prison, or by overwork
and malnutrition in the labour camps, or execution there.
Why did Stalin launch the terror and carry
it to such extremes?
The most likely answer is that
# he saw any opposition, real or potential, as a deadly threat
to himself and that this perception confirmed his determination
to hold absolute power.
# he believed that terror was a legitimate political weapon.
# he believed terror to be the most effective means of making
people obey and work hard.
The impulse for launching the great terror
was criticism of Stalin's policies and methods within the party
leadership in the years 1930-32.
The most significant opposition came from Ryutin.
Ryutin was expelled from the Party and arrested in September
1930, but the OGPU (Security Police) acquitted him of any criminal
intent and he was only given a warning. However, in 1932, he
and a group of minor party officials - some of whom were followers
of Bukharin, who had opposed collectivisation - wrote a paper
known as Ryutin Platform, proposing
an economic retreat
ie a reduction of investment in heavy industry and the liberation
of the peasants, allowing them to leave the collective and state
farms.
The
Ryutin Platform
The authors condemned Stalin as
"the evil genius of the Russian Revolution."
They pointed to the lawlessness and terror existing both
in the party and in the countryside, to the collapse of
genuine planning, and said that
the press was reduced “to a monstrous factory of
lies."
they said: "Stalin and his clique will not and cannot
voluntarily give up their position, so they must be removed
by force." |
Meanwhile, Kirov was widely regarded as Stalin's heir apparent
and was popular in party circles. He received many more votes
than Stalin for reselection to the Central Committee at the
1934 Party Congress. In fact, only three votes seem to have
been cast against Kirov, while some 270 were cast against Stalin.
However, Stalin's henchmen are said to have destroyed these
except for three, also leaving three votes against Kirov.
NKVD operatives, under Stalin's
orders, killed Kirov. Then Stalin raised a great hue and cry
claiming the whole party was in danger.
So Kirov's murder was Stalin's pretext
to start a series of purges in the party.
The visible part of the purges were the show
trials of well known Bolshevik leaders.
eg The Trial of the 21 1938 in
which the key defendants were Bukharin, Rykov , Krestinskii,
who had been the Soviet ambassador in Berlin in 1922-30, and
Yagoda , the NKVD chief who had conducted the inquiry into the
assassination of Kirov and organised the purges.
Most were executed, while others died in the camps.
In all, some 90% of the delegates of the
1934 Party Congress were purged, and most of them were
killed.
The Purge of the Soviet Military.
The Army. Navy, and Air Force Officer Corps were decimated..
Stalin’s motive for these purges seems to have been the
fear that a claimant to his power might be found in the leadership
of the Soviet armed forces. Some of them enjoyed great prestige
and popularity among the Russian people.
As a result of the military purges,
four out of five Soviet marshals,
some 90% of the generals, 80% of the colonels, and
80% of officers above the rank of captain were shot or put in
labour camps.
|