One key piece of evidence in favour of this is the Pravda article “dizzy with success†which suggests that the purges spiralled out of Stalin’s control. The Purges thrust the whole of Russia into a state of fear of what would happen to them. It affected all sectors of society and even a seemingly insignificant act could result in arrest. For example one woman was arrested for saying that Tukhachevsky, a high ranking military officer, was handsome after he was arrested. One key reason other than Stalin’s personal paranoia for the Purges was to cleanse the party of careerists, yet dissidents and doubters were also at risk.
1953 saw the death of Soviet Russia’s greatest leader, in a never-ending atmosphere of anxiety, betrayal and paranoia. Stalin had become the state, not through the path of diplomacy, but through tumultuous bloodshed and trickery. He held absolute power and anyone foolish enough to protest against him and his path to the ultimate communist Utopia would find them selves dead or in a forced labor camp. The roots of this ultimate power lie in the years 1929-39, where Stalin employed the ‘Great Terror’, with the purges to secure political and economic control over the Soviet state. This essay will deduce how effective the ‘terror’ was employed to secure these corner stones.
Student Number: 27048382 Modern History Essay ‘With reference to the quote and your own knowledge, assess the impact of the Terror on Soviet society in the late 1930’s. In the late 1930’s, the purges and show trials which comprised the Terror, had a significant impact on Soviet society. The Communist party was coerced in powerlessness, the working class suffered considerably, both physically and psychologically, and copious members of the intelligentsia were exiled or killed as a direct result of the Terror. Furthermore the military was damaged, as many of the leaders of the Party’s formerly powerful Red Army were purged. The purges and show trials aimed to terrorise Soviet society into compliance with Stalin’s regime, and ‘remove potential enemies,’ to allow Stalin to found an almost entirely ‘new’ Communist party, which comprised of ‘more dependable’ members.
Indeed, those caught up in this nightmare thought that Stalin’s only perceivable motive was to destroy the best people in the party. [1] Theories concerning the cause of the Great Terror have been many over the years and the event defies explanation by one simple answer. Modern scholarship suggests that instead of just one cause it was, in fact, the combination of several factors, including the political situation in the 1930’s, Stalin’s personality and psychological state, and the economic advantages of The Terror that all conspired together to form the unfortunate events that took place. The political events that eventually led to the Great Terror began in February of 1934 at the Seventeenth Party Congress. Dissatisfaction and grumbling began to emerge behind the scenes against Stalin and he saw evidence for the first time that his position as leader was threatened.
Stalin was engulfed by a sort-of paranoia, which didn’t always work against him but it did generally mean he was constantly worried by the thought of being thrown out of power, especially by those within his party. This lead to him using purges as a way to enforce his power and secure his position. His constant worry over the potential loss of power is clearly illustrated by the fact his purges initially began internally and also, if we’re to run with the idea that he was responsible for the murder of Kirov, the kirov case of 1934. Purges wasn’t a new method of eliminating those who did not follow the ideology put forward, Lenin in fact was infamous for using this technique. What was new was the purges being utilized as a weapon to eliminate those within the party.
For example the Mensheviks and the supporters of the Tsar would have disagreed on many terms; this may have made it hard for them to work as an organised unit. The fact that the leader of the movement only represented one of the factions also built up the tension between them. However I think that the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky was a larger contributing factor. The men were more loyal to the cause if not from belief but because their families had been taken hostage by Trotsky. Furthermore the Trotsky permitted the assassination of the Tsar; this was a good tactic as it immediately killed the cause of a large proportion of the White army.
It displays Lenin’s striking similarity to the way the Tsar reacted to political pressure from opposing ideologies and factions. In other words, he simply illustrated that he was not the democratic and just leader he made himself out to be before the Revolution. The formation of the Red Army and Cheka also demonstrated Lenin’s likeness to the Tsar on many occasions after the takeover of the Winter Palace. Both bodies were significant instruments of Terror and both stringently enforced compliance to the communist government by committing atrocities against both the White Armies and dissident Worker and peasants. These atrocities included things such as torture, imprisoning the wives of enemies and seriously wounding prisoners
In the early 1930’s Stalin felt threatened by his growing opposition and was determined to bring the party under his total control. At the 17th Party Congress in 1934, Sergei Kirov received the vast majority of votes which led to his assassination due to the threat that he posed to Stalin’s leadership. Many argued that this was a turning point in Russian history. It unleased a terror that killed millions in the next four years. Stalin was able to eliminate all effective opposition through a series of purges.
Some of the features from his regime included the banning of all other Non-Communist parties, Cominform beginning a reign of terror having executed many political leaders and their supporters and having Russian officials control the government. This was a cause for uprising as if Rakoski had been a good leader in the first place, then there would have been no valid reason for the public to want to rebel. Stalin’s death in 1953 however was a massive cause for an uprising by the Hungarian public in 1956. When Stalin was alive, his style of government (Stalinism) was very oppressive and strict in regiment. He held extraordinary power that resulted in an estimated 20 million deaths during his reign.
What caused the purges? (12 marks) Stalin began the purges after the death of party member, Sergei Kirov. The reason that Stalin chose to carry out the purges at that point was so that he could use Kirov’s murder as an excuse to expose more ‘enemies’. There are many different interpretations of why the purges took place, and events leading up to Kirov’s death makes it very obvious that Stalin felt threatened and felt he needed to act on his feelings. This essay will explore the interpretations with evidence as to what caused the purges.