most famous aspect of Stalin's Russia was the
Terror. This grew from his paranoia and his desire
to be absolute autocrat, and was enforced via the NKVD and
public 'show trials'. It developed into a
centrally-enforced 'cult of Stalin-worship', and a terrifying
system of labour camps - 'the gulag'.
Interesting information from AskWinston
- very detailed
Rempel on the Purge
E Smitha - online book VERY hard
BBC debate-podcast on Stalin
believed that Russia had to be united – with him as leader – if it
was to be strong.
believed Russia had 10 years to catch up with the western world before
became increasingly paranoid (seeing plots everywhere) and power-mad (he
demanded continuous praise and applause). In 1935, his wife killed
CHEKA became the OGPU (1922), then the
anybody who opposed industrialisation, and the kulaks who opposed
Kirov, a rival to
Stalin, was murdered. Although he probably ordered the assassination,
Stalin used it as a chance to arrest thousands of his opponents.
1934–1939, Stalin’s political opponents were put on ‘Show
trials’, where they pleaded guilty to impossible charges of treason
(e.g. Zinoviev and Kamenev 1936/ Bukharin, Tomsky & Rykov 1938).
In 1937, the
Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army and 7 leading generals were shot. In
1938–39, all the admirals and half the Army’s officers were executed
imprisoned; churches closed down.
‘Russification’ of all the Soviet Union.
Were denounced/ arrested/
sent to the Gulag (the system of labour camps). 20 million Russians were
sent to the camps, where perhaps half of them died.
People lived in fear.
(party members loyal to Stalin) got all the new flats, jobs, holidays etc.
Censorship of anything that might reflect badly on Stalin
Propaganda everywhere - pictures, statues, continuous praise and applause
Places named after him
Mothers taught their children that Stalin was ‘the wisest man of the age’
History books and photographs were changed to make him the hero of the Revolution, and obliterate the names of purged people (e.g. Trotsky).
Stalin control the Soviet Union? - good list from
most famous description of Stalin's Terror is
Gulag Archipelago, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
on his own experience before, during and after his eleven
years of imprisonment and exile, on evidence provided by more
than 200 fellow prisoners, and on Soviet archives,
Solzhenitsyn reveals the entire apparatus of Soviet repression
- the secret police operations, the labor camps and prisons,
the uprooting or extermination of whole populations.
the end of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for.
Of course, everyone leapt to his feet.
However, who would dare to be the first to stop – after all,
NKVD men were in the hall waiting to see who quit first.
And in that obscure hall, unknown to the Leader, the applause
went on – 6, 7, 8 minutes!
They couldn’t stop now till they collapsed of heart attacks!
Aware of the falsity of the situation, after 11 minutes, the
director of the paper factory sat down in his seat.
And, oh, a miracle took place!
Everyone else stopped dead and sat down.
That, however, was how they found who the independent people
were. And that was how they set about eliminating them.
They easily pasted 10
years in a labour camp on him.
Solzhenitsyn, writing about a Communist Party meeting in
plead guilty to being one of the leaders of this 'Bloc of
Rightists and Trotskyites.' I plead guilty to the
sum total of crimes committed by this counter-revolutionary
organization, whether or not I knew of, whether or not I took
part in, any particular act...
For three months
I refused to say anything. Then I began to
testify. Why? Because while in prison
I made a revaluation of my entire past. For you
ask yourself: "If you must die, what are you dying for?"
Plea to the court in 1938
Russia came to
dominate the whole USSR.
perhaps half died.
lived in fear of the Secret Police.
(the Terror provided free slave labour), but technology and science
were held back by loss of top engineers and scientists.
and navy weakened
purges of leading officers
political opponents eliminated.
'The worst aspect of the Terror was not the deaths, but the
stultifying effect it had on the everyday life of ordinary
people' Using Source A, discuss this claim with a
An amazing aspect of the Show Trails was that the accused
often pleaded guilty to crimes they could not possibly have
done . Using Source B, talk with a friend about
why they might have done this.