Attacks on political opposition

Attacks on political opposition

1. Lenin 1917-1924

   • Set up the Cheka in 1918
   • Cheka targeted counter-revolutionaries (Tsarist supporters, trade unions who wanted higher wages, socialists in rival parties (Mensheviks)
   • During the Civil War (1918-1921) the Cheka requisitioned grain, closed opposition newspapers, executed opponents of the regime, executed deserters of the Red Army
   • 1922 --> Cheka became GPU
   • 1923 --> GPU became OGPU
   • During NEP (1921-1928) they attacked "class enemies" (rich traders, women who wore make-up or western clothes and youths who listened to jazz music)

2. Stalin 1928-1953

   • 1934 --> OGPU became NKVD
   • Purges 1934-1938
   • Heads of the NKVD
     • Yagoda 1934-1936
       • Helped to turn the secret police on the Party though they acted respectfully
       • Purges were slow under him so Stalin grew critical and replaced him with Yezhov who was particularly eager to please and much more brutal than Yagoda
     • Yezhov 1936-1938
       • Mass escalation of terror
       • Responsible for the worst years of the purges
       • 1.5 million people were arrested by the NKVD
       • 680,000 people executed
       • Stalin used him and his reputation of being the "bloody dwarf" as a scapegoat in 1938 to scale back the terror (despite the fact that he had signed many of the death warrants and was the one who came up with the quotas for arrests)
       • 14 out of 16 army commanders and 35,000 officers purged from the Red Army
       • Purged 3000 of own personnel in first 6 months
     • Beria 1938 onwards
       • During WW2 he organised mass deportations and executions of ethnic minorities liked Chechens
       • After WW2 he was in charge of efforts to develop nuclear weapons
   • Show trials
     • Trial of the 16 in 1936
       • Involved Zinoviev and Kamenev
       • Accused of working as agents of Trotsky to undermine the state
       • Under pressure from the NKVD they confessed to these crimes as well as ones that they couldn't possibly have committed
     • Trial of the 17 in 1937
       • Involved Karl Radek and Georgy Pyatakov who were accused of working for Trotsky and foreign governments to undermine the Soviet economy
         • They'd actually criticused the 5YPs
     • Trial of the 21 in 1938
       • Purge of the right --> Bukharin and Rykov
       • They were accused of forming a "Trotsky-Rightist Bloc" to which they both confessed
       • Bukharin had criticised Stalin's economic policies

3. Khrushchev 1953-1964

   • De-Stalinisation from 1956 meant a massive reduction in terror
   • Immediately released 4620 people from Gulag camps, especially those imprisoned due to the Doctors Plot

4. Andropov as head of KGB 1967-1982

   • Rejected mass terror, preferred minimal violence and instead preferred to target specific individuals (dissidents)
   • Originally allowed the dissidents to emigrate so 100,000 left
   • Sent some of the dissidents that remained to mental asylums to discredit what they'd been saying
   • He invested in surveillance and organised demotions or sackings of dissidents
   • Failed to remove opposition though as they still published illegal material and pressure from the West meant that many remained free

5. Andropov as head of USSR 1982-1985

   • There was a lot of popular discontent
     • Due to slow improvements in living standards and dissatisfaction with quality and availability of food and consumer goods
     • Resentment grew toward the privilege and corruption within the Party
     • Increases in alcoholism, poor labour discipline, black market trade, avoidance of military service, demand for Western goods and Church attendance
   • He dealt with the discontent with his anti-corruption campaign (investigations into senior members), ant-alcohol campaign and operation trawl to catch abesenteeism