880851
Description
Mind Map by Monty Kirk, updated more than 1 year ago
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Created by Monty Kirk
almost 11 years ago
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Purges and the Terror, 1934-39
- Murder of Kirov, 1934: Did Stalin arrange to eliminate a
potential political rival within the party? It was the trigger for the
purges supposedly in retaliation for Kirov's murder
- Reasons for the purges: To eliminate any political rival, remove what Stalin
defined as a 'Trotskyite opposition' (Stalin was paranoid of being removed or
undermined), ensure conformity (remove those with divergent or independent
views - 'Bourgeois views' - such as intellectuals, middle classes, cultural figures
who have no place in a Communist society), to perhaps satisfy Gulag quotas,
also perhaps argument that the purges took momentum of their own within the
NKVD once started
- Impacts of the purge on the USSR: Developed culture of
terror, widespread fear of the NKVD and Communist
Party, removal of able people from their jobs (e.g.
intellectuals, engineers, doctors etc.) slowed
development, death and imprisonment of millions, Stalin
became unassailable leader, temporarily weakened the
Red Army
- Impacts of the purge on the USSR: Developed culture of
terror, widespread fear of the NKVD and Communist
Party, removal of able people from their jobs (e.g.
intellectuals, engineers, doctors etc.) slowed
development, death and imprisonment of millions, Stalin
became unassailable leader, temporarily weakened the
Red Army
- Yezhov: Brutal and ruthless head of the
NKVD, 1936-38 (height of the Purges).
'Yezhovschina' was used to describe the
terrifying process of the purges. He was
eventually a victim of the purges (Stalin
considered him to be too dangerous and
the purges were out of control) and was
replaced by his deputy Beria (Yezhov
replaced Yagoda whom he was said to
have personally tortured and executed)
- Role of the NKVD: The instrument of terror within the Stalinist
state. Arrests, interrogations, torture, forced confessions,
deportations, mass execution (about 1m Soviet citizens died
directly at the hand of the NKVD). Also oversaw the Gulag
system and all other branches of the Communist police state
- Role of the NKVD: The instrument of terror within the Stalinist
state. Arrests, interrogations, torture, forced confessions,
deportations, mass execution (about 1m Soviet citizens died
directly at the hand of the NKVD). Also oversaw the Gulag
system and all other branches of the Communist police state
- Deportations and Gulags: during collectivisation large groups
of peasants were arrested and sometimes deported
wholesale to farm eastern areas (e.g. Siberia). Many others
were sent to Gulags perhaps to just fill the quotas (slave
labour). Camps were places of hard labour - many died from
malnutrition, brutality and exposure to the elements (worst
being in the east e.g. Siberia, although conditions closer to
Moscow were also poor - estimated that up to 50,000 died
building Belomor Canal)
- Moscow Show Trials, 1936-38: To publically condemn Stalin's
closest rivals whom he wished to remove (e.g. Bukharin,
Zinoviev, Kamenev). Arrests, interrogations, false charges and
public trial broadcast to masses followed by swift executions
- Purges of the armed forces, 1936-38: To
remove possible threat to Stalin's leadership
(paranoia?), began with arrest of several top
commanders in 1937 and eventually led to
purge of a large number of officers. It adversely
affected the Red Army on the eve of war (even
in 1941 when facing German invasion) and
allowed Stalin to take the army under his control
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