The Terror
Forms of Terror

Secret Police
The CHEKA, which became the OGPU in 1922, and then the NKVD in
1934 was used to terrorise and control the population

The First Purges 1930-33
This included anyone who opposed industrialisation,
and the kulaks who opposed collectivisation

The Great Purges 1934-39
These purges were aimed at different groups of people:
Political Opponents
1934: Kirov
Stalin ordered his assassination and used this as a way to arrest
thousands of his opponents
1934–1939: Show Trials
Opponents such as Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin pleaded guilty
to impossible charges of treason
The Army
In 1937 the Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army and seven
leading generals were shot, and between 1938-39 half the Army’s
officers were imprisoned or executed
The Church
Religious leaders were imprisoned and churches were closed down
Ethnic Groups
Stalin enforced Russification of all the Soviet Union
Ordinary People
Most people lived in fear, whilst those who remained loyal to Stalin,
the “Apparatchiks” got all the new flats, jobs etc.

Cult of Stalin
Anything that might reflect badly on Stalin was censored
Places were named after him
Children were taught that he was “the wisest man of the age”
Propaganda in the form of pictures and statues was used, and
history books were re-written in order to make Stalin the hero of the
revolution and remove names such as Trotsky.
Why were they used?

Stalin believed that Russia had to be united, with him as leader if it
was to be strong.

Stalin believed Russia had 10 years to catch up with the western
world before Germany invaded.

Stalin became increasingly paranoid and power-mad

The Terror can be seen as part of an aggressive programme by
Stalin to create a dictatorship in the USSR.

The Terror provided reason to remove any opposition and force
people to submit.

The other view is that Stalin was carrying on the work that Lenin had
started.
What was the relationship between
industrialisation and ‘The Terror’?

Rapid industrialisation meant that many
peasants left the land to work in towns or
industrial centres.

These workers had to be fed, so agricultural
production also had to increase.

Stalin ordered the collectivisation of farming,
a policy pursued intensely between 1929-33.

Almost all the crops collectivisation they
produced would be given to the government
at low prices to feed the industrial workers.



In the drive to industrialise Stalin often adopted harsh methods.
These included forced labour, punishments for those who failed to
reach targets and the elimination of those who didn’t fit into his
plans.
Many kulaks didn’t want to give up their own farms and resisted
collectivisation, destroying their animals and equipment in protest.
Millions were sent to prison camps.
Stalin was able to enforce his power in the countryside and he got
hold of the resources he needed to turn the Soviet Union into an
industrial power.

Shakhty Trials of 1928

Industry also provided reason for a series of show trials including the
‘Shakhty’ trials. More than 50 people were arrested and put on trial
for supposedly spying on the Shakhty mines.

11 were sentenced to death, though 6 of these sentences were
reduced.

It was made a criminal offence for a factory to produce poor quality
goods and many managers of plants and factories were imprisoned
as a result.
Impact of The Terror

Russification – Russia came to dominate the whole USSR

Orthodox Church attacked

Twenty million arrested – perhaps half died

Terror – People lived in fear of the Secret Police


Industry grew – the Terror provided free slave labour, but technology
and science were held back by loss of top engineers and scientist
Stalin Cult – Stalin was depicted as the “wisest man of the age”



Gulags – In 1939 almost 3 million people were in these labour
camps where the struggle to survive another day seemed to be the
norm
Army and navy – weakened by purges of leading officers
Purges – political opponents eliminated; 1 in 20 Soviet subjects
were arrested. The result was predictably widespread confusion and
fear. People began to spy on their neighbours and denounce them
to the authorities.
Strands of Continuity

Stalinism and Leninism

Lenin put a ban on factions within the Communist Party and
introduced the one-party state in 1921 - a move that enabled Stalin
to get rid of his rivals easily after Lenin's death.


Lenin used to purge his party of “unfaithful” Communists, a method
used extensively by Stalin during the 1930s.
The radical methods of Stalin’s modernisation program were mainly
the further development of Lenin’s war communism; extensive
nationalisation, forceful grain collection from the countryside and
harsh direction of labour.

Stalinism and Tsarism

Tsarist Russia from the 1850s was effectively a police state too, as it
had a vested interest in the maintenance of fear and terror in order
to secure an autocracy.

If public opposition to the autocracy arose the sentence would be
hard labour or death.

As late as 1901 there was up to 3900 political exiles in Siberia,
similar though not to the scale of Stalin’s gulags.