What was the impact of the purges, show trials and ‘the terror’ on
the Communist Party and Soviet society?
The Great Terror had a profound effect upon the Communist Party and on Soviet
society as a whole. It transformed Russia from a one party state to a totalitarian
dictatorship, with Stalin as its unchallenged ruler.
Impact on the Communist Party
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Initially, Stalin’s terror was directed against members of the Communist Party.
He decided to eliminate all those who might present a threat to his power. These
included ‘Oppositionists’ (like Kamenev and Zinoviev) and Stalinists who had
questioned his policies at some stage in the past (like Pyatakov and Radek). By
1939, all the Old Bolsheviks had been eliminated.
In 1937, Stalin unleashed a full-scale attack on the Party at all levels. This was
because he could not be sure who his enemies were.
The Great Purge decimated the Party, with 90 percent of the members of regional
and city committees being shot or deported to the camps in 1937-38.
The purges created a climate of fear, mistrust and submissiveness amongst Party
members, sapping them of their will to resist Stalin.
The Party lost its dominant position in society, and was reduced to merely a
rubber stamp for Stalin’s decisions. Its role was usurped by Stalin’s Secretariat,
the NKVD and the bureaucracy.
Impact on Soviet society
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The Terror also had devastating effects on Soviet society. Stalin purged
managers, doctors, scientists, army officers, artists and workers. Even the NKVD
itself was purged.
Robert Conquest estimates the number killed to have been 18 million between
1930 and 1939.
Stalin’s aim was to intimidate the population into total submission, and the plan
worked perfectly.
Fear permeated society, and trust all but disappeared.
Many people accepted Stalin’s claim that a giant conspiracy was taking place
against himself and the Revolution. Many did not blame Stalin for the Terror,
instead insisting that the ‘traitors’, ‘spies’ and ‘saboteurs’ deserved to die.
The Great Terror effectively destroyed the social and political system Lenin had
introduced following the Revolution. It decimated the Party and eliminated it as the
dominant institution in the USSR. It also reduced the people to the status of vassals,
whose livelihoods and lives depended on the whim of the great dictator.