Description
Discussion Question: Based on your understanding, do you
think the policy of Great Terror, culminating in the 1937 show trials,
demonstrates the strength or weakness (i.e., fear) on the part of the
Soviet leadership? Please refer to specific events in your answer.
The Great Terror
In the near aftermath of the successful, at least statistically, first 5-Year Plan, the Soviet communist party convened a meeting in 1934 that was dubbed the “Congress of the Victors” to celebrate having achieved breakthrough in modernizing the economy. The tone of the speeches suggested a relaxation in the country’s administration and policing. As Stalin famously put it in his keynote speech, “Life has become better, comrades, life has become more joyful.”
To the contrary, life for many Soviet citizens became more fearful in the late 1930s in an era known as the “Great Terror.” Although this was a complex process, the single event that acted as a catalyst for the terror was the assassination in 1934 of Sergei Kirov, the leader of the Leningrad party organization, supposedly by a disgruntled ex-party member who supposedly confessed to conspiring with foreign fascist elements. We must say “supposedly” because no one believes this version to be totally accurate. Many assume that Stalin had some role in the assassination, perhaps even ordering it himself, because he suspected that the party wanted him as general secretary with Kirov, but no solid evidence to support this version has been produced.
As a result of the official version, party organizations were ordered to audit their membership records and strike off non-active names. Actually, since the early 1920s the party had frequently “purged” their rolls in similar fashion, but events took a much more sinister tone in 1934. In addition to establishing their identities, members were called upon to give testimonials of their loyalty to the party and to engage in self-criticism of their shortcomings. The process passed to the control of the state security organization, the NKVD, which seemed to eclipse the party itself as the symbolic leading institution of the state.
Perhaps owing to theories of his involvement in the Kirov assassination, the Great Terror had at one time been interpreted primarily as Stalin’s campaign to settle personal scores with rivals and old enemies, but that hardly explains the process. The Terror culminated in series of great show trials in which leading Bolsheviks from the 1910s and 20s, many of whom had clashed with Stalin, confessed to their participation in fantastic global conspiracies with German fascists, Japanese militarists, British aristocrats, and, centrally, Leon Trotsky, to destroy the Soviet state. But the terror extended far greater than this. At the height of the Terror in 1936-38 approximately 750,000 individuals were summarily executed and millions more arrested and exiled – and we must also consider the family members of those executed or exiled as victims, as they were also tainted for their relations to “enemies of the people.” Even Stalin did not have that many old scores to settle.
One theory for the terror, which is perhaps more chilling than the Stalin-centered interpretation, is that terror became bureaucratized. In other words, the NKVD approached its task as economic officials approached their plan targets. "If the leadership wants us to find 10,000 enemies of the people in Yakutsk, then we had better find 10,000 enemies of the people in Yakutsk, but, it would be even better if we found 15,000." Moreover, NKVD officials themselves often fell victim to the terror, so replacements quickly felt pressure to outperform their predecessors by finding 20,000 enemies of the people.
Another disturbing theory for the terror is that it had popular support. Some scholars have pointed it that the terror was directed primarily at the upper levels political and administrative apparatuses and that the lower levels of the population, particularly in the regions took a certain degree of Schadenfreude in seeing those they held responsible for the hardships of industrialization and collectivization get their comeuppance. Moreover, the primary “evidence” collected against supposed enemies of the people came from personal denunciations, and many Soviet citizens saw denunciation as a strategy for eliminating a boss or workplace rival. Social historians have pointed out that at the same time as the terror, millions of Soviets achieved social advancement into the managerial ranks.
Resources:
General Descriptions:
http://spartacus-educational.com/RUSnkvd.htm
Primary Documents:
Speech by Ordzhonikidze, Commissar of Heavy Industry: http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1936-2/the-great-terror/the-great-terror-texts/ordzhonikidze-speech/
Transcript of Bukharin trial testimony: http://art-bin.com/art/obukharin.html
Scholarly Articles (Available via UMUC Library):
Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Soviet Letters of Denunciation of the 1930s, The Journal of Modern History, 1996, Vol. 68, No. 4, pp. 831-866.
Hiroaki Kuromiya, "Stalin’s Great Terror and International Espionage,"Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 2011, Vol. 24, pp. 238–252.
Kevin McDermott, "Stalinism ‘From Below’?: Social Preconditions of and Popular Responses to the Great Terror," Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 2007,Vol. 8, Nos. 3–4, pp. 609–622.
David Shearer, "Social Disorder, Mass Repression, and the NKVD during the 1930s," 2001, Vol. 42, pp. 505 - 534 (file:///C:/Users/Paul/Downloads/monderusse-99-42-2-4-social-disorder-mass-repression-and-the-nkvd-during-the-1930s%20(1).pdf)
Peter Whitewood, "Toward a New History of the Purge of the Military, 1937-38," Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 2011, Vol. 24, pp. 605–620.
Explanation & Answer
History
1
Great Terror
Name
Institution
Professor
Date
History
2
The policy of Great Terror, culminating in the 1937 show trials, demonstrates
weaknesses on the part of the Soviet Leadership. During the policy of the Great Terror, the
Soviet leadership ruled the citizens and its members through threats and executions. These
threats and executions created fear among the citizens and the members of the Union. As a
...
Review
Review
