Similar characteristics of all totalitarian States

•Dictatorship and One-Party Rule•Dynamic Leader•Ideology•State Control Over All Sectors of Society•State Control Over the Individual•Dependence on Modern Technology•Organized Violence

BEGINNING OF THE GREAT PURGE

• In 1933, Stalin launched purge of party members▫Cut membership by 33%▫The purpose of this purge was to advance

Stalin’s political career and eliminate anyone who compromised his power

▫Also result of desire to get rid of rank-and-file members who might one day support Stalin’s rivals

▫Accomplished with little bloodshed

First Moscow Trial of the Sixteen• Start of the Show Trials• August 19th to 24th, 1936• In the house of the trade unions• Principal Defenders:

▫Zinoviev and Kemenev and fourteen other key members of the Bolshevik party accused of being enemies of the state

▫Z and K refused to confess at first but after threats to their family and harsh interrogations, they confessed

▫Accused of forming a terrorist organization intended to kill Stalin

Trial of Radek and Piatakov(Trial of the Seventeen)• January 1937; Radek and Piatakov, along with 13

others were sentenced to prison in Labor Camps• Radik was spared because he accused others;

setting the stage for the Trial of the Twenty-One

Trials of the Military

•Secret trial unlike the Moscow trial in 1937 that targeted the Senior military officers

•They were accused of anti-Communist conspiracy and sentenced to death

•Executed on June 11 1937 this trial triggered the massive purge of the Red Army that Stalin would continue months later

Trial of the Twenty One• Third Show Trial; March 1938; included 21

defendants allegedly belonging to the block of Rightist and Trotskyites, including Bukharin, former members of the Politburo, former head of the NKVD and other chief commissioners totaling up to 21

Who initiated the Great Purge and Why?• Stalin.

• “Death solves all problems- no man, no problem”• He used execution and mass imprisonment to

destroy any potential political opposition. • Paranoia and fear were major components in

his reason for the purge. He would take preemptive actions to help further himself.

• Anyone was perceived as a potential threat to the regime’s authority-including senior officers and strong political members

THE STALIN REVOLUTION

THE GREAT TERROR

Origins and Consequences

Purge of Party members

Targets:

Sergei Kirov, killed Dec. 1934

Lev Kamenev, executed 1936

Grigorii Zinoviev,

executed 1936

Stalin accuses at a “show trial”

How did it affect the people? Arrests, 1937-1938 - about 7 million

Executed - about 1 millionDied in camps - about 2 millionIn prison, late 1938 - about 1 millionIn camps, late 1938 - about 8 million

Almost all of the preexisting Bolshevik party was eliminated

How did it affect the people?

• Created a sense of mistrust amongst the Russian people who lived in fear of their leader and their lives

• 36,671 officers, including about half of the 706 officers with the rank of brigade commander or higher. Three of the army's five marshals and 15 of its 16 top commanders are executed

Short Term effects• Eliminated the

majority of Stalin’s adversaries

• Immediately placed Stalin as the supreme dictator

• (work at Gulags) facilitated industrialization

• Everything the Bolshevik party and revolution had stood for was demolished

• The fear stalin enstilled remained within the people during his political career

• Brought Russia’s economy on grounds similar to those of the western world

• Gave future leaders of Russia a chance to exploit previous leaders’ influence to gain power

Long Term effects

• An estimated one to ten million people died during Great Purge

• In 1938, Stalin suddenly stopped the purges▫ Blamed head of secret

police, Nicholai Yezhov, for the excesses of the purges and had him executed Replaced by Beria

▫ Pace of arrests slowed (although they never completely stopped) and some labor camps inmates were released

▫ New members recruited into party

Nicholai Yezhov

Censorship

Trotsky, What Trotsky?

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