The cult of Stalin and the purges of the 1930(TM)s were two aspects of Stalin(TM)s determination to retain supreme power. How far do you agree with this opinion?

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Filename:  867762.doc                Author:  Lisa Thomas

“The cult of Stalin and the purges of the 1930’s were two aspects

of Stalin’s determination to retain supreme power”.

How far do you agree with this opinion?

There is little doubt that Joseph Stalin made drastic and continual efforts to retain his supreme power during the 1930’s.  The two main methods and perhaps the most memorable are ‘the great purges’ (otherwise known as the ‘great terror’) and ‘the cult of Stalin’.  Although Stalin had been triumphant in the ‘power struggle’ against Leon Trotsky in 1929, rather than alleviating his insecurities, Stalin became increasingly paranoid.  It seems that the more power and control he gained over Russia and its people, the more irrational and mistrustful he became.  This was more than likely because he had more to lose and this encouraged him to instigate a more brutal and controlling regime.

Other examples of his vindictive rule were the purging of kulaks during collectivisation and the excessive demands he made during industrialisation and the five-year plans.  He also conducted purges targeted at Bolshevik opposition.  He insisted on members reapplying for their membership to the party using excuses like corruption, drunkenness and being politically inactive to dismiss them, thus frightening members into submission.  This was because if they lost their party cards they could lose their jobs, which ultimately meant they lost their homes, their privileged rations and public status.  At the time, Stalin was the General Secretary and consequently controlled whose memberships were renewed and as a result any member suspected of betrayal or opposing his policies had their membership revoked.  Although Stalin gained a great deal of success via industrialisation, collectivisation and the five-year plans, he ultimately acquired many enemies due to the suffering and numerous deaths caused during these policies.  Owing to Stalin’s extreme tactics, party members began to oppose his policies and ultimately repudiated him, this included Sergei Kirov who until now had been devoted to Stalin.  Stalin was all too aware of this mounting threat!  

Stalin viewed Kirov as his protégé and in 1926 he rewarded Kirov’s loyalty by appointing him as Head of the Leningrad Party.  In 1930, Kirov was elected to join the Politburo and eventually he became one of the leading figures of the party.[]  During the Seventeenth Party Congress, held in February 1934, Kirov gained the fewest negative votes, giving him an advantage over Stalin in the contest for the party leadership and for this reason Stalin’s aides fixed the vote to ensure a draw between the two candidates.  Due to this result, the position of General Secretary was abolished and Kirov and Stalin shared the position of Secretary of Equal Rank.  Knowing that his protégé was favoured above him caused an increase in Stalin’s mistrust of his clique because even those he trusted and depended on were beginning to show signs of desertion.  Over the next five years 1,108 of the 1,966 delegates who had attended the Seventeenth Party Congress were arrested, seventy of whom were tried in public while the rest were tried in secret before being executed or sent to the Gulags (labour camps).[]

On 1st December 1934, a young party member named Leonid Nikolayev murdered Kirov, in the Smolny Institute, in Leningrad and was consequently arrested and executed.  To this day there is still a mystery surrounding Kirov’s assassination as there were few actual witnesses to the event.  This means that historians can only speculate with regard to what actually took place during this significant event.  Although Nikolayev was arrested, there are varied theories about who led the conspiracy behind the assassination, one conjecture being Stalin himself was involved, although no solid evidence has ever been found to prove this.  To destabilize this belief Stalin portrayed Trotsky as the culprit, giving him the pretext to introduce a series of anti-terrorist measures and to purge the party of so-called Trotskyites and Zinovievites, including Gregory Zinoviev himself, Lev Kamenev and 14 other party members, who were arrested by Genrikh Yagoda the Head of the NKVD (secret police), tried and executed.[][]  

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As a result of Kirov’s death and the betrayal Stalin had encountered during the period surrounding the assassination, Stalin began enforcing the ‘great purges’.  The first phase began in 1935 and was devised to rid the Party of any political opponents or threats.  The first ‘show trial’ was held in August 1936 and heralded the beginning of the great purges.  The show trials were held in public to generate public humiliation for the defendants, to illustrate consequences to other potential rivals and to convey the threat of conspiracies against the government, thus resulting in fear amongst the nation.  They ...

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