Why did Stalin launch the Purges?

        There were three purges (collectively known as ‘the Great Terror’ or ‘Yezhovshschina’) in Russia at this time.  The first were the Moscow Show Trials.  In 1936, Zinoviev and others were tried as part of the ‘Trotskyite-Zinovievite Counter-Revolutionary Plot’.  Trotskyites were tried, but Trotsky was in exile and so did not appear.  In 1938, Bukharin was tried.  His last plea in the evening of March 12 1938 began as follows:

Citizen President and Citizens Judges, I fully agree with Citizen the Procurator regarding the significance of the trial, at which were exposed our dastardly crimes, the crimes committed by the ‘bloc of Rights and Trotskyites,’ one of whose leaders I was, and for all the activities of which I bear responsibility.

This trial, which is the concluding one of a series of trials, has exposed all the crimes and the treasonable activities, it has exposed the historical significance and the roots of our struggle against the Party and the Soviet government.

All convicted were shot through the back of the head.  In order to make it seem genuine on the cinema screens across Russia, the accused were not tortured for their confessions.  Instead they were taken on guided tours of the torture chambers, and informed that if they did not co-operate, they would return to see their family in the same cells.  If Stalin had been behind the Kirov murder (as it very much seemed), then it was an opportune way of passing that off.  At the head of the conspiracy was (according to Stalin) Trotsky.  Conveniently, Trotsky was in exile and unable to defend himself.  Perhaps Trotsky would not have been so willing to give in to Stalin’s threats; thus convicting him would be insult to the injury of exile.

        The second purge took place within the army in 1937.  The cream of the Russian military were skimmed to leave Stalin able to appoint new men to the positions of responsibility within the army.  Officers were arrested on a large scale.  As General Secretary of the CPSU, Stalin did not have the ability to make military promotions but was not without influence.  Neither was it within his power to make ad hoc political executions.  Indeed, if there was something he could not do directly, it was not beyond him to see it was done indirectly.

        The third purge was the ‘mass purge’.  Carried out by the NKVD (forerunner of the KGB, a huge organisation), there was a rush of arrests between 1937 and 1938 in the name of the ‘Trotskyite-Zinovievite Counter-Revolutionary Plot’.  So-called ‘enemies of the people’ were arrested and packed off to the Gulag.  Public opinion was apparently very much in line with the plot; Stalin’s propaganda was working.  Even heads of the NKVD were not safe, first Yagoda was arrested in 1936 and then Yezhov ‘disappeared’ in 1939.  He was replaced by Beria, at which point the Purges stopped.  In the mass purge, 110 out of 139 Central Committee members were arrested, as were 1108 out of 1966 Congress members.  Writers, academics, scientists and factory managers were not safe either.

        The Gulag was the NKVD labour camp system.  Robert Conquest estimated 7 million were arrested, 1 million shot and the rest sent to the Gulag.  The Gulags constructed canals, operated difficult mines and built railways in often inhospitable regions of Russia.

Stalin was at this time awakening to the reality of a German threat in the form of Hitler and the NSDAP.  Whether he saw Hitler as a direct threat or a challenger to the position of number one dictator or both is immaterial when the effect of this realisation is measured.  Undoubtedly Stalin took Hitler seriously, but even if he hadn’t it was another good reason for the purge.  The Night of the Long Knives 1934 gave an example of how to deal with ‘problem Comrades’, and Stalin went to town on the idea.  By purging the party, he moved closer to total control and was able to exact revenge on old rivals.  The show trials not only purged the party but secured his position in the opinion of the country.  After all, Comrade Stalin was doing this for the common good.  The atmosphere of fear the purges and show trials created meant that camps were polarised.  Supporters of Stalin supported him, and those that did not were filled with a greater mistrust.

From ‘The Great Terror – A Reassessment’:

Most students of the USSR agree that the so-called Ryutin platform was the 'crucial' event leading to Stalin's generalisation, his systematisation, of terror. 

This was the point at which the plans behind the purges were conceived.  Reminded of Lenin’s Last Testament, he was prompted to make stronger his grip on power. The Purges were the stone that killed several proverbial birds, namely revenge upon his rivals, securing his position at the top of the CPSU (by creating a new layer at the top of the CPSU and army), and reinforcing public belief in the conspiracy to destroy Communism in Russia which gave reason enough to continue what he had begun.