Stalin’s purges were different to those of his predecessor, Lenin. Not only were Stalin’s enemies destroyed, but many of their friends and family as well. The purges were probably the most terrifying period in Stalin’s rule; he had introduced a reign of terror over Russia. They began in 1934 when Kirov, the then leader of the Communist Party, was murdered; he had been shot dead outside the Party Headquarters in Leningrad (Petrograd). Stalin used this murder as an excuse to ‘purge’ or wipe out his opponents within the party. Many historians believe that Stalin organised the death of Kirov to give him this excuse. Within 24 hours of Kirov’s assassination, the death penalty was introduced for all terrorist acts, with no possibility of a pardon. The NKVD were now able to arrest and execute at will; at first, the main targets were party members- of the 1996 delegates who attended the 1934 Party Congress, 1108 were executed within the next 3 years! Soon enough, in great ‘show trials’, leading party members and loyal Bolsheviks, such as Kamenev, Bukharin and Zinoviev were purged. It is estimated that around 500,000 party members were either executed or sent to gulags (labour camps), on charges of anti-Soviet activities i.e. kulaks.
The Secret Police, propaganda and the cult of personality also played a big role regarding the success of Stalin. The secret police, CHEKA (under Lenin) soon became the OGPU, and then finally the NKVD (1934, under the reign of Stalin.) During its first year, the new head of the NKVD (Genrikh Yagoda) arrested Kamenev, Zinoviev, Smirnov, and thirteen others; he accused them of being involved with Trotsky in a plot to murder Josef Stalin and his supporters. All of these men were found guilty of these charges and were executed on 25th August, 1936. The NKVD broke prisoners down by intense, brutal interrogation. This even included the threat to arrest and execute members of the prisoner’s family if they did not confess. These interrogations could go on for days, and eventually prisoners’ became so exhausted and disorientated that they signed confessions admitting charges that they had attempted to overthrow the government. Stalin’s secret police had total control over the ‘people’ of Russia.
Stalin used a huge of amount of propaganda, and his cult of personality to create a larger-than-life image of himself to the ‘people’ of Russia. There was propaganda everywhere; pictures, posters, statues and continuous praise and applause from the media. On top of this, anything that might reflect badly on Stalin was either destroyed or censored- censorship. Mothers taught their children that the ‘mighty’ Stalin was the ‘wisest man of the age.’ Places were named after Stalin, and even history books and photographs were changed to make him the ‘hero’ of the Revolution, and obliterate the names of those people who had been purged- e.g. Leon Trotsky.
Finally, Stalin’s economic policies. In 1931 Stalin said, ‘We are 50 to 100 years behind the advanced countries. Either we make good the difference in 10 years or they crush us.’’ In order to industrialise Russia, Stalin introduced a series of Five-Year Plans. The Five-Year Plans were used very effectively for propaganda purposes, the workers were constantly bombarded with propaganda, posters, slogans and radio broadcasts. They all had strict targets to meet and were fined if these targets weren’t met. The most famous of all the workers was Alexei Stakhanov. In 1935 he managed to shift an amazing 102 tonnes of coal in one shift, this was fourteen times the average amount for a shift. Stakhanov became a ‘Hero of Socialist Labour’ and the propaganda machine encouraged all workers to work harder and become ‘Stakhanovites.’
As we can see, I think it’s fair to say that the above are all equally important reasons for Stalin’s success, and are all linked to the manner in which he controlled the USSR during his reign.
