Old communists like Zinoviev and Kamenev were arrested and the purges soon begin to affect ordinary people. Anyone suspected of being disloyal to Stalin were taken away by the secret police and were either executed or sent to labour camps. People often wanted to avoid arrest and did so by providing information about others, even if it was false information. By 1939 approximately 3 million people were dead and 9 million were prisoners. Nearly everyone was affected, even Trotsky was assassinated, and he was living in Mexico at the time of the purge. The NKVD or secret police were of crucial importance for the purges. People feared them and this helped Stalin to keep control.
Stalin was getting so paranoid that he thought the army were plotting against him. He removed senior officers from their posts. These were called the Army Purges. He was convinced that they were plotting towards his downfall.
Russia suffered due to the effect the purges were having. During the purges many party bosses, military leaders, industrial managers, top scientists, engineers and high government officials were also purged. Industrial and technical progress was slowed due to the loss of top scientists and engineers and the army and navy were seriously weakened due to the loss of senior officers.
The Show Trials were one of Stalin’s many forms of propaganda, to scare people. As time went on Stalin became more and more fearful and paranoid and in turn became more and more controlling of his country. He began to take control of what was broadcasted in the media. He began to tell people what to think, what they should believe and what attitudes to have. Propaganda also prevented movement away from socialist teaching and avoided debate within the party. Propaganda also helped to identify Stalin’s opponents and gave him an excuse for dealing with them. It became so bad that even artists had to do what the state told them. Stalin was always portrayed as something he wasn’t and everyone was told Stalin was a great genius.
The propaganda also links in with the cult of personality. This was where Soviet propaganda presented Stalin as a god-like figure. Newspapers, cinema and radio spread propaganda about the heroic workers’ struggle and Stalin’s great leadership and personality qualities. All criticism about Stalin was banned. History was re-written so that Stalin became a more important part in the Russian Revolution and Civil War than he actually had been. Photographs were altered so Stalin seemed a closer friend to Lenin than he had been and Trotsky was removed from all photographs and history books and articles. The country became blanketed in extreme adoration. Stalin became the dictator of the Soviet Union and he trusted nobody. He changed people’s views as much as he could, even to the extent that they began to persecute Christians and Christian Priests were murdered or exiled. Stalin ran everything with the help of his secret police, the NKVD.
The NKVD was Stalin’s way of controlling everybody. The NKVD were under orders from Stalin to arrest anybody he chose. Sometimes these people were sent to Gulags. The Gulags were labour camps that were run by the NKVD. The prisoners were forced to build roads, railways, canals and more. The people sent to the Gulags included Kulaks and rival political figures that opposed Stalin. The aim of the Gulags was to improve Russia’s roads and railways among other things. Millions were sent to Gulags mostly in Siberia. It is estimated that around 50 million perished in Soviet gulags between 1930 and 1950.
The NKVD helped to enforce collectivisation of the farms. Collectivised farms were also known as Kolkhoz. Collectivisation began most intensely between 1929 and 1933. It was aimed at transforming traditional agriculture in the Soviet Union and to try and reduce the power of the Kulaks. Under the Collectivisation policy the peasants were forced to give up their individual farms and join collective farms. Peasants were forced to work together and all land, animals and tools were put together to produce more grain. The peasants were allowed to keep a small plot of land for their own fruit, vegetables and animals. Tractors became available to get the work done quicker. 90% of the grain produced was sold to the state for a low price and the profits were shared out. The peasants only got to keep 10% of the grain produced, which shared between all of them was inadequate. If any one was known to be hiding any grain, they became victims of the purge and were either shot or arrested and became known as ‘enemies of the people’. Stalin began to blame the Kulaks (richer peasants who owned land) for the other peasants who refused to collectivise and Kulaks were deported and sent away, it is estimated that over 10million Kulaks endured this fate.
In 1929 all peasants were forced to join Collectivisation and it became enforce by the law. Many peasants who didn’t want to join collective farms would destroy all their livestock and equipment. Collectivisation became known as an organised famine. This was because many peasants were giving all their harvest to the state and a prevalent famine began. By 1936, Stalin had achieved his aim of collectivisation as nearly all of the peasantry had been collectivised.
Collectivising farms was part of Stalin’s 5-year plans. Stalin set up an organization called Gosplan. This set a target for each factory to meet over a number of 5-year periods. Stalin said himself in 1931 “We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advance countries. We need to make up that gap in 10 years. Either we do this or they will crush us.” Stalin introduced the first plan in 1928, and its success in achieving its goals was declared ahead of schedule, in 1932. The First Five-Year Plan emphasized heavy industries to lay the foundations for future industrial growth. Despite the targets being unbelievably high, remarkable results were achieved. For instance, coal and iron production both doubled their output, electric power production almost tripled and 1500 new industrial plants were built. The First Five-Year Plan ended up being a success in the wellfare of Russia, the lifestyle for poorer people imrpoved and it was catching up in time with other countries. The government went ahead with the Second Five Year Plan in 1932. The Second Five-Year Plan gave heavy industry top priority, although communications, especially railways, became important to link cities and industrial centres. New industries, such as chemicals and metallurgy, grew enormously. It also brought a spectacular rise in steel production, more than 17 million tonnes, placing the Soviet Union not far behind Germany as one of the major steel-producing countries of the world. The Third Five-Year Plan ran for only 3 years, up to 1941, when Russia entered the Second World War. As war approached, more resources were put into developing armaments, tanks and weapons. The five-year plans increased electric production by 28%, it increased coal production by 47%, it increased oil production by 61% and it increased steel production by 43%.
All of this help Stalin keep control over the country as if anybody stood in the way of the five year plans they would be purged by the NKVD.
The plans caused serious problems. These were- new towns, cities were set up with poor quality housing, industrial workers worked long hours for low pay, most of the work was done by people in labour camp, the targets were only to increase propaganda, the government said the targets had been hit but it’s hard to tell how much was really achieved and how much was propaganda, the plans caused social and economic problems, the transport systems nearly collapsed as it couldn’t cope with the increased loads of goods, rationing was introduced and safety standards began to be ignored. But it did enormously increased production.
After studying all of the above reasons for helping Stalin stay in power. I believe all of them were important as one would not have happened without the other, but I believe that the NKVD was the secret to Stalin success in the ruling of Russia. They were the people that helped keep the population in control. They helped enforce the five-year plans. Stalin was a dictator but without him Russia would not be what it is today. He transformed it from a backward agricultural nation into the world’s second greatest power.
