Whilst Stalin's paranoia was at the centre for the cause of the Great Terror, there were a number of other factors that had contributed to the Great Terror. Another factor that has been said to cause the Great Terror is the Congress of Victors. The Congress of Victors was initially supposed to celebrate the economic achievements of Stalin however it was the revolt against Stalin from within the party; for Stalin the Congress posed a worry to him for a number of reasons. During the election to the party’s Central Committee, Stalin had received 927 votes however, Kirov received 1,225 votes and therefore he topped the poll. The results of the election showed that Kirov was hugely popular within the Communist Party compared to Stalin. Following the results of the election, there were a number of Bolsheviks that approached Kirov suggesting that he take the place of Stalin as party leader but Kirov declined the offer and reported the plan to Stalin. Stalin soon realised that he had to come up with a solution as the events happening within the party was evidence showing that he had to purge the party as it could no longer be trusted thus the beginning of the Great Terror.
The economy partly contributed to the cause of the Great Terror because Stalin could blame the economic problems on the political enemies. During the Five-Year Plans there had been difficulties due to the presence of the ‘wreckers’ in the workforce. According to Stalin, these ‘wreckers’ were in connection to Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev and were working to deliberately sabotage Russia’s economy. Scapegoats were created by Stalin to explain the problems of the economy. Also, the purges in the Great Terror provided a reservoir of cheap labour as the majority of the people Stalin purged were sent to prison camps. Prisoners in Soviet gulags were effectively a source of slave labour as many of the most important projects commissioned and built during the Five-Year Plans were completed by prison workers. Stalin’s involvement with the economy and prison workers together was part of the cause of the Great Terror.
Another factor that is said to have been the cause of Great Terror is the murder of Kirov. After the events at the Congress of Victors, Stalin needed to find a solution to get rid of Kirov away from the Politburo and started to insist that Kirov stay in Leningrad to supervise the local party. Even though there was the events that happened at the Congress of Victors, Stalin had more reason to keep Kirov out of Moscow. In 1932, Kirov had helped defeat Stalin which concerned Mikhail Rituin, who had circulated a document that was highly critical of Stalin. After finding out what was going on Stalin was furious and demanded Rituin be executed however, both the Central Committee and the Politburo refused to order Rituin’s execution. There was the argument that Party members could not be executed for simply opposing Party; Stalin saw his as a betrayal.
Soon after, in 1934 Kirov was murdered by a gunman in his Leningrad headquarters. Kirov’s murder was soon picked up by the Soviet press quickly and pinned the murder on Leonid Nikolayev who they claimed was working for a secret ‘Trotskyite-Zinovievite’ terror group who wanted nothing less that the overthrow of the Soviet government; Zinoviev and Kamenev were soon arrested. For Stalin, this was very convenient because the murder had rid him of his two most important rivals and allowed him to imprison two of his old opponents.
To conclude, Stalin’s paranoia was the main reason for the Great Terror as he felt that he was unable to trust many people within the Communist Party and therefore his main aim was to get rid of those who posed as a potential threat. From the start of Stalin’s paranoia, there stemmed other factors that progressively led to the Great terror such as the Congress of Victors and the murder of Kirov.
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