Stalin and Purges

Stalin and Purges

Stalin Biography
Stalin was born in Georgia, in the far west of Russian Empire. He was a Bolshevik leader; however there were only a few. Stalin is also from a very average working-class background. His father was a shoemaker and gave him the name “Josif Dzhugashvili” but Stalin used many false names because of his revolutionary career. His finally settled with the name “Stalin”.

Stalin Early Life
As a young man, Stalin trained as a priest at the college of Tbilisi, but he was expelled as the college found out he was part of a local revolutionaries. In his later years of his teenage life he joined the Social Democratic Party and then dedicated himself to revolutionary activities, which all lead him up to taking over from Lenin. While belonging to the Social Democratic Party, Stalin was arrested many times and once exiled to Serbia. When Stalin wasn’t being arrested he was constantly being sorted out by the NKVD (the secret police). All of this led to Stalin having a very secretive way of life because he couldn’t constantly get in trouble. This way of life helped Stalin in the future realise how to use conspiracies and tricks to have power.

Stalin activities
Stalin started to become well known in the Bolshevik Party by playing a little part in the 1905 revolution. Stalin started to get closer to Lenin which would be essential if he was to become the Bolshevik leader and run the country. Lenin than trusted Stalin and gave him the role of editor in the Pravda newspaper which was biased towards the Bolshevik Party. He was than imprisoned during the First World War and was only able to return to Petrograd from Serbia in February 1917. By then he was one of the leaders of the party and he was well-known in organising the Bolsheviks during 1917. Once the Bolsheviks took power, he held a succession of posts that allowed him to build himself a strong position in the Party. By the time of Lenin’s death, he was well placed to deal with his rivals in the struggle of leadership.

Stalin Quotes:
“I believe in one thing only, the power of human will.”
“In the Soviet army it takes more courage to retreat than advance.”

The “Purges”
Since the Bolsheviks came into power they had regularly “purged” its membership, getting rid of those who were suspected of being disloyal. Now Stalin began to plan a purge of the top levels of the party, to deal with his rivals once and for all. Later on Kirov, the leader of the Leningrad Communist party was party probably because of Stalin’s orders. Stalin than used this as an excuse to turn against his enemies. Zinoviev, Kamenev and others were accused of being involved in the murder. They were arrested, put on trial and in January 1935 sentenced to long ...

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The People of Russia
The Great terror had spread now to ordinary people who looked as if they had a will of their own and had no intention to follow the orders of Stalin. The amount of people that had been affected was somewhat of 20 million ordinary Russians. These 20 million Russians were sent to the gulag which was the system of labour camps. Soon religions were forbidden such as, the Christian Church and Islam. People had annoyed others were then turned into the NKVD and arrested never to be seen again. Stalin was also continuously praised for all his work from newspapers to poets. They were all crediting him for all his work and his political ideas. Every time his name was heard of or mentioned the Russians would have to stand up and applaud, otherwise they would be prosecuted. Pictures of Stalin being a father figure were posted everywhere to teach children to love Stalin as much as others. Stalin needed to do this because he wanted to create unity between everyone in the country and he believed the country needed a single leader who they can all look up to. However, Stalin than used this to create a complete dictatorship which was controlled only by him.

The Purges Sources

Source A

At the end of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for. Of course, everyone leapt to his feet.

However, who would dare to be the first to stop – after all, NKVD men were in the hall waiting to see who quit first. And in that obscure hall, unknown to the Leader, the applause went on – 6, 7, 8 minutes! They couldn’t stop now till they collapsed of heart attacks!

Aware of the falsity of the situation, after 11 minutes, the director of the paper factory sat down in his seat.

And, oh, a miracle took place! Everyone else stopped dead and sat down.

That, however, was how they found who the independent people were. And that was how they set about eliminating them. They easily pasted 10 years in a labour camp on him.

Solzhenitsyn, writing about a Communist Party meeting in 1938.

Source B

I plead guilty to being one of the leaders of this 'Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites.' I plead guilty to the sum total of crimes committed by this counter-revolutionary organization, whether or not I knew of, whether or not I took part in, any particular act...

For three months I refused to say anything. Then I began to testify. Why? Because while in prison I made a revaluation of my entire past. For you ask yourself: "If you must die, what are you dying for?"

Nikolai Bukharin's to the court in 1938