5.11.2. The Horror Years: the beginning

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Stalin and Stalinism in Russian History

69 calificaciones

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National Research University Higher School of Economics

Stalin and Stalinism in Russian History

69 calificaciones

The course presents the life and deeds of Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 till 1953. It analyses the reasons for his actions and their results, as well as the causes of his popularity in Russia today. It offers an analysis of the phenomenon of Stalinism and of its significance for Russia and beyond. In the late 1920s – early 1930s Stalin directed the massive and rapid industrialisation of the country and the forced collectivisation of its agriculture. The industrialisation was based on forced labour, and collectivisation on repression, but both helped to create the material base for the Soviet defence industry. In the late 1930s Stalin unleashed mass terror against the Soviet people, in which millions perished. In his view this helped to rid the country of any potential internal enemies on the eve of the coming war. The USSR, together with its allies, won the Second World War, but at the cost of dozens of millions of lives. Stalin was instrumental in creating the post-war order. The system which he created in the 1930s shaped the USSR as it was during his lifetime and for decades after his death. It also influenced the lives of millions of people beyond the Soviet borders. The course will enable those who take it to develop an informed understanding of the Stalin era and of the phenomenon of Stalinism.

De la lección

The Dictator

Lecture 5 describes the establishment of Stalin’s unchallenged and unchallengeable dictatorship. It gives an outline of Stalin’s terror campaigns and analyses their effect on Soviet society. It also looks in the creation of the new generation of Soviet elite, moulded by Stalin.

5.11.1. The First Show Trials12:21

5.11.2. The Horror Years: the beginning8:46

5.11.3. The Horror Years: the end8:36

Conoce a los instructores

Irina Filatova
Professor
Faculty of Humanities / School of History

In 1936, the great terror started in earnest.

In August 1936, there was a trial Anti-Soviet United Trotskyist-Zinovievite center.

Zinoviev and Kamenev were at the center of it

and there were many other prominent party members.

Some Germans among them and some of them were NKVD operatives.

From 1932, these people supposedly were trying to kill Stalin and other Soviet leaders.

This was all inventions of course,

and the only evidence was actually confessions.

Some of this evidence was nonsensical.

For example, one Ivan Smirnov was accused of assassinating Kirov,

but he was in prison at the time of Kirov's murder,

and there were many such things.

What was important for Stalin was that a document was found,

not a secret document,

it was Trotsky's public speech abroad in

which Trotsky said that the time has come to get rid of Stalin,

to implement Lenin's testament and to get rid of Stalin.

So, for Stalin to get rid of, was to kill.

Or maybe he just pretended that for him to get rid of was to kill.

So, the accused were tortured, again,

their charges were based on falsified documents.

Zinoviev and Kamenev showed themselves as very naive people,

they asked for a meeting with the Politburo.

In fact, they were granted a meeting with two people, Stalin and Voroshilov,

and what they said was that they were prepared to admit

all their crimes and sins which they were charged with,

everything, spying, sabotage, attempts to murder Soviet officials and so on,

in exchange for their lives and for the lives of their relatives.

Of course such a promise was given and of course they gave

all the necessary confessions publicly and after that they were executed.

During the trial, Bukharin and Rikov were mentioned as was Tomsky.

When Tomsky heard about it, he committed suicide.

In January 1937, a parallel anti-Soviet Trotskyist center was uncovered.

This time some other prominent communists were charged with the same crimes.

Petakov, Radek, Sokolnikov, Serebryakov,

these were all names of Lenin's era.

They were all names of old Bolsheviks.

They gave evidence against Bukharin and Rikov.

Thirteen were executed.

Those who survived were killed in prison or executed later.

Each of these trials was accompanied by a huge propaganda campaign; media,

public meetings, meetings at every

factory meetings at every organization and institution.

All of them denounced the traitors, the vermin, Judas Trotsky and other Judas'.

And even foreign observers such as for example,

German writer Lion Feuchtwanger,

they did believe that the trials were sincere and fair.

The people who do not believe were actually the Germans.

Many of the people who were charged with espionage,

were charged with espionage for Germany.

But, the German ambassador to Moscow wrote back to Germany that it was just a spectacle,

he had no doubt that Stalin knew that there were no espionage.

Trotsky himself was finally killed by Ramon Mercader in August 1940.

He was killed with an ice pick, very brutally.

It happened in Mexico City where Trotsky lived at that time.

Mercader's mother, who took part somehow in this murder,

was awarded the order of Lenin almost immediately after that.

Mercader himself served about 20 years in Mexico prison.

He was a Spanish communist,

but he was an agent of NKVD.

When he finally was released,

he was awarded the title of 'The Hero Of The Soviet Union.'

He is buried in one of Moscow's most prestigious cemeteries as Ramon Lopez.

In 1937, the trials were made much easier.

First of all, torture was officially sanctioned by

the Politburo and trial procedures were simplified.

Not even the whole of Politburo was needed to decide on these questions,

it was only Stalin, Molotov,

Yezhov and Kagonavich who acted on behalf of the Politburo.

On 30th July, a secret Politburo resolution was

passed on the anti-Soviet elements which sanctioned arrests.

Every region was given a particular quota for arresting anti-Soviet elements.

And as with the arrests and exiles of the kulaks, it was the same,

every region tried to increase their quotas.What was also

introduced by this resolution was the trial by troika, what is troikas?

It's three people; a local party boss,

a head of the local NKVD,

and a local prosecutor.

In August, a new resolution followed,

it was specifically directed against the Poles.

But the experience of using a particular ethnic group as scapegoats,

was then used against other ethnicities.

It was used against the Germans,

the Romanians, the Latvians,

the Estonians, the Greeks,

the Finns and many many others.

Their only fault was that either they themselves or their

fathers hailed from foreign countries which could be danger for the Soviet Union.

Not that other nationalities were spared,

Stalin told Yezhov to go with a broom through Udmurtia,

Mari, Chuvashia and Mordov republics.

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