Consolidation and maintenance: Stalin's use of force Notes

Consolidation and maintenance: Use of force

Purges

1. After becoming the Soviet Union’s supreme leader (vozhd) in 1929, Stalin began consolidating his power using purges, a method with Leninist precedents.
2. Stalin’s purges formally began in 1932, with the trial of the Ryutin group, who openly opposed him.
3. The Ryutin affair culminated in a massive purge of the Communist Party membership: between 1933 and 1934, over a third of members (about one million people) were expelled for suspected disloyalty.

From Administrative Purges to Systematic Terror

1. Early purges were administrative, non-violent: party card inspections expelled “suspicious” members
2. Loss of membership meant loss of jobs, housing, rations, enforcing compliance through pressure
3. 1934 turning point: purges escalated into systematic terror
4. Targets expanded to political enemies, colleagues, and Party members
5. Escalation driven by complex factors (see historiography)

The NKVD

1. 1933–34: Stalin centralized security under the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs), uniting police, secret police, border guards, and labour camps
2. NKVD reported directly to Stalin, controlling surveillance, arrests, and enforcement
3. Special military tribunals bypassed normal legal processes
4. Vague crimes like “counter-revolutionary activity” enabled arbitrary arrests
5. Labels such as “enemy of the people” created constant insecurity
6. Reign of fear: suspicion and fabricated charges suppressed opposition
7. Families of the accused faced isolation, job loss, ration cuts, reinforcing obedience

The Kirov Murder and the Great Purge

1. 1 Dec 1934: Sergei Kirov assassinated by Leonid Nikolaev
2. Official story: crime of passion, but many suspected Stalin’s involvement
3. Kirov seen as a rival: charismatic, respected, critical of Stalin
4. His death provided the pretext for the Great Purge
5. Removal of Kirov eliminated a potential rallying point for opposition
6. Within hours of Kirov’s death, Stalin enacted the Decree Against Terrorist Acts, which gave the NKVD sweeping powers to execute “enemies” without standard trials.
7. Thousands were arrested or executed, including prominent old Bolsheviks like Zinoviev and Kamenev.
8. Stalin claimed these were Trotskyite conspirators, but the real objective was eliminating all potential dissent and consolidating absolute authority.

The Great Purge/The Great Terror (1936-1938)

1. After Kirov’s death: purges reached unprecedented scale
2. Of 1,996 delegates (17th Party Congress, 1934), 1,108 executed within 3 years
3. Of 139 Central Committee members, all but 41 executed
4. Decree Against Terrorist Acts (1934) became tool for political murder
5. Show trials staged to expose “enemies”
6. Old Bolsheviks Kamenev and Zinoviev forced into public confessions
7. These trials set precedent, legitimizing wider purges and spreading terror
8. Accusations were framed in vague ideological terms like “Left,” “Right,” “Trotskyite,” or “Centre,” regardless of their actual beliefs.
   1. These fluid and invented categories allowed Stalin to target virtually anyone, especially old Bolsheviks.
9. As historian Stephen Kotkin notes, Stalin conflated political labels with betrayal, making ideological purity a matter of loyalty to him personally.
   1. This rhetorical strategy blurred truth and fiction, transforming past ideological allies into current “traitors.”

The Right Opposition and the Climax of the Great Purge

1. After crushing the Left, Stalin targeted the Right Opposition (Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky)
2. Politburo resistance delayed action until Stalin replaced Yagoda with Yezhov, a harsher NKVD chief
3. Marked the shift to mass industrial scale terror
4. Bukharin’s 1938 trial: fabricated charges (espionage, sabotage, plotting Stalin’s death) served propaganda
5. After 1937, purges turned inward with Yagoda himself accused and executed
6. Terror became self replicating, sparing no one
7. Purges were a strategy to consolidate absolute power, not mere security measures
8. Tools: public trials, forced confessions, mass executions
9. Result: USSR ruled not by law or ideology, but by fear

The Military Purges and the Height of Stalin’s Terror

1. 1937: Stalin purged the Red Army, fearing it as a threat
2. Marshal Tukhachevsky and top generals executed on false espionage charges
3. Within 18 months, 35,000 officers removed, over half the corps
4. Navy and Air Force leadership also decimated
5. Purges extended to Soviet republics, dismantling local autonomy (e.g., 80% of Georgian party secretaries dismissed)
6. Under Yezhov’s NKVD, terror became systemic with execution quotas
   1. Butovo near Moscow, 20,000 shot and buried in mass graves
7. Citizens lived under constant surveillance, often betraying family to survive
8. Result: society reshaped by fear, suspicion, and submission
9. According to post-Soviet archival research (Applebaum, Conquest), by 1939 approximately 18 million people had been arrested, deported, or executed.
   1. At least one million were shot, millions more perished in gulag camps.
   2. Nearly every Soviet family lost someone.
   3. The terror inflicted long-lasting trauma on society and institutionalized a culture of fear.