State terror permeated Soviet Union in 1930s. The Stalinist dictatorship imposed a brutal repression that affected every aspect of politics, culture and society – partly in order to force through Stalin’s policies and destroy any opposition, and partly because of Stalin’s paranoid fears for his own survival.
The machinery of terror and show trials was already operating in the early 1930s but was taken to new depths of intensity after the, murder of Kirov in 1934. In 1936, there were sow trials against key figures such as Kamenev and Zinoviev. The scale of the terror was masked by the benign constituency of 1936, but terror was the driving froe of the regime.
The machinery of state terror, the NKVD and the early purges:
The USSR was already a police state by the end of the 1920s with the Soviet people under strict surveillance by Party activists and informers.
Purges of the Party had taken place under Lenin, but these generally led to people losing their Party membership not to their arret, imprisonment or execution as occurred on a large scale under Stalin.
Lenin had established the Cheka, the secret police, In December 1917. From 1922 to 1934 this became the OGPU.
In 1934, the OGPU’s function were transferred to the NKVD: The People’s Commissariat or Internal Affairs. The NKVD carried out normal police duties and secret police work.
The NKVD took over the supervision of the Gulag:
A network of forced labour prison camps.
In the early 1930s, the population was not only repressing through arrests and show trials. The enforced famine in Ukraine was also as much an aspect of the Terror as the political arrest. It was economic terror intended to bring about submissions.
Early purges and trials:
Shakhty trial 1928:
Who was targeted?
Managers & technicians of the Shakhty coal mine who had questioned the rapid pace of industrialisation. Five were executed and others imprisoned.
Likely explanation for purge/ trial:
To warn others not to criticise the FYPs
1929 Trotsky expelled from the USSR
Who was targeted?
While others from the Left Opposition had admitted to their ‘mistakes’ to Stalin, Trotsky had never done so
Likely explanation for the purge/ trial:
To remove the leader of the Left Opposition
1930 The ‘Industrial Party’ trial
Who was targeted?
A group of senior industrialists and economists accused of planning a coup and plotting to wreck the Soviet economy
Likely explanation for purge/ trial:
To link the FYP’s economic problems to ‘wrecking’
1932 Martemyan Ryutin imprisoned; Zinoviev & Kamenev expelled from the Party
Who was targeted?
Ryutin criticised Stalin & collectivisation in a long document known as the ‘Ryutin Platform. Stalin said Ryutin intended to assassinate him & wanted him executed. Kirov & others argued against this Ryutin was imprisoned for 10 years instwa. Kamenev, Zinoviev & 14 others were expelled from the Party for not reporting Ryutin’s document earlier.
Likely explanation for purge/ trial:
To remove Ryutin & purge those suspected of supporting him
1933 Party purge
Who was targeted:
1933 – the Communist Party had 3.2 million members, many of whom had joined after membership rules were relaxed in 1929. Over 570,000 ‘Ryutinites’ were expelled in the 1933 purge.
Likely explanation for purge/ trial:
To try restrict Party membership to Stalin’s supporters.
Kirov’s murder:
Stalin’s policies came under attack at the Seventeenth Party Congress. Some members of the Politburo wanted a slower place of industrialisation and an easing-off of grain requisition.
This followed serious economic problems since 1932, including protests over low wages and long working hours. Famine was also killing millions.
Sergei Kirov, who had previously been one of Stalin’s closest allis, now sided with those opposing him. His speech at the Congress received a standing ovation. Kirov was the leader of the Leningrad Party and has a strong power base there; his popularity was a threat to Stalin.
Stalin’s position of General Secretary was abolished and Stalin, Kirov, Zhdanov and Kaganovich were all made ‘Secretaries of Equal Rank’. This may have happened with Stalin’s approval as a way to share around the blame for the USSR’s problems.
The Seventeenth Party Congress was a major challenge to Stalin. Many of those attending was targeted.
On 1st December 1934 – Kirov – shot by a man called Nikolayev, whose wife Kirov may have been having an affair with. Stalin blamed the murder on a Trotskyite threat to overthrow the Party.
A day after the murder, Yagoda was given powers of arrest and execute anyone found guilty of terrorist plotting. Over 00 party members were shot, and thousands were arrested and sent to prison camps.
In January 1935, Zinoviev, Kamenev and 17 others were arrested, accused of causing terrorism, and sentenced to between 5-10 years imprisonment.
June 1935, death penalty was extended from applying to those engaged in subversive activity to applying to anyone aware of suberise activity did not report it.
Kirov’s assassination was used as a reason for the regime to begin widespread purges.
The show trials:
Show trials – emphasised the threat to the regime from enemies of the state, helping to justify the harsh and repressive methods used by the regime to subdue such enemies. They were also used to shift the blame for economic and social problems.
In the months leading up to a show trial, the NKVD made sure that the accused made a signed confession. Sleep deprivation, beatings, starvation and torture were common. In April 1934, it was made legal for those 12 and over to be punished in the same way as adults, including the death penalty. The NKVD used this to extract confessions by threatening to charge the defendant’s children.
The trial of 16, August 1936:
The first major show trial was held, it featured Kamenev and Zinoviev, both accepted responsibility for Kirov’s murder and both were executed. For Stalin, this show trial eliminated his rivals and provided scapegoats for Kirov’s murder.
The Stalin constitution:
The new constitution – drafted by Bukharin – introduced in 1936 was intended to celebrate the triumphs of pervious years and declared socialism had been achieved in the USSR.
The constitution proclaimed the USSR to be a federation of 11 Soviet Republics. Each republic had its own ‘supreme soviet’, which met together in the new ‘Supreme Soviet’ that replaced the Congress of Soviets.
Each republic has some rights of jurisdiction, including education. Other rights set out in the constitution includes:
Ethnic groups – promised autonomy within the Union with support for national cultures and languages
Soviet citizens were promised elections every four year with voting rights for everyone over 18 – including former people
Civil rights were set out in the new constitution, such as freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom from the press, freedom of religion and the right to free speech
Citizens were expected to work and were guaranteed to work, plus the right to education and social welfare.
There was a contrast between the political freedoms set out for Soviet citizens in the constitution and the reality of state control and repression.
The promised rights of constitution were largely ignored in practice for example, although republics were allowed to leave the Union according to the constitution, Stalin did not allow this to happen.
However, Soviet citizen did make use of the constitution when making complains. For example, citizens protesting about anti-religious discrimination referred to their constitutional right to freedom of religion