THE GREAT PURGE
The years from 1936 to 1938 mark the occurrence of the Great Purge in the Soviet Union. Also known as the Stalin’s Terror, this period of extreme political repression and persecution developed because of Stalin’s vicious paranoia and frantic desire to become an absolute dictator. Approximately 950,000 to 1.2 million people are estimated to have lost their lives as a result.
With the Great Purge came a new type of terror. While Stalin had previously instigated in the purges of kulaks, Nepmen, clergymen, and former oppositionists, the Great Purge is distinctive in that it involved the persecution of Stalin’s own men. It rendered every restriction and every boundary of those oppressed non-existent, which meant nobody was safe. The NKVD, the Soviet secret police, captured a great number of Communist leaders and party members, members of the Red Army, the Intelligentsia, and anyone else whom was suspected to be disloyal.
With the Great Purge came a new type of terror. While Stalin had previously instigated in the purges of kulaks, Nepmen, clergymen, and former oppositionists, the Great Purge is distinctive in that it involved the persecution of Stalin’s own men. It rendered every restriction and every boundary of those oppressed non-existent, which meant nobody was safe. The NKVD, the Soviet secret police, captured a great number of Communist leaders and party members, members of the Red Army, the Intelligentsia, and anyone else whom was suspected to be disloyal.
The Great Purge began with the assassination of Sergei Kirov. As the leader of the Leningrad Communist Party, Kirov had a strong authority within the Soviet Union, thus threatening Stalin’s consolidation of power. He used Leonid Nikolayev’s murder of Kirov in 1935, which is suspected to have been ordered by Stalin himself, as pretext to remove anyone who had any semblance of power and posed as a threat to him. However, Stalin concealed his true motives under the lie that he carried out the purge to eliminate those who might have played a role in Kirov’s murder.
Under Stalin’s orders, the NKVD instigated ferocious acts of violence where they used both physical and psychological torture. This method proved to be very effective as they were extremely adept in gaining information about other ‘traitors’ and attaining confessions of guilt. An example of this can be seen in Vsevolod Meyerhold’s letter to politician and diplomat, Vyacheslav Molotov: |
Portrait of Sergei Kirov
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“The investigators began to use force on me, a sick 65-year-old man. I was made to lie face down and beaten on
the soles of my feet and my spine with a rubber strap... For the next few days, when those parts of my legs
were covered with extensive internal hemorrhaging, they again beat the red-blue-and-yellow bruises with the
strap and the pain was so intense that it felt as if boiling water was being poured on these sensitive areas. I
howled and wept from the pain…”
the soles of my feet and my spine with a rubber strap... For the next few days, when those parts of my legs
were covered with extensive internal hemorrhaging, they again beat the red-blue-and-yellow bruises with the
strap and the pain was so intense that it felt as if boiling water was being poured on these sensitive areas. I
howled and wept from the pain…”
Then, they would be imprisoned and
executed, sent to the GULAG prison camps, or put on public show trials at which
they were forced to plead guilty to incredible crimes they could never have
done. The notorious show trials were public displays of condemnation to prove
to those in the Soviet Union that the ‘enemies of the state’ (otherwise known
as Stalin’s potential rivals) were guilty.
Propaganda poster of Stalin in a positive light
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During this time, Stalin was also continuously praised and heralded as the greatest man who ever lived. Anything that reflected badly on Stalin was censored. Propaganda was everywhere: pictures and statues were dedicated to him. People leapt with continuous praise and applause after referencing his name. History books were altered to make him the hero of the Revolution, and photographs were altered to destroy the memory of those purged.
In the end, Stalin had built a perfect totalitarian government where he had complete and absolute power over the entire Soviet Union. |
Top: original photo. The bottom photo has been altered to erase Nikolai Yezhov
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