The Purges Of Joseph Stalin

The purges not only impacted those openly opposed to Stalin and party members, but had devastating effects on ordinary people too, also resulting in the prevention of progress in the Soviet community, impacting it’s future. During Stalin's rule of the country over 20 million people were sent to labor camps of the Gulag, where nearly half of them died. Fear of losing his power and dictatorship led Stalin to believe that the educated would be most likely to challenge his authority. The origins of Stalin’s lower class background are rumoured to have left him feeling inferior towards the educated class, also leading to obsessive determination to remove the threat. Subsequently, scientists, doctors and engineers, became targets, and were also imprisoned and killed. As a consequence, the execution of Russia’s educated during the Terror, stopped the social development and growth in the Soviet initiated after the revolution, predominantly in the area of science and technology. Many people in Russia believed everything Stalin said, with most blinded by the vision of a father figure of authority who would do them no harm. If anyone

Joseph Stalin greatly influenced Russia in the years 1924 through 1932. His rise to this power can be explained by the Russian Revolutionary experience that allowed him to gain authority in Russia. Although historians often refer to Stalin as a ruthless, mindless dictator, he redirected the Russian Revolution to major economic development. Stalin’s character in Russia during the Revolution catalyzed the many events that took place during the time period. Because of Stalin’s ability to both appeal to the masses, and take advantage of events, like Lenin’s death, Stalin was able to rise to power. Essentially, the Russian Revolution fostered the development of Stalin’s dictatorship leading the country into a state of economic growth and influence. The Revolution fostered Stalin’s ability to maintain a central leadership, use violence to gain control, and regenerate a previously disconnected economy.

Almost everyone knows what a monster Adolf Hitler was, but most people do not know that one of the great ally leader of World War II, Joseph Stalin, had committed even greater atrocities than Hitler. Joseph Stalin was a ruthless and yet diligent dictator of the Soviet Union, whose rise to power influenced a multitude of major events in his country’s history. Due to Stalin’s impactful reign, he made the Soviet Union become a global superpower, underwent difficult hardships such as the Great Famine in the Soviet Union, and after his death, caused the Soviet Union to go through a process known as de-Stalinization.

Beyond Stalin’s cult of personality, terror was a common device; he often “[resorted] to relatively arbitrary and coercive measures, such as searches, mass arrests, and deportations, to deal with a whole host of socioeconomic problems”. Beyond this general radicalization, Stalin’s use of terror, often to force moral-political unity, can most evidently be seen within purges and The Great Terror. In an attempt to consolidate his power, Stalin launched a search for political enemies and saboteurs of communism; those who were assumed to be counterrevolutionary were sent to the gulags or killed-- this often included political opponents. For a period in 1937 and 1938, Stalin had more than one and a half million people arrested on political charges, of which nearly 700,000 were executed. This “Great Terror” heightened anxiety among the people and forced submission to his authority, and serves as a brutal example of Stalin’s power. His use of terror to ensure cooperation and consolidate his power added to the aura of a monolithic

Joseph Stalin had become the new Head of State, rising from position as leader of the Communist Party under Lenin. Stalin would pass laws that would lead to millions and millions of deaths, including confiscation of wheat grain in Ukraine and Turkish portions of USSR. This would result in heavy starvation, deportations, political imprisonments and executions. This was done to clean the communist party and society in general of unsupportive elements. One of the passed laws was the Gulag System. The Gulag system was a forced labor petil camp. It started under Lenin and continued in seriousness to Stalin. Millions of people came to these forced labor petil camps. But the majority of these millions were Soviet citizens that occurred before the

The effects of the purges on the political structure and community of the USSR can be described (as Peter Kenez asserts) as an overall change from a party led dictatorship to the dictatorship of a single individual; Stalin. Overall power was centred in Stalin, under whom an increasingly bureaucratic hierarchy of

During the 1930’s, Stalin ordered large-scale purges, targeting anyone who displayed even the slightest sign of being a threat to the government. The government was able to identify these people through family members or close friends who informed on them. With this, people no longer expressed their true opinions and instead conformed with the government’s ideas in fear of persecution (“Purges and Praises”). About 20 million people that were suspected of performing “anti-Soviet activities” were executed, sent to Gulag labor camps, or forced them to take part in a show trial, where they would be forced plead guilty publicly to inconceivable crimes that they had never committed (Gracheva). Many officials and military leaders were also executed after being convicted of treason. It is estimated that one thirds of the Communist Party’s three million members were put to death during the Great Purge. However, the traces of the people that were murdered were eliminated after the government rewrote history books and doctored photographs to exclude them. Additionally, members of the NKVD, the Soviet secret police, were killed at the end of the Great Purges, so that the people that had known too much about this event would be eliminated.

After the war Stalin took over many countries and made them his own to increase the population which rose ten million or so. But Titoist Yugoslavia separated from Russia. So to prevent other countries from following suit he made many trials which condemned many Soviet leaders to death off of them falsely testifying of titoism. He tried to spread communism in Europe. Communism is where the government controls everything; schools, education, businesses, industries, factories, and religion. But Stalin made it where one person would control everything not necessarily the actual government.

When the Commissariat of Nationalities was formed, this was when the problems begun. Stalin had so much power he abused it and put people to death. In the 1930s some famous people known in “show trials” were put to death by Stalin. This was dictatorship at its finest.

There have been many violations of Human Rights throughout history. There have been many different reasons for this lots of times it was simply for a world leader to stay in control of his country, to get rid of a type of people someone doesn't like, or simply for someone to make easy money. No matter the reason these violations are unacceptable and can bring harm to many people.

To assess whether Stalin’s personality was responsible for the Great Purges, whether Stalin had complete control over the purges must be assessed, as must how his personality may have affected the course of the purges. It seems that Stalin had a volatile personality as well as a troubled personal life, which is highly likely to have created a paranoid man. His autocratic, authoritarian style of governance should have meant that only he could have been truly responsible for the purges, but whether in a system of paranoia the process could have spun out of control. Many believe that after the death of his wife in 1932, Stalin ‘lost touch with reality’.

To begin with, it can be assumed that Stalin was an irrational leader because he was simultaneously also a very paranoid individual. He was constantly concerned that people in his own territory and those abroad were going after him to destroy him. As a result, he was ruthless in making sure his “enemies” would be punished. One of his most ferocious acts of terror was “The Great Purges” between 1934 and 1939. During those five years, Stalin executed and imprisoned even his own admirals and Red Army officers. The terror had no boundaries and nobody was safe from Stalin’s punishment. With the help of the Soviet secret police (NKVD), Stalin aimed to eliminate all potential opposition thus even members of the Communist party who were deemed suspicious

“After the cessation of Ukrainization, came a wave of repression, hundreds of thousands of people were sent to labour camps in Siberia. “In 1932, the communist party began requiring writers to follow the theory Socialist Realism. Many Ukrainian writers who did not adhere to the official style were imprisoned or executed, particularly during Stalin’s purges of the 1930s.”

Stalin now followed a simple pattern, he simply systematically replaced all those who were not his absolute followers. By 1930 his rule was absolute. Stalin was now free to go ahead and pursue his plans to industrialize and arm the Soviet Union. The only other obstacle in his path was the army leadership. Stalin viewed the army as a threat to his power and took steps to remove that threat. He organized all of his followers to delve into the lives of the military leadership and find out if they were traitors. Many of Stalin's followers used this as a way of getting back at old rivals and enemies. All kinds of false evidence was manufactured. Stalin took all of this at face value and a great number of the army leadership was either killed or exiled. There were also several show trials put on to demonstrate to the Soviet people that all of the killing was being done for a reason and that there really were conspirators and spies among them. Several accused openly confessed to active membership of a plot to murder the Soviet leadership. With the Army purges done, Stalin

Through the purges, Russians were able to realize how brutal Stalin was. Since the Russians feared Stalin, they restrained themselves from going against him. The Moscow trials were often recorded and shown to the public to ensure that everyone is aware of what would happen if they attempted to oppose Stalin. In many occasions, people would report their neighbors and even their family members of criticizing Stalin. This was done in order to create a good image of themselves, and show their loyalty to the communist government in hopes that it would prevent them from being purged or getting sent into gulags. Due to the frequent reports and accusations, 1.2 million people were shot and another 60,000 people were sent to gulags where most of them died because of the harsh working conditions and the lack of basic necessities. Thus, the purges helped Stalin retain his control over USSR because the purges created fear in Russians to the point that they would go to great measures such as accusing their families of betrayal to Stalin just so that they wouldn’t be purged or sent to labor