Those with religious backgrounds like Catholic priests, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Jews were arrested in large numbers. This included entire groups of people such as foreign language teachers, members of pen pal organizations, even stamp collectors. Anyone having anything to do with foreigners or foreign countries automatically became suspects of spying. Stalin often persecuted people not for what they did, but for who they were. Individuals later found themselves held in "detention" for days and weeks without any formal charges. To divert suspicion from yourself you accused the other fellow.Īrrests usually occurred in the dead of night. and disloyalty to friends were a small price to pay for keeping out of prison. Louis Fischer, an authority on Soviet history, explained it this way:Įverybody played Safety First. The terror process began with denunciations. The use of terror by Stalin and his henchmen ensnared thousands and then millions of Soviet citizens, most of whom were innocent of any wrongdoing. He expanded the death penalty to cover hundreds of offenses and extended it to children as young as age 13. He sped up trials and often held them in secret. While the new Soviet Constitution of 1936 provided for due process guarantees such as the right to defend oneself in a public trial, Stalin took steps to "simplify" the judicial system. Stalin replaced those killed with younger people loyal to him, not with the older generation of revolutionaries. Over 3,000 secret police agents were shot and one-third of the military officer corps were executed. Stalin then turned on the state's security forces. Technicians, teachers, and other government employees found themselves trapped in Stalin's dragnet. Thousands more were accused of belonging to "terrorist centers" and were shot, imprisoned, or exiled to Siberia. Immediately after the assassination, the secret police rounded up over 100 "conspirators" and executed them. In any case, the assassination of an important Communist Party official gave Stalin the pretext for intensifying the purges. The details of the assassination still remain a mystery, but much circumstantial evidence indicates that the head of the Soviet secret police planned Kirov's murder on orders from Stalin. On December 1, 1934, less than a year after he was mentioned as a possible replacement for Stalin, Sergei Kirov was assassinated. The fact that these delegates dared to question Stalin's leadership apparently goaded him to go after the party elite. Some of the delegates even suggested that Kirov replace Stalin as party leader. Later, nearly 300 of the 1,225 delegates to the Congress voted against Stalin, the leader of the party. Stalin's effort to purge (cleanse) the Communist Party of people who posed any threat to his control had begun.Īt the 17th Communist Party Congress in 1934, Sergei Kirov, a top party official, called for restraint in carrying out the purges. Many ended up banished to prison camps or deported from the country. Their job was to seek out and arrest "the enemies of the people who sow discord in the Party." Thousands of mostly rank and file members resigned or were expelled from the party. In response, Stalin activated his secret police and a system of informers. As a result, 5 million died of starvation.Īs word of the deaths and failures in the economy spread, criticism of Stalin grew within the Communist Party. To increase trade exports, Stalin ordered the government to confiscate all grain crops from Soviet peasants. Massive food and consumer shortages plagued the Soviet people. During the early 1930s, the Soviet economy failed. But Stalin still wanted everyone in the Communist Party and Soviet government to bend to his will. By 1930, his chief rival, Leon Trotsky, had fled the country. The Purgesįollowing the death of Lenin in 1924, Stalin (whose name means "man of steel") had emerged as the leader of the Soviet Union. All the participants of these so-called "show trials," including the judges, served Stalin's political evil. Often based on forced confessions, the trials made a mockery of the idea of due process of law. A small minority of well-known Soviet officials did receive highly publicized public trials in Moscow between 19. Most of those arrested were tried in secret or received no trial at all. Ironically, when Stalin introduced his new constitution, he was also engineering the arrest of thousands of Communist Party and government officials.
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