Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (Russian: Большой террор),[3] was a purge in the Soviet Union from 1936 to 1938.[4]
| Great Purge | |
|---|---|
 People of Vinnytsia searching for relatives among the exhumed victims of the Vinnytsia massacre, 1943 | |
| Location | Soviet Union |
| Date | 1936–1938 |
| Attack type | |
| Deaths | 950,000 to 1.2 million[1] (higher estimates overlap with at least 136,520[2] deaths in the Gulag system) |
| Perpetrator(s) | Joseph Stalin, the NKVD (Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolai Yezhov, Lavrentiy Beria, Ivan Serov and others), Vyacheslav Molotov, Andrey Vyshinsky, Lazar Kaganovich, Kliment Voroshilov, Robert Eikhe and others |
It was a large-scale "repression" of the more wealthy peasants (kulaks).[5] Ethnic minorities were murdered. Even members of the Communist Party, government officials, and the Red Army leadership were killed.
Everyone was watched by the police. Everyone was suspected. People were imprisoned without a fair trial. Executions were common.[6] Historians think the total number of deaths due to Stalinist repression in 1937–38 was between 950,000 to 1.2 million.[1]
The "Kulak Operation" and the targeting of national minorities made up the Great Terror. Together these two actions caused nine-tenths of the death sentences and three-fourths of Gulag prison camp sentences.
In the Western world, Robert Conquest's 1968 book The Great Terror popularized the phrase. Conquest's title was a reminder of the French Revolution time known as the Reign of Terror (French: la Terreur, "the Terror"; from June to July 1794: la Grande Terreur, 'the Great Terror').[7]
Great Purge Media
An excerpt of NKVD Order No. 00447
The politburo decision to extend the time limits of the "national line" (ethnic-based) purge operations signed by Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov, Mikoyan, and Chubar.
Leon Trotsky, in 1929, shortly before being driven out of the Soviet Union.
Leningrad party leader Sergei Kirov with Stalin (and his daughter Svetlana) in 1934.
Bolshevik revolutionaries Leon Trotsky, Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev
NKVD chiefs responsible for conducting mass repressions (left to right): Yakov Agranov; Genrikh Yagoda; unknown; Stanislav Redens. All three were themselves eventually arrested and executed.
Nikolai Bukharin, Russian Bolshevik revolutionary executed in 1938.
Yevgeny-Ludvig Karlovich Miller, one of the remaining leaders of the White movement, was kidnapped by the NKVD in 1937 and executed 19 months later.
Israil Pliner; (1896–1939) chief of Gulag NKVD (1937–1938), later himself arrested and executed in 1939
The first five Marshals of the Soviet Union in November 1935. (l–r): Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Semyon Budyonny, Kliment Voroshilov, Vasily Blyukher, Alexander Yegorov. Only Budyonny and Voroshilov survived the Great Purge.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Ellman, Michael (2002). "Soviet Repression Statistics: some comments" (PDF). Europe-Asia Studies. 54 (7): 1151–1172. doi:10.1080/0966813022000017177. S2CID 43510161.
The best estimate that can currently be made of the number of repression deaths in 1937–38 is the range 950,000–1.2 million, i.e. about a million. This is the estimate which should be used by historians, teachers and journalists concerned with twentieth century Russian—and world—history
- ↑ Wheatcroft, Stephen G. (1999). "Victims of Stalinism and the Soviet Secret Police: the comparability and reliability of the archival data: not the last word" (PDF). Europe-Asia Studies. 51 (2): 339. doi:10.1080/09668139999056.
- ↑ In Russian history, the period of the most intense purge, 1937–1938, is called Yezhovshchina (lit. 'Yezhov phenomenon'), after Nikolai Yezhov, the head of the NKVD.
- ↑ Gellately, Robert 2007. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: the age of social catastrophe. Knopf. ISBN 978-1-4000-4005-6.
- ↑ The word "peasant" means something like "farmer" in English.
- ↑ Figes, Orlando 2007. The Whisperers: private life in Stalin's Russia. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 978-0-7139-9702-6, pp=227–315
- ↑ Helen Rappaport (1999). Joseph Stalin: a biographical companion. ABC-CLIO. p. 110. ISBN 978-1576070840. Retrieved 29 September 2015.