Causation Of The Purges Essay, Research Paper
??????????? Under
Stalin?s leadership, approximately 70 000 people were murdered during the
purges of 1928 to 1940, and some 12 million people died as a result of Stalin?s
sending them to the Gulags otherwise known as the camps, and these estimates
are described as being conservative. Many historians believe that up to 17
million people could have died as a result of Stalin?s purges.? Was this due to Stalin?s paranoia, or were
other factors involved in these huge numbers of dead? After Lenin?s death, Stalin
succeeded him as leader after a gap of about three years.? He had achieved his position through skilful
manovering and ruthlessness in his dealings with fellow party members.? Stalin had been brought up as a Georgian
peasant, but his lack of regard for his fellow human beings had been shown by
his brutal repression of Georgia in Sept 1918. Stalin was willing to use
whatever means necessary to achieve his goals.?
After Stalin took over the leadership in 1928, huge advances occurred in
the state of Russia?s economy, and Stalin succeeded in changing Russia from a
backward power, restrained for many years under the ties of repressive,
incompetent Tsars, into a world Superpower, capable of sustaining an arms race
requiring military expenditure of up to 15% per year.? This modernisation of Russia was achieved in an extremely short
period of time, as Stalin himself said: ?We are 50 or 100 years behind the western powers,
if the revolution is to survive, we must make up this gap in 10 years? ??????????? Whether the
gap with the west was made up as quickly as Stalin intended is insignificant at
this point, the fact is that the gap was made up in a very short time.? In order to achieve this, Stalin was willing
to remove opponents to his ideas. This resulted in parts of the party opposed
to Stalin?s ideas being purged.?
Although these deaths can?t be excused, there was at least a purpose in
these purges and they cannot be simply attributed to Stalin?s paranoia. ??????????? As Stalin
tried to improve Russia he also increasingly centralised the government, this
was beneficial as it allowed Stalin to make all of the decisions that he needed
to make in order to achieve his policy of catching up with the west.? However, he also set almost impossible
targets through Gosplan for his five-year plans.? When these targets were not met, the blame would naturally have
fallen on Stalin. However, Stalin?s power was based on a cult of personality,
which made Stalin a kind of human God who could not be wrong.? Therefore, in order to avoid the blame
falling on him, he had to find ?scape goats?, people who he could blame for the
targets not being met.? He blamed the
failure to achieve these targets on the sabotage of certain elements of
society, particularly the Kulak class of rich peasants, as created by Stolypin
in an attempt to preserve the Tsarist system.?
The existence of this class is debatable, certainly the numbers of
Kulaks was nothing like the number of people accused of being Kulaks and
consequently deported or shot.? For
example, when there was a grain shortage in Russia, Stalin simply would not
accept that there was a shortage; instead he blamed the Kulaks for hoarding
grain.? He sent out requisitioning
squads to claim what was being hoarded and deal with those who were hoarding
it.? It is unclear whether some grain
was in fact being hoarded, but certainly, that which was being hoarded was
nothing like the amount Stalin said was being hoarded.? The results were that the grain, kept by the
farmer as seed for next years harvest was seized, and those retaining seed were
accused of hoarding. Consequently, the next year there was mass famine due to
the lack of grain for planting.? All
this time, Stalin was exporting grain in order to boost Russia?s economy. In
this way Stalin avoided the blame for his failures by accusing others of
sabotage.? The need for someone to blame
led to arrest quotas. The secret police were required by Stalin to arrest a
certain number of ?saboteurs? so that propaganda could show that the failure to
meet targets set by Gosplan, targets that were unattainable, could be blamed on
sabotage. ??????????? Although
the purging of Stalin?s political opponents was partially due to Stalin?s
paranoia, it was also, as I have already mentioned, due to his fear of
opposition.? He needed a free hand if
his policies were to work.? However, his
fear of being ousted from power was not necessarily unfounded.? In 1934, at the 17th annual party
conference a vote of the party membership decided to replace Stalin with
Kirov.? There were only 3 votes against
Kirov, but 292 votes against Stalin.?
The result was that
votes against each candidate.? However,
Stalin could not tolerate this popularity and rivalry.? He needed absolute power.? The result was that Nickolyev, the husband
of Kirov?s secretary, murdered Kirov in December of 1934 under orders from the
secret police.? Kirov was given a state
funeral, but Stalin set about consolidating his power by forcibly removing all
those who voted against him.? In this
way Stalin was paranoid, he was neither willing to share nor delegate power,
this was the motivation behind the centralisation of power, he wanted his power
to be undiluted and absolute.? Stalin?s
greatest fear was being ousted from his position of power before his
death.? The result was that he held
Russia in an ?iron grip?.? Another
example of his fear of losing power was the purging of the army.? In early 1937, the Germans forged a letter
from Tukhachevsky, the chief of staff in the Soviet army, to friends in
Germany, telling of plans to overthrow Stalin?s regime.? These documents were well planted by the
Germans and found by Stalin.? Stalin
then became extremely fearful for his own personal safety and his loosing
power.? The result was the purging of
the entire Russian army including the 11 Commissars for defence and 75 of the
80 members of the Supreme Military Council were executed, along with all 8
admirals and half of all the officer corps.?
The result was a severely weakened Russian army just before the
commencement of the Second World War. ?The difficulty is whether or not Stalin?s fear of loosing power
can be described as a form of paranoia.?
It is clear that in so many of the actions which historians have attributed
to Stalin?s paranoia, Stalin was at least partially justified in reacting in
the way he did.? For example, Stalin?s
obsessive fear of Trotsky was at least in part justified by the legitimacy of
Trotsky?s claim to the Russian leadership.?
The eventual murder of Trotsky by means of an ice pick through the head,
though considered by many to be brutal and unnecessary as Trotsky was no longer
a threat to the regime in South America, did prevent Trotsky informing the
world of what was really going on in Russia and consequently, may have
prevented outside intervention. Stalin was clearly paranoid about
his power within Russia being compromised or removed from him by others in the
way that he had removed power from Bucharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev along with
the other old Bolsheviks. In this way after the Kirov threat was removed it
seems that he became determined not to let any other party member come close to
gaining a similar influence and gaining a position from where it was
conceivably possible to oust him from power.?
In this way it can be said that events contributed to the repeated
purging of those who posed a potential threat to his leadership either by means
of past claims (the old Bolsheviks) or those whom appeared to oppose him and
his policies.? However, Stalin became so
paranoid about those around him attempting to remove him from power that any
hint of opposition led in many cases to over cautious purging.? Repeatedly he purged the secret police
force, and the mass purges of the army in 1937 showed how paranoid Stalin
really was about losing power to a military or political threat from within the
party.? He was not willing to allow any
other party to compromise his supreme power in anyway for fear of losing his
power. In conclusion, it seems that
Stalin?s complex character makes it difficult to highlight any single factor to
which one could contribute the great purges.?
Certainly, his paranoia played some part as many of the purges were
unnecessary to achieve the goal of removing the threat to his power.? However, in many cases, although Stalin can
be described as over-zealous in his purging, the actions taken were necessary
in order to maintain power.? The purges
of many ordinary people can also be attributed to the search for a scapegoat to
avoid the blame falling on Stalin.? Stalin?s purges did achieve his
aim by enabling Russia to become a world Superpower, however, there was a high
cost.? Many of the purges were extremely
widespread and in my opinion, many of these deaths could be described as
unnecessary and could be attributed to Stalin?s paranoia.? However, in most cases, the purges had a
motive, this was either maintenance of supreme power or else finding somebody
to blame for the failure to realise his targets. In this way, Stalin?s paranoia
was only partially to blame for the purges.?
His desire to maintain power and achieve near impossible targets to a
greater degree led to the purges of the Russian people under Stalin.