Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The Purges
- Communist Party
- Moscow Show Trials (1936-38)
- 500,000 party members
executed or sent to the Gulags
- 1/3 of party purged
- 1940: Trotsky murdered in Mexico-
he wanted a new revolution
- 7/8 of communist politburo purged
- 1936-38: 1.7 million arrests
- Red Army
- 25,000 army officers removed
- Supreme Commander : Marshal Tukhachevsky
removed
- 2/3 senior officers arrested/shot
- Ordinary People
- 1937: 18 million in labour camps
- 1937: 10 million dead
- "Every family lost at least 1 person"
- Random arrests+executions
- Torture people till they
confessed to made up crimes
- If didn't work, NKVD would threaten their family
- Why?
- 1934: Murder of Kirov, leader
of Leningrad
- Used as an excuse by Stalin
- To keep Stalin in power
- Stalin was paranoid and
thought everyone was
against him