THE GREAT TERROR

Notes from Alan Bullock (1991) Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, London, Fontana Press.

“Stalin grasped the value of terror, not simply as a response to an emergency – as in the collectivisation campaign – but as a permanent ‘formula of rule’.” (494)

Stalin’s paranoid tendencies served him well during the 1930s, “making it easier for him to satisfy both his political and his psychological needs at the same time, each reinforcing the other. (495)

Stalin had three political requirements in the early 1930s.

First and foremost, he needed to defeat his opponents within the party – those members who were critical of his policies. Among these were Kirov and Ordzhonikidze, who wanted a relaxation of the level of repression and of the pace of industrialisation, so as to rebuild support among the peasants and the working class.

At the 17th Party Congress in January 1934 (the so-called Congress of Victors), Stalin seemed to go along with this idea, declaring that Russia had achieved socialism and that the party’s enemies were defeated. Many interpreted this as meaning that the class struggle was over. The relaxation that followed seemed to confirm this view. However, “there is no reason to suppose that Stalin ever changed his view that relaxation would risk losing all that had been gained so far, that the pressure had to be kept up, not reduced – and that in any alternate scenario there would be no place for him or the emergency powers he exercised.” (495)

Stalin’s second need in 1934 was to eliminate all democratic debate within the party, thereby eliminating any future opposition to his rule. He did not wish to have to listen to any opinions which differed from his own. He wanted agents, not colleagues within the ruling clique.

He also needed to eliminate those Old Bolsheviks who “still thought of themselves as members of Lenin’s party and did not realise that this was now Stalin’s party, and that Stalin, unlike Lenin, did not regard himself as first among equals, did not admit there were equals, and already saw himself as an autocrat whose word was final.” (495)

Stalin believed he was the only person who could complete the revolution and lead Russia into the new age – that only he had the “strength of will to carry through the necessary measures – provided he was not hampered by the need to pay attention to any other person or institution (such as the party).” This meant he had to replace the party created by Lenin with one of his own creation – all the time “maintaining a façade of continuity”. (497)

In 1934, Stalin proceeded cautiously. Following the Congress, he seemingly agreed to a relaxation, but began making plans to replace his opponents with subordinates he could trust.

The two most important features of Stalin’s personality were his narcissism (self-absorption) and his paranoia. He saw himself as a genius, whose destiny was to create socialism in Russia. Since he was incapable of seeing others as equal to himself, he was quite prepared to sacrifice them to his ultimate cause. Stalin also saw himself as being surrounded by enemies who were determined to destroy him. The only way he believed he could protect himself was to strike them first.

“Throughout his life, Stalin had a psychological need to confirm and reassure himself about both these beliefs – about his historic mission and about the truth of the picture he had formed of himself in relation to the external world.” (496) This need pushed Stalin to outdo Lenin, in terms of his power, reputation and achievements.

Trotsky’s activities in exile also fueled Stalin’s paranoia. In Stalin’s eyes, Trotsky really was the centre of a giant conspiracy to destroy Stalin. “The millions who were arrested, shot or dispatched to the camps – like the kulaks before them – were acting out in real life a morality play which Stalin directed and in which Trotsky was cast as Satan.” The purpose of the public confessions at the show trials was to vindicate Stalin’s belief that there was a massive conspiracy against him.

We will probably never know the truth about Kirov's murder, but it seems likely that Stalin was behind it. Although the assassin (Nikolayev) had personal reasons for killing Kirov, he could not possibly have got to him without the complicity of the NKVD (which withdrew the guards at the Smolny Institute, where Kirov had his office). In addition, the NKVD had twice arrested Nikolayev in the vicinity of the Institute, and each time had released him, despite the fact he had a gun. The NKVD chief, Yagoda, later admitted that he had ordered the Leningrad NKVD boss to help Nikolayev kill Kirov. Although he did not name Stalin as the man who had sanctioned the assassination, no one else could have given the order. To keep Yagoda quiet, Stalin had him shot in 1938. (He also had an old Bolshevik and family friend, Yenukidze [who was Stalin’s wife’s godfather] shot. Later, Yenukidze was blamed for ordering Yagoda to kill Kirov. Conveniently, he was dead, so could not refute the accusation.)

Stalin's motivation for having Kirov killed was to eliminate a potential rival, since Kirov opposed some of Stalin's policies and enjoyed considerable support within the party. This was evidenced during the 17th Party Congress in January 1934, when Kirov received more votes than Stalin, during the election of members to the Central Committee. Rumours were circulating at the time that some party members wanted to replace Stalin with Kirov as general secretary, although there is no evidence that such a plot existed.

Stalin used the assassination to attack his opponents within the party. The tactic was particularly clever, since he accused Kirov's own supporters of master-minding his death. Yezhov, one of Stalin's key supporters on the Central Committee, was given the task of demonstrating that Kirov's death was part of a far-reaching conspiracy aimed at assassinating Stalin and other party leaders. In exchange for his life, Nikolayev confessed that he had killed Kirov on the orders of a shadowy group of party members known as the 'Leningrad Centre'. In December, those denounced by Nikolayev were tried and shot. Nikolayev was also shot, despite the promises Yezhov had made.

The next to go were Zinoviev, Kamenev and another 17 senior party members, all sentenced to prison for being morally and politically responsible for Kirov's death. Simultaneously, 100,000 supporters of Kirov and Zinoviev in Leningrad were arrested and deported. (By the time the Great Terror had ended in that city, a quarter of the population had been purged.)

During 1935, a semblance of normality returned to Russia. However, Stalin had not abandoned his aim of eliminating his enemies. He was simply pandering to the desire within the political elite that the Old Bolsheviks be treated leniently. During this time, he continued to gather evidence against Zinoviev, Kamenev and their circle.

In 1936, Stalin unveiled his new constitution, which promised democratic rights for all citizens. This document was intended to persuade the Western nations that Russia was moving in the direction of democracy, and therefore could be trusted as an ally against Hitler. As part of this strategy, Russia had also joined the League of Nations in 1934.

Stalin now passed three new laws, to enable him to force confessions out of those he wished to eliminate. One law allowed children as young as 12 to be executed. Another allowed the families of traitors to be imprisoned for up to 20 years, if aware of the traitors' offences. This meant families could be used as hostages to elicit confessions. The third law established special courts to try cases of treason, and gave the NKVD the power to sentence people to prison or to forced labour.

In the spring of 1935, forty people were arrested for allegedly plotting to kill Stalin. Kemenev was arrested on the grounds that his brother (a painter) was married to a doctor who worked in the Kremlin. But still Stalin could not garner support for Kamenev’s execution, so the latter was sentenced to another 10 years in prison.

However, later that year, an NKVD agent, Valentin Olberg, was arrested and charged with being involved in a Trotskyite conspiracy to kill Stalin. The basis of the accusation was that Olberg had worked as an undercover informant in a Trotskyite group in Berlin. He was ordered to confess, and implicated members of the Komsomol (the Communist Party youth movement) in Gorky.

Stalin decided to use this as the basis of a full-scale attack on his opponents. He ordered the NKVD to obtain confessions from suspects. These were then used as evidence in the resulting trials. By this time, “the tradition of public trials based upon fabricated plots had been established,” so no one dared question this. (509)

Disagreement with Stalin “on any issue became, not a matter of political opposition, but a capital crime, proof, ipso facto, of participation in a criminal conspiracy involving treason and the intention to overthrow the Soviet regime.” (509)

No evidence has ever come to light suggesting that there was a plot to remove Stalin. The charges against the ‘oppositionists’ were entirely fabricated, and Stalin knew it. But he also believed there would be a plot to overthrow him if he didn’t root out opponents first. The confessions seemed to vindicate this view. “By producing leading figures in Soviet history accusing themselves publicly of high treason, he supplied convincing proof of the political charges, and at the same time satisfied his own psychopathological needs.” (510)

One of the key witnesses ordered to implicate Zinoviev in Kirov’s murder and a plot to kill Stalin was Ivan Smirnov, a hero of the revolution and civil war, and a supporter of Trotsky. But Smirnov had been in prison since 1933, so he could not have been involved. This was brushed aside by the prosecutor, who claimed Smirnov had communicated with his fellow conspirators from his prison cell via a secret code. However, Smirnov, Kamenev and Zinoviev refused to confess, despite brutal torture.

Finally, Kamenev and Zinoviev agreed to confess in exchange for Stalin’s personal guarantee that their families and supporters would be spared.

The trial was preceded by a vicious press campaign calling for the death of the accused, and workers around the country signed partitions to this effect.

Zinoviev’s last words at the trial were, ‘My defective Bolshevism became transformed into anti-Bolshevism, and through Trotskyism I arrived at Fascism. Trotskyism is a variety of Fascism and Zinovievism is a variety of Trotskyism.’

All the accused were shot on the day the trial ended. Stalin then had their relatives shot or sent to the camps, in violation of the promises he had made.

Most people in Russia did believe the accusations of conspiracy against Stalin and the revolution were true. This was because the civil war was still fresh in their memories and they found it easy to believe the revolution still had enemies. Their beliefs were also reinforced by the confessions the accused made, and by the media monopoly Stalin enjoyed. There was simply no alternative source of information. “the cult of Stalin and the image of him assiduously propagated through every medium – wise, benevolent, watchful, the protector of the nation against its foes, the Great Helmsman, as Pravda described him – made it virtually impossible to conceive of him as the very opposite, the chief conspirator himself. This would have been to turn the world upside down in the most alarming way and undermine all sense of security.” (516) Even the victims of Stalin’s purges did not blame him for their fate. They believed that Stalin was ignorant of their fate and that if only they could speak to him he would have them released. “To think otherwise would have been to feel the solid ground giving way beneath one’s feet.” (516)

Even many Westerners believed the charges were true. It was simply too disturbing to believe Stalin was a monster, especially when Russia was now seen as the West’s best hope of stopping Hitler.

Following the executions of Kamenev, Zinoviev and the others, there was resistance in the Politbureau to a continuation of the repression. For a while, Stalin did relax the pressure, but this resistance seems to have convinced him that opposition to his rule still existed and that it had to be eliminated.

To ensure the new purges were pursued ruthlessly, Stalin fired Yagoda and appointed Yezhov as NKVD chief. Yezhov had no shortage of potential victims, given that people began denouncing each other as a means of avoiding accusation themselves.

Yezhov’s task was made also easier by the confessions of Zinoviev and Kamenev, which had implicated a host of other party leaders, including Tomsky, Bukharin, Rykov, Uglanov, Radek, Pyatakov, Serebryankov and Sokolnikov. Stalin now used these confessions as evidence to prosecute these men (with the exception of Tomsky, who committed suicide). Yezhov secured a confession from Pyatakov (offering to spare his wife and child in return), and this then implicated others in a Trotskyite plot to sabotage the railways, factories and mines, and to spy on Russia for the Germans and Japanese. Those accused were executed in 1938.

People now tried to read the direction of Stalin’s thinking – who he would purge next. But there were few clues. Up until the 1938 show trials, the accused had been actual opponents of Stalin, and they were accused of a crime that had actually occurred (Kirov’s murder). But now the crimes, as well as the evidence, were fabricated, and the victims were often not even politicians. “As the events of 1937-38 were to show, Stalin’s sole criterion had become total and unquestioning obedience to his will.” (520)

At the beginning of 1937, Bukharin was arrested. Stalin then told the Central Committee the reasons for the purges. Russia was surrounded by enemies, whose agents were using Trotskyites within the party to subvert the revolution through sabotage and murder. Ominously, he then ordered that all party functionaries select subordinates who could replace them, if necessary.