The Russian Revolution was a pair of revolutions in Russia in
1917 which dismantled the Tsarist
autocracy and led to the rise of the Soviet Union.
The Russian Empire collapsed with the
abdication of Emperor Nicholas II and the old regime was
replaced by a provisional government during the first
revolution of February 1917 (March in the Gregorian calendar; the older Julian calendar was
in use in Russia at the time). Alongside it arose grassroots community
assemblies (called 'soviets') which contended for authority. In the
second revolution that October, the Provisional Government was toppled and all
power was given to the soviets.
The February Revolution (March 1917) was a
revolution focused around Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg),
the capital of Russia
A period of dual power ensued,
during which the Provisional Government held state
power while the national network of soviets, led by socialists, had the
allegiance of the lower classes and, increasingly, the left-leaning urban middle class. During this
chaotic period there were frequent mutinies, protests and many strikes. Many
socialist political organizations were engaged in daily struggle and vied for
influence within the Duma and the soviets, central among which were the Bolsheviks ("Ones
of the Majority") led by Vladimir Lenin who
campaigned for an immediate end to the war, land to the peasants, and bread to
the workers. When the Provisional Government chose to continue fighting the war
with Germany
In the October Revolution (November in the
Gregorian calendar), the Bolsheviks led an armed insurrection by workers and
soldiers in Petrograd that successfully overthrew the Provisional Government,
transferring all its authority to the soviets with the capital being relocated
to Moscow shortly
thereafter. The Bolsheviks had secured a strong base of support within the
soviets and, as the now supreme governing party, established a federal government dedicated
to reorganizing the former empire into the world's first socialist republic,
practicing soviet democracy on a national and
international scale. The promise to end Russia 's
participation in the First World War was honored promptly with the Bolshevik
leaders signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with
Germany
Soon after, civil war erupted
among the "Reds" (Bolsheviks), the "Whites"
(counter-revolutionaries), the independence movements and
the non-Bolshevik socialists.
It continued for several years, during which the Bolsheviks defeated both the
Whites and all rival socialists and thereafter reconstituted themselves as
the Communist Party. In this
way, the Revolution paved the way for the creation of the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1922. While many notable
historical events occurred in Moscow and Petrograd , there was also a visible movement in cities
throughout the state, among national minorities throughout the empire and in
the rural areas, where peasants took over and redistributed land.
The Joseph Stalin[b][c] (born Ioseb
Besarionis dze Jughashvili;[a] 18 December 1878
– 5 March 1953) was a Soviet revolutionary and politician
of Georgian ethnicity. He ruled the Soviet Union from
the mid-1920s until his death in 1953, holding the titles of General Secretary of
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from
1922 to 1952 and the nation's Premier from 1941 to 1953. Initially
presiding over an oligarchic one-party regime
that governed by plurality, he became the de
facto dictator of
the Soviet Union by the 1930s. Ideologically
committed to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism,
Stalin helped to formalise these ideas as Marxism–Leninism while his own policies
became known as Stalinism.
Born to a poor family in Gori, Russian Empire,
Stalin began his revolutionary career by joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour
Party as a youth. There, he edited the party's newspaper, Pravda,
and raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction
via robberies, kidnappings, and protection rackets. Repeatedly arrested, he
underwent several internal exiles. After the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia during the 1917 October Revolution, Stalin joined the
party's governing Politburo where he was instrumental in overseeing the Soviet Union's establishment in
1922. As Lenin fell ill and then died in 1924, Stalin assumed leadership over the country. During
Stalin's rule, "Socialism in One Country" became a
central tenet of the party's dogma, and Lenin's New Economic Policywas replaced with a
centralized command economy. Under the Five-Year Plan
system, the country underwent collectivisation and
rapid industrialization but experienced significant disruptions in food
production that contributed to the famine of 1932–33. To eradicate those
regarded as "enemies of the working class", Stalin
instituted the "Great Purge" in which over a million were imprisoned and
at least 700,000 executed between 1934 and 1939.
Stalin's government promoted Marxism–Leninism abroad through
the Communist International and
supported anti-fascist movements throughout Europe
during the 1930s, particularly in the Spanish Civil
War. In 1939 it signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany,
resulting in their joint invasion of Poland. Germany
ended the pact by invading the Soviet Union in 1941. Despite
initial setbacks, the Soviet Red Army repelled
the German incursion and captured Berlin in
1945, ending World War II in Europe .
The Soviets annexed the Baltic states and helped
establish Soviet-aligned governments throughout most
of Central and Eastern Europe , China , and North Korea United States
Widely considered one of the 20th century's most significant
figures, Stalin was the subject of a pervasive personality cult within the
international Marxist–Leninist movement, for whom Stalin was a champion
of socialism and the working class.
Since the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, Stalin
has retained popularity in Russia
and Georgia as a victorious wartime leader who established the Soviet Union as a major world power. Conversely,
his totalitarian government has been widely
condemned for overseeing mass repressions, ethnic cleansing,
hundreds of thousands of executions, and famines which caused the deaths of
millions.
Soldiers blocking Narva Gate on Bloody Sunday
The Russian Revolution of
1905 was said to be a major factor contributing to the cause of
the Revolutions of 1917. The events of Bloody Sunday triggered
nationwide protests and soldier mutinies. A council of workers called the St. Petersburg Soviet was
created in this chaos.[2] While the 1905 Revolution was ultimately
crushed, and the leaders of the St. Petersburg Soviet were arrested, this laid
the groundwork for the later Petrograd Soviet and other revolutionary movements
during the leadup to 1917. The 1905 Revolution also led to the creation of a
Duma (parliament), that would later form the Provisional Government following
February 1917.[3]
The outbreak of World War I prompted general outcry
directed at Tsar Nicholas II and
the Romanov family. While the nation was initially caught up in a wave of
nationalism, increasing numbers of defeats and poor conditions soon made the
opposite true. The Tsar attempted to remedy the situation by taking personal
control of the army in 1915. This proved disastrous, as the Tsar was now held
personally responsible for Russia Russia
After the entry of the Ottoman Empire on the side of the Central
Powers in October 1914, Russia
was deprived of a major trade route through the Dardanelles, which further
contributed to the economic crisis, in which Russia Germany
The conditions during the war resulted in devastating loss of
morale within the Russian army, as well as the general population. This was
particularly apparent in the cities, owing to a lack of food in response to the
disruption of agriculture. Food scarcity had become a considerable problem in Russia
Liberal parties too had an increased platform to voice their
complaints, as the initial fervor of the war had resulted in the Tsarist
government creating a variety of political organizations. In July 1915, a
Central War Industries Committee was established under the chairmanship of a
prominent Octobrist, Alexander Guchkov (1862-1936), including
ten workers' representatives. The Petrograd Mensheviks agreed to join despite the
objections of their leaders abroad. All this activity gave renewed
encouragement to political ambitions, and, in September 1915, a combination of
Octobrists and Kadets in
the Duma demanded the forming of a
responsible government. The Tsar rejected these proposals.[5]
All these factors had given rise to a sharp loss of confidence
in the regime, even within the ruling class, growing throughout the war. Early
in 1916, Guchkov discussed with senior army
officers and members of the Central War Industries Committee about a possible
coup to force the abdication of the Tsar. In December, a small group of nobles
assassinated Rasputin, and in January
1917 the Tsar's uncle, Grand Duke Nicholas,
was asked indirectly by Prince Lvov whether
he would be prepared to take over the throne from his nephew, Tsar Nicholas II.
None of these incidents were in themselves the immediate cause of the February
Revolution, but they do help to explain why the monarchy survived only a few
days after it had broken out.[5]
Meanwhile, Socialist Revolutionary leaders in exile, many of
them living in Switzerland, had been
the glum spectators of the collapse of international socialist solidarity.
French and German Social Democrats had voted in favour of their respective
governments' war efforts. Georgi Plekhanov in Paris had
adopted a violently anti-German stand, while Parvussupported the German war effort as the
best means of ensuring a revolution in Russia
It was these views of Martov that predominated in a manifesto
drawn up by Leon Trotsky (at
the time a Menshevik) at a conference in Zimmerwald, attended by 35 Socialist leaders
in September 1915. Inevitably Vladimir Lenin, supported by Zinoviev and Radek,
strongly contested them. Their attitudes became known as the Zimmerwald Left.
Lenin rejected both the defence of Russia
Economic and social
changes
Russian soldiers
marching in Petrograd in February 1917
An elementary theory of property, believed by many peasants, was
that land should belong to those who work on it. At the same time, peasant life
and culture was changing constantly. Change was facilitated by the physical
movement of growing numbers of peasant villagers who migrated to and from
industrial and urban environments, but also by the introduction of city culture
into the village through material goods, the press, and word of mouth.[nb 1]
Workers also had good reasons for discontent: overcrowded
housing with often deplorable sanitary conditions, long hours at work (on the eve
of the war a 10-hour workday six days a week was the average and many were
working 11–12 hours a day by 1916), constant risk of injury and death from poor
safety and sanitary conditions, harsh discipline (not only rules and fines, but
foremen's fists), and inadequate wages (made worse after 1914 by steep wartime
increases in the cost of living). At the same time, urban industrial life was
full of benefits, though these could be just as dangerous, from the point of
view of social and political stability, as the hardships. There were many
encouragements to expect more from life. Acquiring new skills gave many workers
a sense of self-respect and confidence, heightening expectations and desires.
Living in cities, workers encountered material goods such as they had never
seen in villages. Most important, living in cities, they were exposed to new
ideas about the social and political order.[nb 2]
The social causes of the Russian Revolution mainly came from
centuries of oppression of the lower classes by the Tsarist regime, and
Nicholas's failures in World War I. While rural agrarian peasants had
been emancipated from serfdom in 1861, they still resented
paying redemption payments to the state, and demanded communal tender of the
land they worked. The problem was further compounded by the failure of Sergei Witte's land reforms of the early 20th
century. Increasing peasant disturbances and sometimes actual revolts occurred,
with the goal of securing ownership of the land they worked. Russia
The rapid industrialization of Russia Saint
Petersburg , swelled from 1,033,600 to 1,905,600, with Moscow Saint Petersburg Russia US
World War I added to the chaos. Conscription swept up the
unwilling across Russia
Political issues
The Petrograd Soviet Assembly meeting in
1917
Many sections of the country had reason to be dissatisfied with
the existing autocracy. Nicholas II was a deeply conservative ruler and
maintained a strict authoritarian system. Individuals and society in general
were expected to show self-restraint, devotion to community, deference to the
social hierarchy and a sense of duty to the country. Religious faith helped
bind all of these tenets together as a source of comfort and reassurance in the
face of difficult conditions and as a means of political authority exercised
through the clergy. Perhaps more than any other modern monarch, Nicholas II
attached his fate and the future of his dynasty to the notion of the ruler as a
saintly and infallible father to his people.[nb 3]
This idealized vision of the Romanov monarchy blinded him to the
actual state of his country. With a firm belief that his power to rule was
granted by Divine Right, Nicholas assumed that the Russian
people were devoted to him with unquestioning loyalty. This ironclad belief
rendered Nicholas unwilling to allow the progressive reforms that might have
alleviated the suffering of the Russian people. Even after the 1905 revolution
spurred the Tsar to decree limited civil rights and democratic representation,
he worked to limit even these liberties in order to preserve the ultimate
authority of the crown.[nb 3]
Despite constant oppression, the desire of the people for
democratic participation in government decisions was strong. Since the Age of Enlightenment, Russian intellectuals had
promoted Enlightenment ideals such as the dignity of the individual and the
rectitude of democratic representation. These ideals were championed most
vociferously by Russia
Dissatisfaction with Russian autocracy culminated in the huge
national upheaval that followed the Bloody Sunday massacre of January 1905, in
which hundreds of unarmed protesters were shot by the Tsar's troops. Workers
responded to the massacre with a crippling general strike, forcing Nicholas to
put forth the October Manifesto, which established a
democratically elected parliament (the State
Duma). The Tsar undermined this promise of reform but a year later
with Article 87 of the 1906 Fundamental State Laws, and subsequently
dismissed the first two Dumas when they proved uncooperative. Unfulfilled hopes
of democracy fueled revolutionary ideas and violent outbursts targeted at the
monarchy.
One of the Tsar's principal rationales for risking war in 1914
was his desire to restore the prestige that Russia Russia
World War I
The outbreak of war in August 1914 initially served to quiet the
prevalent social and political protests, focusing hostilities against a common
external enemy, but this patriotic unity did not last long. As the war dragged
on inconclusively, war-weariness gradually took its toll. More important,
though, was a deeper fragility: although many ordinary Russians joined
anti-German demonstrations in the first few weeks of the war, the most widespread
reaction appears to have been skepticism and fatalism. Hostility toward the
Kaiser and the desire to defend their land and their lives did not necessarily
translate into enthusiasm for the Tsar or the government.[9][10][11]
In 1915, things took a critical turn for the worse when Germany Galicia Russia
These staggering losses played a definite role in the mutinies
and revolts that began to occur. In 1916, reports of fraternizing with the
enemy started to circulate. Soldiers went hungry, and lacked shoes, munitions,
and even weapons. Rampant discontent lowered morale, which was further
undermined by a series of military defeats.
Russian troops awaiting
German attack in trenches
Casualty rates were the most vivid sign of this disaster.
Already, by the end of 1914, only five months into the war, around 390,000
Russian men had lost their lives and nearly 1,000,000 were injured. Far sooner
than expected, barely trained recruits had to be called up for active duty, a
process repeated throughout the war as staggering losses continued to mount.
The officer class also saw remarkable changes, especially within the lower
echelons, which were quickly filled with soldiers rising up through the ranks.
These men, usually of peasant or working-class backgrounds, were to play a
large role in the politicization of the troops in 1917.
The huge losses on the battlefields were not limited to men. The
army quickly ran short of rifles and ammunition (as well as uniforms and food),
and, by mid-1915, men were being sent to the front bearing no arms. It was
hoped that they could equip themselves with the arms that they recovered from
fallen soldiers, of both sides, on the battlefields. The soldiers did not feel
that they were being treated as valuable soldiers, or even as human beings, but
rather as raw materials to be squandered for the purposes of the rich and
powerful.
By the spring of 1915, the army was in steady retreat, which was
not always orderly; desertion, plunder and chaotic flight were not uncommon. By
1916, however, the situation had improved in many respects. Russian troops
stopped retreating, and there were even some modest successes in the offensives
that were staged that year, albeit at great loss of life. Also, the problem of
shortages was largely solved by a major effort to increase domestic production.
Nevertheless, by the end of 1916, morale among soldiers was even worse than it
had been during the great retreat of 1915. The fortunes of war may
have improved, but the fact of the war, still draining away strength and lives
from the country and its many individuals and families, remained an oppressive
inevitability. The crisis in morale (as was argued by Allan Wildman, a leading
historian of the Russian army in war and revolution) "was rooted
fundamentally in the feeling of utter despair that the slaughter would ever end
and that anything resembling victory could be achieved."[12]
The war devastated not only soldiers. By the end of 1915, there
were manifold signs that the economy was breaking down under the heightened
strain of wartime demand. The main problems were food shortages and rising
prices. Inflation dragged incomes down at an alarmingly rapid rate, and shortages
made it difficult to buy even what one could afford. These shortages were a
problem especially in the capital, St. Petersburg,
where distance from supplies and poor transportation networks made matters
particularly bad. Shops closed early or entirely for lack of bread, sugar, meat
and other provisions, and lines lengthened massively for what remained. It
became increasingly difficult both to afford and actually buy food.
Not surprisingly, strikes increased steadily from the middle of
1915, and so did crime; but, for the most part, people suffered and endured,
scouring the city for food. Working class women in St. Petersburg reportedly
spent about forty hours a week in food lines, begging, turning to prostitution
or crime, tearing down wooden fences to keep stoves heated for warmth,
grumbling about the rich, and wondering when and how this would all come to an
end.
Government officials responsible for public order worried about
how long people's patience would last. A report by the St. Petersburg
Nicholas was blamed for all of these crises, and what little
support he had left began to crumble. As discontent grew, the State Duma issued
a warning to Nicholas in November 1916. It stated that, inevitably, a terrible
disaster would grip the country unless a constitutional form of government was
put in place. Nicholas ignored these warnings and Russia
February Revolution
Main article: February Revolution
Revolutionaries
protesting in February 1917
Meeting Germans in No
Man's Land
Meeting before the
Russian wire entanglements
At the beginning of February, Petrograd workers
began several strikes and demonstrations.[citation needed] On 7 March [O.S. 22 February], workers at Putilov,
Petrograd's largest industrial plant, announced a strike.[14]
The next day, a series of meetings and rallies were held
for International Women's Day, which gradually
turned into economic and political gatherings. Demonstrations were organised to
demand bread,
and these were supported by the industrial working force who considered them a
reason for continuing the strikes. The women workers marched to nearby
factories bringing out over 50,000 workers on strike.[15] By 10 March [O.S. 25 February], virtually every
industrial enterprise in Petrograd had been
shut down, together with many commercial and service enterprises. Students,
white-collar workers and teachers joined the workers in the streets and at
public meetings.[citation needed]
To quell the riots, the Tsar looked to the army. At least
180,000 troops were available in the capital, but most were either untrained or
injured. Historian Ian Beckett suggests
around 12,000 could be regarded as reliable, but even these proved reluctant to
move in on the crowd, since it included so many women. It was for this reason
that when, on 11 March [O.S. 26 February], the Tsar ordered
the army to suppress the rioting by force, troops began to mutiny.[16] Although few
actively joined the rioting, many officers were either shot or went into
hiding; the ability of the garrison to hold back the protests was all but
nullified, symbols of the Tsarist regime were rapidly torn down around the
city, and governmental authority in the capital collapsed – not helped by the
fact that Nicholas had prorogued the Duma that morning, leaving it with no
legal authority to act. The response of the Duma, urged on by the liberal bloc,
was to establish a Temporary Committee to restore law and order; meanwhile, the
socialist parties establish the Petrograd Soviet to represent workers and
soldiers. The remaining loyal units switched allegiance the next day.[17]
The Tsar directed the royal train back towards Petrograd ,
which was stopped 14 March [O.S. 1 March],[16] by a group of
revolutionaries at Malaya Vishera. When the Tsar finally arrived
at in Pskov,
the Army Chief Nikolai Ruzsky, and the Duma deputees Guchkov and Vasily Shulgin suggested
in unison that he abdicate the throne. He did so on 15 March [O.S. 2 March], on behalf of himself,
and then, having taken advice, on behalf of his son, the Tsarevich.[16] Nicholas
nominated his brother, the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich,
to succeed him. But the Grand Duke realised that he would have little support
as ruler, so he declined the crown on 16 March [O.S. 3 March],[16] stating that he
would take it only if that was the consensus of democratic action.[18] Six days later,
Nicholas, no longer Tsar and addressed with contempt by the sentries as
"Nicholas Romanov", was reunited with his family at the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo.[19] He was placed
under house arrest with his family by the
Provisional Government.
The immediate effect of the February Revolution was a widespread
atmosphere of elation and excitement in Petrograd .[20] On 16 March [O.S. 3 March], a provisional government was announced.
The center-left was well represented, and the government was initially chaired
by a liberal aristocrat, Prince Georgy
Yevgenievich Lvov, a member of the Constitutional Democratic party (KD).[21] The socialists
had formed their rival body, the Petrograd Soviet (or
workers' council) four days earlier. The Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional
Government competed for power over Russia
Between February and
throughout October: "Dual Power" (dvoevlastie)
The effective power of the Provisional Government was challenged
by the authority of an institution that claimed to represent the will of
workers and soldiers and could, in fact, mobilize and control these groups
during the early months of the revolution – the Petrograd Soviet [Council]
of Workers' Deputies. The model for the soviet were workers' councils that had
been established in scores of Russian cities during the 1905 Revolution. In
February 1917, striking workers elected deputies to represent them and
socialist activists began organizing a citywide council to unite these deputies
with representatives of the socialist parties. On 27 February, socialist Duma
deputies, mainly Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, took the lead
in organizing a citywide council. The Petrograd Soviet met in the Tauride Palace,
the same building where the new government was taking shape.
The leaders of the Petrograd Soviet believed that they
represented particular classes of the population, not the whole nation. They
also believed Russia
The relationship between these two major powers was complex from
the beginning and would shape the politics of 1917. The representatives of the
Provisional Government agreed to "take into account the opinions of the
Soviet of Workers' Deputies", though they were also determined to prevent
"interference in the actions of the government", which would create
"an unacceptable situation of dual power."[23] In fact, this was
precisely what was being created, though this "dual power"
(dvoevlastie) was the result less of the actions or attitudes of the leaders of
these two institutions than of actions outside their control, especially the
ongoing social movement taking place on the streets of Russia's cities, in
factories and shops, in barracks and in the trenches, and in the villages.
The 2nd Moscow Women
Death Battalion protecting the Winter
Palace
A series of political crises – see the chronology
below – in the relationship between population and government and between
the Provisional Government and the soviets (which developed into a nationwide
movement with a national leadership, The All-Russian Central Executive Committee
of Soviets (VTsIK)) undermined the authority of the Provisional Government but
also of the moderate socialist leaders of the Soviet. Although the Soviet
leadership initially refused to participate in the "bourgeois"
Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky, a young and popular lawyer
and a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party(SRP), agreed
to join the new cabinet, and became an increasingly central figure in the
government, eventually taking leadership of the Provisional Government. As
minister of war and later Prime Minister, Kerensky promoted freedom of speech,
released thousands of political prisoners, did his very best to continue the
war effort and even organised another offensive (which, however, was no more
successful than its predecessors). Nevertheless, Kerensky still faced several
great challenges, highlighted by the soldiers, urban workers and peasants, who
claimed that they had gained nothing by the revolution:
·
Other political groups were trying to undermine him.
·
Heavy military losses were being suffered on the front.
·
The soldiers were dissatisfied and demoralised and had started
to defect. (On arrival back in Russia
·
There was enormous discontent with Russia
·
There were great shortages of food and supplies, which was
difficult to remedy because of the wartime economic conditions.
The political group that proved most troublesome for Kerensky,
and would eventually overthrow him, was the Bolshevik Party, led by Vladimir Lenin.
Lenin had been living in exile in neutral Switzerland Russia Russia
or even – if the Bolsheviks came to power – led to Russia Russia in a sealed
train: Germany would not
take the chance that he would foment revolution in Germany Petrograd in April 1917.
On the way to Russia
Street demonstration
on Nevsky Prospekt in Petrograd just
after troops of the Provisional Government opened fire in the July Days
Soviets attacking the
tsarist police in the early days of the March Revolution.
With Lenin's arrival, the popularity of the Bolsheviks increased
steadily. Over the course of the spring, public dissatisfaction with the
Provisional Government and the war, in particular among workers, soldiers and
peasants, pushed these groups to radical parties. Despite growing support for
the Bolsheviks, buoyed by maxims that called most famously for "all power
to the Soviets," the party held very little real power in the
moderate-dominated Petrograd Soviet. In fact, historians such as Sheila Fitzpatrick
have asserted that Lenin's exhortations for the Soviet Council to take power
were intended to arouse indignation both with the Provisional Government, whose
policies were viewed as conservative, and the Soviet itself, which was viewed
as subservient to the conservative government. By some historians' accounts,
Lenin and his followers were unprepared for how their groundswell of support,
especially among influential worker and soldier groups, would translate into
real power in the summer of 1917.
On 18 June, the Provisional Government launched an attack
against Germany Petrograd
workers, took to the streets in violent protest, calling for "all power to
the Soviets." The revolt, however, was disowned by Lenin[25] and the Bolshevik
leaders and dissipated within a few days. In the aftermath, Lenin fled to Finland under
threat of arrest while Trotsky, among other prominent Bolsheviks, was arrested.
The July Days confirmed
the popularity of the anti-war, radical Bolsheviks, but their unpreparedness at
the moment of revolt was an embarrassing gaffe that lost them support among
their main constituent groups: soldiers and workers.
The Bolshevik failure in the July Days proved temporary. The
Bolsheviks had undergone a spectacular growth in membership. Whereas, in
February 1917, the Bolsheviks were limited to only 24,000 members, by September
1917 there were 200,000 members of the Bolshevik faction.[26] Previously, the
Bolsheviks had been in the minority in the two leading cities of Russia —St. Petersburg
and Moscow Moscow Russia
In August, poor or misleading communication led General Lavr Kornilov,
the recently appointed Supreme Commander of Russian military forces, to believe
that the Petrograd government had already been captured by radicals, or was in
serious danger thereof.[dubious ] In response, he
ordered troops to Petrograd to pacify the city. To secure his position,
Kerensky had to ask for Bolshevik assistance. He also sought help from the
Petrograd Soviet, which called upon armed Red Guards to "defend the
revolution". The Kornilov Affair failed
largely due to the efforts of the Bolsheviks, whose influence over railroad and
telegraph workers proved vital in stopping the movement of troops. With his
coup failing, Kornilov surrendered and was relieved of his position. The
Bolsheviks' role in stopping the attempted coup further strengthened their
position.
In early September, the Petrograd Soviet freed all jailed
Bolsheviks and Trotsky became chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. Growing numbers
of socialists and lower-class Russians viewed the government less and less as a
force in support of their needs and interests. The Bolsheviks benefited as the
only major organized opposition party that had refused to compromise with the
Provisional Government, and they benefited from growing frustration and even
disgust with other parties, such as the Mensheviks and Socialist
Revolutionaries, who stubbornly refused to break with the idea of national
unity across all classes.
In Finland St. Petersburg St. Petersburg and Moscow
simultaneously, parenthetically stating that it made no difference which city
rose up first, but expressing his opinion that Moscow
October Revolution
Main article: October Revolution
The October Revolution was led by Vladimir Lenin and
was based upon Lenin's writing on the ideas of Karl Marx,
a political ideology often known as Marxism–Leninism. It marked the beginning of
the spread of communism in the 20th century. It was far less sporadic
than the revolution of February and came about as the result of deliberate
planning and coordinated activity to that end.
Though Lenin was the leader of the Bolshevik Party, it has been
argued that since Lenin was not present during the actual takeover of the Winter Palace
The dissolution of
the Constituent Assembly on 6 January
1918. The Tauride Palace is locked and guarded
by Trotsky, Sverdlov, Zinoviev and Lashevich.
On 7 November 1917, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin led
his leftist revolutionaries in a revolt against the ineffective Provisional
Government (Russia was still using the Julian calendar at
the time, so period references show a 25 October date). The October revolution
ended the phase of the revolution instigated in February, replacing Russia
Soviet membership was initially freely elected, but many members
of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, anarchists,
and other leftists created opposition to the Bolsheviks through the soviets
themselves. The elections to
the Russian Constituent Assembly took
place in November 1917. The Bolsheviks gained 24% of the vote.[31] When it became
clear that the Bolsheviks had little support outside of the industrialized
areas of Saint Petersburg and Moscow
Russian Civil War
Main articles: Russian Civil
War and Allied intervention in the Russian
Civil War
American, British, and
Japanese Troops parade through Vladivostok
The Russian Civil War, which broke out in 1918 shortly after the
October Revolution, brought death and suffering to millions of people
regardless of their political orientation. The war was fought mainly between
the Red Army ("Reds"),
consisting of the uprising majority led by the Bolshevik minority, and
the "Whites" – army officers and
cossacks, the "bourgeoisie", and political groups ranging from the
far Right to the Socialist Revolutionaries who opposed the drastic
restructuring championed by the Bolsheviks following the collapse of the Provisional
Government to the soviets (under clear Bolshevik dominance).[32][33] The Whites had
backing from nations such as Great Britain, France, USA and Japan, while the
Reds possessed internal support which proved to be much more effective. Though
the Allied nations, using external interference, provided substantial military
aid to the loosely knit anti-Bolshevik forces, they were ultimately defeated.[32]
The Bolsheviks firstly assumed power in Petrograd ,
expanding their rule outwards. They eventually reached the Easterly Siberian
Russian coast in Vladivostok, 4 years after the war began, an occupation that
is believed to have ended all significant military campaigns in the nation.
Less than one year later the last area controlled by the White Army, the Ayano-Maysky District, directly to the north of
the Krai containing
Vladivostok, was given up when General Anatoly Pepelyayev capitulated in 1923.
Several revolts were initiated against the Bolsheviks and their
army near the end of the war, notably the Kronstadt Rebellion. This was a naval
mutiny engineered by Soviet Baltic sailors, former Red Army soldiers, and the
people of Kronstadt. This armed uprising was fought against the antagonizing
Bolshevik economic policies that farmers were subjected to, including seizures
of grain crops by the Communists.[34] This all amounted
to large-scale discontent. When delegates representing the Kronstadt sailors
arrived at Petrograd for negotiations, they
raised 15 demands primarily pertaining to the Russian right to freedom.[35] The Government
firmly denounced the rebellions and labelled the requests as a reminder of the
Social Revolutionaries, a political party that was popular among Soviets before
Lenin, but refused to cooperate with the Bolshevik Army. The Government then
responded with an armed suppression of these revolts and suffered 10 thousand
casualties before entering the city of Kronstadt
During the Civil War, Nestor Makhno led
a Ukrainian anarchist movement, the Black Army allied to
the Bolsheviks thrice, one of the powers ending the alliance each time.
However, a Bolshevik force under Mikhail Frunze destroyed
the Makhnovist movement,
when the Makhnovists refused to merge into the Red Army.
In addition, the so-called "Green Army"
(peasants defending their property against the opposing forces) played a
secondary role in the war, mainly in the Ukraine
Execution of the
imperial family
Main article: Shooting of the Romanov family
Execution of the
Romanov family, Le Petit Journal
The Bolsheviks executed the tsar and his family on 16 July 1918.[38] In early March,
the Provisional Government placed Nicholas and his family under house arrest in
the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo,
24 kilometres (15 mi) south of Petrograd .
In August 1917 the Kerenskygovernment evacuated the Romanovs
to Tobolsk in
the Urals,
to protect them from the rising tide of revolution. However, Kerensky lost
control after the Bolsheviks came to power in October 1917, and the conditions
of their imprisonment grew stricter and talk of putting Nicholas on trial
increased. As the counter revolutionary White movement gathered force, leading
to full-scale civil war by the summer, the Romanovs were moved during April and
May 1918 to Yekaterinburg, a militant Bolshevik stronghold.
During the early morning of 16 July, Nicholas, Alexandra, their
children, their physician, and several servants were taken into the basement
and shot. According to Edvard Radzinsky and Dmitrii Volkogonov, the order came
directly from Lenin and Sverdlov in Moscow Moscow
The revolution and
the world
Main article: Revolutions of 1917–1923
Leon Trotsky said that the goal of socialism in
Russia
This issue is subject to conflicting views on communist history
by various Marxist groups and parties. Joseph Stalin later
rejected this idea, stating that socialism was possible in one country.
The confusion regarding Stalin's position on the issue stems
from the fact that, after Lenin's death in 1924, he successfully used Lenin's
argument – the argument that socialism's success needs the support of
workers of other countries in order to happen – to defeat his competitors
within the party by accusing them of betraying Lenin and, therefore, the ideals
of the October Revolution.
Historiography
Main article: October Revolution § Historiography
Few events in historical research have been as conditioned by
political influences as the October Revolution. The historiography of
the Revolution generally divides into three camps: the Soviet-Marxist view, the
Western-Totalitarian view, and the Revisionist view.[41] Since the fall of
Communism in Russia
A Lenin biographer, Robert Service, says he, "laid the
foundations of dictatorship and lawlessness. Lenin had consolidated the
principle of state penetration of the whole society, its economy and its
culture. Lenin had practised terror and advocated revolutionary
amoralism."[43]
Joseph Stalin[b][c] (born Ioseb
Besarionis dze Jughashvili;[a] 18 December 1878
– 5 March 1953) was a Soviet revolutionary and politician
of Georgian ethnicity. He ruled the Soviet Union from
the mid-1920s until his death in 1953, holding the titles of General
Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from
1922 to 1952 and the nation's Premier from 1941 to 1953. Initially
presiding over an oligarchic one-party regime
that governed by plurality, he became the de
facto dictator of
the Soviet Union by the 1930s. Ideologically
committed to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism,
Stalin helped to formalise these ideas as Marxism–Leninism while his own policies
became known as Stalinism.
Born to a poor family in Gori, Russian Empire,
Stalin began his revolutionary career by joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour
Party as a youth. There, he edited the party's newspaper, Pravda,
and raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction
via robberies, kidnappings, and protection rackets. Repeatedly arrested, he
underwent several internal exiles. After the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia during the 1917 October Revolution, Stalin joined the
party's governing Politburo where he was instrumental in overseeing the Soviet Union's establishment in
1922. As Lenin fell ill and then died in 1924, Stalin assumed leadership over the country. During
Stalin's rule, "Socialism in One Country" became a
central tenet of the party's dogma, and Lenin's New Economic Policywas replaced with a
centralized command economy. Under the Five-Year Plan
system, the country underwent collectivisation and
rapid industrialization but experienced significant disruptions in food production
that contributed to the famine of 1932–33. To eradicate those
regarded as "enemies of the working class", Stalin
instituted the "Great Purge" in which over a million were imprisoned and
at least 700,000 executed between 1934 and 1939.
Stalin's government promoted Marxism–Leninism abroad through
the Communist International and
supported anti-fascist movements throughout Europe
during the 1930s, particularly in the Spanish Civil
War. In 1939 it signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany,
resulting in their joint invasion of Poland. Germany
ended the pact by invading the Soviet Union in 1941. Despite
initial setbacks, the Soviet Red Army repelled
the German incursion and captured Berlin in
1945, ending World War II in Europe .
The Soviets annexed the Baltic states and helped
establish Soviet-aligned governments throughout most
of Central and Eastern Europe , China , and North Korea United States
Widely considered one of the 20th century's most significant
figures, Stalin was the subject of a pervasive personality cult within the
international Marxist–Leninist movement, for whom Stalin was a champion
of socialism and the working class.
Since the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, Stalin
has retained popularity in Russia
and Georgia as a victorious wartime leader who established the Soviet Union as a major world power. Conversely,
his totalitarian government has been widely
condemned for overseeing mass repressions, ethnic cleansing,
hundreds of thousands of executions, and famines which caused the deaths of
millions.
In May 1922, a massive stroke left Lenin partially paralysed.[252] Residing at
his Gorki dacha, Lenin's main connection to
Sovnarkom was through Stalin, who was a regular visitor.[253] Lenin twice asked
Stalin to procure poison so that he could commit suicide, but Stalin never did
so.[254] Despite this
comradeship, Lenin disliked what he referred to as Stalin's "Asiatic"
manner, and told his sister Maria that Stalin was "not
intelligent".[255] Lenin and Stalin
argued on the issue of foreign trade; Lenin believed that the Soviet state
should have a monopoly on foreign trade, but Stalin supported Grigori Sokolnikov's view that doing so was
impractical at that stage.[256] Another
disagreement came over the Georgian Affair, with Lenin backing the Georgian
Central Committee's desire for a Georgian Soviet Republic over Stalin's idea of
a Transcaucasian one.[257]
They also disagreed on the nature of the Soviet state. Lenin
called for the country to be renamed the "Union of Soviet Republics of
Europe and Asia ", reflecting his desire
for expansion across the two continents. Stalin believed that this would
encourage independence sentiment among non-Russians, instead arguing that
ethnic minorities would be content as "autonomous republics" within
the Russian Soviet Federative
Socialist Republic USSR USSR 's formation was ratified in December 1922;
although officially a federal system, all major decisions were taken by the
governing Politburo of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Moscow
Rise to power
Main article: Rise of Joseph Stalin
Succeeding Lenin:
1924–1927
(From left to right)
Stalin, Alexei Rykov, Lev Kamenev,
and Grigori Zinoviev in 1925.
Lenin died in January 1924.[265] Stalin took
charge of the funeral and was one of its pallbearers; against the wishes of
Lenin's widow, the Politburo embalmed his corpse and placed it within a mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square.[266] It was
incorporated into a growing personality cult devoted
to Lenin, with Petrograd being renamed "Leningrad
As General Secretary, Stalin had had a free hand in making
appointments to his own staff, implanting his loyalists throughout the party
and administration.[270] He also ensured
that these loyalists were dispersed across the USSR
In the wake of Lenin's death, various protagonists emerged in
the struggle to become his successor: alongside Stalin was Trotsky, Zinoviev,
Kamenev, Bukharin, Alexei Rykov and Mikhail Tomsky.[278] Stalin saw
Trotsky—whom he personally despised[279]—as the main obstacle
to his rise to dominance within the Communist Party,[280] and while Lenin
had been ill he had forged an anti-Trotsky alliance with Kamenev and Zinoviev.[281] Although Zinoviev
had expressed concern about Stalin's growing authority, he rallied behind him
at the 13th Congress as a counterweight to Trotsky, who now led a party faction
known as the Left Opposition.[282] The Left
Opposition believed that too many concessions to capitalism had been made with
the NEP; Stalin was deemed a "rightist" in the party for his support
of the policy.[283] Stalin built up a
retinue of his supporters in the Central Committee,[284] while the Left
Opposition were gradually removed from their positions of influence.[285] He was supported
in this by Bukharin, who like Stalin believed that implementing the Left
Opposition's proposals would plunge the Soviet Union
into instability.[286]
In late 1924, Stalin moved against Kamenev and Zinoviev,
removing their supporters from key positions.[287] In 1925, Kamenev
and Zinoviev moved into open opposition of Stalin and Bukharin.[288] They attacked one
another at the 14th Party
Congress, where Stalin accused Kamenev and Zinoviev of reintroducing
factionalism—and thus instability—into the party.[289] In mid-1926,
Kamenev and Zinoviev joined with Trotsky's supporters to form the United
Opposition against Stalin;[290] in October they
agreed to stop factional activity under threat of expulsion, and later publicly
recanted their views under Stalin's command.[291] The factionalist arguments
continued, with Stalin threatening to resign in October and then December 1926
and again in December 1927.[292] In October 1927,
Zinoviev and Trotsky were removed from the Central Committee;[293] the latter was
exiled to Kazakhstan
Stalin's growing influence was reflected in the decision to name
various locations after him; in June 1924 the Ukrainian mining town of Yuzovka became
Stalino,[301] and in April
1925, Tsaritsyn was renamed Stalingrad on the order of Mikhail Kalinin and Avel Enukidze.[302] In 1926, Stalin
published On Questions of Leninism.[303] It was in this
book that he introduced the concept of "Socialism in One Country", which he
presented as an orthodox Leninist perspective. It nevertheless clashed with
established Bolshevik views that socialism could not be established in one
country but could only be achieved globally through the process of world revolution.[303] In 1927, there
was some argument in the party over the USSR 's
policy regarding the situation in China
Dekulakisation,
collectivisation, and industrialisation: 1927–1931
Economic policy
We have fallen behind the advanced countries
by fifty to a hundred years. We must close that gap in ten years. Either we do
this or we'll be crushed. This is what our obligations before the workers and
peasants of the USSR
By the latter half of the 1920s, the Soviet Union still lagged
behind the industrial development of Western countries,[306] and Stalin's
government feared military attack from Japan, France, the United Kingdom,
Poland, and Romania.[307] Many Communists,
including in Komsomol, OGPU,
and the Red Army, were eager to be rid of the NEP and its market-oriented
approach, desiring a push towards socialism.[308] These Communists
had concerns about those who had financially profited from the policy: affluent
peasants known as 'kulaks'
and the small business owners or 'Nepmen'.[309] There had also
been a shortfall of grain supplies; 1927 produced only 70% of grain produced in
1926.[310] At this point,
Stalin turned against the NEP, putting him on a course to the "left"
even of Trotsky or Zinoviev.[311]
In early 1928 Stalin travelled to Novosibirsk,
where he alleged that kulaks were hoarding their grain and ordered that the
kulaks be arrested and their grain confiscated, with Stalin bringing much of
the area's grain back to Moscow with him in February.[312] At his command,
grain procurement squads surfaced across Western Siberia
and the Urals, with violence breaking out between these squads and the
peasantry.[313] Stalin announced
that both kulaks and the "middle peasants" must be coerced into
releasing their harvest.[314] Bukharin and
several other members of the Central Committee were angry that they had not
been consulted about this measure, which they deemed rash.[315] In January 1930,
the Politburo approved a measure to liquidate the existence of the kulaks as a
class; accused kulaks were rounded up and exiled either elsewhere in their own
regions, to other parts of the country, or to concentration camps.[316] Large numbers
died during the journey.[317] By July 1930,
over 320,000 households had been affected by the de-kulakisation policy.[316]According to Stalin
biographer Dmitri Volkogonov, de-kulakisation was
"the first mass terror applied by Stalin in his own country".[318]
Aleksei Grigorievich Stakhanov with a
fellow miner; Stalin's government initiated the Stakhanovite movement to
encourage hard work. It was partly responsible for a substantial rise in
production during the 1930s.[319]
In 1929, the Politburo announced the mass collectivisation of agriculture,[320] establishing
both kolkhozy collective
farms and sovkhoz state farms.[321] Stalin stipulated
that kulaks would be barred from joining these collectives.[322] Although
officially voluntary, many peasants joined the collectives out of fear they
would face the fate of the kulaks; others joined amid intimidation and violence
from party loyalists.[323] By 1932, about
62% of households involved in agriculture were part of collectives, and by 1936
this had risen to 90%.[324] Many of the
peasants who had been collectivised resented the loss of their private
farmland,[325] and productivity
slumped.[326] Famine broke out
in many areas,[327] with the
Politburo frequently ordering the distribution of emergency food relief to
these regions.[328] Armed peasant
uprisings against dekulakisation and collectivisation broke out in Ukraine , northern Caucasus, southern Russia , and central Asia ,
reaching their apex in March 1930; these were repressed by the Red Army.[329] Stalin responded
to the uprisings with an article insisting that collectivisation
was voluntary and blaming any violence and other excesses on local officials.[330] Although he and
Stalin had been close for many years,[331]Bukharin expressed
concerns about these policies; he regarded them as a return to Lenin's old
"war communism" policy and believed that it
would fail. By mid-1928 he was unable to rally sufficient support in the party
to oppose the reforms.[332] In November 1929
Stalin removed him from the Politburo.[333]
Enukidze, Stalin, and
Gorky in Red Square , 1931
Officially, the Soviet Union had replaced the irrationality and
wastefulness of a market economy with a planned economy organised
along a long-term, precise, and scientific framework; in reality, Soviet
economics were based on ad hoccommandments issued from the centre,
often to make short-term targets.[334] In 1928,
the first five-year plan was launched, its
main focus on boosting heavy industry;[335] it was finished a
year ahead of schedule, in 1932.[336] The USSR
underwent a massive economic transformation.[337] New mines were
opened, new cities like Magnitogorsk constructed,
and work on the White Sea-Baltic Canal begun.[337]Millions of peasants
moved to the cities and became proletariat, although urban house building could
not keep up with the demand.[337]Large debts were
accrued while purchasing foreign-made machinery.[338] Many of the major
construction projects, including the White Sea-Baltic Canal and the Moscow Metro,
were constructed largely through forced labour.[339] The last elements
of workers' control over industry were removed, with factory managers
increasing their authority and receiving privileges and perks;[340] Stalin defended
wage disparity by pointing to Marx's argument that it was necessary during the
lower stages of socialism.[341] To promote the
intensification of labour, a series of medals and awards as well as the Stakhanovite movement were introduced.[319] Stalin's message
was that socialism was being established in the USSR Soviet Union
rising to unparalleled heights of human development, creating a "new Soviet
person". [343]
Cultural and foreign
policy
In 1928, Stalin declared that class war between the proletariat
and their enemies would intensify as socialism developed.[344] He warned of a "danger
from the right", including in the Communist Party itself.[345] The first
major show trial in
the USSR
Photograph taken of the
1931 demolition of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow
Lenin's final years:
1921–1923
Stalin (right) confers
with an ailing Lenin at Gorky
The Soviet government sought to bring neighbouring states under
its domination; in February 1921 it invaded the
Menshevik-governed Democratic Republic of Georgia,[236] while in April
1921, Stalin ordered the Red Army to march into the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist
Republic to reassert Russian state control.[237] As People's
Commissar for Nationalities, Stalin believed that each national and ethnic
group should have the right to self-expression,[238] facilitating this
through "autonomous
republics" within the Russian state in which they could oversee
various regional affairs.[239] In taking this
view, some Marxists accused him of bending too much to bourgeois nationalism, while others accused him
of remaining too Russocentric by seeking to retain these nations within the
Russian state.[238]
Stalin's native Caucasus posed
a particular problem due to its highly multi-cultural mix.[240] Stalin opposed
the idea of separate Georgian, Armenian, and Azerbaijani autonomous republics,
arguing that these would likely oppress ethnic minorities within their
respective territories; instead he called for the formation of a Transcaucasian
Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.[241] The Georgian Communist Party opposed
the idea, resulting in the Georgian Affair.[242] In mid-1921,
Stalin returned to the southern Caucasus, there calling on Georgian Communists
to avoid the chauvinistic Georgian nationalism which he believed marginalised
the Abkhazian, Ossetian,
and Adjarian minorities
living in Georgia.[243] On this trip,
Stalin met with his son Yakov, and brought him back to Moscow with him;[244] Nadya had given
birth to another of Stalin's sons, Vasily,
in March 1921.[244]
After the civil war, workers' strikes and peasant uprisings
broke out across Russia
Stalin desired a "cultural revolution",[353] entailing both
the creation of a culture for the "masses" and the wider
dissemination of previously elite culture.[354] He oversaw the
proliferation of schools, newspapers, and libraries, as well as the advancement
of literacy and numeracy.[355] "Socialist
realism" was promoted throughout the arts,[356] while Stalin
personally wooed prominent writers, namely Maxim Gorky, Mikhail
Sholokhov, and Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy.[357] He also expressed
patronage for scientists whose research fitted within his preconceived
interpretation of Marxism; he for instance endorsed the research of
agrobiologist Trofim Lysenko despite the fact that it
was rejected by the majority of Lysenko's scientific peers as pseudo-scientific.[358] The government's
anti-religious campaign was re-intensified,[359] with increased
funding given to the League of Militant Atheists.[351] Christian, Muslim,
Jewish, and Buddhist clergy faced persecution.[347] Many religious
buildings were demolished, most notably Moscow
Throughout the 1920s and beyond, Stalin placed a high priority
on foreign policy.[362] He personally met
with a range of Western visitors, including George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells,
both of whom were impressed with him.[363] Through the
Communist International, Stalin's government exerted a strong influence over
Marxist parties elsewhere in the world;[364] initially, Stalin
left the running of the organisation largely to Bukharin.[365] At its 6th
Congress in July 1928, Stalin informed delegates that the main threat to
socialism came not from the right but from non-Marxist socialists and social democrats,
whom he called "social fascists";[366] Stalin recognised
that in many countries, the social democrats were the Marxist-Leninists' main
rivals for working-class support.[367]This preoccupation with
opposing rival leftists concerned Bukharin, who regarded the growth of fascism and
the far right across
Europe as a far greater threat.[365] After Bukharin's
departure, Stalin placed the Communist International under the administration
of Dmitry Manuilsky and Osip Piatnitsky.[364]
Stalin faced problems in his family life. In 1929, his son Yakov
unsuccessfully attempted suicide; his failure earned Stalin's contempt.[368] His relationship
with Nadya was also strained amid their arguments and her mental health
problems.[369] In November 1932,
after a group dinner in the Kremlin in which Stalin flirted with other women,
Nadya shot herself.[370] Publicly, the
cause of death was given as appendicitis;
Stalin also concealed the real cause of death from his children.[371] Stalin's friends
noted that he underwent a significant change following her suicide, becoming
emotionally harder.[372]
Major crises: 1932–1939
Famine
Further information: Soviet famine of 1932–33
Starved peasants on
streets of Kharkiv in
1933
Within the Soviet Union , there
was widespread civic disgruntlement against Stalin's government.[373] Social unrest,
previously restricted largely to the countryside, was increasingly evident in
urban areas, prompting Stalin to ease on some of his economic policies in 1932.[374] In May 1932, he
introduced a system of kolkhoz markets where peasants could trade their surplus
produce.[375] At the same time,
penal sanctions became more severe; at Stalin's instigation, in August 1932 a
decree was introduced meaning that the theft of even a handful of grain could
be a capital offense.[376] The second
five-year plan had its production quotas reduced from that of the first, with
the main emphasis now being on improving living conditions.[374] It therefore
emphasised the expansion of housing space and the production of consumer goods.[374] Like its
predecessor, this Plan was repeatedly amended to meet changing situations;
there was for instance an increasing emphasis placed on armament production
after Adolf Hitler became German Chancellor in 1933.[377]
Such policies nevertheless failed to stop the famine which peaked in the winter of 1932–33.[378] Between five and
seven million people died;[379] many resorted
to cannibalising the
dead to survive.[380] Worst affected
were Ukraine and the North
Caucuses, although the famine also impacted Kazakhstan
Ideological and foreign
affairs
In 1935–36, Stalin oversaw a new constitution; its dramatic
liberal features were designed as propaganda weapons, for all power rested in
the hands of Stalin and his Politburo.[384]He declared that
"socialism, which is the first phase of communism, has basically been
achieved in this country".[384] In 1938, The History of
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks),
colloquially known as the Short Course, was released;[385] Conquest later
referred to it as the "central text of Stalinism".[386] A number of
authorised Stalin biographies were also published,[387] although Stalin
generally wanted to be portrayed as the embodiment of the Communist Party rather
than have his life story explored.[388] During the later
1930s, Stalin placed "a few limits on the worship of his own
greatness".[388] By 1938, Stalin's
inner circle had gained a degree of stability, containing the personalities who
would remain there until Stalin's death.[389]
class=thumbimage
srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/Soviet_armor_in_the_spanish_civil_war.png/330px-Soviet_armor_in_the_spanish_civil_war.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/Soviet_armor_in_the_spanish_civil_war.png/440px-Soviet_armor_in_the_spanish_civil_war.png 2x"
data-file-width=1297 data-file-height=782 v:shapes="_x0000_i1030">
Review of Soviet
armored fighting vehicles used to equip the Republican People's Army during the
Spanish Civil War
Seeking improved international relations, in 1934 the Soviet
Union secured membership of the League of
Nations, of which it had previously been excluded.[390] Stalin initiated
confidential communications with Hitler in October 1933, shortly after the
latter came to power in Germany Germany , Fascist Italy and Japan
When the Spanish Civil
War broke out the same year, the Soviets sent 648 aircraft and
407 tanks to the left-wing Republican faction; these
were accompanied by 3000 Soviet troops and 42,000 members of the International Brigades set up by the
Communist International.[397]Stalin took a strong
personal involvement in the Spanish situation.[398] Germany and Italy China
The Great Terror
Regarding state repressions, Stalin often provided conflicting
signals.[402] In May 1933, he
ordered the release of many criminals convicted of minor offenses from the
overcrowded prisons and ordered the security services not to enact further mass
arrests and deportations.[403] In September
1934, he ordered the Politburo to establish a commission to investigate any
false imprisonments; that same month he called for the execution of workers at
the Stalin Metallurgical Factory accused of spying for Japan.[402] This mixed
approach began to change in December 1934, when the prominent party
member Sergey Kirov was murdered.[404] After Kirov
In this famous
image, Nikolai Yezhov is shown with Voroshilov,
Molotov, and Stalin inspecting the White
Sea Canal
The image was later
altered to remove Yezhov completely.
Stalin orchestrated the arrest of many former opponents in the
Communist Party as well as
sitting members of the Central Committee: denounced as
Western-backed mercenaries, many were imprisoned or exiled internally.[410] The first Moscow Trial took
place in August 1936; Kamenev and Zinoviev were among those accused of plotting
assassinations, found guilty in a show trial, and executed.[411] The second Moscow
Show Trial took place in January 1937,[412] and the third in
March 1938, in which Bukharin and Rykov were accused of involvement in the
alleged Trotskyite-Zinovievite terrorist plot and sentenced to death.[413] By late 1937, all
remnants of collective leadership were gone from the Politburo, which was
controlled entirely by Stalin.[414] There were mass
expulsions from the party,[415]with Stalin commanding
foreign communist parties to also purge anti-Stalinist elements.[416]
During the 1930s and 1940s, NKVD groups assassinated defectors
and opponents abroad;[417] in August
1940, Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico,
eliminating the last of Stalin's opponents among the former Party leadership.[418] In May, this was
followed by the arrest of most members of the military Supreme Command and mass
arrests throughout the military, often on fabricated charges.[419] These purges
replaced most of the party's old guard with younger officials who did not
remember a time before Stalin's leadership and who were regarded as more
personally loyal to him.[420] Party
functionaries readily carried out their commands and sought to ingratiate
themselves with Stalin to avoid becoming the victim of the purge.[421] Such
functionaries often carried out a greater number of arrests and executions than
their quotas set by Stalin's central government.[422]
Repressions further intensified in December 1936 and remained at
a high level until November 1938, a period known as the Great Purge.[409] By the latter
part of 1937, the purges had moved beyond the party and were affecting the
wider population.[423] In July 1937, the
Politburo ordered a purge of "anti-Soviet elements" in society,
affecting Bolsheviks who had opposed Stalin, former Mensheviks and Socialist
Revolutionaries, priests, former soldiers in the White Army, and common
criminals.[424] That month,
Stalin and Yezhov signed Order No. 00447, listing 268,950 people for
arrest, of whom 75,950 were executed.[425] He also initiated
"national operations", the ethnic cleansing of
non-Soviet ethnic groups—among them Poles, Germans, Latvians, Finns, Greeks,
Koreans, and Chinese—through internal or external exile.[426] During these
years, approximately 1.6 million people were arrested,[427] 700,000 were
shot, and an unknown number died under NKVD torture.[427]
Stalin initiated all of the key decisions during the Terror,
personally directing many of its operations and taking an interest in the
details of their implementation.[428] His motives in
doing so have been much debated by historians.[427] His personal
writings from the period were — according to Khlevniuk — "unusually
convoluted and incoherent", filled with claims about conspiracies and
enemies encircling him.[429] He was
particularly concerned at the success that right-wing forces had in
overthrowing the leftist Spanish government,[430]worried that domestic
anti-Stalinist elements would become a fifth column in
the event of a future war with Japan and Germany.[431] The Great Terror
ended when Yezhov was removed as the head of the NKVD, to be replaced by Lavrentiy Beria,[432] a man totally
devoted to Stalin.[433] Yezhov was
arrested in April 1939 and executed in 1940.[434] The Terror had
damaged the Soviet Union's reputation abroad, particularly among previously sympathetic
leftists,[435] and as the Terror
wound down, so Stalin sought to deflect responsibility away from himself.[436] He later claimed
that the "excesses" and "violations of law" during the
Terror were Yezhov's fault.[437]
Stalinism is the means of governing and related policies
implemented from around 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin (1878–1953).
Stalinist policies and ideas as developed in the Soviet Union included
rapid industrialization, the theory of socialism in one country, a totalitarian
state, collectivization of agriculture, a cult of personality[1][2] and subordination
of the interests of foreign communist
partiesto those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,
deemed by Stalinism to be the leading vanguard party of communist revolution at the time.[3]
Stalinism promoted the escalation of class conflict,
utilizing state violence to forcibly purge society
of alleged supporters of the bourgeoisie,
whom Stalinist doctrine regarded as threats to the pursuit of the communist
revolution. This policy resulted in substantial political violence and persecution of
such people.[4] "Enemies"
included not only bourgeois people, but also working-class people accused
of counter-revolutionary sympathies.[5]
Stalinist industrialization was officially designed to
accelerate the development towards communism, stressing the need for such rapid industrialization
on the grounds that the Soviet Union was previously economically backward in
comparison with other countries and asserting that socialist society needed
industry in order to face the challenges posed by internal and external enemies
of communism.[6]Rapid industrialization
was accompanied by mass collectivization of agriculture and by rapid urbanization.[7] Rapid
urbanization converted many small villages into industrial cities.[7] To accelerate the
development of industrialization, Stalin imported materials, ideas, expertise
and workers from Western Europe and from the United States[8] and pragmatically
set up joint-venture contracts with major American private enterprises, such as the Ford Motor Company, which under state
supervision assisted in developing the basis of the industry of the Soviet economy from the late 1920s to
the 1930s.[9] After the
American private enterprises had completed their tasks, Soviet state
enterprises took over.[9]
While some historians view Stalinism as a reflection of the
ideologies of Leninism and Marxism,
some argue that it stands separate from the socialist ideals
it stemmed from. After a political struggle that culminated in the defeat of
the Bukharinists, Stalinism was free to shape
policy without opposition, ushering forth an era of harsh authoritarianism that
soldiered toward rapid industrialization regardless of the cost.[13]
From 1917 to 1924, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and
Stalin often appeared united, but they had discernible ideological differences.
In his dispute with Trotsky, Stalin de-emphasized the role of workers in
advanced capitalist countries (for example, he considered the
American working class "bourgeoisified" labour aristocracy). Stalin also polemicized
against Trotsky on the role of peasants as in China whereas
Trotsky's position was in favor of urban insurrection over peasant-based guerrilla
warfare.
Whilst all other October Revolution 1917 Bolchevik
leaders regarded their revolution more or less just as the
beginning, they saw Russia as the leapboard on the road towards the World Wide
Revolution, Stalin eventually introduced the idea of Socialism in One Country by the
autumn of 1924. This did not just stood in sharp contrast to Trotsky's "Permanent
Revolution", but in contrast also to all earlier Socialistic thesis.
But by time and through circumstances, and as the revolution did not spread
outside Russia
While traditional communist thought holds that the state will
gradually "wither away" as the implementation of
socialism reduces class distinction, Stalin argued that the proletarian state
(as opposed to the bourgeois state) must become stronger before it can wither
away. In Stalin's view, counter-revolutionary elements will try to derail the
transition to full communism, and the state must be powerful enough to defeat
them.[16] For this
reason, Communist regimes influenced by Stalin
have been widely described as totalitarian.
Sheng Shicai collaborated with the Soviets,
allowing Stalinist rule to be extended to the Xinjiang province
in the 1930s. In 1937, Sheng conducted a purge similar to the Great Purge.[17]
Class-based violence,
purges and deportations[edit]
Class-based violence[edit]
Stalin blamed the kulaks as the
inciters of reactionary violence against the people during the
implementation of agricultural collectivisation.[18] In response, the
state under Stalin's leadership initiated a violent campaign against the
kulaks, which has been labeled "classicide".[19]
Purges and executions[edit]
Main article: Great Purge
Left: Lavrenty Beria's
January 1940 letter to Stalin asking permission to execute 346 "enemies of the Communist Party and of the Soviet
authorities" who conducted "counter-revolutionary,
right-Trotskyite plotting and spying activities"
Middle: Stalin's handwriting: "за" (support)
Right: the Politburo's decision is signed by Stalin
Middle: Stalin's handwriting: "за" (support)
Right: the Politburo's decision is signed by Stalin
As head of the Politburo of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Stalin
consolidated near-absolute power in the 1930s with a Great Purge of
the party that claimed to expel "opportunists" and
"counter-revolutionary infiltrators".[20][21] Those targeted by
the purge were often expelled from the party, though more severe measures
ranged from banishment to the Gulag labor camps to execution after trials held by NKVD troikas.[20][22][23]
In the 1930s, Stalin apparently became increasingly worried
about the growing popularity of the Leningrad
Thereafter, several trials known as the Moscow Trials were
held, but the procedures were replicated throughout the country. Article 58 of
the legal code, which listed prohibited anti-Soviet activities as
counter-revolutionary crime, was applied in the broadest manner.[29] Many alleged
anti-Soviet pretexts were used to brand someone an "enemy of the people", starting the cycle
of public persecution, often proceeding to interrogation, torture and
deportation, if not death. The Russian word troika gained
a new meaning: a quick, simplified trial by a committee of three subordinated
to NKVD troika—with sentencing carried out within 24 hours.[28] Stalin's
hand-picked executioner Vasili Blokhin was
entrusted with carrying out some of the high-profile executions in this period.[30]
Nikolai Yezhov,
walking with Stalin in the top photo from the 1930s, was killed in 1940 and
following his execution was edited out of the photo by Soviet censors[31] (such retouching
was a common occurrence during Stalin's rule)
Many military leaders were convicted of treason and a
large-scale purge of Red Army officers followed.[32] The repression of
so many formerly high-ranking revolutionaries and party members led Leon
Trotsky to claim that a "river of blood" separated Stalin's regime
from that of Lenin.[33] In August 1940,
Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico
With the exception of Vladimir
Milyutin (who died in prison in 1937) and Stalin himself, all
of the members of Lenin's original cabinet who had not
succumbed to death from natural causes before the purge were executed.
Mass operations of the NKVD also
targeted "national contingents" (foreign ethnicities) such as Poles,
ethnic Germans and Koreans. A total of 350,000 (144,000 of them Poles) were
arrested and 247,157 (110,000 Poles) were executed.[35][page needed] Many Americans
who had emigrated to the Soviet Union during
the worst of the Great Depression were executed and others
were sent to prison camps or gulags.[36][37] Concurrent with
the purges, efforts were made to rewrite the history in Soviet textbooks and
other propaganda materials. Notable people executed by NKVD were removed from
the texts and photographs as though they never existed. Gradually, the history
of revolution was transformed to a story about just two key characters: Lenin
and Stalin.
In light of revelations from Soviet archives, historians now
estimate that nearly 700,000 people (353,074 in 1937 and 328,612 in 1938) were
executed in the course of the terror,[38] with the great
mass of victims merely "ordinary" Soviet citizens: workers, peasants,
homemakers, teachers, priests, musicians, soldiers, pensioners, ballerinas and
beggars.[39][40] Many of the
executed were interred in mass graves, with some of the major
killing and burial sites being Bykivnia, Kurapaty and Butovo.[41]
Some Western experts believe the evidence released from the
Soviet archives is understated, incomplete or unreliable.[42][43][44][45][46]Conversely,
historian Stephen G. Wheatcroft, who spent a good portion
of his academic career researching the archives, contends that prior to the
collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening of the archives for historical
research, "our understanding of the scale and the nature of Soviet
repression has been extremely poor" and that some specialists who wish to
maintain earlier high estimates of the Stalinist death toll are "finding
it difficult to adapt to the new circumstances when the archives are open and
when there are plenty of irrefutable data" and instead "hang on to
their old Sovietological methods with round-about calculations based on odd
statements from emigres and other informants who are supposed to have superior
knowledge".[47][48]
Stalin personally signed 357 proscription lists
in 1937 and 1938 that condemned to execution some 40,000 people and about 90%
of these are confirmed to have been shot.[49] At the time,
while reviewing one such list he reportedly muttered to no one in particular:
"Who's going to remember all this riff-raff in ten or twenty years time?
No one. Who remembers the names now of the boyars Ivan the
Terrible got rid of? No one".[50] In addition,
Stalin dispatched a contingent of NKVD operatives to Mongolia, established a Mongolian version
of the NKVD troika and unleashed a bloody purge in which
tens of thousands were executed as "Japanese spies". Mongolian
ruler Khorloogiin Choibalsan closely followed
Stalin's lead.[51]
During the 1930s and 1940s, the Soviet leadership sent NKVD
squads into other countries to murder defectors and other opponents of the
Soviet regime. Victims of such plots included Yevhen
Konovalets, Ignace Poretsky,
Rudolf Klement, Alexander Kutepov, Evgeny Miller,
Leon Trotsky and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) leadership in Catalonia (e.g. Andrés Nin Pérez).[52]
Deportations[edit]
Main article: Population transfer in the Soviet
Union
Shortly before, during and immediately after World War II,
Stalin conducted a series of deportations on a
huge scale that profoundly affected the ethnic map of the Soviet
Union . It is estimated that between 1941 and 1949 nearly
3.3 million[53][54] were deported
to Siberia and
the Central Asian republics. By some estimates, up to 43% of the resettled
population died of diseases and malnutrition.[55]
Separatism, resistance to Soviet rule and collaboration with the
invading Germans were cited as the official reasons for the deportations.
Individual circumstances of those spending time in German-occupied territories
were not examined. After the brief Nazi occupation of the Caucasus ,
the entire population of five of the small highland peoples and the Crimean
Tatars—more than a million people in total—were deported without notice or any
opportunity to take their possessions.[56]
As a result of Stalin's lack of trust in the loyalty of
particular ethnicities, ethnic groups such as the Soviet Koreans,
the Volga Germans, the Crimean Tatars,
the Chechens and
many Poles were
forcibly moved out of strategic areas and relocated to places in the central
Soviet Union, especially Kazakhstan in Soviet Central Asia. By some estimates,
hundreds of thousands of deportees may have died en route.[53]
According to official Soviet estimates, more than 14 million
people passed through the gulags from 1929 to 1953, with a further 7 to 8
million being deported and exiled to
remote areas of the Soviet Union (including
the entire nationalities in several cases).[57] The emergent
scholarly consensus is that from 1930 to 1953, around 1.5 to 1.7 million
perished in the gulag system.[58][59][60]
In February 1956, Nikita
Khrushchev condemned the deportations as a violation of
Leninism and reversed most of them, although it was not until 1991 that the
Tatars, Meskhetiansand
Volga Germans were allowed to return en masse to their
homelands. The deportations had a profound effect on the peoples of the Soviet Union . The memory of the deportations has played a
major part in the separatist movements in the Baltic states, Tatarstan and Chechnya even
today.
Economic policy[edit]
Starved peasants on a
street in Kharkiv,
1933
At the start of the 1930s, Stalin launched a wave of radical
economic policies that completely overhauled the industrial and agricultural
face of the Soviet Union . This came to be
known as the Great Turn as Russia Russia
Fredric Jameson has said that
"Stalinism was [...] a success and fulfilled its historic mission,
socially as well as economically" given that it "modernised the Soviet Union , transforming a peasant society into an
industrial state with a literate population and a remarkable scientific
superstructure".[61] Robert Conquest disputed
such a conclusion and noted that "Russia
According to several Western historians,[64] Stalinist
agricultural policies were a key factor in causing the Soviet famine of 1932–1933, which the
Ukrainian government now calls the Holodomor,
recognizing it as an act of genocide.
Some scholars dispute the intentionality of the famine.[65][66]
Pierre du Bois argues that the cult was elaborately constructed
to legitimize his rule. Many deliberate distortions and falsehoods were used.[67] The Kremlin
refused access to archival records that might reveal the truth and key
documents were destroyed. Photographs were altered and documents were invented.[68] People who knew
Stalin were forced to provide "official" accounts to meet the
ideological demands of the cult, especially as Stalin himself presented it in
1938 in Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party
(Bolsheviks), which became the official history.[69] Historian David
L. Hoffmann sums up the consensus of scholars:
The Stalin cult was a central element of Stalinism, and as such
it was one of the most salient features of Soviet rule ... Many scholars of
Stalinism cite the cult as integral to Stalin's power or as evidence of
Stalin's megalomania.[70]
However, after Stalin's death in 1953 his successor Nikita
Khrushchev repudiated his policies, condemned Stalin's cult of personality in his Secret Speech to the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 and
instituted de-Stalinisation and relative
liberalisation (within the same political framework). Consequently, some of the
world's communist parties who previously adhered to Stalinism abandoned it and
to a greater or lesser degree adopted the positions of Khrushchev. Others, such
as the Communist Party of China, instead chose
to split from the Soviet Union.
_(B%26W).jpg)
The "Big Three"
Allied leaders during World War II at the Yalta Conference: British
Prime MinisterWinston Churchill, United
States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and
Stalin, February 1945
The Socialist
People's Republic of Albania took the Chinese party's side in
the Sino-Soviet split and remained committed at least theoretically to Hoxhaism, its brand of Stalinism, for decades
thereafter under the leadership of Enver Hoxha. Despite their initial cooperation
against "revisionism", Hoxha denounced Mao as
a revisionist, along with almost every other self-identified communist
organization in the world. This had the effect of isolating Albania
The ousting of Khrushchev in 1964 by his former party-state
allies has been described as a Stalinist restoration by some, epitomised by the Brezhnev Doctrine and the apparatchik/nomenklatura "stability of
cadres", lasting until the period of glasnostand perestroika in the late 1980s and
the fall
of the Soviet Union.
Some historians and writers (like German Dietrich Schwanitz)[71] draw parallels between Stalinism and the
economic policy of Tsar Peter the Great, although Schwanitz in
particular views Stalin as "a monstrous reincarnation" of him. Both
men wanted Russia
Stalinism has been considered by some reviewers as a "red fascism".[72] Though fascist regimes were
ideologically opposed to the Soviet Union ,
some of them positively regarded Stalinism as evolving Bolshevism into a form
of fascism. Benito Mussolinipositively
reviewed Stalinism as having transformed Soviet Bolshevism into a Slavic
fascism.[73]
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (Народный комиссариат внутренних дел, Narodnyy
Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del), abbreviated NKVD (НКВД 
listen (help·info)), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
listen (help·info)), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
Established
in 1917 as NKVD of Russian SFSR,[1] the agency was originally tasked with
conducting regular police work and overseeing the country's prisons and labor
camps.[2] It was disbanded in 1930, with its
functions being dispersed among other agencies, only to be reinstated as
an all-union ministry in
1934.[3]
The
functions of the OGPU (the secret police organization) were
transferred to the NKVD in 1934, giving it a monopoly over law enforcement
activities that lasted until the end of World War II.[2] During this period, the NKVD included
both ordinary public order activities, as well as secret police activities.[4] The NKVD is known
for its role in political
repression and for carrying out the Great Purgeunder Joseph Stalin. Mobile gas vans were used to execute people
without trial during the Great Purge.[5][6][7] It was led
by Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolai Yezhov and Lavrentiy Beria.
The NKVD
undertook mass extrajudicial
executions of untold numbers of citizens, and conceived,
populated and administered the Gulag system
of forced labour camps.
Their agents were responsible for the repression of the wealthier peasantry, as
well as the mass deportations of entire
nationalities to uninhabited regions of the country. They
oversaw the protection of Soviet
borders and espionage (which included political
assassinations), and enforced Soviet policy in communist movements and
puppet governments in other countries, most notably the repression and
massacres in Poland.
In March
1946 all People's Commissariats were renamed to Ministries, and the NKVD became
the Ministry
of Internal Affairs (MVD).[8]
History and structure[edit]
Main articles: Cheka and Chronology
of Soviet secret police agencies
Early NKVD
leaders Genrikh Yagoda, Vyacheslav Menzhinsky and Felix Dzerzhinsky, 1924
After the
Russian February Revolution of
1917, the Provisional
Government dissolved the Tsarist police
and set up the People's Militsiya. The subsequent Russian October Revolution of
1917 saw a seizure of state power led by Lenin and
the Bolsheviks, who established a new Bolshevik regime, the Russian
Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). The Provisional
Government's Ministry
of Internal Affairs (MVD), formerly under Georgy Lvov (from March 1917) and then
under Nikolai Avksentiev (from
6 August [O.S. 24
July] 1917) and Alexei Nikitin (from 8 October [O.S. 25
September] 1917), turned into NKVD (People's Commissariat of Internal
Affairs) under a People's Commissar. However, the NKVD apparatus was
overwhelmed by duties inherited from MVD, such as the supervision of the local
governments and firefighting, and the Workers' and Peasants' Militsiya staffed
by proletarians was largely inexperienced and unqualified. Realizing that it
was left with no capable security force, the Council of
People's Commissars of the RSFSR established (20
December [O.S. 7
December] 1917) a secret political police, the Cheka,
led by Felix Dzerzhinsky.
It gained the right to undertake quick non-judicial trials and executions, if
that was deemed necessary in order to "protect the Russian Socialist-Communist revolution".
The Cheka was
reorganized in 1922 as the State Political
Directorate, or GPU, of the NKVD of the RSFSR.[9] In 1922 the USSR formed, with the RSFSR as its
largest member. The GPU became the OGPU (Joint
State Political Directorate), under the Council of
People's Commissars of the USSR
In 1934 the
NKVD of the RSFSR was transformed into an all-union security force, the NKVD
(which the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union leaders soon came to call "the
leading detachment of our party"), and the OGPU was incorporated into the
NKVD as the Main
Directorate for State Security (GUGB); the separate NKVD of the
RSFSR was not resurrected until 1946 (as the MVD of the RSFSR). As a result,
the NKVD also took over control of all detention facilities (including the
forced labor camps, known as the GULag)
as well as the regular police.
NKVD activities[edit]
The main
function of the NKVD was to protect the state security of the Soviet
Union . This role was accomplished through massive political repression,
including authorised murders of many thousands of politicians and citizens, as
well as kidnappings, assassinations and mass deportations.
Domestic repressions[edit]
NKVD chief Genrikh Yagoda (middle) inspecting the
construction of the Moscow-Volga canal,
1935
See also: Political
repression in the Soviet Union
In
implementing Soviet internal policy towards perceived enemies of the Soviet
state ("enemies of the people"),
untold multitudes of people were sent to GULAG camps and hundreds of thousands
were executed by the NKVD. Formally, most of these people were convicted
by NKVD troikas ("triplets")–
special courts martial.
Evidential standards were very low: a tip-off by an anonymous informer was
considered sufficient grounds for arrest. Use of "physical means of persuasion"
(torture) was sanctioned by a special decree of the state, which opened the
door to numerous abuses, documented in recollections of victims and members of
the NKVD itself. Hundreds of mass graves resulting
from such operations were later discovered throughout the country. Documented
evidence exists that the NKVD committed mass extrajudicial executions, guided
by secret "plans". Those plans established the number and proportion
of victims (officially "public enemies") in a given region (e.g. the
quotas for clergy, former nobles etc.,
regardless of identity). The families of the repressed, including children,
were also automatically repressed according to NKVD Order no. 00486.
The purges
were organized in a number of waves according to the decisions of the Politburo of the Communist Party. Some
examples are the campaigns among engineers (Shakhty Trial), party and military elite plots
(Great Purge with Order 00447),
and medical staff ("Doctors' Plot").
A number
of mass operations
of the NKVD were related to the prosecution of whole ethnic
categories. For example, the Polish
Operationof the NKVD in 1937–1938 resulted in the execution of
111,091 Poles.[15] Whole populations
of certain ethnicities were
forcibly resettled. Foreigners living in the Soviet
Union were given particular attention. When disillusioned American
citizens living in the Soviet Union thronged the gates of the U.S. embassy in Moscow
to plead for new U.S.
passports to leave USSR
(their original U.S. Moscow
The NKVD
also served as arm of the Russian Soviet communist government for the lethal
mass persecution and destruction of ethnic minorities and religious beliefs,
such as the Russian Orthodox
Church, the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, Greek Catholics, Islam, Judaism and other religious
organizations, an operation headed by Yevgeny Tuchkov.
International operations[edit]
Lavrentiy Beria with Stalin (in background) and Stalin's
daughter Svetlana
During the
1930s, the NKVD was responsible for political murders of those Stalin believed
to oppose him. Espionage networks headed by experienced multilingual NKVD
officers such as Pavel Sudoplatov and Iskhak Akhmerov were established in
nearly every major Western country, including the United States USSR
The
NKVD's intelligence and special operations (Inostranny
Otdel) unit organized overseas assassinations of political enemies of the
USSR, such as leaders of nationalist movements, former Tsarist officials, and
personal rivals of Joseph Stalin.
Among the officially confirmed victims of such plots were:
·
Leon Trotsky, a
personal political enemy of Stalin and his most bitter international critic,
killed in Mexico City
·
Yevhen Konovalets,
prominent Ukrainian patriot leader who was
attempting to create a separatist movement in Soviet Ukraine; assassinated
in Rotterdam, Netherlands
·
Yevgeny Miller,
former General of the Tsarist (Imperial Russian) Army; in the 1930s, he was
responsible for funding anti-communist movements inside the USSR Paris
and brought to Moscow
·
Noe Ramishvili,
Prime Minister of independent Georgia, fled to France
after the Bolshevik takeover; responsible for funding and coordinating Georgian
nationalist organizations and the August
uprising, he was assassinated in Paris
·
Boris Savinkov,
Russian revolutionary and anti-Bolshevik terrorist (lured back into Russia
·
Sidney Reilly,
British agent of the MI6 who deliberately
entered Russia
·
Alexander Kutepov,
former General of the Tsarist (Imperial Russian) Army, who was active in
organizing anti-communist groups with the support of French and British
governments
Prominent
political dissidents were also found dead under highly suspicious
circumstances, including Walter Krivitsky, Lev Sedov, Ignace Reiss and former German Communist
Party (KPD) member Willi Münzenberg.[20][21][22][23][24]
The
pro-Soviet leader Sheng Shicai in
Xinjiang received NKVD assistance in conducting a purge to coincide with
Stalin's Great Purge in
1937. Sheng and the Soviets alleged a massive Trotskyist conspiracy and a
"Fascist Trotskyite plot" to destroy the Soviet
Union . The Soviet Consul General Garegin Apresoff, General Ma Hushan, Ma Shaowu, Mahmud Sijan, the official leader
of the Xinjiang province Huang Han-chang and Hoja-Niyaz were among the 435 alleged
conspirators in the plot. Xinjiang came under virtual Soviet control. Stalin
opposed the Chinese Communist Party.[25]
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