5.11.3. The Horror Years: the end

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來自 National Research University Higher School of Economics 的課程

Stalin and Stalinism in Russian History

61 個評分

National Research University Higher School of Economics

Stalin and Stalinism in Russian History

61 個評分

The course presents the life and deeds of Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 till 1953. It analyses the reasons for his actions and their results, as well as the causes of his popularity in Russia today. It offers an analysis of the phenomenon of Stalinism and of its significance for Russia and beyond. In the late 1920s – early 1930s Stalin directed the massive and rapid industrialisation of the country and the forced collectivisation of its agriculture. The industrialisation was based on forced labour, and collectivisation on repression, but both helped to create the material base for the Soviet defence industry. In the late 1930s Stalin unleashed mass terror against the Soviet people, in which millions perished. In his view this helped to rid the country of any potential internal enemies on the eve of the coming war. The USSR, together with its allies, won the Second World War, but at the cost of dozens of millions of lives. Stalin was instrumental in creating the post-war order. The system which he created in the 1930s shaped the USSR as it was during his lifetime and for decades after his death. It also influenced the lives of millions of people beyond the Soviet borders. The course will enable those who take it to develop an informed understanding of the Stalin era and of the phenomenon of Stalinism.

從本節課中

The Dictator

Lecture 5 describes the establishment of Stalin’s unchallenged and unchallengeable dictatorship. It gives an outline of Stalin’s terror campaigns and analyses their effect on Soviet society. It also looks in the creation of the new generation of Soviet elite, moulded by Stalin.

5.11.1. The First Show Trials12:21

5.11.2. The Horror Years: the beginning8:46

5.11.3. The Horror Years: the end8:36

與講師見面

Irina Filatova
Professor
Faculty of Humanities / School of History

[MUSIC]

1937, 38 saw the trial of anti-Soviet

military Trotskyist organization or

military fascist conspiracy.

This was actually a trial of the top Soviet generals.

I shall not go on about the ways the confessions were extracted.

It was just the same, but the results were absolutely devastating.

Among the top command, three of five marshals were executed,

15 of 16 commanders of the armies.

All commanders of corps,

all army commanders, almost all divisional and brigade commanders.

Half of all regimental commanders, all army commissars and more.

About 35,000 military staff were sacked.

Was there anything behind these charges?

One thing is clear, top military did not like Voroshilov,

who was not a true professional and

who did not understand much in military affairs.

Not in the sense of killing him, but in the sense of

substituting somebody else more professional than him in his position.

But there was nothing else, of course.

In March, 1937, there was another show trial.

This time Bukharin and Rykov finally got under the axe,

the rightist-Trotskyist Bloc.

Bukharin and Rykov were executed and many others.

Some NKVD officials, for example, Genrikh Yagoda,

Yezhov's predecessor and many of his associates.

Thousands of accomplices throughout the country were arrested and executed.

Bukharin wrote a letter to Stalin before

he was executed in which he confessed all his sins,

the biggest of which was that Bukharin spoke to Kamenev behind Stalin's back.

But otherwise, Bukharin said that he admired Stalin's idea of a great purge,

because it was necessary before the coming war.

And, amazingly, before the coming democracy.

It is not clear what he meant by that.

Stalin kept this letter until the end of his life.

One of the most shameful pages of the great terror was

the crash of the Komintern.

Communists from other countries came to Russia for guidance, safety, and

assistance.

Stalin did not like the Komintern.

He used the information which it supplied,

but he did not participate in these activities.

Yes, he used the spies that the Komintern had but that was about it.

Now, during the great terror, thousands of leaders and

members of foreign communist parties were executed.

Several dozen German communists who fled the Nazi regime and

came to the USSR were sent back.

Communist Party of Poland was disbanded, and all its members were imprisoned or

executed, all accused of Trotskyism, anti-Sovietism, and so on.

Here you see the Hotel Lux, which is now called Central.

Komintern officials and members, the members of the parties

which were members of the Komintern lived in that hotel.

Every night in the late 1930s,

The NKVD cars drove to the hotel.

And every night nobody slept, listening which door the steps would come to.

Sometimes people could not stand it, could not bear the tension.

And they jumped to their deaths

into the internal court of the hotel, always into the internal court.

They did not jump out of the windows into the street,

because the Soviet people should not have known what was going on.

They were trying to protect Soviet people.

So finally the windows to the internal court where grilled.

From August 1937 until mid-November 1938 when the terror was

called off, approximately 1.6 million of ordinary citizens were arrested.

About 700,000 were shot,

1,500 people were killed everyday.

It was long thought that Stalin did not have anything to do with that or

that Stalin had very little to do with that.

In fact, he participated in this process very directly and very actively.

In 12 months of the great terror, Stalin received

15,000 special communications from Yezhov and

spent all in all 850 hours with him.

Here you see the lists of people to be shot signed personally by Stalin.

After the end of the Great Terror, In November 1938,

when Stalin started to to ramp up his campaign, he blamed Yezhov for excesses.

And he and his subordinates were first arrested and then executed.

It was called counter-revolutionary organization in the NKVD.

To show you some of Stalin's methods, here is the real photograph on

the left of Stalin together with Yezhov and other Soviet leaders.

But after Yezhov disappeared, this is what remained of the picture.

Stalin's Gulag, which is the Stalin system of labor camps.

Look at this map, it occupied the whole country.

Look at how many of these camps were there in the European part and

in Siberia, just everywhere.

In some of these places, memorials were organized.

This is, for example, a Butovo memorial in Moscow,

where more than 20,000 people were killed.

This is a memorial in Omsk, this is an memorial in Yekaterinburg

where about 20,000 people were killed too.

This is a memorial in Ingushetia, but,

many of these places just could not be located, there is nothing left there.

[MUSIC]

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