On the Reasons for the Great Purge in the USSR in 1937–1938

The period of mass repressions in the USSR lasted from mid-1937 and lasted just over a year. In Western countries, this historic event is often called the “Great Purge”.

In the anti-Stalinist journalism of the late USSR and modern Russia, mass repressions were called the “Great Terror”. In reality, it was not terror, since it was not intended to intimidate anyone.

This was a complex phenomenon with several reasons and several actors.

Unfortunately, very few are trying to objectively understand this important historical phenomenon of Soviet history, which is strongly mythologized and very widely used for crude anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda. Usually this serious topic is discussed on a strong emotional background, which cannot contribute to its understanding.

Most often, politicians, publicists and ordinary people adhere to one of two extreme versions:

A) Stalin (as the actual sovereign leader of the country) personally launched unjustified mass repressions against dissenters and just random people because of his extreme cruelty and unhealthy suspiciousness. As far as I can see, this version does not explain why the period of time for these repressions was so small, while Stalin ruled the country for more than 20 years.

B) The mass repressions was completely historically justified, legal, and the number of casualties was small.

Both of these extreme positions are very flawed because they grossly neglect the well-known facts and elementary logic.

There are also many subspecies of these two versions. For example, that the repressions was anti-Semitic in nature or, conversely, was a Zionist conspiracy.

Version A

For the first time, it was most clearly formulated by Nazi propagandists and was intended to confirm the need to fight Jews and Communists, including on the territory of the USSR, the peoples of which Germany had to “liberate.”

With the transition to the Cold War, the Nazi myth of incredible Soviet tyranny was adopted in Britain and the USA, as well as in other countries of the North Atlantic camp. He became the “pearl” of anti-Soviet propaganda. Stalin’s successor Khrushchev greatly helped anti-Soviet propaganda by slandering Stalin and period of mass repression.

Version B

It was in use among a large part of ordinary Soviet people (in the Soviet period before and after Khrushchev at the official level, this topic was practically not discussed). This received a “second wind” in the 21st century as a reaction to the total planting of version A.

In fact, the topic requires a sufficiently deep immersion in real events, their comprehensive understanding in the context of the circumstances of that time (including the need to additionally open the Soviet archives).

The following version seems most logical to me:

At the end of 1936, a new constitution of the USSR was adopted. Stalin could not achieve the inclusion in it of the mandatory alternative elections (the presence of more than one candidate) in the legislatures of all levels due to the strong resistance of a large part of the partocracy.

In response to Stalin’s calls for the consolidation of various strata of society and the democratization of state power, representatives of the entrenched party-state elite suddenly began to demand special powers to fight the allegedly intensified “counter-revolution” (“kulak riots”, “underground organizations”, “foreign spies, etc.). Etc.). The goal was to delay the introduction of alternative voting as much as possible under the pretext of its “premature”.

The Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, led by Stalin, made a secret decision to conduct a special operation of the NKVD to neutralize the potential “fifth column” before the impending war. Party boses in all regions of the country received secret instructions to compile lists of “enemies” of 2 categories as soon as possible: 1 — to be shot, 2 — to be sent to remote regions for 8–10 years. Initially, “limits” were allocated to each region. The total number of people executed in the country should not exceed 85,511 people, and the number of deportees — 181,562. The number of “enemies” in the lists from the regions significantly exceeded the established limits and was reduced by the NKVD leadership.

However, later regional leaders managed to obtain additional limits, in connection with which the initial plans were repeatedly exceeded: in total, under the mass repressions, 1,372,382 people were arrested, 681,692 (including criminals) were shot.

Sentences were imposed out of court. For this, the “NKVD troikas” were created as part of the local head of the NKVD, the prosecutor and party representatives. Cases were examined formally, without the participation of the defendant. Decisions were made with incredible speed. That is, a person who was on the list had practically no chance of being justified. The guilty plea of ​​the defendants did not matter.

Initially, the entire operation was planned for 4 months. In fact, it dragged on for more than a year for organizational reasons and in connection with the increased scale of repression.

In the autumn of 1938, numerous arrests of the NKVD officers themselves began, the head of the NKVD Nikolai Yezhov was removed from his post and replaced by Lavrentiy Beria.

In November 1938, the mass repressions was discontinued at the initiative of the Politburo. The judicial authorities were liquidated, all mass operations were discontinued. A simplified procedure for conducting investigations was categorically prohibited; any arrest now required the approval of a prosecutor.

A mass revision of cases began, many sentence were mitigated, many arrested were released.

The country’s top leadership acknowledged that the operation was accompanied by violations by the NKVD officers. Big part of the employees were dismissed from the department, many were arrested, some of them were shot. Yezhov himself was arrested in April 1939 and executed in 1940.