Terror and control

There was no freedom because all was on Stalin’s hands. You were killed if you be disloyal to him or if you are not agree with his ideas.

This makes people to be careful in what they thought or wants to argument, they were limited to talk and in that way they “censor” their liberty.

NO

FRE

DO

M! Censorship

Life of ordinary Soviets

NO

FREDO

M!

Great TerrorSpread to ordinary people – anybody who looked as though they had a will of their own. People who had theirown ideas and don’t want to follow Stalin’s ideas, were sent to the :

1930’

GulagSystem of labor camps (Siberia)

Where 20 millions ordinary Russian were sent.

1/2

DictatorshipStalin wanted people who follow his ideas

Credited him with every success

Praise Stalin!

Poets thanks him for giving

harvest

Parents taught their children to love Stalin (Indoctrination)

Stalin set up a totalitarian Dictatorship where on one word from him, the entire Soviet Union did exactly

what he said.Need to cr

eate

Unity, and strong control to modernise Russia.

18 years of prison, labor camps and exile 

“What crimes were being committed in his name”

FORBIDDEN

• Ethnic groups were persecuted Russification:

(costums and language)

Enforced throughout the soviet Union.

• People who had annoyed their neighbors were turned into the NKVD (the secret policy and arrested, never to be seen again.

What is the NKVD?

The NKVD was the public and secret police organization of the USSR that directly executed the rule of power of the soviets.The NKVD contained the public police force of the USSR but is better known for the activities of the Gulag and the Main Directorate for State Security which eventually became the Committee for State Security.

NKVD activities

•Domestic repressions and executions

• International operations, kidnappings, and assassinations

•Spanish Civil War

• World War II operations

• Postwar operations

• Soviet economy

The Katyn Massacre..This massacre was a mass murder of Polish people.

Carried out by the NKVD

April – May 1940

to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps.Proposal

Take place:

Katyn Forest/

Russia

The NKGBTriumph of the Bolshevik Revolution

Soviet Union needed an intelligence service that act in and out the country

AIM:•discover and fight the opponents of the government

They needed a very effective secret police

The Purges.

• the majority of people who were inside the labour camps

was because of the Great purge.

• Kirov was a member of the Politburo, he was shot in the

back by Leonid Nikolayev on 1 December 1934

• 2 strange things happened between Kirov´s murder

- Only few days before killing Kirov, Nikolayev was arrested

by the secret police, but then the guards release him and

give him his gun.

- Kirov´s bodyguard who was with him all day long, was not

seen in the murder, the day after he died in a car crash with

several passengers.

• The same day of Kirov`s murder, Stalin give and order

against terrorism.

• Many evidence prove that Stalin gave order to the

secret police that allowed Nikolayev to kill Kirov. Stalin

wanted Kirov dead because he was a threat to his power.

THE GREAT PURGE.• The start of the major purge of the party, this means

that those who weren`t reliable were expelled from the

party.

• The Party Central Committee sent letters to the braches

of USSR, giving orders to check every member.

• After checking every member , those who were accused of

being ¨ TROTSKYITES¨ went to meetings . Written

denunciations were also valid.

• When the party members were accused they were purged

form the party, this mean they were expelled.

• They were not only purged from the party, they also loose

their jobs.

• If you were accused your friends and neighbours didn´t

wanted to have any contact at all with you, because later on

they were going to be accused of the same crimes you were.

• After this in the majority of cases the NKVD ( people

commissariat of internal affairs) arrested you.

Show Trials? Main Purpose…

• The main purpose of the Show trials was to eliminate all the political defeaters to Stalin Authority.. Mainly the Old Bolsheviks.

• This Trials were started by Joseph Stalin between August 1936, January 1937, and March 1938.

• The different between the trials and the purges was that the trials were public for all the people.

• The trials were public shooting for the members that were accused on the purges for having some charges and things in favour of Trotsky.

First Trial…

• In the First trial 16 members of "Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre were sentenced to execute and death.

• The most important politicians blamed in this trial were Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamanev this where two important political leaders.

• This trial was set up on August 1936

Second Trial

• 17 political members from a less authority were involved in this Trial. The higher politicians from this 17 members were including Karl Radek, Yuri Piatakov and Grigory Sokolnikov.

• 13 of this 17 political members were executed. The other 7 were send to labour camps in Russia.

• This trial was set up in January 1937.

Third Trial

• The third trial includes 21 guilty political members that belong to "Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites“.

• This group was led by Nikolai Bukharin who was sentenced a year after.

• The head of the communist international, Prime Minister Alexey Rikov, Genrikh Yagoda, Christian Rakovsky and Nikolai Kretinsky all this members were executed.

• This trial was set March 1938• There was a secret trial. This trial sentenced the Red army

generals. Mikhail Tukhachevsky was sentenced to death.

What were labour camps?The labour camps were stablished in the first years of the comunist regime in the Soviet Union. This camps were for people to work. In the five-year plans were some Taks that were so big and ambitious that there were not enough workers, so in some cases prisioners, from prision camps were made to do work.Their prisioners therefore became slaves.

Gulag

In the labour camps they need someone to run them, so in 1930 a special department of the secret police was set up it and it was calledGulag the Chief Administration of the camps. The Gulag was the one that organized all the workIn the camps and the one to set the work forthe people.

Who went there?

The people that went to the labour camps were:

- The Kulaks- Workers who had failed to achieve the targets of the five-year plans- Ordinary criminals- People that were arrested during the Great Purge

What was it like living there?

Living in the labour camps was horrible.

- the majority of the prisoners had meagre food rations- inadequate clothing- poor and insulated houses- poor hygiene - inappropriate health care.