How Great Terror affected USSR

Mass terror and repression at central level

• Trial of Sixteen (August 1936) - Kamenev, Zinoviev + 14 others

• Trial of Seventeen (January 1937) - 13 sentenced

• Trial of 21 (March 1938) - Bukharin, Rykov, Yago + 18 others

Mass terror and repression at local levels

• Order 00447 (July 1937), establishment of small NKVD committees to search for ‘former kulaks’ and ‘anti-Soviet elements’

• System of quotas - initial 28% to be shot but later increased

• By 1939, total number of prisoners was 2.9million

• By end 1938 one-third of all Party members had been purged

Mass terror and repression against the military

• Military purge (May-June 1937) - about 50% of the officer corps in all three services, executred

• A quarter of thte imprisoned were reinstated by the middle of 1940 

Impact

• Only 1 NKVD informer to every 400 inhabitants (relied a lot on paranoia)

• Used as an opportunity to settle old scores

• Skilled workers sent to Gulags

• Soviet failures in the 1939-40 Winter War against Finland can be partly attributed to the military purges