Repression -> secret police and army

The Third Section of the Imperial Chancellory

Form of secret police inherited by Alexander II

What did Alexander II do to Third Section

Got rid of it and replaced it with the ‘softer’ Okhrana in 1880 → supposedly in line with his reforms

But was the Okhrana really less repressive

Not really → in 1880s Alexander III expanded the powers of this body to counter the growth of political pressure groups and parties

Why especially did Alexander III want to repress his people more

• Reaction to the 1881 assassination of his father by ‘The People’s Will’ → a terrorist group dismayed at the slow reforming process during Alexander II’s reign, reinforced Alexander III’s conservative instincts

• Shocked at disloyalty from tsar’s subjects

• E.g. articles of Katkov that blamed liberals for Alex II’s death

Okhrana lasted from until

1880 to February 1917 → disbanded by PG as part of their more relaxed policy towards political dissidents

How did Alex III use Okhrana

• Tool for spying on, arresting, imprisoning and/or exiling opposition

• Lower profile in 1890s

• Members used as agents provocateurs and executioners

When did Okhrana activity increase?

As the SRs adn SDs took off, peaked in 1905

1855-1917 how many people deported across the Ural Mountains to Siberia

1 million prisoners and their families

Example of Okhrana members being used as agents provocateurs

as in the case of Father Gapon, who was an agent for the Okhrana – led march of St Petersburg workers on the Winter Palace in January 1905, fired on by troops

Problem with Okhrana for government

For the size of the population - haven’t got equal coverage over the whole area of Russia

February until October 1917 secret police

PG focused more on wartime security, no Okhrana. Counter Espionage Bureau of the Petrograd Military District → to weed out those who were undermining the war effort → UNDERMINED BY ORDER NO.1

The bureau was misused by Kerensky to seek counter-intelligence against opposition like the Bolsheviks.

The Cheka when was it established

December 1917 by the Bolsheviks

Role of the Cheka

Dealing with counter-revolutionaries

Summer 1917 what did the cheka do

Began to clamp down on left-wing SRs, especially after SR members linked with an assassination attempt on Lenin August 1918

Effective → a major show trial of prominent SR members was also held in Moscow in 1922 to publicly discredit them. Party effectively gone by then, but even more purges and repression in 1920s.

How was Cheka different to Okhrana

Terror to victimise people based on who they were, not just because of their actions → which class they belonged to

What did the Cheka implement

The Red Terror

Red Terror things Cheka enforced/did

• War Communism (especially grain requisitioning)

• The ‘Labour Code’ → rules for deployment and control of labour

• Elimination of the kulaks

• Administration of labour camps

• Militarisation of labour → workers forced to work either as labourers or soldiers

Civil War led to Cheka being replaced by

GPU in 1922, expanded in 1924 and renamed OGPU → not as brutal but was feared (but could be used to say Cheka not permanently effective as lessened brutality of it after Civil War)

NKVD when

1934

NKVD what for

To combat opposition to Stalin’s personal dictatorship → PERMANENT FORM OF TERROR

Crucial to imposition of purges, gathered evidence against high-ranking communists such as Bukharin, Kamanev, Zinoviev and Trotsky

Helped administer the gulags

NVKD/Stalinist regime gulag stat

40m people sent to gulags during Stalinist regime

NVKD Great Purge

1936-8

Stalin suspected NKVD of conspiracy → events

1938 Yezhov blamed for an anti-purge campaign, replaced by Beria → organised execution of Yezhov and his close allies

Start of WWII how many people purged from NKVD

20,000

1943 NKVD replaced by, followed by in 1946

1943 briefly NKGB, 1946 replaced by two bodies, MGB and MVD

MGB, Ministry for State Security, role

Ensured population kept in line

MVD, Ministry of Internal Affairs, role

Really another version of the NKVD

1953 what happened (after Stalin death)

MGB and MVD merged to farm a large version of the MVD (which was the Ministry of Internal Affairs), command of this in the hands of Beria

Soon after gaining control of the Party Central Committee, what did Khrushchev do?

Ordered Beria’s arrest and trial, in December 1953 he was executed

March 1954 how was MVD re-organised

Two departments - MVD and KGB

MVD → refined version, same title, dealt with ‘ordinary’ criminal acts and civil disorder

KGB → Committee for State Security, all about internal + external security of USSR → Cold War context

MVD and KGB different to other secret police

• Under direct administration of the party rather than one individual → made it much easier to monitor security measures

• Moved away from quite as severe repression → no. political arrests went down, use of gulags largely disappeared, torture of dissidents not really used

1960 how many counter-revolutionaries in captivity

11,000 → much less than previously (1930s and 1940s)

Khrushchev gulag stat

Freed 1.5m political prisoners from Gulags within 3 months after the Secret Speech

Army size in 1855

1.4 million

Army who did it consist of around 1855

Mostly peasant conscripts, officers drawn from nobility, could be used to deal with internal law and order issues + engage in wars

What did Crimean War (1853-6) reveal?

Deficiencies in military provision → this and 1861 Emancipation Edict led to military reforms

Russification led to

Alexander III army enhanced role as a peace-keeping force and regulator of regional frontiers

Example of tsar army use of excessive force leading to outrage

Bloody Sunday 1905

1905-17 role of army under Nicholas

Dismantling strikes, protests and riots

Example of army role in a strike

1912 Lena Goldfield Strike → army shoot 200 people

Army dealt with what in 1917

Social unrest of February, dealt with forcefully

Troops deserting stat.

150,000 members of the Petrograd Garrison supported a revolution in 1917

Lenin and Trotsky encourage soldiers (especially. from Petrograd) to form the what

The Military Revolutionary Committee (MCR) → to become the vanguard of the revolution

October Revolution MRC role

Seized power from Kerensky → commandeered transport, public buildings, utilities and the Winter Palace

Once Bolsheviks took power

Deployed military to consolidate power → dealt with flash-strikes by civil servants + financial workers

Ending Russia’s involvement in WWI

replaced General Dukhonin with Krylenko, Brest-Litovsk (but annulled as Germany defeat Nov 1918)

Red Army enabled Bolsheviks to - and stat

Win the Civil War, under Guidance of Trotsky

End of C.W. (1922) over 5m conscripts vs 500,000 in the White opposition

What did the Red Army do in Civil War

• Fight

• Imposed War Communism

• Trotsky did face problems of desertion and rebellion, though army was generally more disciplined

Example of a mutiny

February 1921 → sailors mutinied at Kronstadt, Trotsky ordered troops to recapture island, achieved with 10,000 Red Army Casualties → rebels captured exiled/executed (effective but with a cost)

Stalin use of Red Army generally

• Requisition grain → Collectivisation

• Purges → Great Terror

Military leadership perceived as a threat to Stalin → removed key military figures in Great Purge 1936-8 such as

Marshal Tukhachevsky, civil war hero

By end of purge 40% top echelon of the military had disappeared

WWII Red Army

Military casualties

Desertion

But successful defence of Stalingrad and Moscow – fighting until the end (Stalin)

1945-53 military leaders generally

Treated with suspicion

Example of someone removed from the Party Central Committee

Marshal Zhukov (chief of staff WWII) → removed and exiled from Moscow

(1941 after Operation Barbarossa)

Doctors’ Plot

1951-3, a majority-Jewish group of doctors from Moscow were accused of a conspiracy to assassinate Soviet leaders, Red Army used to dismiss many doctors from their jobs, arrest them, and torture them to produce admissions.

‘Resolved’ it (Beria released them from blame in Pravda article)

Khrushchev and army

Easing of tensions, détente → reduction in army size from 3.6m to 2.4m

Flashpoints → why did Russia still need a significant military presence

shooting down of US spy plane over Russian airspace 1960 and Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 – Russia required a significant military presence