Russia 3.2 The secret police

What was the White Sea Canal Project?

While deputy minister of the OGPU, Yagoda headed a project to build a 141 mile long canal using 180,000 prisoners.

The canal, finished in 1933, was shallow and useless

What did Yagoda do as head of the NKVD?

He organised the arrest, imprisonment and trial of Zinoviev and Kamenev

He expanded the Gulag and sent labourers to work in remote parts of the USSR

What was a troika? How significant were they?

Three person sentencing tribunal that worked quickly and indiscriminately

In 1937, troikas passed down 87% of all sentences in the USSR

What happened to the number of NKVD detectives under Yezhov?

Number of detectives quadrupled

Plain-clothes officers were used for surveillance of the public

Yezhov considered the Gulag to be underused. How did he resolve this?

In July 1937, he gave camps quotas for the execution of prisoners

How many fell victim to Yezhovschina?

1.5 million were arrested

635,000 deportations

680,000 executions

How did Beria improve the profitability of the Gulag?

1939 - food rations were improved

1,000 prisoners that were scientists were put to work on special projects

How successful were Beria's attempts to improve the profitability of the Gulag?

Gulag economic activity:

1937 - 2 billion roubles

1940 - 4.5 billion roubles

What was the role of the NKVD during WWII?

1941 - NKVD given power to supervise Red Army and deal with desertions

1941 - NKVD enforced Order No. 270, which banned surrendering

"There are no Soviet prisoners of war, only traitors"

Beria set up Special Departments in areas previously controlled by the Germans

SMERSH dealt with suspected spies

NKVD supervised deportation of national minorities like Crimean Tatars and Chechens

Who were the dissidents?

Intellectuals

Political dissidents - usually concerned with human rights abuses

Nationalists - Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Georgians

Religious dissidents

Give an example of an intellectual dissident

Sakharov, a nuclear physicist

In 1970, Sakharov and other leading scientists wrote to Brezhnev detailing their irritations

He was banned from further military research

When was Directorate V established? What was it?

Established in 1967

Branch of the KGB that dealt with dissidents

When did Andropov officially increase surveillance?

1968

Andropov issued KGB Order No. 0051

Set out policy of increased surveillance

Give 5 methods used to deal with dissidents

Emigration - of high profile dissidents (e.g. Brodsky, a poet) and 100,000 potential 'trouble makers'

'Repressive psychiatry'

Prevention - using official warnings

Imprisonment - 10,000 political and religious prisoners in the 1970s

Show trials e.g. 1972 Yakir and Krasin

How did the KGB try to prevent dissident activity?

November 1972 - KGB adopted a policy of issuing official warnings

70,000 Soviet citizens received an official warning in the 1970s

Give 4 methods Andropov used to deal with discontent

Anti-alcohol campaign - workers could be sacked for drunkeness

Anti-corruption campaign

Operation Trawl - KGB officers went to parks and restaurants, arrested drunk and absent people

Visiting factories - to talk to workers

How effective was Andropov's anti-corruption campaign?

High profile officials were not safe - Brezhnev's Minister of the Interior was sacked and tried for corruption

BUT Chernenko (Andropov's successor) scaled back the campaign in order to protect his supporters

What was the Chronicle of Current Events? What happened to its leaders?

Samizdat publication founded in 1968

1972 - show trial of Yakir and Krasin