Stalin + NKVD responsibility for purges

Stalin - controlling intensity of purging

controlled intensity of purges

• appointing / demoting NKVD leaders 

  • Yagoda - didn’t purge enough / go after Zinoviev and Kamenev

  • replaced Yezhov with Beria 1938 (excuse to slow purging)

Stalin - motives for purging

motives for purging

• removes leadership opposition

  • Kirov = more votes than him in 1934 17th Party Congress

• push rapid industrialisation

  • against right of the party (Bukharin)

NKVD - Yezhovshchina

Yezhovshchina

• gulag population tripled

• not put on show trial like Yagoda - secretly killed

how did the gulag population grow under Yezhovshchina?

2 years

• tripled

• grew by 700,000

counterargument for NKVD (Yezhovshchina)

Stalin came up with ideas, had power

• demoted Yezhov to Commissar for Water Transport when purging was damaging economy

NKVD - Order 00447

• specific quotas

  • local NKVD leaders requested extensions, further perpetuating purges

  • Yezhov had to personally approve extension

example of NKVD leaders requesting extensions and perpetuating purges

1938 Omsk NKVD chief Gorbach

when was NKVD order 00447?

July 30, 1937

Byelorussian SSR quotas

• category 1 = 2000

• category 2 = 10,000

counterargument for NKVD (Order 00447)

• evidence Stalin made personal decision in categorisation of people

• Stalin had power to extend quotas too

  • promoted Gorbach after request