SLTR 3300 Mid term quiz study guide - terms

Nazism

• Based on racial struggle and racial hierarchy.

• Inspired by Social Darwinism, which Nazis applied to human races

  • Nazis claim their ideologies were based on the science of biology:

• Germans were considered the superior race, entitled to rule over supposedly inferior races.

• The ultimate goal was the flourishing of the superior race, even if this required the extermination or subjugation of others.

Communism

• Based on Karl Marx's theory of class struggle.

• History was understood as a struggle between owners of the means of production and laborers.

• Private property and ownership were considered major causes of inequality.

• The goal was to eliminate private ownership and create a society in which resources were collectively shared.

• Two ideologies are very different: Is the struggle in humanity based on the warfare of races (Nazis) or the warfare of classes (Communism)?

Vladimir Lenin

• Leader of the Bolsheviks and a major figure in the Russian Revolution.

• Believed revolutionaries should not wait for the working class to spontaneously overthrow capitalism.

• Advocated a small, disciplined, secret organization of professional revolutionaries to lead the revolution.

• Believed violence was necessary to achieve and maintain revolutionary power (very radical)

• The Bolsheviks seized power on November 7, 1917, by taking control of the Winter Palace.

• In January 1918, the Bolsheviks dissolved the Constituent Assembly, establishing their dictatorship.

• Lenin's government used the Red Terror and created political police and concentration camps.

• Introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP) after War Communism contributed to economic collapse and famine.

• Died in January 1924.

Iosif Stalin

• Succeeded Lenin as the dominant leader of the Soviet Union.

• Used his position as General Secretary of the Bolshevik Party to gain control of party institutions and defeat Trotsky.

• Introduced the First Five-Year Plan in 1928, aiming to transform the Soviet Union into a major industrial power.

• Implemented forced collectivization of agriculture, using violence to bring farmland and agricultural production under state control (1929)

• His policies contributed to devastating famine.

• Oversaw the Great Terror, during which hundreds of thousands of people were executed (1937-1938)

• Signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany in 1939.

• Ordered the execution of Polish officers and intellectuals in the Katyn massacre.

Red Terror (1918)

• A campaign of political violence used by the Bolsheviks to maintain power during the Russian Civil War (Lenin)

• Involved the creation of the Cheka, a political police organization with virtually unchecked authority.

• People could be arrested, imprisoned, or executed without meaningful legal justification.

• Lenin ordered concentration camps to be established outside Russian cities.

• Prisoners and hostages were detained in these camps.

• Forced labor became part of the camp system under Cheka leader Feliks Dzerzhinsky.

Gulag

• The Soviet system of forced labor camps.

• The early camps were used primarily for punishment and political repression (Concentration Camps under Lenin/the Bolsheviks)

• Under Stalin, the Gulag acquired an additional economic function (Late 1920s).

  • Prisoners were forced to mine resources, build roads, construct railroads and canals, and develop industrial infrastructure.

  • Prisoners had to meet daily work quotas to receive food.

  • Failure to meet quotas resulted in reduced rations, creating a cycle of starvation, weakness, and declining productivity.

• The Soviet government used propaganda portraying forced labor as a process of rehabilitation called Perekovka (recasting).

Kolyma

• A remote region in far eastern Russia with an extreme subarctic climate (Siberia)

• Became an important Gulag region because of its gold deposits.

• Prisoners were transported by railroad and ship to the region.

• They built camps, roads, and mines before being forced to extract gold.

• The Soviet government profited from selling gold while minimizing labor costs through forced labor.

• Many prisoners died from the combination of starvation, extreme temperatures, and exhausting work.

  • Had to keep prisoners alive but just barely - wanted to keep prices cheap, but the less they spent on laborers, the more often they had to replace them as they died 

• Surviving prisoners could receive additional sentences rather than being released.

Collectivization

• Stalin's policy of bringing privately operated farms under collective state control.

• Announced in 1929, following the introduction of the First Five-Year Plan in 1928.

• Peasants lost control of their land, equipment, animals, and agricultural production.

  • Private farms were forced into state-run collective farms

• The government wanted to control agricultural output and sell grain abroad to purchase Western technology.

• Strict production quotas were imposed, often at unrealistic levels.

• Violence was used against peasants who resisted or failed to comply.

• Many peasants were arrested and sent to forced labor camps.

Great Famine

• Devastating famine resulting from forced collectivization, unrealistic production quotas, and the government's seizure of agricultural products under Stalins firtst Five Year Plan 

• Famine beginning in Kazakhstan in 1931.

• In 1932–1933, poor harvests combined with continued government demands for grain.

• Stalin interpreted peasants' failure to meet quotas as deliberate sabotage; as discipline, authorities confiscated even the seeds farmers needed for future planting.

• By 1933, famine had devastated Ukraine and other regions (famine in Ukraine called Holodomor)

• ~ 6 million deaths from starvation.

• Conditions became so severe that some people resorted to cannibalism.

Stalin's Great Terror

• Background:

  • Stalin became increasingly paranoid about potential threats to his power, particularly as Germany, Poland, and Japan developed diplomatic agreements that he perceived as anti-Soviet.

    • All three countries had previously defeated Russia in military conflicts during the twentieth century.

    • Stalin feared these countries were conspiring to overthrow him and potentially collaborating with enemies inside the Soviet Union.

  • To eliminate potential internal opposition and strengthen his control, Stalin began targeting groups he believed might threaten his regime:

    • Former political opponents: Particularly Trotsky and his supporters.

    • Peasants: Especially those whose property had been confiscated during collectivization and who had been exiled. Stalin feared they might rebel against his government.

    • National minorities: Particularly Poles living in the Soviet Union, whom Stalin suspected of potential disloyalty.

• A campaign of mass political repression that intensified following the assassination of Sergei Kirov (chief of communist party) in 1934.

• Stalin claimed that conspiracies and enemies existed throughout Soviet society.

• Targets included former political opponents, supporters of Trotsky, peasants who resisted collectivization, and selected national minorities, particularly Poles.

• The most intense period occurred during 1937–1938 (began in 1936)

  • And then Stalin “flips the off switch,” and it stops abruptly 

• ~ 700,000 people were executed for political reasons during this period.

• Political police received arrest quotas and were expected to fulfill them.

• Investigators frequently used torture to obtain confessions that could be used against them in court.

• Victims were executed or sent to Gulag camps.

• The terror created widespread fear because anyone, including previously loyal Communist officials, could become a target.

Cheka

• The Bolshevik political police organization established during Lenin's rule.

• Answered directly to the Bolshevik Party.

• Had extensive, unchecked  powers to arrest, detain, and execute individuals without meaningful legal restrictions.

• Also involved the creation of concentration camps for the general population 

• Played a central role in the Red Terror.

• Its leader, Feliks Dzerzhinsky, introduced forced labor into the early concentration camp system.

NKVD

• The Soviet political police and internal security organization under Stalin (Great Terror)

• Developed from earlier Soviet security institutions, including the OGPU.

• Played a central role in enforcing Stalin's policies and conducting the Great Terror.

• Received quotas specifying how many people should be arrested.

• Used torture to extract confessions.

• Sent prisoners to the Gulag or arranged their executions.

• Carried out the Katyn massacre of Polish officers and intellectuals in 1940.

Nikolay Yezhov

• Head of the NKVD during the most intense period of Stalin's Great Terror.

• Replaced Genrikh Yagoda in 1936

• Oversaw mass arrests, executions, and political repression in 1937–1938.

• Was replaced by Lavrenty Beria near the end of 1938.

• Yezhov and his trusted associates were subsequently arrested and executed

Lavrenty Beria

• Replaced Nikolay Yezhov as head of the NKVD in 1938.

• Took control of Soviet security apparatus after the most intense phase of Great Terror.

• Was involved in the Katyn massacre, alongside other Soviet security officials.

Ribbentrop – Molotov Pact

• Signed on August 23, 1939, between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

• A nonaggression agreement between Hitler and Stalin.

• Included secret arrangements to divide Poland and establish German and Soviet spheres of influence in Eastern Europe.

• Germany invaded Poland from the west one week later on September 1, 1939.

• The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east on September 17, 1939.

• Both occupying powers targeted Polish political, military, and intellectual elites

  • Both occupying powers immediately aimed to prevent any future Polish resistance by systematically destroying the nation's leadership, culture, and educated elite.

• The agreement allowed Hitler to pursue expansion while temporarily avoiding conflict with Stalin.

Katyn

• A massacre of Polish military officers and intellectuals carried out by the Soviet NKVD in spring 1940 (after both Germany and the USSR invaded Poland)

• Stalin secretly ordered the executions.

• ~ 22,000 Polish prisoners were murdered at Katyn Forest and other execution sites.

• The killings targeted Poland's educated and military leadership to weaken future resistance.

• In 1941, the Germans attacked the soviet union; then came the deal between the Polish government in exile and the soviet government to release the Poles left and have them join the Army of Anders 

  • However, the previously arrested  military officers were not appearing

  • General Sikorski, head of the Polish government in exile, goes to talk to Stalin in Moscow 

  • They asked Stalin where their military officers were who had been arrested by the soviet union earlier but were not being released

  • Stalin pretends not to know - they must have escaped

• On April 13, 1943, Germany announced the discovery of mass graves.

• The Soviet Union denied responsibility and blamed Nazi Germany.

• Western Allied leaders downplayed evidence of Soviet responsibility to preserve their wartime alliance with Stalin; Soviet government maintained its denial for decades.

Adolf Hitler

• Leader of the Nazi Party (NSDAP - National Socialist Germans Workers Party), who became Chancellor of Germany in 1933.

• Promoted an ideology based on racial hierarchy and German racial superiority.

• Believed Germany needed to recover from its defeat in World War I (regain control as a major power) and expand its territory.

• Advocated eastward expansion to acquire land and resources.

• Wrote Mein Kampf after an unsuccessful attempt to seize power.

• Implemented discriminatory policies against Jews, including Nuremberg Laws in 1935.

• His government carried out the Holocaust and invaded Poland in 1939, beginning World War II in Europe.

• Invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.

Lebensraum

• The Nazi idea of acquiring additional living space for the supposedly superior German race.

• Hitler believed Germany needed more land, natural resources, and agricultural production to become a self-sufficient empire.

• Rather than focusing on overseas colonies, Hitler planned to expand eastward.

  • Especially into Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union

• Nazi racial ideology justified conquering the territories of populations considered inferior.

• Nazi plans involved retaining some conquered people as laborers while eliminating or removing others.

Concentration camps

• Soviet context:

  • Lenin established concentration camps during the Red Terror.

  • Camps initially functioned as places of detention, punishment, and political repression.

  • Under Stalin, they developed into the Gulag forced labor system.

• Nazi context:

  • Camps were used to imprison and exploit people targeted by the Nazi regime.

  • Auschwitz was both a concentration and forced labor camp and, through its Birkenau complex, a major extermination center.

  • Prisoners considered capable of labor could be kept alive temporarily, while others were murdered upon arrival.

Nuremberg Trials (1946)

• International trials of major Nazi war criminals following World War II.

• The main trial opened on November 20, 1945, and verdicts were delivered on October 1, 1946. 

• These trials helped establish principles of individual accountability under international criminal law.

• Soviets attempted to include Katyn among the crimes attributed to Nazi Germany.

  • Soviet prosecutor Rudenko presented accusations blaming Germany for the massacre.

  • American prosecutor Robert H. Jackson urged the Soviet delegation to withdraw the Katyn accusation. Rudenko refused.

  • The final Nuremberg judgment did not mention Katyn.

Jewish Ghettos

• Enclosed sections of cities and towns where Nazis forced Jewish populations to live.

• Became widespread in occupied Poland around 1940.

• Ghettos were separated from surrounding areas by walls or barbed wire.

• Residents were isolated from agricultural production and the outside world, resulting in severe hunger and starvation.

• Had a volunteer Jewish police force to enforce obedience of the population in the Ghettos (Judenrat)

• The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest, with approximately 400,000 people.

• Beginning in 1942, Nazi authorities increasingly liquidated ghettos and deported residents to extermination camps.

Einsatzgruppen

• Nazi mobile killing units of political police operating in territories occupied by Germany.

• Major role beginning in summer 1941, following German invasion of the Soviet Union.

• They organized mass shootings of Jewish populations; 

• Victims were taken to remote locations, often forced to dig graves, and then shot.

• These massacres marked an important escalation toward the systematic extermination of European Jews.

Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution

• The Wannsee Conference took place in winter 1941–1942 (January 1942).

• Nazi and German government officials coordinated the administrative and logistical implementation of the Final Solution.

• The Final Solution referred to the systematic mass murder of European Jews.

• Mass killing had already begun before the conference.

• The conference helped coordinate deportations, transportation, and extermination.

• Railroads transported Jewish populations to specially constructed killing facilities.

• Gas chambers became a major method of mass murder.

• Ghettos were liquidated as their populations were deported to extermination camps

Auschwitz

• Nazi concentration camp established in 1940 in occupied Poland.

• Served as a forced labor camp (Auschwitz) and a major extermination center (Birkenau).

• Jews from across Nazi-occupied Europe were deported there.

• Upon arrival, prisoners underwent selection; those considered capable of working could be kept alive as laborers, while many others were murdered immediately.

• Approximately one million Jews were murdered at Auschwitz

Treblinka

• Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland.

• Closely connected to the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto; during summer 1942, Jewish residents of the Warsaw Ghetto were transported by train to Treblinka.

• Deportations organized through the Umschlagplatz: gathering/loading point for transport

• Most deportees were murdered, while approximately 60,000 people remained in the Warsaw Ghetto afterward, many retained for labor. (~800,000 killed)

• The remaining population later participated in resistance during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April 1943.

Judenrat

• Jewish administrative councils established by Nazi authorities within ghettos.

• Responsible for managing aspects of ghetto administration under Nazi control.

• Some ghettos also had Jewish police forces to enforce orders.

• Councils faced severe moral dilemmas because compliance with Nazi demands could mean helping organize the deportation and destruction of their own communities.

• Refusal could result in execution and replacement by someone more compliant.

• Played key role in organizing the liquidation of ghettos and deportations to death camps.

Home Army

• The principal Polish underground resistance organization during World War II, loyal to the Polish government-in-exile.

• It conducted sabotage, intelligence gathering, and armed resistance against German occupation. 

• Pilecki infiltrated Auschwitz to report on conditions/ establish a resistance organization.

• It led the Warsaw Uprising of August–October 1944, which must be distinguished from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April–May 1943.

Anders Army

• A Polish military force formed in the Soviet Union after Germany invaded the USSR in June 1941.

• Britain and Polish government-in-exile negotiated with Stalin for release of Polish prisoners.

• Released Polish citizens, including former Gulag prisoners, formed an army under General Władysław Anders.

• The army included men, women, and Polish refugees; many suffered from severe malnutrition and disease.

• General Anders arranged to move the army out of Soviet territory to Persia, where conditions improved.

• Gustaw Herling joined this army after his release from the Gulag in 1942.

Witold Pilecki

• Polish resistance fighter who volunteered to infiltrate Auschwitz in 1940.

• Entered the camp to gather intelligence about Nazi activities.

• Established a secret resistance organization among prisoners.

• Intended to provide information that could help outside resistance forces (Home Army) plan an attack on the camp.

• Escaped around Easter 1943, when his identity was in danger of being discovered.

• His organization had also been weakened by transfers of prisoners to other camps.

• After escaping, he returned to Warsaw, where major resistance uprisings took place 

  • First happens right around when Pileski escapes - the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising which starts in April 1943

  • The other happens later - Warsaw Uprising of 1944 - much larger in scale 

Moshe the Beadle

• An important figure at the beginning of Elie Wiesel's Night.

• Was deported and witnessed horrific atrocities.

• Returned to his Jewish community as a changed person.

• Attempted to warn others about what he had seen.

• The community refused to believe him because the atrocities he described seemed unimaginable.

• Many people therefore failed to recognize the danger or take opportunities to escape.