The great Purge was a series of political repression
Also known as Stalin’s Great Terror
Stalin sparked his Terror by having Sergei Kirov assassinated
Stalin made it look like the assassination of Sergei was a massive crime and anyone who had conspired to do it should be executed or imprisoned
Stalin tried to clean out the communist party and generally repress his public
The secret police (NKVD) hunted, persecuted, exiled, and executed suspected “saboteurs”
~4 million people were convicted of crimes during the time period
in 1937-38, over 6x more people were shot than in all of soviet history afterwards
most of the people targeted were communists
over half of the people convicted from -37 to -38 were communists when they were arrested
All Trotskyist ideas and writings were banned in Russia
As a result of the Great Purge, many nations that would have willingly accepted the communist revolution saw the horror of socialism and thus did not become communist
The Moscow trials were 3 highly publicized false trials of “political enemies”, designed to instill fear into the people of Russia
An estimated 90% of what was said during the Moscow trials by the defendants was false
The witnesses who refused to lie were murdered before the trial began
Gulag at first was the organization responsible for monitoring and making prison camps
First established under Vladimir Lenin as an alternative to prison
“Gulags” were forced labor and prison camps in the extremities of Russia
The first were built in 1917 after the revolution, but Stalin built many more
Most camps were in hostile environments like Siberia and the Arctic North
Prisoners worked low-skill jobs that were hard work and received little food and no money
Gulag prisoners built the White Sea-Baltic Canal, the Moscow-Volga Canal, the Baikal Amur railroad, many hydroelectric plants, and roads in the remote regions of Siberia and the Far North
Prisoners could receive a sentence of up to 25 years for telling a joke about a government official or coming to work late.
Prisoner were transferred to the Gulags in trains. Sometimes over 60 people would be crammed into one carriage.
During WWII, many prisoners were sent straight to the frontlines with no training at all.
It actually cost Russia more to run the Gulags than they were getting out of them.
The Great Thaw: after Stalin died, political prisoners were released and Gulags were dissolved
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