Stalins Purges

Stalin was born to a very poor family in Georgia, a region in southern Russia. Stalin believed that he was the country’s father and savior. His main goal was to industrialize the Soviet Union and promoted the Communist Party. He was an extremely power hungry individual and would do anything to gain and hold his power. Stalin would get paranoid when People would get in his way or was seen as a threat to him. His solution to these people was to kill them. Stalin had multiple purges when he was in position of power. Stalin's paranoia and deep desire for power led to killing of loyal Soviet citizens know as his purges. (Textbook p 443)

Several reasons could be named for Joseph Stalin's terror. First he believed that the country had to be united with him as leader. Secondly Stalin believed that the Soviet Union only had 10 years to catch up with the Western world regarding industrial growth before Germany invaded, The Soviet heavy industry was weak, it was lacking the capacity to produce enough heavy machinery and metal for the war. Stalins solution to this was to exploit thousands of gulag prisoners at construction sites and at plants became a part of his sinister industrialization scheme. (Of Russian origin Ekaterina Gracheva)

Stalin had multiple terrors also know as purges. His first purge dates back to 1930 to 1933 which were aimed at those against industrialization and the kulaks. Surprisingly The people that suffered most from Stalin's purges in the Soviet Union were not the Russians. Stalin was focused on his political opponents and their followers, these people were his biggest enemies. His most violent acts of terror - The Great Purges - took place between 1934 and 1939.

In 1934 Sergey Kirov, a rival to Stalin, was...

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...rches with its icons. Censorship of anything that might reflect badly on Stalin was enacted. Propaganda was everywhere - pictures, statues, continuous praise and applause for the leader. Mothers taught their children that Stalin was ‘the wisest man of the age’. History textbooks and photographs were changed to make him the hero of the Revolution, and obliterate the names of purged people.

To make certain themselves of an endless supply of "traitors” the NKVD interrogators concentrated on two questions: "Who recruited you?" and "Who did you recruit?" The "confessions" often doomed casual associates, friends, and even family. “Even at a time when the threat of war in Europe was rising, much of the military leadership - the only remaining base of potential opposition - was executed. It was at this point that Stalin's method began to show definite signs of madness.”(