In the book Sofia Petrovna, the author Lydia Chukovskaya writes about Sofia Petrovna and her dreadful experiences as a widowed mother during the Russian Stalinist Terror of the 1930s. There were four basic results of the Russian Stalinist Terror: first, it was a way of keeping people in order; second, it kept Stalin in power and stopped revolutions from forming, made people work harder to increase the output of the economy, and separated families as well as caused deaths of many innocent people due to false charges.
Stalin used the media in order to convince the Russian citizens that there were saboteurs and spies within Russian population. Stalin used the secret police and military forces to carry out the arrests of so called saboteurs and spies that were plotting against the motherland of Russia. There were many innocent people put into work camps and jails because they stood up against the false charges of the saboteurs. "'And why was Alik arrested?' 'Oh, Natasha, if you only knew the kind of crude language he used in front of everyone in line. I'm sure now that his lounge was the undoing of Koyla,too'"(87) When Alik stood out and spoke his mind, leading to his arrest. This is very similar to when Sofia Petrovna stood up for Natasha at the print house, and then had to resign from her job. The media's attention to the saboteurs and spies gave Stalin and the government power to arrest or cast out individuals in the Russian work force and society, because they were a threat to the motherland,even if they were just acting slightly out of line.
I believe Stalin's main reason for starting the terror was to keep politicians and citizens from organizing and overthrowing Stalin with a revolution, much like the way Stalin ove...
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... the terror causes Sofia Petrovna's life to fall apart, and takes everyone important in her life away from her. Her husband had died, her beloved son is accused of sabotaging, Koyla's loyal friend,Alik, has been accused of associating with a saboteur, and Natasha,Sofia's Friend and Koyla's admirer poisons herself because she was of "no need" and couldn't live a normal life. Sofia's whole life was ruined and at the end of the novel we see her not able to even contact her son Koyla, because of the fear of having to be deported.
The Russian Stalinist terror I believe was Stalin's way of solidifying his power as dictator of the Russian government. It kept people in order, refrained people from organizing revolutions, and increased production of goods, however the terror ultimately destroyed millions of families and caused the deaths of millions innocent citizens.
She found out from Kiparisiva that the government was letting innocent people out. This further convinced her to continue to reside her faith in the party because they must have realized their mistake. Many Soviet citizens became excited that there was a chance that their loved ones would be released and resided some faith in that unlikely idea. Although some were released, it was a very small number wand the event was just to gain back support for the government. Sofia Petrovna finally received a frightening letter in which Kolya beilieved he “[wouldn’t] last [there] long” and that she “must do something quick” to save him (p. 107). Following the letter she finds out that Kiparisiva is being deported and decided to burn the letter from Kolya. She burnt the letter as a last resort to remain true to the idea that the party will release him because she cannot do anything. It was her only option since she was alone and the party was her only chance at living a normal life
Also if you were arrested and imprisoned, you must 've been a member of the Red Army. The Red Army was a common name for the Russian National Military Forces. The army lasted from 1918 to 1946. The Red Army was created after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The Red Army was a massive and strong army, but they had no intellect or skills. Stalin of course had many who had animosity towards him, and the generals of the Red Army sure did. They betrayed him during World War II, and he had them all imprisoned. He wanted them to be tortured and feel pain because of their
Joseph Stalin controlled everything that happened in the USSR, including the media and According to, “Life In the USSR under Stalin: The people of Russia had to read what the state allowed, see what the state allowed and listen to what the state allowed. The state’s control of the media was complete. Those who attempted to listen, read etc. anything else were severely punished. Everybody knew of the labor camps and that was enough of a deterrent.” Again the fight between the government and the individual, the individual lost again. Joseph Stalin was responsible for taking advantage of millions of people in his own country in which he ruled in, by using media that only he allowed to be listened, read, or seen. He uses propaganda in these types of media, and does not want people to recognize it from outside forces. Joseph Stalin was responsible for brainwashing people to listen to appropriate media in order for him to rule in terror. Joseph Stalin ran a government of total dominance that even controlled the media.
Originally platformed by Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin took control of the communist party in 1924 when Lenin died of a stroke. Communist ideals were heavily in opposition to classical liberal values; Whereas Liberalism stressed the importance of the individual, Communism sought to better the greater good of society by stripping many of the individual rights and freedoms of citizens. Communism revoked the class structure of society and created a universal equality for all. This equality came with a price however. Any who opposed the communist rule were assassinated in order to keep order within society. Joseph Stalin took this matter to the extreme during an event known as the Great Purge. The Great Purge, also known as The Great Terror, began in 1936 and concluded in 1938. During these two years, millions of people were murdered and sent to labour camps in Siberia for opposing the Communist party and the ultimate dictator, Stalin himself. In some cases, even those who did not oppose the regime were killed. Sergey Kirov was a very popular member of the communist party and Stalin saw this as a possible threat to his ultimate power. As a result, Stalin order Kirov to be executed. Stalin furthered his violation of individual rights by introducing the NKVD who worked closely with the russian secret police force. One of the primary goals of the secret police was to search out dissidents who were not entirely faithful to the communist regime. This violation of privacy caused histeria en mass in the Soviet Union and millions were killed as a result. The Soviet union resisted liberalism to such an extreme that it resulted in the deaths of millions of people, leading to some of the darkest days in russian
The Communist Party was one of the main sections in Soviet society that was impacted profoundly by Stalin’s terror. In 1935, the assassination of Sergei Kirov, a faithful Communist and Bolshevik party member that had certain popularity, threatening Stalin’s consolidation of power, initiated The Great Purge. His death, triggering three important, widely publicised ‘show trials’ in Moscow, ultimately encouraged the climate of terror during the Great Purge. Bolsheviks Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates were accused of conspiring against Stalin and the government, with each confessing to their supposed crimes, which were then broadcast around the world. It was later discovered that these confessions were forced after long months of psychological abuse and cruel acts of torture. As Stalin...
Stalin’s leadership of the Soviet Union can be best described as a period of terror and censorship. In other words, he was very strict, considering the fact that he created the totalitarian government. In order to create this type of government, Stalin used fear and propaganda. He took part in The Great Purge, which was a campaign of terror that was supposed to eliminate anyone who threatened Stalin’s power. He also relied on secret police, who would arrest and execute any traitors. The online blog, “The Reasons For the Failure of The Russian Revolution”, brings up information on how Stalin planned to rule as dictator of Russia. It has been noted, “This ‘reshaping’ had three main aspects: the elimination of all dissent; the liquidation of all forms of democracy and of working class organisation; the slashing of the living standards of the working class and the physical annihilation of millions of peasants” (Text 5). This quote explains how Stalin wanted to industrialize Russia, which includes the deaths of several peasants of Russia. The Russians did not just die from The Great Purge, but also from Stalin’s Five-Year Plan. The Five-Year Plan was an attempt to industrialize the Soviet Union. It was also a plan for increasing the output of steel, coal, oil, and electricity. He had control over economic resources, including farms and
When most people hear the name Joseph Stalin, they usually associate the name with a man who was part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. He was willingly to do anything to improve the power of the Soviet Union’s economy and military, even if it meant executing tens of millions of innocent people (Frankforter, A. Daniel., and W. M. Spellman 655). In chapter three of Sheila Fitzpatrick’s book, Everyday Stalinism, she argues that since citizens believed the propaganda of “a radiant future” (67), they were able to be manipulated by the Party in the transformation of the Soviet Union. This allowed the Soviet government to expand its power, which ultimately was very disastrous for the people.
In 1934, Sergey Kirov a rival to Stalin was murdered. Stalin is believed to have been behind the assassination, he used it as a pretext to arrest thousands of his other opponents who in his words might have been responsible for Kirov’s murder. These purges not only affected those who openly opposed Stalin but ordinary people too. During the rule of Stain o...
The Great Terror, an outbreak of organised bloodshed that infected the Communist Party and Soviet society in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), took place in the years 1934 to 1940. The Terror was created by the hegemonic figure, Joseph Stalin, one of the most powerful and lethal dictators in history. His paranoia and yearning to be a complete autocrat was enforced by the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the communist police. Stalin’s ambition saw his determination to eliminate rivals such as followers of Leon Trotsky, a political enemy. The overall concept and practices of the Terror impacted on the communist party, government officials and the peasants. The NKVD, Stalin’s instrument for carrying out the Terror, the show trials and the purges, particularly affected the intelligentsia.
During Stalin’s regime, the individual Russian was the center of his grand plan for better or worse. Stalin wanted all of his people to be treated the same. In the factory the top producer and the worst producer made the same pay. He wanted everyone to be treated as equals. His goal to bring the Soviet Union into the industrial age put tremendous pressure on his people. Through violence and oppression Stalin tried to maintain an absurd vision that he saw for the Soviet Union. Even as individuals were looked at as being equals, they also were viewed as equals in other ways. There was no one who could be exempt when the system wanted someone imprisoned, killed, or vanished. From the poorest of the poor, to the riches of the rich, everyone was at the mercy of the regime. Millions of individuals had fake trumped up charges brought upon them, either by the government or by others who had called them o...
“ The constitution promised the Soviets freedom of speech, conscious, press, assembly, and demonstrations in conformity with the interest of the working people and in order to strengthen the socialist system.”20 In fact the Soviet people never saw any of these rights. The Constitutional rights could only be used to support the regime, not to criticize it.
Through the late 1920's when the rest of the world was living it up as the roaring 20's came to an end, Joseph Stalin was setting the stage for gaining absolute power by employing secret police repression against opposing political and social elements within his own Communist Party and throughout society. This power had only been previosly used on groups against the new power of Communism but here it was now leveled against party members and citizen themselves. This was to be the following trend for the next two decades and the start of the "Great Purges."
Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin were similar in what they claimed to be, but in actuality they were very different people. Although Stalin claimed that he followed Leninism, the philosophy that Lenin developed from Marxism, he often distorted it to follow what he wanted to do. While Lenin wanted to make a unified society without classes, with production in the hands of the people, while Stalin wanted to make Russia into a modern industrial powerhouse by using the government to control production. Lenin accomplished his goals through violence, because he thought achieving Communist revolution was worth using violence, with a ‘The ends justify the means’ mentality. Stalin also used violence to accomplish his goals, however Stalin used much more violence than was often necessary to accomplish his goals. Stalin continued even once he was successful in accomplishing those goals, as he did not stop hurting people, but if anything it gave him more power to hurt people even more. But, at the end of the day, although Lenin ruled for only a very short time, he did raise the standard of living, though there maintained a large amount of hardship. Stalin, however, transformed the USSR from a peasantry to an industrialized nation in less than a decade, he did it on the backs of his millions of victims, who died because of his harsh policies and many purges.
...ns of anti-Bolsheviks and according to Service, 500,000 sent to the Gulags through 1917-21. Pipes highlights the significance of the Red Terror as ‘a prophylactic measure designed to nip in the bud any thoughts of resistance to the dictatorship.’ Lenin also used class warfare to terrorise the middle classes and hostile social groups. This played well with the workers and soldiers and made it difficult to criticise the new government. As a result, Lenin’sintroduction of the Cheka (1917) and the emergence of the Red Terror (1918) ensured his rule was absolute not only within the party but across the Soviet Union.
In order to conclude the extent to which the Great Terror strengthened or weakened the USSR the question is essentially whether totalitarianism strengthened or weakened the Soviet Union? Perhaps under the circumstances of the 1930s in the approach to war a dictatorship may have benefited the country in some way through strong leadership, the unifying effect of reintroducing Russian nationalism and increased party obedience.