Stalin carried out purges from 1934-1938 on all factors of life in the USSR. It affected the military, society, economy and the politics however in my opinion the purges on the military had the greatest effect on the USSR, due to the purges affecting everyone from high ranking officials, normal citizens down to the peasants on the Russia – Ukraine border. In judging significance from what elements contained in the sources that could be examined further to gain a better understanding I am going to using 5 criteria – was it ground-breaking, who was affected, how far reaching were the events, how much has it been remembered and the quantity of people that were affected.
The particular attack of purges attack on his army started in May 1937 and ended in 1938, these exterminations of members of the Red Army affected negatively on the USSR due to the replacements of experienced commanders being replaced by ‘newbies’.
Marshal Tukhachevsky and 7 other generals were arrested – primarily to avoid a coup. In June the eight men were executed – the 'signal for an even greater blood-letting.' Within 18 months the Red Army had been decimated of its officers – the Navy and the Air Force were similarly affected.
Whilst the purges may have played out negatively for the Soviets it had however a positive influence on Finland when they were able to defend themselves from an attack by a weakened USSR army. In 1940 under false pretext Stalin, began to occupy the Baltic states, their leaders and anti-Soviet citizens deported to concentrations camps. Finland was an independent state and was within shelling distance of Leningrad, while Stalin first tried to secure a military position here by negotiation – a withdrawal of the Finnish frontier and Soviet military bases in Finnish land in exchange for an area of Russian territory, worth less in value, but double the size. However, after long winded negotiations the Soviets ‘deal’ was refused due to fears that it would lead to them looking weak and being subjected to further demands from the USSR. The Soviets did not take the refusal well and in November 1939, the Finnish capital, Helsinki, was bombed by the Red Air Force and Soviet troops crossed over the border. A Stalinist, communist Government was already prepared, pre-empting the defeat of Finland but was however not able to be located in Helsinki but was put in a small side on the Finnish side of the frontier. The weakened Soviet Army was defeated tactically in nearly all battles by a smaller but more versatile Finnish army. However, due the size of Finland’s Army they had to eventually surrender when their reserve troops were depleted, this led to the renewal of the original deal but with Finland losing much more land than originally requested, including Vyborg. Whilst the USSR may have eventually won the effect of the war with Finland was that it almost started wars with France and Britain, told Hitler that the Red Army was weak, and that Finland would be on Hitler’s side when Germany attacked the USSR. It also had the result of getting them expelled from the League of Nations.
The purges in general are still heavily remembered today. It’s impact was so great that the next Soviet leader, Khrushchev, started De-Stalinisation which included denouncing the Purges, this shows it was still highly remembered after his death. However there was no specific apology for the victims in the army themselves.
Whilst the effects of the purges on the Red Army may seem significant, the outcome of the battles with Finland stayed the same and it could be argued that expulsion from the League of Nations was inevitable. A positive affect did come from the Purges of the Red army however, after Trotsky’s departure from the War Commissariat in 1925, the army was reduced to 600,000 men, and a strong portion being cavalry. The army was retrained to improve their more traditional elements, increasing discipline. The elements improved were Smart drill, well-kept uniform and a General Staff.
Whilst the purges were not groundbreaking or revolutionary as Stalin’s predecessor had also purged the population during his reign, the extent of the purges on the military were drastic in comparison.
The general purges did not start in 1934 under Stalins reign. It was an ‘essential tool in the Bolshevik kitbag of survival’ -terror in the USSR 1934-38, Neil Bennet. Lennin was liberal with his violence in the civil war giving approval to Cheka to execute 300,000 people between 1918 and 1920. A ‘passive terror’ was used in 1932-33 as the Red Army cut off the border between Russia and Ukraine and killed 4-5 million peasants died from starvation whilst grain was being sold for export. This is an example of Passive terror. The historian Robert Service said ‘the Great Terror.. was not a thunderclap in a cloudless sky but the worsening of a storm that was already raging’ this shows that terror has always been ‘woven in Bolshevik DNA’ and that Stalin worsened what was already happening. The time period of 1934 and 1937 was not revolutionary in the number of fatalities in comparison to Russia’s bloody and violent history.
From 1934-1937 the purges’ effects were, compared with 1937,1938, significantly less, with the peak being 2,056 executions and 90,417 arrests for counter revolutionary crimes. During these years there were sustained attempts to contain and concentrate the terror onto the perceived enemies such as pre-revolution nobility, kulaks and political opponents but also those at the high end of Soviet industry such as technical directors, engineers and construction specialists. Even the very force designed to protect the USSR turned on its own, the NKVD. Whilst army generals and officers were in danger or anyone with an important status, the Purges appeared to not have a direct impact on ordinary citizens. The number of arrests fell and whilst convictions increased the amount executed stayed relatively small. However, in 1937 the terror changes from a series of ‘housekeeping’ measures to unrelenting executions without scruple, as the Purges gathered momentum. June 1937 marks the point when the previously contained terrors were cast into the open and the years of violence and repression burst into open society. The previously managed targeting became less focused and less discriminate. The NKVD released order 00447 in the summer of 1937 stating an arbitrary arrest quota of 259,450 and that 28% were to be shot and the rest 8-10 years in the forced labor camps. Whether the accused was innocent or not was irrelevant to this form of Soviet justice. The number of executions rose 315 times from 1936 to 1937.