Stalin`s Purges Essays - GermanySoviet Union Relations, Soviet Union

Stalin`s Purges Less than a month before Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 and started World War II, he signed a non-aggression pact with Stalin. Less than two years later, he broke the pact and invaded the Soviet Union in the early morning hours of June 22, 1941. There were plenty of evidence for German aggression before the war broke out, yet Stalin nevertheless signed the pact which contained the secret protocol that divided Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union. The reason for signing the pact were complex, yet one of the most important ones were the domestic factors. Among them, the terrible effect of the purges during the 1930s on the population, economy and especially the army. The purges were set off on December 1, 1934 with the murder of Sergei Kirov. He was a member of the Politburo, leader of the Leningrad party apparatus and had considerable influence in the ruling elite. His concern for the workers in Leningrad and his skill as an orator earned him considerable popularity. Stalin used his murder as a pretext for launching a broad purge that would claim hundreds of thousands of victims and have lasting repercussion felt to this day. Stalin never visited Leningrad again and directed one of his most vicious post-War purges against the city -- Russia's historic window to the West. No segment of the society was left untouched by the purges. Anyone who caused the slightest suspicion was removed and numerous legislature was enacted to help enforce them. In 1935 a law was passed which lowered the age of criminal responsibility. That meant the death penalty could be applied to twelve-year-old children (McCauley, p.93). There was also a panic response in the primary party organizations to expel and "expose" people in order to protect oneself and to show "vigilance" (Getty, p.213) The slaughter of armed forces began on 12 June 1937 when Tukhachevsky and some top army men were executed, then spread to lower ranks and then to political comissars. The nave was completely decapitated, all eight admirals perishing. Here's a grave list of the top dead: " 3 out of 5 marshals, 14 out of 16 Army commanders Class I and II, 8 out of 8 Admirals, 60 out of 67 Corps Commanders, 136 out of 199 Divisional Commanders, 221 out of 397 Brigade Commanders" (McCauley, p.95) In November 1939, Stalin ordered an attack on Finland to move the frontier further away from Leningrad after the Finns did not agree to the concessions Soviets offered. This expedition was a complete fiasco. It cost the already decimated Red Army around 200,000 dead and more were wounded, while only 23,000 Finns died (McCauley, p.101). A peace treaty was signed on 12 March, 1940, but the incompetence and weakness of the Red Army was revealed to the rest of the world. This is something Hitler filed it away for future use. After that, and faced with increasing German aggression, Stalin could not risk being embroiled in a war. Hitler was in a great hurry. An attack on Poland was scheduled for late August. By the end of July the Nazis realized that they must reach agreement with the Soviets very soon if these plans were to be safely implemented. Hitler agreed to pay the Soviet price for a pact. The public text of the Nazi-Soviet Pact was simply an agreement of nonaggression and neutrality, referring as a precedent to the German-Soviet neutrality pact of 1926 (Berlin Treaty). The real agreement was in a secret protocol which in effect partitioned not only Poland (along the line of the Vistula), but much of Eastern Europe. To the Soviets were allotted Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Bessarabia; to the Nazis, everything to the West of these regions, including Lithuania. Each of the two signatories was to ask the other no questions about the disposition of its own ''sphere of interest." This nonaggression pact, coupled with the trade treaty and arrangements for large-scale exchange of raw materials and armaments, amounted to an alliance. Appeasement in Eastern Europe would deflect German aggression to the west. Taking into account the disastrous condition of Russian forces brought about from within and the severe problems of the economy, this was necessary for Stalin. In a way, by signing the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, he was buying as much time as possible to try prepare for the inevitable. The inevitable happened on June 22, 1941. Molotov broke to the Russian people the grim news about the German attack. Stalin, as if embarrassed by the disastrous collapse of his