How Far Was Stalin Responsible for the Purges in the 1930s?
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Stalin was responsible to a large extent responsible for the purges in Russia during the 1930s. The purges in Russia in the 1930s began as purges made by Stalin in order to remove political opponents such as the Left and the Right Wing in order to secure his power. However, the purges began to spread to the army forces and the people of Russia. Purges were in the form of executions or exiled to labour camps. The purges came about mainly due to Stalin in the various factors of the character and personality of Stalin, the social and economic unrest in Russia and the need for slave labour to industrialize Russia. However, there are also other contributory factors that led to the purges in 1930s such as external threats of war especially from Germany.
Stalin had a personality of paranoia and wanted to secure total power in his hands. He felt threatened by the growing opposition towards him in the 1930s. Example of growing opposition in the early 1930s was the Ryutin group who were followers of M.N. Ryutin, a Right Communist who had published an attack on Stalin. Stalin react to this by purging the Ryutin group by a public trial and expelled the Ryutin group. Stalin’s paranoia and insecurity led him to purge all possible rivals that might form an alternative government against him. This was even worse after the Kirov assassination. Kirov was also a popular figure within the Communist Party but he was known to be against Stalin’s methods of industrialization and the extreme measures taken to discipline Party members. Although there is no direct evidence pointing to Stalin as the main perpetrator of the assassination, circumstantial evidence most likely points to Stalin having the motive of removing opposition that led to the assassination of Kirov. Stalin further took the assassination as a pretext to purge the Trotskyites and Leftists by accusing them to be suspected conspirators. Stalin’s paranoia for opposition led him to direct and command most of the purges that occurred in the 1930s. Furthermore, the want to secure total power also led to Stalin purging the most of the Party members and replacing them with his own loyal supporters. This led to the formation of nomenklatura which were in fact a new class of elites that were dedicated to Stalin. This too shows Stalin responsibility in the purges as he feared opposition and wanted to secure total power for himself.
The social and economic unrest in Russia also led to the purges in 1930s. The economic unrest in Russia was due to the fall in production figures and the targets of the Five Year Plans were not met. This was linked to Stalin as he needed to find scapegoats for the economic failures. Both managers and workers were made scapegoats by being blamed as saboteurs and wrecker. Furthermore, Stalin further encouraged criticism from below. This led to fresh purging of the managers as the workers were more than happy to identify managers and officials as cause of problems. Stalin was indirectly responsible for the purges due to the economic unrest as the Five Year Plans and targets were all set by Stalin himself and the unrealistic targets led to the fabrication of production figures by the officials. The social instability within Russia also led to the purges in 1930s. Mass urbanization in Russia had led to overcrowding in the cities and lack of basic facilities also led to the social tension and violence in the cities. This led to the workers showing hostility to the government and resulted in the government using purges to stifle criticism of the leadership and putting the blame on lower-ranked officials. This not only created an atmosphere of intimidation and terror among the people but also deflected any criticism and antagonism from the government. This also links back to Stalin because the policies of industrialization and collectivization led to the urbanization and the overcrowding of the cities.
Stalin was also responsible for the purges in the 1930s because of the need of slave labour to modernize Russia. Dangerous work such as logging and gold-mining in the inhabitable regions were still required to be carried out and the slaves in the labour camps were forced to do the hard labour. Furthermore, Stalin set quotas for the mass purges. People were no longer treated as individuals but instead were treated as numbers to fill up quotas.