Directional evolution of Soviet terror
The directional evolution of Soviet terror began top- down from 1918-1920s, simmered at the bottom from the late 1920s-1930s, and began to boil back up to the top in 1936-1938 during the Great Purge, in which any Soviet was a potential “enemy of the people,” but in reality a potential enemy of Stalin personally. It is a common misconception Soviet terror came exclusively from the top of the party down to the public, it was in fact perpetuated by the paranoid public from below as the goals and enemies of the Soviet Union evolved over time.
The Red Terror (Top - Down Terror)
Russia’s utilization of terror as a tactic began during the October Revolution of 1917. During the October Revolution the Bolsheviks overthrew the unstable provisional government following the Czar’s forced abdication of thrown. The Bolsheviks, while a minority, were able to seize the palace, telegraph office, weapons, and food storage, by capitalizing on a time of civil unrest. While the Bolsheviks seized power in merely a single night, it was maintained only through terror and fear. Terror was used as an instrument to establish the Soviet Union, but changed over time into an ideology as the goal for a socialist and communist utopia was carried out.
Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik party and revolution, had the goal to create a socialist state according to the works of Karl Marx. Lenin believed the Bolsheviks had to fast forward through history, skip capitalism, skip public mass acceptation of the Bolshevik rule, and skip the vote to do this. Lenin believed since he was unequivocally in the right, these steps could be omitted. Lenin could only achieve his goal of creating class-consciousness without the acceptance of the masses by legalizing terror. The early years of the Bolshevik rule exemplify Nicholas Werth’s idea that the terror was politically motivated and that the regime used violence as a tool for establishing order, legitimacy, and obedience.
Terror became legalized as a reaction to the assassination attempts on M.S. Uritsky, the head of the Petrograd Cheka, and Lenin himself on August 30, 1918.[1] While these events were later revealed as unconnected, it fed into the Bolsheviks’ own fear that their enemies were conspiring to kill them off. These assassination attempts were the catalyst that reconfirmed the Bolshevik’s suspicion of conspiracy that made terror a legal instrument in which to seize political power and stability through violence.
The legalized terror, known as The Red Terror, was a way of publicly naming and eliminating political revivals to the Bolshevik cause following the assassination attempts. The party enemies that were at the wrath of the Red Terror included: the Bourgeois, Cossacks, the clergy, Whites, and Kulaks. The Bolshevik’s thought was only once their political enemies of the past were gone, were they able to begin to create a socialist utopia and speed up history.
The public naming and execution of enemies of the Bolsheviks put fear into the common proletariat members that made them too fearful to ever join one of the Bolsheviks’ political opponents. The alienation of the proletariat meant they only could side with the Bolsheviks, thus creating class-consciousness and allegiance, inspired and created through terror. The institution of terror as an instrument of violence did not only apply to the Cheka, but to the common members of the proletariat. The press was manipulated in The Prava on August 31, 1918 to encourage the proletariat to use terror to drive the bourgeoisie from cities.
The corruption of the bourgeoisie must be cleansed from our towns immediately. Files will now be kept on all men concern, and those who represent a danger to the revolutionary cause will be executed… The anthem of the working class will be a song of hatred and revenge.[1]
Soviet citizens grew up during the Bolshevik Revolution, followed by the Red Terror, and eventually came of age during the denunciation period of the 1930s. The younger to middle-aged generations grew up with the idea of institutionalized terror and when given the opportunity to self-govern and self-police they were already familiar with the concepts and punishments that came from terror. The idea of public naming of an “enemy of the people,” that became commonplace during the denunciation period, can be traced back to the Red Terror’s tactic to publicly name the Bolshevik enemies at the time.
Further reading on Red Terror
Autobiographies during the NEP Period
The 1920s saw terror used not so much as a direct weapon, as with the Red Terror, but instead a social idealism of the “perfect communist” that many saw as their only way to advance into the party. The benefits of party membership included: protection, a higher standard of living, healthcare, jobs and opportunity. Applicants could only reap the rewards of party membership by first going through a harsh self-critique in an autobiography in order to repent one’s “sins” against the communist party. The autobiographies were read by committees and in public spaces and also cross-examined against other student witnesses, to ensure their authenticity.
This tension and psychological terror meant that no one was to be trusted in the NEP period. Students weren’t trusting classmates, they were distancing themselves from family, and all with the goal to become part of the collective and further leave the individual behind. While all this seems effective in theory to lead toward a more perfect communist utopia all the while speeding up history, the terror engulfed society. Instead of having a common enemy, as seen in the 1917 October Revolution, the 1920s turned every individual against each other to further prove themselves to the collective. Every person was so paranoid that no progress was actually being made aside from in the reform camps that built a high functioning collective through shared common goals.
The psychological terror was in full effect with the mandate of student autobiographies to show personal and political history in order for the students to prove themselves to the communist party. Tensions were also increased during this period due to the rise of NEP men that brought pseudo capitalism back into communist society.
Capitalism, it was believed, broke society into atoms, erected the myth of the individual in his private domain, and veiled the fact that production - the basis of any society - was in fact a collective and not an individual endeavor. As a consequence of this analysis, the Bolsheviks condemned any defense of the private sphere and declared private matters to be open to public scrutiny as they affected all members of society.[2]
The NEP men were opportunists and a new enemy to communism that made admission to the communist party all the more rigorous for students to prove they’ve had no NEP affiliation personally or in their family history. NEP, while a minority, posed a great risk to the power of the communist party.
Autobiographies of both students and current members of the party were constantly examined and reexamined to ensure they weren’t capitalists or bourgeoisie trying to capitalize and gain political positioning. The anxiety and fear was felt by every individual applying to or already in the communist party. Lenin himself admitted he was not a perfect communist, but that did not halt the mania. The initial terror of violence and stability was replaced by the internal psychological terror and desperation to become a “perfect communist” in the 1920s. The psychological terror, perpetuated by the common public and their strive to be accepted into the party and show they are a "perfect communist," was mainly as a result of lack of information. The public was open to essentially come up with their own criteria of what the party desired for acceptance thus creating mania, paranoia and fueling the terror.
Denunciations (Terror Simmers at the Bottom)
One of the most valuable instruments of citizen versus citizen terror was denunciation. Denunciation in Soviet society was used to expose “alien” elements by making every citizen hyper- vigilant of any potential wrongdoing.
“Denunciation is defined as a written communication to the authorities, voluntarily offered, that provides damaging information about another person”[3]
Denunciations further highlights the fear, paranoia and tension in Soviet society as every citizen is opportunist to show they are closer to the “perfect communist,” even if it means making accusations about another citizen to do so. Denunciations, as with a good deal of Soviet terror efforts, slowed growth of the state and industry.
While denunciations have been around since the time of the Roman Empire, they saw a reemergence in the mid 1920s into the early 1930s in the Soviet Union. The denunciations required no justification and destroyed relationships and economics instantly while promoting careerist individuals.
Four Types of Denunciations
The reasons for the denunciations are varied, historian Shelia Fitzpatrick classifies them into four categories in her article “Signals from Below: Soviet Letters of Denunciation of the 1930s.”
Loyalty Denunciation
A Communist against communist denunciation most commonly used to inform of a citizen’s prior allegiance to a rival political party.[4] These loyalty denunciations were often written out of self-preservation and the social fear that plagued the public. The number of these desperation denunciations increased greatly during the Great Purge to prove oneself to the party, but inevitably would focus more NKVD attention on the denouncer.
Class Denunciation
A denunciation used to expose previous class background or “alien” elements the main targets being of class denunciations were old bourgeois, petty bourgeois, kulaks from pre-revolution times and the modern NEP men. “When Communists wrote denunciations on class grounds, the purpose was usually to unmask another party member who was concealing an "alien" class background.”[5]
Abuse of Power Denunciation
A denunciation usually written by multiple people against factory bosses and Kolkhoz chairmen, giving voice for to the weak.[6] The pseudo self-policing and governance that denunciations offered allowed members of the proletariat seek revenge for how they were treated by the bourgeoisie class during the czar’s rule. One passage from Fitzpatrick recounts a particularly threat filled letter of class denunciation.
A more passionate denunciation came from nine "old party members, civil war veterans," who wrote to Molotov in 1934 about class enemies in responsible positions in the Crimean party organization: four merchants' sons; two priest's sons, including one who was a former tsarist officer; three mullah's sons, one of them rector of the local Communist University; and so on. Everybody knew about this but kept quiet. The authors were afraid to sign their letter for fear of retaliation. But if Molotov did not respond to their letter, they wrote, "then we will appeal to comrade Stalin, and if comrade Stalin does not take measures, then one must say straight out that our regime is not socialist but KULAK.[7]
This is one of the more extreme class denunciation letters, but highlights several factors of class denunciation and the new form of bottom- up terror. Firstly the letter was written as a collective from “old party members and civil war veterans,” who were likely both proletariats and soldiers. They point out nearly every kind of “enemy of the people” in their letter; merchants- bourgeois and NEP men, mullahs – aliens, priests, a czarist from the old regime, and a member of the intelligentsia. The majority of the denounced were sons of these “enemies of the people,” showing the public was encouraged to find any association to possible enemies and report them. The denouncers even go as far as to threaten Molotov, a party leader, and Stalin himself if action was not taken to punish these enemies. While the denouncers did not sign their names out of fear, symbolically this is the pinnacle example of bottom- up terror when the proletariat is threatening Stalin himself as well as questioning the whole nature of the socialist idea that Nikita Khrushchev would do publicly in the following years.
Moral/ Family Denunciation
Family denunciations were less common and usually written by single mothers wanting child support or resources from a spouse.
Failures of Denunciations
The denouncers were reacting to the fact that denunciations were far from a perfect way to self-police and govern effectively. While not all Soviet citizens wrote denunciations, out of a sample of 200 denunciations only one in seven were ever acted upon.[8] False denunciations grew to hurt government efficiency and industrial output since so much time and resources were needed to tell if a denunciation was true or not, that is why they either were acted upon with little proof or not at all.[9] The Soviet newspapers were even involved in sorting where in government each denunciation should be sent, further complicating the process. Abuse of power denunciations, while on the surface may seems the most locally patriotic, often were fueled by the notion that if the boss is denounced and lower level worker could take his place. The very notion of denunciation is self-centered to survive the terror and social panic. Moral and family denunciations further highlight the notion of self-preservation in which single mothers would denounce their spouse for child support and resources, which wouldn’t be provided even if the government acted upon it. Bottom- up terror and the social and political confusion it created led people to manipulate denunciations for financial gain or revenge against neighbors using apartment denunciation. At this point the initial goal of denunciations had been abused so much that it was no longer effective to unmask the enemies of the people.
The Great Purge (Terror Boils back to the Top)
Leonid Nicolaev, a relatively unknown member of Soviet society, sparked the Great Purge after murdering Sergei Kirov. The assignation allowed Stalin to sell the idea of an anti-Stalinist conspiracy to the masses and call for the Great Purge, just as Lenin used the assignation attempts to institute the Red Terror during his reign. The Great Purge led to over a million Soviet people either being arrested or killed. On January 27, 1934 Stalin made a speech saying, ‘“We have smashed the enemies of the party, the opportunist of all shades, the nationalist deviators of all kinds. But the remnants of their ideology still live in the minds of the individual members of the part, and not infrequently they find expression.”’[10] The supposed fulfillment of the Five Year Plan, success of industrialization, and declaration of socialism along with the overpopulation of the party made Stalin able to turn the focus of terror on anti-Leninist ideas, meaning both the party members and the public were targets. This would likely not be possible without the terror from below priming the Soviet public of what is to come during the Great Purge, once again highlighting the circular nature of Soviet terror.
Further reading on Great Purge
Confessions
During The Great Purge, confessions became another form of literary idealogical terror in line with the autobiographies and denunciations that came before and petitions that came after. Forced signed confessions were a terror tactic that allowed Stalin to accuse a party member of wrongdoing and then have them forcibly admit to it and prove Stalin correct for the accusation.
Nikolai Bukharin's Confession
Stalin's Great Purge aimed to rid the party of potential political rivals from the Bolshevik Revolution period. Targets included Grigory Zinoviev and Nikolai Bukharin. Nikolai Bukharin's trail and confession exemplify the tight idealogical terror grip Stalin had on party members, in which he would only admit to his shortcomings in office but not to the accusation that he wasn't a devout and loyal Bolshevik. Bukharin faced the ultimate paradox in which he refused to confess while also refusing to accuse Stalin of wrongdoing. Bukharin went as far as to plead Stalin for a quick death over trail because he could not face the embarrassment of his family in one last letter.
After this conversation with Beria I decided: it is better to die, it is better to leave this earth as an honorable man and to tell nothing but the truth at the trail. At the preliminary investigation I said that I was not a spy, that I was not a terrorist, but they didn’t believe me and beat me up horribly. During the 25 years of my party work I have fought honorably against enemies and have exterminated them. I have committed crimes for which I might well be executed. I will talk about them later. But I have not committed and am innocent of the crimes which have been imputed to me by the prosecution in its bill of indictment….[11]
Bukharin's letter to Stalin went ultimately unanswered, but highlights how the Soviet terror will devour even its most loyal disciples. The terror was a beast that could not be controlled but only directed by Stalin and partially by the will of the people.
Death of Stalin (Terror Diminishes)
Stalin was succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev after his death on March 5, 1953. Khrushchev was a critic of Stalin and publicly blamed him for Kirov's murder, famine, and the victims of the gulag for the first time, which led to mass de-Stalinization. For the first time Stalin and Soviet history were open to be criticized as Khrushchev strived to return to Lenin’s norms and Leninist legality.
Petitioning
Khrushchev released two-thirds of the total gulag population to return back into a society that had changed and left them behind. This led to mass prisoner petitioning for employment, pensions, housing, party status, or their confiscated goods.[12] Political prisoners and criminals were returned to the streets with little provisions and were ultimately exiled from society as a result of the reminiscence of the idealogical terror tactics from the bottom of society.
In 1953 the press had made some attempt to explain the changes, particularly with the assertion that “socialist legality” was now being restored, but for prisoners and their relatives back home these clues to understanding the new era remained confusing and oblique. The petitions of those once cast out of society point to the difficulty ordinary people encountered in the ambiguous climate following Stalin’s death.[13]
Many of the released prisoners from the gulag were outcasts when they returned to society and had to petition just for a piece of what was their day to day lives were prior to the camps. Family relationships were destroyed by the terror and the gulag system. Shalamov recounted, '"I wouldn't want to go back to my family now. They wouldn't understand me, they couldn't... No man should see or know the things I have seen or known.'"[14] The freed gulag prisoners were broken and damaged and spouses often blamed each other for failing marriages. Many of the ex-prisoners remained on the outskirts of society or were sent back to the gulag system as a result of their limited resources and social programing while in the gulag. The ambiguity of the mass exodus from the gulag follow the themes of a lack of information, mistrust and terror perpetuated from the bottom by the public seen in Soviet society.
See Also
- Great Purge
- Bolshevik Revolution
- Joseph Stalin
- Vladimir Lenin
- Red Terror
- Soviet Union
- Grigory Zinoviev
- Nikolai Bukharin
- Nikita Khrushchev
- World War II
- Gulag
- NKVD
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Werth, Nicholas. The Black Book of Communism. p. 74. Search this book on
- ↑ Halfin, Igal (1997). From Darkness to Light: Student Communist Autobiographies during NEP. p. 220. Search this book on
- ↑ Fitzpatrick, Shelia (December 1996). "Signals from Below: Soviet Letters of Denunciation of the 1930s". Journal of Modern History. 68: 837.
- ↑ Fitzpatrick, Shelia (December 1996). "Signals from Below: Soviet Letters of Denunciation of the 1930s". Journal of Modern History. 86: 837.
- ↑ Fitzpatrick, Shelia (December 1996). "Signals from Below: Soviet Letters of Denunciation of the 1930s". Journal of Modern History. 68: 844.
- ↑ Fitzpatrick, Shelia (December 1996). "Signals from Below: Soviet Letters of Denunciation of the 1930s". Journal of Modern History. 68: 845.
- ↑ Fitzpatrick, Shelia (December 1997). "Signals from Below: Soviet Letters of Denunciation of the 1930s". Journal of Modern History. 68: 842.
- ↑ Fitzpatrick, Shelia (December 1997). "Signals from Below: Soviet Letters of Denunciation of the 1930s". Journal of Modern History. 68: 859.
- ↑ Fitzpatrick, Shelia (December). "Signals from Below: Soviet Letters of Denunciation of the 1930s". Journal of Modern History. 68: 834. Check date values in:
|date=(help) - ↑ Getty, John Arch (2010). The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939. Yale University Press. p. 130. Search this book on
- ↑ Getty, John Arch (2010). The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939. Yale University Press. p. 561. Search this book on
- ↑ Dobson, Miriam (2009). Khrushchev’s Cold Summer. Ithica, NY: Cambridge University Press. p. 75. Search this book on
- ↑ Dobson, Miriam (2009). Khrushchev’s Cold Summer. Ithaca, NY: Cambridge University Press. p. 53. Search this book on
- ↑ Cohen, Stephen (2010). The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin. Exeter, NH: Publishing Works. p. 72. Search this book on
The Directional Evolution of Soviet Terror
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