Stalin’s Purges

The final stage of the purges was the purge of the people. This purge of the people was carried out to force the public into giving their complete support for Stalin, making the country more of a totalitarian state. The people of Russia from then on lived a life of fear as one person in every eight of the population was arrested during these purges. Nearly all of the people who were arrested were taken away without reason and almost every family in the country suffered a loss of at least one of its members as a victim of the terror. The number of victims to be arrested was laid down in a quota, indicating that people were no longer treated as individuals but mere numbers. This part of the purge was thought to have been carried out to frighten the USSR’s national minorities into abandoning any thoughts of challenging Stalin’s power forcing these people into a full acceptance of Stalin’s enforced industrialisation programme.

Stalin’s motive for committing these purges was his desire to impose his absolute authority by bringing the party, state and army under his control. However even after he reached this aim the purges still continued. The purges significantly damaged the Russian economy by the mass killing of workers and the people of Russia. The purges also catastrophically weakened the Soviet army by the killings of the capable generals and troops which were replaced by incompetent people. This hurt the army especially when the Second World War started and the army only really began to recover at around 1942. Stalin destroyed people not for what they had done but for what they might do. His suspicions and fears revealed a deeply distorted mind which was responsible for the devastating purges. Stalin’s exaggerated use of terror to gain control of the state worked but the consequences came at a very high price.