Whisper-NKVD-Death-Paranoia

                                 1927.

15th meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

After years-long planning, the Soviet government decides to take a course of collectivization as a way of developing the economy. The concept behind the idea was uniting small factories into bigger regional ones, theoretically enabling better management and production, later getting exported to the Western side of the world. Elimination of private land ownership, fitting with communist ideology, was another goal as well. Money from exported goods would be invested in the industrialization of the Soviet Union. Uniting factories and producing more goods "together" was supported by communistic beliefs as well. 

The term "Kulak" was introduced to define individuals who were using "hired" labor in farming. Soviet propaganda did a great work of picturing the Kulaks as a class of the same scale as something close to the bourgeoisie. However, it was for local authorities to define who was a Kulak and who wasn't. Also, the communist party assigned a particular number of captured Kulaks to every region and made capturing them mandatory. The free will of "choosing the enemy of the state" and the mandatory checklist to "fill" resulted in hundreds of thousands of civil workers getting arrested. The first week of the anti-Kulak movement resulted in the arrest of 16,000 "Kulaks." The "Dekulakization" campaign and its devastating impact on millions of peasants, not just those who employed hired labor. The idea of collectivization and anti-kulaks was met negatively, resulting in frequent peasant protests. The more protests occurred more repressions occurred. Collectivization was slowly shutting down in 30s, but repressions did not, fueling Stalin's paranoia of a coup. In 1934 one of Stalin's close associates - Sergei Kirov, gets shot in his own office. This death was commonly used by Stalin  as a pretext for "The Great Terror." Kirov's death was a catalyst, not the sole cause. Stalin's paranoia which was growing fast during the last years, has reached its maximum. 

                                 1936. The great terror begins. 

Now, it was not only about labor workers, and regional military leaders but also about members of the Communistic party. Stalin knew that the nation's favor was not on his side, and old Bolsheviks could use it to organize a coup and rise to power. The paranoia leads to the Elites of the Red Army and the Communist Party getting sentenced to death. Great Terror expands to ordinary people. Fear of getting repressed stimulates local officers to arrest as many people as possible to fill quotas given by the secret soviet police - NKVD. People were encouraged to denounce their neighbors, colleagues, and family members. This created a social aura of fear and suspicion, where anyone could be an informer or a victim. These factors resulted in the crucial role of the Gulag, the vast network of forced labor camps. Millions were sent there, often on flimsy charges, to endure harsh conditions, starvation, and overwork. Many died in the camps. Old Bolsheviks, who built the new country with Stalin; Military leaders, who were executing force of repressions of Kulaks; Intellectual and Cultural Figures, who held independent thinking and culture of oppressed nations; Ordinary citizens, who were arrested on suspicion, or simply victims of the quota system, all of them became victims of paranoia of Stalin.

                                      What goes around, comes around. 

Repressions helped Stalin to consolidate power, yet left with crucial weak sides of the Soviets. Political Instituions. The Communist Party, the military, and other institutions, which faced the Great Terror experienced heavy setbacks and became dependent only on the ruling elite, losing any idea or a chance of independent functionality. World War 2. The purges, especially the decimation of the Red Army's officer corps, weakened the Soviet Union in the early years of World War II. Inexperienced military personnel are commonly taken as one of the biggest factors of massive losses the Soviets faced during the first years of World War 2. These repressions ended alongside Stalin's rule and life in 1953. As historian Timothy Snyder stated Stalin deliberately killed about 6 million citizens of the Soviet Union. 

    Mini-note

Stalin is a perfect example of a tyrannical dictator. A lot can be learned from his period of rule, but the most important lesson would be his filtering of his surroundings. After a rise to power, which of course was "grey", Stalin quickly started wiping off any possible opposition inside the party, the first of which was Trotsky, who is commonly called the "true" successor of Lenin. From the beginning, Stalin knew that he could get thrown out of his throne like he "threw" Lenin. To avoid that he always cleared those around him, who were in power. Doesn't matter who you are, your goals, age, or nationality if you were someone close to the leader after some time you would end up in jail, in a graveyard, or if you are lucky, in retirement. The same logic works with other authoritarian regimes. The leader understands that not only the nation, but also people in power will get tired of the ruler's party, and can form a coalition against him. The solution to this issue is pretty straightforward- keep cleaning your surroundings.

  Another Note

Stalin’s character, decisions, and motives behind those decisions are far beyond hundreds of pages, but I decided to highlight what would stand out from him - repressions, the Gulag, the cycle of renewing his surroundings, and paranoia.

Dear reader, hope you had a good read.

Written by YK