Rise of Joseph Stalin - The Great Terror

The Great Terror

On December 1, 1934, Sergei Kirov was murdered by Leonid Nikolaev. The death of this popular, high-profile politician shocked Russia, and Stalin used this murder to begin The Great Terror. Within hours of Kirov's death, Stalin declared Grigory Zinoviev and his supporters to be responsible for Kirov's murder. Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev were arrested and, to escape long prison sentences, confessed to political and moral responsibility for Kirov's murder. They were sentenced to five and ten years respectively. Stalin sanctioned the formation of troikas for the purpose of extrajudicial punishment. Hundreds of oppositionists linked to Kamenev and Zinoviev were arrested and exiled to Siberia. In late 1935, Stalin reopened the case. Kamenev and Zinoviev were interrogated again, and Trotsky was now implicated in Kirov's murder. In July 1936, Stalin personally promised to Kamenev and Zinoviev that there would be no executions or persecution of their families if they confessed to conspiring with Trotsky. This promise was broken. After a show trial, Kamenev and Zinoviev were executed that August.

Spearheading Stalin's campaign was a Commissar called Nikolai Yezhov, a fervent Stalinist and a believer in violent repression. Nikolai Yezhov continued to expand the lists of suspects to include all the old oppositionists as well as entire nationalities, such as the Poles.

Stalin distrusted the Soviet secret police - the NKVD - which was filled with Old Bolsheviks and ethnicities he distrusted, such as Poles, Jews and Latvians. In September 1936, Stalin fired the head of the NKVD, Genrikh Yagoda, and replaced him with the more aggressive and zealous Yezhov.

Since his falling out with Stalin in the late 1920s, Bukharin wrote an endless stream of letters of repentance and admiration to Stalin. However, Stalin knew Bukharin's repentance was insincere, as in private Bukharin continued to court Stalin's opponents (the NKVD wiretapped Bukharin's telephone). Kamenev and Zinoviev had denounced him as a traitor during their trial. At the December 1936 plenum of the Central Committee, Yezhov accused Bukharin and Alexey Rykov of treachery. In March 1938, Bukharin was coerced through torture into confessing to conspiring against Stalin, and later executed.

Stalin eventually turned on Yezhov. He appointed Yezhov Commissar of Water Transport in April 1938 (a similar thing had happened to Yezhov's predecessor shortly before he was fired). Stalin began ordering the executions of Yezhov's protégés in the NKVD. Politburo members also started to openly condemn the excesses of the NKVD. Yezhov eventually suffered a nervous breakdown and resigned as NKVD chief on November 23. He was replaced by Lavrentiy Beria.