Stalin: Collectivization and Purges

By jmg_1428

  • The Shakhty Affair

    In the Shakhty area of Donbass, 55 mining engineers were accused of sabotage on behalf of international capital. Between 2,000-7,000 specialists were arrested. This event is an early example of the anit-manegerial, anti-expert trend in Stalin's purges,
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    First Five-Year Plan

    The First Five-Year Plan focused oh heavy industry (production of coal, iron, steel, oil, and machinery). Growth in energy production and the light industry was also a goal of this plan. Stalin set the goals outrageously high. Many factories, mines, and industrial complexes were built during this time.
    Implementation costs delayed the implementation of the Second Five-Year Plan. Other negative effects include housing and food shortages from population growth and collectivization.
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    Campaign against the Kulaks

    Stalin set high quotas or grain production. Officials arrested, deported, and confiscated the land of peasants that did not meet the quotas. In total, officials collected about 16 million tons of grain.
    Stalin also sought to eliminate the kulaks as a class through this campaign.

  • Mass Collectivization

    Workers, soldiers, police, and Komosol members traveled to the countryside to create collectives. Local committees could use any "necessary measures" to collectivize. In March 1930, 58% of households had been collectivized. After resistance from kulaks (especially in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and North Causasus), Stalin returned official policy to voluntary collectivization. Households collectivized after this change went down to 20%.
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    Collectivization

    Year : % of households in collective farms
    1931: 50%
    1934: 70%
    1935: 75%
    1937: 90%

  • The Ryutin Affair

    Ryutin published a document calling for the end and collectivization and for Stalin's dismissal. Ryutin and his supporters, including Kamenev and Zinoviev, were tried and expelled from the Central Committee.
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    Famine

    Due to drought and collectivization, a famine began in Ukraine and spread to other parts of the Northern Caucus.
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    Second Five-Year Plan

    In the Second Five-Year Plan, iron, steel, and machine-production increased rapidly. This rapid growth came from an increase in labor productivity from the Stakhanovite Movement.

  • The Seventeenth Party Congress

    This Congress abolished post of General Secretary. This event showed that the entire party did not support Stalin's leadership.

  • The Kirov Affair

    Kirov (critic of Stalin) was assassinated. In the following weeks, over 100 party members were shot and thousands more arrested for being Trotskyists and Zinovievists.

  • Trial of the Sixteen

    NKVD claimed they discovered a Trotsyist-Zinovievist conspiracy, in league with capitalist staes, White Guards, and Kulaks. Zinoviev, Kamenev, Smirnov, Syrtsov, and 12 others were tried and executed. At the same time, 43 other leaders "disappeared."
    Yezhov replaced Yagoda as head of the NKVD since Yagoda did not continue to investigate.
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    The Great Purge

  • Trial of the Seventeen

    A second show trial of communist leaders accused of plotting with Trotsky. Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, and Yagoda were charged for supposedly being linked to Trotsky after this trial.
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    The Great Terror (Yezhovshchina)

    The Great Terror began when the Purges began to affect people outside of the party; such as administrators, commoners, engineers, railway workers, and other specialists. Additionally, Purges also reached the Red Army. Around 50% of the entire officer corps were executed or imprisoned. The fear of arrest was so great that people would denounce others to prove their own loyalty to Stalin.

  • Trial of the Twenty-one

    This last set of show trials focused on eliminating a supposed Rightist-Trotskyist bloc. Those tried include Bukharin, Rykov, and Rakovsky.
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    Third Five-Year Plan

    Before this plan, factory production and transportation by rail had declined due to fuel shortages and the Purges. This plan was the final step in allowing the USSR to fully industrialize and transition into communism. Stalin planned to increase production by 92% but this plan was disrupted by Nazi Germany's invasion in June 1941.

  • The End of the Great Terror

    -Central Committee decided to have a party recruitment drive to replace those that had been purged.
    -Eighteenth Party Congress announced "mass cleansings" were no longer necessary.
    -Yezhov accused of being a British agent and executed; mass arrests ended and thousands of Gulag prisoners were released