1934 What was the political purge in the Soviet Union?

1934 12. Stalin began to persecute former opposition members and their followers on the grounds that Kirov, the second figure of the Soviet Central Committee, was killed. A large number of senior officials of the Party, government and army, such as Zinoviev, Pi Dakov, Bukharin, Likov and tukhachevsky, were killed one after another, hundreds of thousands of cadres were purged and shot, and/kloc-0.5 million innocent people were affected, which became an unprecedented political disaster in human history.

1 93465438+February1Sunday night, 48-year-old Sergei Mirovic Kirov, the second figure of the Soviet central Committee and the first secretary of the Leningrad municipal party Committee, was shot dead in the building of the Smolny research institute in Leningrad. A few days after the incident, the government issued a statement asserting that Kirov's murderer was a White Guard terrorist, and these white Russians sneaked into the former Soviet Union from Poland, Lithuania and Finland to carry out terrorist activities.

For a long time after the October Revolution, Kirov supported Stalin and Stalin's line in all previous struggles, enhanced Stalin's prestige and waged a ruthless struggle with his opponents.

But Stalin was dominated by an extremely narrow and cruel thought. Stalin was obsessed with absolute power and prestige. Long before Kirov was killed, he used various political tricks and powerful means to free himself from the supervision of party member and the masses. After Kirov's death, Stalin immediately set off a big arrest climax. Without consulting other members of the Politburo, he did not hesitate to order the execution of a large number of people, although most of them had nothing to do with the Kirov case. Within a few days, Leningrad executed 39 people, Moscow executed 29 people, Kiev executed 28 people and Minsk executed 9 people. At the same time, there was a movement in Leningrad to move out a large number of former nobles and their families, and most of them did not engage in any underground activities or anti-Soviet activities.

1935 In May, Stalin dissolved the "Old Bolshevik Association" (all members were old party member) and began to tamper with history and fabricate biographies. A month later, Stalin banned the Association of Political Prisoners and Exiled Immigrants. The government has also promulgated an unprecedented law in the history of world civilization:/kloc-children over 0/2 years old should bear the same responsibility (including the death penalty) as adults for all kinds of crimes they commit.

In this context, Stalin organized the first Moscow public trial in 1936, targeting 14 people including Zinoviev and Kaminez. Obviously, the first two men were tried for the second time because the prison term imposed on them in the first trial could not satisfy Stalin.

Since the summer of 1936, successive purges have caused great panic to the whole Soviet Union. At the beginning of 1937, Erov, a confidant appointed by Stalin, set off a larger-scale cleaning called "Erov whirlwind". This whirlwind soon led to the second Moscow trial.

1937 65438+1on October 20th, all the newspapers in the former Soviet Union published an indictment signed by Attorney General Wiczynski, accusing Georgi Leodovich Pi Dakov, Karl Borgandovich Radek and other 17 Trotskyites of organizing Trotsky Center, betraying the motherland and engaging in espionage. 1937 65438+1On October 30th, thirteen people including Pi Dakov were sentenced to death. It is inevitable that the other four people failed to escape the fate of being executed.

The third Moscow trial began in March 1938. Although the main defendant who appeared in court was very popular in Lenin's time, the final judgment was ruthless.

1937 In June, Marshal tukhachevsky, a member of the People's Committee of the former Soviet Ministry of National Defense, and seven other senior Soviet generals were arrested. In the next two days, all eight people were shot for treason and other crimes. In the following two months,1August, 937, Stalin delivered a speech at the meeting of political cadres of the Red Army, calling for "destroying the enemy" in the Red Army, and said that "there is a closely branched spy network in the Red Army". It has set off a heinous wave, making everyone in the army feel insecure and making false accusations a common practice. During the period of 1937- 1938, a large number of senior and middle-level military and political cadres were arrested and the bodies of tens of thousands of people were destroyed.

This purge of the Red Army also swept through the Red Army Military Academy, and many military academy directors were executed on trumped-up charges.

As a result of purging the Red Army in various names such as "parallel military center" and "opposition group within the army", a large number of Red Army cadres from the Ministry of National Defense to the army, divisions and regiments were killed innocently. The backbone of the Red Army was destroyed and almost became a leaderless army-or Stalin became the only leader.

According to the foreign magazine of the former Soviet Union, 1937- 1938 resulted in the execution of nearly 35,000 Red Army commanders, nearly 80 senior officers, 3 of 6 field marshals, 13 of 5 army commanders and 85 army commanders. According to the brief history of the Great Patriotic War, the situation is even more serious. In a word, no matter which war, no matter which army, it suffered as heavy losses as the former Soviet army before the war.

As early as 1932, when hundreds of thousands of homeless children tortured by hunger crowded many railway stations and big cities, Stalin issued an extremely cruel secret order: anyone caught robbing granaries or digging trains and those suffering from sexually transmitted diseases should be shot, and the death penalty should be executed in secret.

Without formal trial, a large number of party member were sentenced to death, which was the first time in the history of the former Soviet Union. But then in the summer of 1937, when Ye Ruofu was appointed as a member of the Internal Affairs People's Committee, Stalin ordered him to prepare a second list, which would list 5,000 people from other opposition parties, who were also shot naked.

Since May 1935, many of Stalin's loyal allies have also been arrested, and these arrested people have never joined any political opposition. Slypnikov and Medvedev joined the "Workers' Opposition" signed by 22 people in the 1920s and were sentenced to death without trial or any testimony. Their children were also arrested and exiled.

Large-scale repression has also hurt foreign producers in the Soviet Union, and party member and progressives in various countries of the Soviet Union have also become the targets of cleaning up by the People's Committee of the Interior.

Among the Central Committee members and alternate members elected at the 17th National Congress of the former Soviet Union, 70% were labeled as "enemies of the Party and the people". Among the 1966 delegates who had the right to vote and consult,1654,38+008 were convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes and arrested or executed.

Strictly speaking, this political purge in the 1930s continued after World War II until Stalin's death. Affected150,000 innocent people. Only between 654.38+0936 and 654.38+0939, more than 654.38+0930 million people were suppressed and more than four or five million people were arrested. It can be called a catastrophe in the history of the former Soviet Union and even in the history of the world, and an unprecedented political disaster in human history.

This "counter-revolutionary" movement in the former Soviet Union in 1930s was a man-made political disaster. As far as its scale is concerned, it is indeed comparable to a great war and a raging natural disaster. Considering its insidious nature and narrow and despicable personal goals hidden behind persecution, its harmfulness is even more shocking. This disaster is now widely known, but it will take nearly fifteen years for the details of this terrible disaster to be revealed for the first time, which cannot but be said to be the sorrow of mankind. Human reason and conscience were tortured in this incident.

Perhaps this movement can make people understand the terrible consequences of narrowness, hostility and hatred of human nature. In a series of unforgivable and shocking extraordinary events, people may think of the simple word "conscience". The reason, unique background and cruelty of this political disaster are still worth thinking and summarizing, which makes people realize the importance of restricting and supervising power.