Were the Purges planned?
- Created by: EvieHolmesIsAwesome!
- Created on: 30-04-14 18:29
View mindmap
- Were the Purges planned?
- Were the Purges simply random?
- However, some Historians argue that the Terror was really quite arbitrary, that the frightening thing about the Terror was that it could strike anyone, anywhere, at any time.
- The victims never really knew why they were enmeshed in the system. Often they had been implicated by previous victims under torture, in an effort to save themselves.
- One explanation is that the events of the Terror largely targeted at the Party and bureaucracy seemed to coincide with changes in policy or with problems with industrialisation.
- This is certainly true of these early Purges in 1930 to 1932. They were excuses for the failures of the first Five Year Plans.
- Another explanation is that events were tied in with Stalin's personal battle over leadership.
- All his opponents in the struggle for power figure in the Show Trails and confess to all manner of heinous crimes.
- The Purge of the army seems to be linked with Trotsky - he had been Head of the Red Army and the army was really the only other possible source of power.
- Many of the leading generals must have been confidants of Trotsky, and there is evidence that still, in the 1930's, some leading Communists were maintaining links with Trotsky.
- Were the Purges simply random?
Comments
No comments have yet been made