Stalin's Terror: opposition to Stalin before 1934

By 1933, the Communist Party was very unpopular

• Rapid industrialisation had created tensions, with workers frustrated by low wages, strict control and harsh punishments in the workplace
• The violence of forced collectivisation and the famine had alienated many of the peasantry; attempts to sabotage collectivisation were frequent and the rural communists were murdered regularly
• The 'former people' (priests, industrialists, traders and 'bourgeois specialists') despised the new regime
• Many Party members were appalled by the methods used to push through industrialisation and collectivisation, including Stalin's wife

Specific examples of opposition
Shakhty Trial (1928)

• In 1928, managers and technicians at the Shakhty coal mine questioned the pace of industrialisation
• They were accused of 'counter-revolutionary activity' and given a …