Great Purge

This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. You can assist by editing it. (November 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Great Purge
Part of the purges of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
People of Vinnytsia searching through the exhumed victims of the Vinnytsia massacre, 1943
Location	Soviet Union, Xinjiang, Mongolian People's Republic
Date	Main phase: 19 August 1936 – 17 November 1938 (2 years, 2 months, 4 weeks and 1 day)
Target	Political opponents, Trotskyists, Red Army leadership, kulaks, religious activists and leaders
Attack type	Summary executions Massacres Mass murder Ethnic cleansing Genocide
Deaths	681,692 executions and 116,000 deaths in the Gulag system (official figures)[1] 700,000 to 1.2 million (estimated)[1] [2][3]
Perpetrators	Joseph Stalin, the NKVD (Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolai Yezhov, Lavrentiy Beria, Ivan Serov and others), Vyacheslav Molotov, Andrey Vyshinsky, Lazar Kaganovich, Kliment Voroshilov, Robert Eikhe and others
Motive	Elimination of political opponents,[4] consolidation of power,[5] fear of counterrevolution,[6] fear of party infiltration[7]

Part of a series on the
History of the Soviet Union
Background Communism Bolshevism World revolution Russian Social Democratic Labour Party Bolshevik split Bolshevik Party Russian Empire World War I February Revolution
1917–1927: Establishment October Revolution Russian Civil War Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Red Terror War communism New Economic Policy Treaty on the Creation of the USSR National delimitation Death and funeral of Lenin
1927–1953: Stalinism Socialism in one country Collectivization Soviet famine of 1932–1933 Holodomor Kazakhstan famine of 1932–1933 Industrialization Cultural Revolution Great Purge Moscow trials World War II Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact Great Patriotic War Operation Barbarossa Occupation of the Baltic states Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina Battle of Berlin Soviet invasion of Manchuria Soviet deportations Soviet famine of 1946–1947 Cold War Berlin Blockade Korean War First Indochina War Death and funeral of Stalin
1953–1964: Khrushchev Thaw East German uprising of 1953 Virgin Lands campaign 1954 transfer of Crimea Khrushchev Thaw De-Stalinization ""On the Cult of Personality" We will bury you 1956 Georgian demonstrations Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Wage reforms Peaceful coexistence Consolidation of the Cuban Revolution Sino-Soviet split Space program Cuban Missile Crisis
1964–1982: Era of Stagnation Brezhnev Doctrine Era of Stagnation 50th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide protests Six-Day War Détente Vietnam War Laotian Civil War Operation Menu Cambodian Civil War Fall of Saigon Yom Kippur War Prague Spring Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia Wars in Africa Angolan War of Independence Angolan Civil War Mozambican War of Independence Mozambican Civil War South African Border War Rhodesian Bush War Cambodian–Vietnamese War Soviet–Afghan War 1980 Summer Olympics Olympic boycotts 1980 Olympic boycott 1984 Olympic boycott Polish strike Death and funeral of Brezhnev
1982–1991: Decline and collapse Invasion of Grenada Glasnost Perestroika Chernobyl disaster Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan Singing Revolution Estonian Sovereignty Declaration Baltic Way Lithuanian independence Economic blockade Latvian independence Revolutions of 1989 Pan-European Picnic Peaceful Revolution Fall of the Berlin Wall Velvet Revolution End of communist rule in Hungary Romanian Revolution German reunification Dissolution of the Soviet Union Jeltoqsan First Nagorno-Karabakh War April 9 tragedy Black January Osh riots War of Laws Dushanbe riots January Events The Barricades Referendum New Union Treaty August Coup Ukrainian revolution independence declaration referendum Belovezha Accords Alma-Ata Protocol
Soviet leadership Lenin Stalin Malenkov Khrushchev Brezhnev Andropov Chernenko Gorbachev List of troikas
Related topics Culture Economy Education Geography History Leadership Politics Soviet Empire Russia Soviet republics Post-Soviet states
Soviet Union portal
v t e

Part of a series on
Communism
Concepts Anti-capitalism Class conflict Class consciousness Classless society Collective leadership Communist party Communist revolution Communist state Commune Communist society Critique of political economy Free association "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" Market abolitionism Proletarian internationalism Labour movement Social revolution Stateless society Wage slavery Workers' self-management World communism World revolution Dictatorship of the proletariat
Economics Planned economy Gift economy Common ownership Socialization (Marxism) Economic democracy Use value
Variants Anarchist Marxism Leninist Libertarian Pre-Marxist Utopian Primitive Religious Christian
History Communist League First International Second International Third International Fourth International
Organisations Communist Parties WPC WFTU WFDY IUS WIDF WFSW IOR
People Mazdak More Meslier Babeuf Marx Engels Morris Kropotkin Malatesta Pannekoek Du Bois Lenin Luxemburg Kollontai Stalin Trotsky Lukács Thälmann Makhno Bukharin Ho Gramsci Tito Togliatti Benjamin Khrushchev Mao Pot Zhou James Padmore Sartre Hoxha Beauvoir Nkrumah Kim Hobsbawm Althusser Freire Pasolini Mandel Raja Fanon Castro Berger Guevara Guattari Debord Amin Berlinguer Negri Guzmán Badiou Sison Newton Ali Davis Holloway Hampton Zizek Sankara Öcalan Gordillo Gilmore Marcos Hardt Dean Graeber Lordon Kelley Fisher Prashad Zyuganov Hatherley Moufawad-Paul Saito
By region Britain Cambodia Colombia France India Kerala Korea Nepal Peru Philippines Poland Soviet Union Sumatra Vietnam
Symbols Hammer and sickle Red flag (politics) Red star "The Internationale" "Workers of the world, unite!"
Criticism Anti-communism Communist propaganda Criticism of communist party rule Criticism of Marxism
Related topics 21st-century communist theorists Anti anti-communism Anti-communist mass killings Anti-fascism Communitarianism Mass killings under communist regimes Internationalism Intentional community Left-wing politics Old Left New Left LGBTQ rights Marx's theory of alienation National communism Romania Red Scare Revolutionary socialism Socialist economics Socialist mode of production Trade union War communism Worker cooperative
Communism portal Socialism portal
v t e

The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (Russian: Большой террор, romanized: Bol'shoy terror), also known as the Year of '37 (37-й год, Tridtsat' sed'moy god) and the Yezhovshchina (Ежовщина [(j)ɪˈʐofɕːɪnə], lit. 'period of Yezhov'), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 and 1938. It sought to consolidate Joseph Stalin's power over the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and aimed at removing the remaining influence of Leon Trotsky within the Soviet Union.^[8] The term great purge was popularized by the historian Robert Conquest in his 1968 book The Great Terror, whose title was an allusion to the French Revolution's Reign of Terror.^[9]

The purges were largely conducted by the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs), which functioned as the interior ministry and secret police of the USSR. Starting in 1936, the NKVD under chief Genrikh Yagoda began the removal of the central party leadership, Old Bolsheviks, government officials, and regional party bosses.^[10] Soviet politicians who opposed or criticized Stalin were removed from office and imprisoned or executed by the NKVD. Eventually, the purges were expanded to the Red Army and military high command, which had a disastrous effect on the military.^[11][12] The campaigns also affected many other categories of the society: intelligentsia, wealthy peasants —especially those lending out money or wealth (kulaks)—and professionals.^[13] As the scope of the purge widened, the omnipresent suspicion of saboteurs and counter-revolutionaries began affecting civilian life. The purge reached its peak between September 1936 and August 1938 under the leadership of Nikolai Yezhov, hence the name Yezhovshchina. The campaigns were carried out according to the general line of the party, often by direct orders of the politburo headed by Stalin.^[14] Hundreds of thousands of people were accused of various political crimes (espionage, wrecking, sabotage, anti-Soviet agitation, conspiracies to prepare uprisings and coups). They were executed by shooting or sent to the Gulag labor camps. The NKVD targeted certain ethnic minorities such as the Volga Germans, and Soviet citizens of Polish origin, who were subjected to forced deportation and extreme repression. Throughout the purge, the NKVD sought to strengthen control over civilians through fear, and frequently used imprisonment, torture, violent interrogation, and executions during its mass operations.^[15]

In 1938, Stalin reversed his stance on the purges, criticized the NKVD for carrying out mass executions, and oversaw the execution of Genrikh Yagoda and Nikolai Yezhov, who headed the NKVD during the purge years. Scholars estimate the death toll for the Great Purge (1936–1938) to be roughly 700,000-1.2 million.^{[16][17][18][19]} Despite the end of the Great Purge, the widespread surveillance and atmosphere of mistrust continued for decades. Similar purges took place in Mongolia and Xinjiang. While the Soviet government desired to put Trotsky on trial during the purge, his exile prevented this. Trotsky survived the purge, though he would be assassinated in 1940 by the NKVD on the orders of Stalin.^[20][21]