Stalin's purges

Background
The Russian Civil War of 7th November (25th October), 1917 to 25th October (12th October), 1922 was horrific and chaotic. Some minor skirmishes with the remnants of the White forces continued in the Far East continuing well into 1923.

The Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) on the 25th of January 1918, became a communist state in 1919 after a bloody civil war, was (like Tsarist-come-communist Belarus) annexed by Bolshevik Russia in 1921 and helped create the USSR in 1922. It was a sovereign state between 1918 and 1921. Many Ukrainians still wanted out of the USSR and/or the end of communism.

Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan both later figured prominently in the anti-Bolshevik movement in Central Asia and held out until 1924. There was even an attempt to set up a autonomous state in the city of Kokand. The armed national resistance in Central Asia was not completely crushed until 1934, but most of it was over by 1922-1924 after the Bolsheviks had granted them cultural, Islamic and economic privileges in the wake of some major Bolshevik victory on the battlefields.

The anti-Slavic Turkic Central Asian Basmachi movement (Russian: Басмачество, transliteration: Basmachestvo) or Basmachi Revolt was an uprising against Russian Imperial and Soviet rule by the Muslim peoples of Central Asia between 1916 and 1934.

The Caucasus Mountains were conquered by the USSR in 1922, became a puppet state in 1922 soon absorbed in to the Soviet's growing Red empire in 1924.

Mongolia became independent in 1911, was re-occupied by China in 1921, annexed in all but name in 1922 and a Soviet satellite state in 1924.

Localised armed resistance to Soviet/ethnic Slavic rule reoccurred to a lesser extent after the collectivization campaigns in the pre-World War 2 Soviet historical era.

The plan
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was in a politically dangerous situation and thus feared rightfully at first and then later needlessly due to being clinically paranoid about people considering against him.

What became known as The Great Purge was a ruthless campaign of political repression that ran from 1936 to 1938 and involved a large-scale purge of the Communist Party and government officials, repression of peasants and the Red Army leadership, violence, expulsion from the communist party, intimidation and widespread police surveillance, suspicion of "saboteurs", imprisonment, and arbitrary executions.

The NKVD (later the KGB) and the GRU threw thousands in to the infamous Gulags.

The purges them selves
The purges involved the large-scale purge of the Communist Party and government officials, repression of peasants and the Red Army leadership, and widespread police surveillance, suspicion of "saboteurs", imprisonment, and arbitrary executions. By the end of the 1930s Stalin had succeeded in his goal of executing almost all of the former Bolsheviks who had played prominent roles during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and/or in Lenin's Soviet government afterwards.

1930s
First and Second Moscow Trials. Between 1936 and 1938, 3 massive Moscow Trials of former senior Communist Party leaders took place.

The related genocide and the Soviet famine of 1932–33.
Soviet famine of 1932–33

Holodomor

The aftermath
The devastated officer core and ill equipped troops had difficulty in the 1939-1940 Winter War. Soviet numbers eventually made up for opposing Finnish wisdom. Political commissars were militerily degraded, traditional army ranks restored, 2 'political' medals scrapped and several 'real' medals for things like valour were restored in 1940 as a way of making the Red Army a true fighting force.

Also see

 * House Committee on Un-American Activities

Links

 * 1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge
 * 2) http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/russia/stalinpurgesandpraisesrev1.shtml
 * 3) http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/purges_ussr.htm
 * 4) http://gendercide.org/case_stalin.html
 * 5) http://russiapedia.rt.com/of-russian-origin/stalins-purges/
 * 6) http://historyofrussia.org/stalins-purges/
 * 7) http://spartacus-educational.com/RUSpurge.htm
 * 8) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Winter_War
 * 9) http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/winter_war.htm
 * 10) http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/winter_war_1939.htm
 * 11) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Bukharin
 * 12) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkmenistan
 * 13) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War
 * 14) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basmachi_movement
 * 15) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
 * 16) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%9333