Once his accumulation of power was complete and unchallengeable in the 1930s, Stalin began to purge "old Bolsheviks"--his former adversaries--in his quest to maintain and strengthen his hold on power. Periodic purges were commonplace after the Bolshevik seizure of power. The Great Purges, which were conducted on Stalin's orders, were characterized by their focus on party and state elites, the use of mass terror, and dramatic public "show trials" and "confessions" by the accused.
Beginning in 1936, there were series of trails held in Moscow, many leading Communists and old Bolsheviks were tried; they confessed and were executed or sentences to hard labor. At the same time, millions of ordinary Soviet citizens simply disappeared in what became known as the "deep comb-out." Eventually some 8 million people were arrested, 1 million of whom were executed; the remainder were sent to the gulags (force-labor camps).
Simultaneously, Stalin reversed Lenin's New Economic Policy, which had introduced a degree of capitalism in order to revive the economy, purged the middle-class peasants who had emerged under that policy, which was called the Kulaks, and carried out the collectivization of agriculture.Reliable casualty figures for the collectivization drive are unavailable, but if one includes the famine fatalities, the number of those who died may exceed 10 million people. Russian writer Nikolai Tolstoi has put the number who died in the gulags under Stalin at 12 million people. These numbers compare with a total of 15,000 executions in the last 50 years of the tsars. In terms of the sheer number of victims, the Soviet Union under Stalin unquestionably outdistanced Hitler's Germany.
Soviet Dictator
Stalin implemented a series of five-year plans that set quotas for growth in all areas of the economy, much of which was devoted to the exploitation of Soviet natural resources and development of heavy industry. The last of these plans prior to World War II also emphasized military weapon productions. although growth was uneven, considerable progress was registered, much of which came at the expense of the living standards of the Soviet people.
German ambitions alarmed Stalin in the 1930s, who grew interested in collective security. He instructed People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maksim Litvinov to pursue an internationalist course. The USSR joined the League of Nations in 1934, Stalins also made secured defensive pacts with other nations, including France. In August 1939 Stalin arranged a nonaggression pact with Germany that allowed Adolf Hitler to invade Poland without fear of war with the Soviets. Stalin hoped this would strengthen his own military, and he also gained territory in eastern Poland and the Baltic states. Stalin received many warnings in the winter and spring of 1941 that Germany was preparing to attack the Soviet Union and thought it was just a poly by the Allied powers to trick him. In consequence, Stalin's forces were largely unprepared for Operation BARBAROSSA, the German invasion of 22 June 1941.
Red Army
Red Army, Russian Krasnaya Armiya, Soviet army created by the Communist government after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The name Red Army was abandoned in 1946. The Red Army was recruited exclusively from among workers and peasants and immediately faced the problem of creating a competent and reliable officers’ corps. Up to 1921 about 50,000 such officers served in the Red Army and with but few exceptions remained loyal to the Soviet regime. Political advisers called commissars were attached to all army units to watch over the reliability of officers and to carry out political propaganda among the troops.
Death
Though his popularity from his successes during the war was strong, Stalin's health began to deteriorate in the early 1950s. He ordered a new purge of the Communist Party after an assassination plot was uncovered. Before it could be put in place, Stalin died by a stroke on March 5, 1953. He left a legacy of death and terror as he turned a backward Russia into a world superpower.