Part One The Show Trials LO To identify and describe the key features of the Show Trials The Murder of Kirov Stalin immediately claimed that the murder of Kirov was part of a plot to overthrow him ID: 191157
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Slide1
What was the Great Terror? Part One – The Show Trials
L/O – To identify and describe the key features of the Show TrialsSlide2Slide3Slide4
The Murder of Kirov
Stalin immediately claimed that the murder of Kirov was part of a plot to overthrow him and the rule of the Communist Party.The plot was apparently organised by a ‘
Leningrad Opposition Centre’, with links to Trotsky’s Left Opposition and the United Opposition.
The NKVD (secret police) headed by
Genrihk
Yagoda
was given the power to arrest, trial and execute anyone considered a ‘
terrorist
’.Slide5
After the murder
Stalin used Kirov’s murder on 1st December 1934 as a pretext and
justification for the Great Terror which took place over the next four years. The murder was seen as evidence of a widespread conspiracy and needed to be rooted out.
Within a few weeks, there was a
extensive purge
of the Leningrad party, Kirov’s power base. A ‘
Leningrad centre
’ plotting terrorist acts against the state was ‘uncovered’.
Thousand more were shot and arrested, accused of being
Trotskyites
involved in the murder plot. Kamenev and Zinoviev were arrested and put on trial in January 1935. They were imprisoned despite the fact there was
no direct evidence
.Slide6
After the murder
At this point Stalin is said to have found out about communications between Trotsky and members of opposition groups in the party.
He retaliated by sending out a Central Committee circular in June 1936 on the ‘terrorist activities of the Trotskyist counter-revolutionary bloc
’.
In it Stalin called for any ‘
enemy of the people’
to be unmasked. This was a vague term which could be applied to anybody. Being identified as an enemy of the people meant
arrest and imprisonment
.Slide7
The First Show Trial – August 1936
Often called ‘trial of the sixteen’. The NKVD claimed to have uncovered a Trotskyist-
Zinovievist counter-revolutionary conspiracy. Zinoviev and Kamenev were pulled out of prison and put on trial in the full glare of the public, along with 14 others.
Show trials
were elaborately staged events in which the state prosecutor,
Vyshinsky
, proved the accused guilty of
spying for foreign powers
as well as being involved in
Kirov’s murder
.Slide8
The First Show Trial – August 1936
The NKVD used sleep deprivation, continued questioning and
beatings to force the victims to ‘confess’ to any crime they had been accused of. Their families were often threatened so victims had to tell the truth.
The accused confessed and were
executed
the next day. Zinoviev apparently became so hysterical that his executioner panicked and
shot him in a cell
.
The trial of the sixteen was the
first time
people of the Central Committee had been executed. A line had now been crossed.Slide9
The Second Show Trial – January 1937
In Jan 1937, 17 communist leaders including Karl Radek
(Trotskyite) and Pyatakov (deputy of heavy industry) were accused of plotting with Trotsky to carry out assassinations, sabotage of industry and spying.
All confessed, were found guilty and 13 were
sentenced to death
.
Immediately after the trial,
Nikolai
Ezhov
, the new head of the NKVD, accused Bukharin of having known of Trotsky’s ‘
plans’. He was arrested.Slide10
The Third Show Trial – March 1938
The trial of the 21 was biggest and last of the show trials. It was the most dramatic because it involved Bukharin and he was able to make a more spirited defence.Bukharin and 20 others including old Bolsheviks like
Rykov and the old head of the NKVD – Yagoda – were accused of membership of a ‘
Trotskyist-Rightist Bloc
’.
In the end, they all confessed their crimes and were sentenced to
execution
.Slide11
Why did they confess?
The show trials were clearly a grotesque sham although many inside and some outside the USSR believed them. Evidence was clearly faked.
One of the hotels the conspirators were supposed to have met at did not even exist! So why did tough old Bolsheviks confess?Worn down by torture and interrogation? Confessed as part of a deal for their families to be spared?