1. Propaganda, Purges & The Totalitarian State
Stalin’s Show Trials
Propaganda, Purges & The Totalitarian State

2. Stalin’s Route to Power
A marginal figure in the October Revolution (1917)
General Secretary of the Communist Party (1922), allowing him to control key appointments throughout the Party.
Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev & Stalin were all possible successors to Lenin after his death in 1924
He conspired with Kamenev & Zinoviev to marginalise the favourite – Trotsky – before subsequently outmaneuvering both Kamenev & Zinoviev to assume total power by the late 1920s.

3. Factors in Stalin’s Show Trials
Collectivisation: An agricultural revolution with enormous human & political costs
Economic Modernisation: A miracle of modernisation over 10 years requiring rigorous planning, central authority & absolute obedience.
Leon Trotsky: the heir-apparent to Lenin & a target of Stalin’s personal & political paranoia. Trotsky’s alleged treachery would be used as a scapegoat for much of the Purges.
The ‘Old Bolsheviks’: Participants of the October Revolution (1917) who could undermine Stalin’s revisionist role and oppose his dictatorial plans.
Sergei Kirov: Kirov’s murder would be the pretext for a state-wide purge of opponents & dissidents

4. The Old Bolsheviks Grigory Zinoviev Lev Kamenev Nikolai Bukharin
The original, surviving members of the October Revolution of 1917, including Lenin & Stalin.
Would present an obstacle to Stalin’s revisionism of his minor role in the October Revolution of 1917.
Stalin targeted these Old Bolsheviks as traitors who sought to undermine the Communist Revolution.
Most of these, particularly Trotsky, advocated International Communism, while Stalin advocated ‘Socialism in One Country’.
Grigory Zinoviev
Lev Kamenev
Nikolai Bukharin
Genrikh Yagoda
Karl Radek
Sergey Kirov
Vyacheslav Molotov

5. Leon Trotsky: Shadow of the Revolutionary
Commander of Red Guards in October Revolution 1917
Founder of the Red Army
Very capable organiser & public orator
Considered the natural successor to Lenin
“The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.”

6. Collectivisation: an Ideological & Economic Imperative
An attempt to end private ownership of land by peasants and introduce large, collectively-owned farms in which machinery, labour & profits were shared. In some cases, collective farms were state-owned, where farmers were paid a wage similar to workers in a factory.
Opposed bitterly by the ‘Kulaks’: peasant land owners.
‘Kulaks’ were an inconsistency with Communism – a wealthy, land-owning class in a Communist State. They were created by Lenin’s New Economic Policy of Many communists supported the forced eradication of these private land owners.
Due to opposition to collectivisation, Stalin introduced forced collectivisation by 1929.
Kulaks slaughtered their animals in protest and in some cases burnt their grain. Famines resulted in Roughly five million people died.
In response, Stalin attempted to eradicate the Kulaks, sending out requisition squads who either killed the Kulaks or sent them to prison in the Gulags.
Roughly five million Kulaks had been dispossessed and/ or imprisoned by

7. The Five - Year Plans: GOSPLAN
GOSPLAN: Central Planning Commission now planned all economic & industrial activity
Set targets & quotas for all industries
First Five-Year Plan concentrated on developing fuel production for heavy indiustries e.g. coal, iron, gas & electricity-producing stations
Workers who exceeded their quotas were rewarded the ‘Order of Lenin medal as an incentive

8. The Five - Year Plans: GOSPLAN
The 1st Five-Year Plan:
The 2nd Five-Year Plan:
3rd Five-Year Plan:
HEAVY INDUSTRY
Machinery Production ( x 4)
Oil production ( x 2)
Electricity ( x 3)
New towns: Magnitogorsk
HEAVY INDUSTRY & INFRASTRUCTURE
New metalworking industries
Transport, especially railways
Moscow Underground
Consumer goods
Some armament production
ARMAMENTS
Massively increased armament production
*(interrupted by German invasion in 1941)

9. SERGEI KIROV
Leader of the Communist Party in Leningrad
Loyal supporter of Stalin
Supported Stalin’s policies of Collectivisation and even the readication of the Kulaks.
Very popular member of the Communist Party who was elected to the Central Committee in 1934.
Crucially, Kirov was in favour of a more relaxed style of Communism, even including certain dissidents in the Politburo.
Assassinated in 1934, probably by order of Stalin, who feared his growing popularity & influence throughout the Communist movement.

10. N.k.v.d. Peoples’ Commissariat for internal affairs
Origin: The ‘Cheka’ (1917 Revolution)
State police founded in 1934 from reorganisation by Stalin to be both regular police force and state security apparatus
The NKVD, from 1934 onwards, were given a wide mandate & enormous power, including control of fire services, security of borders, civil acts & responsibily for the operation of ‘Gulags’
Chief state instrument of Stalin’s purges and the Show Trials
Prominent leaders of the NKVD: Yagoda, Yezhov & Beria

11. Genrikh Yagoda Director of NKVD (1934-1936)
Director of the NKVD, 1934 – 1936
Responsible for the deaths of 7 – 10 million Ukranians during forced seizures of grain supplies under the regulations of Collectivisation
Organised the Trial of the Sixteen (1936), including the arrest, detention and interrogation of the ‘Old Bolsheviks’ e.g. Kamenev, Zinoviev.
Replaced by Yezhov in September when Stalin accused him of being ‘’unable’’ to expose the true extent of the ‘Trotskyite conspiracy’.
Was put on Trial in 1938 (Trial of the Twenty-One), found guilty and shot.

12. ANDREI VYSHINSKY Prosecutor-General

13. Trotskyite-Zinovievite Rightists & Trotskyites
The Show Trials
The 1st Show Trial (1936)
The 2nd Show Trial (1937)
The 3rd Show Trial (1938)
Trial of
The
Trotskyite-Zinovievite
Terrorist Centre
Trial of
The
Anti-Soviet
Trotskyite Centre
Trial of
The
Anti-Soviet
Bloc of
Rightists & Trotskyites

14. The 1st Show Trial: The Trial of the sixteen: (1936)
‘Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre’

15. Verdict: All guilty & sentenced to be shot
Trial of the Sixteen (1936)
Charges
The Accused
Accused of murdering Sergei Kirov
Accused of plotting to murder Stalin
Accused of working with Trotskyites in an effort to undermine Communism in USSR
Zinoviev
Kamenev
14 other leading ‘Old Bolsheviks’
Verdict: All guilty & sentenced to be shot

16. Trial of the Sixteen The ‘Influence’ of Trotsky
Each of the Sixteen defendants took turns to denounce themselves, pleading guilty, incriminating themselves under the false pretense that their lives would be spared once they had publicised Trotsky’s anti-Soviet conspiracy.
“I am guilty of this that after Trotsky, I was the second organizer of the Trotsky-Zinoviev bloc which set itself the aim of murdering Stalin, Voroshilov and a number of other leaders of the party and the government.”
- Grigory Zinoviev (1936)

17. The 2nd Show Trial: The Trial of the seventeen: (1937)
‘Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Centre’

18. Trial of the Seventeen (1937)
Charges
The Accused
Accused of conspiring with Germany & Japan
Accused of plotting with Trotsky
Accused of ‘wrecking & sabotage of the economy’
Radek
Pyatakov
15 others
Verdict: All guilty & sentenced to be shot

19. The 3rd Show Trial: The Trial of the twenty-one: (1938)
‘Anti-Soviet Bloc of Rightists & Trotskyites’

20. Trial of the Twenty-one (1938)
Charges
The Accused
Accused of plotting to murder Stalin
Accused of ‘wrecking & sabotage of the economy’
Bukharin
Rykov
Yagoda
18 others
Verdict: All guilty & sentenced to be shot