Reading Harari on Stalin’s Great Terror #raufnexus. Indeed, it is one of the most gruesome chapters in the history of totalitarianism.
Main theses and figures:
The system consisted of three branches: the state apparatus (1.6 million people), the party (2.4 million members) and the secret police (270,000 employees + millions of informants).
Everyone watched each other: the governor was under the supervision of the party commissar, followed by the NKVD, and the NKVD was divided into competing units. This almost completely prevented rebellions against the center.
Party leadership:
Out of 33 members of the Politburo (1919–1938), 14 were executed (42%).
Out of 139 members of the Central Committee of the party (1934) — 98 were executed (70%).
At the XVIII Congress (1939) only 2% of the delegates from the XVII Congress (1934) were able to attend, the rest had been repressed.
Secret police:
The system destroyed itself from within. Genrikh Yagoda, who started the terror, was executed. His successor Nikolai Yezhov was also executed two years later.
By 1941, of the 39 NKVD generals (1935), only two remained alive. One was executed after Stalin’s death, the other died in a mental hospital. It turned out that the profession “NKVD general” was one of the most dangerous in the world.
Red Army:
In the 1930s, 10% of officers were repressed. Among them:
– 83% of division commanders,
– 89% of admirals,
– 87% of army generals,
– 60% of marshals.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 