×

Używamy ciasteczek, aby ulepszyć LingQ. Odwiedzając stronę wyrażasz zgodę na nasze polityka Cookie.

image

Inter-War Period (between WW 1 and II), Stalin’s Paranoid Military Purges - The Great Terror | BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1938 Part 4 of 4 - YouTube (1)

Stalin's Paranoid Military Purges - The Great Terror | BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1938 Part 4 of 4 - YouTube (1)

It is one of the most self-destructive series of events in Soviet history. It is an escalation

of the already oppressive, suppressive, murderous behaviour of Josef Stalin's regime. It is

a parody of justice and a disgrace even to Communism. It pits friends against friends,

spouses against spouses, children against parents, and destroys the social fabric of

the Soviet Union. It is a sign that Stalin is not only ruthless, but pathologically paranoid.

It will cost hundreds of thousands of lives over mere months, and its consequences will

waste millions more. It is Stalin's great terror and military purges.

Welcome to Between-2-Wars a chronological summary of the interwar years, covering all

facets of life, the uncertainty, hedonism, and euphoria, and ultimately humanity's descent

into the darkness of the Second World War. I'm Indy Neidell.

We saw in our episode on the Holodomor that Stalin is willing to have perceived enemies

or 'undesirables' killed by the millions. Political terror is a cornerstone of 1930s

Soviet politics, and as historian Hiroaki Kuromiya will later describe it, 'it was a

policy of extraordinarily intense, concentrated and purposeful killing of, at least, hundreds

of thousands of people.' This is not limited to specific operations directed at particular

groups like the Ukrainians. Hordes of Soviet citizens and soldiers get caught up in the

hysteria and are sentenced to death by Soviet courts or purged from the army.

The terror and the purges impact the entire Soviet community, and it trickles down from

the most high-profile people in the army to the most modest farmer.

Because it isn't just big names like Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the number one military man

in the whole nation since the revolution, and his colleagues who are killed on suspicion

of being 'hidden enemies'. It's anybody. Okay, purges already became a thing in the

Soviet military in the 1920s. They were used to 'improve ideological conformity', and to

get rid of anyone who didn't fit into the heavily politicized Red Army. In fact, most

people living in the Soviet Union are by now already kinda used to this practice. So when

the Great Terror takes a hold of the Soviet Union in 1937, many ordinary soldiers and

officers see it as their duty to report anyone who might be unfit for duty or could be a

threat to the Soviet Ideology. But while Soviet History has many twists and turns, with revolutionaries

and counter-revolutionaries left and right, the events of 1937 really stand out.

In the summer of 1936, a group of alleged Trotskyist counter-revolutionaries- including

Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinovyev, two of the original seven leaders of the Bolshevik revolution-

are arrested and charged with conspiring to murder high-ranking communist party members.

But though the Red Army is supposed to keep a check on its own members, it is the NKVD

which 'discovers' the conspiracy, and with that, the trust in the army's ability to cleanse

itself from undesirables vanishes. This is the starting point of a thorough NKVD sweep

through the Red Army Ranks. It's well illustrated by a letter sent to one of the most prominent

Soviet political and military leaders, Kliment Voroshilov. The letter is from his friend,

military commander Semyon Budyonny. 'It seems to me that it is necessary to check especially

carefully people in the army, since in the ranks we see people from the command, the

officers and political workers, who on the one hand have careerist tendencies and on

the other a tendency to consider serious questions not from the point of view of the state but

from a narrowly personal point of view […] and also people who easily give in to any kind

of influence, in particular counter-revolutionary.' Voroshilov forwards this letter, effectively

damning the red Army's Military and Political officers, to both Stalin and influential Soviet

Bureaucrat Nikolai Yezhov.

In September 1936, Yezhov replaces Genrikh Yagoda as the new head of the NKVD on Stalin's

orders. This is where things really start to escalate, as Yezhov is prone to conspiracy

theories and even keen to make up his own. Also, he doesn't really care that much about

having sufficient evidence before putting someone on trial - or he just has it fabricated.

The number of show-trials and convictions rises steeply. The scope of the investigations

into Trotsky-conspiracies is widened, and the arrests grow in number.

Furthermore, any industrial accident or output shortfall is explained as sabotage - meaning

that many workers go down for this, especially since Stalin's five years plans have upset

the industrial and agricultural sectors. People who had opposed the current leaders back in

the early1930s or the 20s are apprehended retroactively, and political enemies are taken

care of. Yagoda himself is executed in 1938 after being found guilty of treason and protecting

Trotskyists.

But though Yezhov's appointment causes an escalation of terror, it is always Stalin

who has the last word, but they are a deadly combination.

When Yezhov writes to Stalin in September 1936 that he believes that 'there must still

be Trotskyist officers undiscovered in the Red Army', everyone in the army who is even

slightly associated with any undesired thought, movement, action or individual is arrested.

Furthermore, 'guilt by association' is just as deadly, as the friends, family and intimate

colleagues of an arrestee are easily taken in along with them. People often report their

friends or co-workers to get rid of any negative association with them that might cause trouble

in the future. Also, the more people you report, the more the authorities would think that

you are 'one of the good guys', right? And you can't just lay low and wait for all of

this to blow over either, as' doing nothing' implies that you have something to hide. With

someone like Yezhov at the steering wheel who cares little for evidence or motive, being

denounced means that often you will be sent straight to a gulag.

And if you think it doesn't get any worse than this, you're mistaken. With the appointment

of Yezhov and the trial and execution of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, things are only really getting

started.

See, if even some of the Red Army highest leaders, like Tukhachevsky, are involved in

a conspiracy of THAT magnitude, then undoubtedly many, many others in the army below them are

complicit. And those leaders were literal celebrities, everyone in the army knew who

they were and many officers had in some way ties to them. And then those officers had

links to the ordinary rank-and-file soldiers, so suspicion trickles down through the entire

army. A Red Army newspaper article of June 14, 1937 'calls for Red Army organizations

to help the NKVD find conspirators and subversives'. Yezhov and Voroshilov add another message

on the 21st, urging their men to step forward while promising that, even if they are implicated

themselves, they would not be arrested. In practice, the ones that do come forward are

just as likely to be executed. In any case, there is no stopping it now, and though many

might actually believe that their superiors are implicated in the conspiracy, there are

those who abuse the opportunity to further their own careers or to settle personal feuds.

Distrust sweeps through the ranks, and thousands are dismissed or put on trial - many executed.

But if there ever was a danger here to the Soviet Union, removing that threat proves

to be a lot more complicated.

Police and NKVD lists keep expanding as investigations are made. Stalin is not always

clear in his directives, and his subordinates have to guess what it is he wants. Furthermore,

the Soviet Union has 170 million inhabitants in 1937. When the state asks people to report

any 'suspicious behavior', the amount of work involved in processing this is off the charts.

They are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. This does have advantages, though. It is a

big-time propaganda project as well, as fear becomes a driving force behind a pro-Soviet

mentality, and any loyalty beyond the state is to be destroyed, even commitment to family.

Collateral damage is inevitable. There is no 'real' or tangible evidence to suggest

a coup or invasion is at hand. Instead, the enemy is always 'hidden' and 'unknown', making

every single person a potential suspect. I mean, what if the one person you didn't

kill turns out to be the spider in the web of a lethal conspiracy against Stalin and

the Soviet Union?

In 1937-38 alone, close to 681.000 people are sentenced to death by the so-called NKVD

Troikas, a three-headed special council of the Military tribunals from the Soviet Interior

Ministry that uses simplified procedures that do not give the defendants rights. 635.000

more are sent to prisons and Gulag Camps, where many more die performing heavy manual

labor. And these numbers are no guesses either. These are bureaucratically recorded court-mandated

sentences for 'political crimes' - not the result of random, chaotic killings. But just

to get a grasp of the scale, 91% of the death sentences passed by the Soviet courts between

1921 and 1940 are passed in only two years, 1937 and 1938. Hundreds of thousands more

are sent to Gulags for other criminal offences, making the total of prisoners sent to gulags

in 1937-1938 1.36 million - resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands more.

The scale of it all is just too large to really do the victims any justice by remembrance.

The ones that do make it into the history books are those most prominent Soviet political

and military leaders, including eventually four of the original members of the 1917 November

Revolution Politburo. They too, are executed in the purges. Many others who had acquired

political renown in Soviet History are removed and often murdered. Additionally, multitudes

of scientists, artists, writers, and other intellectuals - at least those who were fortunate

enough to make it to 1937 in the first place, are considered to be un-Soviet and are also

killed or sent to the Gulags. The same applies to 'Ex-Kulaks', the Orthodox Clergy, and ethnic

minorities such as Poles. As for the military, it is decimated by these purges. Almost literally.

Some 35,000 officers are discharged during in 1937 and 1938. 11,000 of them will eventually

return to the ranks, though. Roughly 10.000 more are arrested, of which many are executed.

The total number of Red Army casualties is much higher though, as these estimates do

not include regular soldiers. They do however, include a majority of the top Generals, army

commanders, admirals, and army commissars.

On 17 November 1938, Stalin calls for the end of the purge. It's intensity slowly but

steadily decreases over the rest of the year.

Also in November 1938, Voroshilov writes how 'the enemy has lost his eyes and ears in our

ranks', and how the number of purged military personnel is 'fairly impressive'. Sure, he

said, there might still be dangerous people in the Red Army ranks, but they should be

found carefully, and not by, quote, 'shooting from the hip'. This suggests that Voroshilov

too thought that the purges were too carelessly executed and that many innocent and in fact

essential people died. And the fact is that a vast wealth of experience was destroyed

when large numbers of Red Army officers were executed and that many inexperienced new ones

took their place.

The final wave of execution is designed to create distance from the terror. In an attempt

to wash his hands, Stalin has Yezhov arrested on April 10, 1939. Reaping what he sowed,

Yezhov is charged with incompetence, collaboration with the Germans, and homosexuality. He is

found guilty of treason and will be shot February 4, 1940.

But the big question that remains is: why did Stalin do all this?

There was no military-fascist conspiracy- you know, the one that got Tukhachevsky killed.

The Trotskyist, fascist, and counter-revolutionary plots too were mainly just figments of paranoia

and distrust. 'Evidence' was, in most cases, the product of forced confessions under torture

or was created by NKVD agents, so while the whole country fell into a culture of purging,

Learn languages from TV shows, movies, news, articles and more! Try LingQ for FREE

Stalin's Paranoid Military Purges - The Great Terror | BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1938 Part 4 of 4 - YouTube (1) Las Paranoicas Purgas Militares de Stalin - El Gran Terror | ENTRE 2 GUERRAS I 1938 Parte 4 de 4 - YouTube (1) スターリンの偏執的な軍事粛清 - 大テロル|BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1938 Part 4 of 4 - YouTube (1) Stalin's Paranoid Military Purges - The Great Terror | BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1938 Part 4 of 4 - YouTube (1) As purgas militares paranóicas de Estaline - O Grande Terror | ENTRE 2 GUERRAS I 1938 Parte 4 de 4 - YouTube (1) Параноидальные военные чистки Сталина - Большой террор | МЕЖДУ 2-мя войнами I 1938 Часть 4 из 4 - YouTube (1) 斯大林偏执的军事清洗——大恐怖|第一次世界大战 1938 年第 4 部分(共 4 部分) - YouTube (1)

It is one of the most self-destructive series of events in Soviet history. It is an escalation |||||||||||||||||escalada |||||||||||||||||Escalada

of the already oppressive, suppressive, murderous behaviour of Josef Stalin's regime. It is

a parody of justice and a disgrace even to Communism. It pits friends against friends, |||||||||||opõe||| |||||||||||enfrenta|||

spouses against spouses, children against parents, and destroys the social fabric of ||cônjuges||||||||tecido social| и подрывает общественное устройство Советского Союза.

the Soviet Union. It is a sign that Stalin is not only ruthless, but pathologically paranoid. ||||||||||||implacável||| ||||||||||||despiadado||| Это признак того, что Сталин не только безжалостен, - он ещё хронический параноик.

It will cost hundreds of thousands of lives over mere months, and its consequences will |||||||||apenas meses||||| Это унесёт тысячи жизней за какие-то месяцы, и из-за неё впоследствии умрут ещё миллионы.

waste millions more. It is Stalin's great terror and military purges. Это Большой сталинский террор и чистки военных.

Welcome to Between-2-Wars a chronological summary of the interwar years, covering all Это "Меж Двух Войн" - краткое изложение событий межвоенного периода,

facets of life, the uncertainty, hedonism, and euphoria, and ultimately humanity's descent |||||||||||queda

into the darkness of the Second World War. I'm Indy Neidell. Меня зовут Инди Найделл.

We saw in our episode on the Holodomor that Stalin is willing to have perceived enemies ||||||||||||||percibidos| В эпизоде про Голодомор мы увидели, что Сталин делает с возможными врагами и "вредителями" -

or 'undesirables' killed by the millions. Political terror is a cornerstone of 1930s убивает их миллионами. Политический террор - это основа советской политики 30-х;

Soviet politics, and as historian Hiroaki Kuromiya will later describe it, 'it was a Позднее историк Хирояки Куромия опишет её так:

policy of extraordinarily intense, concentrated and purposeful killing of, at least, hundreds

of thousands of people.' This is not limited to specific operations directed at particular Она не ограничивалась особыми мерами по отношению к конкретным группам, .

groups like the Ukrainians. Hordes of Soviet citizens and soldiers get caught up in the как, например, к украинцам. В истерике массово арестовывались советские граждане и военные,

hysteria and are sentenced to death by Soviet courts or purged from the army. которых по решению суда приговаривали к смерти, либо выгоняли из армии.

The terror and the purges impact the entire Soviet community, and it trickles down from

the most high-profile people in the army to the most modest farmer.

Because it isn't just big names like Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the number one military man

in the whole nation since the revolution, and his colleagues who are killed on suspicion

of being 'hidden enemies'. It's anybody. Okay, purges already became a thing in the

Soviet military in the 1920s. They were used to 'improve ideological conformity', and to Они проводились с целью "улучшить политическую согласованность"

get rid of anyone who didn't fit into the heavily politicized Red Army. In fact, most |deshacerse de||||||||||||||

people living in the Soviet Union are by now already kinda used to this practice. So when

the Great Terror takes a hold of the Soviet Union in 1937, many ordinary soldiers and

officers see it as their duty to report anyone who might be unfit for duty or could be a

threat to the Soviet Ideology. But while Soviet History has many twists and turns, with revolutionaries

and counter-revolutionaries left and right, the events of 1937 really stand out. ||||||||||destacan| всё это меркнет по сравнению с событиями 1937 г.

In the summer of 1936, a group of alleged Trotskyist counter-revolutionaries- including Летом 1936 г. группу лиц, подозреваемых в троцкистской контрреволюции,

Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinovyev, two of the original seven leaders of the Bolshevik revolution- включая Льва Каменева и Григория Зиновьева, двух из семи лидеров революции большевиков,

are arrested and charged with conspiring to murder high-ranking communist party members. арестовывают и обвиняют в заговоре по убийству высших партийных руководителей.

But though the Red Army is supposed to keep a check on its own members, it is the NKVD

which 'discovers' the conspiracy, and with that, the trust in the army's ability to cleanse

itself from undesirables vanishes. This is the starting point of a thorough NKVD sweep |||||||||||||barrida exhaustiva

through the Red Army Ranks. It's well illustrated by a letter sent to one of the most prominent

Soviet political and military leaders, Kliment Voroshilov. The letter is from his friend,

military commander Semyon Budyonny. 'It seems to me that it is necessary to check especially

carefully people in the army, since in the ranks we see people from the command, the

officers and political workers, who on the one hand have careerist tendencies and on которые с одной стороны имеют карьеристские тенденции,

the other a tendency to consider serious questions not from the point of view of the state but а с другой имеют склонность подходить к серьёзным вопросам не с точки зрения страны,

from a narrowly personal point of view […] and also people who easily give in to any kind

of influence, in particular counter-revolutionary.' Voroshilov forwards this letter, effectively Ворошилов пересылает письмо,

damning the red Army's Military and Political officers, to both Stalin and influential Soviet

Bureaucrat Nikolai Yezhov.

In September 1936, Yezhov replaces Genrikh Yagoda as the new head of the NKVD on Stalin's В сентябре 1936 г. он сменяет Генриха Ягоду на посту главы НКВД по распоряжению Сталина.

orders. This is where things really start to escalate, as Yezhov is prone to conspiracy ||||||||||||Propenso a conspiraciones|| Тут дело и пошло в гору, ведь Ежов не чуждается теорий заговора и даже не прочь придумать свою.

theories and even keen to make up his own. Also, he doesn't really care that much about

having sufficient evidence before putting someone on trial - or he just has it fabricated. чтобы кого-то осудить - иногда он может сфабриковать их.

The number of show-trials and convictions rises steeply. The scope of the investigations

into Trotsky-conspiracies is widened, and the arrests grow in number.

Furthermore, any industrial accident or output shortfall is explained as sabotage - meaning или невыполнение плана выпуска продукции объявляется саботажем -

that many workers go down for this, especially since Stalin's five years plans have upset

the industrial and agricultural sectors. People who had opposed the current leaders back in

the early1930s or the 20s are apprehended retroactively, and political enemies are taken политическим врагам пощады нет.

care of. Yagoda himself is executed in 1938 after being found guilty of treason and protecting Самого Ягоду приговорят к расстрелу в 1938 г. за измену и покрывательство троцкистов.

Trotskyists.

But though Yezhov's appointment causes an escalation of terror, it is always Stalin

who has the last word, but they are a deadly combination.

When Yezhov writes to Stalin in September 1936 that he believes that 'there must still

be Trotskyist officers undiscovered in the Red Army', everyone in the army who is even

slightly associated with any undesired thought, movement, action or individual is arrested. уличены в связи с нежелательными мыслями, движениями или личностями, арестовываются.

Furthermore, 'guilt by association' is just as deadly, as the friends, family and intimate

colleagues of an arrestee are easily taken in along with them. People often report their

friends or co-workers to get rid of any negative association with them that might cause trouble которая может создать проблемы в будущем.

in the future. Also, the more people you report, the more the authorities would think that

you are 'one of the good guys', right? And you can't just lay low and wait for all of

this to blow over either, as' doing nothing' implies that you have something to hide. With ведь если ты "ничего не делаешь", значит, ты что-то скрываешь.

someone like Yezhov at the steering wheel who cares little for evidence or motive, being Когда за рулём находится человек вроде Ежова, которого не заботят отсутствие улик и мотивов

denounced means that often you will be sent straight to a gulag.

And if you think it doesn't get any worse than this, you're mistaken. With the appointment

of Yezhov and the trial and execution of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, things are only really getting

started. Понимаете, если даже такие высшие армейские чины, как Тухачевский,

See, if even some of the Red Army highest leaders, like Tukhachevsky, are involved in

a conspiracy of THAT magnitude, then undoubtedly many, many others in the army below them are то что говорить о более низких по рангу военных - среди них точно есть соучастники.

complicit. And those leaders were literal celebrities, everyone in the army knew who А эти лидеры были буквально знаменитостями - все в армии знали, кто они такие,

they were and many officers had in some way ties to them. And then those officers had

links to the ordinary rank-and-file soldiers, so suspicion trickles down through the entire так что тень подозрения падает на всю армию целиком.

army. A Red Army newspaper article of June 14, 1937 'calls for Red Army organizations

to help the NKVD find conspirators and subversives'. Yezhov and Voroshilov add another message Ежов и Ворошилов добавляют ещё одно послание 21-го июня,

on the 21st, urging their men to step forward while promising that, even if they are implicated

themselves, they would not be arrested. In practice, the ones that do come forward are

just as likely to be executed. In any case, there is no stopping it now, and though many В любом случае, начало уже положено,

might actually believe that their superiors are implicated in the conspiracy, there are и хотя многие верят, что их начальники могут быть заговорщиками,

those who abuse the opportunity to further their own careers or to settle personal feuds.

Distrust sweeps through the ranks, and thousands are dismissed or put on trial - many executed. ||||||||||||||ejecutados многих расстреливают.

But if there ever was a danger here to the Soviet Union, removing that threat proves

to be a lot more complicated.

Police and NKVD lists keep expanding as investigations are made. Stalin is not always

clear in his directives, and his subordinates have to guess what it is he wants. Furthermore,

the Soviet Union has 170 million inhabitants in 1937. When the state asks people to report

any 'suspicious behavior', the amount of work involved in processing this is off the charts. ||||||||||||||fuera de serie работы по одной только обработке доносов будет выше крыши.

They are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. This does have advantages, though. It is a Это всё равно что раскалывать орех кувалдой. Но тут есть свои преимущества.

big-time propaganda project as well, as fear becomes a driving force behind a pro-Soviet Это также время масштабной пропаганды, и страх закладывает основы просоветского менталитета.

mentality, and any loyalty beyond the state is to be destroyed, even commitment to family. Любая верность, кроме верности государству, искореняется, даже преданность своей семье.

Collateral damage is inevitable. There is no 'real' or tangible evidence to suggest

a coup or invasion is at hand. Instead, the enemy is always 'hidden' and 'unknown', making Наоборот, враг всегда скрывается, он всегда неизвестен,

every single person a potential suspect. I mean, what if the one person you didn't то есть любой может подпасть под подозрение. Ну то есть, что если единственный человек, который остался жив,

kill turns out to be the spider in the web of a lethal conspiracy against Stalin and

the Soviet Union?

In 1937-38 alone, close to 681.000 people are sentenced to death by the so-called NKVD Только в 1937-1938 г. почти 681 тыс. человек будут приговорены к смерти так называемыми Тройками НКВД -

Troikas, a three-headed special council of the Military tribunals from the Soviet Interior |||||Consejo especial|||||||| особым органом из трёх человек при военном трибунале Комиссариата внутренних дел.

Ministry that uses simplified procedures that do not give the defendants rights. 635.000

more are sent to prisons and Gulag Camps, where many more die performing heavy manual

labor. And these numbers are no guesses either. These are bureaucratically recorded court-mandated

sentences for 'political crimes' - not the result of random, chaotic killings. But just

to get a grasp of the scale, 91% of the death sentences passed by the Soviet courts between

1921 and 1940 are passed in only two years, 1937 and 1938. Hundreds of thousands more

are sent to Gulags for other criminal offences, making the total of prisoners sent to gulags

in 1937-1938 1.36 million - resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands more. потом в них гибнут ещё десятки тысяч.

The scale of it all is just too large to really do the victims any justice by remembrance. Масштаб всего этого слишком велик, чтобы помнить всех жертв.

The ones that do make it into the history books are those most prominent Soviet political

and military leaders, including eventually four of the original members of the 1917 November

Revolution Politburo. They too, are executed in the purges. Many others who had acquired

political renown in Soviet History are removed and often murdered. Additionally, multitudes

of scientists, artists, writers, and other intellectuals - at least those who were fortunate

enough to make it to 1937 in the first place, are considered to be un-Soviet and are also

killed or sent to the Gulags. The same applies to 'Ex-Kulaks', the Orthodox Clergy, and ethnic

minorities such as Poles. As for the military, it is decimated by these purges. Almost literally. В результате чисток армия практически вырезается под корень, почти буквально.

Some 35,000 officers are discharged during in 1937 and 1938. 11,000 of them will eventually

return to the ranks, though. Roughly 10.000 more are arrested, of which many are executed. Около 10 тыс. арестовывается, многих из которых потом расстреляют.

The total number of Red Army casualties is much higher though, as these estimates do Общее число понесённых потерь гораздо больше, так как эти числа не учитывают солдат.

not include regular soldiers. They do however, include a majority of the top Generals, army Но в эти числа входит подавляющее большинство влиятельных генералов,

commanders, admirals, and army commissars. командармов, адмиралов и военных комиссаров.

On 17 November 1938, Stalin calls for the end of the purge. It's intensity slowly but

steadily decreases over the rest of the year.

Also in November 1938, Voroshilov writes how 'the enemy has lost his eyes and ears in our "...враг потерял глаза и уши в среде наших военных,

ranks', and how the number of purged military personnel is 'fairly impressive'. Sure, he число вычищенного личного состава весьма впечатляет."

said, there might still be dangerous people in the Red Army ranks, but they should be Конечно, пишет он, в рядах Красной армии ещё есть опасные личности,

found carefully, and not by, quote, 'shooting from the hip'. This suggests that Voroshilov

too thought that the purges were too carelessly executed and that many innocent and in fact

essential people died. And the fact is that a vast wealth of experience was destroyed Факт в том, что богатый опыт был уничтожен,

when large numbers of Red Army officers were executed and that many inexperienced new ones

took their place.

The final wave of execution is designed to create distance from the terror. In an attempt

to wash his hands, Stalin has Yezhov arrested on April 10, 1939. Reaping what he sowed,

Yezhov is charged with incompetence, collaboration with the Germans, and homosexuality. He is пособничестве с немцами и гомосексуализме.

found guilty of treason and will be shot February 4, 1940. Его объявят виновным в измене и расстреляют в феврале 1940 г.

But the big question that remains is: why did Stalin do all this? Но остаётся главный вопрос: зачем Сталин всё это затеял?

There was no military-fascist conspiracy- you know, the one that got Tukhachevsky killed. Не было никакого заговора военных-фашистов, того, из-за которого Тухачевского расстреляли.

The Trotskyist, fascist, and counter-revolutionary plots too were mainly just figments of paranoia

and distrust. 'Evidence' was, in most cases, the product of forced confessions under torture "Улики" - это, в основном, признания, вытянутые под пытками,

or was created by NKVD agents, so while the whole country fell into a culture of purging, либо подлог агентов НКВД, И после того, как страна пережила эпоху чисток,