{{Short description|Series of political events}} {{more citations needed|date=February 2015}} {{Repression in the Soviet Union}}
'''Purges of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union''' ({{langx|ru|"Чистка партийных рядов"}}, ''{{transliteration|ru|chistka partiynykh ryadov}}'', "cleansing of the party ranks") were Soviet political events, especially during the 1920s,<ref>Fitzpatrick, S. ''Everyday Stalinism''. Oxford University Press. New-York, 1999. page 20. {{ISBN|0195050010}}</ref> in which periodic reviews of members of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]] were conducted by other members and the security organs to get rid of "undesirables".<ref>[[Alex Inkeles]] and Raymond A. Bauer. ''The Soviet Citizen. Daily Life in a Totalitarian Society''. New-York, 1968 (1st published in 1959).</ref> Such reviews would start with a short autobiography from the reviewed person and then an interrogation of them by the purge commission, as well as by the attending audience. Although many people were victims of the purge throughout this decade, the general Soviet public was not aware of the purge until 1937.<ref>''Siegel, Ada (January 1954). "The Soviet Purge System" (PDF). Challenge. '''2''': 54–59 {{JSTOR|40716727}}''</ref>
Although the term "[[purge]]" is largely associated with [[Stalinism]] because the greatest of the purges happened during [[Stalin's USSR|Stalin's rule]], the [[Bolsheviks]] carried out their first major purge of the party ranks as early as 1921. Approximately 220,000 members were purged or left the party. The Bolsheviks stated as justification the need to get rid of the members who had joined the party simply to be on the winning side. The major criteria were [[Social class|social origins]] (members of [[working class]]es were normally accepted without question) and contributions to the revolutionary cause.
The first Party purge of the [[Joseph Stalin]] era took place in 1929–1930 in accordance with a resolution of the [[16th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|XVI Party Conference]].<ref>Gregor, Richard, editor. ''Resolutions and Decisions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Volume 2: The Early Soviet Period 1917–1929''. University of Toronto Press, 1974. {{JSTOR|10.3138/j.ctt1vxmdr5}}</ref> Purges became deadly under Stalin. More than 10 percent of the party members were purged. At the same time, a significant number of new industrial workers joined the Party.
==History== ===1932 to 1935=== Stalin ordered a systematic party purge in the Soviet Union in December 1932, to be performed during 1933. During this period, new memberships were suspended. A joint resolution of the Party [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee]] and Central Revision Committee specified the criteria for purging and called for setting up special Purge Commissions, to which every communist had to report. Furthermore, this purge concerned members of the Central Committee and of the [[Central Auditing Commission of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Revision Committee]], who previously had been immune to purges, because they were elected at [[Congress of the CPSU|Party Congress]]es. In particular, [[Nikolai Bukharin]], [[Alexei Ivanovich Rykov]], and [[Mikhail Tomsky]] were asked to defend themselves during this purge. As the purges unfolded, it became increasingly apparent that what had begun as an attempt to cleanse the party of unequipped and defecting members would culminate in nothing less than a cleansing of integral party members of all ranks. This included many prominent leading party members that had ruled the regime for over a decade.<ref>''Unger, A.L. (January 1969). "Stalin's Renewal of the Leading Stratum: A Note on the Great Purge" (PDF). Soviet Studies. '''20''': 321–330 {{JSTOR|149486}}''</ref> At this time, of 1.9 million members, approximately 18 percent were purged (i.e. expelled from the party).
Until 1933, those purged (totaling 800,000) were not usually arrested. (The few that were became the first waves of the [[gulag]] forced labor system.)<ref name="Solzhenitsyn_1974">{{Citation |last=Solzhenitsyn |first=Aleksandr |year=1974 |title=The Gulag Archipelago [Архипела́г ГУЛА́Г] | translator-last=Whitney | translator-first=Thomas P. |volume=1 |publisher=Éditions du Seuil |location=Paris |isbn=978-0-06-013914-8 |oclc=802879 |postscript=.}}</ref> But from 1934 onwards, during the [[Great Purge]], the connotations of the term changed, because being expelled from the party came with the possibility of arrest, with long imprisonment or execution following.<ref name="Solzhenitsyn_1974"/> The Party Central Committee would later state that the careless methodology used resulted in serious errors and perversions which hindered the work of cleansing the party from its real enemies.<ref>''"On Mistakes in the Purge" (PDF). The Slavonic and East European Review. '''16''': 703–713. April 1938 {{JSTOR|4203435}}''</ref>
===Great Purge=== {{Main|Great Purge}} The most prolific period of executions occurred during the [[Great Purge]], from 1936 to 1938.
The Central Committee Plenum passed a resolution in 1935 declaring an end to the purges of 1933.<ref>{{cite journal |title= The Decisions of the CPSU and the Great Purge |last= Mcneal |first= Robert |journal= Soviet Studies |date= October 1971 |pages= 177–185 |jstor= 150154}}</ref> [[Sergey Kirov]], leader of the Leningrad section of the Communist party, was murdered in 1934.<ref>{{cite book |title= About Russia, Its Revolutions, Its Development and Its Present |last= Michael |first= Reiman |publisher= Peter Lang AG |location= New York |page= 102 |isbn= 9783631671368}}</ref> In response, Stalin's [[Great Purge]] saw one third of the Communist party executed or sentenced to work in labor camps.<ref>{{Cite web|url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zj26n39|title= Stalin – purges and praises| website= bbc.co.uk| publisher= BBC |access-date= 2018-01-29 | quote = In 1934, Kirov, the leader of the Leningrad Communist Party, was murdered, probably on Stalin's orders. Stalin used this episode to order massive purges by which anybody suspected of disloyalty was murdered, sent to prison camps, or put on public show trials at which they pleaded guilty to incredible crimes they could never have done. [...] The Communist leadership was purged – 93 of the 139 Central Committee members were put to death. The armed forces were purged – 81 of the 103 generals and admirals were executed. The Communist Party was purged – about a third of its 3 million members were killed.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.history.com/topics/russia/great-purge|title=The Great Purge|website=History|date=4 October 2022 }}</ref> Stalin induced terror among his own party and justified it with Marxist principles.<ref>{{cite journal |title= The Dilemma of Prisoners: Choice during Stalin's Great Terror, 1936ΓÇô38 |last= Grossman |first= Peter |journal= The Journal of Conflict Resolution |date= March 1994 |pages= 43–55 |doi= 10.1177/0022002794038001003 |jstor= 174400}}</ref> Victims of the Great Purge were placed in a losing scenario regardless of what view they took. They were required to confess their transgressions towards the party and name accomplices. Although most were innocent, many chose to name accomplices either in hopes of gaining freedom or just to stop their torture by interrogators, which was ubiquitous at the time. The prisoner most often was still punished the same whether they denied their crimes, admitted them and provided no accomplices, or admitted them and provided accomplices. It made little difference as to their fate. This can be described as a one-shot, [[N-player game|n-person]] [[prisoner's dilemma]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Grossman |first=Peter| date=March 1994|title=The Dilemma of Prisoners: Choice during Stalin's Great Terror|journal=The Journal of Conflict Resolution|volume=38|issue=1|pages=43–55|jstor=174400|doi=10.1177/0022002794038001003|s2cid=144185359}}</ref> The punishment remained the same regardless of the terms of confession.
The Great Purge was no less perilous for those few foreigners who attempted to assimilate into [[Soviet culture]]. In one piece of literature, the author recalls a Soviet general describing the Great Purges as "difficult years to understand" for citizens and foreigners alike.<ref>{{cite book |title= Escape to Adventure |last= Maclean |first= Fitzroy |year= 1950 |publisher= Little, Brown |location= Boston |page= 9}}</ref> These foreigners were treated much the same as Soviet ethnic minorities, and they were thought to be potential threats in the impending war. [[Germans]], [[Polish people|Poles]], [[Finns]], and other westerners were shown the same fate the bourgeoisie had been dealt following the [[Great Break (USSR)|end]] of [[New Economic Policy]]. Punishments ranged from eviction and relocation to [[summary execution]].<ref>{{cite journal |title= Ethnic and Religious Minorities in Stalin's Soviet Union: New Dimensions of Research |last= Humphreys |first= Brendan |journal= Scando-Slavica |date= 2018-07-03 |volume= 64 |issue= 2 |page= 0080-6765 |doi= 10.1080/00806765.2018.1525320}}</ref>
===1950s=== Following [[Stalin's death]] in 1953, purges as systematic campaigns of expulsion from the party ended; thereafter, the center's political control was exerted instead mainly through loss of party membership and its attendant [[nomenklatura]] privileges, which effectively downgraded one's opportunities in society{{snd}}see {{slink|Trade unions in the Soviet Union|Role in the Soviet class system, chekism, and party rule}}. Recalcitrant cases could be reduced to nonpersons via [[involuntary commitment]] to a psychiatric institution.{{citation needed|date=October 2021}}
==See also== * [[Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union]] * [[Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization]] * [[Moscow Trials]] * [[Political repression in the Soviet Union]] * [[Purge of the Red Army in 1941]] * [[Racism in the Soviet Union]]
==References== {{reflist|2}}
==Literature== *{{cite web |last1=Arzyutov |first1=Dmitry |title=Early Years of Visual Anthropology in the Soviet Arctic |url=http://www.tandfonline.com |website=tandfonline |access-date=2019-01-29}} *Ganin A. V. "Everyday life of the General Staffists under Lenin and Trotsky". ''M.'', 2016. *Ganin A. V. "In the Shadow of 'Spring'. Former officers under repression of the early 1930s", ''Homeland''. 2014. No. 6. pp. 95–101. *Ganin A. V. "Gambit Monighetti. The incredible adventures of the 'Italian' in Russia", ''Homeland''. 2011. No. 10. pp. 122–125. *Ganin A. V. "Archive and investigation of the military scientist A. A. Svechin, 1931–1932", Part 2. ''Bulletin of the Archivist''. 2014. No. 126. pp. 260–272 *Ganin A. V. "Archive and investigation of the military scientist A. A. Svechin, 1931–1932", Part 3. ''Bulletin of the Archivist''. 2014. No. 127. pp. 261–291. *Bliznichenko S. S., Lazarev S. E. "'Anti-Soviet conspiracy' at the Naval Academy (1930–1932)" ''Bulletin of the Ural Branch of the [[Russian Academy of Sciences]]''. 2012. Vol. 3 (41). pp. 118–124. *Lazarev S. E. "Military-political academy in the 1930s" ''Scientific reports of Belgorod State University'', Part 8. 2013. Vol. 26, No. 151. pp. 140–149. *Bliznichenko S. S., Lazarev S. E. "Repression at the F. E. Dzerzhinsky Naval Engineering School in the 1930s". ''Recent History of Russia''. 2014. Vol. 1 (9). pp. 124–139.
==External links== * [http://encspb.ru/object/2804021801?lc=ru В энциклопедии С-Петербурга] * ''Ярослав Тинченко.'' [http://www.xxl3.ru/krasnie/tinchenko/tinchenko.htm Голгофа русского офицерства в СССР. 1930—1931 годы] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150716185127/http://www.xxl3.ru/krasnie/tinchenko/tinchenko.htm |date=2015-07-16 }} * З архівів ВУЧК, ГПУ, НКВД, КГБ. 2002 год, номер 1–2, изд-во «Сфера», Киев.
{{Communist Party of the Soviet Union}} {{Joseph Stalin}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Purges of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union}} [[Category:Political repression in the Soviet Union]] [[Category:Political and cultural purges]] [[Category:1937 in the Soviet Union]] [[Category:Great Purge]] [[Category:Military of the Soviet Union]] [[Category:Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] [[Category:Politicides]] [[Category:Anti-religious campaign in the Soviet Union]] [[Category:Persecution of intellectuals]] [[Category:Human rights abuses]]
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