[MUSIC] Hello. Today, we shall speak about one of the most difficult periods in Russian history. It is 1930s, the time of Stalin's terror, particularly the late 1930s. The time of his great terror. Bolsheviks never shunned terror, generally speaking. Lenin often wrote or said, shoot or shoot as many as possible. Priests, saboteurs, Mensheviks, prostitutes, whoever. Revolution was associated with death. It is either death to capital or it is death to the revolution. It is either death to capitalist or it's death to workers. So, glory to Red terror was the slogan of the early 1920s, but Stalin created a completely different situation. He put terror on an industrial basis. In 1928, engineering staff and technical staff of a coal mine in Shakhty, in Donbass were arrested. They were charged with sabotage with creating an underground organization and with ties with foreign anti-Soviet centres. This was called economic counterrevolution in Donbass. The accused were tortured to extract confessions and documents against them were falsified. One, Evdokimov, an OGPU representative in North Caucasus, in 1937, told the story of how this trial came into existence. What he said was that there would have been no trial, if it were not for Stalin. In 1927, he met Stalin in Sochi and Stalin asked him about the accidents in Shakhty, in the Donbass area. The OGPU representative candidly said that they were watching all these accidents of which there were many, but they could not pin them on anybody in particular. Then Stalin said, well, it is quite obvious to me that there is an underground organization at work there. That is easy to establish. What is not easy to establish and that I want you to find out is who is managing them? Is it Polish general staff or is it the Belgians who had owned this factory? The first drafts of charges and of the proceedings were sent to the central committee for approval. So indeed, if there were no Stalin there would have been no trial. It was a public show trial the first of many. 11 people were sentenced to death, many more to imprisonment. Stalin personally distributed the sentences. These people to be executed. These people to be imprisoned. It was a staunch warning to all those who wanted to risk their lives, engineering or technical staff. Those who had too much energy or initiative to do something on their own. So, there would be no more initiative from these quarters. In 1930, another conspiracy was uncovered. This was the underground Industrial Party. Creation of the OGPU completely, there was no such party. But people who were accused, again, they were mainly technical staff. They were accused of sabotage, the creation of crisis of supplies of say, products of metallurgical industry or something else. Of course, there was a connection with foreign powers, foreign governments and the party was supposed to prepare the grounds for an intervention. The funny thing was that it was said that the counterrevolutionary government which was supposed to seize power after the intervention was to consist of Palchinsky who was one of the accused, who had already been executed by the time of the trial. Then pre-revolutionary industrialist Ryabushinsky who was in exile and who had also died before the trial and then historian Tarle, who was supposed to be a foreign minister, who had absolutely nothing to do with the whole project. In 1934, first December, Stalin's close associate. Sergei Kirov was murdered in Leningrad. This was a momentous event. The assassin was found very easily. It was a minor party member Nikolayev who used to work in the same building as Kirov, but who had been sacked. He still had a pass to the building. And so, entered it easily. He was psychologically unstable and it is not clear why he did it. Kirov may or may not have had an affair with his wife. But of course, he was arrested and this was not the end of it. This was just the beginning. Stalin decided that he could connect Kirov's murder was Zinoviev and Zinoviev's supporters. Because if you remember, Zinoviev was the previous party boss of Leningrad. The trials in connection with the Kirov murder and the conspiracies, the Zinoviev conspiracy continued for two years, 1934 and 1935. Stalin organized the trials up to the smallest details. Dozens were executed. Zinoviev and Kamenev were also on trial, but their lives were temporarily spared. Later on, there were rumors that Stalin himself could have organized this assassination of Kirov. There are no archival documents to support this. But of course, Stalin was a great politician. So, he could not fail to notice the usefulness of this assassination for his political purposes. What were the reasons for this attack on the Stalin old guard? It is quite obvious, look at these faces. This is the old guard, old Bolsheviks who were there at the time of learning and who were there at the beginning of Stalin's career. They do not see themselves as unequal to Stalin. They are the same. They are lively people. They have their own opinions. They cheer him, but they he knew perfectly well that they do remember the Lenin testament that they do remember that at that moment when whole Stalin career could finish. Zinoviev and Kamenev were the people who saved him. They also remembered that Bukharin and Ryikov were against Stalin's policy of collectivisation in the Politbeuro and that the majority of Politbeuro was with them. They also remembered that it was only the central committee which helped Stalin to defeat them. So for them, Stalin was still somehow the first among equals and he did not like that. What he also did not like was the fact that these people occupied too many important positions. In the mid-1930s, 30 to 40,000 top and middle party and government positions were occupied by people who did not start their careers under Stalin. They had their own networks. They had their own loyalties. And so, they had to be replaced. They had to be replaced with unthinkingly loyal and enthusiastically devoted people. People devoted to Stalin and Stalin alone. In 1935, there was another trial, the so-called Kremlin trial. At the center of it was Avel Yenukidze. Avel Yenukidze was the Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Committee. It was a technical position. And yet, he was important. Yenukidze was a personal friend of many in the Central Committee and of Stalin himself. And yet, he was charged with treason and the other participants in the Kremlin trial were charged with trying to organize terrorist acts and of connections with Kamenev, Trotsky and Zinoviev. For the first time, some people in this group were accused of attempting to kill Stalin. Again, Stalin gave instructions on how the trial should proceed. Some of the participants were demoted. Yenukidze was shot later in 1937, but it was also the first that time that relatives, acquaintances and other people were drawn into the trial just because of their ties with those were who accused. Kirov's murder was also mentioned and some of the participants were accused of killing Kirov. The Kremlin trial was a launching pad for career of Nikolai Yezhov. In 1936 in September, he was appointed head of NKVD. He worked for the next three years efficiently and creatively, implementing Stalin's policy. [MUSIC]
