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Causes of the Great Terror (Structuralist PoV: believes that actors were…
Causes of the Great Terror
Intentionalist PoV: believes that Stalin wanted to eliminate his opponents to gain power
Stalin's Personality
Paranoia
Stalin was paranoid of old communist making their way back into the party
Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev were put on show trials and executed sometimes betwee
Khrushchev reported how Stalin was a very 'seeing everywhere around him "enemies", "double dealers and spies"'
The suicide of his wife made him more convined that everyone around him will betray him. Thus the quicker he rids of them the better
VIndictive
He wants revenge on
Rid the old Bolsheviks
Consolidating the NKVD's power
Over 800K were arrested from summer 1937 to november 1938
Control the party
The 17th party Congress abolished the post of General Secretary for Stalin as Kirov became just as important
Stalin encouraged party members to criticise and denounce those of higher ranking. This started floods of accusations where party members were 'unmasked and confessed at meeting and were arresting
Tukhachevsky and other generals had confessions beaten out of them and were executed
This lowers the chance of being overthrown
Structuralist PoV: believes that actors were influenced by the material conditions of society at that time
Stalin wanted to protect the revolution
Many people purged were randomly selected
Stalin was eesponding to external threat
Stalin wanted to supplying labour
There were other factors