Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

Stalin's Terror - Coggle Diagram

- - - - By summer to show loyalty Kirov told Stalin other members had talked about supporting him for leadership but he had rebuffed them
      - Stalin had kept Kirov personally very close, but this damaged their relationship
      - At 1934 Party Congress voting to re-elect Central Committee – whilst they weren’t against each other – Kirov had higher support than Stalin
      - In Autumn 34 Stalin attempted to bring Kirov back to Moscow from his post in control of Leningrad - To keep an eye on him
      - Kirov’s importance = Very close to Stalin , Stalin helping to promote him, Kirov very popular - he had charisma, looked good on a poster, second most influential party leader and certainly being touted as a potential alternative leader by 1934
      - Kirov successfully rebuffed this demotion ant the two parted for the final time on poor terms at a train station
      - Not provable that Stalin ordered the murder of Kirov – a lot of circumstantial evidence to point at Stalin but not conclusive = maybe not that important if he ordered it or not
      - Sergei Kirov assassination – December 1st, 1934
      - On Dec 1st a low-ranking communist member, Nikolayev enter the gov’t offices in Leningrad and shot Kirov dead from close range with a pistol – Can’t be proven Stalin ordered this – if he didn’t, he would be completely paranoid by this if his 2nd in command was killed in his own office
    - - Nikolayev panics when realising he was going to be executed – Hints that he may have been told to do it and thought that he was going to be saved
      - Guilt of Stalin is not proven – Plausible Nikolayev did act alone based on a grievance against the party
      - Nikolayev said it was because he was jealous as he was being demoted
      - Circumstantial evidence -impossible to prove – but Stalin has motive, opportunity and power
      - Nonsense idea of affair – Nikolayev’s wife having affair – however Kirov had affairs with ballerinas so this not true
      - After death Kirov’s death blamed on Stalin’s enemies – implies Stalin killed 2nd in command then got rid of anyone else against him – death solves all problems, no man no problem
      - Bodyguard killed in car crash – rumours of NKVD killing him in an attempt to silence him
      - Will never know but most important thing it that this is what makes the move when everything changes
      - Stalin leads it himself – can be seen either as him trying to cover it up or lead something so important
- - - - Later Hitler found that his military turned against him as the war effort began to fail – Says he should have done what Stalin did and killed them all
      - Laurence Rees – “Destroys initiative” = Military Coup
      - Saw military coup as threat to power (esp. if war did occur)
      - “Purging the military before a war is statesmanship of the madhouse ” – Robert Service
      - Saw the army as a rival political power