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Home , Great Purge, Gulag, Robert Conquest, The Great Terror (book)

McNair Scholars Journal

Volume 8 | Issue 1 Article 3

2004 Certainty, Probability, and Stalin’s Great Party Brett omkH es Grand Valley State University

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Recommended Citation Homkes, Brett (2004) C" ertainty, Probability, and Stalin’s Great Party Purge," McNair Scholars Journal: Vol. 8: Iss. 1, Article 3. Available at: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mcnair/vol8/iss1/3

Copyright © 2004 by the authors. McNair Scholars Journal is reproduced electronically by ScholarWorks@GVSU. http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/ mcnair?utm_source=scholarworks.gvsu.edu%2Fmcnair%2Fvol8%2Fiss1%2F3&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages Certainty, Probability, and Stalin’s Great Party Purge

ABSTRACT In 1936, Josef Stalin, General Secretary In 1935, Stalin decided to purge his own of the Communist Party of the Soviet party to consolidate power in the [CPSU], initiated a Party Purge, government. Since the inception of historical the extent of which, measured by the research about this event, a debate has numbers of deaths and arrests of Party developed regarding the number of arrests members and their affiliates, has proved and deaths of Soviets ordered by Stalin. This to be highly controversial. A long- study will examine the figures calculated simmering historical debate about this by Western historians to determine where issue surprisingly deepened after the fall correlation and discrepancy exist. The of the Soviet Union brought about the importance of this research is to assess partial opening of government archives the reasons why such dramatic statistical that many thought would answer all differences exist among various historians. questions. Part of the problem is that the The historians’ sources show the difficulty of numbers have ideological significance: determining accurate figures because of the for example, the lower the figures, secretive nature of the Soviet government the more “normal” the USSR appears, and only partial opening of Soviet archives. making it possible that it could have become a social democracy on the welfare state model. Conversely, the Brett Homkes higher the figures, the more “surreal” McNair Scholar the whole Soviet experience seems, making it virtually impossible to believe that it could have mutated into anything that would have prevented ultimate catastrophe. The most influential participants in the “purge debate” are J. Arch Getty and Conquest. Getty’s numbers of deaths and arrests are low in comparison to Conquest’s vastly higher figures. Much has been made of Getty’s “revisionism” and Conquest has been pilloried as a “Cold Warrior,” but a study of the sources used by these two historians better explains how they arrived at their conclusions than do their politics and the rhetoric of their friends and enemies. In the late 1980s, when ’s policy of began the long-anticipated opening of the state archives, the dispute about the Soviet Union’s capacity to develop into a “normal” social democracy gained a new intensity. One of the key questions was, Edward Cole, Ph.D. and remains, the extent of the actual Faculty Mentor human cost of Soviet . Basically, it was a question of scale. Many believed that the archives possessed the necessary evidence to settle this matter once and for all.

GVSU McNair Scholars Journal VOLUME 8, 2004 13 The question of the extent of the the revisionist task was a body count people within and without the Party terror that Stalin’s Communist Party low enough to suggest the credibility of counter-revolutionary . The unleashed upon the of a Soviet Union on the road to height of the Purge was from 1937 to became a battleground for historians. social democracy. 1938 when most of the Old , Those who believed that the USSR was The Party Purge was not the first Lenin’s closest associates at the time in the midst of evolving into a social episode of terror within the Soviet of the Revolution, were subjected democracy downplayed the harsh Union. Beginning with the severe to humiliating show trials ending in traits and ideology of Stalin’s regime. policy of War under executions and long sentences to the These historians argued in favor of a Lenin, and continuing with Stalin’s growing camp system. paradigm centered on “grass roots” forced collectivization and mass After the fall of the Soviet Union mechanisms of modernization such as industrialization, the Soviet people had and the partial opening of the archives, upward social mobility coupled with already experienced extensive pain and Conquest and Getty both focused the problems of mass industrialization death at the hands of the Bolsheviks. their research on the Stalinist era, within a ten-year period. But the great Party Purge was unique specifically on the Purge. The most The problem of the human cost of because it was the first time that the notable difference between the two socialism encompasses many subjects, target had shifted to the Party itself. historians’ respective works is the scale such as forced collectivization and As a means to further solidify his of their respective totals of arrests, slave labor, but the Party Purge of the own power, Stalin used the December camp populations, camp deaths, and late remains the emblematic 1, 1934 assassination of Kirov, the executions within the Soviet Union from focal point. Once seen by traditional Leningrad Party chief, as an excuse 1936 to 1938. scholars as “totalitarian,” in the hands to begin the cleansing. The project of revisionists, who began collecting slowly gained momentum as the NKVD evidence to discredit “the t-word,” the fabricated accusations of Trotskyite Purge took on a new look. Essential to and Zinovien conspiracies, charging

Figure 1. Comparison of J. Arch Getty and ’s arrests, camp population, camp deaths, and executions for 1936–1938 Party Purge of the Soviet Union

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14 Certainty, Probability, and Stalin’s Great Party Purge Robert Conquest, who was born people remained in prison throughout say that ’s agenda promotes July 15, 1917, attended Winchester 1938, and roughly eight million people higher figures of deaths and arrests in College, Grenoble, and Magdalen were confined in the system of NKVD order to demonize Stalin. College, Oxford. Conquest joined the labor camps administered by an organ Forensic work also uncovered mass Communist Party in 1937 and fought in now known simply as the . graves within the former Soviet Union. the British light infantry during World Conquest uses interviews with former In an article titled, “Unearthing the War II. After the war ended, Conquest inmates of the Gulag system as one of Great Terror,” Conquest says about left the Communist Party and joined the his main sources. The transcripts of the graves: “Revisionists’ estimates for Foreign Office, where he remained until these interviews are difficult to obtain the whole USSR could be tucked into 1956. He is the author of seventeen because Conquest fails to document a single corner of…one gravesite of a books on Soviet history and politics. His where they can be found. Nonetheless, single minor republican capital.”4 For best-known work, , was independent interviews with former evidence that Byelorussian executions published in 1968 and then again in Gulag inmates completed by the United numbered somewhere between 250,000 1990, in a revised edition.1 States Congress in 1970 confirm and 300,000, Conquest relies on several In The Great Terror, Conquest Conquest’s numbers. articles written about Soviet mass graves. attempts to explain Stalin’s motives and Conquest also relies on several Of course, owing to the impossibility methods as he began the Party Purge. newspaper and magazine articles from of exhuming all of the many suspected Regrettably, during the 1960s, when the Soviet Union and present-day modern mass burial mounds in the Conquest was researching his book, . These sources include Russian Byelorussian region, these totals are the Soviet Union was a closed society, newspapers: Yunost’, Agitator, difficult to confirm. or in other words, was unwilling to News, and Sotsialisticheskaia Industriia. One of Conquest’s more unique share information with the international Although these papers and periodicals sources is the Japanese Navy’s record of community concerning certain events are not readily available in the United ships entering and leaving the enormous that had taken place within its borders. States, I was able to find two articles camp region dedicated chiefly Although much had been learned from from Moscow News that Conquest uses: to mining gold in the Arctic wilderness ’s famous 1956 XX one dated week number eighteen of of northeastern . While Kolyma Party Congress “Secret Speech” and 1988 and the other week forty-eight of was in operation, the only way to from the campaign of “de-Stalinization” 1988. From the week eighteen article, receive goods or export gold was for that followed, to estimate the true Conquest uses the number of executions Soviet ships to pass through Japanese scale of the Purge Conquest really had within Uzbekistan, approximately forty waters. The Japanese routinely stopped no choice but to turn to alternative thousand, to extrapolate figures for the these vessels to perform customs sources of information. However, the entire Soviet Union.2 Conquest also uses searches, thus recording estimates of rapid decline of the Soviet Union after the article of week forty-eight, written the populations of workers’ camps and Mikhail Gorbachev took power in 1985 by Roy Medvedev, a famous dissident the amount of gold Soviet were opened up many sources of information who estimates that the number of Purge producing. The records reveal that each previously unavailable. Hence, Conquest victims ranges from 16 to18 million of five ships carried approximately continued his research and published arrests, of which 10 million either died 4,000 and completed 10 to 11 his revised version of The Great Terror or were murdered.3 One controversial journeys annually, thus leading to a total in 1990. Conquest concludes that aspect of Medvedev’s article is that of 200,000 to 220,000 prisoners being approximately seven million Soviet it originated from an organization transported each year.5 citizens were arrested from 1937 to called Memorial, a famous glasnost-era J. Arch Getty, the best and most 1938, and of these, approximately one institution still dedicated to preserving famous of the revisionists, was born in million were executed and two million the memory of the men and women Louisiana and received a BA from the died in camps. Another one million who fell victim to Stalin’s Purge. Some University of Pennsylvania in 1972, and

1 Robert Conquest, The Great Terror, (New York and Oxford: , 1990), 180. 2 Kamil Ikramov, “Not Supposed to See it?” Moscow News, No. 18, 1988. 3 Roy Medvedev, “The Suit Against Stalin,” Moscow News, No. 48., 1988. 4 Robert Conquest, “Unearthing the Great Terror,” Orbis, Spring 1989: 240. 5 Conquest, Kolyma: The Artic Death Camps, (New York: The Viking Press, 1978), 227.

GVSU McNair Scholars Journal VOLUME 8, 2004 15 his PhD from Boston College in 1979. Rossisskoi Federatsii (GARF); from narrow range of sources. Also, Getty’s Currently, Professor Getty teaches at the documents he found there, Getty estimates lack credibility because they the University of California at Los creates a table of figures for arrests are implausible in light of the evidence Angeles. He is the author of five books and sentences. These derive from accumulating from forensic archaeology, and many articles. In his study titled documents in fond 9401 of the NKVD the oral tradition, and other non- The Road to Terror, Getty produces archival material. Getty also uses fond archival sources. estimates of the number of executions, 9401 for other statistics, such as those This is part of a larger pattern arrests, camp populations, and camp concerning persons banished in efforts of research differences, a tradition deaths from 1937 to 1938: total to collectivize agriculture, and those born out of the nineteenth century arrests approximately 2.5 million, executed from 1937 to 1938.8 Getty “old history” and the emergence of camp populations from 1.9 million, utilizes another fond, 9414, for figures a “new history.” Old camp deaths at 160,084 and of the number of prison inmates in the history emphasizes the importance executions at 681,692. beginning of 1938 and camp deaths and of documents primarily from archival Throughout The Road to Terror, camp sentences from 1935 to 1940. sources, while new history takes Getty refers to an article written in Getty also employed documents into account a much wider range of collaboration with Gabor T. Rittersporn from the Federal Archives in other sources such as sociology, economics, and Viktor N. Zemskov, who compare publications. For example, several times , anthropology, and and contrast several different estimates throughout his article entitled “Victims,” archaeology. Getty is squarely in of the number of “victims” during he cites GARF documents as sources for the “old history” tradition, whereas Stalin’s , including those by the number of deaths and arrests during Conquest was compelled to rely on Conquest, , and the Purge. He employs documents from “new history” evidence. Roy A. Medvedev. In comparison to fond 9401 to compare percentages of These two historians are at odds in these, Getty’s figures are much lower convictions and arrests during 1937– the debate over the potential transition and have the advantage of precise 1938, and fond 9401 documents also of the Soviet Union into a social archival documentation. appear throughout the article. democracy because of the methods and In addition to archival sources, Getty Because of the wide discrepancy sources used to determine the number also uses the newspaper Pravda, and in between the figures arrived at by the of Purge victims. Regardless of whether particular, an article published on 22 accepted authorities on the subject, or not their personal ideologies support June 1989, exploring the damage that chiefly by Conquest and Getty, the most or deny the theory of social democracy, Stalin caused to the Russian economy recent books on Stalin’s Purge avoid the the evidence they present will be used and people, thereby harming the question of numbers. One suspects that by scholars far into the future. country’s defense during World War this also is done to avoid appearing to At present, what we can say, without II. The author, G. Kumanev, provides be a “Cold Warrior” like Conquest or checking out the sources ourselves, is execution figures for 1936 of 1,118 a “revisionist” like Getty. For example, that Getty’s figures can be taken as a and for 1937 of 353,074. Kumanev in her widely acclaimed 2003 book on reliable minimum and Conquest’s as a comments on the figures arguing the Gulag, effectively reliable maximum. One is a certainty that they seemed to be purposefully avoids giving specific numbers in terms and the other a probability, and at lowered and/or inaccurate (in Russian, of arrests, executions, and deaths within present they are so far apart that even “ЗаНИЖеННЬІМИ”).6 Another article used the camp system.9 specialists in the field of Soviet history by Getty is in Pravda, 14 February When comparing historians’ are reluctant to choose. Let us hope that 1990. The unnamed author numbers conclusions, analyzing the sources is future generations will be more apt to the 1930–1953 executions for very important. Conquest utilizes a diversify their sources and consider both “counterrevolutionary and state crimes” wide variety in compiling his totals. archival documents and non-archival at 786,098. According to the article, the However, there is little or no supporting evidence to come to a consensus about source for these figures was the KGB.7 documentary evidence. Getty, on the what is certainly one of the greatest The most significant source used other hand, has more precise numbers, atrocities of modern times. by Getty is the Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv but they are derived from a very

6 KG Kumanev, Pravda, No. 173., June 22, 1989. 7 Pravda, No. 45, February 14, 1990. 8 J. Arch Getty, The Road to Terror, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999), 588. 9 Anne Applebaum, Gulag, (London: , 2003), 571.

16 Certainty, Probability, and Stalin’s Great Party Purge Bibliography

Applebaum, Anne. Gulag. London: Doubleday, 2003.

Conquest, Robert. Kolyma: The Artic Death Camps. New York: The Viking Press, 1978.

______. The Great Terror. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.

______. “Unearthing the Great Terror.” Orbis. Spring 1989.

Getty, J. Arch. The Road to Terror. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999.

Ikramov, Kamil. “Not Supposed to See it?” Moscow News. No. 18. 1988.

Kumanev, G. Pravda. No. 173. June 22, 1989.

Medvedev, Roy. “The Suit Against Stalin.” Moscow News. No. 48. 1988.

Pravda. No. 45. February 14, 1990.

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