Out of the Purges that took place in the countryside grew the Great Purges and the Terror that would take hold in the mid-1930s. These Purges were very alike to the purges of the Kulaks. They came about as a fear of saboteurs grew alongside the growing industry in the city. The Purges began after the Kirov Murder, and Stalin's Terrorism Decrees, this set up the legal apparatus to begin the Purges and the Terror. Initially, the Purges were limited but they soon became a whirlpool affect that pulled in everyone around them. This was because, like the Kulak Purges, guilt by association and tactics reminiscent of a witch hunt where a simple accusation of a neighbor, with no evidence, was enough to condemn one to death or the Gulags. Evidence of this method of indictment is found in the Ginzburg book, when speaking to an old acquaintance in prison, Ginzburg asks who has been recently arrested. She is met with the reply "”You might as well ask who hasn"t.” He rattled off dozens of names of Party activists, engineers, and teachers.' (Ginzburg, 101). This quote illustrates how the Party used its passive method of waiting for accusations, and then incorporating all acquaintances of the accused into the alleged crime. This also shows one of the most debilitating aspects of the attacks that Stalinism laid onto the educated members of society. The best example of this, and the witch hunt tactics used, is found in Journey Into the Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginzburg.
Ginzburg, an academic and writer, was brought into the Purges and Terror by her association with an alleged Troskyist, Elvov. Ginzburg is arrested, and then sentenced to fifteen years in the prison system. She served her time in numerous places, from Lefortovo, Butyrki, Yaroslavl, as well as Kolyma. The extent of the betrayal by Stalin becomes apparent in Ginzburg's book. Of course not only were academics punished, engineers, politicians, and industrial bosses were also included in the Purges. Politicians were targeted with special efficiency and lethality. When describing the Seventeenth Party Congress, Stites writes "the 1,966 men and women could not have known that over 1,000 of them would disappear before the nest congress assembled in 1939." (Stites, 363) The point is also supported by Ginzburg, "The whole government of Tartary is in prison." (Ginzburg, 128) The abject destruction and extermination of the Party's best and brightest by Stalin's Purges had a debilitating effect on Russia's ability to govern itself, as well as to produce ideas on how to better the all important Industrialization and production numbers. Also targeted were the military heroes and commanders of the Red Army, namely Mikhail Tukhachevsky. Tukhachevsky was accused of conspiring with Trotsky and the German High Command, convicted by special military tribunal, and executed immediately. Stalin also had between thirty five thousand and forty one thousand more men from the Red Army executed promptly after dealing with Tukhachevsky (Stites, 365). Doubtlessly the extermination of most gifted and experienced commanders and soldiers of the Red Army had an adverse affect on the Soviet Union's ability to make war and defend itself, a lesson that would be learned in the coming World War. While Stalinism was certainly a betrayal by destroying the abilities of Soviet Russia to think, govern, and fight effectively, it was also a betrayal of the very humanity of the people it was designed to protect.
The system of prisons, work camps, and the methods used to obtain damning evidence against them was a betrayal of everything human in the Russian people, as well as their trust in their new government. Once a person was suspected a terrorist, Trotskyite, traitor, or saboteur, they became something other than human. “Enemies are not people. We're allowed to do what we like with them.” (Ginzburg, 63) says a guard when Eugenia chides him for the barbaric treatment and unsupported accusations that she has been faced with. This disregard for the life and treatment of fellow humans continues throughout Ginzburg's tragic account, other injustices also surface throughout the account, while in Lefortovo in Moscow, all that Ginzburg hears about from her fellow inmates is about "the new system of beating and torture" (Ginzburg, 129). Of course, the only real goal of the prison systems after interrogating and torturing a prisoner for incriminating accusations against others, was to steadily work the life out of them in the Gulags. The recollections of the Gulag work camps provided by Ginzburg shows just how dedicated to the death of their prisoners the Communist government was. Ginzburg describes in detail the "Land Improvement" assignment that she and her comrades are assigned to. She describes ferocious wind, forty-degree frost, and the lack of food in detail (Ginzburg, 367).
Stalinism, with the new "freedom" that it provided to its people was a fulfillment of the brutal Revolution and Civil War before it. However, through the policies of Industrialization and therefore Collectivization, it became simply another step in the continuance of a bloody tradition of revolution that had been in place since the 1905 Revolution. This betrayal of the Russian people by their government was perfectly summed up by Eugenia Ginzburg when she wrote, "...the Great Leader who devoured his people." (Ginzburg 337). Stalin, the Great Leader who forced his country to industrialize in preparation for the next great war and in turn destroyed the ability of his people to do so, as well as betraying their trust and humanity.
