Horror by Paranoia
In late 1934, Stalin launched a campaign of political terror, otherwise know as the Great Purge. After Lenin’s death in 1924 Stalin maneuvered his way up the political ranks until he became the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (History.com Staff). Under his leadership came a period of terror across Russia. The Great purge, 1934 to 1939, was an unjust era of false persecution, high police surveillance, suspicion of saboteurs, show trials, imprisonment, and even executions directly caused by Josef Stalin’s paranoia.
Many people in the Soviet Union were affected during this era, and many were of the upperclass. Most genocides and mass murders in the past targeted a subgroup …show more content…
The camps contained many prisoners and were called the Gulag, or main administrative of corrective labor camps. Gulag contained robbers, murderers, those falsely accused of acts against the Soviet Union and Stalin, and eventually even members of the Soviets modern and advanced military. Being sent to a Gulag was particularly easy and could even happen for something as simple as showing up late to work three times, or even for telling a simple joke about a communist party (“Gulag”). The Gulag was an effortless way for Stalin to rid the Soviet Union of anyone he found troubling or was skeptical of. Life in the Gulag was harsh, and prisoners were forced to do hard labor in hazardous conditions. Prisoners worked for up to fourteen hours a day performing exhausting physical work on little food. They were forced to live in violent camp zones surrounded by armed guards, where prisoners would compete for life's necessities. Women in the gulag were usually abused by male guards and prisoners with no one to help them (“Gulag”). “Many died in these labor camps due to starvation, disease,exposure, and overwork”(“Great Purges”). The dangerous environment of the camps made prisoners live a life of suffering, or die in the midst. Many people sent to the Gulags or to trials were never heard of or seen again. During the Great Purge, “human life became cheap and easily sacrificed for the greater good.””Being expelled …show more content…
By the summer of 1938, Stalin realized that the Purges had went to far, signaling the end of massive purges. Nevertheless, the practice of mass arrest and exile was continued until Stalin’s death in 1953 when Nikita Khrushchev finally denounced the Great Purge. Although,even today, some authors and everyday people still believe that the purges were exaggerated and even necessary (“Great Purges”). In the United States today, schools spend more time teaching and talking about Hitler and the Jewish Holocaust than any other mass killing in history. Because of this, people sometimes forget that genocides and mass murders have happened, not once, but countless times in history. Even today is there really a sure way to prevent another horrid thing like the Great Purge from happening, or could life become meaningless again in just the blink of an
In late 1934, Stalin launched a campaign of political terror, otherwise know as the Great Purge. After Lenin’s death in 1924 Stalin maneuvered his way up the political ranks until he became the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (History.com Staff). Under his leadership came a period of terror across Russia. The Great purge, 1934 to 1939, was an unjust era of false persecution, high police surveillance, suspicion of saboteurs, show trials, imprisonment, and even executions directly caused by Josef Stalin’s paranoia.
Many people in the Soviet Union were affected during this era, and many were of the upperclass. Most genocides and mass murders in the past targeted a subgroup …show more content…
The camps contained many prisoners and were called the Gulag, or main administrative of corrective labor camps. Gulag contained robbers, murderers, those falsely accused of acts against the Soviet Union and Stalin, and eventually even members of the Soviets modern and advanced military. Being sent to a Gulag was particularly easy and could even happen for something as simple as showing up late to work three times, or even for telling a simple joke about a communist party (“Gulag”). The Gulag was an effortless way for Stalin to rid the Soviet Union of anyone he found troubling or was skeptical of. Life in the Gulag was harsh, and prisoners were forced to do hard labor in hazardous conditions. Prisoners worked for up to fourteen hours a day performing exhausting physical work on little food. They were forced to live in violent camp zones surrounded by armed guards, where prisoners would compete for life's necessities. Women in the gulag were usually abused by male guards and prisoners with no one to help them (“Gulag”). “Many died in these labor camps due to starvation, disease,exposure, and overwork”(“Great Purges”). The dangerous environment of the camps made prisoners live a life of suffering, or die in the midst. Many people sent to the Gulags or to trials were never heard of or seen again. During the Great Purge, “human life became cheap and easily sacrificed for the greater good.””Being expelled …show more content…
By the summer of 1938, Stalin realized that the Purges had went to far, signaling the end of massive purges. Nevertheless, the practice of mass arrest and exile was continued until Stalin’s death in 1953 when Nikita Khrushchev finally denounced the Great Purge. Although,even today, some authors and everyday people still believe that the purges were exaggerated and even necessary (“Great Purges”). In the United States today, schools spend more time teaching and talking about Hitler and the Jewish Holocaust than any other mass killing in history. Because of this, people sometimes forget that genocides and mass murders have happened, not once, but countless times in history. Even today is there really a sure way to prevent another horrid thing like the Great Purge from happening, or could life become meaningless again in just the blink of an