YSK Joseph Stalin created the Great Terror. He started killing people randomly including artists, generals, doctors, scientists, government officials. Everyone was terrified. - Lemmy.World
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Matvei Bronstein [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matvei_Bronstein]: Theorical physicist. Pioneer of quantum gravity. Arrested, accused of fictional “terroristic” activity and shot in 1938 Lev Shubnikov [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Shubnikov]: Experimental physicist. Accused on false charges. Executed Adrian Piotrovsky [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Piotrovsky]: Russian dramaturge. Accused on false charges of treason. Executed. Nikolai Bukharin [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Bukharin#Power_struggle]: Leader of the Communist revolution. Member of the Politburo. Falsely accused of treason. Executed. General Alexander Egorov [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Yegorov_(general)]: Marshal of the Soviet Union. Commander of the Red Army Southern Front. Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Arrested, accused on false charges, executed. General Mikhail Tukhachevsky [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tukhachevsky] Supreme Marshal of the Soviet Union. Nicknamed the Red Napoleon. Arrested, accused on fake charges. Executed. Grigory Zinoviev [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigory_Zinoviev]: Chairman of the Communist International Movement. Member of the Soviet Politburo. Accused of treason and executed. Even the secret police themselves were not safe: Genrikh Yagoda : Right-hand of Joseph Stalin. Head of the NKD Secret Police. He spied on everyone in Russia and jailed thousands of innocents. Yagoda was arrested and executed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Yagoda [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Yagoda] Nikolai Yezhov : Appointed head of the NKD Secret Police after the death of Yagoda. Arrested on fake charges, executed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Yezhov [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Yezhov] Everybody was absolutely terrified during this period. At least 600 000 people were killed and over 100 000 people were deported to Gulags in Siberia. Today, Russian schools no longer teach what Joseph Stalin did. Many young russians actually believe that Stalin was a great patriot. This is part of an effort by Vladimir Putin to rehabilitate him: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/10/vladimir-putin-russia-rehabilitating-stalin-soviet-past [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/10/vladimir-putin-russia-rehabilitating-stalin-soviet-past] https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/05/21/stalin-is-making-a-comeback-in-russia-heres-why-a89155 [https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/05/21/stalin-is-making-a-comeback-in-russia-heres-why-a89155]

Matvei Bronstein: Theorical physicist. Pioneer of quantum gravity. Arrested, accused of fictional “terroristic” activity and shot in 1938

Lev Shubnikov: Experimental physicist. Accused on false charges. Executed

Adrian Piotrovsky: Russian dramaturge. Accused on false charges of treason. Executed.

Nikolai Bukharin: Leader of the Communist revolution. Member of the Politburo. Falsely accused of treason. Executed.

General Alexander Egorov: Marshal of the Soviet Union. Commander of the Red Army Southern Front. Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Arrested, accused on false charges, executed.

General Mikhail Tukhachevsky Supreme Marshal of the Soviet Union. Nicknamed the Red Napoleon. Arrested, accused on fake charges. Executed.

Grigory Zinoviev: Chairman of the Communist International Movement. Member of the Soviet Politburo. Accused of treason and executed.

Even the secret police themselves were not safe:

Genrikh Yagoda : Right-hand of Joseph Stalin. Head of the NKD Secret Police. He spied on everyone in Russia and jailed thousands of innocents. Yagoda was arrested and executed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Yagoda

Nikolai Yezhov : Appointed head of the NKD Secret Police after the death of Yagoda. Arrested on fake charges, executed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Yezhov

Everybody was absolutely terrified during this period. At least 600 000 people were killed and over 100 000 people were deported to Gulags in Siberia.

Today, Russian schools no longer teach what Joseph Stalin did.

Many young russians actually believe that Stalin was a great patriot.

This is part of an effort by Vladimir Putin to rehabilitate him:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/10/vladimir-putin-russia-rehabilitating-stalin-soviet-past https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/05/21/stalin-is-making-a-comeback-in-russia-heres-why-a89155

  • Anarcho-Bolshevik@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    6·
    1 month ago

    Neither the beginning of, the course of, nor the end of the Terror show the hand of a master planner.

    — Robert W. Thurston, Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia, 1934–1941, page 135.

    Similarly, the fact that the police action of 1937 continued for so long, in company with equally self‐contradictory political acts, makes it unlikely that we are dealing here with a victorious punitive expedition being carried through by the praetortian guard of an all powerful dictator.

    — Rittersporn, Gabor., Stalinist Simplifications and Soviet Complications, 1933–1953, page 113.

    The terror was a series of group efforts (though these groups changed frequently) rather than a matter of one person intimidating everybody else. […] If we set aside the notion of a ‘grand Stalin plan’ to ‘kill everyone’ (the evidence for which, aside from our knowing the end and reading backward is quite weak) it is possible to understand the politics of the 1930s as an evolving political history in which self‐interested folks and groups jockeyed for position.

    — Getty & Naumov, The Road to Terror (New Haven, Conn.), pgs. Xiv & 330.

    Given that local authorities decided how many would be pressed, who would live and who wouldn’t, it is difficult to agree that everything was planned and administered from Moscow.

    — Getty, J. Arch., ‘Excesses are not Permitted’, Russian Review vol. 61, pg. 133.

    See here for more.