THE EFFECT OF STALINS PURGES IN THE 1930S ON THE SOVIET UNIONS FOREIGN POLICY JUST PRIOR TO AND AT THE BREAK OUT OF WORLD WAR II
Less than a month before Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 and started World War II, he signed a non-aggression pact with Stalin. Less than two years later, he broke the pact and invaded the Soviet Union in the early morning hours of June 22, 1941. There were plenty of evidence for German aggression before the war broke out, yet Stalin nevertheless signed the pact which contained the secret protocol that divided Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union. The reason for signing the pact were complex, yet one of the most important ones were the domestic factors. Among them, the terrible effect of the purges during the 1930s on the population, economy and especially the army. The purges were set off on December 1, 1934 with the murder of Sergei Kirov. He was a member of the Politburo, leader of the Leningrad party apparatus and had considerable influence in the ruling elite. His concern for the workers in Leningrad and his skill as an orator earned him considerable popularity. Stalin used his murder as a pretext for launching a broad purge that would claim hundreds of thousands of victims and have lasting repercussion felt to this day. Stalin never visited Leningrad again and directed one of his most vicious post-War
Molotov broke to the Russian people the grim news about the German attack. He apparently waited to see what the results of the first battles would be, what the attitude of Great Britain and the United States would be, and what the feeling in his own country would be. Thus, many works even with the best intentions of unbiased research can be subconsciously marred by political bias. About two million prisoners were taken in the first year of the war. 213) The slaughter of armed forces began on 12 June 1937 when Tukhachevsky and some top army men were executed, then spread to lower ranks and then to political comissars. To the Soviets were allotted Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Bessarabia; to the Nazis, everything to the West of these regions, including Lithuania. He did not utter a single word in public for almost two weeks. Here's a grave list of the top dead: " 3 out of 5 marshals, 14 out of 16 Army commanders Class I and II, 8 out of 8 Admirals, 60 out of 67 Corps Commanders, 136 out of 199 Divisional Commanders, 221 out of 397 Brigade Commanders" (McCauley, p. In the first years of the war, Soviet losses were much higher than necessary. There was also a panic response in the primary party organizations to expel and "expose" people in order to protect oneself and to show "vigilance" (Getty, p. However, not all Soviet casualties were due to the Germans.
Common topics in this essay:
Kirov Politburo,
Moscow Leningrad,
Soviet Union,
Subject Stalin,
Britain United,
Red Army,
Western Front,
Non-Aggression Pact,
Nazis West,
Eastern Europe,
soviet union,
german aggression,
june 22 1941,
non-aggression pact,
red army,
june 22,
actual casualties,
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secret protocol,
getty p213,
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Acceptance Essays
