Editing Great Purge (section)

==Historical interpretations==
The Great Purge has provoked numerous debates about its purpose, scale, and mechanisms. According to one interpretation, Stalin's regime had to maintain its citizens in a state of fear and uncertainty to stay in power (Brzezinski, 1958). Robert Conquest emphasized Stalin's paranoia, focused on the Moscow show trial of "Old Bolsheviks", and analyzed the carefully planned and systematic destruction of the Communist Party. Some others view the Great Purge as a crucial moment, or rather the culmination, of a vast [[Social engineering (political science)|social engineering]] campaign started at the beginning of the 1930s (Hagenloh, 2000; Shearer, 2003; Werth, 2003).<ref name=werth>{{cite web|first=Nicolas|last=Werth|author-link=Nicolas Werth|url=http://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/nkvd-mass-secret-national-operations-august-1937-november-1938|title=Case Study: The NKVD Mass Secret Operation n° 00447 (August 1937 – November 1938)|publisher=Mass Violence and Resistance – Research Network|date=15 April 2019}}</ref> According to an October 1993 study published in ''[[The American Historical Review]]'', much of the Great Purge was directed against the widespread banditry and criminal activity which was occurring in the Soviet Union at the time.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Getty |first1=J. Arch |last2=Rittersporn |first2=Gabor T. |last3=Zemskov |first3=Viktor N. |date=October 1993 |title=Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=98 |issue=4 |pages=1030–1035 |doi=10.2307/2166597 |jstor=2166597}}</ref>

Historian [[Isaac Deutscher]] regarded the Moscow trials "as the prelude to the destruction of an entire generation of revolutionaries".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date=2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-721-5 |page=1370|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky+the+prophet |language=en}}</ref>

[[Leon Trotsky]] viewed the excessive violence characteristic of the mass purges as an ideological differentiation between Stalinism and Bolshevism.<ref name="auto1">{{cite web |title=Leon Trotsky: Stalinism and Bolshevism (August 1937) |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1937/08/stalinism.htm |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref> He summarised his view:

<blockquote>"The present purge draws between Bolshevism and Stalinism not simply a bloody line but a whole river of blood. The annihilation of all the older generation of Bolsheviks, an important part of the middle generation which participated in the civil war, and that part of the youth that took up most seriously the Bolshevik traditions, shows not only a political but a thoroughly physical incompatibility between Bolshevism and Stalinism. How can this not be seen?"<ref name="auto1"/></blockquote>

According to [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s 1956 speech, "[[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences]]", and to historian [[Robert Conquest]], a great number of accusations, notably those presented at the [[Moscow Trials|Moscow show trial]]s, were based on [[forced confession]]s, often obtained through [[torture]],{{sfn|Conquest|2008|p=121 which cites his secret speech}} and on loose interpretations of [[Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)|Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code]], which dealt with counter-revolutionary crimes. Due legal process, as defined by Soviet law in force at the time, was often largely replaced with summary proceedings by [[NKVD troika]]s.{{sfn|Conquest|2008|p=286}}

Valentin Berezhkov, who became Stalin's interpreter in 1941, suggests parallels in his memoir between Hitler's inner party purge and Stalin's mass repressions of [[Old Bolsheviks]], military commanders and intellectuals.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Berezhkov |first1=V. M. (Valentin Mikhaĭlovich) |url=https://archive.org/details/atstalinsside00vmbe/page/10/mode/2up?view=theater |title=At Stalin's side : his interpreter's memoirs from the October Revolution to the fall of the dictator's empire |last2=Mikheyev |first2=Sergei M. |date=1994 |publisher=Secaucus, NJ : Carol Pub. Group |isbn=978-1-55972-212-4 |page=10}}</ref>

According to historian James Harris, contemporary archival research pokes "rather large holes in the traditional story" weaved by Conquest and others.{{sfn|Harris|2017|pp=2–4}} His findings, while not exonerating Stalin or the Soviet state, dispel the notion that the bloodletting was merely the result of Stalin attempting to establish his own personal dictatorship; evidence suggests he was committed to building the socialist state envisioned by Lenin. The real motivation for the terror, according to Harris, was an exaggerated fear of counterrevolution:{{sfn|Harris|2017|p=16}}

<blockquote>So what was the motivation behind the Terror? The answers required a lot more digging, but it gradually became clearer that the violence of the late 1930s was driven by fear. Most Bolsheviks, Stalin among them, believed that the revolutions of 1789, 1848 and 1871 had failed because their leaders hadn't adequately anticipated the ferocity of the counter-revolutionary reaction from the establishment. They were determined not to make the same mistake.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/163498|title=Historian James Harris says Russian archives show we've misunderstood Stalin|last=Harris|first=James|date=July 26, 2016|website=[[History News Network]]|access-date=December 1, 2018}}</ref></blockquote>

Two major lines of interpretation have emerged among historians. One argues that the purges reflected Stalin's ambitions, his paranoia, and his inner drive to increase his power and eliminate potential rivals. Revisionist historians explain the purges by theorizing that rival factions exploited Stalin's paranoia and used terror to enhance their own position. Peter Whitewood examines the first purge, directed at the Army, and comes up with a third interpretation that Stalin and other top leaders believing that they were always surrounded by capitalist enemies, always worried about the vulnerability and loyalty of the Red Army.<ref name="James Harris 1941"/> It was not a ploy—Stalin truly believed it. "Stalin attacked the Red Army because he seriously misperceived a serious security threat"; thus "Stalin seems to have genuinely believed that foreign‐backed enemies had infiltrated the ranks and managed to organize a conspiracy at the very heart of the Red Army." The purge hit deeply from June 1937 and November 1938, removing 35,000; many were executed. Experience in carrying out the purge facilitated purging other key elements in the wider Soviet polity.<ref>Peter Whitewood, ''The Red Army and the Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Soviet Military'' (2015) Quoting pp. 12, 276.</ref><ref>Ronald Grigor Suny, review, ''Historian'' (2018) 80#1: 177–179.</ref><ref>For a critique of Whitewood see Alexander Hill, review, ''American Historical Review'' (2017) 122#5 pp. 1713–1714.</ref> Historians often cite the disruption as factors in the Red Army's disastrous military performance during the German invasion.<ref>Roger R. Reese, "Stalin Attacks the Red Army." ''Military History Quarterly'' 27.1 (2014): 38–45.</ref> [[Robert W. Thurston]] reports that the purge was not intended to subdue the Soviet masses, many of whom helped enact the purge, but to deal with opposition to Stalin's rule among the Soviet elites.{{sfn|Thurston|1998|p=xx}}