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The Present Purge in the USSR

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Barrington Moore Jr
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Extract

The series of purges that began last summer in the USSR have again aroused speculation concerning the stability of the Soviet regime. Do the purges indicate that serious popular discontent exists? Do they reflect, as some have observed, a state of fright among the Communist elite? In this essay an effort will be made to ascertain the connection between the recent purges in the fields of political, economic and intellectual life and certain continuing strains and stresses in the structure of Soviet society. Our general thesis is that recent developments merely reveal the continuation of certain long-standing but not serious weaknesses in the Soviet system. The purges are only part of the general effort of the Party to strengthen its control and to deal with these strains.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , January 1947 , pp. 65 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1947

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References

1 Pravda and Izvestia, September 20, 1946.Google Scholar

2 New York Times, September 27, 1946.Google Scholar Further corrective measures included the establishment of a special Council on Collective Farm Affairs as a special body in the Council of Ministers. Its representatives will be sent out as overseers from “the Center” (presumably Moscow) and will act independently of local authorities. For details and the personnel of this new body see Pravda, October 9, 1946.Google Scholar

3 An excellent description of the collective farm (kolkhoz) as a socio-economic unit may be found in Bienstock, , Schwartz, , and Yugow, , Management in Russian Industry and Agriculture (Oxford Press, 1944), Part IIGoogle Scholar. A decree of November 9, 1946. indicates that in the future the cooperatives will purchase this surplus at “market prices.” Market prices may have little meaning if the Party-controlled cooperatives actually become the only purchasers.

4 Izvestia, August 8, 1946Google Scholar. For other abuses see Pravda, July 14 and 29, 1946.Google Scholar

5 Kratkaya, Sovetskaya Entsiklopedia (Moscow, 1943), p. 738.Google Scholar

6 Izvestia, September 20, 1946.Google Scholar

7 Statement by Andreev at XVIII Party Congress, Pravda, March 14, 1939Google Scholar. There are some indications that the influx of new and not always reliable members into the Party has increased this proportion.

8 Pravda, August 23, 1946.Google Scholar

9 Pravda, October 12, 1946Google Scholar, as quoted in New York Times, October 13, 1946.Google Scholar

10 New York Times, October 18, 1946.Google Scholar

11 Moscow News, March 22, 1939.Google Scholar

12 Pravda, August 23, 1946.Google Scholar

13 Izvestia, August 11, 1946.Google Scholar

14 Pravda, April 15, May 25, August 19, 1946Google Scholar; Izvestia, August 11, October 7, 1946Google Scholar. These issues give a representative selection of such accounts, as well as material on the selection of leadership within the Party itself. The writer's article on the Communist Party in the American Sociological Review, June, 1944Google Scholar, analyzes this problem in more details.

15 Pravda, July 4, August 24, August 29, September 1, 1946Google Scholar, and many others. Both the decree on collective farms of September 19th and the discussion of literary deviations from the Party line stress this factor.

16 See, for example, Izvestia, August 8, 1946.Google Scholar

17 See, for example, Pravda, July 20, October 15 and 16, 1946.Google Scholar

18 Pravda, May 24, July 11, July 20, September 14, 1946.Google Scholar

19 Illuminating comments on this problem may be found in Pravda, August 8, August 11, September 7, 1946.Google Scholar

20 The curriculum and directions on how to apply for entrance may be found in the journal of the Party Central Committee, Bolshevik, No. 16, August, 1946.Google Scholar

21 For details see the account in the liberal New York daily, Novoe Russkoe Slovo, October 31, November 1, 1946Google Scholar. The author computes that over 100 writers and artists have been affected in one way or another.

22 Pravda, August 29, 1946.Google Scholar

23 Vavilov, S. E., president of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, “Basic Scientific Problems of the Academy of Sciences in the Next Five Year Plan,” Pravda, July 4, 1946, gives much detail.Google Scholar

24 Pravda, October 15, 1946Google Scholar. See also the articles in Bolshevik, “Soviet Social Science at the Present Stage” (No. 15, August, 1946)Google Scholar and the article by Alexandrov, , “On Contemporary Bourgeois Theories of Social Development” (No. 11–12, June, 1946).Google Scholar

25 September 7, 1946.

26 Pravda, September 1, 1946.Google Scholar

27 August 12, 1946.

28 Pravda, September 4, 1946.Google Scholar

29 August 29, 1946.

30 The date of his speech is not given. A revised text appeared in the Soviet press, September 21, 1946.

31 See the summary in New York Times, October 19, 1946Google Scholar. Simonov's letter appeared in Pravda, October 17, 1946Google Scholar, and the review in Komsomolskaya Pravda, October 15, 1946.Google Scholar

32 See the speech by the Party boss of the Ukraine, cited above from Pravda, August 23, 1946Google Scholar, and a long article in Pravda on Kazakh nationalism, September 30, 1946.

33 Izvestia, June 28, 1946Google Scholar, and New York Times, June 27, 1946Google Scholar. The Kalmyk and the Karachayev Republics also lost their autonomy, though it is not specifically stated that this Was due to collaboration.

34 New York Times, October 23. 1946.Google Scholar

35 The text of the decree has not yet been published. Extensive commentaries may be found in Pravada, November 11, 1946Google Scholar, and Izvestia, November 12, 1946.Google Scholar