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"Whitewood, Peter"
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The Purge of the Red Army and the Soviet Mass Operations, 1937–38
This article explores the possible connections between Stalin's purge of the Red Army, sanctioned in June 1937, and the Soviet mass operations, launched just weeks later. It argues that Stalin ordered the military purge to combat a misperceived threat from foreign agents in the Red Army that had become a pressing issue in the early months of 1937. The article makes the case that, once launched, the military purge provided the catalyst for the mass operations as the regime sought not only to destroy a ‘fifth column’ in the Red Army, but soon turned attention to the wider population.
Journal Article
Subversion in the Red Army and the Military Purge of 1937-1938
Stalin's purge of his military elite during 1937-1938 is one of the most unusual events of the Great Terror. Why would Stalin execute his most qualified officers at the same time as defence spending was rising and a world war was approaching? This article argues that a long history of the Red Army being perceived as vulnerable to subversion is central to understanding this military purge. When faced with perceived plots in the military Stalin tended to lean towards restraint, but by 1937 he felt he could no longer hesitate, and finally cracked down on what he saw as a compromised army.
Journal Article
Nationalities in a Class War
This article examines Bolshevik attitudes towards the «foreign» soldiers who served in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. It focuses on the treatment of non-Russian soldiers from Europe and Asia, as well as the national minorities of the former Russian Empire, by the Bolshevik Party elite, the Red Army leadership and the political police. It concludes that while «foreign» soldiers were recognised for bringing professionalism to the newly formed and disorganised Red Army, these troops were never properly integrated into the ranks, even though class position assumed greater significance than nationality during the Russian Civil War. The soldiers continued to be faced with the same barriers to integration that had existed under the Russian Imperial Regime. Finally, the article argues that the Bolsheviks’ early experience of using «foreign» soldiers in the Red Army influenced the evolution of Soviet national policy and played a part in the shift towards Russification under Iosef Stalin.
Journal Article
The red army and the terror
This thesis examines the reasons why Stalin purged his Red Army during 1937-38 at the same time as World War was looming. This gutting of the officer corps created huge turmoil inside the Red Army and affected at the very least 35,000 army leaders, resulting in thousands of discharges, arrests and executions. Previous explanations of the military purge have typically concentrated on Stalin’s relationship with his military elite and how he supposedly believed they would become a block to his expanding power. Framed as the ‘Tukhachevskii Affair’, after its most famous victim, the military purge is most commonly depicted as merely the extension of Stalin’s advancing lust for total power into the Red Army. This thesis will show that such accounts are unsupported and inadequate and will provide a new explanation of the military purge. This thesis will show that Stalin did not attack his army elite in order to increase his power, but this was a last minute action made from a position of weakness. Taking the formation of the Red Army in early 1918 as its starting point, this thesis will argue that the key to understanding Stalin’s attack on the officer corps in 1937 is to understand how the military was perceived as susceptible to subversion. From its very formation the Red Army was seen as a target of ‘enemies’, ‘counterrevolutionaries’ and was regarded as vulnerable to infiltration. Over a period of twenty years the army faced an array of exaggerated and imaginary threats. Stalin was plagued by nagging doubts about the reliability of his forces, from mass instability in the lower ranks to supposed disloyalty in the military elite. By 1937 these perceived threats had culimated in a spy scare and it was this that finally forced Stalin to crack down on the Red Army.
Dissertation