The Secret Police

The NKVD (Secret Police)

In 1934, the OGPU was reorganized to create a new secret police force known as the NKVD. The job of the NKVD was to continue to stamp out any opposition to communist rule.

Enemies of the people

A common crime pursued by the NKVD was being an ‘enemy of the people’.
Such crimes were tried by 3-person troikas of NKVD officers, often on the basis of minimal evidence.
- People were tried for contact with foreigners, not cutting pictures of Trotsky from textbooks.

Techniques

The NKVD used extreme techniques, including mass arrests, forced confessions, and informants. Many political prisoners were executed.
From 1935, the NKVD had quotas for how many arrests it needed to make.
- This meant that citizens were often arrested for no crime at all.

The GULAGS

A system of camps, known as ‘GULAGS’ were set up. They housed 8 million prisoners by 1941.
Many were political prisoners, but there were also peasants, workers convicted of wrecking (disrupting factory work) and those who had been arrested just to meet quotas.
The GULAGS provided huge amounts of slave labour for industry and the railroads. They were particularly prevalent in the east, particularly in Siberia.

1The End of Tsardom

1.1Russia's Economy & Society

1.1.1Industrialisation

1.1.2Living & Working Conditions

1.2Nicholas II's Autocracy & the Court

1.2.1Growth of Revolutionary Opposition

1.2.2The 1905 Revolution & the October Manifesto

1.2.3Reforming Russia Before 1914 - Stolypin

1.2.4The Duma & Political Stalemate

1.3The First World War

1.3.1The Impact of Military Defeats

1.3.2Social & Economic Effects of WW1

1.3.3Romanov Unpopularity

1.3.4The Tsar's Abdication

1.3.5Top Grade AO2/3 - The End of Tsardom

2Lenin's New Society

2.1The Provisional Government

2.1.1The Failure of the Government

2.1.2Social & Economic Problems

2.1.3Lenin & Trotsky

2.1.4The Growth of the Bolsheviks

2.1.5The October / November Revolution

2.1.6Top Grade AO2/3 - The Provisional Government

2.2The Impact of Lenin's Dictatorship

2.2.1The End of the First World War

2.2.2The Cheka

2.2.3Red Terror & Centralisation

2.2.4The Civil War & The Red Army

2.2.5Propaganda

2.2.6Top Grade AO2/3 - Early Bolshevism & the Civil War

2.3Social & Economic Developments

2.3.1War Communism

2.3.2The Kronstadt Rising

2.3.3The New Economic Policy (NEP)

2.3.4The Achievements of Lenin & Trotsky

2.3.5Top Grade AO2/3 - Social & Economic Developments

3Stalin's USSR

3.1Stalin the Dictator

3.1.1The Power Struggle to Succeed Lenin

3.1.2The Communist Party & Government

3.1.3The Terror & the Purges

3.1.4The Secret Police

3.1.5Cult of Personality

3.1.6Propaganda & Censorship under Stalin

3.1.7Top Grade AO2/3 - Stalin's Dictatorship

3.2Stalin's Modernisation of the USSR

3.2.1Collectivisation

3.2.2Five Year Plans

3.2.3Social & Economic Consequences

3.2.4Social & Economic Consequences 2

3.2.5The Extent of Modernisation

3.3Impact of the Second World War

3.3.1Stalin's Wartime Leadership

3.3.2Political, Economic & Social Consequences of War

3.3.3Top Grade AO2/3 - Modernisation of the USSR

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