- On January 21, 1924, Lenin, leader of the Russian Revolution, died. Joseph Stalin succeeds him at the head of Soviet Russia. He takes over the administration of Lenin and quickly sets up a reign of terror based on the cult of personality.
- The 1 st December 1934, Sergueï Kirov, an early Bolshevik (Communist) and heir apparent to Stalin, was assassinated in the Party headquarters in Leningrad. The circumstances of the murder are still unclear today (isolated act or real conspiracy?). We see in the murder of Kirov the beginning of the great Stalinist purges.
- The beginning of 1936 was marked by major economic difficulties:economic and political executives were openly considered responsible.
1936
Characters
Joseph Stalin
Nikolai Bukharin
Leon Trotsky
Grigori Zinoviev
Lev Kamenev
Sergei Kirov
Procedure
The case of Kirov's assassination was opened again in 1936. The NKVD (People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, in charge of internal security) was responsible for organizing a major public trial to try those responsible for the murder. of Kirov.
The trial is in fact a pretext for Stalin to judge opponents to his political line. Among the selected defendants are major figures of Bolshevism, the Russian Revolution and Party leaders. Zinoviev (close to Lenin and president of the Communist International after the Great War) and Kamenev (director of the communist newspaper Pravda during the Revolution, and a senior communist leader) are the major figures in this trial, which brings together 16 defendants.
For several weeks, the defendants are subjected to difficult interrogations (torture, moral pressure based on guilt, promises of life saves in exchange for confessions, etc.)
Accused of the murder of Kirov, of being in contact with Trotsky and of organizing a plot to assassinate Stalin, the 16 defendants confess their crimes after three days of hearing. They were sentenced to death on August 24, and executed immediately after.
The principle of the great public trial is based on staging. It allows a real ideological mobilization which aims to consolidate the link between the people and the leader.
Stalin also plays an important role during the trial:he participates in particular in the selection of the public who attends the trial, but also to notes sent to foreign governments.
Consequences
- The first public trial in Moscow was the first in a series of three trials that took place between 1936 and 1938. Trotsky's supporters and relatives were convicted at the 1937 trial. Bukharin, a great figure in the Russian Revolution and Stalin's right-hand man since he came to power, was tried for and condemned in 1938 on the pretext of not being "communist enough" for the party.
- These large public trials are just a facade for the Stalinist purges:other trials have taken place across Russia, where nearly 3,500 people are convicted. They also hide the great state massacre called “Great Terror”, which takes place from August 1937 to November 1938, where more than 1.5 million people are arrested, condemned, sent to the camps (Gulag) or killed. All sectors are affected by these purges:the economy, the army, the State, the Party.
- Repression is an integral part of the Stalinist system:it allows Stalin to ensure his absolute power.