Hitler did not, just for nothing, kill his
own people. Stalin did just that. He killed
to the left and the right, in the 30's. That
is incomprehensible to me. There had to be
a reason. He killed, he killed and he killed.
By the time of his 50th birthday in 1929 Stalin
had gained control of the Soviet Union
As General Secretary of the Communist Party
he had put his own men into office squeezing
out the opposition
Stalin now set about transforming the country
into a modern world power
no matter what price in human life
We are fifty or 100 years behind the advanced
countries Stalin said
We must make good this distance in 10 years
or go under
The massive industrialisation program Stalin
now launched required huge sacriifices
Most of the sacrifices would fall on the peasants
Stalin began by forcing them all into Collective
farms
His aim was to ensure the supply of food to
the State by turning the countryside into
one huge agricultural factory
I would say it was a more important more irreversible
turning point
 
than the Revolution of 1917 itself because
it destroyed the Russian peasantry
Destroyed as a class as a way of life
the basic population of the country some 80%
of the
population with their traditional rural private
land religious structure of life swept away
because what was collectivisation
was a kind of coup d'etat against the Russian
peasantry
Collectivisation had a strong idealogical
motive
Forcing the peasants to work directly for
the State would turn them the Party believed
into Socialists
There was one category beyond Socialist redemption
the Kulags or rich exploiting peasants
They were blamed in Soviet propaganda news
reels for everything from arson to murder
In fact there had been no real Kulaks since
the 1917 revolution
the State simply branded anyone as a Kulak
who was better off or resisted Collectivisation.
The State simply branded anyone as a Kulag
that was better off or resisted Collectivisation
On the 27th of December 1929 Stalin announced
that the Kulaks would be eliminated as a class
10 million men women and children were to
be driven off the land
some simply shot
the party mobilised the young activists for
the assault
forcing Socialism into the countryside whatever
the cost
For those churning out the broadsheets the
Socialist end justified the drastic means
 
Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov witnessed the effects 
of this crime during a stop on a train journey in the early 30s
But by eliminating Kulaks the State was getting
rid of its most successful farmers
The food supply crisis became acute
forced into collective farms many peasants
first slaughtered their animals
there were severe grain shortages
Stalin turns to a class approach to this peasant
treatment. He feels himself embattled with
them
He doesn't believe that there is no grain
he claims they hide
Stalin sent requisition squads out into the
country
they were made up of Party activists
and members of the GPU
the Internal State Security Agency
They do find some grain but this grain is the
material to sew. It is sewing grain so they
take away this too
This means famine
The most fertile parts of the Soviet Union
were the hardest hit
the famine began in 1932 spreading across
the Ukraine
the Kuban and the areas of the Don and Volga
rivers
a vast stretch of land with 40 million inhabitants
the requisition squads descended without mercy
on villages and Collective farms
it didnt matter that a family had given up
all the food it had for its own survival
Alisa Maslo and her five year old brother
were sent to an orphanage like this one
he died there of hunger meanwhile her mother
and older brother lay sick from famine at
home
every village had its cart to haul away the
dead
Alisa arrived at home one day to find her
older brother dead as well
and the cart outside
 
News of the famine and death toll reached 
Stalin from a number of different sources including the GPU
but Stalin paid no heed
He just kept piling on the pressure
By now it functions in a way where information
that has to reach Stalin is the one that he
wants to have
and he has the means to get just that
its true 1932-33 there is much more than that
still
A year or so later nothing will reach him
that he does not want to be told
but the power is already concentrated to an
extent that he has the means to say reality
is what I say it is
reality for the peasants pushed some over
the edge
No authentic newsreel film has yet come to
light of the famine the State wanted kept
secret
There was no hope of aid from abroad
Malcolm Mugridge reported what he saw and
left immediately
other reporters were too worried about being
thrown out of the country to cover the famine
many westerners like George Bernard Shaw
visited in the early thirties and saw no hunger
Shaw was mightly impressed the Soviet Union
was he felt a great social experiment
by 1933 millions were dead there is now no
doubt the famine was man-made by Stalin
Stalin was indeed responsible for the famine
in that while the peasants were going hungry
in 1932 and 1933 and famine was stalking the
countryside not the towns
he insisted on continuing the huge scale of
grain exports abroad in return for which machinery
was purchased to be brought in for industrialisation
and this could have been reduced and some
of the grain used to feed the hungry people
but Stalin was not about to do that Stalin
was I think angered beyond measure by and
frustrated by the refusal of the peasants even
under conditions of terror
to respond to the Collectivisation campaign
and this was his vengence against them
the price of Stalin's vengence was between
five and seven million dead from the famine
In this one small Ukrainian village over three
hundred and sixty men women and children died
still remembered still mourned
the peasants could not easily turn to their
church
Orthodox faith central to peasant life for
a thousand years was trampled under foot when
there was most need of its guidance and comfort
Stalin had trained as a priest in his youth
he now presided over the virtual destruction
of religion
 
the Soviet state was officiallly athiest Lenin had declared that every idea of God
is ?
priests were rounded up
churches turned into grainstores or rubble
the Soviet State had no use for old theology
it had its own
Industrialisation was the new faith
factories were its cathedrals
its priests were the elite workers who smashed
production targets and lead the way to
the future
not all who built cities like Magneta were
super heros many were peasants exiled as Kulaks
unskilled and untrained they faced severe
problems adapting to industrial processes.
these problems were interpreted by the State
as sabotage
Stalin used show trials designed to publicise
the threat of wreckers
engineers and managers were rounded up and
acused of fictitious conspiracies
instead of relaxing tempo Stalin increased
them
production lines were halted not by traitors
but by lack of the right parts often matched
by too many of the wrong kind
the first tractor proudly wheeled out of the
Stalingrad tractor factory was a dummy so
delayed and mismanaged was the production
schedule
managers who pleaded for more realistic planning
were accused of wrecking
initiative was paralysed skilled people were
shot or sent to the camps
there had been prison camps in Lenin's time
but under Stalin the camp network known as
the Gulag grew
by 1931 the Gulag held nearly 2 million men
and women
forced labour by innocent people was now a
key part of the economy
the demand for labour led to arrest quotas
many people found themselves in the Gulag
simply because Stalin needed their labour
to build whatever he wanted where ever he
wanted it
he had a facination for grandiose projects
like this one the Belomor canal
Stalin took the map of the Soviet Union drawing
on it himself the routes of this strategic
waterway
270 kilometres long it was designed to give
Stalin's navy access between the Baltic and
White Seas
construction involved joining up the lakes
of Soviet Karelia with a series of canals
variations in water levels were handled by
19 locks
building the Belomor Canal involved a quarter
of a million prisoners
peasants priests criminals academics men and
women
innocence counted for nothing
to keep costs down the GPU spent no hard currency
abroad on heavy equipment
it was all built by hand
pile drivers were powered not by steam but
by people
forced into giant human treadmills
 
guards shot anyone who tried to escape
food was rationed according to work output
ensuring the death of the weak and ill
the terrible cold and sheers exhaustion killed
the most
burial was rudimentary
bodies were simply tossed into ditches
opening day August 1933 the prisoners anxiously
awaited their release promised
but tens of thousands were not freed
kept on to maintain the canal or else transferred
to other forced labour projects
Stalin came to open the canal himself
he is said to have been disappointed with
his brainchild
it turned out to be too shallow and too narrow
it froze solid half the year and was bombed
by the Germans early in the war
over 60 thousand men and women losts their
lives building it
Stalin's policy and despotic methods were
now being called into question
some dared discuss his removal from office
there were criticisms of Stalin's policies
close to homefrom his second wife Nadezhda
Alliluyeva
she was 22 years younger than Stalin
and studying textile production
they did not get on well and Nadezhda was
highly strung
one night in November 1932 after a public
row with Stalin she shot herself dead
may aunt told me later that she left a letter
which she obviously wrote that night
very accusative letter to father accusative
in a way that could make him think that she
was very much against his policies
at the time and not only so that she would
be sympathising with opposition with people
who were against collectivisation and against
these things
Stalin's response was one of bitter resentment
he went up to her coffin at the funeral and
made as if to push it away saying she left
me as an enemy
it is always said Stalin never visited her
grave but his bodyguard remembers differently
one man in the politburo seemed the possible
rival to Stalin
his close friend Sergei Kirov the popular
Leningrad party boss
My data which was reading his speeches
and very numerous speeches, show a man who
clearly regrets the whole policy
of the first collectivisation and many other
aspects
and he says very often
we didn't know anything about agriculture
this is part of his speeches
We forced them to throw grain to dirt
You should have been listening to the old
peasants, we never did this we forced them to throw grain into dirt
which is clear it was a revision of the previous
policy
which was Stalin's policy
In 1934 delegates gathered for the 17th Communist
Party Conference in Moscow
There would be a crucial vote for re-election
to the party's Central Committee
Some delegates saw this as a chance to replace
Stalin with Kirov
A group of Leningrad party members had met
privately to plan this strategy
at the flat of Nicholai and Natalya Rodionova
Kirov was also secretly approached by senior
party figures
and asked if he would accept the post of General
Secretary
Kirov refused the offer
It was at the voting at the Congress for membership
for Central Committee
that Stalin got the true picture of his popularity
in the party
When the ballot boxes were opened only 3 votes
were cast against Kirov
but 292 people voted against Stalin
Stalin's loyal henchman, Lazar Kaganovich,
was taken aside and told about the problem
Kaganovich made the necessary arrangements
to ensure Stalin received the same number
of votes as Kirov
Communist Party Headquarters Leningrad 10
months later
On the first of December 1934 Kirov was working
in his office
a 30 year old misfit named Nikolayev entered
the building and went up to the second floor
Kirov's office was near the end of the corridor
Kirov's colleagues were quick to grab hold
of Nikolayev
Kirov was accorded a full State funeral
the outpourings of grief were a genuine mark
of his popularity
 
Stalin's response to the news of Kirov's murder was a decree ordering the immediate death penalty for acts
of terror
with no possible reprieve
It was clear that Nikolayev had not acted
alone
but whose orders was he following
Olga Shatunovskaia was appointed to Khrushchev's
Commission of Inquiry into Kirov's death
Khrushchev declared the conclusion too explosive
to publish
she reveals it here for the first time
the operation was run from the Leningrad headquarters
of the secret police
by 1934 renamed the NKVD
In overall command was Genrikh Yagoda, Stalin's
head of the NKVD
NIkolayev bore a grudge against Kirov
which they exploited
he was given extensive training including
target practice
The Commission discovered that Kirov's body
guard had been detained by NKVD men
outside party headquarters to give Nikolayev
a clear field upstairs
the Commission spoke to hundreds of witnessess
unravelling the vote rigging,at the 17th Party
Congress
and the secret offer of the General Secretaryship
to Kirov
who then knew his days were numbered
Olga Shatunovskaia is adament
Stalin quickly covered his tracks
Nikolayev was shot Kirov's bodyguard was clubbed
to death
Mass arrests followed
generally at night
in time most of the nearly two thousand delegates
to the 17th Party Congress were wiped out
and their memories with them
by 1935 100 thousand people had been arrested
in Leningrad alone
innocent people sent to the camps or shot
here is where you begin this what some people
call High Stalinism
terror for terror
there is no reason
why them it could have been someone else
he is by now in a state of delusions of some
sort
in which his enemies are imprecise they are
almost everywhere
so whomever you arrest is an enemy
whoever you didnt get arrested might have
been
begins this deeply pathological period of
Stalinism that has still a way to go and to
grow into most reforms but that is what it
is
in this frame of mind Stalin turned upon old
defeated rivals
starting with Zinoviev, Kamenev
party veterans from the earliest days of Lenin
show trials became Stalins device for proving
that the Soviet Union was surrounded by enemies
and infiltrated by spies
this then justiified further repressions
Zinoviev and Kamenev appeared in a show trial
like this one
accused of murdering Kirov
and conspiring with Stalin's arch enemy Leon
Trotsky exciled abbroad
they were shot in 1936
the export of communism abroad had been Trotsky's
idea
in the early 30's the Cominturn the international
party organisation
had tried to foster revolution in countries
like Germany
but Stalin was suspicious of foreigners
and of all contact with them
rather than supporting the Comintern he undermind
it
loyal Comintern agents were now rounded up
the Soviet Union turned in on itself
looking no further than it's great leader
for inspiration
Soviet propaganda made Stalin into a living
God
infallible and all knowing
revered and loved
 
country proclaimed itself unanimous behind
Stalin
Stalin's taste prevailed in every aspect of
Soviet life
particularly the Arts
painters poets novelists composers were forced
to conform
those who could not fell silent
or were sent to the camps
and yet there were positive acheivements in
the 30's
giant projects like the Moscow Metro exemplifed
Soviet technology
the urban population doubled becoming literate
better educated and upwardly mobile
for many the sacrifices were justified
in the name of progress their country's and
their own
American documentary film from the mid 30's
shows this other side of soviet life
while some where caught up in the terror others
worked played fell in love
in 1936 Stalin introduced a new Soviet constitution
it seemed to offer hopes of more civic rights
more democracy but in fact the voters had
no choice
behind the facade Stalin's grip upon the country
was tightening
the truth was the system wasnt working
by 1936 grain production was at pre first world
war levels
and falling
industrial targets were being revised upwards
but investment cut
the response was to send in more party officials
to farms and factory
but this only made matters worse
as it grew the bureaucracy was stifling the
centralised system which spawned it
red tape endless paper work doing things by
the book
all ensured no one took any initiative
people were loyal to the boss
and to their own position and privileges
getting things done came last
Stalin had an explanation for these failures
in the system he had himself had created
he was convinced that enemies of the working
class were to blame
the Soviet State had tried to get rid of all
other social classes but some
elements clung on
the fight against them he said had to be intensified
because they would fight to the death
but in open fight they would strike anywhere
at anytime
the country had to be on it's guard day and
night
anyone might be an enemy of the people
Stalin turned to the Secret Police
the NKVD
run from the Lubyanka in Moscow totally loyal
and utterly ruthless
an empire in itself
not just prison camp guards and torturers
but people who mended the vehicles
who typed the orders for barbed wire all part
of the system
Yagoda organiser of Kirov's murder was out
of office and doomed
but Stalin could rely on the new boss
Nikolai Yezhov to do his bidding
of course there will be victims in this fight
Yezhov told his men
when you cut down the forest wood chips fly
you have to remember that this was not repression
this was terror
and at the Red Crimson of arrest and terror
and blood letting and fear and denunciation
guilt by association and arrest by association
had spread almost everywhere in society
nobody was safe
nobody was guilty so nobody was safe
everybody was innocent therefore everybody
was vulnerable
the ground was prepared
the highly restrictive Zsarist system of internal
passports had been reintroduced
the State could now monitor and control all
movements inside the country
new repressive laws had been passed making
almost anything imaginable an offence against
the Soviet State
punishment including execution was now extended
down to 12 year olds
but if enemies of the people could be anywhere
how to find them
informing even by children provided the answer
Olga Balikana a young pioneer denounced her
father to the authorities for stealing on
the collective farm
she became a heroine overnight
showered with approval and gifts
in the adult world informers received part
of the assets of their victims
it was a way of making money and settling
old scores
taking over someone elses apartment
their job even their husband or wife
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
the man who denounced Aichenwald's mother was Valentin Astrov
 
 
 
 
 
 
Astrov agreed to turn informer after a spell after a spell in prison and the removal of his party card 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
the NKVD vans were known as the Black Ravens 
they generally went out at night
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Stalin legalised torture as both justifable
and appropriate
the NKVD used beatings water torture electric
shock  
the most effective though was the simplest 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
vans from the Lubyanka brought the bodies
of the dead
down this road five miles from the centre
of Moscow they stopped here
 in the late 30's it was open ground
 
 
 
 
 
for those who survived interrogation the next 
destination and for millions the final destination was the Gulag
 
the camps filled up with Party members the
military artists scientists bureaucrats
even the NKVD itself
 
Survival exacted a terrible toll 
as Olga Sliozberg realised when she finallly got to a bath house with a mirror
 
 
The camps spread across the land in clusters
 
 
The goldmining camps in the far-east were the special camps for torture and execution
Igarka in Siberia with it's lumber and port construction
Railway building in Pachora
 
Coal mining in Vorkuta 
 
Bitterly cruel regimes in the harshest cllimates 
The punishment of millions of innocent people
Many thought that Stalin knew nothing of the terror
If only he could be told they said he would soon put a stop to it  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Stalin's daughter Svetlana once interceded to save the life of a school friend's father
She was told never to do it again 
How does she feel about her father and the terror now 
Well he was the leader of the party which performed all of that
First of all which we all know he cant get away with it 
He was not alone there was a whole politburo which supported him
and went with his policies
You cannot change history 
I am not here to tell you to change history or to make it looking more pleasant or more agreeable
or to take out from there what I wish would never be there
I wish I could tell you that my father didn't have anything to do with it
but I can't
By the late 30's Stalin was increasingly capricious
He could be open charming even 
But his moods were ever more dark and suspicious 
Alexander Avdyenko, now a writer was hauled before
his hero for a film script Stalin didn't like
 
 
 
 
There were still old enemies
the remnants of the leadership under Lenin were subjected to the biggest show trial of all
as Stalin tried to obiterate the parts of Soviet history he did not like
In which he hadn't been the hero
the main accused were Lenin's old collegues 
ex-priminister Alexei Rykov and Nikolai Bukharin
Bukharin had been the party theoritician
educated and popular 
he and Stalin had ruled the Soviet Union together in the 1920s
Stalin had pushed him out of office and now wanted him dead
first Bukharin had to be denounced by Valentin Astrov
The trial was a sham the witnesses were bogus 
and their evidence false
Bukharin confessed to a general conspiracy charge but turned the tables on the court
by denying the detail the accusation 
his final speech expressed his complete loyalty to the party
yet the motive behind his confession was perhaps less due to 
party unity than fears for the safety of his wife and young child
Stalin's chief prosecutor Vashinski summed up the spirits of the times 
Bukharin Rykov and most of the others were shot
Bukharin's wife Anna spent over 20 years in the camps
and Siberian exile 
she did not see her baby son for 19 years 
Trotsky in exile in Mexico was top of Stalin's hit list
Trotsky had been the leading figure along side Lenin in both
the Revolution and civil war 
a place in history Stalin bitterly envied
Trotsky tried to convince a world largely seduced by Stalin's propaganda
that Stalin was infact a dangerous despot 
Stalin's trial against me is built upon false confessions extorted by murdering  methods in the interest of ruling ...
there is no crime in history more terrible in intention or execution
than the Moscow trials of the ...
His styles developed not from communism not from socialism but from Stalinism
that is from the irresponsible ... of burocracy over the people
 
Trotsky's house in Mexico City was heavily fortified against attack
but in May 1940 he and his family narrowly escaped death
when NKVD gunmen sprayed the bedroom with bullets
an NKVD assassin then infiltrated Trotsky's circle under the name Jackson
on the 20th of August he went into Trotsky's study and plunged an ice pick into his head
Jackson spent 2 years in prison but was rewarded by Stalin with the Order of Hero of the Soviet Union
the decade had begun with terror in the countryside
forced collectivisation the elimination of the so-called Kulags
the man-made famine
even though Stalin turned on the party
and the intelligencia after the murder of Kirov
he kept up the pressure on the countryside throughout the 30s
Kuropaty forest just outside Minsk
Capital of the Soviet Republic of Belorussia 
between 1937 and 1941 innocent ordinary men and women were driven here in
vans by the NKVD day and night
pits had been dug in the forest
two people at a time were brought to the edge
by uniformed NKVD men shot from behind
and pushed in
layer after layer until the pit was full
at least one hundred thousand men and women
were killed in Kuropaty forest
Zenon Pozniak believes the total may be as
high as a quarter of a million
and they are finding other forests like Kuropaty
no one will know how many died under Stalin
in the 30's until the Soviet archives are
opened
maybe not even then
estimates range from 8 till 14 million people
killed
even children were in
the camps
 
the country was caught in a nightmare
children were locked up
but so too was
the wife of Kalinin President of the Soviet
Union
some of Stalin's own relatives were arrested
and shot with war looming in Europe
Stalin executed 50 thousand
senior military officers
including 3 of the 5 Soviet marshalls
the NKVD kept filling up the pits in Kuropaty
Forest with dead bodies
until the summer of 1941 when German troops
came over the brow of the hill
