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Purge of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

 

 
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Purge of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
 
 
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The first major purge of the Communist Party
Communist party

A political party described as a communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government....
 ranks (or simply purges, – "cleansing") was performed by Bolsheviks as early as 1921. About 220,000 members were purged or left the party in 1921. The purge was justified by the necessity to get rid of the members that joined the Party simply to be on the winning side. The major criteria were social origins
Social class

Social class refers to the hierarchy distinctions between individuals or groups in societies or cultures. Usually most societies have some notion of social class , but concretely defined social classes are not found in every known type of human societies....
 (members of working class
Working class

Working class is a term used in academic sociology and in ordinary conversation to describe, depending on context and speaker, those employed in specific fields or types of work....
es were normally accepted without question) and contributions to the revolutionary cause.

Although this term is mostly associated with Stalinism
Stalinism

File:Joseph Stalin.jpgStalinism is a term that purportedly describes the political system of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union from 1929?1953....
, the first purge of the Stalin era was performed only in 1929–1930 according to the resolution of the XVI Party Conference.






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The first major purge of the Communist Party
Communist party

A political party described as a communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government....
 ranks (or simply purges, – "cleansing") was performed by Bolsheviks as early as 1921. About 220,000 members were purged or left the party in 1921. The purge was justified by the necessity to get rid of the members that joined the Party simply to be on the winning side. The major criteria were social origins
Social class

Social class refers to the hierarchy distinctions between individuals or groups in societies or cultures. Usually most societies have some notion of social class , but concretely defined social classes are not found in every known type of human societies....
 (members of working class
Working class

Working class is a term used in academic sociology and in ordinary conversation to describe, depending on context and speaker, those employed in specific fields or types of work....
es were normally accepted without question) and contributions to the revolutionary cause.

Although this term is mostly associated with Stalinism
Stalinism

File:Joseph Stalin.jpgStalinism is a term that purportedly describes the political system of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union from 1929?1953....
, the first purge of the Stalin era was performed only in 1929–1930 according to the resolution of the XVI Party Conference. Over 10% of the Party members were purged. At the same time a significant number of new members, industrial workers, joined the Party.

The next systematic Party purge in the Soviet Union was declared in December 1932 to be performed during 1933. This time on the period of purge new memberships were temporarily suspended. A joint resolution of the Party Central Committee
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Central Committee, abbreviated in Russian as ??, "Tse-ka", was the highest body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . Its full name was ??????????? ??????? ???????????????? ?????? ?????????? ????? = ?? ????; Tsentralnyy Komitet Kommunistitcheskoy Partii Sovetskogo Soyuza = TsK KPSS, or the Central Committee of the Commun...
 and Central Revision Committee specified the criteria for purge and called for setting special Purge Commissions, to which every communist had to report. Also, this purge concerned members of the Central Committee, Central Revision Committee, which previously were immune to purges, because they were elected at Party Congresses. In particular, Bukharin
Nikolai Bukharin

Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , was a Bolshevik Russian Revolution of 1917 and intelligentsia and Soviet Union politician....
, Rykov, and Tomsky
Mikhail Tomsky

Mikhail Pavlovich Tomsky was a factory worker, trade unionist and Bolshevik leader. He was the soviet leader of the All Russian Central Council of Trade Unions....
 had to try hard to defend themselves during this purge. At this time, of 1,9 million members, about 18% were purged.

In itself, the term was innocent enough: within 1921–1933 in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
, for example, some 800,000 people were purged or left the Party, but suffered no worse fate.

But from 1936 onwards, during the Great Purge
Great Purge

Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin in 1936-1938. Also described as a "Soviet holocaust" by several authors, it involved the purge of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, repression of kulaks, Red Army leadership, and the persecution of unaffiliat...
, the term changed its meaning, because being expelled from the Party came to mean almost certain arrest, imprisonment or even execution.

Following Stalin's death, purges as systematic campaigns of expulsion from the Party stopped and loss of the Party membership meant only loss of possible nomenklatura
Nomenklatura

The nomenklatura were a small, elite subset of the general population in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in all spheres of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc....
 privileges.

See also

  • Great Purge
    Great Purge

    Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin in 1936-1938. Also described as a "Soviet holocaust" by several authors, it involved the purge of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, repression of kulaks, Red Army leadership, and the persecution of unaffiliat...