Stalin
It is true that single party states need enemies, but it is a whole other issue as to if they "invent" these enemies just because they are needed. Stalin possibly purged 20 million people in the USSR between 1924 and 1939, but these people were not simply created out of nowhere. Stalin carefully chose the people that he purged; they were all his potential, if not actual, enemies. To legitimize his party, and to keep his firm grasp on the power he had over the USSR, he had to get rid of any opposition possible. Therefore it seemed necessary that Stalin purge anyone with the slightest chance of threatening him, including political and military leaders, people with education, most of the Communist Party members, the White Russians, the Kulaks, and anyone who had anything to say against Stalin. Political and military leaders, such as Marshal Tukhachevsky, Bukharin, Kinoviev, and Kamenev, seemed to pose a real threat to Stalin, since they all exerted some influence over how the USSR was to be run. Marshal Tukhachevsky, who was the Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army, was tried and shot in June 1937. He was not an "invented" enemy of the state, since Tukhachevsky had some military power in which he could use against Stalin. Althoug
As seen above, Stalin was not creating enemies and scapegoats because his single party state needed them, but because he sincerely felt intimidated by the opposition he saw around him. As Stalin said, "All who are dangerous to the cause of revolution must be eliminated", and he truly felt that the people he purged were probable risks that were bound to lead to his loss of power if he did not deal with them. Those enemies need not have been created or invented by Stalin; they were already in existence. It should be understood that Stalin killed those people with a reason in mind, however paranoid and unrealistic they are to historians now, that he needed to protect himself and communism from threatening opposition forces. Stalin never even needed to resort to "inventing" enemies since he saw so many ones already in place around him. h Stalin invented the charges Tukhachevsky was tried for, he did not altogether false identify him as opposition to him. As for Bukharin, Kinoviev, and Kamenev, these men were prominent leaders who were of senior ranks in the party, and also old-timers, who could possibly point out that what Stalin claimed to be "Leninist" ideas and policies were unfounded and untrue. Stal
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Approximate Word count = 816
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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