What were the causes of the Great Purges under Stalin?
The purges were designed to remove from the party those people, and their followers, who Stalin thought were disloyal (to him) or who had rival power bases – like Trotsky. There were several goals of the purges: The first phase was aimed at “wreckers” and “foreign saboteurs”. These foreigners were the specialists brought in to install, maintain and train new workers on the machinery the USSR bought from abroad. Wreckers were anyone who was late for work too many times, accidentally broke a machine or anyone who worked too slowly. Politically they were designed to remove both the Left and Right Opposition – Old Bolsheviks who were Stalin’s rivals for power. The policy of Democratic Centralism (this was the policy that once a decision had been made there was to be no more discussion about it), implemented as a temporary measure by Lenin during the Civil War, allowed Stalin and his supporters to silence anyone who had a different interpretation of Marxism. It also put in place the legalis
