Response#8: Road to Terror by J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov

Part 1: J. Arch Getty’s Part 1 of The Road to Terror centers on how the Soviet system facilitated the development of The Great Terror. Central to the propagation of The Great Terror was the self-interest of the Communist Party elite known as the “nomenklatura.” This group played major roles throughout the existence of the Soviet Union and helped to maintain the country’s status quo. However, the same very same party elite devoured itself in an effort to maintain group unity and stick to the party line. Fear itself became quite fearful indeed.

Part 2: The book is clear on its stance of the Soviet Union being a weak state. Right off the bat in the introduction, Getty describes how the Soviet elite constantly feared for their own safety. Unlike other countries, which could rely on a base of popular support and consensual order, the Soviet Union was struggling in earnest just to survive. A civil war had torn the nation into pieces. The countryside was in complete disorder. There was a threat of capitalist invasion from both the west and the east. Amidst this chaos there was the chance that fifth column elements within the country would exploit the situation and destroy the country. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” Maintaining order in the Soviet Union therefore required government intrusion in every single sphere of life. Lineage of party members had to be checked out. Passports had to be verified. Writings and literature had to be reviewed and or censored depending on content. Families had to be assigned specific housing. Children were required to learn a specific type of education. Even private conversations had to be reported.

As former revolutionaries the Bolsheviks understood the power of conspiracies to topple governments. Thus, they did everything in their power to prevent the development of conspiracies and keep an eye out on the local populace. Three conspiracies are highlighted in the book: the Riutin group, Trotskyist sympathizers, and the Eisemont-Tolmachev-Smirnov group. M.N. Riutin, Party secretary of Moscow, led the Riutin group. He was stripped of his position in 1930, but continued to defy the regime through an underground network of collaborators. The group produced the Riutin platform a document denouncing the development of Stalin’s policies of bureaucratism. The document not only denounced the status quo of the nomenklatura, but it also actively exposed the clash within the Communist Party. The central tenet of the Communist Party was that political conflicts within the party were to stay within the party. Riutin’s involvement of the public through circulation of his platform document would have Lenin rolling over in his grave.

Accompanying this was another conspiracy lead by Trotsky supporters. While the group was smashed before it could organize, its lower tiers were left intact. In fact, the lower ranks of both Riutin and Trotsky groups remained in tact due to difficulties in tracking down all members. The Soviet secret police and party elite knew this and were terribly frightened about the implications of hidden sleeper cell agents. They developed a hostile mindset towards the local populace since they could not tell friend from foe simply based on appearance. It did not help that the discovery of conspiracies served as a positive feedback mechanism for further paranoia. The Communist Party decided to take the approach of public health advocate and sanitize the entire population.