Page 131 - The Chief Culprit

15

The Cleansing

Only one who first conquers his own people can overcome a powerful enemy.
—S Y,   BC

ower struggles never died down in the Communist Party. Party purges followed one
after the other. Stalin drove all his opponents out of the party, and then they were
Parrested, tried, sent to prisons and labor camps, and executed according to court sen-
tences without an appeal. Stalin put those he personally chose and cultivated into the opened
positions. An equally continuous process of replacing the personnel in the secret police, and
in the fields of science, art, literature, industry, trade, and agriculture went on at the same
time as the permanent purges of the party. Arrests and trials of engineers, historians, and
members of defunct political parties and organizations were constant. Any dictator acts in
this way, and without any hints from outside sources. In order to lead the country to con-
quering other nations, any dictator begins with terror against his own surroundings. In order
to raise many men and lead them to conquer the world, in order to reach “the last sea,”
Genghis Khan before all had to conquer the most powerful and rich princes. ose who did
not want to follow him had their spines broken on his orders.
is is exactly what Stalin did. In order to raise the nation to accomplish great deeds,
he first of all had to obtain unquestioning obedience.
But in all the purges, for many years the army was the exception. e purges left the
army alone. Stalin for a long time made sure to see that at the very top he had his own man.
e army was only purged by Tukhachevski himself, who chased out all those he did not like
personally. But Stalin had to reach the army sometime! Didn’t he? Could he have possibly,
without receiving the German false document, left the army untouched?
e purges were a struggle for fortification of power, for its preservation. is is a strug-
gle for the leader’s personal safety. e purges were a means to avert an uprising. Uprisings are
always and everywhere started first and foremost by the military.
In his books, Tukhachevski shamelessly praised and lauded himself. For example, he
transformed his disgraceful defeat near Warsaw into a brilliant victory. Everyone who has

92