The+Great+Purge

The Great Purge, 1934-1938 - The period in which Stalin began his political attack on the people who were against him.(3) - In 1936, Stalin appointed Nikolal Yezhov head of secret police, who went out and found people that were plotting against him.(2) - Innocent people were convicted and tortured until they confessed. Also threatened prisoner's family if they did not confess their crimes.(2) - Members of his own were also convicted.(3) - At least 1.5 million people executed.(1) - Estimate of 8-10 million people were sent to concentration camps. Most died from the living conditions(1) - "Stalin put fear in the heart of every Soviet including his wife. Stalin's second wife, Nadezhda Allilueva commited suicide after criticizing her husband's policy of collectivation and treatment of the peasants. Stalin ruled as the dictator of the Soviet Union until his death in 1953."(1)
 * The Great Purge **

** The Great Purge, Animal Farm **

- "One Sunday morning Squealer announced that the hens, who had just come to lay again, must surrender their eggs. Napoleon had accepted, through Whymper, a contract for four hundred eggs a week. When the hens heard this, they raised a terrible outcry. They had been warned earlier that this sacrifice may be necessary, but had not believed that it would really happen. They were just getting their clutches ready for spring sitting, and they protested that to take their eggs away now was murder. For the first time since the expulsion of Jones, there was something resembling a rebellion. Led by three young Black Minorca pullets, the hens made a determined effort to thwart Napoleon's wishes. Their method was to fly up to the rafters and there lay their eggs, which smashed to pieces on the floor. Napoleon acted swiftly and ruthlessly. He orderd the hens' rations to be stopped, and decreed that any animal giving so much as a grain of corn to a hen should be punished by death. The dogs saw to it that these orders were carried out. For five days the hens held out, then they capitulated and went back to their nesting boxes. Nine hens died in the meantime"(53).

- "Napoleon now called upon them to confess their crimes. They were the same four pigs as had protested when Napoleon abolished the Sunday Meetings. Without any further prompting they confessed that they had been secretly in touch with Snowball ever since his expulsion, that they had collaborated with him in destroying the windmill, and that they had entered into an agreement with him to hand over Animal Farm to Mr. Frederick. They added that Snowball had privately admitted to them that he had been Jone's secret angent for years past. When they had finished their confession, the dogs promptly tore their throats out, and in a terrible voice Napoleon demanded whether any other animals had anything to confess"(pg. 58).

- "The three hens who had been the ringleaders in the attempted rebellion over the eggs now came forward and stated that Snowball had appeared to them in a dream and incited them to disobey Napoleon's orders. They, too, were slaughtered"(58).

- "Then a goose came forward and confessed to having secreted six ears of corn during the last year's harvest and eaten them in the night. Then a sheep confessed to having urinated in the drinking pool-urged to do this, so she said, by Snowball-and two other sheep confessed to having murdered an old ram, an especially devoted follower of Napoleon, by chasing him round and round a bonfire when he was suffering from a cough. They were all slain on the spot"(59).

- "And so the tale of confessions and executions went on, until there was a pile of corpses lying before Napoleon's feet and the air was heavy with the smell of blood, which had been unknown there since the expulsion of jones"(59).

1. Giffith, A. //The Great Purge/The Great Terror.// Retrieved from: [] 2. Halsall, P. (1997). //Modern History Sourcebook: Stalin's Purges, 1935.// Retrieved from: [] 3. Simkin, J. (1997). //The Great Purge.// Retrieved from: []