ABSTRACT
The open discussion of the draft Constitution, which allowed citizens to criticize the proposed foundations of the state, coupled with the central leadership’s emphasis on free and open elections, created stress on the Stalinist system. While central state authorities initially encouraged the population’s open participation, as the discussion progressed and the results from Party and local elections held in late 1936 became clear, the central and local authorities became increasingly concerned about “anti-Soviet” activity among some of the discussants. This anxiety carried over into preparations for the 1937 elections to the Supreme Soviet when reports from the Kirov region indicated that some former kulaks and priests used the relaxing of restrictions to agitate for their own interests and to win representation in some local organs of power. 1 These reports amplified the anxieties that the central leadership had about the perceived increase in enemy activity throughout the country. The local NKVD Party cell minutes, from which I draw my materials, demonstrated growing anxiety within the NKVD and the community at large. As 1937 progressed, participants at those meetings and in other governmental organs stopped referring to the infiltration of Soviet organs of power by class enemies as a possibility but rather as a reality that needed to be aggressively confronted. This perceived challenge to the dominant role of the Communist Party, which coincided with myriad other factors, such as massive demographic upheaval, the challenges of rapid industrialization, the 1936 economic crisis, 2 failed verification of Party documents, 3 and a mounting foreign threat, helped to trigger repression in 1937. This chapter explores how such reports and pressure from the regions contributed to the onset of mass repression in 1937 and its evolution. As this study examines one region of the RSFSR, the purpose of this chapter is not to make overstated claims about the mass repression, but to show ways in which local issues and state concerns overlapped, while also raising questions about popular involvement.
