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In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertaking such an effort is labeled as purging itself. Purges can be either nonviolent or violent, with the former often resolved by the simple removal of those who have been purged from office, and the latter often resolved by the imprisonment, exile, or murder of those who have been purged. [1]
The Shanghai massacre of 1927 in China and the Night of the Long Knives of 1934 in Nazi Germany, in which the leader of a political party turns against a particular section or group within the party and kills its members, are commonly called "purges". Mass expulsions of populations on the grounds of racism and xenophobia, such as the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in the Soviet Union, are not.[ citation needed ]
Though sudden and violent purges are notable, most purges do not involve immediate execution or imprisonment, for example the periodic massive purges of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on grounds of apathy or dereliction, or the purge of Jews and political dissenters from the German Civil Service in 1933–1934.
Beginning in 1966, Chairman Mao Zedong and his associates purged much of the Chinese Communist Party's leadership, including the head of state, President Liu Shaoqi and the then-Secretary-General, Deng Xiaoping, as part of what the leaders termed the Cultural Revolution. In Maoist states, sentences usually involved hard labor in laogai camps and executions. Deng Xiaoping acquired a reputation for returning to power after he had been purged several times.[ citation needed ]
The earliest use of the term dates back to the English Civil War's Pride's Purge. In 1648–1650, the moderate members of the English Long Parliament were purged by the New Model Army. The Parliament of England would suffer subsequent purges under Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth of England, including the purge of the entire House of Lords. Counter-revolutionaries such as royalists and more radical revolutionaries such as the Levellers were purged. After the Stuart Restoration, obstinate republicans were purged while some[ which? ] fled to the New England Colonies in British America.
Purges were frequent in the Soviet Union. [2] In the Soviet Union, military and internal security elites were more likely to be detained than civilian elites. [2]
The term "purge" is often associated with Stalinism. While leading the USSR, Joseph Stalin carried out repeated purges which resulted in tens of thousands of people sentenced to Gulag labor camps and the outright executions of rival communists, military officers, ethnic minorities, wreckers, and citizens accused of plotting against communism. [3] Stalin together with Nikolai Yezhov initiated the most notorious of the CPSU purges, the Great Purge, during the mid to late 1930s. [4]
In 1934, Chancellor Adolf Hitler ordered the execution of Ernst Röhm, other leaders of the Sturmabteilung militia, and political opponents.
After France's liberation by the Allies in 1944, the Provisional Government of the French Republic and particularly the French Resistance carried out purges of former collaborationists, the so-called "vichystes". The process became known in legal terms as épuration légale ("legal purging"). Similar processes in other countries and on other occasions included denazification in Allied-occupied Germany and decommunization in post-communist states.
The Red Purge was an anticommunist movement in occupied Japan from the late 1940s to the early 1950s. [5] [6] [7] Carried out by the Japanese government and private corporations with the aid and encouragement of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), the Red Purge resulted in tens of thousands of alleged members, supporters, or sympathizers of left-wing groups, especially those said to be affiliated with the Japanese Communist Party, removed from their jobs in government, the private sector, universities, and schools. [8] The Red Purge emerged from rising Cold War tensions and the Red Scare after World War II, [9] [10] and was a significant element within a broader "Reverse Course" in Occupation policies. [11] The Red Purge reached a peak following the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, [11] when communist China supported North Korea. It began to ease after General Douglas MacArthur was replaced as commander of the Occupation by General Matthew Ridgway in 1951, and came to a conclusion with the end of the Occupation in 1952.
After the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Fidel Castro of Cuba often purged those who had previously been involved with the Batista regime. Purges usually involved the execution of the condemned. Castro periodically carried out purges in the Communist Party of Cuba thereafter. One prominent purge was carried out in 1989 when a high-ranking Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces general named Arnaldo Ochoa was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad on charges of drug trafficking. Purges became less common in Cuba during the 1990s and 2000s.
In the period 1938–1975, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, carried out a campaign of purging alleged "communist sympathizers" from positions in public life. While non-violent, HUAC's campaign destroyed the careers of many individuals, particularly in the entertainment industry, where HUAC attempted to purge left-wing voices entirely from the industry through the Hollywood blacklist.
While not part of HUAC, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy was a major driver of efforts to purge perceived communist sympathizers through the 1940s and 1950s, which ended in his condemnation and censure in 1954.
Some observers consider the anti-corruption campaign under Xi Jinping to be a purge. [12] [13] A far-reaching campaign against corruption began in China following the conclusion of the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012. The campaign, carried out under the aegis of Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, was the largest organized purported anti-graft effort in the history of Communist rule in China.
The Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution of the Iranian government purged universities.
In August 2023, the government reportedly had a program to hire 15,000 replacements for people in universities and to place clerics in schools. [14] [15] It also removed Tehran University of Art’s major curricula for sculpting, music and cinematography/filmmaking. [16] The government added Islamic studies even more so. [17] Many academics were terminated/fired. [18] On 14 December 2023 the Ministry of Education announced that it would hire 7000 clerics instead of teachers. [19]
De-Ba'athification was undertaken by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and subsequent Iraqi governments to remove the Ba'ath Party's influence in the new Iraqi political system after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. [20] It was first outlined in CPA Order 1 which entered into force on 16 May 2003. [20] The order declared that all public sector employees affiliated with the Ba'ath Party were to be removed from their positions and to be banned from any future employment in the public sector. [20]
It is estimated that, before 2007, 50,000 civil government employees, as well as employees of other organizations listed in Annex A of Order No. 2, were removed from their positions as a result of de-Ba'athification. [21] Another estimate places the number, also before 2007, at "100,000 civil servants, doctors, and teachers", who were forcibly removed from the public sector due to low-level affiliation. [22]
Members of the Kim family have each periodically purged their political rivals or perceived threats since consolidating their control over North Korea, beginning in the 1950s. The most senior Kim purged those who opposed his son's succession to the supreme leadership of North Korea. Kim Il Sung's most prominent purge occurred during the "August Incident" in 1956, when the pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese Yanan factions of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) attempted to depose Kim. Most of those involved in the plot were executed while some others fled to the USSR and China. While some purges were carried out under Kim Jong Il, they were not as common as they were under his father/son. Kim Jong Un purged several high-ranking officials and generals installed by his father Kim Jong Il in the former's first years in power, including, most prominently, his uncle Jang Song-thaek.
After the failed 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, the Government of Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan began a purge against members of its civil service and the Turkish Armed Forces. The purge ostensibly focused mainly on public servants and soldiers alleged to be part of the Gülen movement, the group the government blamed for the coup. As part of the purge, about 200,000 public officials, including thousands of judges, were dismissed and detained. Politicized Kurds in Turkey have also been a major target of the Justice and Development Party-led purge.
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the communist movement in the world in the years following the October Revolution. It was the predominant ideology of most communist governments throughout the 20th century. It was developed in Russia by Joseph Stalin and drew on elements of Bolshevism, Leninism, and the works of Karl Kautsky. It was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, Soviet satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various countries in the Non-Aligned Movement and Third World during the Cold War, as well as the Communist International after Bolshevization.
Stalinism is the totalitarian means of governing and Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1927 to 1953 by dictator Joseph Stalin and in Soviet satellite states between 1944 and 1953. Stalin had previously made a career as a gangster and robber, working to fund revolutionary activities, before eventually becoming General Secretary of the Soviet Union. Stalinism included the creation of a one man totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory of socialism in one country, forced collectivization of agriculture, intensification of class conflict, a cult of personality, and subordination of the interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which Stalinism deemed the leading vanguard party of communist revolution at the time. After Stalin's death and the Khrushchev Thaw, a period of de-Stalinization began in the 1950s and 1960s, which caused the influence of Stalin's ideology to begin to wane in the USSR.
The Great Purge, or the Great Terror, also known as the Year of '37 and the Yezhovshchina, was Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin's campaign to consolidate power over the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Soviet state. The purges also sought to remove the remaining influence of Leon Trotsky. The term great purge was popularized by the historian Robert Conquest in his 1968 book The Great Terror, whose title was an allusion to the French Revolution's Reign of Terror.
Abdul-Karim Qasim Muhammad Bakr al-Fadhli al-Zubaidi was an Iraqi military officer and nationalist who came to power in 1958 when the Iraqi monarchy was overthrown during the 14 July Revolution. He ruled the country as the prime minister until his downfall and execution during the 1963 Ramadan Revolution.
The interwar Communist Party of Poland was a communist party active in Poland during the Second Polish Republic. It resulted from a December 1918 merger of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL) and the Polish Socialist Party – Left into the Communist Workers' Party of Poland. The communists were a small force in Polish politics.
A show trial is a public trial in which the guilt or innocence of the defendant has already been determined. The purpose of holding a show trial is to present both accusation and verdict to the public, serving as an example and a warning to other would-be dissidents or transgressors.
A fellow traveller is a person who is intellectually sympathetic to the ideology of a political organization, and who co-operates in the organization's politics, without being a formal member. In the early history of the Soviet Union, the Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet statesman Anatoly Lunacharsky coined the term poputchik and later it was popularized by Leon Trotsky to identify the vacillating intellectual supporters of the Bolshevik government. It was the political characterisation of the Russian intelligentsiya who were philosophically sympathetic to the political, social, and economic goals of the Russian Revolution of 1917, but who did not join the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The usage of the term poputchik disappeared from political discourse in the Soviet Union during the Stalinist era, but the Western world adopted the English term fellow traveller to identify people who sympathised with the Soviets and with Communism.
The Party of Labour of Albania (PLA), also referred to as the Albanian Workers' Party (AWP), was the ruling and sole legal party of Albania during the communist period (1945–1991). It was founded on 8 November 1941 as the Communist Party of Albania but changed its name in 1948 following a recommendation by Joseph Stalin. The party was dissolved on 13 June 1991 and succeeded by the Socialist Party of Albania and the new Communist Party of Albania. For most of its existence, the party was dominated by its First Secretary, Enver Hoxha, who was also the de facto leader of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985.
The history of communism encompasses a wide variety of ideologies and political movements sharing the core principles of common ownership of wealth, economic enterprise, and property. Most modern forms of communism are grounded at least nominally in Marxism, a theory and method conceived by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels during the 19th century. Marxism subsequently gained a widespread following across much of Europe, and throughout the late 1800s its militant supporters were instrumental in a number of unsuccessful revolutions on that continent. During the same era, there was also a proliferation of communist parties which rejected armed revolution, but embraced the Marxist ideal of collective property and a classless society.
The actions by governments of communist states have been subject to criticism across the political spectrum. Communist party rule has been especially criticized by anti-communists and right-wing critics, but also by other socialists such as anarchists, democratic socialists, libertarian socialists, orthodox Marxists, and Trotskyist communists. Ruling communist parties have also been challenged by domestic dissent. According to the critics, rule by communist parties has often led to totalitarianism, political repression, restrictions of human rights, poor economic performance, and cultural and artistic censorship.
The accusation that Joseph Stalin was antisemitic is much discussed by historians. Although part of a movement that included Jews and rejected antisemitism, he privately displayed a contemptuous attitude toward Jews on various occasions that were witnessed by his contemporaries, and are documented by historical sources. Stalin argued that the Jews possessed a national character but were not a nation and were thus unassimilable. He argued that Jewish nationalism, particularly Zionism, was hostile to socialism. In 1939, he reversed communist policy and began a cooperation with Nazi Germany that included the removal of high-profile Jews from the Kremlin. As dictator of the Soviet Union, he promoted repressive policies that conspicuously impacted Jews shortly after World War II, especially during the anti-cosmopolitan campaign. At the time of his death, Stalin was planning an even larger campaign against Jews, which included the deportation of all Jews within the Soviet Union to Northern Kazakhstan. According to his successor Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin was fomenting the doctors' plot as a pretext for further anti-Jewish repressions.
The Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies was a British right-wing movement, established in 1925 to provide volunteers in the event of a general strike. During the General Strike of 1926, it was taken over by the government to provide vital services, such as transport and communications.
Dekulakization was the Soviet campaign of political repressions, including arrests, deportations, or executions of millions of kulaks and their families. Redistribution of farmland started in 1917 and lasted until 1933, but was most active in the 1929–1932 period of the first five-year plan. To facilitate the expropriations of farmland, the Soviet government announced the "liquidation of the kulaks as a class" on 27 December 1929, portraying kulaks as class enemies of the Soviet Union.
Kim Il Sung was a North Korean politician and the founder of North Korea, which he led as Supreme Leader from the country's establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. Afterwards, he was succeeded by his son Kim Jong Il and was declared Eternal President.
Eastern Bloc politics followed the Red Army's occupation of much of Central and Eastern Europe at the end of World War II and the Soviet Union's installation of Soviet-controlled Marxist–Leninist governments in the region that would be later called the Eastern Bloc through a process of bloc politics and repression. These governments contained apparent elements of representative democracy to conceal the process initially.
Alexei Ivanovich Hegai, also known as Ho Ka-i, was a Soviet political operative in North Korea (DPRK) and leader of the Soviet Korean faction within the early political structure of North Korea. He was the second vice-chairman of the DPRK Politburo from 1949 until he was purged. He allegedly killed himself in Pyongyang and was replaced as leader by Pak Chang-ok.
De-Ba'athification refers to a policy undertaken in Iraq by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and subsequent Iraqi governments to remove the Ba'ath Party's influence in the new Iraqi political system after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. It was considered by the CPA to be Iraq's equivalent to Germany's denazification after World War II. It was first outlined in CPA Order 1 which entered into force on 16 May 2003. The order declared that all public sector employees affiliated with the Ba'ath Party were to be removed from their positions and to be banned from any future employment in the public sector.
Purges of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union were Soviet political events, especially during the 1920s, in which periodic reviews of members of the Communist Party were conducted by other members and the security organs to get rid of "undesirables". Such reviews would start with a short autobiography from the reviewed person and then an interrogation of him or her by the purge commission, as well as by the attending audience. Although many people were victims of the purge throughout this decade, the general Soviet public was not aware of the purge until 1937.
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, abbreviated as NKVD, was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) secret police organization, and thus had a monopoly on intelligence and state security functions. The NKVD is known for carrying out political repression and the Great Purge under Joseph Stalin, as well as counterintelligence and other operations on the Eastern Front of World War II. The head of the NKVD was Genrikh Yagoda from 1934 to 1936, Nikolai Yezhov from 1936 to 1938, Lavrentiy Beria from 1938 to 1946, and Sergei Kruglov in 1946.
The Red Purge was an anticommunist movement in occupied Japan from the late 1940s to the early 1950s. Carried out by the Japanese government and private corporations with the aid and encouragement of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), the Red Purge saw tens of thousands of alleged members, supporters, or sympathizers of left-wing groups, especially those said to be affiliated with the Japanese Communist Party, removed from their jobs in government, the private sector, universities, and schools. The Red Purge emerged from rising Cold War tensions and the Red Scare after World War II, and was a significant element within a broader "Reverse Course" in Occupation policies. The Red Purge reached a peak following the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, began to ease after General Douglas MacArthur was replaced as commander of the Occupation by General Matthew Ridgway in 1951, and came to a final conclusion with the end of the Occupation in 1952.