Origins of the Purges
EXTRACT FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY. Orlando Figes, The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia (Penguin, 2007), pp. 34-7.
The purges began long before Stalin's rise to power. They had their origins in the Civil War, when the Party's ranks grew rapidly and its leaders were afraid of being swamped by careerists and 'self-seekers.'...
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