On the Origins of the Great Purge. The Polish Thread, 1926–1937

Abstract

The Great Purge carried out in the USSR in 1936–1938 has long been studied by historians of Soviet communism. William J. Chase’s monograph (Enemies within the Gates? The Comintern and the Stalinist Repression, 1934–1939) revealed the process of the intensifying purge in the Comintern’s leadership, including mass repression against Polish communists. This topic, which is separate from the mainstream of the Great Purge and linked to earlier repression against Ukrainian and Belarusian communists, is the subject of the considerations below. They are possible thanks to the introduction into scientific circulation of many files produced by the Soviet security apparatus in Ukraine, the analysis of files transferred after 1956 from the USSR to the party history department at the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party, and the accounts collected at that time. The themes of the Great Purge of Polish communists were also treated as particularly sensitive during the period of de-Stalinization, and only a few documents from the Soviet files were transferred. After the USSR stopped commemorating Stalin’s crimes in 1964, the flow of materials from Soviet archives ceased, and accounts of these matters were no longer collected. Nevertheless, the few materials that have been found deserve attention and should be compared with the published soviet documents.