Why did Stalin initiate and sustain the Great Purges in the 1930s and what effects did they have?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Stalin initiated the Great Purges after a sequence of eliminating all resistance to his power and economic programs, beginning with collectivization and the five-year plans. Subsequently, beginning in 1936, Stalin sought to subdue his enemies within other realms of Soviet life, and utilized the NKVD to remove any opposition. While members of the Politburo were more in favor of slowing down the pace of his industrialization and collectivization, and ease up on the Russian population, Stalin turned his use of intimidation to his now perceived political enemies, beginning with the oldest members of the Bolshevik party, whom he suspected of being more loyal to Lenin and Trotsky than him. He followed by eliminating members of the Politburo, prominent military experts, technical specialists, and then members of the NKVD who had carried out his orders. Some 70% of the Central Committee was removed, and by 1939 less than 2% of the original members of the 1934 Party Congress still survived. The results were that he created a new core of devoted followers, but also created an atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia through the deliberate infliction of terror and executions.