The Image of the Russian Purges in the Doily Herald and the New Statesman

Abstract

An examination of the image of the Russian purges in two of the main papers of the British left is of especial interest. The 1930s was an era of intense political involvement for the left. A state of latent class conflict existed in France and even Britain, conflict that erupted into open civil war in Spain during the years of the purges in the Soviet Union. The nazis in Germany menaced the values and heritage of the western Enlightenment and represented a disruptive force diplomatically, a threat to the whole balance of power in Europe. It is in this context that the position of Soviet Russia and international communism became extremely important. To many on the left, the Soviet Union appeared to be an essential counterweight to the military threat of nazi Germany, to be aiding the forces of progress in Spain and to be leading the Popular Front against fascism. Yet it was during the years 193638, the very years of the Civil War in Spain, of the Anschluss and of Munich, that the great terror in the Soviet Union erupted on an unprecedented scale, both in its tremendous scope and in the intensity of the macabre dramas at the Moscow court room. Two immediate problems faced the left in Britain in their reactions to the purges and the Moscow Treason Trials. There was the moral dilemma of recognizing and condoning or condemning injustice committed by an ally in the struggle against fascism. The spectacle of broken old revolutionaries publicly degraded was profoundly disturbing. There was also the problem of analysis and interpretation; what was the significance of the purges in Soviet history; were they a temporary or permanent phenomenon? For the left there were difficulties in reconciling the scope of Yezhovization terror with Bolshevik claims that they were implementing 'Marxism' in the Soviet