Purges Beyond Stalin

Stalin's purges are well renowned as one of the greatest and cruelest examples of liquidation of political opposition. Stalin eliminated any persons he deemed counterrevolutionary and with the capability of harming his reputation. As we have read so far, these executions were widespread and encompassed many political opponents, some who were obviously innocent.

When debating whether these murders are genocide, it is also important to consider other instances of purges, especially in the twentieth century. I will focus on a couple instances of purges outside of the Soviet Union in the past century to detail that Stalin's acts were only unique in their scales. Destruction of a political opposition is hardly unique to Stalin. To further exemplify the lack of specialty in Stalin's purges, these instances are from capitalist, or at least noncommunist, regimes,  in other parts of the world besides Europe, and are more modern than Stalin's instance. One might point to Mao's Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and 1970s as an example of another communist regime performing a similar feat; however, these two cases attempt to counter solely communist cases. A third case not detailed is the so called legal purges in France after World War II in which

The first and one of the more obvious instances of purges elsewhere in the world is in the instance of Chile, one of the wealthier and stabler countries in South America, after its infamous coup of 1973. Prior to 1973, Chile possessed a presidential government for a relatively stable 50 years, since 1925. The presidents gained considerable power under this system and implemented socialist policies until the 1970s. In 1970, Chile elected Salvador Allende as president, a Marxist that lured considerable foreign criticism. He nationalized many foreign industries, including those of the US, and caused massive backlash from the international community. Aided by the CIA, an opposition movement quickly arose and threatened Allende's presidency.

In September 1973, a military coup overthrew Allende and established a military government. Augusto Pinochet became leader of the junta and eventually president of Chile in 1974, and essentially dictator, under a new constitution. Although Pinochet was authoritarian like Stalin, he was hardly communist. In fact, shortly after his ascension to power, he began a purge similar to Stalin's of communist, Marxists and leftists in Chile. In the months after the coup, the military imprisoned thousands of suspected leftists and killed nearly 2,000. Chile refers to these purges as the "disappearances". Pinochet exiled and deported some 30,000 supposed leftist sympathizers.

Although these killings were not on the same scale as Stalin's, they provided an example of modern purges in a noncommunist regime. The disappearances specifically targeted Marxists. Obviously purges are possible for more conservative regimes; however, Pinochet was indeed a dictator. As a result, it is important to also analyze a non-authoritarian example.

Unlike Chile's purges, most people are familiar with the Red Scare and McCarthyism of the early and mid-twentieth century. It is important, first of all, to recall that these purges were much less severe than Stalin's. Executions did not occur and, as a result, they cannot be consider genocide by any means; however, they do exemplify the fact that removal of political opposition is possible in modern, Western nations. Especially under McCarthyism, thousands of people lost their jobs or were imprisoned for allegedly being communist or Soviet sympathizers.

McCarthy failed to extend his allegations to the military, unlike Stalin, and, as a result, his attacks fell short; nevertheless, the public supported McCarthy considerably under the mindset of eliminating communist sympathy. Organizations such as the ACLU removed employees that supported the Communist Party, displaying a national fear of communism beyond simply Senator McCarthy.

It may be difficult to consider such removal of political ideology as a purge without any murders, but at least the Red Scares demonstrated a possibility of purging in more democratic nations. Just as Christopher Browning argued that ordinary men committed the Holocaust, and thus anybody could've participated, the same can be said for Stalin's purges to a smaller extent.