Repressions Against So-called Inorodtsy, Red Army Officers during the Great Purge

Abstract

In Russia after the Bolshevik revolution the armed forces of the state – the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army – gained an officer corps which was an extremely diverse mosaic of nationalities. This was due not only to the multinational character of the state but also ideological reasons; many representatives of various European nations (among others) allowed themselves to be enticed by the slogans of equality and social justice, and entered the service of the Bolsheviks. Until the middle of the 1930s an important role, especially at the higher levels of the military hierarchy, was played by the so-called inorodtsy – representatives of various nations which had their own statehood. Among them were not only Latvians, Poles, Germans and Swedish but also representatives of other nations, for example the Swiss or representatives of the Balkan states.

In this article the author attempts a synthetic presentation of the repressions against the inorodtsy in the officer corps of the Red Army during the Great Purge. It includes the mechanisms governing the repressions, and the resulting consequences, above all the total marginalisation of the inorodtsy’s role, and the establishment of full hegemony of the eastern Slavs: the Russians, the Ukrainians, and the Belarusians.

Soviet Union, Red Army, repressions, Great Purge, Officers Corps, inorodtsy