Stalins Purges Essays - Old Bolsheviks, Joseph Stalin, Great Purge

Stalin's Purges There are many different types of insectides and pesticides. Aldrin is a an insecticide which is one of several isomers, compounds that have the same make-up but different structure of hexachlorohexahydrodimethanonaprthalene which is a chlorinated hydrocarbon. Aldrins were first prepared in the late 40s, it comes as a light tan or brown solid or as a powder. Aldrins are the result of the reaction of hexachlorocyclopentadiene with bicycloheptadiene, which both come from hydrocarbons obtained from petroleum. Aldrins are very similar to another pesticide dieldrin, because aldrin is can easily convert to dieldrin. The two pesticides toxicities do not differ that much. Aldrins were used mainly in the 1950s and the early 1970s. Aldrins were used as a soil insecticide to control root worms, beetles, and termites. In 1974 the use of aldrins were banned by the EPA and production of it stopped in America, since then there has been a decrease in the amount of aldrin in our food. Aldrin can enter the body numerous ways. You can eat food from soil treated with the pesticide, you can eat animal meat that had been exposed to the aldrin, or drink water or milk containing the compound. It is also possible to inhale air that has been treated with the pesticide. If you are exposed to high levels of aldrin in a short period of time the main effects are headaches, dizziness, irritability, loss of appetite, nausea, muscle twitching, convulsions, and loss of consciousness. Death may be a result from high exposures or doses. Long term exposure at random doses of aldrin and dialdrin have not been documented. Studies have been done on rats showing liver damage and the bodies immune system to protect against infections can be suppressed. Test were aldrin is admitted orally show that mice have come up with liver cancer but not rats. Although there is little evidence to assume that aldrin is carcinogenic the EPA considers it probable. It has not be determined if the compounds are as dangerous to humans as to animals but scientists believe if animals react badly to something it is a likely that humans would be effected the same way. Stalin's Massacre By 1945 the world knew the name Adolf Hitler. Many had heard of his demented plans to rule the world, and knew of his attempt at trying to destroy a race of people. Although the many had heard of Stalin, they would not come to know him in the same respect they did of Hitler. Stalin would in the course of about five years would have more people put to death for crimes they did not commit than Hitler ever did. Stalin's ?Purges? would claim millions of innocent Russian lives. Stalin's principal objective for having some many of his fellows Russians executed was to gain and ensure personal power over Russia. He would stop at nothing to make sure that he had absolute power, and by the end of his terror he would come close to eliminating all of his opposition. In Russian the word for purge is Yezhovshchina. The first to use purging as a device to gain power was Lenin, not Stalin (Dmytrshyn 541). Lenin would never use it to the magnitude that Stalin would under his rule though. Like Lenin though the purges were used as a political tool to gain power. Stalin's first attempt at purging his so called opposition, sometimes close friends or allies, who he felt were gaining to much power or popularity in the government came against an Old Bolshevik, N. Riutin. Ruitin had written a 200-page essay about Stalin, the document bashed Stalin and requested his removal. Stalin, outraged, tried to have Riutin assassinated but his attempts and plans failed. Stalin could never gain control of the secret police in Russia so he would eventually eliminate it and place the NKVD in its place. The NKVD would be Stalin's greatest tool in wreaking havoc over Russia (mars 1). In December of 1934 a party leader in Leningrad, Sergei Kirov, was assasinated. Later eveidence revealed that Stalin was behind Kirov's. Stalin felt that Kirov was gaining popularity and he feared this. This fear would drive Stalin to have Kirov assasinated. Kirov's murder would signal off the beginning of Stalin's Great Purge. Stalin would use Kirov's murder as a pretext to blame those who threatened his power. He would use the murder to have innocent politicians, all of whom Stalin saw as a enemy, convicted for the murder. These victims would either be murdered or sent to prison. As result