How far was Stalin responsible for the Great Purges
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By the 1930s, Stalin's government of the USSR was using terror against its own party members and the people who supported them the most. This time is known as the Great Purges, and many people where sent to show trials 'confessing their crimes' against the government (which was a public thing, broadcasted by the radio) and then they were executed.
Stalin did have a lot to do with it. Firstly, he had a vengeful and paranoid personality. He took revenge of those who betrayed him, and was constantly afraid that opposition rise up and take him away from the power. For those reasons him oppressed any opposition, he wanted to get them before they got him. Also the purges are shortly after his wife's suicide, so he might had been physiologically affected, thinking that he had already lost his wife but he wouldn't loss the government. He wished to remove anyone who could form an alternative government.
Then, he formed a dictatorship. His government became totalitarian (there wouldn't by any other parties besides communists), meaning that he was omnipotent and that there wouldn't be opposition parties...