Use these two sources to analyse the effects of Stalin’s purges on Soviet society.

SOURCE A Extract from Natasha’s Dance by Orlando Figes, London 2002.




Prokofiev [the composer] became a lonely figure in Paris. “I am a Russian, the least suited of men to be

an exile. I’ve got to talk to my own people, so that they can give me something I lack here – their songs –

my songs.”

From 1932 Prokofiev began to spend half the year in Moscow, and later he and his family moved there

permanently. He was given a luxurious apartment and allowed the freedom to travel to the West (at a

time when Soviet citizens were sent to the gulag for speaking to a foreigner). He was awarded prizes and

flattered in his native land.

But Prokofiev’s working life became difficult. Attacked as a formalist [one who was regarded as preferring

their art as an art form, rather than it being understood by the millions] like Shostakovich, he retreated

by writing music for the young: Peter and the Wolf with its wolf hunt, was a product of the terror years,

but most of the music he had written in Paris and New York was banned.










SOURCE B Extract from Hope against Hope, by N Mandelstam, London, 1971. The author

and her poet husband were exiled in 1934, allowed to return to Moscow in 1937,

but he was sent to a labour camp in 1938, and died there.




As regards the Stalinist terror, we could never imagine that it might end. … It was essential to smile –

if you didn’t it meant you were afraid or discontented. This nobody could afford to admit. Everybody had

to walk around wearing a cheerful expression, as though to say: “what’s going on is no concern of mine,

I have important work to do. I am trying to do my best for the state. My conscience is clear – if what’s his

name is arrested, there must be good reason.”

The mask [pretence] was only taken off at home, and then not always. Even from your children you had to

hide how horror-struck you were; otherwise they might let something slip at school.


Both theses sources show how much the purges effected the Societ soceit, making them into people they didn;t want to be or else there would be terrible concienses. The average man an dwomen is depicted in source b stated you even had to hide from your children and lie to them because they would turn on you. It states "The mask [pretense] was only taken off at home, and then not always. Even from your children you had to hide how horror-struck you were; otherwise they might let something slip at school." The fear that Stalin's purges might effect your life was clearly seen that even musicians went into a mode of making music that Stalin would agree upon such as, Prokoviev in source A, whose music was banned in the Soviet society, which he wrote in New York and Paris because it had western spin on it. Having to make and be something else because of one mans terror he places on you through purges made the Soviet society become "very difficult" as source a puts it. Due to the purges people had to smile and put on the falsehood that everything Stalin was doing was just fine with tem but in reality it was not, but the purges made them be silenced to any opinion and voice because the NKVD would show up at your house and terroize your family if you went against the "norm." Discontenment was high, says source B but a visualization of that was not allowed becuase then the Soviet police or people; because it became every man for himself was turned for being discontent with Stalin's power, something that couldn't be know.