Another justification for the purge was to remove any possible " fifth column " in case of a war . Vyacheslav Molotov and Lazar Kaganovich , participants in the repression as members of the Politburo , maintained this justification throughout the purge ; they each signed many death lists . Stalin believed war was imminent , threatened both by an explicitly hostile Germany and an expansionist Japan . The Soviet press portrayed the country as threatened from within by fascist spies . From the October Revolution onward , Lenin had used repression against perceived enemies of the Bolsheviks as a systematic method of instilling fear and facilitating social control , especially during the campaign commonly referred to as the Red Terror . This policy continued and intensified under Stalin , periods of heightened repression including the deportation of kulaks who opposed collectivization , and a severe famine in Ukraine . A distinctive feature of the Great Purge was that , for the first time , members of the ruling party were included on a massive scale as victims of the repression . Due to the scale of the terror , the substantial victims of the purges were Communist Party members and office-holders . The purge of the Party was accompanied by the purge of the whole society . The following events are used for the demarcation of the period
deportation of kulaks
Dekulakization
Great Purge