The Great Purge took place between 1934 and 1939 in Russia. Joseph Stalin
started the great purge because he felt his country needed to be united with him as a leader. He also felt that the Soviet Union had 10 years to catch up in industrial growth before Germany invaded them. Stalin turned to terror to solve these problems he was facing. He developed a horrifying system of labor camps with the help of NKVD. There was a series of Campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union. In 1934, Stalin was blamed for the assassination of Sergey Kirov. He used the assassination to arrest thousands of people that might have been behind it. The purges affected people who opposed him and ordinary people also. About 3 to 12 million people were put into labor camps, and mostly half of them died. Many of the people died from being slaughtered to death. After the death of the victims of the purges, the people in Russia gradually went back to normal.