"Cleaning the space...": deconstruction of primary social groups during the Great Purge

The article reviews social context of repressions during the Great Purge. The main focus is made on the specific features of terror's events, specifically – on the interpretation of social ties as a basis of "counter-revolutionary organizations". This interpretation turned prisoners' relationships with neighbors, colleagues and personal friends into acts of conspiracy. The author proves the struggle of the government against informal ties between participants of political, economical and cultural institutions. Political campaign against "clans", "workingmen's cooperatives" etc. served as a basis for social politics of RCP(b) and AUCP(b) in the 1920s–1930s. The Great Purge was aimed to deconstruct existed both professional and personal social relationships between Soviet citizens. It was a basis for production of atomized individuals and as cogs in state's machine. The destruction of existing social ties allowed the power to organize new social politics aimed to organize the society into productive "collectivity". Pressure against other forms of association whether they were territorial, based on friendship and even kinship, was proclaimed to be the war against "gruppovschina". The purpose of total collectivization of the society required terror and repressions.