Inhistory,religion andpolitical science, apurge is a position removal orexecution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertaking such an effort is labeled as purging itself.
Purges can be either nonviolent or violent, with the former often resolved by the simple removal of those who have been purged from office, and the latter often resolved by theimprisonment,exile, ormurder of those who have been purged.[1][2] Governments who enact purges but want to obscure that they are doing so, may often justify their actions as dealing with security threats (such as terrorists) or corruption.[3][4]
TheShanghai massacre of 1927 in China and theNight of the Long Knives of 1934 in Nazi Germany, in which the leader of a political party turns against a particular section or group within the party and kills its members, are commonly called "purges". Mass expulsions of populations on the grounds ofracism andxenophobia, such as thedeportation of the Crimean Tatars in the Soviet Union, are not.[citation needed]
Though sudden and violent purges are notable, most purges do not involve immediate execution or imprisonment, for example the periodic massive purges of theCommunist Party of Czechoslovakia on grounds of apathy or dereliction, or thepurge of Jews andpolitical dissenters from the German Civil Service in 1933–1934.
Beginning in 1966,ChairmanMao Zedong and his associates purged much of theChinese Communist Party'sleadership, including thehead of state,PresidentLiu Shaoqi and the then-Secretary-General,Deng Xiaoping, as part of what the leaders termed theCultural Revolution. InMaoist states, sentences usually involved hard labor inlaogai camps and executions. Deng Xiaoping acquired a reputation for returning to power after he had been purged several times.[citation needed]
Purges are particularly likely when the power of competing elites is temporarily low, such as when a new dictator has taken office,[5] or when a leader has just survived a coup.[6] New dictators often target the military for a purge.[7]
The earliest use of the term dates back to theEnglish Civil War'sPride's Purge. In 1648–1650, the moderate members of the EnglishLong Parliament were purged by theNew Model Army. TheParliament of England would suffer subsequent purges underOliver Cromwell'sCommonwealth of England, including the purge of the entireHouse of Lords. Counter-revolutionaries such as royalists and more radical revolutionaries such as theLevellers were purged. After theStuart Restoration, obstinaterepublicans were purged while some[which?] fled to theNew England Colonies inBritish America.
Purges were frequent in the Soviet Union.[8] In the Soviet Union, military and internal security elites were more likely to be detained than civilian elites.[8][9]
The term "purge" is often associated withStalinism. While leading the USSR,Joseph Stalin carried out repeated purges which resulted in tens of thousands of people sentenced toGulag labor camps and the outright executions of rival communists, military officers,ethnic minorities,wreckers, and citizens accused of plotting againstcommunism.[10] Stalin together withNikolai Yezhov initiated the most notorious of theCPSU purges, theGreat Purge, during the mid to late 1930s.[11]
In 1934, ChancellorAdolf Hitler ordered the execution ofErnst Röhm, other leaders of theSturmabteilung militia, and political opponents.
AfterFrance's liberation by theAllies in 1944, theProvisional Government of the French Republic and particularly theFrench Resistance carried out purges of formercollaborationists, the so-called "vichystes". The process became known in legal terms asépuration légale ("legal purging"). Similar processes in other countries and on other occasions includeddenazification inAllied-occupied Germany anddecommunization inpost-communist states.
TheRed Purge was ananticommunist movement inoccupied Japan from the late 1940s to the early 1950s.[12][13][14] Carried out by theJapanese government and private corporations with the aid and encouragement of theSupreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), the Red Purge resulted in tens of thousands of alleged members, supporters, or sympathizers of left-wing groups, especially those said to be affiliated with theJapanese Communist Party, removed from their jobs in government, the private sector, universities, and schools.[15] The Red Purge emerged from risingCold War tensions and theRed Scare after World War II,[16][17] and was a significant element within a broader "Reverse Course" in Occupation policies.[18] The Red Purge reached a peak following the outbreak of theKorean War in 1950,[18] when communist China supported North Korea. It began to ease after GeneralDouglas MacArthur was replaced as commander of the Occupation by GeneralMatthew Ridgway in 1951, and came to a conclusion with the end of the Occupation in 1952.
After theCuban Revolution in 1959,Fidel Castro ofCuba often purged those who had previously been involved with theBatista regime. Purges usually involved the execution of the condemned. Castro periodically carried out purges in theCommunist Party of Cuba thereafter. One prominent purge was carried out in 1989 when a high-rankingCuban Revolutionary Armed Forces general namedArnaldo Ochoa was sentenced to death and executed byfiring squad on charges ofdrug trafficking. Purges became less common in Cuba during the 1990s and 2000s.
In the period 1938–1975, theHouse Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), an investigative committee of theUnited States House of Representatives, carried out a campaign of purging alleged "communist sympathizers" from positions in public life. While non-violent, HUAC's campaign destroyed the careers of many individuals, particularly in the entertainment industry, where HUAC attempted to purge left-wing voices entirely from the industry through theHollywood blacklist.
While not part of HUAC, U.S. SenatorJoseph McCarthy was a major driver of efforts to purge real and perceived communist sympathizers through the 1940s and 1950s, which ended in his condemnation and censure in 1954.
Xi Jinping'santi-corruption campaign is widely considered to be a purge.[19][20] A far-reaching campaign against corruption began inChina following the conclusion of the18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012. The campaign, carried out under the aegis ofXi Jinping,General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, was the largest organized purported anti-graft effort in thehistory of Communist rule in China.
The Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution of the Iranian government purged universities.
In August 2023, the government reportedly had a program to hire 15,000 replacements for people in universities and to place clerics in schools.[21][22] It also removed TehranUniversity of Art’s major curricula for sculpting, music and cinematography/filmmaking.[23]The government added Islamic studies even more so.[24] Many academics were terminated/fired.[25] On 14 December 2023 the Ministry of Education announced that it would hire 7000 clerics instead of teachers.[26]
De-Ba'athification was undertaken by theCoalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and subsequent Iraqi governments to remove theBa'ath Party's influence in the newIraqi political system after theU.S.-led invasion in 2003.[27] It was first outlined in CPA Order 1 which entered into force on 16 May 2003.[27] The order declared that allpublic sector employees affiliated with the Ba'ath Party were to be removed from their positions and to be banned from any future employment in the public sector.[27]
It is estimated that, before 2007, 50,000 civil government employees, as well as employees of other organizationslisted in Annex A of Order No. 2, were removed from their positions as a result of de-Ba'athification.[28] Another estimate places the number, also before 2007, at "100,000 civil servants, doctors, and teachers", who were forcibly removed from the public sector due to low-level affiliation.[29]
Members of theKim family have each periodically purged their political rivals or perceived threats since consolidating their control overNorth Korea, beginning in the 1950s. The most senior Kim purged those who opposed his son's succession to the supreme leadership of North Korea.Kim Il Sung's most prominent purge occurred during the "August Incident" in 1956, when the pro-Soviet and pro-ChineseYanan factions of theWorkers' Party of Korea (WPK) attempted to depose Kim. Most of those involved in the plot were executed while some others fled to the USSR and China. While some purges were carried out underKim Jong Il, they were not as common as they were under his father/son.Kim Jong Un purged several high-ranking officials and generals installed by his father Kim Jong Il in the former's first years in power, including, most prominently, his uncleJang Song-thaek.
After the failed2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, theGovernment of Turkey underRecep Tayyip Erdoğan began a purge against members of its civil service and theTurkish Armed Forces. The purge ostensibly focused mainly on public servants and soldiers alleged to be part of theGülen movement, the group the government blamed for the coup. As part of the purge, about 200,000 public officials, including thousands of judges, were dismissed and detained. PoliticizedKurds in Turkey have also been a major target of theJustice and Development Party-led purge.
The 2017–2019 Saudi Arabian purge was the mass arrest of a number of prominent Saudi Arabian princes, government ministers, and business people inSaudi Arabia on 4 November 2017.[30] It took place weeks after the creation of ananti-corruption committee led byCrown PrinceMohammed bin Salman.[31]
The purge helped centralize political powers in the hands of bin Salman and undermine the pre-existing structure ofconsensus-based governance among Saudi elites.[32][33] The arrests resulted in the final sidelining of the faction of KingAbdullah, and Mohammed bin Salman's complete consolidation of control of all three branches of the security forces.[34][35] It also cemented bin Salman's supremacy over business elites in Saudi Arabia and resulted in a mass seizure of assets by the bin Salman regime.[33]
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