By the late 1930s Soviet goals of communist internationalization have died, Stalin recognizes a reality in which the USSR will be on the defensive rather than an ideological offensive. Thus, in paranoia, Stalin begins to cleanse potential enemies of the state- ethnic Japanese, Finnish, Polish, German, Lithuanian, etc. peoples who he fears wouldn’t remain loyal to Russia in a war. The period of 1937-1938 is the Great Terror, where the Soviet government executed and imprisoned potential threats:
“Altogether, between August 1937 and November 1938, the Soviet regime sentenced more than 335,000 people who had been arrested as part of the “nationality operations.” Close to 250,000 of those arrested, or 73 percent, were executed.l
