 As it wound down, Stalin sought to deflect responsibility from himself, blaming its "excesses" and "violations of law" on Yezhov.According to historian James Harris, contemporary archival research shows that the motivation behind the purges was not Stalin attempting to establish his own personal dictatorship; evidence suggests he was committed to building the socialist state envisioned by Lenin.The real motivation for the terror, according to Harris, was an over-exaggerated fear of counterrevolution.