Why do we need a purge of the party. XXV Party Purges

Thesis

Myasnikov, Anton Andreevich

Academic degree:

Candidate of Historical Sciences

Place of defense of the dissertation:

VAK specialty code:

Speciality:

National history

Number of pages:

CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM OF PARTY STAFF IN THE PROVINCE ON THE EVE OF NEP.

1.1.Party organizations of the Kaluga and Tula provinces during the transition from war communism to the NEP.

1.2. The search for ways to resolve personnel problems and the preparation of a party purge.

CHAPTER II THE PRACTICE OF CARRYING OUT THE PARTY PURGE IN THE KALUGA AND TULA GUBERNIES.

2.1. Organization, scope and methods of cleansing.

2.2. The results of the purge and their impact on personnel policy Bolshevik guides.

CHAPTER III SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL PORTRAIT PROVINCE A COMMUNIST OF THE EARLY 1920S (BY THE MATERIALS OF THE PURGE).

3.1. Autobiographies of those undergoing a purge as a source for compiling a socio-psychological portrait of a provincial communist in the early 1920s.

3.2. Differences in the socio-psychological portrait of expelled and purged communists.

Introduction to the thesis (part of the abstract) On the theme "Party purge of 1921"

Relevance of the research topic.

Party purges are one of the integral elements of the Soviet political system. The need to conduct them appeared, as a rule, during periods of aggravation of the political and economic situation in the country, an increase in social tension, when the threat of the Bolsheviks losing power became real. The story of the first large-scale purge in 1921 is indicative in this respect. Among the prerequisites for its holding, the motive for protecting the authorities from events similar to Kronstadt, an echo of anti-government uprisings of peasants and inner-party discussions about trade unions.

In March 1921, the sailors and Red Army men of Kronstadt took up arms against the communists. The situation was aggravated by a sharp aggravation of the economic crisis. Many political forces, from monarchists to socialists, sought to take control of the popular movement that had begun. All these events put the Bolshevik authorities on the brink of disaster and forced them to radically change their political course - from war communism to the NEP.

However, the party forces were not ready for such a turn. The mechanism of action of power, which took shape during the years of war communism, could not ensure the solution of the new tasks put forward at the 10th Congress of the RCP (b). The country and the party were in dire need of qualified and dedicated personnel. Therefore, among the most important problems, the Bolshevik leadership faced the personnel problem.

The study of the general purge of 1921 and the socio-psychological portrait of the expelled and tested communists allows us to find out what kind of Bolshevik cadres were N necessary for the successful implementation of the NEP, to what extent this emergency measure corresponded to the solution of the tasks assigned to the party.

Historiography of the problem.

The problem under study was not the subject of special study either in the Soviet period or after the 1990s, although a number of aspects of the 1921 purge were reflected in numerous literature, which, as a rule, was devoted to the principles of party building, political processes during the years of the New Economic Policy, regulation social composition of the RCP(b).

The first assessment of the results of the party purge of 1921 belongs to V.I. Lenin. On the one hand, he noted gigantic cleaning success overall", but drew attention" quite numerous individual errors"one. His assessment formed the basis of almost all subsequent works of the Soviet period devoted to this problem, and later became generally accepted in Soviet historiography.

In the literature of the 1920s-1930s, despite the fact that it was represented mainly by publicistic works, the prerequisites, goals and shortcomings of the campaign were considered2. The purge of 1921 was mentioned in a number of works, the authors of which were party workers who, using the materials of surveys of rural organizations, studied the characteristics of the party life of the village, the mood of the communists in connection with the transition to the NEP, the social composition of rural

1 Lenin V.I. Letter to P.A. Zalutsky, A.A. Solts and all members of the Politburo on the purge of the party and the conditions for admission to the party // PSS. 5th ed. T.44. M., 1970. S.283.

2 Bubnov A.S. The main questions of the history of the RCP(b). M., 1924; He is. Social and national composition of the CPSU (b). M.-L., 1928; Nevsky V.I. History of the RCP(b): Brief essay. M., 1926; He is. Essays on the history of the RCP(b). M.-L., 1925; History of the CPSU (b). In 2 hours / Ed. EAT. Yaroslavsky. M., 1929; Yaroslavsky E.M. Essays on the history of the CPSU (b): In 4 vols. M., 1926-1930; He is. Brief essays on the history of the CPSU (b). 4.2. M.-L., 1928. cells3.

The purges of 1929 and 1933 forced party workers to turn to the experience of the previous purge. EAT. Yaroslavsky, K. Mezhol and A.Kh. Mitrofanov, analyzing the results of the first purges, including the general purge of 1921, noted the insufficient instruction of the verification commissions on the methods of verification and the approach to those being checked, the lack of consideration of the state of affairs in the cells as a whole, numerous conflicts between the verification commissions and party committees 4. Most of the works identified by the authors shortcomings related to the purge methods: a rude and tactless attitude towards the communists, haste in making decisions, the absence of clear justifications for the reasons for expulsion in many protocols, unscrupulous verification of the statements of non-party people in order to settle personal scores. The quantitative results of the cleaning are given by E.M. Yaroslavsky, who operated with primary data on the number of those excluded, later refined, as well as on their social composition, noting “ very large dropout of workers from the party"5.

In subsequent works of the Soviet period, devoted to the study of socio-political development during the NEP period, the regulation of the size and social composition of the RCP (b), the principles of party building, the purge was assessed as a key event for

3 Bolshakov A.M. Village 1917-1927 M., 1927; Mitrofanov A.Kh. Village organizations and their implementation of new tasks and methods of work in the countryside. M., 1925; Rosit D.P. Party and Soviets in the countryside. M., 1925; Khataevich M.M. party in the countryside. // On the agricultural front. 1925. No. 2; He is. About cells and party members in the countryside // Cells and Soviets in the countryside. Sat. articles and materials. M.-L., 1925; Yakovlev Ya.A. The village as it is. M.-L., 1925; He is. Communists at Soviet work in the countryside. M., 1926.

4 How to purge a batch. Sat. directive articles and materials. Ed. EAT. Yaroslavsky. M.-L., 1929; Mezhol K. Shortcomings and blunders of checks and purges in the past // How to purge the party. Sat. directive articles and materials / Ed. EAT. Yaroslavsky. M.-L., 1929. S.123-139; Mitrofanov A.Kh. About cleaning and checking the ranks of the CPSU (b). M.-JL, 1929; He is. The results of the purge of the party. M.-JL, 1930; He is. Worker and cleaning party. M.-JL, 1930; About the purge of the party. Moscow-Samara, 1933; Yaroslavsky E.M. On the purge and verification of members and candidates of the CPSU (b). M.-L., 1929; He is. To the purge of the party // About the purge of the party. Moscow-Samara, 1933. S.21-72; He is. Report on the purge of the party at the XVI party conferences// How to purge the batch. Sat. directive articles and materials. Ed. EAT. Yaroslavsky. M.-L., 1929.

5 Yaroslavsky E.M. On the purge and verification of members and candidates of the CPSU (b). M.-L., 1929. P.6. strengthening the party and strengthening the unity of its ranks and was considered mainly from the standpoint of changing the quantitative and social composition of party organizations6.

The procedure for preparing the purge, the central regulatory documents, the reasons for the exclusion of communists were considered in the work of N.R. Andrukhov. In his work, the purge was "a special specific method of improving the party ranks in the transition period from capitalism to socialism", which "contributed to an increase in the number of advanced representatives of the working class and a sharp restriction of access to the party for persons belonging to other social categories"7.

In the article by M.I. Bakhtin, the results of the purge were considered in the context of their influence on rural party organizations. According to the author, 42% of those expelled were rural communists. However, such a significant reduction in the composition did not weaken the rural party organizations, but, on the contrary, strengthened them, since they were expelled " unnecessary and harmful elements"eight.

On a national scale, the quantitative results of the purge are presented in the work of S.L. Dmitrenko. The result of the purge, according to the author, was an increase in the combat capability of local organizations and responsibility

6 Wasser M. Wrestling Communist parties against anti-Leninist workers' opposition”and its varieties in the first years of the NEP // Bulletin of Moscow University. Ser. Story. 1957. No. 4; Vyatkin A.Ya. The Communist Party in the period of restoration of the national economy (1921-1925). L., 1958; He is. Strengthening the unity of the party in the early years of the NEP (1921-1923). JL, 1958; Golovnyak A.F. Admission to the Bolshevik Party and regulation of its social composition during the years of transition to peaceful work to restore the national economy (1921-1925). M., 1950; Kanev S.N. The struggle of the Communist Party to strengthen the unity of its ranks during the period of transition to peaceful socialist construction (1920-1921). L., 1953; Mikhalitsyn N.V. From the history of the struggle of the Communist Party for strengthening the working core in its ranks (1921-1925) // Issues of party building in the Central Chernozem region. Tambov, 1988; Moskalenko I.M. The Central Control Commission in the struggle for the unity and purity of the party ranks. M., 1973; Popov A.I. The struggle of the party for the unity of its ranks during the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b). M., 1952. Selivanov A.M. Socio-political development of the Soviet countryside in the early years of the NEP (1921-1925). Saratov, 1987.

7 Andrukhov N.R. Party building during the struggle for the victory of socialism in the USSR 1917-37. M., 1977. P.46.

8 Bakhtin M.I. Strengthening party organizations in the countryside during the recovery period (1921-1925) // Questions of history. 1954. No. 11. S.86-94. Communists, improving the system of accounting for personnel and party discipline9.

In the post-Soviet period, the problems of the first party purge were reflected in the studies of the political system in the 1920s, as well as the most important aspects of its functioning, such as the personnel policy of the party, the history of the formation of the Bolshevik ruling elite, and the social portrait of an ordinary communist 10.

E.G. Gimpelson analyzed the characteristic features inherent in the Bolshevik cadres, the methods of their promotion, showed the environment in which they were formed, revealed the state of the corps of the leading cadres of the state apparatus during the years of the NEP according to the main parameters that characterize them: party membership, social origin, education, age11. Mobilization and direct appointments remained the main method of nominating personnel, while formal questionnaire criteria dominated when occupying power-administrative positions, which allowed mediocre people, and sometimes with criminal inclinations, to join power, a huge role in the practice of solving personnel issues was played by combining Soviet and party positions. In appointments to positions, the main requirements, as before - during the years of the civil war - were not education, vocational training and

9 Dmitrenko S.L. The struggle of the CPSU for the unity of its ranks. October 1917-1937. M., 1976.

10 Gimpelson E.G. Formation of the Soviet political system. 1917-1923 M., 1995; He is. NEP and the Soviet political system. 20s. M., 2000; He is. NEP: new economic policy Lenin-Stalin. Problems and lessons. (20s of the XX century). M., 2004; He is. Soviet managers in the 20s. (Leading personnel of the state apparatus of the USSR). M., 2001; He is. Formation and evolution of the Soviet state administration apparatus. 1917-1930. M., 2003; He is. Leading Soviet personnel: 1917-1920s // Patriotic history. 2004. No. 6. S.61-67; Nazarov O.G. Stalin and the struggle for leadership in the Bolshevik Party under the NEP. M., 2000; Nikulin V.V. Power and society in the 20s. The political regime during the NEP. Formation and functioning (1921-1929). SPb., 1997; Oleh G.L. The Turn That Wasn't: The Fight for inner-party democracy. 1919-1924 Novosibirsk, 1992; He is. The party machine of the RCP(b) in the early 1920s: structure and functioning. Novosibirsk, 1995; Pavlyuchenkov S.A. " Order of the Sword': Party and power after the revolution. 1917-1929 M., 2008; Polyakov Yu.A. On the social nature of corruption and the degeneration of the elite // New and recent history. 2009. No. 2. S.80-91; Sarantsev N.V. Bolshevik ruling elite: emergence, formation and transformation. 1900-1939: Historical and sociological aspects. Saratov, 2001.

11 Gimpelson E.G. Soviet managers in the 20s. (Leading personnel of the state apparatus of the USSR). M., 2001. S.30-31. qualifications, and party membership and social status (origin) of the candidate, his diligence, at best - organizational 10 ability. The researcher came to the conclusion that the purge played a special role in instilling conformism in the party, and, above all, was directed against the party intelligentsia and socially active party members who did not fall within the limits prescribed from above. On the other hand, thanks in large part to the purges and checks that kept all categories of the “bottom party” in constant tension, a system of strict regulation of the spiritual, social and personal life of the communists was formed13.

In the context of the study of the Soviet political system and personnel policy of the Bolsheviks, the problem of the results and significance of the purge of 1921 is singled out in the monograph by V.V. Nikulina 14. The author analyzes the internal state of the RCP(b) in the early 1920s, the structure of the party, party cadres and changes in the social image of the RCP(b). The conclusion of the researcher was that, having survived the threat of loss of power in the late 1920s - early 1921s, V.I. Lenin and his associates were forced to create a mechanism for maintaining power, and he was found in a reliable bureaucratic system (apparatus) at all levels and in the elimination of political rivals both within the party itself and outside it, as well as in the introduction of new spiritual standards, first in communist environment, and then into the mass consciousness. Cleaning, according to V.V. Nikulin, was carried out in order to eliminate dissent within the party and its breeding ground.

S.A. Pavlyuchenkov pointed out that the purge of 1921, which used " fundamental contradiction between society and power»,

12 Gimpelson E.G. Soviet managers in the 20s. (Leading personnel of the state apparatus of the USSR). M., 2001. S.30-31.

13 Gimpelson E.G. Formation and evolution of the Soviet state administration apparatus. 1917-1930. M., 2003. P.68.

14 Nikulin V.V. Power and society in the 20s. The political regime during the NEP. Formation and functioning (1921-1929). SPb., 1997. had a devastating effect on the state apparatus, moreover, during the transition period, when its impeccable functioning was required15. “During the purge, a huge number of communists left the party, as a result of which the provincial committees were put in an intricate position to somehow “get out” of the need to simply retain the necessary personnel and at the same time not create a hopeless impression among the “proletarian masses” that the broadcast purge turned out to be just an empty formality "16. Thus, in the post-Soviet period, the negative aspects of the first general purge began to be assessed.

In general, domestic historiography has thoroughly studied the political situation, the problem of party cadres on the eve of the NEP, the results of the purge throughout the country and some regions. A.A. Goncharov on the materials of the local party press ("Communist" - the organ of the Tsaritsyn Provincial Committee of the RCP (b), "News of the Samara Provincial Committee of the RCP (b)," banner of communism"- the organ of the Kursk Provincial Committee of the RCP (b)) revealed serious shortcomings that occurred during the preparation and conduct of the purge in the provinces: "attempts by alien elements to narrow or slow down the scope of the work of the inspection commissions, mechanical exceptions by cabinet

17 way without the participation of the broad masses". M.V. Khodyakov, conducted a study of the purge of the Pskov organization of the RCP (b) and came to the conclusion that it weakened

1R the grassroots composition of the party and especially the peasant cells. At the regional level, studies were carried out on the social portrait of the communists in the first half of the 1920s19.

15 Pavlyuchenkov S.A. " Order of the Sword»: Party and power after the revolution. 1917-1929 M, 2008. P.112.

17 Goncharov A.A. The purge of the party in 1921 and its significance for strengthening rural party organizations // Pages of the Great Path: From the History of the Struggle for the Victory of Communism. M., 1969. 4.2. P.89.

18 Khodyakov M.V. "The Communist Party must be clean." Purge of 1921 in the Pskov organization of the RCP (b) // Pskov. Scientific and practical local history journal. 1995. No. 3. pp.121-127.

Vorobyov S.V. Social portrait of the communists of the Urals in the early 20s: a source study of the materials of the All-Russian census of members of the RCP (b). Ph.D. Yekaterinburg, 2004; Kuznetsov I.V. The social image of the communists of the 20s. in the Central Industrial Region:

Against the general background, the situation in the party organizations of the Kaluga and

Tula provinces, little attention has been paid to the search for ways to resolve their personnel problems during the transition from war communism to the NEP in historical science. The situation in the grassroots apparatus of Soviet power was studied by I.I. Reshchikov. The author saw the main reason for its low efficiency in the qualitative composition, in the absence of initiative coming from below, and also in the weak connection with higher

20 party bodies. K. Knyazeva conducted a study of the state of the Tula party organization during the purge. Among the key problems, such phenomena as “penetration into the party environment and the working class of bourgeois ideas, morals, customs, which created the ground for the manifestation of disagreements and deviations from the general line of the party; bureaucratization and detachment from the masses; subjective mistakes made by party cadres”21.

The quantitative results of the campaign in the studied regions are reflected in essays on the history of local party organizations22, as well as in works devoted to issues of party building23. In the article by V.P. Cherkasova provides data on the results of the inspection of the Tula organization by districts, analyzes the change in the numerical and social composition of the materials of the All-Union Party Census of 1927. Ph.D. M., 2004; Kuznetsov I.S. Social psychology of rural communists in Siberia in the 20s // Historiography of the party leadership of socialist construction in Siberia. Novosibirsk, 1990; Fedorova I.M. Socio-psychological image of the local party-Soviet bureaucracy in the first half of the 1920s. (on the materials of the Kaluga, Smolensk and Tula provinces) // Management consulting: scientific-practical. magazine 2008. Issue 1.

2 Reshchikov I.I. Kaluga village in 1923 Kaluga, 1925.

21 Knyazeva K. The struggle of the Tula party organization for the rallying of the working class in the early years of the NEP (1921-1923). Tula, 1957. P.21.

22 History of the Kaluga party organization. Tula, 1978; Essays on the history of the Kaluga organization of the CPSU, Tula, 1967; Essays on the history of the Tula organization of the CPSU. Book 1. Tula, 1983; Tula regional organization of the CPSU in figures, 1917-1984. Tula, 1981.

23 Cherkasova V.P. The restructuring of party-organizational work in the Tula province on the basis of the decisions of the X Congress of the RCP (b). // Scientific notes of the Tula ped. Institute, 1969. Issue. 1. S.37-55; Chernobaeva T.P. The activities of the party organizations of the central industrial region to strengthen their ranks in the light of the decisions of the X Congress of the RCP (b) // X Congress of the RCP (b): abstracts of the conference dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the X Congress of the Party. Perm, 1981. S.33-38. county committees. On the materials of the Kaluga province, the procedure and results of the purge were not studied.

In Russian historiography, the party purge of 1921 was mentioned mainly in the context of general party problems, as part of an appeal to questions of party building during the restoration period or to political processes during the NEP years. Among the individual aspects of the purge, the causes, tasks and methods of its implementation, central regulatory documents, and quantitative results throughout the country have been studied to a greater extent. The organization and conduct of field checks, the mistakes made during the campaign, the impact of the purge on personnel policy are much less studied. Bolshevik leadership, a socio-psychological portrait of the communists who were purged and expelled from the party. The insufficient knowledge of the regional aspect of the problem studied in the dissertation is noticeable.

The purpose of the work is to analyze the mechanism of the party purge of 1921 and the reconstruction of the socio-psychological portrait provincial communist of the early 1920s based on materials from the Kaluga and Tula provinces. In accordance with this goal, the following research tasks have been set:

Show characteristics organization and procedures of the purge in the Kaluga and Tula provinces;

Determine the main reasons and goals for its implementation;

Analyze the results and results of the purge in the region under study;

Determine its place and role in the personnel policy of the Bolsheviks during the transition to the NEP;

To reveal the features of the socio-psychological portrait of the communists who were expelled from the party and who underwent a purge.

The object of the study is the personnel policy of the Bolshevik leadership during the transition from war communism to the NEP.

The subject of the study is the party purge of 1921 as an emergency measure in the personnel policy of the Bolsheviks.

Chronological The scope of the study is limited to the period of the party purge, the beginning of which was announced at the X Congress of the RCP(b) in March 1921, and its results were summed up at the XI Congress of the RCP(b) in April-May 1922. The dissertation examines the events of 1920-1922 in order to show the state of party organizations in the studied regions before and after the purge.

The territorial scope of the study includes two provinces of the Central region of European Russia - Kaluga and Tula, within the boundaries at the time of the purge.

Theoretical and methodological foundations of the work.

The dissertation research is built on the principles of historicism and scientific objectivity. They imply an unbiased approach to the analysis of the problems under study, a critical attitude to sources, making judgments based on understanding the totality of facts. The principle of historicism helped to establish the relationship between the events of that time against the backdrop of the socio-political situation, taking into account specific events and in chronological sequences. To reveal the dynamics of the studied processes and their consequences, the problem-chronological principle of structuring the material was used.

The work uses quantitative, and in the analysis of autobiographical material, historical and psychological methods.

Source base of the study.

The source base of the study is: 1) documents of the RCP(b); 2) office work materials of central and local authorities; 3) periodicals; 4) statistical materials; 5) sources of personal origin.

Documents of the RCP(b), revealing the goals and objectives of the purge, as well as the mechanism for its implementation, are represented by the resolutions of the Central Committee of the RCP(b), resolutions and decisions of party congresses and conferences, instructions of the Central Commission for the verification, revision and purge of the personnel of the RCP(b), published in official publications24, as well as the works of party and state leaders.

IN AND. Lenin owns works devoted directly to

25 purge of 1921, in which he gives his vision of the state of the party for that period, indicates the reasons for the purge, and evaluates the results of its implementation. The formation of the very idea of ​​party purges can also be judged from other works of Lenin, concerning a different issue, but in one way or another, affecting the phenomenon of interest to us.

On the issues of party purge and personnel policy, other political figures expressed their point of view: V.M. Molotov, G.E. Zinoviev,

24 of the CPSU in resolutions, decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee (1898-1986). In 14 vols. 9th ed., add. and correct. / Under the total. ed. A.G. Egorova and K.M. Bogolyubov. T.2. M., 1985; To check, revise and purify the batch. M., 1921; Eighth Congress of the RCP(b). protocols. M., 1959; Ninth Conference of the RCP(b) in 1920. September 1920. protocols. M., 1972. Tenth Congress of the RCP (b): March 1921. Shorthand report. Moscow, 1963; Eleventh Congress of the RCP(b): March-April 1922. Verbatim report. M., 1961.

25 Lenin V.I. On the purge of the party // PSS. 5th ed. T.44. M., 1970. S. 122-124; He is. Letter to P.A. Zalutsky, A.A. Solts and all members of the Politburo on the purge of the party and the conditions for admission to the party // Ibid. pp.283-284; Lenin V.I. Comments on the draft resolution of the XI Conference of the RCP(b) on the purge of the party // Ibid. pp.285-286. He is. Proposals on the issue of checking and cleaning the personnel of the RCP (b) // PSS. 5th ed. T.43. M., 1970. P. 361.

26 Lenin V.I. Children's disease of "leftism" in communism // PSS. 5th ed. T.41. M., 1970. S.1-104; He is. On the international and internal situation of the Soviet Republic // PSS. 5th ed.T.45. M., 1964. S.1-16; He is. Response to an open letter from a specialist // PSS. 5th ed. T.38. M., 1974. S.218-222; He is. Great initiative // ​​PSS. 5th ed. T.39. M., 1974. S.5-29.

L.D. Trotsky 27. j

Office materials are presented by documents of the Kaluga and Tula provincial committees, ukoms and district executive committees, central and provincial control commissions, provincial and district inspection commissions.

The Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI) stores the materials of the Central Control Commission, created following the results of the IX Party Conference in September 1920 in order to protect the unity of the party's ranks and combat violations of its Charter and Program. Prior to the creation of the Central Inspection Commission, she was engaged in purge of the party ranks, and during the general purge of 1921, she dealt with the most difficult cases. The minutes of the meetings of the Central Control Commission are contained in the 613 fund of the RGASPI (Op. 1). The specially created Central Commission of the RCP (b) for the verification and cleaning of party personnel (Tsentroproverkom) was directly involved in the purge. The minutes of its meetings are collected in RGASPI (F.613.0p.2). These documents reveal the organization of the purge nationwide. Also in this fund there are protocols of two subcommissions created on the basis of the Tsentroproverkom: a subcommittee for checking members who have not been purged in local verification commissions and a subcommittee for considering appeals against decisions of the latter, the materials of which allow us to analyze the procedure for considering appeals from those expelled from the party and the system for correcting errors admitted by the inspection commissions during the purge.

The regional material necessary for the study contains

27 Molotov B.M. On the purge // Eleventh Congress of the RCP (b): March-April 1922. Verbatim report. M., 1961. S. 46-47; He is. Party and Lenin's call. M., 1929; Zinoviev G.E. Speech at the XI Congress of the RCP(b) // Eleventh Congress of the RCP(b): March-April 1922. Verbatim report. M., 1961. S. 380-410; Trotsky L.V. New Course // Trotsky L.D. On the history of the Russian revolution / Comp. H.A. Vasetsky. M., 1990. special funds of local archives with documents on the purge of 1921: in the State Archive of Documents of Contemporary History of the Kaluga Region (GADNIKO) this is F.476 Op. 1, at the Center for Contemporary History of the Tula Region (TsNITO) - F.642 Op. 1. They contain minutes of meetings of provincial and district inspection commissions; correspondence with the Central Committee of the party, the Central Inspection Commission, the Central Control Commission on purge issues; lists of those excluded by party organizations; recommendations and withdrawals; autobiographies and statements of communists who were tested. In addition, valuable information on the purge and the state of local party organizations is contained in the documents of the Kaluga and Tula provincial committees of the period under study (GADNIKO F.1. Op. 3-5; TsNITO F.1. Op. 1-2): minutes of meetings of provincial committees, where the purge was discussed; correspondence with counties; discussion of reports on the work of county inspection commissions; statistical information. Until now, many of these sources, revealing the mechanism of cleansing in the field, the specifics of party building during the transition to the NEP, the socio-psychological portrait of the communists have not been studied by historians.

The materials of the periodical press were used in the dissertation, which allow answering the question of the conditions in which the purge took place, as well as how public and discussed the phenomenon was. In the central newspapers and magazines (“Izvestia of the Central Committee of the RCP (b)”, “Pravda”, “Communist”, “Bolshevik”) printed resolutions and instructions for organizing the purge, articles on its implementation in different provinces, intermediate results, reports of members of the central verification commissions P. Zalutsky, A. Solts, notes and opinions of other party workers on the purge. The local press is represented by the publications of the Kaluga (“News of the Kaluga Provincial Committee of the RCP (b)”, “Commune”) and Tula (“Bulletin of the Tula Provincial Committee of the RCP (b)”, “Sputnik of the Agitator”, “Kommunar”) provincial committees, which were intended mainly for members parties.

The work also used materials from the Fund of the Statistical Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU RGASPI (F. 17. Op. 7), which collected reports from the inspection commissions on the results of the purge, data on the number of party organizations and the social composition of the party.

Statistical information was regularly published in the journal Izvestia of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) (later Izvestia of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks). Since 1924, statistical reports began to appear in the form of annual issues.

RCP(b) in numbers" (then "VKP(b) in numbers"), and other publications. Separate statistical collections were also published on the composition of the studied

30 party organizations.

An important place in party statistics is occupied by the materials of two all-party censuses conducted in 1922 and 1927. In publications prepared on the basis of the results of censuses at the all-Union and local levels, the statistical data were supplemented by detailed comments, the authors of which made attempts to establish and evaluate the trends of the changes that had taken place31.

The dissertation also analyzes the autobiographies of the communists who went through the purge of 1921. They are contained in the funds of: 1) the Kaluga provincial inspection commission for the purge of the party (GADNIKO. F.476. Op.1); 2) Kaluga Provincial Committee of the RCP(b) (GADNIKO. F.1. Op.4); 3) Purges of the ranks of the RCP (b) of the Tula organization (TsNITO. F. 642. Op. 1); 4) Tula Provincial Committee of the RCP(b) (TsNITO. F.1. Op.2).

The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time

28 RCP(b) in numbers. Issue. 1-3. M., 1924-1925; VKP(b) in numbers. Issue. 4-6. M., 1925-1927.

29 The party in digital lighting. M.-L., 1925.

30The Tula organization of the RCP(b) in figures (as of October 1, 1925). Tula, 1925; Tula regional organization of the CPSU in figures, 1917-1984. Tula, 1981.

31 All-Russian census of members of the RCP (b) in 1922, Vol. 1-5. M., 1923; All-Union party census of 1927. Issue. 1-8. M., 1927. The subject of a special study was a comprehensive study of the party purge of 1921 on the materials of the Kaluga and Tula provinces.

Scientific novelty is also determined by the nature and volume of the sources used, most of which are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time (Kaluga and Tula regional archives).

In the course of the dissertation research, aspects of the purge that were not previously covered were identified: the specifics of organizing and conducting a campaign in the provinces, differences in the socio-psychological portrait of the communists who were purged and expelled from the party.

The practical significance of the study lies in the possibility of using its specific factual materials and conclusions in the further study of the problem and the scientific development of topics, in writing generalizing works on the history of party purges and works of a regional nature, as well as in the educational process for the preparation of general and special lecture courses.

Approbation of the work was carried out at international, all-Russian and regional scientific conferences and readings (Kaluga 2007; 2009; Kolomna 2007; Tula 2009; Moscow 2009). The main results of the study are reflected in six publications of the author, discussed at a meeting of the Department of Patriotic History of Kaluga State University. K.E. Tsiolkovsky.

The structure of the dissertation is determined by the goal and objectives. The study consists of an introduction, three chapters, each of which is divided into two paragraphs, a conclusion, a list of sources and references, applications.

Dissertation conclusion on the topic "National history", Myasnikov, Anton Andreevich

CONCLUSION

In the party organizations of the Kaluga and Tula provinces, during the transition from war communism to the NEP, there was a significant quantitative growth, as well as a change in the social composition. There was a decrease in the number of communists with pre-revolutionary party experience, the erosion of the proletarian core due to the massive entry into the RCP (b) of representatives of other social strata, the absorption of workers by the Soviet bureaucratic apparatus and their transition to the category of employees, a sharp rejuvenation of party organizations, the entry of people into them in order to receive certain personal benefits and privileges. Along with this, the number of party cells grew, which became ever smaller, which led to a weakening of the influence of the RCP (b) in the countryside.

In the studied regions, there were acute problems of accounting for personnel, a shortage of well-trained communists, a deterioration in discipline, an increase in abuse of power, and the inefficiency of methods and forms of party work that needed a radical transformation. Availability intra-party groupings led to a lack of unity on issues of party building.

Personnel problems were typical for the apparatus of the provincial committees, but to a greater extent manifested themselves in the ukoms and grassroots cells. The main reasons for their unsatisfactory work were the overload of workers who combined Soviet and party activities, the constant transfer of communists from provincial organizations at the direction of the center. To carry out the orders of the Central Committee, the provincial committees were forced to recruit the best personnel from the county organizations, but those, in turn, were in dire need of strengthening. Therefore, the work did not proceed along the path of creating strong party apparatuses at all levels, but on the principle of eliminating shortcomings in those places where they arose by inspecting districts, reorganizing dysfunctional districts, releasing individuals exclusively for party work, conducting weeks of surveys communist cells.

The moral character of the communists, as well as their practical work, especially in solving the food problem, caused dissatisfaction among the population, which acquired particular importance in conditions of need. new arrangement party cadres in connection with the transition to the NEP.

The key problems of party building, such as the division of the party into "tops and bottoms", material inequality among the communists, abuse of power, remained unresolved. Meanwhile, the economic and political situation in the studied regions was critical. In the Kaluga and Tula provinces, there was a catastrophic food situation, a secretly hostile attitude of the population towards the communists. The change in political course caused confusion among ordinary party members, and cases of their withdrawal from the ranks of the RCP (b) became more frequent.

In this regard, the Bolsheviks were faced with the task of not just retaining power, but the task of establishing an economy, restructuring the party apparatus as soon as possible and solving an urgent personnel problem for the implementation of the NEP.

A registration of party forces was carried out on the basis of the introduction of a single party card, a census of various categories of responsible workers indicating their professional qualities, and a special system for training party personnel was created.

In this series, the general purge of 1921 was the key measure on which the success of the new political course as a whole depended. It was carried out in a short time, since the most important thing for the party leadership was the speedy result, and not the correct organization of the purge, possible disadvantages and errors in its implementation.

The Central Committee was directly involved in the theoretical preparation of the purge and the creation of central party structures for its implementation. The result of this preparation was instructions to the inspection commissions and to all other party members. The instructions were forwarded to the party committees in a directive manner and were not subject to any correction or discussion. There was no definite idea about the methods of carrying out the purge, the experience of such campaigns. The consequence of this was the shortcomings and mistakes made in the course of its organization.

The most serious shortcoming was the unpreparedness of the local inspection commissions for the purge, whose members did not have a clear idea about the practical side of the inspection, were guided by the same instructions and subjective opinion.

The result of this work was the extremely uneven results of the purge in the provinces and, especially, in the counties. Every fifth communist (807 people out of 3,634; 22.2%) was expelled from the Kaluga party organization (taking into account those who were transferred to the candidates and left the party voluntarily), every third from the Tula (3,045 people out of 8884; in a number of districts of the Tula province, more than half of the party members left: in Krapivensky - 315 communists out of 494 (63.8%), in Novosilsky - 235 out of 439 (54%), in Epifanovsky - 208 out of 412 (50%).

With the help of purges of its ranks, the party sought to resolve urgent issues - to restore cohesion and unity, strengthen discipline, help attract all communists to active participation in public life, and also increase its influence on the non-party masses. It was the broadcast purge that was supposed to demonstrate to the population how the authorities solve the personnel problem.

As a result, the organization of the purge was characterized by the transience of preparation and the high dynamics of its implementation, an active propaganda campaign, and the involvement of the non-party population. It was in the provinces that the highest interest in cleaning was noted, especially among the workers. Among its other features, it is necessary to note the lack of communists who meet the requirements for members of the verification commissions, the differences in the formation of the commissions themselves, and the formalism in decision-making.

The party leadership allowed such a development of events. On the one hand, consciously or not, it sought to use the purge as a way to give the population the appearance of solving problems, as well as to relieve political tensions; on the other hand, the purge procedure made it possible to reveal both the passive element in the party and the numerous abuses of the communists, that is, it fulfilled the tasks set before it.

As a result of the purge, a number of changes were made to the personnel policy, which later had a positive value. Judging by the results, many of the goals set for it were achieved. Passive elements, communists connected with privileges and abusing their official position, violators of discipline, have been excluded from the party in large numbers. However, the proletarian composition of the RCP(b) was not radically increased, and the former representatives of other parties, on whom it was supposed to pay the most close attention, were expelled only 4.6%, which indicates that this group of communists was unlikely to pose a serious danger. In addition, the purge significantly weakened the ranks of the party during a difficult period for it. The communist economic managers, as well as skilled and professional workers, did not pass the test, there was a quantitative decrease in the members of the RCP (b) and party cells. In this regard, the results of the campaign, despite positive assessments in general, did not satisfy the party leadership.

In total, the RCP (b) at the beginning of the purge consisted of 658,839 communists. After it was held, 499,484 remained. 159,355 people dropped out. Thus, during the purge, every fourth communist was expelled from the party - 24.1% of the total.

We can only speak of a certain change in the composition of the party in the direction of increasing the proportion of workers. And yet this increase was insignificant - from 41% to 44.4%. At the same time, the share of peasants and employees in the party decreased respectively - from 28.2% to 26.7% and from 30.8% to 28.9%.

Based on the goals set for the inspection commissions, a large number of passive members were identified who either directly refused to comply with party directives or indirectly, through non-payment of membership fees, non-attendance at meetings of their cell, or simply an indifferent attitude towards the party and party life - 38.8% of all excluded nationwide.

Other reasons for expulsion from the party were “selfishness” and careerism (24.2%), criminal and other crimes (14.4%), drunkenness and non-communist lifestyle (11%), performance of religious rites (3.9%), desertion (2.4%).

In addition to the above results of the purge, the Provincial Verification Commissions provided information on the social origin of those expelled from the party, their activities during the purge, the time of joining the RCP (b), membership in other parties, systematized for the XI Congress of the RCP (b). Among the total number of those expelled from the party, 44.8% of those who left the party had a peasant origin, employees accounted for 23.8%, workers - 20.4%. The main occupation of almost a third of those excluded was agriculture - 30.1%.

Thus, the main blow of the purge fell on the communists employed in agriculture, as well as responsible party workers and employees of Soviet institutions. The former were most susceptible to economic growth, removal from party problems, while the latter had more possibilities than other members of the party, to the use of official position for personal interests. In addition, for many of them, in the difficult socio-economic situation of the early 1920s, the dominant motive for behavior was economic well-being. Almost 2/3 of the expelled (59.6%) joined the party in 1920-1921, 20.2% - in 1919, 10.3% - in 1918. Cases of exclusion of old party workers were very rare.

Study of the socio-psychological portrait provincial communist, based on a study of the autobiographies of party members who were purged in the Kaluga and Tula organizations, revealed the predominance of people among them young age(from 20 to 30 years old - over 40.5%, 166 people) and middle (aged 30 to 40 years - 28.3%, 116 communists), people from peasant families (286 people, 69.8%), with primary or incomplete primary education (340 communists, 82.9%).

Autobiography data testified that almost 3/4 of the members of the Kaluga and Tula organizations before February 1917 were not engaged in any revolutionary activity at all, but 108 communists (26.3%) took part in it. 34 of them participated passively in the revolutionary movement: they studied and distributed revolutionary literature, agitated for the overthrow of the existing system. And only 74 party members took the most active part in the revolutionary movement: they were participants in the Revolution of 1905, were at the barricades, participated in the strike and strike movement, were exiled and arrested. Since February 1917, 154 people (37.6%) have taken part in political activities. Its most common form was attendance at party congresses and conferences.

A serious incentive to join the party, in addition to conviction in its ideals, was the political and career attractiveness of the RCP (b), and hatred of the former political system and the opportunity to improve the difficult financial situation.

After joining the ranks of the RCP(b), most of the provincial communists significantly changed their social position, joined the ranks of the emerging party and government structures at various levels. Many of them were characterized by little professional experience, a low cultural and educational level, but, on the other hand, high social mobility.

As a result of studying the differences in the socio-psychological portrait of the expelled and purged communists, the following results were obtained. Among the tested communists, positive personal qualities, especially moral principles, are more pronounced. The career zeal and the ability to administer, necessary under the conditions of the NEP, stand out to a greater extent among those expelled from the party. During the purge, attention was paid to characteristics relating to membership in the RCP(b) rather than professional quality. The image of an ideologically devoted communist who took an active part in the revolutionary movement, who at the same time had to be better, cleaner and more honest than any other citizen, remained dominant.

The purge of 1921 was an integral element of the personnel policy of the Bolsheviks, which resulted in the creation of a party organization that managed to rally the whole society towards achieving the task of modernizing the entire socio-economic system of the country.

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155. Dissertation research.

156. Vorobyov C.B. Social portrait of the communists of the Urals in the early 20s: a source study of the materials of the All-Russian census of members of the RCP (b). Ph.D. Yekaterinburg, 2004.

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In order to free the party from people capable of forming a mass base of resistance to the ruling clique, Stalin practiced mass purges of the party. The first general purge after Lenin's death was carried out in 1929-30 in accordance with the resolution of the 16th Conference of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which stated that the purge should "make the party more homogeneous, ruthlessly throw out from the ranks of the party all alien to it, harmful to its success , elements indifferent to its struggle ... exposing the hidden Trotskyists ... and supporters of other anti-party groups and purging the party of them. During this purge, 10.2% of the party was expelled and 1.3% left the party voluntarily.

The very announcement of this purge was a violation of the party charter, according to which the purge had to be announced by decision of the party congress. In the decision of the conference, the task was set to complete it precisely by the next 16th Congress. In parallel with the purge, there was a mass admission of new members to the party. In his report at the 16th Congress, Stalin called as a major achievement "the declarations of the workers about joining the Party by entire workshops and factories, the growth in the number of Party members in the interval from the 15th Congress to the 16th Congress by more than 600 thousand people, joining the Party in the first quarter of this year 200 thousand new members". The accelerated growth of the membership of the party continued after the 16th Congress.

But even the party renewed in this way did not achieve sufficient "solidity" to ensure its unconditional obedience to Stalin. Therefore, two and a half years after the end of the purge of 1929-30, a new general purge of the party was announced. Its peculiarity was that before its completion, the admission to candidates and transfer to party members was terminated. The decision of the Central Committee to conduct a purge during 1933 was adopted on December 10, 1932, and confirmed by the January plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission, which decided "to organize the purge of the Party in such a way as to ensure iron proletarian discipline in the Party and the cleansing of the Party ranks of all unreliable, unstable and adhering elements".

The categories subject to cleansing, by the decision of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of April 28, 1933, included, in particular, "double-dealers who live by deceiving the Party, hiding their real aspirations from it and, under the guise of a false oath of "loyalty" to the Party, trying to frustrate the Party's policy in practice. ", as well as "open and covert violators of the iron discipline of the party and the state, who do not comply with the decisions of the party and government, questioning and discrediting the decisions and the plans established by the party by chattering about their "unreality" and "impracticability". According to the spirit and letter of these provisions, from the party was to be expelled anyone who expressed doubts about the correctness not only of the "general line", but even of individual practical measures of the Stalinist leadership.

Another innovation of this purge was the violation of the party charter, according to which members of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission, as elected by the party congress, were not subject to purge. In the resolution of April 28, an important reservation was made that the possibility of carrying out a purge of members of the Central Committee is allowed "in the case of a reasoned application by one or another party meeting or a separate group of party members" . Such statements were not long in coming from the primary organizations of those institutions in which the former leaders of the "right deviators" worked.

In a statement, the secretary of the cell of the People's Commissariat of Communications, which was led by Rykov, proposed to subject him to a purge, since he "has not yet been completely disarmed." At a meeting of the cell of the People's Commissariat, Rykov made two lengthy speeches in which he stated that "the fight against me, in particular, and against the right deviation is one of the greatest merits of the current leadership of the Central Committee and especially, and first of all, comrade Stalin." Rykov saw the danger of his position in 1928-29 in the fact that "both my name and my position became the center of gravity (which I spoke about at one of the congresses) in a whole series of cases of elements hostile to Soviet power."

Speaking of subsequent opposition groups, Rykov stated that some of them "hoped, some were sure that, under favorable circumstances, I would openly go over to their side"; his silence about these groups "gave reason to the fact that I may remain in the old position." As evidence of the correction of this yet another "mistake" Rykov listed his numerous speeches over the past year in which he criticized the "right danger" and the new anti-Stalinist groups. Rykov expressed the desire that "from my speech, from the experience of my mistakes, the comrades would learn with even greater force, with even greater consistency, to fight the right deviation in the composition of our party."

Regarding his work in the People's Commissariat for Communications, Rykov claimed that before he joined the People's Commissariat, the latter "was actually in the hands of wreckers and various enemies of Soviet power." To his achievements, he attributed the decision of the Council of People's Commissars adopted on his initiative, according to which "crimes along the line of communication are equated with crimes against socialist property," and to his shortcomings - "a large clogging of communication organs with alien elements."

However, even such a statement was declared "not self-critical enough" by the speakers in the debate. Rykov was blamed for the fact that he did not recognize the "internal political connection" of his position in 1928-29 with his previous mistakes, starting from 1911. In confirmation of the "slowness" with which Rykov gets rid of his mistakes, the speakers referred to the fact that in two of his recent speeches he did not utter the obligatory ritual words praising Stalin. Most of the speeches at the meeting ended with the conclusion that Rykov had not justified the confidence of the 16th Congress, which had elected him to the Central Committee.

The atmosphere of the meeting is characterized by the report of the chairman of the "cleaning" commission of the People's Commissariat to the regional commission for cleaning. It reported that Rykov gave "very softened characteristics" to his mistakes, and at least half of the participants in the meeting, when people who criticized Rykov spoke, "tried in every possible way to bring down the speakers. On the contrary, when Comrade Rykov managed to put some wit in his speeches, this section of the audience burst into wild applause." The informant did not forget to report his merits, which consisted in the fact that, closing the meeting, he pointed out that these “frantic applause addressed to Comrade Rykov for his witticisms and hissing at the comrades who tried seriously, in a businesslike way, to reveal shortcomings in work of the People's Commissariat, reveal the true anti-Party and anti-Soviet physiognomy of their authors.

The commission's decision, following the results of Rykov's personal purge, pointed out his "mistakes", expressed in the fact that in two of his speeches he "passed over in silence questions about the struggle for the general line of the party." The commission decided to consider Rykov "verified", but at the same time "to ask the Central Committee for Purge and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks to bring to the attention of the 17th Party Congress that Comrade Rykov, with his practical and party work, has not yet sufficiently proved that he has outlived their right-wing opportunist mistakes.

Bukharin's purge was more successful - mainly because he delivered an even more shameful and self-deprecating speech. He declared his "complete unconditional solidarity" with the fact that the party organization demanded an "additional check" on him, since he made "a whole series of grave mistakes." Having enumerated these "mistakes" in detail, Bukharin asserted that in the late 1920s his group had become "the mouthpiece of all the forces that resisted the storm of the full-scale socialist offensive." The questions she raised about the party regime, "accompanied by personal attacks, etc., on the most prominent and prominent leaders of our party," Bukharin called "an organizational reflex ... of petty-bourgeois vacillations." He stated that he now understood that for the victory of socialist construction, "absolute unanimity and absolute unanimity", "a military-like system within the country" and a party "with an absolutely iron discipline", which "is capable of leading the masses with an iron hand" are necessary. In the establishment of such a party regime, Bukharin saw the merit of the Stalinist leadership, which "historically grew, was not forged on some organizational cunning, it was forged, grew and won a historical place by a deeply principled line."

Among his especially serious mistakes, Bukharin referred to the "false directives" given by him to "a whole series of comrades, who later, escaping from under my leadership, to a large extent again through my fault, because I bred democracy with them, went to hell knows up to what things that you know about" (meaning the fate of the "Bukharin school", most of the participants of which at that time were in the dungeons of the GPU - V. R.). “I have moved away from all this for a long time, it is very unpleasant for me to remember all this - I dissociated myself from all this,” Bukharin added to this passage. He recalled that at the XVII Party Conference and the January Plenum of the Central Committee of 1933, he admitted "his guilt for those people who have sunk into counter-revolutionary groups. These are Slepkov, Aikhenwald, Maretsky, Astrov and others. I consider myself guilty not of what they did lately, but I was the first to "infect" them when right-wing opportunism was born.

My second mistake is that I started familiar relations with them, and then they didn't give a damn about me and escaped from my influence and went on the path of counter-revolutionary actions behind my back. I consider it my duty to condemn them most resolutely and fully join the measures taken by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks." tails".

A cell of the United State Publishing Houses (OGIZ), which was led by Tomsky, met for three days to adopt a statement about his personal purge. On the first day, as the chairman of the commission for the purge of the OGIZ reported, it turned out that a significant part of the bureau and the cell "are under the influence of Tomsky" and positively evaluate his work. Therefore, Tomsky in his speech reduced his mistakes only to the fact that he "did not speak at public meetings for a long time." Only after the commission gave a "direction to the debate" did 4 individual and group "reasoned statements" come in with a proposal to organize a personal purge of Tomsky. In these statements, he was accused of "not subjecting his years of struggle against the party to strong criticism", "harming the party too much and his behavior and work did not cover the guilt before the party." In addition to this, Tomsky was accused of "purchasing ideologically inconsistent manuscripts" during his work at the OGIZ and skipping the "ideological marriage" .

During the "personal purge" Tomsky behaved more worthily than Bukharin and Rykov, and even tried to defend A.P. Smirnov, who had been expelled from the Central Committee shortly before. As a result of the purge, he and other leaders of the "Right" were declared successful purges.

During the purge of 1933, only Shlyapnikov and Medvedev, the organizers of the "workers' opposition" of 1920-22, were "cleaned out" of the former leaders of the opposition groups. After the decision of the Gosplan cell to expel Shlyapnikov “as having finally broken with Bolshevism,” he sent a letter to Stalin in which he protested against the fact that “an atmosphere of sensation, petty slander has been created around me, and in the press they are already making me into a “complete double-dealer.” Shlyapnikov reported that the commission did not allow his purge to be postponed due to the aggravation of his deafness.Therefore, he was forced to appear sick at the meeting, where he was not even able to hear the accusations against him and therefore rebuff "self-seekers ... who slandered me" In conclusion of the letter, Shlyapnikov asked "to put an end to the bullying against me and to oblige the purge commission to show me the facts about my double-dealing."

Stalin forwarded this letter to the Central Purge Commission. Here, when considering the appeal, Shlyapnikov had to listen to new bullying, all the more insulting because Yezhov, who had been brought up in the Shlyapnikov family for several years, delivered a mentoring speech addressed to him. "Now Shlyapnikov asks everyone in bewilderment - what are his crimes?" Yezhov said. - ... To you, Shlyapnikov, the party showed an exceptionally patient attitude. "very much. You worked with your hump too. You write books that many of the workers still can't do. And the Party treated you patiently all the time, thinking that Shlyapnikov would improve.

You are always abusing this patient attitude of the Party. All your knowledge and abilities, on which a lot of the strength of the Party and your own strength have been spent, you have used for a decade and a half only in the struggle against the Party. The patience of the party is exceptional and completely refutes your own assertions about the regime in the party, etc., about which you have repeatedly spoken and written ... If we now leave Shlyapnikov in the party, not a single member of the party will understand this.

Before the decision to expel Shlyapnikov from the party was approved, disputes on the commission unfolded only over what he should be expelled for: for the "old" - participation in the "workers' opposition" or for the "new" - for the fact that he did not oppose the Trotskyists and " morally broken." As a result of the "discussion" it was decided to exclude both "old" and "new". At the same time, the accusations of "decomposition" boiled down to the fact that, being the chairman of the housing cooperative, Shlyapnikov spoke at the trial in defense of a non-party member of the cooperative, in whose apartment, according to a warrant signed by Kaganovich, an employee of the party's MK apparatus was moved in violation of the law.

Of the 1916.5 thousand members and candidate members of the party who were purged, 18.3% were expelled. In total, from 1921 to 1933, as a result of the purges, about a million members and candidates of the party were expelled and voluntarily left (about a tenth of those expelled were subsequently restored). If we deduct from this number the 219,000 expelled and retired during the general purge of 1921, it turns out that about 800,000 people were expelled from the party during the Stalinist purges only up to the beginning of 1934.

Describing the opposite of the functions and methods of party purges in the early years of the revolution and during the Stalinist dictatorship, Trotsky wrote: “Outwardly, the same party ... at the beginning of Soviet power and 10 years later applies the same methods in the name of the same same goals: to preserve its political purity and its unity. In fact, the role of the party and the role of purges changed radically. In the first period of Soviet power, the old revolutionary party was purged of careerists; in accordance with this, committees (purge commissions - V. R.) were created from old revolutionary workers. Adventurers, careerists, or simply swindlers were thrown overboard, trying to cling to power in fairly large numbers. The purges of recent years, on the contrary, are directed completely and entirely against the old revolutionary party. The organizers of the purges are the most bureaucratic and, in their type, the most base elements of the party.The victims of the purge are the most loyal, devoted to the revolutionary elements of tradition, and above all its (party - V. R.) older revolutionary generations. If in the first period the proletarian party was purging itself of the worst elements of it and of the bourgeoisie, now the petty-bourgeois bureaucracy is being purged of truly revolutionary proletarian elements. The social meaning of the purges has changed radically, but this change is covered by a single party"

The current "United Russia", which is gradually squeezing out various "crooks and thieves" from its ranks, did not even dream of the then scale - the bill went into the millions.

"Revolver on the table!"

The first purge (the term belongs to Lenin) took place in the party in 1921. The main attention was paid to social origin and participation in the Civil War. By 1922, the number of the CPSU (b) decreased from 732 to 410 thousand people. Almost a third lost their membership cards for "instability" and "loafing", a quarter - for "selfishness" and "bourgeois way of life". More than 3% of the Communists themselves left the party as a sign of disagreement with the new economic policy.

The next purge took place in 1929. Its goal was to fight the petty-bourgeois elements. In Soviet Newspeak, this meant that it was directed against the peasantry. Specifically, against that part of it that decided to defend itself with party cards from the food distribution of the times of war communism and subsequent collectivization.

But the Bolshevik Party continued to grow by leaps and bounds. Only for two years - 1931-1932. - 1.4 million new members joined it. That is, as much as it left after the previous cleaning. The top party leadership complained that the reception was held without proper verification. The People's Commissar for Supply of the USSR said more frankly Anastas Mikoyan at a conference with Soviet trade workers: “It is easier for a communist to steal than for another. It is booked with a membership card.”

The resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks ordered the purge to be carried out "in a comradely and benevolent atmosphere." In practice, things didn't look right at all. When the inspected was in front of the purge commission, he was ordered: "Party card and weapons - on the table!" In those years - a legacy of the Civil War - it was still very easy for a party member to obtain permission to carry a combat revolver or pistol. And the "cleaners" feared, not without reason, that the "cleaned out" might use weapons as a last argument. There have been such cases.

1924 Anastas Mikoyan, Joseph Dzhugashvili (Stalin) and Grigory ("Sergo") Ordzhonikidze. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

party cow

The grounds for exclusion from the party could, by today's standards, be the most ridiculous. Here are some: “For using a state farm cow and denying it”, “For not reading Soviet (you might think that there were others. - Ed.) Newspapers”, “For concealing social origin when joining the party and postscripting party experience” .

And here's how the cleanup commissions worked. According to a member of the Military Council of one of the armies I. Grinberg, “during the verification of party documents, such things were allowed: it’s better to expel 2-3 people so that they don’t say later that they weren’t expelled enough.” Say what you like, but a planned economy is a great thing!

It got to the point that even writer Nikolai Ostrovsky. “Local lazy people from the Okproverkom,” he wrote in a complaint about injustice, “refused to check me out of laziness, which put me out of the party.” And this despite the fact that in the 32nd it was printed and almost immediately became a cult story of his story "How the Steel Was Tempered". After lengthy delays, Ostrovsky's party card, however, was returned.

In some places, the process of updating the party went ahead of schedule. In 1933, the party organizations of the Kuban and the Don lost more than half of their membership. In total, during the event, 18% of the communists were expelled from the party, and another 15% left its ranks on their own - it became more and more dangerous to remain in the CPSU (b) on the eve of the "great terror".

Not cleaned up

In 1939, at the 18th Party Congress Stalin stated that the purge had a beneficial effect, but was accompanied by numerous errors. At least two of them had fatal consequences for the whole country.

Mistake #1: one petty party functionary worked as an instructor at the Leningrad Institute of Party History. In April 1934, he was expelled from the CPSU(b) for his categorical refusal to go to work on party mobilization in transport. He soon recovered in the party, but he lost his warm position as an instructor and began to write complaints to the first secretary of the Leningrad regional committee and city committee Sergei Kirov. Letters remained unanswered, then the offended party member (his last name was, by the way, Nikolaev) loaded his revolver, went to Smolny on his party card and shot Kirov. This murder served as an excuse for the “great terror” that soon began in the USSR.

V. Molotov, J. Stalin, M. Kalinin, K. Voroshilov at the 16th Congress of the CPSU (b) in Moscow. July 1930 Photo: www.russianlook.com Mistake #2: one of the ideologists of the repressions of the 30s. became a man who went through all the filters of party purges. And without any rights. Firstly, he was a Menshevik, and Lenin also demanded that out of a hundred former Mensheviks, one be left in the party, and even that one should be checked a hundred times. Second, being after February Revolution Commissioner of Militia of the Yakimansky District of Moscow, he signed an order on the strict implementation on the territory entrusted to him of the order of the Provisional Government to search for, arrest and bring the German spy Lenin to a military court. By the way, his name was Andrey Vyshinsky, he was the Prosecutor of the USSR and the author of the thesis "recognition is the queen of evidence."

This selectivity in carrying out party purges was also noticed by disgraced Bolshevik Leon Trotsky. In exile, he wrote this about the fate of a party official in the USSR: “If he steals, receives or gives a bribe, beats a subordinate or rapes a subordinate, in a word, he committed a “serious offense against party ethics”, but at the same time remains devoted to power, this “ useful person"We must give another job ... Ruthlessness is recommended only in relation to a political opponent. An obedient bribe-taker is not an enemy, an honest oppositionist is a mortal enemy.” These words are already 70 years old - but as if they were written yesterday!

The thirties ... a wave of party purges sweeps across the country.

The practice, like the name, was borrowed by the Bolsheviks from the Jacobins, who practiced something similar during their year in power (1793-1794). Namely, fearing that a sufficient number of careerists who were not filled with the corresponding “republican virtues” had clung to the ruling club, and that, on the contrary, a certain number of old Jacobins had decayed and lost such virtues, the Jacobins introduced something like a club court, at which everyone would have to report to club members in their activities before and during the revolution; any interested club player could ask questions and report incriminating facts; those considered unworthy were expelled from the club, which usually served as a prelude to arrest and execution. So, for example, in the town of Sere (department of Côte d'Or), in the vantoise of the 2nd year (February-March 1794), "Mr. but also a supporter of the former (=nobles) and the rich ...”, Mr. Meunier is excluded “as an indifferent egoist and fanatic (=believer)”, etc.

This practice was adopted by the Bolsheviks (for similar reasons) shortly after the October Revolution, in 1921, when the party grew to a large number of members, dubious from the point of view of the old Bolsheviks. Within the framework of Marxist ideology, it was assumed that the trouble comes from flooding the party with the "petty-bourgeois element" to the detriment of the "proletarian". In the words of Lenin, the party needed “an improvement in the sense of the struggle against the influences of the petty-bourgeois and petty-bourgeois-anarchist elements that are corrupting both the proletariat and the party. In order to bring about such an improvement, the Party must be purged of elements that are torn away from the masses (to say nothing, of course, of elements that disgrace the Party in the eyes of the masses).”

Aharon Solts (with glasses at the table) hears the secretary of the district committee Andreasyan. "Spark" 1933, No. 15

The purge ritual consisted of the following: each member of the organization went out in front of a “purge commission” of several (usually three) people sent by a higher organization and who had been purged earlier, put a party card and a personal weapon (if any) on the table in front of it, answered her questions, as well as questions from those present. If he was deemed worthy to remain in the ranks of the party, the party card and revolver were returned. Initially, first of all, social origin and participation in the revolution, as well as ideological literacy (questions were asked about knowledge of the theory of Marxism, etc.) and the moral and everyday image of a party member were subject to revision. According to the party census in the spring of 1922, the membership of the party dropped from 732,000 to 410,000 people during the year. More than 1/3 were excluded as “instability”, “loafing”, “as an unnecessary element” (analogues: “doubtful”, “fluctuating element”, “ballast”, “unprepared”, etc.). Almost 25% were purged for "discrediting the Soviet regime", "selfishness", "careerism", "drunkenness", "bourgeois way of life", "decay in everyday life", including religious beliefs, bribery, blackmail. 3.1% left the party voluntarily, including in protest against the introduction of the NEP.

Great purges were carried out in 1921, 1929 and 1933

The third "general purge" was announced by a joint decision of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of January 12, 1933, and went on throughout the year. In total, up to 400,000 people, or 18% of the party members, were purged. In total, according to the data voiced by Stalin, from 1921 to 1933. as a result of the purges, 800,000 people were expelled from the party.
The breakdown lowered into place listed the following categories of those being purged, established by a resolution of the Central Committee of April 28, 1933:
class alien and hostile elements who tricked their way into the Party and remain there to disintegrate the Party ranks;
double-dealers who live by deceiving the party, hiding from it their real aspirations under the guise of a false oath of "loyalty" to the party, trying to frustrate its policy;
open and hidden violators of the iron discipline of the party and the state, who do not comply with the decisions of the party and government, questioning and discrediting the decisions and plans established by the party by chattering about their "unreality" and "impossibility";
degenerates, fused with bourgeois elements, who do not want to fight in practice against class enemies, who do not actually fight against kulak elements, thieves, idlers, thieves and plunderers of public property;
careerists, self-seekers and bureaucratized elements who use their stay in the party and service with the Soviet state for their own selfish purposes, cut themselves off from the masses and neglect the needs and demands of the workers and peasants;
morally corrupted, dropping the dignity of the party with their unseemly behavior, soiling the banner of the party.
Describing the Stalinist purges, V. Rogovin quotes the statement of L. D. Trotsky, who noted their fundamental difference from the purges of the Lenin era: "during the first period of Soviet power, the old revolutionary party was purged of careerists; in accordance with this, the committees (purge commissions - V. R. .) were created from old revolutionary workers. Adventurers, careerists or simply swindlers were thrown overboard, trying to cling to power in fairly large numbers. The purges of recent years, on the contrary, are directed completely and entirely against the old revolutionary party. The organizers of the purges are the most bureaucratic and the most base elements of the party to their type. The victims of the purge are the most faithful elements devoted to revolutionary traditions, and above all its (the party - V. R.) older revolutionary generations. If in the first period the proletarian party was purged of the worst elements of it and the bourgeoisie, now the petty-bourgeois the bureaucracy is being purged of genuinely revolutionary lethargic elements

First, the preparation of lustrators is carried out.

She escaped the lustration

Alekhine “Checked. On a party purge"
And most importantly, how scary ... And this bust looks so unkindly ...
Well, nothing, everything is behind. The lucky woman will be given this certificate

Party purge certificate, 1921

The theme of purges is also of interest to contemporary artists. Here, the artist Kabanov improved, strengthened and deepened Alekhine's creation

Kabakov I.I. Checked. Party purge. 1981

The history of this painting is as follows. In 1981, V. Sorokin brought Kabakov the album "Soviet Painting" of 1938 edition. Among other reproductions was the black-and-white work "Checked" by the artist Alekhine. Kabakov became interested in this painting and the artist, but could not find anything. The picture struck him - both by the pitiful wretchedness of its execution and by the frank, lackey “What do you want?”, The fulfillment of the requirements of the moment. Kabakov began to copy this picture and, in his words, it was “like a crystal from which rushed and began to radiate into different sides endless streams of meanings"

And to establish world harmony - a harsh male "cleansing"

Party purge. ca. 1934
Finogenov K. I. (1902-1989)

Mass repressions in the USSR were carried out in the period 1927-1953. These repressions are directly associated with the name of Joseph Stalin, who during these years led the country. Social and political persecution in the USSR began after the end of the last stage of the civil war. These phenomena began to gain momentum in the second half of the 1930s and did not slow down during the Second World War, as well as after its end. Today we will talk about what the social and political repressions of the Soviet Union were, consider what phenomena underlie those events, and also what consequences this led to.

They say: a whole people cannot be suppressed without end. Lie! Can! We see how our people have become devastated, run wild, and indifference descended on them not only to the fate of the country, not only to the fate of their neighbor, but even to their own fate and the fate of children. Indifference, the last saving reaction of the body, has become our defining feature . That is why the popularity of vodka is unprecedented even in Russia. This is a terrible indifference, when a person sees his life not punctured, not with a broken corner, but so hopelessly fragmented, so up and down filthy that only for the sake of alcoholic oblivion is it still worth living. Now, if vodka were banned, a revolution would immediately break out in our country.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Reasons for repression:

• Forcing the population to work on a non-economic basis. A lot of work had to be done in the country, but there was not enough money for everything. The ideology formed new thinking and perception, and also had to motivate people to work practically for free.
• Strengthening personal power. For the new ideology, an idol was needed, a person who was unquestioningly trusted. After the assassination of Lenin, this post was vacant. Stalin had to take this place.
• Strengthening the exhaustion of a totalitarian society.

If you try to find the beginning of repression in the union, then the starting point, of course, should be 1927. This year was marked by the fact that mass executions began in the country, with the so-called pests, as well as saboteurs. The motive of these events should be sought in the relations between the USSR and Great Britain. So, at the beginning of 1927, the Soviet Union was involved in a major international scandal, when the country was openly accused of trying to transfer the seat of the Soviet revolution to London. In response to these events, Great Britain severed all relations with the USSR, both political and economic. Domestically, this step was presented as a preparation by London new wave interventions. At one of the party meetings, Stalin declared that the country "needs to destroy all remnants of imperialism and all supporters of the White Guard movement." Stalin had an excellent reason for this on June 7, 1927. On this day, the political representative of the USSR, Voikov, was killed in Poland.

As a result, terror began. For example, on the night of June 10, 20 people who contacted the empire were shot. They were representatives of ancient noble families. In total, in June 27, more than 9 thousand people were arrested, who were accused of treason, aiding imperialism and other things that sound menacing, but are very difficult to prove. Most of those arrested were sent to prison.

Pest control

After that, a number of major cases began in the USSR, which were aimed at combating sabotage and sabotage. The wave of these repressions was based on the fact that in most large companies that operated within the Soviet Union, senior positions were occupied by people from imperial Russia. Of course, most of these people did not feel sympathy for the new government. Therefore, the Soviet regime was looking for pretexts by which this intelligentsia could be removed from leadership positions and, if possible, destroyed. The problem was that it needed a weighty and legal basis. Such grounds were found in a number of lawsuits that swept through the Soviet Union in the 1920s.

Among the most striking examples of such cases are the following:

• Shakhty business. In 1928, repressions in the USSR affected miners from Donbass. A show trial was staged from this case. The entire leadership of Donbass, as well as 53 engineers, were accused of espionage with an attempt to sabotage the new state. As a result of the trial, 3 people were shot, 4 were acquitted, the rest received prison terms from 1 to 10 years. It was a precedent - society enthusiastically accepted the repressions against the enemies of the people ... In 2000, the Russian prosecutor's office rehabilitated all the participants in the Shakhty case, in view of the lack of corpus delicti.
• Pulkovo case. In June 1936, a large solar eclipse. The Pulkovo Observatory appealed to the world community to attract personnel to study this phenomenon, as well as to obtain the necessary foreign equipment. As a result, the organization was accused of espionage. The number of victims is classified.
• The case of the industrial party. The defendants in this case were those whom the Soviet authorities called bourgeois. This process took place in 1930. The defendants were accused of trying to disrupt industrialization in the country.
• The case of the peasant party. The Socialist-Revolutionary organization is widely known, under the name of the Chayanov and Kondratiev groups. In 1930, representatives of this organization were accused of trying to disrupt industrialization and interfering in agricultural affairs.
• Union Bureau. The Union Bureau case was opened in 1931. The defendants were representatives of the Mensheviks. They were accused of undermining the creation and implementation of economic activity within the country, as well as having links with foreign intelligence.

At that moment, a massive ideological struggle was taking place in the USSR. New mode he tried with all his might to explain his position to the population, as well as to justify his actions. But Stalin understood that ideology alone could not bring order to the country and could not allow him to retain power. Therefore, along with ideology, repressions began in the USSR. Above, we have already given some examples of cases from which repressions began. These cases have always raised big questions, and today, when the documents on many of them have been declassified, it becomes absolutely clear that most of the accusations were unfounded. It is no coincidence that the Russian prosecutor's office, having examined the documents of the Shakhtinsk case, rehabilitated all participants in the process. And this despite the fact that in 1928 none of the party leadership of the country had any idea about the innocence of these people. Why did this happen? This was due to the fact that, under the guise of repression, as a rule, everyone who did not agree with the new regime was destroyed.

The events of the 1920s were only the beginning, the main events were ahead.

Socio-political meaning of mass repressions

A new massive wave of repression within the country unfolded at the beginning of 1930. At that moment, the struggle began not only with political competitors, but also with the so-called kulaks. In fact, a new blow of the Soviet power against the rich began, and this blow caught not only wealthy people, but also the middle peasants and even the poor. One of the stages of delivering this blow was dispossession. As part of this material we will not dwell on the issues of dispossession, since this issue has already been studied in detail in the corresponding article on the site.

Party composition and governing bodies in repression

A new wave of political repressions in the USSR began at the end of 1934. At that time, there was a significant change in the structure of the administrative apparatus within the country. In particular, on July 10, 1934, the special services were reorganized. On this day, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR was created. This department is known by the acronym NKVD. This division included the following services:

• Main Directorate of State Security. It was one of the main bodies that dealt with almost all cases.
• Main Directorate of Workers' and Peasants' Militia. This is an analogue of the modern police, with all the functions and responsibilities.
• Main Directorate of the Border Service. The department was engaged in border and customs affairs.
• Headquarters of the camps. This department is now widely known under the acronym GULAG.
• Main Fire Department.

In addition, in November 1934, a special department was created, which was called the "Special Meeting". This department received broad powers to combat the enemies of the people. In fact, this department could, without the presence of the accused, the prosecutor and the lawyer, send people into exile or to the Gulag for up to 5 years. Of course, this applied only to the enemies of the people, but the problem is that no one really knew how to define this enemy. That is why the Special Meeting had unique functions, since virtually any person could be declared an enemy of the people. Any person could be sent into exile for 5 years on one simple suspicion.

Mass repressions in the USSR

The events of December 1, 1934 became the reason for mass repressions. Then Sergei Mironovich Kirov was killed in Leningrad. As a result of these events, a special procedure for judicial proceedings was approved in the country. In fact, we are talking about accelerated litigation. Under the simplified system of proceedings, all cases where people were accused of terrorism and complicity in terrorism were transferred. Again, the problem was that under this category included almost all people who fell under repression. Above, we have already talked about a number of high-profile cases that characterize the repressions in the USSR, where it is clearly seen that all people, one way or another, were accused of aiding terrorism. The specificity of the simplified system of proceedings was that the sentence had to be pronounced within 10 days. The defendant received the summons the day before the trial. The trial itself took place without the participation of prosecutors and lawyers. At the conclusion of the proceedings, any request for clemency was prohibited. If in the course of the proceedings a person was sentenced to death, then this measure of punishment was executed immediately.

Political repression, purge of the party

Stalin staged active repression within the Bolshevik Party itself. One of the illustrative examples of repression that affected the Bolsheviks happened on January 14, 1936. On this day, the replacement of party documents was announced. This step has long been discussed and was not unexpected. But when replacing documents, new certificates were not awarded to all party members, but only to those who "deserved trust." Thus began the purge of the party. According to official data, when new party documents were issued, 18% of the Bolsheviks were expelled from the party. These were the people to whom the repressions were applied, first of all. And we are talking about only one of the waves of these purges. In total, the cleaning of the batch was carried out in several stages:

• In 1933. 250 people were expelled from the top leadership of the party.
• In 1934-1935, 20,000 people were expelled from the Bolshevik Party.

Stalin actively destroyed people who could claim power, who had power. To demonstrate this fact, it is only necessary to say that of all the members of the Politburo of 1917, only Stalin survived after the purge (4 members were shot, and Trotsky was expelled from the party and expelled from the country). In total, there were 6 members of the Politburo at that time. In the period between the revolution and the death of Lenin, a new Politburo of 7 people was assembled. By the end of the purge, only Molotov and Kalinin survived. In 1934, the next congress of the VKP(b) party took place. The congress was attended by 1934 people. 1108 of them were arrested. Most were shot.

The assassination of Kirov aggravated the wave of repressions, and Stalin himself addressed the party members with a statement about the need for the final extermination of all enemies of the people. As a result, the Criminal Code of the USSR was amended. These changes stipulated that all cases of political prisoners were considered in an expedited manner without attorneys for prosecutors within 10 days. The executions were carried out immediately. In 1936, a political trial took place over the opposition. In fact, Lenin's closest associates, Zinoviev and Kamenev, ended up in the dock. They were accused of murdering Kirov, as well as an attempt on Stalin's life. A new stage of political repressions against the Leninist guards began. This time, Bukharin was subjected to repressions, as well as the head of the government, Rykov. The socio-political meaning of repression in this sense was associated with the strengthening of the personality cult.

Repression in the army

Beginning in June 1937, repressions in the USSR affected the army. In June, the first trial took place over the high command of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA), including the commander-in-chief, Marshal Tukhachevsky. The leadership of the army was accused of attempting a coup. According to the prosecutors, the coup was to take place on May 15, 1937. The defendants were found guilty and most of them were shot. Tukhachevsky was also shot.

An interesting fact is that of the 8 members of the trial who sentenced Tukhachevsky to death, later five were themselves repressed and shot. However, from that time on, repressions began in the army, which affected the entire leadership. As a result of such events, 3 marshals of the Soviet Union, 3 army commanders of the 1st rank, 10 army commanders of the 2nd rank, 50 corps commanders, 154 division commanders, 16 army commissars, 25 corps commissars, 58 divisional commissars, 401 regimental commanders were repressed. In total, 40 thousand people were subjected to repressions in the Red Army. It was 40 thousand leaders of the army. As a result, more than 90% of the command staff was destroyed.

Strengthening repression

Beginning in 1937, the wave of repressions in the USSR began to intensify. The reason was order No. 00447 of the NKVD of the USSR of July 30, 1937. This document declared the immediate repression of all anti-Soviet elements, namely:

• Former kulaks. All those whom the Soviet government called kulaks, but who escaped punishment, or were in labor camps or in exile, were subject to repression.
• All representatives of religion. Anyone who had anything to do with religion was subject to repression.
• Participants in anti-Soviet actions. Under such participants, everyone who had ever acted actively or passively against the Soviet regime was involved. In fact, this category included those who did not support the new government.
• Anti-Soviet politicians. Inside the country, all those who were not members of the Bolshevik Party were called anti-Soviet politicians.
• The White Guards.
• People with a criminal record. People who had a criminal record were automatically considered enemies of the Soviet regime.

• hostile elements. Any person who was called a hostile element was sentenced to be shot.
• Inactive elements. The rest, who were not sentenced to death, were sent to camps or prisons for a term of 8 to 10 years.

All cases were now dealt with in an even more expedited manner, where most cases were dealt with en masse. According to the same order of the NKVD, repressions applied not only to convicts, but also to their families. In particular, the families of the repressed were subjected to the following measures punishments:

• Families of those who were repressed for active anti-Soviet actions. All members of such families were sent to camps and labor camps.
• The families of the repressed, who lived in the border zone, were subject to resettlement inland. Often special settlements were formed for them.
• The family of the repressed, who lived in large cities of the USSR. Such people were also resettled inland.

In 1940, a secret department of the NKVD was created. This department was engaged in the destruction of political opponents of Soviet power abroad. The first victim of this department was Trotsky, who was killed in Mexico in August 1940. In the future, this secret department was engaged in the destruction of members of the White Guard movement, as well as representatives of the imperialist emigration of Russia.

In the future, repressions continued, although their main events had already passed. In fact, repressions in the USSR continued until 1953.

The results of repression

In total, from 1930 to 1953, 3,800,000 people were repressed on charges of counter-revolution. Of these, 749,421 people were shot ... And this is only according to official information ... And how many more people died without trial or investigation, whose names and surnames are not included in the list?