Stalin's repression years target who was subjected. USE

Estimates of the number of victims of Stalin's repressions differ dramatically. Some call numbers in the tens of millions of people, others are limited to hundreds of thousands. Which of them is closer to the truth?

Who is guilty?

Today our society is almost equally divided into Stalinists and anti-Stalinists. The former draw attention to the positive transformations that took place in the country during the Stalin era, the latter urge not to forget about the huge numbers of victims of the repressions of the Stalinist regime.
However, almost all Stalinists recognize the fact of repressions, however, they note their limited nature and even justify them with political necessity. Moreover, they often do not associate repressions with the name of Stalin.
Historian Nikolay Kopesov writes that in the majority of investigative cases on those repressed in 1937-1938 there were no resolutions of Stalin - everywhere there were sentences of Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria. According to the Stalinists, this is evidence that the heads of the punitive organs were engaged in arbitrariness and, in confirmation, they quote Yezhov: “Who we want, we execute, whom we want, we have mercy.”
For that part of the Russian public that sees Stalin as the ideologist of repression, these are just particulars that confirm the rule. Yagoda, Yezhov and many other arbiters of human destinies themselves became victims of terror. Who but Stalin was behind all this? they ask rhetorically.
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Chief Specialist Oleg Khlevnyuk of the State Archives of the Russian Federation notes that despite the fact that Stalin's signature was not on many execution lists, it was he who sanctioned almost all mass political repressions.

Who got hurt?

Even more significant in the controversy surrounding the Stalinist repressions was the question of the victims. Who and in what capacity suffered during the period of Stalinism? Many researchers note that the very concept of “victims of repression” is rather vague. Historiography has not worked out clear definitions on this matter.
Undoubtedly, convicts, imprisoned in prisons and camps, shot, deported, deprived of property should be counted among the victims of the actions of the authorities. But what about, for example, those who were subjected to "hard interrogations" and then released? Should there be a separation between criminal and political prisoners? In what category should we classify the “nonsense” caught in petty single thefts and equated with state criminals?
The deportees deserve special attention. To what category do they belong - repressed or administratively deported? It is even more difficult to decide on those who fled without waiting for dispossession or deportation. They were sometimes caught, but someone was lucky enough to start a new life.

Such different numbers

Uncertainty in the question of who is responsible for the repressions, in identifying the categories of victims and the period for which the victims of repressions should be counted lead to completely different figures. The most impressive figures came from the economist Ivan Kurganov (referenced by Solzhenitsyn in his novel The Gulag Archipelago), who calculated that between 1917 and 1959, 110 million people became victims of the internal war of the Soviet regime against its own people.
This number Kurganov includes the victims of famine, collectivization, peasant exile, camps, executions, civil war, as well as "the neglectful and slovenly conduct of the Second World War."
Even if such calculations are correct, can these figures be considered a reflection of Stalin's repressions? The economist, in fact, answers this question himself, using the expression "victims of the internal war of the Soviet regime." It is worth noting that Kurganov counted only the dead. It is difficult to imagine what figure could have appeared if the economist had taken into account all the victims of the Soviet regime in the specified period.

The figures cited by the head of the human rights society "Memorial" Arseniy Roginsky are more realistic. He writes: “On a scale of the entire Soviet Union, 12.5 million people are considered victims of political repression,” but he adds that in broad sense up to 30 million people can be considered repressed.
The leaders of the Yabloko movement, Elena Kriven and Oleg Naumov, counted all categories of victims of the Stalinist regime, including those who died in the camps from diseases and harsh working conditions, the dispossessed, the victims of hunger, those who suffered from unjustifiably cruel decrees and received excessively severe punishment for minor offenses in the force of the repressive nature of the legislation. The final figure is 39 million.
Researcher Ivan Gladilin notes on this occasion that if the number of victims of repression has been counted since 1921, this means that it is not Stalin who is responsible for a significant part of the crimes, but the “Lenin Guard”, which immediately after the October Revolution unleashed terror against the White Guards , clergy and kulaks.

How to count?

Estimates of the number of victims of repression vary greatly depending on the method of counting. If we take into account those convicted only on political articles, then according to the data of the regional departments of the KGB of the USSR, given in 1988, the Soviet authorities (VChK, GPU, OGPU, NKVD, NKGB, MGB) arrested 4,308,487 people, of which 835,194 were shot.
Employees of the "Memorial" society, when counting the victims of political trials, are close to these figures, although their figures are still noticeably higher - 4.5-4.8 million were convicted, of which 1.1 million were shot. If we consider everyone who went through the Gulag system as victims of the Stalinist regime, then this figure, according to various estimates, will range from 15 to 18 million people.
Very often, Stalinist repressions are associated exclusively with the concept of the "Great Terror", which peaked in 1937-1938. According to the commission headed by Academician Pyotr Pospelov to establish the causes of mass repressions, the following figures were announced: 1,548,366 people were arrested on charges of anti-Soviet activities, of which 681,692 thousand were sentenced to capital punishment.
One of the most authoritative experts on the demographic aspects of political repression in the USSR, historian Viktor Zemskov, names a smaller number of those convicted during the years of the Great Terror - 1,344,923 people, although his data coincides with the number of those who were shot.

If the dispossessed kulaks are included in the number of those subjected to repressions in Stalin's time, then the figure will grow by at least 4 million people. Such a number of dispossessed is given by the same Zemskov. The Yabloko party agrees with this, noting that about 600,000 of them died in exile.
The victims of Stalinist repressions were also representatives of some peoples who were subjected to forcible deportation - Germans, Poles, Finns, Karachays, Kalmyks, Armenians, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars. Many historians agree that the total number of deportees is about 6 million people, while about 1.2 million people did not live to see the end of the journey.

Trust or not?

The above figures are mostly based on the reports of the OGPU, NKVD, MGB. However, not all documents of the punitive departments have been preserved, many of them were purposefully destroyed, many are still in the public domain.
It should be recognized that historians are very dependent on statistics collected by various special agencies. But the difficulty is that even the available information reflects only the officially repressed, and therefore, by definition, cannot be complete. Moreover, it is possible to verify it from primary sources only in the rarest cases.
Acute lack of reliable and complete information often provoked both the Stalinists and their opponents to name radically different figures from each other in favor of their position. “If the “rights” exaggerated the scale of the repressions, then the “lefts”, partly from dubious youth, having found much more modest figures in the archives, were in a hurry to make them public and did not always ask themselves whether everything was reflected - and could be reflected - in the archives ", - notes the historian Nikolai Koposov.

It can be stated that estimates of the scale of Stalinist repressions based on the sources available to us can be very approximate. Documents stored in the federal archives would be a good help for modern researchers, but many of them have been re-classified. A country with such a history will jealously guard the secrets of its past.

The results of Stalin's rule speak for themselves. In order to devalue them, to form in the public mind a negative assessment of the Stalin era, the fighters against totalitarianism willy-nilly have to whip up horrors, attributing monstrous atrocities to Stalin.

In a contest of liars

In a accusatory rage, the writers of anti-Stalinist horror stories seem to be competing to see who will lie more strongly, vying with each other naming the astronomical numbers of those who died at the hands of the “bloody tyrant”. Against their background, the dissident Roy Medvedev, who limited himself to a “modest” figure of 40 million, looks like some kind of black sheep, a model of moderation and conscientiousness:

“Thus, the total number of victims of Stalinism reaches, according to my calculations, figures of about 40 million people.”

And in fact, it's inappropriate. Another dissident, the son of the repressed revolutionary Trotskyist A.V. Antonov-Ovseenko, without a shadow of embarrassment, names twice the figure:

“These calculations are very, very approximate, but I am sure of one thing: the Stalinist regime bled the people, destroying more than 80 million of his best sons.”

Professional "rehabilitators" led by the former member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU A. N. Yakovlev are already talking about 100 million:

“According to the most conservative estimates of the specialists of the rehabilitation commission, our country lost about 100 million people during the years of Stalin's rule. This number includes not only the repressed themselves, but also members of their families doomed to death and even children who could have been born, but never were born.

However, according to Yakovlev, the notorious 100 million include not only direct "victims of the regime", but also unborn children. But the writer Igor Bunich, without hesitation, claims that all these "100 million people were ruthlessly exterminated."

However, this is not the limit. The absolute record was set by Boris Nemtsov, who announced on November 7, 2003 in the program "Freedom of Speech" on the NTV channel about 150 million people allegedly lost by the Russian state after 1917.

Who are these fantastically absurd figures, willingly replicated by Russian and foreign mass media, intended for? For those who have forgotten how to think for themselves, who are accustomed to uncritically take on faith any nonsense rushing from the TV screens.

It is easy to see the absurdity of the multimillion-dollar figures of "victims of repression". It is enough to open any demographic directory and, picking up a calculator, make simple calculations. For those who are too lazy to do this, I will give a small illustrative example.

According to the population census conducted in January 1959, the population of the USSR amounted to 208,827 thousand people. By the end of 1913, 159,153 thousand people lived within the same borders. It is easy to calculate that the average annual population growth of our country in the period from 1914 to 1959 was 0.60%.

Now let's see how the population of England, France and Germany grew in those same years - countries that also took an active part in both world wars.

So, the population growth rate in the Stalinist USSR turned out to be almost one and a half times higher than in the Western "democracies", although for these states we excluded the extremely unfavorable demographic years of World War I. Could this have happened if the “bloody Stalinist regime” had destroyed 150 million or at least 40 million inhabitants of our country? Of course no!
archival documents say

To find out the true number of those executed under Stalin, it is absolutely not necessary to engage in guesswork on coffee grounds. It is enough to familiarize yourself with the declassified documents. The most famous of them is a memorandum addressed to N. S. Khrushchev dated February 1, 1954:

"To the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU

To Comrade Khrushchev N.S.

In connection with the signals received by the Central Committee of the CPSU from a number of persons about illegal convictions for counter-revolutionary crimes in previous years by the Collegium of the OGPU, troikas of the NKVD, and the Special Meeting. By the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals, and in accordance with your instructions on the need to reconsider the cases of persons convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes and now held in camps and prisons, we report:

According to the data available in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, for the period from 1921 to the present, 3,777,380 people were convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes by the Collegium of the OGPU, troikas of the NKVD, the Special Meeting, the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals, including:

Of the total number of those arrested, approximately 2,900,000 people were convicted by the OGPU Collegium, NKVD troikas and the Special Conference, and 877,000 people by courts, military tribunals, the Special Collegium and the Military Collegium.

…
Prosecutor General R. Rudenko
Minister of Internal Affairs S. Kruglov
Minister of Justice K. Gorshenin

As is clear from the document, from 1921 to the beginning of 1954, 642,980 people were sentenced to death on political charges, 2,369,220 to imprisonment, and 765,180 to exile. However, there are more detailed data on the number of those convicted.

Thus, between 1921 and 1953, 815,639 people were sentenced to death. In total, in 1918–1953, 4,308,487 people were prosecuted on matters of state security agencies, of which 835,194 were sentenced to capital punishment.

So, the “repressed” turned out to be somewhat more than indicated in the report dated February 1, 1954. However, the difference is not too great - the numbers are of the same order.

In addition, it is quite possible that a fair number of criminals were among those who received sentences under political articles. On one of the references stored in the archive, on the basis of which the above table was compiled, there is a pencil mark:

“Total convicts for 1921-1938. - 2,944,879 people, of which 30% (1062 thousand) are criminals "

In this case, the total number of "victims of repression" does not exceed three million. However, in order to finally clarify this issue, it is necessary extra work with sources.

It should also be borne in mind that not all sentences were carried out. For example, out of 76 death sentences issued by the Tyumen District Court in the first half of 1929, by January 1930, 46 were changed or canceled by higher authorities, and only nine of the remaining ones were carried out.

From July 15, 1939 to April 20, 1940 for disorganization camp life and production, 201 prisoners were sentenced to capital punishment. However, then some of them the death penalty was replaced by imprisonment for terms of 10 to 15 years.

In 1934, 3849 prisoners were kept in the NKVD camps, sentenced to the highest measure with the replacement of imprisonment. In 1935 there were 5671 such prisoners, in 1936 - 7303, in 1937 - 6239, in 1938 - 5926, in 1939 - 3425, in 1940 - 4037 people.
Number of prisoners

Initially, the number of prisoners in forced labor camps (ITL) was relatively small. So, on January 1, 1930, it amounted to 179,000 people, on January 1, 1931 - 212,000, on January 1, 1932 - 268,700, on January 1, 1933 - 334,300, on January 1, 1934 - 510 307 people.

In addition to the ITL, there were corrective labor colonies (NTCs), where convicts were sent for short periods. Until the autumn of 1938, the penitentiaries, together with the prisons, were subordinate to the Department of Places of Confinement (OMZ) of the NKVD of the USSR. Therefore, for the years 1935–1938, so far only joint statistics have been found. Since 1939, the penitentiaries were under the jurisdiction of the Gulag, and the prisons were under the jurisdiction of the Main Prison Directorate (GTU) of the NKVD of the USSR.

How reliable are these numbers? All of them are taken from the internal reporting of the NKVD - secret documents not intended for publication. In addition, these summary figures are quite consistent with the initial reports, they can be expanded monthly, as well as by individual camps:

Let us now calculate the number of prisoners per capita. On January 1, 1941, as can be seen from the table above, the total number of prisoners in the USSR amounted to 2,400,422 people. The exact population of the USSR at this point is unknown, but is usually estimated at between 190–195 million.

Thus, we get from 1230 to 1260 prisoners for every 100 thousand of the population. On January 1, 1950, the number of prisoners in the USSR was 2,760,095 people - the maximum figure for the entire period of Stalin's rule. The population of the USSR at that moment totaled 178 million 547 thousand. We get 1546 prisoners per 100 thousand of the population, 1.54%. This is the highest figure ever.

Let's calculate a similar indicator for the modern USA. At present, there are two types of places of deprivation of liberty: jail - an approximate analogue of our temporary detention facilities, jail contains persons on remand, as well as those sentenced to short terms, and prison - the prison itself. At the end of 1999, there were 1,366,721 people in prisons and 687,973 in jails (see the website of the Bureau of Legal Statistics of the US Department of Justice), which gives a total of 2,054,694. The population of the United States at the end of 1999 was approximately 275 million , therefore, we get 747 prisoners per 100,000 population.

Yes, half as much as Stalin, but not ten times. It is somehow undignified for a power that has taken upon itself the protection of "human rights" on a global scale.

Moreover, this is a comparison of the peak number of prisoners in the Stalinist USSR, which is also due first to the civil and then the Great Patriotic War. And among the so-called "victims of political repression" there will be a fair share of supporters white movement, collaborators, Nazi accomplices, members of the ROA, policemen, not to mention ordinary criminals.

There are calculations that compare the average number of prisoners over a period of several years.

The data on the number of prisoners in the Stalinist USSR exactly match those given above. In accordance with these data, it turns out that on average for the period from 1930 to 1940, there were 583 prisoners per 100,000 people, or 0.58%. Which is much less than the same indicator in Russia and the USA in the 90s.

What is the total number of people who were in places of detention under Stalin? Of course, if you take a table with the annual number of prisoners and add up the rows, as many anti-Soviet do, the result will be wrong, since most of them were sentenced to more than a year. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate this by the amount of not sitting, but by the amount of convicts, which was given above.
How many of the prisoners were "political"?

As we can see, until 1942, the “repressed” made up no more than a third of the prisoners held in the Gulag camps. And only then did their share increase, having received a worthy "replenishment" in the person of Vlasov, policemen, elders and other "fighters against communist tyranny." Even smaller was the percentage of "political" in corrective labor colonies.
Mortality of prisoners

The available archival documents make it possible to shed light on this issue as well.

In 1931, 7,283 people died in the ITL (3.03% of the average annual number), in 1932 - 13,197 (4.38%), in 1933 - 67,297 (15.94%), in 1934 - 26,295 prisoners (4.26%).

Data for 1953 are given for the first three months.

As we can see, the death rate in places of detention (especially in prisons) did not at all reach those fantastic values ​​that accusers like to talk about. But still, its level is quite high. It increases especially strongly in the first years of the war. As stated in the certificate of mortality according to the OITK of the NKVD for 1941, compiled by acting. Head of the Sanitary Department of the GULAG of the NKVD I. K. Zitserman:

Basically, mortality began to increase sharply from September 1941, mainly due to the transfer of conscripts from units located in the front-line areas: from the LBC and Vytegorlag to the OITK of the Vologda and Omsk regions, from the OITK of the Moldavian SSR, Ukrainian SSR and Leningrad region. in OITK Kirov, Molotov and Sverdlovsk regions. As a rule, the stages of a significant part of the journey, several hundred kilometers before loading into the wagons, were on foot. On the way, they were not provided with the minimum necessary food at all (they did not receive bread and even water completely), as a result of such transportation, s / c gave a sharp exhaustion, a very large%% of beriberi, in particular pellagra, which gave significant mortality along the way and along the way. arriving at the respective OITKs that were not prepared to receive a significant number of replenishments. At the same time, the introduction of reduced food allowances by 25–30% (orders No. 648 and 0437) with an increased working day up to 12 hours, often the absence of basic food products, even at reduced rates, could not but affect the increase in morbidity and mortality

However, since 1944, mortality has been significantly reduced. By the beginning of the 1950s, in the camps and colonies, it fell below 1%, and in prisons - below 0.5% per year.
Special Camps

Let's say a few words about the notorious Special Camps (special charges) created in accordance with the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 416-159ss of February 21, 1948. These camps (as well as the Special Prisons that already existed by that time) were supposed to concentrate all those sentenced to imprisonment for espionage, sabotage, terror, as well as Trotskyists, rightists, Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries, anarchists, nationalists, white émigrés, members of anti-Soviet organizations and groups and "individuals who pose a danger through their anti-Soviet connections." Prisoners of special services should be used for hard physical work.

As we can see, the death rate of prisoners in special camps was only slightly higher than the death rate in ordinary labor camps. Contrary to popular belief, special services were not "death camps" in which the color of dissident intelligentsia was supposedly destroyed, moreover, the most numerous contingent of their inhabitants were "nationalists" - forest brothers and their accomplices.
Notes:

1. Medvedev R. A. Tragic statistics // Arguments and facts. 1989, February 4–10. No. 5(434). P. 6. A well-known researcher of repression statistics V. N. Zemskov claims that Roy Medvedev immediately retracted his article: 38 for 1989. - I.P.) placed in one of the issues of "Arguments and Facts" for 1989 an explanation that his article in No. 5 for the same year is invalid. Mr. Maksudov is probably not entirely aware of this story, otherwise he would hardly have undertaken to defend the calculations far from the truth, from which their author himself, realizing his mistake, publicly renounced ”(Zemskov V.N. On the issue of the scale of repressions in USSR // sociological research. 1995. No. 9. P. 121). However, in reality, Roy Medvedev did not even think of disavowing his publication. In No. 11 (440) for March 18-24, 1989, his answers to the questions of the correspondent of Arguments and Facts were published, in which, confirming the “facts” stated in the previous article, Medvedev merely clarified that it was not the entire communist party as a whole, but only its leadership.

2. Antonov-Ovseenko A. V. Stalin without a mask. M., 1990. S. 506.

3. Mikhailova N. Underpants of counter-revolution // Premier. Vologda, 2002, July 24–30. No. 28(254). P. 10.

4. Bunich I. Sword of the President. M., 2004. S. 235.

5. Population of the countries of the world / Ed. B. Ts. Urlanis. M., 1974. S. 23.

6. Ibid. S. 26.

7. GARF. F.R-9401. Op.2. D.450. L.30–65. Cit. Quoted from: Dugin A.N. Stalinism: legends and facts // Slovo. 1990. No. 7. S. 26.

8. Mozokhin O. B. VChK-OGPU Punishing sword of the dictatorship of the proletariat. M., 2004. S. 167.

9. Ibid. S. 169

10. GARF. F.R-9401. Op.1. D.4157. L.202. Cit. Quoted from: Popov V.P. State terror in Soviet Russia. 1923–1953: sources and their interpretation // Otechestvennye archives. 1992. No. 2. S. 29.

11. On the work of the Tyumen District Court. Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR of January 18, 1930 // Arbitrage practice RSFSR. 1930, February 28. No. 3. P. 4.

12. Zemskov VN GULAG (historical and sociological aspect) // Sociological research. 1991. No. 6. S. 15.

13. GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D. 1155. L.7.

14. GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D. 1155. L.1.

15. The number of prisoners in the ITL: 1935–1948 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.1155. L.2; 1949 - Ibid. D.1319. L.2; 1950 - Ibid. L.5; 1951 - Ibid. L.8; 1952 - Ibid. L.11; 1953 - Ibid. L. 17.

In correctional colonies and prisons (average for the month of January):. 1935 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.2740. L. 17; 1936 - Ibid. L. ZO; 1937 - Ibid. L.41; 1938 - There. L.47.

In ITK: 1939 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.1145. L.2ob; 1940 - Ibid. D.1155. L.30; 1941 - Ibid. L.34; 1942 - Ibid. L.38; 1943 - Ibid. L.42; 1944 - Ibid. L.76; 1945 - Ibid. L.77; 1946 - Ibid. L.78; 1947 - Ibid. L.79; 1948 - Ibid. L.80; 1949 - Ibid. D.1319. L.Z; 1950 - Ibid. L.6; 1951 - Ibid. L.9; 1952 - Ibid. L. 14; 1953 - Ibid. L. 19.

In prisons: 1939 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.1145. L.1ob; 1940 - GARF. F.R-9413. Op.1. D.6. L.67; 1941 - Ibid. L. 126; 1942 - Ibid. L.197; 1943 - Ibid. D.48. L.1; 1944 - Ibid. L.133; 1945 - Ibid. D.62. L.1; 1946 - Ibid. L. 107; 1947 - Ibid. L.216; 1948 - Ibid. D.91. L.1; 1949 - Ibid. L.64; 1950 - Ibid. L.123; 1951 - Ibid. L. 175; 1952 - Ibid. L.224; 1953 - Ibid. D.162.L.2rev.

16. GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.1155. L.20–22.

17. Population of the countries of the world / Ed. B. Ts. Urlaiis. M., 1974. S. 23.

18. http://lenin-kerrigan.livejournal.com/518795.html | https://de.wikinews.org/wiki/Die_meisten_Gefangenen_weltweit_leben_in_US-Gef%C3%A4ngnissen

19. GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D. 1155. L.3.

20. GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.1155. L.26–27.

21. Dugin A. Stalinism: legends and facts // Word. 1990. No. 7. S. 5.

22. Zemskov VN GULAG (historical and sociological aspect) // Sociological research. 1991. No. 7. S. 10–11.

23. GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.2740. L.1.

24. Ibid. L.53.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid. D. 1155. L.2.

27. Mortality in ITL: 1935–1947 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.1155. L.2; 1948 - Ibid. D. 1190. L.36, 36v.; 1949 - Ibid. D. 1319. L.2, 2v.; 1950 - Ibid. L.5, 5v.; 1951 - Ibid. L.8, 8v.; 1952 - Ibid. L.11, 11v.; 1953 - Ibid. L. 17.

Penitentiaries and prisons: 1935–1036 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.2740. L.52; 1937 - Ibid. L.44; 1938 - Ibid. L.50.

ITC: 1939 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.2740. L.60; 1940 - Ibid. L.70; 1941 - Ibid. D.2784. L.4ob, 6; 1942 - Ibid. L.21; 1943 - Ibid. D.2796. L.99; 1944 - Ibid. D.1155. L.76, 76v.; 1945 - Ibid. L.77, 77v.; 1946 - Ibid. L.78, 78v.; 1947 - Ibid. L.79, 79v.; 1948 - Ibid. L.80: 80rev.; 1949 - Ibid. D.1319. L.3, 3v.; 1950 - Ibid. L.6, 6v.; 1951 - Ibid. L.9, 9v.; 1952 - Ibid. L.14, 14v.; 1953 - Ibid. L.19, 19v.

Prisons: 1939 - GARF. F.R-9413. Op.1. D.11. L.1ob.; 1940 - Ibid. L.2v.; 1941 - Ibid. L. Goiter; 1942 - Ibid. L.4ob.; 1943 - Ibid., L. 5ob.; 1944 - Ibid. L.6ob.; 1945 - Ibid. D.10. L.118, 120, 122, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133; 1946 - Ibid. D.11. L.8ob.; 1947 - Ibid. L.9ob.; 1948 - Ibid. L.10v.; 1949 - Ibid. L.11ob.; 1950 - Ibid. L.12v.; 1951 - Ibid. L.1 3v.; 1952 - Ibid. D.118. L.238, 248, 258, 268, 278, 288, 298, 308, 318, 326rev., 328rev.; D.162. L.2v.; 1953 - Ibid. D.162. Sheet 4ob., 6ob., 8ob.

28. GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1.D.1181.L.1.

29. The system of labor camps in the USSR, 1923–1960: A Handbook. M., 1998. S. 52.

30. Dugin A. N. Unknown GULAG: Documents and Facts. M.: Nauka, 1999. S. 47.

31. 1952 - GARF.F.R-9414. Op.1.D.1319. L.11, 11v. 13, 13rev.; 1953 - Ibid. L. 18.

One of the blackest pages in the history of the entire post-Soviet space was the years from 1928 to 1952, when Stalin was in power. Biographers for a long time hushed up or tried to distort some facts from the tyrant's past, but it turned out to be quite possible to restore them. The fact is that the country was ruled by a recidivist convict who was in prison 7 times. Violence and terror, forceful methods of solving the problem were well known to him from early youth. They are also reflected in his policies.

Officially, the course was taken in July 1928 by the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. It was there that Stalin spoke, who declared that the further advancement of communism would meet with increasing resistance from hostile, anti-Soviet elements, and they must be fought hard. Many researchers believe that the repressions of the 30s were a continuation of the policy of the Red Terror, adopted as early as 1918. It is worth noting that no one includes those who suffered during the Civil War from 1917 to 1922 among the victims of repression, because no census was conducted after the First World War. And it is not clear how to establish the cause of death.

The beginning of Stalin's repressions was aimed at political opponents, officially - at saboteurs, terrorists, spies engaged in subversive activities, at anti-Soviet elements. However, in practice there was a struggle with prosperous peasants and entrepreneurs, as well as with certain peoples who did not want to sacrifice their national identity for the sake of dubious ideas. A lot of people dispossessed themselves of the kulak and were forced to resettle, but usually this meant not only the loss of their homes, but also the threat of death.

The fact is that such settlers were not provided with food and medicine. The authorities did not take into account the time of year, so if it happened in winter, people often froze and died of hunger. The exact number of victims is still being established. In society, and now there are disputes about this. Some defenders of the Stalinist regime believe that we are talking about hundreds of thousands of "all". Others point to millions of forcibly displaced, and of them died due to the complete absence of any conditions for life, from about 1/5 to a half.

In 1929, the authorities decided to abandon the usual forms of imprisonment and move on to new ones, reform the system in this direction, and introduce corrective labor. Preparations began for the creation of the Gulag, which many rightly compare with the German death camps. Characteristically, the Soviet authorities often used various events, for example, the assassination of Voikov's plenipotentiary representative in Poland, to crack down on political opponents and simply objectionable ones. In particular, Stalin reacted to this by demanding the immediate liquidation of the monarchists by any means. At the same time, no connection was even established between the victim and those to whom such measures were applied. As a result, 20 representatives of the former Russian nobility were shot, about 9 thousand people were arrested and subjected to repression. The exact number of victims has not yet been established.

Sabotage

It should be noted that the Soviet regime was completely dependent on specialists trained in Russian Empire. Firstly, not much time had passed at the time of the 1930s, and in fact, our own specialists were absent or were too young and inexperienced. And without exception, all scientists received training in monarchical educational institutions. Secondly, very often science frankly contradicted what the Soviet government was doing. The latter, for example, denied genetics as such, considering it too bourgeois. There was no study of the human psyche, psychiatry had a punitive function, that is, in fact, it did not fulfill its main task.

As a result, the Soviet authorities began to accuse many specialists of sabotage. The USSR did not recognize such concepts as incompetence, including those that arose due to poor training or incorrect appointment, mistake, miscalculation. Ignored the real physical state employees of a number of enterprises, because of which common mistakes were sometimes made. In addition, mass repressions could arise on the basis of suspiciously frequent, according to the authorities, contacts with foreigners, the publication of works in the Western press. A vivid example is the Pulkovo case, when a huge number of astronomers, mathematicians, engineers and other scientists suffered. And in the end, only a small number were rehabilitated: many were shot, some died during interrogations or in prison.

The Pulkovo case very clearly demonstrates another terrible moment of Stalinist repressions: the threat to loved ones, as well as slandering others under torture. Not only scientists suffered, but also the wives who supported them.

Grain procurement

Constant pressure on the peasants, a half-starved existence, weaning of grain, a shortage of labor negatively affected the pace of grain procurement. However, Stalin did not know how to admit mistakes, which became official state policy. By the way, it is for this reason that any rehabilitation, even of those who were convicted by accident, by mistake or instead of a namesake, took place after the death of the tyrant.

But back to the topic of grain procurement. By objective reasons it was far from always and not everywhere possible to fulfill the norm. And in connection with this, the “guilty” were punished. Moreover, in some places, completely entire villages were repressed. Soviet power also fell on the heads of those who simply allowed the peasants to keep grain for themselves as an insurance fund or for sowing the next year.

Cases were for almost every taste. The affairs of the Geological Committee and the Academy of Sciences, Vesna, the Siberian Brigade ... A complete and detailed description can take many volumes. And this despite the fact that all the details have not yet been disclosed, many documents of the NKVD continue to remain classified.

Some relaxation that came in 1933 - 1934, historians attribute primarily to the fact that the prisons were overcrowded. In addition, it was necessary to reform the punitive system, which was not aimed at such mass character. This is how the Gulag was born.

Great terror

The main terror occurred in 1937-1938, when, according to various sources, up to 1.5 million people suffered, and more than 800 thousand of them were shot or killed in some other way. However, the exact number is still being established, there are quite active disputes on this matter.

Characteristic was the order of the NKVD No. 00447, which officially launched the mechanism of mass repression against former kulaks, socialist-revolutionaries, monarchists, re-emigrants, and so on. At the same time, everyone was divided into 2 categories: more and less dangerous. Both groups were subject to arrest, the first had to be shot, the second was given a term of 8 to 10 years on average.

Among the victims of Stalin's repressions there were quite a few relatives taken into custody. Even if family members could not be convicted of anything, they were still automatically registered, and sometimes forcibly relocated. If the father and (or) mother were declared "enemies of the people", then this put an end to the opportunity to make a career, often - to get an education. Such people often found themselves surrounded by an atmosphere of horror, they were subjected to a boycott.

The Soviet authorities could also persecute on the basis of nationality and the presence, at least in the past, of the citizenship of certain countries. So, only in 1937, 25 thousand Germans, 84.5 thousand Poles, almost 5.5 thousand Romanians, 16.5 thousand Latvians, 10.5 thousand Greeks, 9 thousand 735 Estonians, 9 thousand Finns, 2 thousand Iranians were shot, 400 Afghans. At the same time, people of the nationality against which the repressions were carried out were dismissed from the industry. And from the army - persons belonging to a nationality not represented on the territory of the USSR. All this happened under the leadership of Yezhov, but, which does not even require separate evidence, no doubt, it was directly related to Stalin, constantly personally controlled by him. Many of the hit lists are signed by him. And we are talking about, in total, hundreds of thousands of people.

Ironically, recent stalkers have often been the victim. So, one of the leaders of the described repressions Yezhov was shot in 1940. The verdict was put into effect the very next day after the trial. Beria became the head of the NKVD.

Stalinist repressions spread to new territories along with the Soviet government itself. Purges were going on constantly, they were an obligatory element of control. And with the onset of the 40s, they did not stop.

Repressive mechanism during the Great Patriotic War

Even the Great Patriotic War could not stop the repressive machine, although it partially extinguished the scale, because the USSR needed people at the front. However, now there is a great way to get rid of objectionable - sending to the front line. It is not known exactly how many died following such orders.

At the same time, the military situation became much tougher. Just a suspicion was enough to shoot even without the appearance of a trial. This practice was called "unloading prisons." It was especially widely used in Karelia, in the Baltic States, in Western Ukraine.

The arbitrariness of the NKVD intensified. So, the execution became possible not even by the verdict of the court or some extrajudicial body, but simply by order of Beria, whose powers began to increase. They do not like to cover this moment widely, but the NKVD did not stop its activities even in Leningrad during the blockade. Then they arrested up to 300 students of higher education on trumped-up charges. educational institutions. 4 were shot, many died in isolation wards or in prisons.

Everyone is able to say unequivocally whether detachments can be considered a form of repression, but they definitely made it possible to get rid of unwanted people, and quite effectively. However, the authorities continued to persecute in more traditional forms. All those who were in captivity were waiting for the filtration detachments. Moreover, if an ordinary soldier could still prove his innocence, especially if he was captured wounded, unconscious, sick or frostbitten, then the officers, as a rule, were waiting for the Gulag. Some were shot.

As Soviet power spread across Europe, intelligence was engaged there, returning and judging emigrants by force. Only in Czechoslovakia, according to some sources, 400 people suffered from its actions. Quite serious damage in this regard was caused to Poland. Often, the repressive mechanism affected not only Russian citizens, but also Poles, some of whom were shot extrajudicially for resisting Soviet power. Thus, the USSR violated the promises that it gave to the allies.

Post-war developments

After the war, the repressive apparatus turned around again. Too influential military men, especially those close to Zhukov, doctors who were in contact with the allies (and scientists) were under threat. The NKVD could also arrest Germans in the Soviet zone of responsibility for trying to contact residents of other regions that were under the control of Western countries. The unfolding campaign against persons of Jewish nationality looks like a black irony. The last high-profile trial was the so-called "Doctors' Case", which fell apart only in connection with the death of Stalin.

Use of torture

Later, during the Khrushchev thaw, the Soviet prosecutor's office itself was engaged in the study of cases. The facts of mass falsification and obtaining confessions under torture were recognized, which were used very widely. Marshal Blucher was killed as a result of numerous beatings, and in the process of extracting evidence from Eikhe, his spine was broken. There are cases when Stalin personally demanded that certain prisoners be beaten.

In addition to beatings, sleep deprivation, placement in a too cold or, conversely, excessively hot room without clothes, and a hunger strike were also practiced. The handcuffs were periodically not removed for days, and sometimes for months. Forbidden correspondence, any contact with the outside world. Some were “forgotten”, that is, they were arrested, and then they did not consider the cases and did not take out any specific solution until Stalin's death. This, in particular, is indicated by the order signed by Beria, which ordered amnesty for those who were arrested before 1938, and for whom no decision has yet been made. We are talking about people who have been waiting for the decision of their fate for at least 14 years! This can also be considered a kind of torture.

Stalinist statements

Understanding the very essence of Stalinist repressions in the present is of fundamental importance, if only because some people still consider Stalin an impressive leader who saved the country and the world from fascism, without which the USSR would have been doomed. Many try to justify his actions by saying that in this way he raised the economy, ensured industrialization or defended the country. In addition, some try to downplay the number of victims. In general, the exact number of victims is one of the most contested points today.

However, in reality, to assess the personality of this person, as well as all those who carried out his criminal orders, even the recognized minimum of those convicted and shot is enough. During the fascist regime of Mussolini in Italy, a total of 4.5 thousand people were repressed. His political enemies were either expelled from the country or placed in prisons where they were given the opportunity to write books. Of course, no one says that Mussolini is getting better from this. Fascism cannot be justified.

But what assessment at the same time can be given to Stalinism? And taking into account the repressions that were carried out on a national basis, he, at least, has one of the signs of fascism - racism.

Characteristic signs of repression

Stalinist repressions can be distinguished several characteristic features that only emphasize what they were. It:

1. mass character. Accurate figures depend heavily on estimates, whether relatives are taken into account or not, internally displaced persons or not. Depending on the method of counting, we are talking about 5 to 40 million.
2. Cruelty. The repressive mechanism did not spare anyone, people were subjected to cruel, inhuman treatment, starved, tortured, their relatives were killed before their eyes, loved ones were threatened, forced to abandon family members.
3. Orientation to protect the power of the party and against the interests of the people. In fact, we can talk about genocide. Neither Stalin nor his other henchmen were at all interested in how the constantly decreasing peasantry should provide everyone with bread, which is actually beneficial to the production sector, how science will move forward with the arrest and execution of prominent figures. This clearly demonstrates that the real interests of the people were ignored.
4. Injustice. People could suffer simply because they had property in the past. Wealthy peasants and the poor, who took their side, supported, somehow protected. Persons of "suspicious" nationality. Relatives who returned from abroad. Sometimes academics, prominent scientists, who contacted their foreign colleagues to publish data on invented drugs after they received official permission from the authorities, could be punished.
5. Connection with Stalin. The extent to which everything was tied to this figure is eloquently evident even from the termination of a number of cases immediately after his death. Lavrenty Beria was rightly accused by many of cruelty and inappropriate behavior, but even he, by his actions, recognized the false nature of many cases, the unjustified cruelty used by the NKVD. And it was he who forbade physical measures against prisoners. Again, as with Mussolini, this is not about justification. It's just about underlining.
6. illegality. Some executions were carried out not only without a trial, but also without the participation of the judiciary as such. But even when there was a trial, it was only about the so-called "simplified" mechanism. This meant that the consideration was carried out without defense, only with the hearing of the prosecution and the accused. There was no practice of reviewing cases, the court decision was final, often carried out the next day. At the same time, widespread violations of even the legislation of the USSR itself, which was in force at that time, were observed.
7. inhumanity. The repressive apparatus violated the basic human rights and freedoms proclaimed in the civilized world at that time for several centuries. Researchers do not see a difference between the treatment of prisoners in the dungeons of the NKVD and how the Nazis behaved towards the prisoners.
8. groundlessness. Despite the attempts of the Stalinists to demonstrate the existence of some underlying reason, there is not the slightest reason to believe that anything was directed to any good goal or helped to achieve it. Indeed, a lot was built by the forces of the prisoners of the Gulag, but it was the forced labor of people who were greatly weakened due to the conditions of detention and the constant lack of food. Consequently, production errors, defects and a generally very low level of quality - all this inevitably arose. This situation also could not but affect the pace of construction. Given the costs that the Soviet government incurred for the creation of the Gulag, its maintenance, as well as such a large-scale apparatus in general, it would be much more rational to simply pay for the same work.

The assessment of Stalin's repressions has not yet been finally made. However, beyond any doubt it is clear that this is one of the worst pages of world history.

The history of Russia, as well as other former post-Soviet republics in the period from 1928 to 1953, is called the “Stalin era”. He is positioned as a wise ruler, a brilliant statesman, acting on the basis of "expediency." In fact, they were driven by completely different motives.

Talking about the beginning of the political career of the leader who became a tyrant, such authors shyly hush up one indisputable fact: Stalin was a recidivist convict with seven “walkers”. Robbery and violence were the main form of his social activity in his youth. Repression became an integral part of the state course pursued by him.

Lenin received in him a worthy successor. “Creatively developing his teachings,” Iosif Vissarionovich came to the conclusion that he should rule the country by methods of terror, constantly instilling fear in his fellow citizens.

The generation of people whose mouths can speak the truth about Stalin's repressions is leaving... Are the newfangled articles that whiten the dictator a spit on their suffering, on their broken life...

Leader who sanctioned torture

As you know, Iosif Vissarionovich personally signed the death lists for 400,000 people. In addition, Stalin toughened repression as much as possible, authorizing the use of torture during interrogations. It was they who were given the green light to complete lawlessness in the dungeons. It was directly related to the notorious telegram of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated January 10, 1939, which literally unleashed the hands of the punitive authorities.

Creativity in introducing torture

Let us recall excerpts from the letter of commander Lisovsky, who is being abused by the satraps of the leader ...

"... A ten-day conveyor interrogation with a cruel, vicious beating and no way to sleep. Then - a twenty-day punishment cell. Then - forcing to sit with arms raised up, and also to stand bent over, with his head hidden under the table, for 7-8 hours ..."

The desire of the detainees to prove their innocence and their failure to sign fabricated charges caused an increase in torture and beatings. The social status of the detainees did not play a role. Recall that Robert Eikhe, a candidate member of the Central Committee, had his spine broken during interrogation, and Marshal Blucher died from beatings during interrogations in Lefortovo prison.

Leader's motivation

The number of victims of Stalin's repressions was not tens, not hundreds of thousands, but seven million starved to death and four million arrested (general statistics will be presented below). Only the number of those shot was about 800 thousand people ...

How did Stalin motivate his actions, boundlessly striving for the Olympus of power?

What does Anatoly Rybakov write about this in Children of the Arbat? Analyzing the personality of Stalin, he shares with us his judgments. “A ruler who is loved by the people is weak because his power is based on the emotions of other people. Another thing is when people are afraid of him! Then the power of the ruler depends on him. This is a strong ruler!” Hence the leader's credo - to inspire love through fear!

Steps adequate to this idea were taken by Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. Repression became his main competitive tool in his political career.

Beginning of revolutionary activity

Iosif Vissarionovich became interested in revolutionary ideas at the age of 26 after meeting V. I. Lenin. He was engaged in robbery of funds for the party treasury. Fate took him 7 links to Siberia. Stalin was distinguished by pragmatism, prudence, promiscuity in means, rigidity towards people, egocentrism from a young age. Repressions against financial institutions - robberies and violence - were his. Then the future leader of the party participated in the Civil War.

Stalin in the Central Committee

In 1922, Joseph Vissarionovich received a long-awaited career opportunity. Sick and weakening, Vladimir Ilyich introduces him, along with Kamenev and Zinoviev, to the Central Committee of the party. Thus, Lenin creates a political counterbalance to Leon Trotsky, who really claims to be the leader.

Stalin simultaneously heads two party structures: the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee and the Secretariat. In this post, he brilliantly studied the art of party undercover intrigues, which was useful to him later in the fight against competitors.

Stalin's position in the system of red terror

The red terror machine was launched even before Stalin came to the Central Committee.

09/05/1918 The Council of People's Commissars issues a Decree "On the Red Terror". The body for its implementation, called the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK), operated under the Council of People's Commissars from December 7, 1917.

The reason for such a radicalization of domestic politics was the assassination of M. Uritsky, chairman of the St. Petersburg Cheka, and the attempt on the life of V. Lenin, Fanny Kaplan, acting from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Both events took place on August 30, 1918. Already this year, the Cheka unleashed a wave of repression.

According to statistics, 21,988 people were arrested and imprisoned; 3061 hostages taken; 5544 shot, imprisoned in concentration camps 1791.

By the time Stalin came to the Central Committee, gendarmes, policemen, tsarist officials, entrepreneurs, and landlords had already been repressed. First of all, a blow was dealt to the classes that are the backbone of the monarchical structure of society. However, "creatively developing the teachings of Lenin", Iosif Vissarionovich outlined new main directions of terror. In particular, a course was taken to destroy the social base of the village - agricultural entrepreneurs.

Stalin since 1928 - the ideologist of violence

It was Stalin who turned repression into the main instrument of domestic policy, which he substantiated theoretically.

His concept of the intensification of the class struggle formally becomes the theoretical basis for the constant escalation of violence by state authorities. The country shuddered when it was first voiced by Iosif Vissarionovich at the July Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1928. Since that time, he actually becomes the leader of the Party, the inspirer and ideologist of violence. The tyrant declared war on his own people.

Hidden by slogans, the real meaning of Stalinism is manifested in the unrestrained pursuit of power. Its essence is shown by the classic - George Orwell. The Englishman showed very clearly that power for this ruler was not a means, but an end. Dictatorship was no longer perceived by him as a defense of the revolution. The revolution became a means to establish a personal unlimited dictatorship.

Iosif Vissarionovich in 1928-1930 began by initiating the fabrication by the OGPU of a number of public trials that plunged the country into an atmosphere of shock and fear. Thus, Stalin's cult of personality began its formation with trials and instilling horror in the whole society ... Mass repressions were accompanied by public recognition of those who committed non-existent crimes as "enemies of the people." People were brutally tortured into signing accusations fabricated by the investigation. The cruel dictatorship imitated the class struggle, cynically violating the Constitution and all norms of universal morality...

Three global litigation: "The Case of the Union Bureau" (putting managers at risk); "The Case of the Industrial Party" (the sabotage of the Western powers against the economy of the USSR was imitated); "The Case of the Labor Peasant Party" (obvious falsification of damage to the seed fund and delays with mechanization). Moreover, they all united in a single cause in order to create the appearance of a single conspiracy against the Soviet government and provide scope for further falsifications of the OGPU - NKVD.

As a result, the entire economic management was replaced national economy from the old "specialists" to the "new cadres" ready to work on the instructions of the "leader".

Through the mouths of Stalin, who provided the state apparatus loyal to repressions with the courts, the adamant determination of the Party was further expressed: to oust and ruin thousands of entrepreneurs - industrialists, merchants, small and medium; destroy the basis of agricultural production - the prosperous peasantry (indiscriminately calling it "kulaks"). At the same time, the new voluntarist party position was masked by "the will of the poorest strata of workers and peasants."

Behind the scenes, in parallel with this "general line", the "father of the peoples" consistently, with the help of provocations and false evidence, began to implement the line of liquidating their party competitors for the highest state power (Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev).

Forced collectivization

The truth about Stalin's repressions of the period 1928-1932. testifies that the main social base of the village - an efficient agricultural producer - became the main object of repression. The goal is clear: the entire peasant country (which in fact at that time were Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic and Transcaucasian republics) was to turn under the pressure of repression from a self-sufficient economic complex into an obedient donor for the implementation of Stalin's industrialization plans and the maintenance of hypertrophied power structures.

In order to clearly indicate the object of his repressions, Stalin went on an obvious ideological forgery. Economically and socially unjustified, he managed to ensure that party ideologists obedient to him singled out a normal self-supporting (profitable) producer into a separate "class of kulaks" - the target of a new blow. Under the ideological leadership of Joseph Vissarionovich, a plan was developed for the destruction of the social foundations of the village that had developed over the centuries, the destruction of the rural community - the Decree "On the liquidation of ... kulak farms" of 01/30/1930

The Red Terror came to the village. Peasants who fundamentally disagreed with collectivization were subjected to Stalinist trials - "troikas", in most cases ending in executions. Less active “kulaks”, as well as “kulak families” (any persons subjectively defined as “rural activists” could fall into the category) were subjected to forcible confiscation of property and eviction. A body of permanent operational management of the eviction was created - a secret operational management under the direction of Efim Evdokimov.

Settlers in the extreme regions of the North, victims of Stalin's repressions, were previously identified on a list basis in the Volga region, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Siberia, and the Urals.

In 1930-1931. 1.8 million were evicted, and in 1932-1940. - 0.49 million people.

Organization of hunger

However, executions, ruin and eviction in the 30s of the last century are not all Stalin's repressions. Their brief enumeration should be supplemented by the organization of famine. The real reason for it was the inadequate approach of Joseph Vissarionovich personally to insufficient grain procurements in 1932. Why was the plan fulfilled by only 15-20%? main reason there was a crop failure.

His subjective plan for industrialization was under threat. It would be wise to reduce the plans by 30%, postpone them, and first stimulate the agricultural producer and wait for the harvest year ... Stalin did not want to wait, he demanded the immediate provision of food for the swollen power structures and new gigantic construction projects - Donbass, Kuzbass. The leader made a decision - to withdraw from the peasants the grain intended for sowing and for consumption.

On October 22, 1932, two emergency commissions led by the odious personalities Lazar Kaganovich and Vyacheslav Molotov launched a misanthropic campaign of "fighting the kulaks" to seize bread, which was accompanied by violence, quick to punish by troika courts and the eviction of wealthy agricultural producers in the regions Far North. It was genocide...

It is noteworthy that the cruelty of the satraps was actually initiated and not stopped by Joseph Vissarionovich himself.

Known fact: correspondence between Sholokhov and Stalin

Mass repressions of Stalin in 1932-1933. are documented. M. A. Sholokhov, the author of The Quiet Flows the Don, addressed the leader, defending his countrymen, with letters, exposing lawlessness during the confiscation of grain. In detail, with an indication of the villages, the names of the victims and their tormentors, the famous resident of the village of Veshenskaya stated the facts. Bullying and violence against the peasants are horrifying: brutal beatings, breaking out of joints, partial strangulation, staging execution, eviction from houses ... In a response letter, Joseph Vissarionovich only partially agreed with Sholokhov. The real position of the leader can be seen in the lines where he calls the peasants saboteurs, "quietly" trying to disrupt the provision of food...

Such a voluntaristic approach caused famine in the Volga region, Ukraine, the North Caucasus, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Siberia, and the Urals. A special Statement of the State Duma of Russia, published in April 2008, disclosed to the public previously classified statistics (previously, propaganda concealed these repressions of Stalin in every possible way.)

How many people died of starvation in the above regions? The figure set by the State Duma commission is appalling: more than 7 million.

Other areas of pre-war Stalinist terror

Consider also three more directions Stalinist terror, and in the following table we present each of them in more detail.

With the sanctions of Joseph Vissarionovich, a policy was also pursued to oppress freedom of conscience. A citizen of the Land of Soviets had to read the Pravda newspaper, and not go to church ...

Hundreds of thousands of families of formerly productive peasants, fearful of dispossession and exile to the North, became an army supporting the country's gigantic construction projects. In order to limit their rights, to make them manipulated, it was at that time that passportization of the population in cities was carried out. Only 27 million people received passports. Peasants (still the majority of the population) remained without passports, did not enjoy the full range of civil rights (freedom to choose their place of residence, freedom to choose work) and were “tied” to the collective farm at their place of residence with the obligatory condition that they fulfill workday norms.

Antisocial policy was accompanied by the destruction of families, an increase in the number of homeless children. This phenomenon has acquired such a scale that the state was forced to respond to it. With the sanction of Stalin, the Politburo of the Land of Soviets issued one of the most inhuman decrees - punitive in relation to children.

The anti-religious offensive as of 04/01/1936 led to a reduction Orthodox churches up to 28%, mosques - up to 32% of their pre-revolutionary number. The number of clergy decreased from 112.6 thousand to 17.8 thousand.

Passportization of the urban population was carried out for repressive purposes. More than 385 thousand people did not receive passports and were forced to leave the cities. 22.7 thousand people were arrested.

One of the most cynical crimes of Stalin is his sanctioning of the secret resolution of the Politburo of 04/07/1935, which allows bringing teenagers from 12 years old to trial and determining their punishment up to the death penalty. In 1936 alone, 125,000 children were placed in NKVD colonies. As of April 1, 1939, 10,000 children were exiled to the Gulag system.

Great terror

The state flywheel of terror was gaining momentum ... The power of Joseph Vissarionovich, starting in 1937, as a result of repressions over the whole society, became comprehensive. However, their biggest leap was just ahead. In addition to the final and already physical reprisal against former party colleagues - Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev - massive "purges of the state apparatus" were carried out.

Terror has gained unprecedented proportions. The OGPU (since 1938 - the NKVD) responded to all complaints and anonymous letters. A person's life was broken for one carelessly dropped word ... Even the Stalinist elite was repressed - statesmen: Kosior, Eikhe, Postyshev, Goloshchekin, Vareikis; military leaders Blucher, Tukhachevsky; Chekists Yagoda, Yezhov.

On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, leading military personnel were shot on trumped-up cases "under an anti-Soviet conspiracy": 19 qualified commanders at the corps level - divisions with combat experience. The cadres who replaced them did not possess the proper operational and tactical art.

Stalin's cult of personality was characterized not only by the showcase facades of Soviet cities. The repressions of the “leader of the peoples” gave rise to the monstrous system of Gulag camps, which provides the Land of Soviets with free labor force, a mercilessly exploited labor resource for the extraction of wealth from the underdeveloped regions of the Far North and Central Asia.

The dynamics of the increase in those held in camps and labor colonies is impressive: in 1932 it was about 140 thousand prisoners, and in 1941 - about 1.9 million.

In particular, ironically, the convicts of Kolyma mined 35% of the allied gold, being in terrible conditions of detention. We list the main camps that are part of the Gulag system: Solovetsky (45 thousand prisoners), logging camps - Svirlag and Temnikovo (respectively 43 and 35 thousand); oil and coal production - Ukhtapechlag (51 thousand); chemical industry- Bereznyakov and Solikamsk (63 thousand); development of the steppes - Karaganda camp (30 thousand); construction of the Volga-Moscow canal (196 thousand); construction of BAM (260 thousand); gold mining in Kolyma (138 thousand); Nickel mining in Norilsk (70 thousand).

For the most part, people stayed in the Gulag system in a typical way: after a night of arrest and an ill-judged prejudiced trial. And although this system was created under Lenin, it was under Stalin that political prisoners began to enter it en masse after mass trials: “enemies of the people” - kulaks (in fact, an effective agricultural producer), or even entire deported nationalities. Most served a sentence of 10 to 25 years under Article 58. The process of investigation on it involved torture and a break in the will of the convict.

In the case of the resettlement of kulaks and small peoples, the train with prisoners stopped right in the taiga or in the steppe, and the convicts themselves built a camp and a special purpose prison (TON). From the 1930s, the labor of prisoners was mercilessly exploited to fulfill five-year plans - 12-14 hours a day. Tens of thousands of people died from overwork, poor nutrition, poor medical care.

Instead of a conclusion

The years of Stalin's repressions - from 1928 to 1953. - changed the atmosphere in a society that has ceased to believe in justice, which is under the pressure of constant fear. Since 1918, people were accused and shot by the revolutionary military tribunals. An inhuman system developed... The Tribunal became the Cheka, then the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, then the OGPU, then the NKVD. The executions as part of the 58th article were valid until 1947, and then Stalin replaced them with 25 years of serving in camps.

In total, about 800 thousand people were shot.

Moral and physical torture of the entire population of the country, in fact, lawlessness and arbitrariness, was carried out on behalf of the workers' and peasants' power, the revolution.

The disenfranchised people were terrorized Stalinist system consistently and methodically. The beginning of the process of restoring justice was laid by the 20th Congress of the CPSU.

Archives against the lies of Mario Sousa or the question of the number of those executed during the terror of 1937-1938.

The main purpose of this post is to analyze the circulating in different incarnations and variants of the "neo-Stalinist concept" that the number of sentences to VMN during the terror of 1937-1938 allegedly radically and radically differs from the actually executed sentences downwards.

I'll start by tradition a little from Adam.

Watching the endless, pointless and merciless discussions about the scale of mass shootings in the Soviet period, I come to the banal conclusion that the average person in the era of crazy media should always read very carefully and critically filter materials about 1937-1938.

Before and during perestroika, insane anti-Soviet people (exaggeratedly) ruled the public mind, after perestroika and the so-called "archival revolution" (opening of archives) of the 90s, as a reaction to insane anti-Soviet people, no less crazy "pro-advisers" began to appear for sure also distorting the texture and statistics, but with the opposite sign.
After the revolution, there is counter-revolution and reaction; after reaction, another revolution against reaction.

Significant exaggerations of the figures of the repressed in pre-perestroika, perestroika and samizdat, memoir literature is an absolute fact. As well as the fact that the same “samizdatists” have now appeared, on the contrary, with the opposite ideological sign, who are trying in every possible way to justify, rationalize and downplay the repressions. Why, who, to what extent and for what reasons exaggerated these figures in the 1930s-1980s is a separate issue that deserves a detailed article and will not be considered by me here.

But I have always been interested in the curious process of fighting falsifications with other falsifications. In other words, overthrowing the anti-Soviet myth from its pedestal, ardent fighters (and sometimes reputable academic historians) erect another “pro-Soviet” myth in its place, sometimes downplaying and demagoguery, and often simply inventing facts, no worse than the most odious ones. representatives from the other flank.

It is, of course, more and more difficult for a simple layman and non-specialist to understand this stunning flow of mutually exclusive information in the era of media quackery. A gigantic stream of opinions, facts, versions merges into one monolithic already meaningless lump. Verified sources, figures, statistics lose their meaning for the mass reader. People are already beginning to believe only what fits into their "ideologically verified" picture of the world. Everything else seems to be a distortion, a falsification. Publics in contact and others in social networks, reposts become the limit above which the argument does not apply.

And here it is precisely on politicized, controversial topics that unscrupulous journalistic characters of various ideological shades, who are commonly called folk historians in our country, catch "fried" "fried". A great many of them have recently bred, and traditionally academic historians very rarely enter into polemics with them.
As you know, sometimes I still do this, no, no, and I sin, following a simple principle - if you do not disassemble all these verses, they will pile up to such monstrous Ridges of Madness that Howard Lafcraft will write a book The Great Slandered Cthulhu.

Moreover, there are different gradations and forms of such scumbags. There is a pseudoscience, and there is for reposts. Science-like zalepuha is the most dangerous, from my point of view. There, such a maxim is immediately postulated with aplomb - "Everyone slandered. And we know the Truth (necessarily with a capital letter) Everything is based on archives. We are unbiased, we have a scientific approach, numbers, statistics, dry facts, documents, by your consciousness manipulated, but I'm not manipulating your consciousness at all, I'm honest, unemotional and objective." And people follow. They give out their own bias for "impartiality". Struggling with manipulation of consciousness manipulation of consciousness. Extinguish fire with fire, and so on. It is eternal like the world.
An ideal illustration of such profanity is the well-known "Manipulation of Consciousness" by chemist S.G. Kara-Murza, where the author, not being either a professional historian or even just a person savvy in matters of the history of repression, scourging the verb fights with insidious manipulation technologies, using exactly the same the very methods against which it declaratively opposes.

But closer, in fact, to the essence of the post.
If you think logically, what do modern radical neo-Stalinists not like, who "objectively", "impartially" and "not biased" are trying to save our history from "denigration" and "spitting" with "reliance on archives"? They are very uncomfortable with the figure of about 700 thousand executed in 1937-1938.

I will not retell in detail the factology, chronology and outline of the Great Terror, it is well known and its detailed coverage is not included in the topic of this essay. I will confine myself to the most general strokes.
Operational Order of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR No. 00447 "On the operation to repress former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements", (CA FSB RF, F.66, Op. 5. D. 2 L.155-174. Original.) after the approval of its text by the Politburo and the lengthy preparation of procedural nuances was signed by People's Commissar N.I. Yezhov and sent to the territorial bodies of the NKVD at the end of July 1937.

This order marked the beginning of the "kulak operation" and was supplemented by a whole series of other orders that launched the so-called "national operations."

Specially for carrying out the repressive action at the highest possible pace and in a simplified manner, so-called special teams were formed on the ground, which included the prosecutor, the head of the local UNKVD and the secretary of the regional committee (in addition to the special teams, other quasi-judicial and judicial bodies also operated during these years: the so-called "twos", special troikas created chronologically later, ordinary courts, military tribunals, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, the Special Meeting also worked). They were given the right to pass sentences. The defendant was not supposed to have any defense, or even face-to-face presence. The volume of cases under consideration was so great that often "special construction" decisions were made on 200-300 cases per day, and sometimes more.

The operation was carried out (planned, financed, coordinated and directed) in the strictest secrecy and clearly according to the plan, certain quotas were allocated from the center to the regions for execution (the so-called 1st category) and for imprisonment (2nd category).
On the basis of the "kulak" order from August 1937 to November 1938, 390 thousand people were executed, 380 thousand were sent to labor camps. Accordingly, the originally set "limits" - to repress 268.95 thousand people, of which 75.95 thousand to be shot, were exceeded several times. The terms of the operation were repeatedly extended by Moscow, the regions were provided with additional "quotas" for execution and landing. In total, during the "kulak operation", mostly completed by the spring-summer of 1938, at least 818 thousand people were convicted, of which at least 436 thousand people were shot. All increases in "limits" were coordinated with the center by means of top-secret telegraph messages.

All in the complex operational work The State Security Service (with the support of the police, the prosecutor's office and party bodies) took shape in the so-called "mass operations" of the NKVD of 1937-1938: the largest one-time repressive action of the Soviet government in the 20th century in peacetime.

In total, in all operations (there were 12 of them in total), in 1937-1938, about 700 thousand people were shot. In accordance with the instructions of the Politburo, they were started, in accordance with the instructions of the Politburo, they were completed.

So, what does classical historiography know about the statistics of the so-called "mass operations" of the NKVD during these two peak years?
According to the "Certificate of the 1st Special Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR on the number of those arrested and convicted in the period 1921-1953 on the affairs of the NKVD." ., total was arrested for 1921-1938. 4,835,937 people (c/r - 3,341,989, other crimes - 1,493,948), of which 2,944,879 were convicted, of which 745,220 were sentenced to VMN. to VMN 54,235 (of which 23,278 in 1942)

This is one and the same document, which is a set of four reference tables printed on five sheets.
They are stored in GARF, f.9401, op.1, d.4157, sheets 201-205.
Here is its scan in the part we are interested in.

In February 1954, the Prosecutor General of the USSR R. Rudenko, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR S. Kruglov and the Minister of Justice of the USSR K. Gorshenin, in a memorandum addressed to Khrushchev, named the number of 642,980 people sentenced to VMN from 1921 to early 1954.
In 1956, Pospelov's commission gave a figure of 688,503 shot during the same period.
In 1963, in the report of the Shvernik commission, an even larger figure was named - 748.146 shot during the period 1935-1953, of which 681.692 - in 1937-38. (including 631,897 by decision of extrajudicial bodies.)
In 1988, in the certificate of the KGB of the USSR, presented to Gorbachev, 786,098 people were shot in 1930-55.
In 1992, according to the head of the registration and archival forms department of the IBRF for 1917-90. there are data on 827,995 sentenced to CMN for state and similar crimes.

There are also consolidated data in the CA FSB. According to the Certificate 1 of the special department of the NKVD of the USSR on the number of arrested and convicted during the period from October 1, 1936 to November 1, 1938 (CA FSB RF. F. 8 os. Op. 1. D. 70. L. 97-98. Original .. Published: Tragedy of the Soviet Village, Collectivization and Dekulakization, 1927-1939, in 5 volumes, vol. 5, books 1,2, Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2006. head of the 1st special department of the NKVD of the USSR, captain of state security Zubkin and head of the 5th department, senior lieutenant of state security Kremnev, from October 1, 1936 to November 1, 1938, 668,305 people were sentenced to VMN.

Now I do not want to go into nuances and explain these discrepancies, in general, they are quite explainable and verifiable.
So this order of numbers makes you nervous. Usually they make big eyes and use the phrase "only". Not 7 million were shot, but "only" 700 thousand. Allegedly, this "decrease" turns what happened in the USSR over these two years into "not so terrible and special."

This demagogic device, by the way, is actively used by both Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis of all stripes. In Mathausen, not 1.5 million people died, but "only" 320 thousand people.
(Nota Bene: Neo-Stalinists are also very uncomfortable and nervous about the unprecedented super-mortality in 1932-1933, for this, insane stuff about the American / tsarist famine is invented to set off the unique nature of the disaster and prove that "it was even worse under the tsar, this is the legacy of a rotten tsarism / in other developed countries of that time it was the same, therefore the responsibility for the uniqueness of the catastrophe is completely (or at least partially) removed from the Bolsheviks, they, on the contrary, saved everyone).

On average, for two years in 1937-1938. around the country executed from 1000 to 1200 people a day. Never in the history of our justice system have there been so many executions in peacetime. This is a medical, clear fact. Such intensity of executions of even a very stubborn person, but not yet atrophied to the perception of numbers and the scale of the phenomenon, can make one think. In a couple of weeks in 1937, more people were shot than all the military district and military field courts of Tsarist Russia in 100 years. How, then, to talk about the bloodiness of tsarism, about the whips of the police officer, the hooves of the Cossacks and Colonel Rieman (and without this, nowhere), if in the eye it’s not just a log, but a whole ship timber.

Since the figure of 700 thousand physically destroyed in two years is definitely not to their liking, the radical Stalinists urgently need to somehow lower it. Put a shadow on the fence. But how? The common technique "only" 700 thousand "acts only on very dense individuals.

On the other hand, how to underestimate the well-founded figure, if in numerous archival, authentic and easily verified documents deposited in the state archive Russian Federation, the Central Archive of the FSB, certificates with summary statistics on the activities of state security agencies and Soviet justice contain approximately this order of numbers and no other? Very easy.

A simple but effective idea came to a certain Italian communist Mario Souza at the turn of the 2000s. Here is how his book is annotated in the Russian edition: Despite a number of fundamental works built on the factual material of the archives, which showed the inconsistency of Stalin's accusations of mass repressions, vicious slanderers like Radzinsky, Suvorov, Solzhenitsyn, Yakovlev (now deceased - ed.) continue their dirty work of denigrating Soviet history. This slander causes indignation among honest researchers foreign countries. The proposed brochure, which is a translation from English of the work of Mario Sauce, published in the Canadian magazine "Northstar compass" (1999, December), refutes the fabrications about the deliberate famine in Ukraine, about the excessive cruelty of the Soviet punitive system, and, most importantly, about the fantastic scale repressions against the kulaks and conspirators.
Doctor of Philosophy, Professor I. Changli.

Honest researcher Mario Souza decided to provide fraternal international assistance to our neo-Stalinists of all iterations and falsify the number of victims of the mass operations of the NKVD in 1937-1938. He succeeded. Help was gladly accepted. And dragged along the Runet and "orthodox" publics in social networks.

Has found its countless epigones.
The essence of Mario Sousa's "objective, unbiased, unemotional and taking into account good and bad, unquestionably archive-based discovery" is that in his work GULAG: archives against lies, carefully published in Moscow in 2001, he states literally the following: " Other information comes from the KGB: according to information presented to the press in 1990, 786,098 people were sentenced to death for counter-revolutionary activities in the 23 years from 1930 to 1953. Of these sentenced, according to the KGB, 681,692 were convicted in 1937-1938. This cannot be verified, and although these are KGB figures, the latest information is questionable. Indeed, it is very strange that in just 2 years so many people were sentenced to death. But should we expect more correct data from the capitalist KGB than from the socialist one? Thus, it only remains for us to check whether the statistics on convicts for 23 years, used by the KGB, extended to ordinary criminals and counter-revolutionaries, or only to counter-revolutionaries, as the perestroika KGB claims in a February 1990 press release. From the archives also it follows that the number of ordinary criminals and counter-revolutionaries sentenced to death was approximately the same. Based on the foregoing, we can conclude that the number of those sentenced to death in 1937-1938. there were about 100 thousand, and not several million, as Western propaganda claims.
It must also be taken into account that not all those sentenced to death were actually shot. A huge proportion of death sentences were commuted to terms in labor camps. "

Not only does this sensational statement by Sousa not even have formal logic, it is not confirmed by any reference to the archive, and this despite the fact that the title pathetically declares: the author’s archives are fighting against lies. And that's how they all are.
In the Western world, Sousa's book was ignored, but here you can find his book on any site of the corresponding "objective" and "unbiased" orientation. For example http://www.greatstalin.ru/truthaboutreprisals.aspx "

And the province went to write.

On the site http://stalinism.narod.ru/s_repress.htm (which was created by the notorious Internet publicist I.V. Mikhail Pozdnov. DEATH PENALTY IN THE USSR IN 1937-1938.
There, the author again tries to somehow undermine the figure of 700,000 shot, which the Stalinists do not like very much, with such arguments: " Another, more inexplicable inconsistency is the following circumstance. According to the Information, about 635 thousand people were sentenced to imprisonment in ITL, ITK and prisons in two years, however, according to Gulag statistics, 539,923 prisoners were admitted to ITL in 1937 alone (364 thousand were released), in 1938 - 600,724 (released 280 thousand). In addition, in 1937-1938 the number of those serving sentences in the correctional colony and prisons increased. Who condemned the "extra" hundreds of thousands of people who ended up in camps and prisons? As one of the versions, it can be assumed that some of the imaginary convicts to VMN were in the camps, and the number of those actually shot in 1937-1938. in fact, much less than official statistics suggest."

For Mikhail Pozdnov, who is certainly not engaged, it will probably be a wonderful discovery that in addition to the cases conducted by the state security agencies (and the progress of which is reflected in the certificate to which he refers), ordinary people's investigators and the prosecutor's office conducted criminal cases in the USSR, and sentenced to conclusion not only by extrajudicial bodies of the State Security, but also by "ordinary" courts of all levels and types, as well as military tribunals (the movement on which is not reflected in the Certificate), and it is clear that not only in "counter-revolutionary" cases. But ignorance helps conspiracy theorists. If you don't know something, you can always generalize and come up with a cryptic explanation about what the authorities are hiding.

I never understood. Well, you don’t know the justice system of the Soviet Union in the 1930s, the types of courts and quasi-judicial bodies operating at that time, you are not familiar with the primary reporting of state security and the People’s Commissariat of Justice with summary statistics, you haven’t been a day in the archives, you haven’t delved into the procedural features of the office work of those years, you are not interested in real numbers and facts, but only an ideological struggle is interesting - so why go into those areas where you are not initially competent, along the way waving catchy statements that I am fighting for the Truth against falsifications of archival data, actually distorting and falsifying?
It turns out a classic self-shot from a gun.

Further, Sousa's transcendent discovery about the "fictitious" figure of 700,000 people shot and only supposedly sentenced is embodied in another article from another "truth-seeker", this time by a certain S. Mironin, whose work is published on http://stalinism.ru/ elektronnaya-biblioteka/stalinskiy-poryadok.html?start=9
Quote from his work:
"Shot for the entire period from the 1930s to 1953 no more than 300 thousand people. So, all the figures from the memory books, from my calculations and the allowed figure are in good agreement with each other. Therefore, I personally consider the following opinion documented: the number of those executed in 1937-1938. does not exceed 250-300 thousand and these victims were concentrated in the main elite".

Naturally, there are no references to documents, and 33 links lead us all to the same "breaking the veil" from M. Souza.
In this statement, by the way, two lies are concentrated at once - in addition to underestimating the number of those executed, there is also a maxim that is extremely popular in certain circles that in 1937-1938 it was mainly party bureaucrats, embezzlers of public funds, the Leninist guard, Trotskyists, etc. who suffered ., which again does not coincide with the archive data at all. But why do we need archives, if we can engage in myth-making and fight anti-Soviet propaganda with yet another pro-Soviet propaganda?

Drovishek was thrown into the fire by the already mentioned "specialist" S.G. Kara-Murza in his Soviet civilization: " Accurate statistics on the execution of sentences have not yet been published. But the number of executions is obviously less than the number of death sentences. The reason is that the employees of the OGPU, who themselves constituted a very vulnerable group, scrupulously followed the instructions and documented their actions."

So. Let's get acquainted with the documents in order to put an end to speculations about the real number of those executed and the execution of sentences to VMN during the mass operations of the NKVD in 1937-1938 once and for all.

Decree of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of September 15, 1938 "On the Creation of Special Troikas"

1. Accept the proposal of the NKVD on the transfer of the remaining pending investigative files on those arrested in the K.R. national contingents, according to the orders of the NKVD of the USSR NN 00485, 00439 and 00593 - 1937 and NN 302 and 326 - 1938, for consideration by Special Troikas on the ground.

2. Special Troikas are formed as part of: the first secretary of the regional committee, the regional committee of the CPSU (b) or the Central Committee of the national communist parties, the head of the corresponding department of the NKVD and the Prosecutor of the region, territory, republic.

In the Ukrainian and Kazakh SSRs and the Far East Territory, Special Troikas are formed by regions.

3. Special Troikas consider cases in relation to persons arrested only before August 1, 1938, and complete their work within 2 months.

4. Cases against all persons indicated nat. k.-r. contingents arrested after August 1, 1938, be sent for consideration to the appropriate judicial bodies, according to jurisdiction (Military Tribunals, Linear and Regional Courts, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court), as well as to the Special Meeting at the NKVD of the USSR.

5. Grant the right to Special Troikas to pronounce sentences in accordance with the order of the NKVD of the USSR N 00485 of August 25, 1937 in the first and second categories, as well as to return cases for further investigation and make decisions on the release of the accused from custody, if there are no cases in the cases sufficient evidence to convict the accused.

6. Decisions of the Special Threes in the first category must be implemented IMMEDIATELY.