Development techniques

Stalinist repressions (briefly). Stalinist repression Causes of repression in the 30s

Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation

Federal state educational institution

Higher professional education

"ST. PETERSBURG STATE UNIVERSITY OF CULTURE AND ARTS"

Library and Information Faculty

Department of Contemporary History of the Fatherland

Course: Contemporary History of the Fatherland

Massive political repression in the 30s. Attempts to resist the Stalinist regime.

Performer: V. I. Meerovich

Correspondence student of BIF

262 groups

Teacher: Sherstnev V.P.

Fight against "sabotage"

Introduction

Political repressions of the 20-50s The twentieth century left a big imprint on Russian history. These were the years of arbitrariness, lawless violence. Historians assess this period of Stalin's domination in different ways. Some of them call it a "black spot in history", others call it a necessary measure to strengthen and increase the power of the Soviet state.

The very concept of "repression" in translation from Latin means "suppression, punitive measure, punishment". In other words, suppression by punishment.

At the moment, political repression is one of the topical topics, since it has affected almost many residents of our country. Recently, terrible secrets of that time have very often surfaced, thereby increasing the importance of this problem.

Versions about the reasons for the mass repressions

When analyzing the formation of the mechanism of mass repression in the 1930s, the following factors should be taken into account.

The transition to the policy of collectivization of agriculture, industrialization and the cultural revolution, which required significant material investments or the attraction of free labor (it is indicated, for example, that grandiose plans for the development and creation of an industrial base in the regions of the north of the European part of Russia, Siberia and the Far East required the movement of huge human masses.

Preparations for war with Germany, where the Nazis who came to power proclaimed the destruction of communist ideology as their goal.

To solve these problems, it was necessary to mobilize the efforts of the entire population of the country and provide absolute support for state policy, and for this, to neutralize potential political opposition, on which the enemy could rely.

At the same time, at the legislative level, the supremacy of the interests of society and the proletarian state was proclaimed in relation to the interests of the individual and a more severe punishment for any damage caused to the state, in comparison with similar crimes against the individual.

The policy of collectivization and accelerated industrialization led to a sharp drop in the standard of living of the population and to massive hunger. Stalin and his entourage understood that this increased the number of dissatisfied with the regime and tried to portray "saboteurs" and saboteurs - "enemies of the people" responsible for all economic difficulties, as well as accidents in industry and transport, mismanagement, etc. According to Russian researchers, demonstrative repressions made it possible to explain the hardships of life by the presence of an internal enemy.

Stalinist repression dispossession collectivization

As the researchers point out, the period of mass repressions was also predetermined by "the restoration and active use of the political investigation system" and the strengthening of I. Stalin's authoritarian power, which moved from discussions with political opponents on the choice of the country's development path to declaring them "enemies of the people, a gang of professional wreckers. spies, saboteurs, murderers ", which was perceived by the state security authorities, the prosecutor's office and the court as a prerequisite for action.

Ideological basis for repression

The ideological basis of the Stalinist repressions was formed during the years of the civil war. Stalin himself formulated a new approach at the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) in July 1928.

It cannot be imagined that the socialist forms will develop, ousting the enemies of the working class, and the enemies will silently retreat, making way for our advancement, that then we will move forward again, and they will retreat back again, and then "unexpectedly" all without exception social groups, both kulaks and the poor, both workers and capitalists, will find themselves "suddenly", "imperceptibly", without struggle and unrest, in a socialist society.

It has never happened and never will be that the moribund classes voluntarily surrendered their positions without trying to organize resistance. It has never happened and never will be that the advance of the working class towards socialism under a class society could do without struggle and unrest. On the contrary, the advance towards socialism cannot but lead to resistance of the exploiting elements to this advance, and the resistance of the exploiters cannot but lead to an inevitable intensification of the class struggle.

Dispossession

In the course of the forcible collectivization of agriculture, carried out in the USSR in 1928-1932, one of the directions of state policy was the suppression of anti-Soviet actions of the peasants and the associated "liquidation of the kulaks as a class" - "dispossession", which assumed the violent and arbitrary deprivation of wealthy peasants, using hired labor, all means of production, land and civil rights, and eviction to remote areas of the country. Thus, the state destroyed the main social group of the rural population, capable of organizing and financially supporting the resistance to the measures being taken.

Almost any peasant could get into the lists of kulaks drawn up locally. The scale of resistance to collectivization was such that it captured not only the kulaks, but also many middle peasants who opposed collectivization. The ideological feature of this period was the widespread use of the term "podkulachnik", which made it possible to repress any peasant population in general, including farm laborers.

The peasants' protests against collectivization, against high taxes and the forced confiscation of "surplus" grain were expressed in its concealment, arson and even murder of rural party and Soviet activists, which was regarded by the state as a manifestation of "kulak counter-revolution".

On January 30, 1930, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) adopted a resolution "On measures to eliminate kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization." According to this ruling, fists were divided into three categories:

The heads of the kulak families of the 1st category were arrested, and the cases of their actions were transferred to the special forces consisting of representatives of the OGPU, regional committees (regional committees) of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the prosecutor's office. Family members of 1st category kulaks and 2nd category kulaks were subject to eviction to remote areas of the USSR or remote areas of a given region (territory, republic) for special settlement. The kulaks, assigned to the third category, settled within the region on new lands specially allotted for them outside the collective farm massifs.

On February 2, 1930, the USSR OGPU issued order No. 44/21, which provided for the immediate elimination of the "counterrevolutionary kulak activists", especially "cadres of active counterrevolutionary and insurgent organizations and groups" and "the most vicious, double-faced loners."

Families of those arrested, imprisoned in concentration camps or sentenced to death were subject to expulsion to the remote northern regions of the USSR.

The order also provided for the mass eviction of the richest kulaks, i.e. former landowners, semi-landowners, "local kulak authorities" and "the entire kulak cadre, from which the counter-revolutionary activists are formed," "kulak anti-Soviet activists," "clergymen and sectarians," as well as their families in the remote northern regions of the USSR. And also the priority campaigns for the eviction of kulaks and their families in the following regions of the USSR.

In this regard, the OGPU bodies were entrusted with the task of organizing the resettlement of the dispossessed and their labor use at the place of their new residence, suppressing the unrest of the dispossessed in special settlements, searching for those who fled from the places of exile. A special task force under the leadership of the head of the Secret Operations Directorate E.G. Evdokimova. Spontaneous disturbances of the peasants on the ground were suppressed instantly. Only in the summer of 1931 was it required to involve army units to reinforce the OGPU troops while suppressing large unrest of special settlers in the Urals and Western Siberia.

In total, in 1930-1931, as indicated in the certificate of the Department for Special Settlers of the GULAG of the OGPU, 381,026 families with a total number of 1,803,392 people were sent to special resettlement. For 1932-1940. 489 822 dispossessed persons arrived in the special settlements.

Fight against "sabotage"

Solving the problem of forced industrialization required not only huge investments, but also the creation of numerous technical personnel. The bulk of the workers, however, were yesterday's illiterate peasants who did not have sufficient qualifications to work with complex equipment. The Soviet state also depended heavily on the technical intelligentsia inherited from tsarist times. These specialists were often rather skeptical about communist slogans.

The Communist Party, which grew up during the civil war, perceived all the disruptions that arose during industrialization as deliberate sabotage, resulting in a campaign against so-called "sabotage". A number of sabotage and sabotage trials have brought forward, for example, the following charges:

Sabotaging the observation of solar eclipses (Pulkovo case);

Preparation of incorrect reports on the financial situation of the USSR, which led to the undermining of its international authority (the case of the Labor Peasant Party);

Sabotage on the instructions of foreign intelligence services through insufficient development of textile factories, creating imbalances in semi-finished products, which should have entailed undermining the economy of the USSR and general discontent (the case of the Industrial Party);

Spoilage of seed material by contaminating it, deliberate sabotage in the mechanization of agriculture through insufficient supply of spare parts (the case of the Labor Peasant Party);

Uneven distribution of goods by regions on the instructions of foreign intelligence services, which led to the formation of surpluses in some places and a deficit in others (the case of the Menshevik "Union Bureau").

Likewise, the clergy, people of the liberal professions, small entrepreneurs, traders and artisans were victims of the "anti-capitalist revolution" that began in the 1930s. The population of the cities was henceforth included in the category of "the working class, the builder of socialism," however, the working class was subjected to repression, which, in accordance with the dominant ideology, turned into an end in itself, hindering the active movement of society towards progress.

For four years, from 1928 to 1931, 138,000 industrial and administrative specialists were excluded from the life of society, 23,000 of them were written off under the first category ("enemies of the Soviet regime") and deprived of their civil rights. The persecution of specialists took on enormous proportions at enterprises, where they were forced to unreasonably increase production output, which led to an increase in the number of accidents, rejects, and machine breakdowns. From January 1930 to June 1931, 48% of Donbass engineers were fired or arrested: 4,500 "saboteur specialists" were "exposed" in the first quarter of 1931 in the transport sector alone. The advancement of goals that obviously cannot be achieved, which led to non-fulfillment of plans, a strong drop in labor productivity and work discipline, to a complete disregard of economic laws, ended up disrupting the work of enterprises for a long time.

The crisis took shape on a grand scale, and the party leadership was forced to take some “corrective measures.” On July 10, 1931, the Politburo decided to limit the persecution of specialists who became victims of a hunt announced on them in 1928. The necessary measures were taken: several thousand engineers and technicians were immediately released, mainly in the metallurgical and coal industries, discrimination in access to higher education for the children of the intelligentsia, the OPTU was prohibited from arresting specialists without the consent of the corresponding People's Commissariat.

From the end of 1928 to the end of 1932, Soviet cities were inundated with peasants, whose number was close to 12 million - they were those who fled from collectivization and dispossession. Three and a half million migrants have appeared in Moscow and Leningrad alone. Among them there were many enterprising peasants who preferred flight from the countryside to self-dispossession or joining collective farms. In 1930-1931, countless construction sites swallowed up this very unpretentious workforce. But starting in 1932, the authorities began to fear a continuous and uncontrolled flow of population, which turned cities into a kind of villages, while the authorities needed to make them a showcase of a new socialist society; population migration threatened this entire elaborate food ration system since 1929, in which the number of “eligible” food ration cards increased from 26 million at the beginning of 1930 to nearly 40 by the end of 1932. Migration turned factories into huge nomad camps. According to the authorities, "newcomers from the village can cause negative phenomena and destroy production with an abundance of truants, a decline in labor discipline, hooliganism, an increase in marriage, the development of crime and alcoholism."

In the spring of 1934, the government took repressive measures against street children and hooligans, whose number in cities increased significantly during the period of famine, dispossession and exacerbation of social relations. according to the law, sanctions against adolescents who have reached 12 years of age convicted of robbery, violence, bodily harm, self-harm and murder. " A few days later, the government sent a secret instruction to the prosecutor's office specifying the criminal measures that should be applied to adolescents, in particular, it said that any measures should be applied, "including the highest measure of social protection," in other words, the death penalty. Thus, the previous paragraphs of the Criminal Code, which prohibited the sentencing of minors to death, were abolished.

Mass terror

On July 30, 1937, NKVD order No. 00447 "On the operation to repress former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements" was adopted.

According to this order, the categories of persons subject to repression were determined:

A) Former kulaks (previously repressed, hiding from repression, fleeing from camps, exile and labor settlements, as well as fleeing dispossession of kulaks to the cities);

B) Former repressed "churchmen and sectarians";

C) Former active participants in anti-Soviet armed uprisings;

D) Former members of anti-Soviet political parties (Social Revolutionaries, Georgian Mensheviks, Armenian Dashnaks, Azerbaijani Musavatists, Ittihadists, etc.);

E) Former active "participants in bandit uprisings";

F) Former White Guards, "punishers", "repatriates" ("re-emigrants"), etc .;

G) Criminals.

All the repressed fell into two categories:

1) "the most hostile elements" were subject to immediate arrest and, upon consideration of their cases in troikas, to execution;

2) "less active, but still hostile elements" were subject to arrest and imprisonment in camps or prisons for a term of 8 to 10 years.

By order of the NKVD, "operative troikas" were formed at the level of republics and regions to expedite the consideration of thousands of cases. The troika usually consisted of: the chairman - the local head of the NKVD, members - the local prosecutor and the first secretary of the regional, regional or republican committee of the CPSU (b).

For each region of the Soviet Union, limits were set for both categories.

Some of the repressions were carried out against persons who had already been convicted and were in the camps. For them, the limits of the "first category" were allocated (10 thousand people) and also triplets were formed.

The order established repression in relation to family members of the sentenced:

Families "whose members are capable of active anti-Soviet actions" were subject to expulsion to camps or labor settlements.

Families of the executed, living in the border zone, were subject to resettlement outside the border zone within the republics, territories and regions.

The families of the executed, living in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Tbilisi, Baku, Rostov-on-Don, Taganrog and in the regions of Sochi, Gagra and Sukhumi, were subject to eviction to other regions of their choice, with the exception of the border regions.

All families of the repressed were subject to registration and systematic observation.

The duration of the "kulak operation" (as it was sometimes called in the documents of the NKVD, since the former kulaks constituted the majority of the repressed) were extended several times, and the limits were revised. So, on January 31, 1938, by a resolution of the Politburo, additional limits of 57,200 people were allocated for 22 regions, including 48 thousand for the "first category"; on February 1, the Politburo approves an additional limit for the camps of the Far East at 12 thousand people. "first category", February 17 - an additional limit for Ukraine of 30 thousand for both categories, July 31 - for the Far East (15 thousand for the "first category", 5 thousand for the second), August 29 - 3 thousand for Chita region.

In total, during the operation, 818 thousand people were convicted in threes, of whom 436 thousand were sentenced to death.

Former employees of the Chinese Eastern Railway, accused of spying for Japan, were also repressed.

On May 21, 1938, by order of the NKVD, "militia troikas" were formed, which had the right to sentence "socially dangerous elements" to exile or imprisonment for 3-5 years without trial. These troikas delivered various sentences to 400 thousand people. The category of persons under consideration included criminals - repeat offenders and buyers of stolen goods.

Repression of foreigners and ethnic minorities

On March 9, 1936, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) issued a decree "On measures to protect the USSR from the penetration of espionage, terrorist and sabotage elements." In accordance with it, the entry into the country of political emigrants was complicated and a commission was created to "purge" international organizations on the territory of the USSR.

On July 25, 1937, Yezhov signed and put into effect Order No. 00439, by which he ordered the local organs of the NKVD, within 5 days, to arrest all German subjects, including political emigrants who worked or previously worked at military factories and factories with defense workshops. as well as on railway transport, and in the course of the investigation into their cases "to seek an exhaustive opening of the German intelligence agents that have not yet been exposed." local organizations of the "Polish Troop Organization" and complete it within 3 months. 103,489 people were convicted in these cases, including 84,471 people sentenced to death.

August 17, 1937 - an order to conduct a "Romanian operation" against emigrants and defectors from Romania to Moldova and Ukraine. 8292 people were convicted, including 5439 people sentenced to death.

November 30, 1937 - NKVD directive on carrying out an operation against Latvian defectors, activists of Latvian clubs and societies. 21 300 people were convicted, of which 16 575 people. shot.

December 11, 1937 - NKVD directive on operations against the Greeks. 12 557 people were convicted, of which 10 545 people. sentenced to death.

December 14, 1937 - NKVD directive on the spread of repression along the "Latvian line" to Estonians, Lithuanians, Finns, and also Bulgarians. 9,735 people were convicted on the "Estonian line", including 7998 people were sentenced to execution, 11,066 people were convicted on the "Finnish line", 9,078 of them were sentenced to execution;

January 29, 1938 - NKVD directive on the "Iranian operation". Convicted 13,297 people, of which 2,046 were sentenced to death. February 1, 1938 - NKVD directive about " national operation"in relation to Bulgarians and Macedonians. February 16, 1938 - NKVD directive on arrests along the" Afghan line. " in respect of which repressions are being carried out June 24, 1938 - directive of the People's Commissariat of Defense on the dismissal from the Red Army of military personnel of nationalities not represented on the territory of the USSR.

On November 17, 1938, by a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), the activities of all emergency bodies were terminated, arrests were allowed only with the approval of a court or prosecutor. By the directive of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Beria of December 22, 1938, all sentences of the emergency authorities were declared invalid if they were not carried out or declared convicted before November 17.

The Stalinist repressions had several goals: they destroyed possible opposition, created an atmosphere of universal fear and unquestioning obedience to the will of the leader, ensured the rotation of personnel through the promotion of young people, weakened social tensions, blaming the difficulties of life on the "enemies of the people", provided labor force to the Main Administration of the camps ( GULAG).

By September 1938, the main task of the repression had been completed. Repressions have already begun to threaten a new generation of party-KGB leaders who came forward during the repression. In July-September, a mass shooting of previously arrested party functionaries, communists, military leaders, NKVD officers, intellectuals and other citizens was carried out, this was the beginning of the end of the terror. In October 1938, all bodies for extrajudicial sentencing were dissolved (with the exception of the Special Meeting under the NKVD, as it received after Beria's arrival in the NKVD).

Conclusion

Mass repressions, arbitrariness and lawlessness, which were committed by the Stalinist leadership on behalf of the revolution, the party, the people, were a heavy legacy of the past.

The desecration of the honor and life of compatriots, begun in the mid-1920s, continued with the most severe consistency for several decades. Thousands of people were subjected to moral and physical torture, many of them were exterminated. The lives of their families and loved ones were turned into a hopeless streak of humiliation and suffering. Stalin and his entourage appropriated practically unlimited power, depriving the Soviet people of the freedoms that were granted to them during the years of the revolution. Mass repressions were carried out for the most part through extrajudicial reprisals through the so-called special meetings, collegia, "troikas" and "deuces". However, even in the courts elementary norms of legal proceedings were violated.

The restoration of justice, begun by the 20th Congress of the CPSU, was carried out inconsistently and, in fact, ceased in the second half of the 60s.

Thousands of court cases have yet to be brought up. The stain of injustice has still not been removed from the Soviet people who innocently suffered during the forced collectivization, subjected to imprisonment, evicted with their families to remote areas without a livelihood, without the right to vote, even without declaring a term of imprisonment.

List of used literature

2) Aralovets N.A. Losses of the population of Soviet society in the 1930s: problems, sources, methods of study in national historiography // Otechestvennaya istoriya. 1995. No. 1. P.135-146

3) www.wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia

4) Lyskov D.Yu. "Stalinist repressions". Great lie of the XX century, 2009 .-- 288 p.

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. For a long time, biographers were silent or tried to distort some facts from the tyrant's past, but it turned out to be quite realistic 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 familiar 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 CPSU (b). It was there that Stalin spoke, who said that the further advancement of communism would meet with increasing resistance from hostile, anti-Soviet elements, and it was necessary to fight them fiercely. Many researchers believe that the 30 repressions were a continuation of the policy of the Red Terror, which was adopted back in 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 after the First World War, the population census was not carried out. And it is not clear how to establish the cause of death.

The beginning of the Stalinist repressions was aimed at political opponents, officially - at saboteurs, terrorists, spies conducting subversive activities, at anti-Soviet elements. However, in practice, there was a struggle with wealthy peasants and entrepreneurs, as well as with certain peoples who did not want to sacrifice national identity for the sake of dubious ideas. Many were dispossessed and sent for resettlement by force, but usually this meant not only the loss of a home, 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, then people often froze and died of hunger. The exact number of victims is still being established. There are disputes about this in society even now. Some defenders of the Stalinist regime believe that we are talking about hundreds of thousands of "everything." Others point to millions of forcibly displaced, and about 1/5 to half of them died due to the complete absence of any conditions for life.

In 1929, the authorities decided to abandon the usual forms of imprisonment and switch to new ones, reform the system in this direction, and introduce correctional labor. Preparations began for the creation of the GULAG, which many quite rightly compare with the German death camps. It is characteristic that the Soviet authorities often used various events, for example, the assassination of the plenipotentiary representative Voikov in Poland, in order to deal with 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 repressed. 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 the Russian Empire. First, at the time of the 30s, not much time had passed, and in fact, our own specialists were absent or were too young and inexperienced. And all scientists, without exception, received training in monarchist educational institutions. Secondly, very often science openly 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 arising in connection with poor training or an incorrect appointment, mistake, or miscalculation. The real physical condition of the employees of a number of enterprises was ignored, due to which the usual mistakes were sometimes made. In addition, mass repressions could arise on the basis of suspiciously frequent, in the opinion of the authorities, contacts with foreigners, the publication of works in the Western press. A striking example is the Pulkovo affair, when a huge number of astronomers, mathematicians, engineers and other scientists suffered. Moreover, only a small number were eventually rehabilitated: many were shot, some died during interrogations or in prison.

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

Grain procurement

Constant pressure on peasants, a half-starved existence, weaning of grain, a shortage of labor had a negative impact on the rate of grain procurement. However, Stalin did not know how to admit mistakes, which became the 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 tyrant's death.

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

There were cases for almost every taste. Cases 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 relief that came in 1933 - 1934, historians associate primarily with the fact that the prisons were overcrowded. In addition, it was necessary to reform the punitive system, which was not aimed at such a mass scale. This is how the GULAG came into being.

Great terror

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

Characteristic was the NKVD order No. 00447, which officially launched the mechanism of mass repressions 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 the one and the other group 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 of those taken into custody. Even if family members could not be caught in anything, they were still automatically registered, and sometimes forcibly resettled. If the father and (or) mother were declared "enemies of the people", then this put an end to the possibility of making a career, often on getting 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 citizenship of certain countries. So, in 1937 alone, 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, persons 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 took place under the leadership of Yezhov, but, which does not even require separate evidence, without a doubt, had a direct relationship to Stalin, he was constantly personally controlled by him. Many execution lists bear his signatures. And we are talking about, in total, hundreds of thousands of people.

Ironically, recent persecutors have often been targeted. So, one of the leaders of the described repressions, Yezhov, was shot in 1940. The verdict was brought 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 regime itself. Purges were constantly going on, they were mandatory elements 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 the unwanted - sending to the front line. It is not known exactly how many died following such orders.

At the same time, the military situation has become much harsher. It was enough only one suspicion to shoot even without the appearance of a court. This practice was called "unloading prisons." It was especially widely used in Karelia, the Baltic States, and Western Ukraine.

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

All of them are able to say unequivocally whether the detachments can be considered a form of repression, but they definitely made it possible to get rid of the unwanted ones, and quite effectively. However, the authorities continued to persecute in more traditional forms. All those who were in captivity were awaited by 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 throughout Europe, intelligence was engaged there, which forcibly returned and tried emigrants. In Czechoslovakia alone, according to some sources, 400 people suffered from her actions. Poland suffered quite serious damage in this regard. 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 broke the promises it made to the allies.

Post-war events

After the war, the repressive apparatus turned around again. Overly influential military men, especially those close to Zhukov, doctors who were in contact with allies (and scientists) were under threat. The NKVD could also arrest the Germans in the Soviet zone of responsibility for trying to contact residents of other regions under the control of Western countries. The unfolding campaign against persons of Jewish nationality looks like black irony. The last high-profile trial was the so-called "Doctors' Case", which collapsed 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 investigation of cases. The facts of mass falsification and obtaining of confessions under torture, which were used very widely, were recognized. Marshal Blucher was killed as a result of numerous beatings, and in the process of knocking out testimony from Eikhe, his spine was broken. There are cases when Stalin personally demanded to beat certain prisoners.

In addition to beatings, they also practiced sleep deprivation, being placed in a too cold or, on the contrary, excessively hot room without clothes, and a hunger strike. The handcuffs were not removed from time to time for days, and sometimes for months. They forbade 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 make any specific decisions until Stalin's death. This, in particular, is indicated by the order signed by Beria, which ordered the amnesty of those who were arrested before 1938, and for whom no decision had 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 repression 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 be doomed. Many try to justify his actions, saying that in this way he raised the economy, ensured industrialization or protected the country. In addition, some try to play down the casualties. In general, the exact number of victims is one of the most contested points today.

However, in fact, to assess the personality of this person, as well as everyone who carried out his criminal orders, even a recognized minimum of those convicted and executed is enough. During the fascist regime of Mussolini in Italy, 4.5 thousand people were subjected to repression. 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 gets better from this. Fascism cannot be justified.

But how can Stalinism be assessed at the same time? 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

There are several characteristic features of the Stalinist repressions that only emphasize what they were. This:

Mass character... The exact data is highly dependent on estimates, on whether relatives are taken into account or not, internally displaced persons or not. Depending on the method of calculation, we are talking about 5 to 40 million.
Cruelty... The repressive mechanism did not spare anyone, people were subjected to cruel, inhuman treatment, starved, tortured, killed in front of their relatives, threatened loved ones, forced to abandon family members.
Aiming at protecting 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, what is actually beneficial to the production sphere, 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.
Injustice... People could suffer simply because they had property in the past. Wealthy peasants and the poor who took their side, supported, somehow defended. Persons of "suspicious" nationality. Relatives who have returned from abroad. Sometimes academicians and prominent scientists who contacted their foreign colleagues to publish data on invented drugs after they received official permission from the authorities could be punished.
Connection with Stalin... The extent to which everything was tied to this figure is eloquently seen at least by the termination of a number of cases immediately after his death. Many rightly accused Lawrence Beria of cruelty and inappropriate behavior, but even by his actions he recognized the fake nature of many cases, unjustified cruelty used by the NKVD officers. And it was he who forbade physical measures in relation to prisoners. Again, as with Mussolini, this is not about justification. It's just about underlining.
Illegality... Some of the executions were carried out not only without trial, but also without the participation of the judicial authorities as such. But even when there was a trial, it was exclusively about the so-called “simplified” mechanism. This meant that the consideration was carried out without defense, exclusively with the hearing of the prosecution and the accused. There was no practice of reviewing cases; the court's decision was final, and was often enforced the next day. At the same time, widespread violations were observed even of the legislation of the USSR itself, which was in force at that time.
Antihumanity... 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 the difference between the treatment of prisoners in the dungeons of the NKVD and the way the Nazis behaved towards the prisoners.
Groundlessness... Despite the attempts of the Stalinists to demonstrate the existence of some kind of background, there is not the slightest reason to believe that something was directed towards some good goal or helped to achieve it. Indeed, the forces of the GULAG prisoners built a lot, but this 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, in general, a very low level of quality - all this inevitably occurred. This situation also could not but affect the pace of construction. Taking into account the costs that the Soviet government incurred on the creation of the GULAG, its maintenance, as well as on such a large-scale apparatus as a whole, it would be much more rational to simply pay for the same work.

The assessment of the Stalinist repressions has not yet been definitively made. However, it is beyond any doubt that it is clear that this is one of the worst pages in world history.

Stalinist repression- massive political repressions carried out in the USSR during the Stalinist period (late 1920s - early 1950s). The number of direct victims of repression (persons sentenced to death or imprisonment for political (counterrevolutionary) crimes, expelled from the country, evicted, exiled, deported) is in the millions. In addition, the researchers point to the serious negative consequences that these repressions had for the Soviet society as a whole, its demographic structure.

The period of the most massive repressions, so-called " Great terror", Fell on the years 1937-1938. A. Medushevsky, professor at the Higher School of Economics, chief researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, calls the "Great Terror" "a key tool of Stalin's social engineering." According to him, there are several different approaches to interpreting the essence of the "Great Terror", the origins of the plan of mass repression, the influence of various factors and the institutional basis of terror. “The only thing,” he writes, “which, apparently, does not cause any doubts, is the decisive role of Stalin himself and the main punitive department of the country - the NKVD GUGB in organizing mass repressions”.

As modern Russian historians note, one of the features of the Stalinist repressions was that a significant part of them violated the existing legislation and the main law of the country - the Soviet Constitution. In particular, the creation of numerous extrajudicial bodies was contrary to the Constitution. It is also characteristic that as a result of the disclosure of Soviet archives, a significant number of documents signed by Stalin were discovered, indicating that it was he who sanctioned almost all mass political repressions.

When analyzing the formation of the mechanism of mass repression in the 1930s, the following factors should be taken into account:

The transition to the policy of collectivization of agriculture, industrialization and the cultural revolution, which required significant material investments or the attraction of free labor (it is indicated, for example, that grandiose plans for the development and creation of an industrial base in the northern regions of the European part of Russia, Siberia and the Far East demanded the movement of huge masses of people.

Preparations for war with Germany, where the Nazis who came to power proclaimed the destruction of communist ideology as their goal.

To solve these problems, it was necessary to mobilize the efforts of the entire population of the country and provide absolute support for state policy, and for this - neutralize potential political opposition on which the enemy could rely.

The policy of collectivization and accelerated industrialization led to a sharp drop in living standards of the population and mass hunger. Stalin and his entourage understood that this increased the number of dissatisfied with the regime and tried to portray " pests"and saboteurs-" enemies of the people"responsible for all economic difficulties, as well as accidents in industry and transport, mismanagement, etc. According to Russian researchers, demonstrative repressions made it possible to explain the hardships of life by the presence of an internal enemy.

As the researchers point out, the period of mass repressions was also predetermined. " restoration and active use of the system of political investigation"and the strengthening of the authoritarian power of I. Stalin, who moved from discussions with political opponents on the choice of the country's development path to declaring them" enemies of the people, a gang of professional saboteurs, spies, saboteurs, murderers ", which was perceived by the state security authorities, the prosecutor's office and the court to action.

Ideological basis for repression

Dispossession

During the violent collectivization agriculture, carried out in the USSR in 1928-1932, one of the directions of state policy was the suppression of anti-Soviet actions of the peasants and the associated "liquidation of the kulaks as a class" - "dispossession", which implied the violent and arbitrary deprivation of wealthy peasants using hired labor, all means of production, land and civil rights, and eviction to remote areas of the country. Thus, the state destroyed the main social group of the rural population, capable of organizing and financially supporting the resistance to the measures being taken.

Fight against "sabotage"

Repression of foreigners and ethnic minorities

Mass terror

On July 30, 1937, NKVD order No. 00447 "On the operation to repress former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements" was adopted.

Today, the assessment of "Stalinist terror" has become a touchstone in our country, a milestone in relation to the past and future of Russia. Do you condemn? Decisively and irrevocably? - Democrat and common man! Do you have doubts? - Stalinist!

Let's try to deal with a simple question: did Stalin organize the "Great Terror"? Maybe there are other reasons for terror, about which common people - liberals prefer to remain silent?

So. After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks tried to create an ideological elite of a new type, but these attempts stalled from the very beginning. Mainly because the new "people's" elite believed that with its revolutionary struggle it fully deserved the right to enjoy the benefits that the anti-people "elite" had just by birthright. A new nomenclature quickly settled in the noble mansions, and even the old servant remained in place, they only began to call her a servant. This phenomenon was very broad and received the name "kombarstvo".

Even the right measures proved to be ineffective, thanks to the massive sabotage of the new elite. I am inclined to attribute the introduction of the so-called "party maximum" to the correct measures - the prohibition of party members to receive a salary greater than the salary of a highly qualified worker.

That is, a non-partisan director of a plant could receive a salary of 2,000 rubles, and a communist director only 500 rubles, and not a penny more. Thus, Lenin sought to avoid an influx of careerists into the party, who use it as a springboard in order to quickly break through to the grain positions. However, this measure was half-hearted without the simultaneous destruction of the system of privileges attached to any position.

By the way, V.I. Lenin in every possible way resisted the reckless increase in the number of party members, which was then taken up in the CPSU, starting with Khrushchev. In his work "Childhood Illness of Leftism in Communism" he wrote: "We are afraid of the excessive expansion of the party, because careerists and crooks inevitably strive to attach themselves to the government party, who deserve only to be shot."

Moreover, in the conditions of the post-war shortage of consumer goods, material goods were not so much bought as distributed. Any power performs the function of distribution, and if so, then the one who distributes, he uses the distributed. Especially the self-employed careerists and crooks. Therefore, the next step was to renew the upper floors of the party.

Stalin stated this in his usual cautious manner at the 17th Congress of the CPSU (b) (March 1934). In his Reporting Report, the Secretary General described a certain type of workers hindering the party and the country: “... These are people with renowned merits in the past, people who believe that party and Soviet laws were written not for them, but for fools. These are the very people who do not consider it their duty to comply with the decisions of party bodies ... What do they count on, violating party and Soviet laws? They hope that the Soviet government will not dare to touch them because of their old merits. These arrogant nobles think that they are irreplaceable and that they can violate the decisions of the governing bodies with impunity ... ”.

The results of the first five-year plan showed that the old Bolshevik-Leninists, with all their revolutionary achievements, are unable to cope with the scale of the reconstructed economy. Not burdened with professional skills, poorly educated (Yezhov wrote in his autobiography: education is incomplete primary), washed away with the blood of the Civil War, they could not “straddle” the complex industrial realities.

Formally, the real power at the local level belonged to the Soviets, since the party legally did not have any power. But the party bosses were elected chairmen of the Soviets, and, in fact, appointed themselves to these positions, since the elections were held on a non-alternative basis, that is, they were not elections. And then Stalin undertakes a very risky maneuver - he proposes to establish real and not nominal Soviet power in the country, that is, to hold secret general elections in party organizations and councils of all levels on an alternative basis. Stalin tried to get rid of the party regional barons, as they say, in an amicable way, through elections, and really alternative ones.

Considering the Soviet practice, this sounds rather unusual, nevertheless, it is so. He hoped that the majority of this public, without support from above, would not overcome the popular filter. In addition, according to the new constitution, it was planned to nominate candidates to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR not only from the CPSU (b), but also from public organizations and groups of citizens.

What happened next? On December 5, 1936, the new Constitution of the USSR was adopted, the most democratic constitution of that time in the whole world, even according to the admission of ardent critics of the USSR. For the first time in the history of Russia, secret alternative elections were to be held. By secret ballot. Despite the fact that the party elite tried to put a spoke in the wheel even in the period when the draft constitution was being drawn up, Stalin managed to see it through to the end.

The regional party elite understood perfectly well that with the help of these new elections to the new Supreme Soviet, Stalin plans to carry out a peaceful rotation of the entire ruling element. And there were about 250 thousand of them. By the way, the NKVD was counting on about the same number of investigations.

They understood, but what to do? I don't want to part with my chairs. And they perfectly understood one more circumstance - in the previous period they had done such a thing, especially during the Civil War and collectivization, that the people would not only not choose them with great pleasure, but would also break their head off. Many high regional party secretaries had their hands covered in blood. During the period of collectivization, there was complete arbitrariness in the regions. In one of the regions, Khatayevich, this nice man, actually declared a civil war in the course of collectivization in his particular region. As a result, Stalin was forced to threaten him that he would shoot him outright if he did not stop mocking people. Do you think that comrades Eikhe, Postyshev, Kosior and Khrushchev were better, were less "nice"? Of course, the people remembered all this in 1937, and after the elections, these bloodsuckers would have gone to the forest.

Stalin did indeed plan such a peaceful rotation operation, he openly told the American correspondent Howard Roy about this in March 1936. He said that these elections would be a good whip in the hands of the people for the change of leading cadres, and he just said so - “a whip”. Will yesterday's "gods" of their counties tolerate the whip?

The Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), held in June 1936, directly aimed the party leadership at new times. When discussing the draft of the new constitution, A. Zhdanov expressed himself completely unequivocally in his extensive report: “The new electoral system ... will give a powerful impetus to the improvement of the work of Soviet bodies, the elimination of bureaucratic bodies, the elimination of bureaucratic shortcomings and distortions in the work of our Soviet organizations. And these disadvantages, as you know, are very significant. Our party bodies must be ready for the electoral struggle ... ". And further he said that these elections would be a serious, serious test of Soviet workers, because secret ballot gives ample opportunities to avert candidates unwanted and objectionable to the masses, that party bodies are obliged to distinguish such criticism from hostile activity, that non-party candidates should be treated with all support. and attention, because, delicately speaking, there are several times more of them than party members.

Zhdanov's report publicly voiced the terms "internal party democracy", "democratic centralism", "democratic elections." And demands were made: to prohibit "nominating" candidates without elections, to prohibit voting with a "list" at party meetings, to provide "an unlimited right to reject nominated candidates by party members and an unlimited right to criticize these candidates." The last phrase was entirely related to the elections of purely party bodies, where for a long time there was not a shadow of democracy. But, as we can see, general elections to Soviet and party bodies have not been forgotten either.

Stalin and his people demand democracy! And if this is not democracy, then explain to me what, then, is considered a democracy ?!

And how do the party nobles who gathered at the plenum - the first secretaries of regional committees, regional committees, and the Central Committee of national communist parties - react to Zhdanov's report? And they ignore it all! Because such innovations are by no means to the taste of the very old Leninist guard, which has not yet been destroyed by Stalin, but is sitting at the plenum in all its grandeur and splendor.

Because the vaunted "Leninist Guard" is a bunch of small satraps. They are accustomed to living in their estates as barons, single-handedly to dispose of the life and death of people.

The debate on Zhdanov's report was practically disrupted.

Despite Stalin's direct calls for a serious and detailed discussion of the reforms, the old guard with paranoid persistence turns to more pleasant and understandable topics: terror, terror, terror! What the hell are reforms ?! There are more pressing tasks: beat the hidden enemy, burn it, catch it, reveal it! People's Commissars, first secretaries - all talk about the same thing: how recklessly and on a large scale they reveal the enemies of the people, how they intend to raise this campaign to cosmic heights ...

Stalin is losing patience. When another speaker appears on the podium, without waiting for him to open his mouth, he ironically throws: - Have you identified all the enemies or still remain? The orator, first secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee, Kabakov, (another future “innocent victim of the Stalinist terror”) ignores irony and habitually rattles about the fact that the electoral activity of the masses, so that you know, is “quite often used by hostile elements for counter-revolutionary work ".

They are incurable !!! They just can't do otherwise! They don't need reforms, secret ballot, or multiple candidates on the ballot. Foaming at the mouth, they defend the old system, where there is no democracy, but only the "boyar will" ...
Molotov is on the podium. He says sensible, sensible things: it is necessary to identify the real enemies and pests, and not to throw mud at all, without exception, "captains of production." It is necessary to learn, finally, to distinguish the guilty from the innocent. It is necessary to reform the bloated bureaucratic apparatus, IT IS NECESSARY TO EVALUATE PEOPLE ON THEIR BUSINESS QUALITIES AND NOT TO PLACE PAST MISTAKES IN THE LINE. And the party boyars are all about the same thing: to look for and catch enemies with all their ardor! Root out deeper, plant more! For a change, they enthusiastically and loudly begin to drown each other: Kudryavtsev - Postysheva, Andreev - Sheboldaeva, Polonsky - Shvernik, Khrushchev - Yakovleva.

Molotov, unable to bear it, says in plain text:

In a number of cases, listening to the speakers, it was possible to come to the conclusion that our resolutions and our reports passed the speakers' ears ...

The bull's eye! They didn't just pass - they whistled ... Most of those gathered in the hall do not know how to work or reform. But they perfectly know how to catch and identify enemies, they adore this occupation and cannot imagine life without it.

It does not seem strange to you that this "executioner" Stalin, downright imposed democracy, and his future "innocent victims" from this democracy were running like the devil from incense. Moreover, they demanded repression, and more.

In short, it was not the “tyrant Stalin,” but the “cosmopolitan Leninist party guard,” who ruled the show at the June 1936 plenum, who buried all attempts at a democratic thaw. She did not give Stalin the opportunity to get rid of them, as they say, GOODLY, through elections.

Stalin's authority was so great that the party barons did not dare to openly protest, and in 1936 the Constitution of the USSR was adopted, the so-called Stalinist Constitution, which provided for the transition to real Soviet democracy.

However, the party nomenclature reared up and carried out a massive attack on the leader in order to persuade him to postpone free elections until the end of the struggle against the counter-revolutionary element.

Regional party bosses, members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), began to whip up passions, referring to the recently disclosed conspiracies of the Trotskyists and the military: they say, you just have to give such an opportunity as former white officers and nobles, hidden kulak imperfections, clergymen and Trotskyist saboteurs rush into politics ...

They demanded not only to curtail any plans for democratization, but also to strengthen emergency measures, and even to introduce special quotas for massive repression in the regions - they say, in order to finish off those Trotskyists who escaped punishment. The party nomenklatura demanded powers to repress these enemies, and it knocked out these powers for itself. And right there, the small-town party barons, who made up the majority in the Central Committee, frightened for their leadership positions, begin repressions, first of all, against those honest communists who could become competitors in future elections by secret ballot.

The nature of the repressions against honest communists was such that the composition of some district and regional committees changed two or three times in a year. Communists at party conferences refused to be members of city committees and regional committees. They understood that after a while you could end up in the camp. And this is at best ...

In 1937, about 100 thousand people were expelled from the party (in the first half of the year 24 thousand and in the second - 76 thousand). The district and regional committees accumulated about 65 thousand appeals, which there was no one and had no time to consider, since the party was engaged in the process of exposure and expulsion.

At the January 1938 plenum of the Central Committee, Malenkov, who made a report on this issue, said that in some areas the Party Control Commission had reinstated from 50 to 75% of those expelled and convicted.

Moreover, at the June 1937 Plenum of the Central Committee, the nomenklatura, mainly from among the first secretaries, actually gave Stalin an ultimatum to Stalin and his Politburo: either he approves the lists of those subject to repression submitted "from below", or he himself will be removed.

The party nomenklatura at this plenum demanded powers for repression. And Stalin was forced to give them permission, but he acted very cunningly - he gave them a short time, five days. Of these five days, one day is Sunday. He hoped that they would not meet in such a short time.

But it turns out that these scoundrels already had lists. They simply took the lists of formerly imprisoned, and sometimes not imprisoned, kulaks, former white officers and nobles, Trotskyist saboteurs, priests and just ordinary citizens classified as alien class elements. Literally on the second day telegrams were sent from the field: the first were Comrades Khrushchev and Eikhe.

Then Nikita Khrushchev was the first to rehabilitate his friend Robert Eikhe, who was shot justly for all his cruelties in 1939, in 1954.

There was no longer any talk of ballots with several candidates at the Plenum: the plans for reform boiled down solely to the fact that candidates for the elections would be nominated "jointly" by communists and non-party people. And from now on there will be one single candidate in each ballot paper - for the sake of repelling intrigues. And in addition - another wordy verbiage about the need to identify the masses of entrenched enemies.

Stalin had one more mistake. He honestly believed that N.I. Yezhov is a man of his team. After all, for so many years they worked together in the Central Committee, shoulder to shoulder. And Yezhov has long been the best friend of Evdokimov, an ardent Trotskyist. For 1937 -38. troikas in the Rostov region, where Evdokimov was the first secretary of the regional committee, 12 445 people were shot, more than 90 thousand were repressed. These are the numbers that the Memorial Society carved in one of the Rostov parks on the monument to the victims of ... Stalin's (?!) repressions. Subsequently, when Evdokimov was shot, the check found that in the Rostov region lay motionless and had not considered more than 18.5 thousand appeals. And how many were not written! The best party cadres, experienced business executives, and the intelligentsia were being destroyed ... Was he the only one like that?

Interesting in this regard are the memoirs of the famous poet Nikolai Zabolotsky: “A strange belief was ripening in my head that we were in the hands of the Nazis, who had found a way to destroy Soviet people under our noses, acting in the very center of the Soviet punitive system. I told this guess of mine to an old party member who was sitting with me, and with horror in his eyes he confessed to me that he himself thought the same, but did not dare to hint at anyone about it. And indeed, how else could we explain all the horrors that happened to us ... ".

But back to Nikolai Yezhov. By 1937, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs G. Yagoda staffed the NKVD with scum, obvious traitors and those who replaced their work with hack. N. Yezhov, who replaced him, followed the hacks on the occasion and when cleaning the country from the "fifth column" in order to distinguish himself, he closed his eyes to the fact that the NKVD investigators brought hundreds of thousands of hack cases against people, most of them completely innocent. (For example, generals A. Gorbatov and K. Rokossovsky were imprisoned.)

And the flywheel of the “great terror” with its notorious extrajudicial triplets and capital limits began to spin. Fortunately, this flywheel quickly grinded those who initiated the process itself, and Stalin's merit is that he made the most of the opportunities to clean up all kinds of crap from the highest echelons of power.

Not Stalin, but Robert Indrikovich Eikhe proposed the creation of extrajudicial execution bodies, the famous "troikas" of the "Stolypin" type, consisting of the first secretary, the local prosecutor and the head of the NKVD (city, region, region, republic). Stalin was against it. But the Politburo gave a voice. Well, and in the fact that a year later it was just such a troika that leaned Comrade Eikhe against the wall, in my deep conviction, there is nothing but sad justice.

The party elite enthusiastically joined the massacre!

Let's take a closer look at him himself, at the repressed regional party baron. And, in fact, what were they like, both in business and in moral, and in a purely human sense? What were they worth as people and specialists? ONLY PUSH YOUR NOSE FIRST, I MENTALLY RECOMMEND. In short, party members, military men, scientists, writers, composers, musicians and everyone else, up to the noble rabbit breeders and Komsomol members, eagerly devoured each other. Those who sincerely believed that they were obliged to exterminate their enemies, who settled scores. So there is no need to chat about whether the NKVD beat on the noble face of this or that "innocently injured figure" or not.

The regional party nomenclature achieved the most important thing: after all, in the conditions of mass terror free elections are impossible. Stalin was never able to carry them out. The end of a short thaw. Stalin never pushed through his reform bloc. True, at that plenum, he said remarkable words: “Party organizations will be freed from economic work, although this will not happen immediately. This takes time. "

But, again, back to Yezhov. Nikolai Ivanovich was a new man in the "organs", he started well, but quickly fell under the influence of his deputy: Frinovsky (former head of the Special Department of the First Cavalry Army). He taught the new People's Commissar the basics of Chekist work right "in production". The basics were extremely simple: the more enemies of the people we catch, the better. You can and should beat, but beat and drink is even more fun.

Drunk with vodka, blood and impunity, the People's Commissar soon openly "swam".

He did not particularly hide his new views from those around him. “What are you afraid of? - he said at one of the banquets. - After all, all power is in our hands. Whom we want - we execute, whom we want - we have mercy: - After all, we are everything. It is necessary that everyone, starting with the secretary of the regional committee, walk under you. "

If the secretary of the regional committee was supposed to walk under the head of the regional department of the NKVD, then who, one wonders, was supposed to walk under Yezhov? With such cadres and such views, the NKVD became mortally dangerous both for the authorities and for the country.

It is difficult to say when the Kremlin became aware of what was happening. Probably sometime in the first half of 1938. But to realize - realized, but how to curb the monster? It is clear that the People's Commissariat of the NKVD had become mortally dangerous by that time, and it had to be "normalized". But how? What, to raise the troops, to bring all the Chekists into the courtyards of the administrations and put them in a line against the wall? There is no other way, for, having barely sensed the danger, they would simply sweep away the power.

After all, the same NKVD was in charge of the Kremlin's security, so the members of the Politburo would have died without even having time to understand anything. After that, a dozen “blood washed” would be put in their places, and the whole country would turn into one large West Siberian region with Robert Eikhe at its head. The peoples of the USSR would have perceived the arrival of Hitler's troops as happiness.

There was only one way out - to put his man in the NKVD. Moreover, a person of such a level of loyalty, courage and professionalism, so that he could, on the one hand, cope with the management of the NKVD, and on the other hand, stop the monster. Stalin hardly had a large selection of such people. Well, at least one was found. But what - Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich.

Elena Prudnikova is a journalist and writer who has devoted several books to researching the activities of L.P. Beria and I.V. Stalin, in one of the TV programs she said that Lenin, Stalin, Beria are three titans whom the Lord God in His great mercy sent to Russia, because, apparently, he still needed Russia. I hope that she is Russia and in our time He will soon need it.

In general, the term "Stalinist repressions" is speculative, because it was not Stalin who initiated them. The unanimous opinion of one section of the liberal perestroika and current ideologues that Stalin thus strengthened his power by physically eliminating opponents is easy to explain. These gimmicks simply judge others by themselves: they, having such an opportunity, will readily devour everyone in whom they see danger.

It is not for nothing that Alexander Sytin, a political scientist, Doctor of Historical Sciences, a prominent neoliberal, in one of the recent TV programs with V. Solovyov, argued that in Russia it is necessary to create a Dictatorship of TEN PERCENTAGE OF A LIBERAL MINORITY, which then will definitely lead the peoples of Russia into a bright capitalist tomorrow. He was modestly silent about the cost of this approach.

Another part of these gentlemen believes that allegedly Stalin, who wanted to finally become the Lord God on Soviet soil, decided to deal with everyone who doubted his genius in the slightest degree. And, above all, with those who, together with Lenin, created the October Revolution. They say that this is why almost the entire "Leninist guard", and at the same time the top of the Red Army, who were accused of a conspiracy against Stalin that never existed, innocently went under the ax. However, upon closer examination of these events, many questions arise that cast doubt on this version. In principle, thinking historians have had doubts for a long time. And doubts were sown not by some Stalinist historians, but by those eyewitnesses who themselves disliked the "father of all Soviet peoples."

For example, in the West, at one time, the memoirs of the former Soviet intelligence agent Alexander Orlov (Leiba Feldbin), who fled our country at the end of the 30s, having taken a huge amount of state dollars, were published. Orlov, who knew well the "inner kitchen" of his native NKVD, wrote directly that a coup d'etat was being prepared in the Soviet Union. Among the conspirators, he said, were both representatives of the leadership of the NKVD and the Red Army in the person of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and the commander of the Kiev military district Iona Yakir. Stalin became aware of the conspiracy, who took very harsh retaliatory actions ...

And in the 1980s, the archives of the main enemy of Joseph Vissarionovich, Leon Trotsky, were declassified in the United States. From these documents it became clear that Trotsky had an extensive underground network in the Soviet Union. Living abroad, Lev Davidovich demanded from his people decisive action to destabilize the situation in the Soviet Union, up to the organization of mass terrorist actions.

In the 90s, already our archives opened access to the protocols of interrogations of the repressed leaders of the anti-Stalinist opposition. By the nature of these materials, by the abundance of facts and evidence presented in them, today's independent experts have made three important conclusions.

First, the overall picture of a broad conspiracy against Stalin looks very, very convincing. Such testimony could not have been somehow directed or faked to please the "father of nations." Especially in the part where it was about the military plans of the conspirators. Here is what the well-known publicist historian Sergei Kremlev said about this: “Take and read the testimony of Tukhachevsky, given to him after his arrest. The confessions themselves in the conspiracy are accompanied by a deep analysis of the military-political situation in the USSR in the mid-30s, with detailed calculations on the general situation in the country, with our mobilization, economic and other capabilities.

The question is whether such testimony could have been invented by an ordinary NKVD investigator who was in charge of the Marshal's case and who allegedly set out to falsify Tukhachevsky's testimony ?! No, these testimonies, and voluntarily, could only be given by a knowledgeable person no less than the level of the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, which was Tukhachevsky. "

Secondly, the very manner of the conspirators' handwritten confessions, their handwriting spoke of what their people wrote themselves, in fact, voluntarily, without physical pressure from the investigators. This destroyed the myth that the testimony was rudely forced out " Stalinist executioners”, Although this was the case.

Thirdly, Western Sovietologists and the émigré public, having no access to archival materials, had to actually suck out their judgments about the scale of the repressions from their fingers. At best, they were content with interviews with dissidents, who either themselves in the past went through imprisonment, or cited the stories of those who went through the Gulag.

The upper bar in assessing the number of "victims of communism" was set by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who announced 110 million victims in an interview with Spanish television in 1976. The ceiling of 110 million announced by Solzhenitsyn was systematically reduced to 12.5 million people of the Memorial society. However, following the results of 10 years of work, Memorial managed to collect data on only 2.6 million victims of repression, which is close to the figure announced by the Zemskovs almost 20 years ago - 4 million people.

After the opening of the archives, the West did not believe that the number of repressed was much less than the same R. Conquest or A. Solzhenitsyn indicated. In total, according to archival data, for the period from 1921 to 1953, 3,777,380 were convicted, of which 642,980 were sentenced to capital punishment. Subsequently, this figure was increased to 4,060,306 people at the expense of 282,926 who were shot according to paragraphs. 2 and 3 st. 59 (especially dangerous banditry) and art. 193 - 24 (military espionage). They included Basmachi, Bandera, Baltic "forest brothers" and other especially dangerous, bloody bandits, spies and saboteurs, washed in blood. There is more human blood on them than there is water in the Volga. And they are also considered "innocent victims of Stalinist repressions." And Stalin is accused of all this. (Let me remind you that until 1928, Stalin was not the autocratic leader of the USSR. But HE GOT FULL POWER OVER THE PARTY, THE ARMY AND THE NKVD ONLY FROM THE END OF 1938).

At first glance, these figures are scary. But only for the first time. Let's compare. On June 28, 1990, an interview with the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR appeared in central newspapers, where he said: “We are literally being swept by a wave of criminality. Over the past 30 years, 38 MILLION OF OUR RESIDENTS have been under trial, investigation, in prisons and colonies. This is a terrible figure! Every ninth ... ".

So. A crowd of Western journalists arrived in the USSR in 1990. The goal is to familiarize yourself with open archives. They examined the archives of the NKVD - they did not believe it. They demanded the archives of the People's Commissariat of Railways. We got acquainted - it turned out four million. They did not believe it. They demanded the archives of the People's Commissariat of Food. We got acquainted - it turned out 4 million repressed. We got acquainted with the clothing content of the camps. It turned out - 4 million repressed. Do you think that after this, articles with the correct figures of repression were sent in batches in the Western media. Nothing of the kind. There they still write and talk about tens of millions of victims of repression.

I would like to note that an analysis of the process called "mass repressions" shows that this phenomenon is extremely multi-layered. There are real cases there: about conspiracies and espionage, political trials over die-hard oppositionists, cases of crimes of presumptuous masters of regions and partisan officials who "floated" from power. But there are also a lot of falsified cases: settling scores in the corridors of power, squatting on the job, communal squabbles, writer's rivalry, scientific competition, persecution of clergy who supported the kulaks during collectivization, squabbles of artists, musicians and composers.

Stalinist repression:
What was it?

On the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression

In this material, we have collected eyewitness memories, excerpts from official documents, figures and facts provided by researchers in order to provide answers to questions that again and again excite our society. The Russian state has not been able to give clear answers to these questions, therefore, until now, everyone is forced to look for answers on their own.

Who was affected by the repression

Representatives of various groups of the population fell under the flywheel of Stalin's repressions. The best known are the names of artists, Soviet leaders and military leaders. Of the peasants and workers, only names from execution lists and camp archives are often known. They did not write memoirs, tried not to remember the camp past unnecessarily, their relatives often refused them. The presence of a convicted relative often meant an end to their careers and studies, because the children of arrested workers, dispossessed peasants might not know the truth about what happened to their parents.

When we heard about another arrest, we never asked, “Why was he taken?”, But there were not many like us. People, distraught with fear, asked each other this question for pure self-consolation: they take people for something, which means they won't take me, because there is no reason! They refined themselves, coming up with reasons and excuses for each arrest, - "She really is a smuggler", "He allowed himself this", "I heard him say ..." terrible character "," It always seemed to me that something was wrong with him "," This is a completely stranger. " That is why the question: "What was he taken for?" - became forbidden for us. It's time to understand that people are taken for nothing.

- Nadezhda Mandelstam , writer and wife of Osip Mandelstam

From the very beginning of the terror to the present day, attempts have been made to present it as a fight against "sabotage", enemies of the fatherland, limiting the number of victims to certain, hostile to the state, classes - kulaks, bourgeoisie, priests. The victims of terror were depersonalized and turned into "contingents" (Poles, spies, saboteurs, counter-revolutionary elements). However, the political terror was total in nature, and its victims were representatives of all groups of the population of the USSR: "the case of engineers", "the case of doctors", persecution of scientists and entire areas of science, personnel purges in the army before and after the war, deportation of entire peoples.

Poet Osip Mandelstam

He died in transit, the place of death is not known for certain.

Director Vsevolod Meyerhold

Marshals of the Soviet Union

Tukhachevsky (shot), Voroshilov, Egorov (shot), Budyonny, Blucher (died in Lefortovo prison).

How many people have suffered

According to the estimates of the Memorial Society, there were 4.5-4.8 million people convicted for political reasons, 1.1 million people were shot.

Estimates of the number of victims of repression vary and depend on the calculation methodology. If we take into account only those convicted on political charges, then according to the analysis of statistics of the regional departments of the KGB of the USSR, carried out in 1988, the bodies of the Cheka-GPU-OGPU-NKVD-NKGB-MGB arrested 4,308,487 people, of which 835,194 were shot. According to the same data, about 1.76 million people died in the camps. According to the calculations of the Memorial Society, there were more convicts for political reasons - 4.5-4.8 million people, of which 1.1 million people were shot.

The victims of the Stalinist repressions were representatives of some peoples subjected to forced deportation (Germans, Poles, Finns, Karachais, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars and others). This is about 6 million people. One in five did not live to see the end of the journey - during the harsh conditions of deportations, about 1.2 million people died. In the course of dispossession, about 4 million peasants suffered, of which at least 600 thousand perished in exile.

In general, about 39 million people suffered as a result of the Stalinist policy. The victims of repression include those who perished in camps from disease and harsh working conditions, the disenfranchised, victims of hunger, victims of unjustifiably cruel orders "on truancy" and "on three ears the nature of the legislation and the consequences of that time.

Why was it necessary?

The worst thing is not that you are suddenly taken away from a warm, well-ordered life, not Kolyma and Magadan, and hard labor. At first, a person desperately hopes for a misunderstanding, for a mistake by investigators, then painfully waits to be summoned, apologized, and let go home, to his children and husband. And then the victim no longer hopes, does not painfully seek an answer to the question of who needs all this, then a primitive struggle for life begins. The worst thing is the senselessness of what is happening ... Does anyone know what it was for?

Evgeniya Ginzburg,

writer and journalist

In July 1928, speaking at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Joseph Stalin described the need to fight "alien elements" as follows: "As we move forward, the resistance of the capitalist elements will increase, the class struggle will intensify, and Soviet power, which will grow more and more, will pursue a policy of isolating these elements, a policy of disintegrating the enemies of the working class, and finally, a policy of suppressing the resistance of the exploiters, creating a basis for further advancement of the working class and the bulk of the peasantry. "

In 1937, N. Yezhov, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, published order No. 00447, in accordance with which a large-scale campaign to destroy "anti-Soviet elements" began. They were recognized as the culprits of all the failures of the Soviet leadership: “Anti-Soviet elements are the main instigators of all kinds of anti-Soviet and sabotage crimes, both in collective and state farms, and in transport, and in some areas of industry. The task of the state security organs is to crush this entire gang of anti-Soviet elements in the most merciless manner, to protect the working Soviet people from their counter-revolutionary intrigues, and, finally, to put an end once and for all with their base subversive work against the foundations. Soviet state... In accordance with this I order - from August 5, 1937 in all republics, territories and regions to begin an operation to repress former kulaks, active anti-Soviet elements and criminals. " This document marks the beginning of the era of large-scale political repression, which later became known as the "Great Terror".

Stalin and other members of the Politburo (V. Molotov, L. Kaganovich, K. Voroshilov) personally drew up and signed execution lists - pre-trial circulars listing the number or names of victims to be convicted by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court with a predetermined penalty. According to researchers, at least 44.5 thousand people have personal signatures and resolutions of Stalin under death sentences.

The myth of the effective manager Stalin

Until now, in the media and even in textbooks, one can find the justification of political terror in the USSR by the need to carry out industrialization in a short time. Since the issuance of the decree obliging convicts to serve a sentence in labor camps for more than 3 years, prisoners have been actively involved in the construction of various infrastructure facilities. In 1930, the General Directorate of Forced Labor Camps of the OGPU (GULAG) was created and huge streams of prisoners were sent to key construction sites. During the existence of this system, from 15 to 18 million people have passed through it.

During the 1930-1950s, the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal, the Moscow Canal was carried out by the forces of the GULAG prisoners. The prisoners built the Uglich, Rybinsk, Kuibyshev and other hydroelectric power plants, erected metallurgical plants, facilities of the Soviet nuclear program, the longest railways and highways. Gulag prisoners built dozens of Soviet cities (Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Dudinka, Norilsk, Vorkuta, Novokuibyshevsk and many others).

Beria himself did not characterize the efficiency of prisoners' labor: “The current norm of 2,000 calories in the Gulag is designed for a person sitting in prison and not working. In practice, this too low rate is released by the supplying organizations only by 65-70%. Therefore, a significant percentage of the camp labor force falls into the category of weak and useless people in production. In general, the labor force is used no more than 60-65 percent. "

To the question "is Stalin needed?" we can only give one answer - a firm "no". Even without taking into account the tragic consequences of famine, repression and terror, even considering only economic costs and benefits - and even making all possible assumptions in favor of Stalin - we get results that clearly indicate that Stalin's economic policies did not lead to positive results. Forced redistribution has significantly impaired productivity and social welfare.

- Sergey Guriev , economist

The economic efficiency of Stalin's industrialization by the hands of prisoners is also extremely low estimated by modern economists. Sergei Guriev cites the following figures: by the end of the 30s, productivity in agriculture reached only the pre-revolutionary level, and in industry it turned out to be one and a half times lower than in 1928. Industrialization has led to huge losses in wealth (minus 24%).

Brave new world

Stalinism is not only a system of repression, it is also a moral degradation of society. The Stalinist system made tens of millions of slaves - morally broke people. One of the most terrible texts that I have read in my life is the torture "confessions" of the great biologist, academician Nikolai Vavilov. Only a few can endure torture. But many - tens of millions! - were broken and became moral monsters for fear of being personally repressed.

- Alexey Yablokov , Corresponding Member of RAS

The philosopher and historian of totalitarianism Hannah Arendt explains that in order to transform Lenin's revolutionary dictatorship into a completely totalitarian rule, Stalin had to artificially create an atomized society. For this, an atmosphere of fear was created in the USSR, denunciation was encouraged. Totalitarianism destroyed not real "enemies", but imaginary ones, and this is its terrible difference from the usual dictatorship. None of the destroyed strata of society was hostile to the regime and probably would not become hostile in the foreseeable future.

With the aim of destroying all social and family ties, the repressions were carried out in such a way as to threaten the same fate for the accused and everyone in the most ordinary relations with him, from casual acquaintances to closest friends and relatives. This policy penetrated deeply into Soviet society, where people, out of selfish interests or fearing for their lives, betrayed their neighbors, friends, even members of their own families. In their striving for self-preservation, the masses of people abandoned their own interests, and became, on the one hand, a victim of power, and on the other, its collective embodiment.

The consequence of a simple and cunning technique of "guilt for contact with the enemy" is such that, as soon as a person is accused, his former friends immediately turn into his worst enemies: in order to save their own skin, they rush to jump out with unsolicited information and denunciations, supplying non-existent data against the accused. Ultimately, it was thanks to the development of this technique to its last and most fantastic extremes that the Bolshevik rulers succeeded in creating an atomized and fragmented society, the likes of which we have never seen before, and the events and catastrophes of which in such a pure form would hardly have happened without it.

- Hannah Arendt, philosopher

The deep disunity of Soviet society, the absence civil institutions inherited and new Russia, have become one of the fundamental problems that hinder the creation of democracy and civil peace in our country.

How the state and society fought against the legacy of Stalinism

To date, Russia has experienced "two and a half attempts at de-Stalinization." The first and the most ambitious was launched by N. Khrushchev. It began with a report at the XX Congress of the CPSU:

“They were arrested without the sanction of the prosecutor ... What other sanction could there be when Stalin allowed everything. He was the chief prosecutor in these matters. Stalin gave not only permission, but also instructions on arrests on his own initiative. Stalin was a very suspicious person, with morbid suspicion, as we became convinced by working with him. He could look at the person and say: "something is running around your eyes today", or: "why do you often turn away today, do not look directly into the eyes." A morbid suspicion led him to indiscriminate distrust. Everywhere and everywhere he saw "enemies", "double-dealing", "spies". Having unlimited power, he allowed cruel arbitrariness, suppressed a person morally and physically. When Stalin said that such and such should be arrested, he should have taken on faith that he was an "enemy of the people." And Beria's gang, which ruled in the state security organs, went out of their way to prove the guilt of the arrested persons, the correctness of the materials they fabricated. And what evidence was used? Confessions of those arrested. And the investigators got these "confessions".

As a result of the fight against the personality cult, sentences were revised, more than 88 thousand prisoners were rehabilitated. Nevertheless, the epoch of the "thaw" that followed these events turned out to be quite short-lived. Soon, many dissidents who disagree with the policy of the Soviet leadership will become victims of political persecution.

The second wave of de-Stalinization occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Only then did society become aware of at least approximate figures characterizing the scale of the Stalinist terror. At this time, the sentences passed in the 30s and 40s were also reviewed. In most cases, the convicts were rehabilitated. Half a century later, the dispossessed peasants were rehabilitated posthumously.

A timid attempt to carry out a new de-Stalinization was made during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev. However, it did not bring significant results. Rosarchiv, at the direction of the president, posted on its website documents about 20 thousand Poles shot by the NKVD near Katyn.

Victim preservation programs are being phased out due to lack of funding.