Discussion of the topic of Stalin's repressions, in addition to many ideological factors leading the problem "beyond the line of good and evil," is complicated by the multifaceted myth of the "personality cult" formed for different purposes and at different periods of time.
NS. In the 1950s, Khrushchev used the exposure of the personality cult as a kind of "shock therapy" to retain and legitimize his own power and avoid responsibility for his own contribution to repression.
In the 60s and 70s, this theme was used against him, and in the 80s and 90s of the XX century, the theme of Stalinist repressions
was already inflated for the overthrow of the CPSU and the complete destruction of the USSR.
Let's try to understand the numbers a little.
In February 1954, a certificate was prepared in the name of N. S. from 1921 to February 1, 1954. According to this certificate, during this period 3,777,380 people were condemned by the OGPU Collegium, the NKVD troikas, the Special Meeting, the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals, including 642,980 people were sentenced to death, and to detention in camps and prisons for a term of 25 years and below - 2,369,220 people, to exile and deportation - 765,180 people.
Please note that these are statistics for 32 years. And this is the Civil War, this is a very difficult era after it. This is four years of a terrible war with the Nazis. This is the most difficult period after the Great Patriotic War. This is a fight against numerous gangs of Bandera and the so-called forest brothers. Among these repressions and Yagoda with Yezhov, and other bloody executioners. Among these are the traitors of the Vlasovites. There are also deserters and marauders, self-gunners, alarmists. Members of the gangster underground. Nazi accomplices who shed blood. Here is the "Leninist Guard", which destroyed the great country to the delight of the enemies of Russia. Zinoviev and Kamenev are here. The rest of the Trotskyists are also in this number. Figures of the Comintern. The executioner Bela Kun, who drowned officers in the Crimea by thousands with stones around his necks. That is, the total number of repressed people, over these 32 years, is very multifaceted, polysyllabic.
If you divide the total number of people executed by the number of years, you get less than 22,000 people a year. Is this a lot?
Of course a lot. But let's not forget how difficult these years have been. And there were no 10 million executed.
This is certainly a deliberate lie.
Remember this figure: from 1921 to February 1, 1954, 642 980 were sentenced to death.
people and that's 32 years. This is what it really was. This must be known and remembered.
About the allegedly repressed commanding staff of the Red Army from May 1937 to September 1939 in the amount of 40 thousand people. It was this round figure that was first named by the Ogonyok magazine (No. 26, 1986), followed by Moskovskiye Novosti and other publications. Where did this figure come from? … And here's where.
The fact is that on May 5, 1940, the head of the Main Directorate of Personnel of the People's Commissariat of Defense, Lieutenant-General E. Shchadenko, presented to JV Stalin the "Report on the work of the department" for 1939. It said that in 1937-1939, 36898 commanders were dismissed from the ranks of the Red Army. I emphasize - FIRED !!!
Of these, in 1937, 18,658 people were dismissed.(13.1% of the payroll of the command and control and political personnel), in 1938, 16,362 people were dismissed, (9, 2% of the command personnel), in 1939, 1878 people were dismissed (0.7% of the command personnel).
The motives were as follows: 1) by age; 2) for health reasons; 3) for disciplinary offenses; 4) for moral instability; 5) 19 106 were dismissed for political reasons (9247 of them were reinstated in 1938-1939 after complaints filed and inspections were carried out); 6) arrested, that is, repressed, there were 9579 command personnel (of which 1457 people were reinstated in 1938-1939).
Thus, it can be stated that the number of officers arrested in 1937-1939 (excluding the Air Force and the Navy) is 8122 people (3% of the total number of command personnel in 1939).
Of these, about 70 were sentenced to death, 17 were shot - mostly the highest ones, for example, two out of five marshals (Tukhachevsky for organizing a Trotskyist military conspiracy, Yegorov for participating in espionage, preparing terrorist attacks and participating in a revolutionary organization), and one Marshal Blucher was arrested for participating in a military-fascist conspiracy that led to unjustified losses and the willful failure of the operation on Lake Hasan, but he died in prison. Also, for similar especially dangerous crimes, 5 out of 9 commanders of the 1st rank (Belov, Yakir, Uborevich, Fedko, Frinovsky) and other representatives of the "fifth column" were shot.
And finally, the most striking testimony, from the lips of the enemy:
"… The Wehrmacht simply betrayed me, I am dying at the hands of my own generals. Stalin performed a brilliant act by organizing a purge in the Red Army and getting rid of the rotten aristocracy" (from an interview given by A. Hitler to journalist K. Speidel at the end of April 1945.)
