The state is strong because of the consciousness of the masses. It is strong when the masses know everything, can judge everything and go for everything consciously.
Lenin V. I.
"… the top spits on the bottom, spitting falls down, the bottom spits on the top, spitting falls down, physics!"
Igor39
Several months ago, namely on March 5, A. Wasserman's article about the repressions of the Stalinist era appeared on the pages of TOPWAR, in which the author gave real figures for the number of convicts based on relevant sources. However, these figures (and without the "millions" of those who were shot!) From his article were published in the school textbook VP Dmitrenko, VD Esakov. and Shestakov V. A. "The history of homeland. XX century. Grade 11". M.: Bustard, 1995. Almost all of them are freely available, and were published long ago, for example, in addition to the textbook, in the journal Rodina, which is very attentive to all the facts of distortion of national history, both on the right and on the left!
Recently, VO readers have become noticeably more attentive to the source base of articles offered to their attention, and this is a very gratifying fact. But many out of habit (especially in polemics) refer to materials from the Internet, which … also do not have links to sources, but for some reason themselves do not use the archival materials available (on the same Internet). Lack of habit, probably, but there is nothing terrible in this. And for the attention of those who are interested in all this, I would like to offer one very serious source. So that any VO reader could see and read everything on his own, and not in someone's retelling.
So, back in 2004, that is, 12 years ago, the archive of the GARF (State Archives of the Russian Federation) launched the publication of a collection of documents “History of the Stalinist Gulag. Late 1920s - first half of 1950s. Collection of documents in 7 volumes”. (Editor-in-chief N. Vert, S. V. Mironenko; editor-in-chief I. A. Zyuzina. - Moscow: Russian Political Encyclopedia (ROSSPEN), 2004.) What is included there? And here's what: Foreword by A. I. Solzhenitsin (do not think that if there is his preface, then the documents have become worse because of this - by no means.); Foreword by R. Conquest;
"History of the Stalinist Gulag": a brief overview of the main problems and concepts;
Introduction
• Section 1. Dekulakization and terror. 1930 - 1932
• Section 2. Terror and famine. 1932 - 1934
• Section 3. "Ordering Terror". 1933 - 1936
• Section 4. "Great terror"
• Section 5. In the context of military mobilization. 1939 - 1945
• Section 6. Mass reprisals and emergency legislation. 1946 - 1953
• Section 7. Revision of repressive policies. 1953 - 1955
• Applications
• Notes
• Author index
• Geographic index
• List of abbreviations
All volumes of this edition are freely available. Take, read and study. In the archive itself, you can request copies of these documents made from the originals.
Since there are just a lot of documents in this edition, it makes sense to see only the most interesting ones, and everything else must be read independently, thoughtfully and carefully, otherwise … the past may well repeat itself!
Genrikh Yagoda was the first to put terror on the stream under Stalin. Whether by himself or by order from above is not so important. From the point of view of the human factor, it is more important that he did not enjoy high positions and honors for long. He was the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR for only two years (1934 - 1936), and then he was removed from all posts, tried and shot in 1938. He confessed to immoral acts and to the fact that he sold the timber in the United States, and appropriated the money. He regretted that he had not shot those who tried him, having great power in his hands!
Nikolai Yezhov came to replace Yagoda in the People's Commissars of the NKVD. He was also "unlucky", although the poet Dzhambul even composed "The Song of the Batyr Yezhov". The people's akyn knew how to write poetry about people in power, which is already there. Well, Yezhov was arrested already in 1939, as an enemy who was preparing a putsch (!), And even a homosexual who was engaged in sodomy … "acting for anti-Soviet and selfish purposes." That is, he was also a "hidden amoralist", like Yagoda. In 1940 he was shot …
So, let's start from July 31, 1937, when N. I. Yezhov, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR (1936 - 1938), signed order No. 0447 of the NKVD of the USSR approved by the Politburo of the Central Committee (VKP / b) "On the operation to repress former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements", which determined the task of defeating "anti-Soviet elements "And the composition of the" operational triplets "for the expedited consideration of cases of this kind. 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): regions to begin an operation to repress former kulaks, active anti-Soviet elements and criminals; in the Uzbek, Turkmen, Kazakh, Tajik and Kirghiz SSRs, the operation will begin on August 10. g, and in the Far Eastern and Krasnoyarsk Territories and the East Siberian Region from August 15 with. G."
… And removed from all photos! In this photo, the "coup-monger" is no longer there. The retouchers did a great job! And he was to the right of the leader …
“I would think that if we keep the troika, then for a very short period of time, a maximum of a month … First, the front of operations itself has become more significant than it was at the height of the operation in 1937. Secondly, most of our apparatus must be immediately switched over to intelligence work. Working with threes is easy, uncomplicated work, it teaches people to quickly and decisively deal with enemies, but living with threes for a long time is dangerous. Why? Because under these conditions … people rely on minimal evidence and are distracted from the main thing - from undercover work”(People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Belarus BD Berman at a meeting of the leadership of the NKVD of the USSR in Moscow on January 24, 1938).
Then, by the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks No. P65 / 116 of November 17, 1938, judicial troikas created in the order of special orders of the NKVD of the USSR, as well as troikas at regional, regional and republican police departments of the Republic of Kazakhstan were eliminated. Cases were referred to courts or a Special Meeting at the NKVD of the USSR. Well, what was it guided by? Yes, with this: “To defeat our enemies, we must have our own socialist militarism. We must lead 90 out of 100 million of the population of Soviet Russia. As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them. They must be destroyed. " This statement was made in 1918 by the head of the Communist International, Grigory Zinoviev. Again, ironically, Zinoviev was later purged and executed in 1936. However, he nevertheless named the figure of 10 million "extra" citizens in Russia, so why was there any special ceremony here?
The results of the activities of the triplets
From August 1937 to November 1939, according to the verdicts of triplets, 390 thousand people were executed, 380 thousand were sent to the Gulag camps. In July 1938, the functionaries and employees of the NKVD sent the necessary information to Moscow, but they did not meet the deadline, so the data were provided only preliminary, estimates. In the same month, the regions corrected the number of persecuted, and, of course, upward. It is interesting that most of all candidates for execution were presented by N. S. Khrushchev, then the first secretary of the Moscow OK VKP / b. I clearly wanted to prove myself holier than the Pope and stay alive at any cost! As of July 10, 41,305 “criminal and kulak elements” were counted: 8,500 were proposed to be shot (first category), and 32,805 to be evicted (second category). However, here it should be noted: he himself, as they often write and say, was not a member of the troika, about which there is data from the corresponding archive - the Central Archive of the FSB of the Russian Federation, F.66, Op. 5. D. 2 L. 155-174. Khrushchev was indeed supposed to be a member of the troika, but was replaced by his deputy Volkov even before the operational order was issued and the troika was formed and approved.
Here is this order, and here under it are the names of the approved "Troechniks"
In letters to Moscow, there were constant requests to increase the number of repressed. The corresponding proposals concerned prisoners, special and labor settlers, "saboteurs", instigators, fugitives and their accomplices. Also, permission was required to persecute the clergy. And the Politburo usually satisfied the requests of the local authorities!
The main role in the investigation belonged to the heads of the republican, regional and regional departments of the NKVD. They approved lists of candidates for arrest (and without the sanction of the prosecutor! - author's note), and also drew up and sent indictments (often no more than a page) for consideration by the troika.
At one time, the tsarist court, the jury, acquitted the terrorist Vera Zasulich, and acquitted only because the lawyer who defended her pointed out the mistakes made by the investigation. True, the very next day the jury's decision was contested. But Zasulich, of course, has already managed to go abroad.
Well, here the whole investigation was carried out "expeditiously and in a simplified manner," without observing the basic rights of the accused. The sessions took place behind closed doors, in the absence of the accused, which left him no opportunity to defend himself. Naturally, they did not even think about lawyers. Where did you get so many of them? The revision of the decisions made by the troikas was not provided for by the order (!), So the sentences were carried out quickly. Unlike the dramatized trials against representatives of the party elite, the confessions of the accused did not play any role.
In the preface to the secret speech at the XX Congress of the CPSU (1956), the party and state leader Nikita Khrushchev announced the statistics of the victims of Stalinism. According to the data voiced by him, during the Great Terror, about 1.5 million people were arrested, of which more than 680 thousand were executed. However, these figures did not take into account all the victims of this campaign, since they did not take into account, in particular, deaths during the investigation, transportation, or a serious excess of "death limits" in the Turkmen SSR.
Henrikh Yagoda and the young Cossack Nikita Khrushchev are still a "sweet couple"!
Modern Russian historians estimate the number of prisoners only in the "kulak operation" to 820 thousand, of which from 437 thousand to 445 thousand were shot. There is also a figure of 800 thousand prisoners, of which from 350 thousand to 400 thousand were shot. Thus, about 50.4% of the total number of those convicted in the course of the "kulak operation" were doomed to death, while in "national operations" usually more than 70% were condemned to death. That is, there was some other factor involved? Which?
Due to the simultaneous or back to back campaigns of terror and persecution, the gulag's prisons, camps and settlements were overcrowded. The number of prisoners increased from 786,595 (July 1, 1937) to over 1,126,500 (February 1, 1938), and over 1,317,195 (January 1, 1939). As a result, the already unfavorable conditions of detention worsened. According to archival data, in 1937, 33 499 prisoners died, and the next year - 126 585 prisoners. During the deportation and transportation in 1938, 38 thousand more people died compared to the previous year. According to the statistics of the time, in 1938 more than 9% of prisoners, or just over 100 thousand people, were disabled due to illness, disability, or due to lack of strength. In 1939, the number of disabled people, not counting the disabled, was already 150 thousand people.
Lavrenty Beria, who was appointed to replace Yezhov, carried out a "purge" in the NKVD and forced more than 7 thousand employees (about 22% of the total) to leave service in the bodies. From the end of 1938 to the end of 1939, on his order, 1,364 employees of the NKVD were arrested, in addition, almost all the leadership of the republican and regional levels was replaced. The highest-ranking officials were shot. And here's the question: did they fail or overdo it? But didn't they follow the order? Or … didn't they?
Joseph Stalin, Georgy Malenkov, Lavrenty Beria, Anastas Mikoyan on the platform of the mausoleum.
Beria rehabilitated some of the victims of Yezhov's reign. At the same time, the fight against "saboteurs", "rebels" and "enemies" continued further, and using the same methods that were blamed on the former employees of the NKVD. The volume of persecution decreased as the tasks of the Soviet political elite changed. Since then, there have been no more massive operations.
Many members of the triplets were also repressed: 47 representatives of the NKVD, 67 members of the party and two representatives of the prosecutor's office were sentenced to death.
Discussions about the rehabilitation of victims of repression began during Stalin's lifetime in the period from 1939 to 1941, in connection with investigations of "violations of socialist legality." The question arose about the advisability of reviewing cases and the mechanisms for its implementation. The relevant orders and resolutions indicated that the revision of sentences could be carried out by former investigators or their successors, and was under the control of the 1st special department of the NKVD and the relevant departments of the NKVD of the republics, territories, regions. From November 1938 to 1941, the revision of sentences became centralized and, as a result, slowed down. Those released remained under the control of the "authorities". Repeated investigations rarely revealed new facts. Sometimes the NKVD interrogated additional “witnesses”. Even the smallest evidence of a violation of the loyalty of the accused led to a refusal to further review the case. The formal errors found in the documents of the investigation did not mean a review of the case, and the cases were not sent for further investigation (the lesson with the Zasulich case was learned!), Which means that the person continued to sit. In general, the review of sentences and the release of convicts are rare exceptions.
On March 5, 1953, shortly after Stalin's death, Beria ordered the liberation of the overcrowded and overloaded gulag camps. On March 27, 1.2 million prisoners were released at once. Political prisoners were not amnestied, but those who were not considered a threat to society and those convicted under the general articles of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR and the Union republics were released. After Beria's arrest on June 26, this policy continued. Special commissions reviewed the cases of those convicted of "counter-revolutionary crimes". The members of these commissions were high officials from the NKVD and the prosecutor's office, as well as institutions that had previously participated in "national" and "kulak" operations. In total, about 237 thousand cases were considered under Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, which accounted for 45% of all prisoners under this article. 53% of the sentences were upheld, 43% were commuted so that the convicts could be released, 4% were canceled.
"Leaders of a lower rank." May Day parade in 1941 in Kiev. Photo from the newspaper "Pravda".
In the second half of 1955, some political prisoners were also pardoned. At the end of the year, the total number of those in the gulag camps was 2.5 million, and by the 20th Congress of the CPSU, about 110 thousand people, that is, the liberation process was truly rapid! At the end of the congress, a commission was created to review sentences under Article 58. By the end of 1956, about 100 thousand people had been released. At the beginning of 1957, about 15 thousand more convicted under Article 58 were released. That is, there are no more political prisoners left in the USSR! So, 20 years after the end of the Great Terror, his last victims were at large. Prior to that, the terms of their imprisonment were constantly extended. That is, a person was convicted of the same "crime" several times, which no law allows! In the 1980s, families of those executed received false reports of their loved ones' deaths in labor camps. The real places and dates of burial began to be made public only in 1989.
Well, what about the conclusion? The conclusion is this: the authorities tried to respond to the challenges of the 20s and … answered. More or less good. For example, NEPom. But the "challenges" of the 30s were already much more difficult, and society became more complex. And then the “answer” option was chosen - a return to the practice of civil war, to the struggle of “white and red”, but only in a new interpretation. It was the simplest and most effective option for managing society (precisely because of its simplicity), equally suitable for any situation and, moreover, also economically profitable!
(To be continued)
