How Mikhail Gorbachev rehabilitated all the victims of Stalin's repressions. The scale of Stalin's repressions - exact numbers

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

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

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

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

Leader who sanctioned torture

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

Creativity in introducing torture

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

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

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

Leader's motivation

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

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

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

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

Beginning of revolutionary activity

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

Stalin in the Central Committee

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

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

Stalin's position in the system of red terror

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

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

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

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

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

Stalin since 1928 - the ideologist of violence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forced collectivization

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

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

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

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

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

Organization of hunger

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

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

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

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

Known fact: correspondence between Sholokhov and Stalin

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

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

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

Other areas of pre-war Stalinist terror

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Great terror

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Instead of a conclusion

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

In total, about 800 thousand people were shot.

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

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

Between sympathy and indifference - rehabilitation of victims of Soviet repressions

Article by Arseny Roginsky and Elena Zhemkova

Introduction

The repressive activities of the Soviet regime were politically motivated, multidirectional, massive and undulating.

Political repressions began already under Lenin and continued in the post-Stalin era, the last political prisoners were released in 1991 already under Gorbachev.

A generic feature of the Soviet regime, which arose from the very beginning of Bolshevik rule and did not disappear with the death of Stalin, is state violence as a universal tool for solving any political and social problems. Idea state violence has always been an indispensable component of the Soviet communist ideology. In the first decades of the Soviet era (until 1953), state violence was realized in the form of permanent and massive political terror. Hundreds of thousands of people were persecuted every year. It was terror that was the system-forming factor of the era. It provided both the possibility of centralizing control, and the breaking of horizontal ties (to prevent possible resistance), and high vertical mobility, and the rigidity of imposing an ideology with the ease of its modification, and a large army subjects of the slave labor and much more. After Stalin's death, terror became selective, with the number of people arrested for political reasons amounting to several thousand or even several hundred people a year. Arrests stopped only by 1987, when the Soviet Union had less than five years to live.

After Stalin until the mid-1960s, new political repressions accompanied the process of rehabilitating the victims of the terror of the 1930s and 1940s. Then the rehabilitation process actually stopped and resumed with new energy and in a new ideological framework only in 1988.

1. Fantastic scales of terror. Many millions of people became its victims (see below for details)
2. Unprecedented duration of terror. Four or even five generations of Soviet (Russian) citizens became its direct and indirect victims, as well as witnesses of terror.
3. Centralization of terror. The terror was carried out by the security forces ( Cheka - OGPU-NKVD-MGB-KGB), but all the main terrorist campaigns (including the ideological campaigns of the later period, when arrests were already replaced by bans on the profession) were initiated by the highest party body - the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) -CPSU and passed under it constant control.
4. The category of terror. Most of the victims of the era of mass terror (including those who were individually charged) were subjected to repression for belonging to one or another social, confessional, ethnic group. In softened forms, this took place in later stages - state anti-Semitism, persecution of believers, dispersal of amateur song clubs, suspicions of any horizontal ties.
5. The flagrantly extra-legal (anti-legal) nature of mass terror:
   • false, fabricated accusations;
   • ill-treatment of detainees, including sophisticated physical torture used to extract confessions to alleged crimes;
   • sentencing of the vast majority of those arrested not by courts, but by (anti-constitutional) extrajudicial bodies, often specially created to carry out individual terrorist campaigns (“troikas”, “Commission NKVD and the Prosecutor of the USSR "and others),
   • the absentee nature of sentencing by extrajudicial bodies
   • "simplified procedure" for the consideration of cases by the judiciary - without calling witnesses, without the participation of lawyers, in case of conviction - the lack of the right to file a petition for pardon, etc.
   • total violation of all the rights of prisoners in camps and labor settlements, even those that were recorded in Soviet legislation
6. propaganda support state terror its necessity and moral justification. For many decades, the idea of ​​enemies - external and internal, of the heroic struggle against these enemies waged by the party and security agencies, of duty every Soviet a person to take part in this struggle, etc. All the failures of the authorities and, first of all, the low standard of living of the population were attributed to the activities of the enemies. We still feel the consequences of terror and the propaganda that accompanied it today.

During the 70 years of Soviet power, representatives of all socio-political strata and groups of the population became victims of political repression. Not only those who were in open political opposition to the authorities were subjected to repressions, but also those whose danger was only potential - the so-called "class-alien" and "socially dangerous elements", including children and other family members of "enemies of the people". ". Among the victims of political repressions are the flower of the nation, its most active, literate and talented representatives.

Immediately after the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in 1917, the persecution of representatives of all opposition political parties and organizations began, from monarchist to socialist. In subsequent years, all non-political independent public organizations were also crushed, simply closed or state-owned. This was an important step in ensuring the uncontrollability of the power of the Bolsheviks.

During the years of the civil war (1917-1922/23), according to some estimates based on incomplete information, more than 2 million people were subjected to various types of repression (among which were mass executions of hostages), primarily representatives of the former ruling classes and the country's intellectual elite. A wave of mass repressions covered the Russian peasantry, which opposed the policy of the Bolsheviks in the countryside. Regular troops were sent to suppress the resistance of the peasants. The Cossacks were terrorized. As a result of the policy of "decossackization", tens of thousands of people were physically destroyed, many emigrated.

Mass repressions accompanied the collectivization of agriculture in the mid-1920s and early 1930s. According to minimal estimates, about 1 million peasant farms were “dispossessed” and 6 million peasants and members of their families were repressed.

Since the mid-1930s, the practice of holding public/open political trials has gained wide scope - "Union of Marxist-Leninists", "Moscow counter-revolutionary organization -" a group of workers' opposition, "Leningrad counter-revolutionary Zinoviev group of Safonov, Zalutsky and others", "Moscow Center ”, “Parallel Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center”, “Anti-Soviet Right-Trotskyist Bloc”, “Anti-Party Counter-Revolutionary Group of Right Slepkov and Others (“Bukharin School”)”, “Leningrad Case”. In total, the punitive authorities across the country counted more than 70 “blocs”, “centers”, “unions”, “schools” and “groups”, whose members were sentenced to capital punishment or long terms of imprisonment.

The intelligentsia was subjected to persecution for political reasons during the years of Soviet power. Hundreds of thousands of cases were fabricated on accusations of representatives of science, culture, engineering and technical workers, employees of state institutions.

The army and navy were subjected to large-scale political repressions. Severe repressions fell upon the sailors and soldiers of the Kronstadt garrison in the spring of 1921. The "purges" of the Red Army began immediately after the end of the civil war. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, a large number of so-called military experts were repressed as part of the specially designed Operation Spring. In the 1930s and in subsequent years, tens of thousands of military personnel were groundlessly accused of espionage, sabotage, and sabotage. The repressions led to the weakening of the Soviet armed forces, put the USSR in an extremely difficult situation in World War II, and became an indirect cause of the country's heavy military losses. Political repression in the army continued both during the war and after it.

Former Soviet servicemen who were captured and encircled in battles defending their homeland were subjected to political repressions (1.8 million people were repatriated to the USSR after the end of the war), and civilians forcibly driven away for forced labor in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany (about 3.5 million of them returned to the USSR after the end of the war). Many of these people, after being tested in "filtration" camps, were unreasonably convicted of state, military and other crimes during the war and sent to "penal battalions", to exile, exile, to a special settlement, were subjected to other deprivations and restrictions on their rights.

11 peoples of the former USSR (Germans, Poles, Kalmyks, Karachays, Balkars, Ingush, Chechens, Crimean Tatars, Koreans, Greeks, Finns) became victims of total deportations, 48 ​​peoples were partially evicted. During the Second World War and the first post-war years, these people were expelled from their places of traditional residence and, by decisions of the country's top party and state leadership, were deported to remote, sparsely populated and uninhabitable areas. THE USSR . The total number of those repressed on a national basis is approaching 3 million people.

Foreign citizens were also subjected to political repressions. Many workers of the Comintern, German political emigrants, Poles, Austrians, Mongols, Americans, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks and many others were repressed.

During the years of Soviet power, not only adults, but also children became victims of political repression. Just because their parents turned out to be nobles, tsarist officers, "kulaks", "Trotskyists", "enemies of the people", dissidents, the children were expelled or deported with their parents, in case of arrest of their parents they were placed in special orphanages, were subjected to other hardships and rights restrictions.

Representatives of all religious denominations were subjected to political repressions. A strong blow was dealt to the Russian Orthodox Church - more than 200 thousand Orthodox clergy became victims of repressive policies. Islam has been severely repressed. From the end of the 1930s, repressions against Jews intensified - the majority of rabbis and other ministers of synagogues in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia suffered. The practice of repressive policy was the persecution of clergy for religious beliefs, but at the same time, the conviction took place on falsified cases for criminal offenses (bribes, abuse of office, etc.).

In the 50s-80s, members of the dissident movement and dissidents were subjected to criminal prosecution, exile, placement for compulsory treatment in special psychiatric hospitals of a closed type, unjustified deprivation of civil rights, expulsion from the USSR. Repressions against dissidents and dissidents continued until 1991.

On the whole, the data on "political crime" in the USSR show a strong dependence of political repressions on the political and ideological situation. Anti-Soviet motivation, as a rule, was established on the basis of political considerations and "revolutionary expediency". Only in isolated cases did the motivation imputed to the victim reflect the real motives of the person who committed this or that act, regarded as “counter-revolutionary” or “anti-Soviet”. Part of the repressed citizens did not commit any "counter-revolutionary" or "anti-Soviet" actions, but only revealed any disagreement with the authorities. The main mass did not show a negative attitude towards the authorities at all and did not commit any punishable or suspicious acts - these people were subjected to repressions in a planned preventive manner.

The long-term discussion about the scale of terror relies more often on intuitive ideas about the political terror of the Soviet era than on primary sources. In this discussion, a variety of figures are called - from 2-3 million to 40-50 million victims.

"Memorial" carried out special work to count the victims. The calculations are based on figures extracted from the official reports of the punitive departments. An analysis of the studied documents convinces us that, in general, the figures presented in these reports can be trusted.

Based on the types of repression and the types of sources on which we rely, the calculations are divided into two parts:

• m the scale of repression "individually"
• the scale of administrative repression

Repressions "on an individual basis" were almost always accompanied by the observance (even if only on paper) of an investigative and (quasi) judicial procedure. A separate investigation file was opened for each arrested person. Statistical records of such cases were kept by the state security agencies systematically and according to a uniform (albeit changing from time to time) form.

Administrative repressions are repressions without an individual charge, applied, in most cases, on formal group grounds (social, national, confessional, etc.). The usual measure of punishment is deprivation of property and forcible relocation to “remote regions” of the country, as a rule, to specially created “labor settlements”. Statistical reporting is found in the materials of various government departments, it was carried out in connection with individual campaigns and is significantly less complete and accurate than reporting on “individual repressions”. The personal files of the deportees were not filed at the place of their permanent residence, and after the arrival of a person at the place of serving the sentence, no cases were filed at all for those who died on the way.

Political repression "on a case-by-case basis"

The source for the study of repression on an "individual basis" are the reports of the bodies of the Cheka -OGPU -NKVD -KGB. They have been preserved in the archives of the current FSB in a fairly complete volume since 1921. We had the opportunity to study the reports for 1921-1953. To obtain data on the repressions of 1918-1920. and 1954-1958 we use figures from the works of V.V. Luneev, summary data for 1959-1986. obtained from a comparison of several sources.

Of course, these data are not completely complete - for example, we are convinced that the number of victims in 1918-1920. was more than indicated in the table. The same applies to the period 1937-1938, as well as 1941. However, we cannot present more accurate documented figures.

In total, we see that in total, the state security agencies arrested about 7 million people over the entire period of their activity.

At the same time, statistical reporting data allows us to determine how many people were arrested each year on what charges. Studying the numbers of those arrested from this angle, we see that the security agencies arrested people not only on political charges, but also on charges of smuggling, speculation, theft of socialist property, official crimes, murders, counterfeiting, etc. In order to really find out the presence or absence of a political motive in each individual case, it is necessary to study specific cases. This is practically impossible. We are forced to deal not with specific cases, but with figures in reports.

An analysis of the reports allows us to conclude that “non-political” cases in the general array are at least 23-25% of those arrested. Thus, we should not talk about 7 million victims of Soviet political terror, but about 5.1-5.3 million.

However, this is also an inaccurate figure - after all, the reports reflect not people with names, but “statistical units”. The same person could be arrested several times. Thus, members of pre-revolutionary political parties were arrested 4-5 times in the first twenty years of Soviet power, representatives of the clergy were arrested several times; many peasants who were first arrested in 1930-1933 were arrested again in 1937, many who were released after 10 years of imprisonment in 1947 were soon arrested again, etc. Statistical reports do not give exact figures on this matter, we assume that there were at least 300-400 thousand such people. Thus, the total number of people subjected to political repression on individual charges appears to be 4.7-5 million.

Of these, according to our estimates, 1.0 - 1.1 million people were shot by the verdicts of various extrajudicial and judicial bodies, the rest were sent to camps and colonies, a small part - into exile.

Looking ahead, let's look at this figure from the point of view of the rehabilitation process of the 1950s-2000s. Of course, not all of those repressed for political reasons were subject to rehabilitation - among them were real criminals (for example, Nazi criminals or punishers from among Soviet citizens who collaborated with the Nazis), but there is no doubt that

a) the vast majority of those approximately 5 million people were innocent victims of the regime;

b) each of the cases against these people had to be studied by the prosecutor's office and the courts for rehabilitation, and for each a detailed, reasonable answer had to be given whether this person was subject to rehabilitation or not.

Political repressions in the "administrative order"

Administrative repressions were carried out according to the decisions of various bodies: party, Soviet, state. The documents make it possible to single out the main repressive campaigns (streams) with an approximate (more or less exact) number of victims of each of them. Unlike individual repressions, we can consider all victims of these repressions (deportations) as victims of political

motives - this motive is directly indicated in almost all state decisions regarding each specific campaign.

The most massive deportations are the deportations of peasants in the era

"collectivization" (1930-1933), deportation of "socially dangerous" Poles and Polish citizens, as well as citizens of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova after the forced inclusion of Eastern Poland, the Baltic States, Bessarabia into the USSR (1940-1941), preventive deportations Soviet Germans and Finns (1941-1942) after the start of the Soviet-German war, total deportations (1943-1944) of the "punished peoples" of the North Caucasus and Crimea (Karachays, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars and others).

In determining the number of deportees, Memorial relies on modern research, in which we participated.

In the above list, due to the lack of accurate numerical data, there are no indications of a number of victims of administrative repression: those who were dispossessed without expulsion (that is, deprived of their homes and property and resettled within their regions) during collectivization, former Soviet prisoners of war who were forcibly sent after "filtering" into "worker battalions" after the war, to a number of other, numerically less significant flows (the expulsion of kulaks-Cossacks from the Semirechensk, Syr-Darya, Fergana and Samarkand regions outside the Turkestan region, in particular to the European part of Russia in 1921 ., the deportation of Germans, Ingrian Finns and other "socially dangerous" elements from the border regions of the Leningrad Region in 1942, the deportation of Crimean Tatars and Greeks from the Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories in 1948, and much more).

In total, according to various estimates, at least 6 (most likely 6.3-6.7) million people were victims of deportations.

In total, about 11-11.5 million people were repressed in the USSR for political reasons. With regard to such a number of people, the issue of rehabilitation would have to be decided.

Legal rehabilitation of victims

The rehabilitation of the victims of political repression began after Stalin's death in March 1953 and has not actually ended until today. We distinguish three stages of rehabilitation.

The first stage of rehabilitation.

This first stage is divided in turn into two: 1953-1961 and 1962-1983. We consider them together.

The word “rehabilitation” entered the public lexicon in the 1950s, when, almost immediately after Stalin’s death (March 5, 1953), first selective and then increasingly widespread release of victims of political repression from prisons, camps and exile began. Soon their legal rehabilitation began - that is. the process of reviewing investigative cases, culminating in the issuance of a "rehabilitation certificate" - an official document certifying the innocence of a person who had previously been subjected to repression.

Rehabilitation has always been conditioned by the political tasks of the party leadership and has always taken place under the unrelenting control of the Politburo. Initially, rehabilitation covered only a narrow circle of relatives and close acquaintances of Politburo members. The first person returned from exile was the wife of Stalin's closest associate, V. Molotov, Polina Zhemchuzhina (released immediately after Stalin's death, legally rehabilitated in May 1953, even before the formal legal rehabilitation by the decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU on March 21, 1953, reinstated in the party). One of the first on May 7, 1953, also by the decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee, was the brother of another Stalinist associate L. Kaganovich, Mikhail Kaganovich, who was rehabilitated. In the same year, a number of party and state leaders were rehabilitated.

Extensive rehabilitation began in 1954. In May 1954, special commissions (central and regional) were created to consider cases against persons who were then imprisoned. These commissions were given the right to fully rehabilitate convicts, apply pardons, reclassify charges, and so on. For almost two years of work, these commissions have considered cases of more than 337,000 people.

A powerful impetus for rehabilitation was given by Khrushchev's report at the 20th Congress of the CPSU in February 1956, dedicated to Stalin's "personality cult". In March 1956, new commissions were created - this time under the auspices of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In six months, they considered the cases of almost 177 thousand more people, incl. 81 thousand people who were in the camps. Rehabilitation was especially active in 1956-1960.

In parallel with the work of the commissions, the prosecutor's office and the courts were actively involved in the rehabilitation process. The prosecutors checked each case, requested certificates from parallel cases, certificates from the archives (in particular, from the party archive, if it was about party members), in many cases they called witnesses (including those who once testified against repressed, it happened that former investigators) and drew up a conclusion, on the basis of which the heads of the prosecutorial bodies filed a protest in the case with the judicial body, which canceled the verdict (as a rule, in the absence of an event or corpus delicti) and made a decision on rehabilitation.

For former communists, “party rehabilitation” was of particular importance, i.e. restoration in the party - this rehabilitation was carried out by the bodies of the Party Control Committee under the Central Committee of the CPSU. It was carried out at the request of former communists who had previously received a certificate of legal rehabilitation. For the period 1956-1961. about 31,000 people received party rehabilitation.

By the end of 1961, the energy of the rehabilitation process was exhausted. The political tasks of rehabilitation that Khrushchev set for himself were largely fulfilled: a new course of power was demonstrated to the country and the world, decisively (according to Khrushchev) breaking with the Stalinist repressive policy. The symbolic conclusion of this stage was the removal of Stalin's body from the Mausoleum by decision of the 21st Congress of the CPSU of October 30, 1961.

The main feature of the first stage of rehabilitation is its half-heartedness, selectivity and subordination to the political interests of the post-Stalinist leadership. She couldn't be otherwise.

The release of the innocently convicted from the camps and the return of a good name and reputation to them, as well as to the dead, according to Khrushchev's plan, was to strengthen the authority of the CPSU in the eyes of the population. Since the 1930s, Stalin was declared guilty of terror, who had planted his own "cult of personality", destroyed inner-party democracy (the so-called "Leninist norms of party life") and single-handedly ruled the country, as well as security agencies that "got out of control of the party ". The era of repressions, according to Khrushchev, were relatively small segments - the second half of the 30s. and, to a lesser extent, several post-war years.

This construction made it possible to remove the party as a whole from criticism. Moreover, it was the party that was declared the main victim of terror - although this is completely inconsistent with reality.

In addition, the fight against the "cult of personality" allowed Khrushchev to strengthen his position in the Politburo, using the fact of active participation in the terror of Molotov and Kaganovich to remove them from power. This was also an important justification for lowering the status of state security agencies (since 1954 - not an independent

ministry, but a committee under the Council of Ministers) and strengthening party control over them. But the same construction predetermined the inferiority of the rehabilitation process.

Rehabilitation (restoration of reputation, restoration of all rights) affected only those convicted on individual charges. But not all of them:

• Rehabilitation was limited chronologically to the period of the 30s (in fact, from the middle of the decade) - the beginning of the 50s, since the goal of rehabilitation was proclaimed to be "return to Leninist norms" and it was obviously assumed that there were no political repressions before the strengthening of the "cult of personality" .
• For the same reason, rehabilitation was categorically limited - significant categories of victims who were still considered "enemies" were excluded from it: not only members of the "bourgeois" parties, but also socialists (Social Democrats, Socialist-Revolutionaries), most of the inner-party oppositionists, in to a large extent the clergy, peasants who resisted collectivization, and many others.
• Rehabilitation during this first period was carried out exclusively "in the order of the application", i.e. according to the statements of the victims or their relatives. However, there were frequent cases when, at the request of one of the victims or one of the relatives, and if the case was not individual, but group, then all the victims of this group case were rehabilitated ("at the same time").
• For the deportees who were serving sentences in special settlements (more than 2.5 million people in 1953), rehabilitation was reduced to their release - sometimes with the right to return to their former places of residence, sometimes without this right. The decrees on their release never acknowledged the guilt of the state - for example, for "repressed peoples" repression was justified by "wartime conditions." In fact, the "repressed peoples" were not rehabilitated, but pardoned. If convicts on individual charges were at least partially compensated for the confiscated property, then for the deportees, who lost their homes and all their property, the question of compensation was not raised at all.

A striking example of the inferiority and half-heartedness of the rehabilitation process is the following fact.

Beginning in 1939, after the end of two years of mass executions, relatives of those shot by extrajudicial (sometimes judicial) bodies were informed that their relatives had been sentenced to 10 years in camps without the right to correspond. Ten years later, at the end of the 1940s, after relatives had not returned from the camps, new requests followed - and then it was decided to answer that the executed died of illness in the camps. At the same time, the relatives were informed (orally) of the false date of death. Almost 10 years later, in the mid-1950s, at the beginning of the rehabilitation process, a new wave of requests followed. In 1955, in response to her, a special instruction was issued by the KGB (of course, agreed upon in the Central Committee of the CPSU) that relatives could be issued an official certificate of the death of a prisoner in a camp with a false date and a false cause of death - the same one that had previously relatives were informed only verbally.

From 1955 to 1962 253,598 such false certificates were issued. And only since 1963 it was allowed to issue certificates with original dates, but without indicating in the column

"cause of death" of the word "execution" - instead of this, a dash was put. Certificates indicating the true date and true cause of death began to be issued only in 1989. The reason for the decision in 1955 was the opinion of the KGB that the message about the execution "could be used to the detriment of the Soviet state."

This is very symbolic for the whole process of Khrushchev's rehabilitation - having decided to tell the truth, at the same time constantly dose this truth, simultaneously reporting lies, and turning a blind eye to many aspects of repression.

The fear of putting the foundations of power at risk, the fear that the population would doubt the infallibility of the party and the Soviet state as a result of the rehabilitation determined the entire nature and direction of the rehabilitation. Hence the intentional narrowing of rehabilitation - chronological and categorical. Hence the refusal to revise the most famous public trials, in which hatred for the enemies of the Soviet Union was brought up for decades - from the “Socialist-Revolutionary Trial” of 1922 and

"Shakhty case" in 1928 to the "Great Moscow trials" in 1936-1938. over Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin and others. These exemplary cases of the "enemies" entered not only the consciousness, but also the subconscious of the population, their revision seemed too risky. The question of revising collectivization or the Red Terror was not raised at all. In general, the Stalinist historical concept of the development of Soviet society, enshrined in his "Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks" (1938), remained unrevised. The arguments for “not taking risks” in the process of rehabilitation were not only internal political ones.

Khrushchev's reaction after the 22nd Congress to the proposal to publish the collected materials on the assassination of Kirov is characteristic: “If we publish everything, we will undermine confidence in ourselves, in the party in the world communist movement. And so after the 20th Congress there were big fluctuations. And therefore, we will not publish it yet, but in 15 years we will return to this ”(from the memoirs of O. Shatunovskaya, a communist who was repressed under Stalin, released under Khrushchev and collaborated in one of the rehabilitation commissions).

The main result of the rehabilitation of the Khrushchev era was the release of prisoners and the awakening of public consciousness, which had many consequences. It can hardly be considered that rehabilitation provided new legitimacy to the regime, as Khrushchev hoped, its half-heartedness was too obvious.

In 1964, Khrushchev was removed from power. In the next 20 years, rehabilitation did not have the pathos and scale that was inherent in it under Khrushchev. It did not stop at all, it continued “in a declarative manner”, but its political significance was completely lost. Stalin's assessments are gradually and cautiously changing. The duality of Stalin's assessment was also inherent in Khrushchev (on the one hand, Stalin was a revolutionary, head of state, although he made mistakes, on the other hand, Stalin was the creator of repressions), while under Brezhnev they gradually stopped talking about Stalin's "mistakes" (repressions), and more and more often they talk about Stalin, the commander-in-chief during the war years, about Stalin, the "creator of the Great Victory."

The topic of repression fades into the background and is excluded from the official context, remaining the topic of acute public controversy (partly legal, partly uncensored) between "Stalinists" and "anti-Stalinists". This topic becomes one of the main topics of samizdat, it becomes the most important (fundamental) motive for the emergence of the human rights movement in the USSR.

Regarding the digital results of rehabilitation during this period, we have several figures that do not match very well.

On June 3, 1988, the chairman of the KGB, V. Chebrikov, in a Note to the Central Committee of the CPSU, reports that “until 1962, 1,197,847 people were rehabilitated from among the repressed citizens. In 1962-1983, 157,055 people." In the Note to the Central Committee of the CPSU A. Yakovlev and others dated December 25, 1988, apparently based on data obtained from the same KGB of the USSR, it is indicated that by now “1,354,902 people have been rehabilitated, including non-judicial bodies 1,182,825 people”. It turns out that in the second half of 1988 more than 150,000 people were rehabilitated. However, according to other sources, no more than 20 thousand people were rehabilitated during this period. But our main questions are not the figures of 1988, but earlier ones. According to many sources, the number of people rehabilitated in the Khrushchev era does not exceed 800 thousand people. Unfortunately, we do not have any other exact data on this score, and although we consider the Chebrikov-Yakovlev data to be overestimated, we are forced to use them. But even if about 800,000 people were rehabilitated during the Khrushchev era, these results are still extremely significant.

The second stage of rehabilitation. 1988-1991

The era of glasnost immediately revived in the public space mass discussions around the topic of Stalinism and repression. Newspapers 1987-89 filled with journalistic and memoir articles about terror. In 1987, an informal group of young activists appeared, which took the name "Memorial" and collected signatures under a letter to Gorbachev about the creation of a memorial complex in memory of victims of repression. Soon, the same groups were created in many regions, an all-union movement arose, and in late 1988 and early 1989. - public organization "Memorial". Both former political prisoners of the Stalin era and human rights activists of the Brezhnev era, some of whom also went through camps, take part in its creation. A little later, various associations, associations and unions of former victims begin to emerge.

Calls to resume the process of rehabilitation, to restore justice to the living, to perpetuate the memory of the dead are heard by the authorities, and they begin to act energetically, trying all the time to keep the initiative in their hands.

On September 28, 1987, the Politburo creates a special Commission "for additional study of materials related to the repressions that took place in the period of the 30-40s and early 50s." The Commission confirms the general and party rehabilitation in a number of cases, prepares a Politburo Decree “On the construction of a monument to victims of repression”, prepares a draft Politburo Decree “On additional measures to complete the work related to the rehabilitation of persons unreasonably repressed in the 1930s and 1940s and in early 1950s." The resolution is adopted on 07/11/1988. The resolution prescribes to carry out rehabilitation regardless of the presence of applications and complaints from citizens - and this, of course, is its strength and novelty. On the other hand, it can be seen that from the point of view of chronology, the Politburo still remains within Khrushchev's framework - from the mid-1930s to Stalin's death. In this regard, there is a continuous criticism of the authorities from the side of society. Memorial recalls that there were repressions before Kirov's assassination (December 1934) and did not end with Stalin's death. In the autumn of 1988, the closest associate of Gorbachev, A.N., headed the Commission. Yakovlev, her work becomes even more intense. The commission considers many high-profile cases and publishes the results of this work.

On January 16, 1989, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, prepared by the Commission and approved by the Politburo, is issued. The decree ordered to cancel all decisions made by extrajudicial bodies (troikas, special meetings, etc.) and to recognize all citizens convicted by these bodies as rehabilitated. However, exceptions were immediately established: traitors to the motherland, punishers of the Great Patriotic War, “members of nationalist gangs and their accomplices”, falsifiers of investigative cases, etc. were not subject to rehabilitation. The decree also drew attention to social support for victims of repression, and - for the first time! - on the problem of perpetuating the memory of the victims, instructing local councils, together with public organizations, to assist in the creation of monuments to the victims, as well as in maintaining their burial places in proper order.

The decree became a powerful impetus in the rehabilitation process. In less than a year, by the beginning of 1990, 838,630 people were rehabilitated, and 21,333 people were denied rehabilitation. The leading role in the rehabilitation belonged to the prosecutors, who themselves, having examined the cases, made decisions on rehabilitation (mainly with the participation of the KGB or the Ministry of Internal Affairs - the custodians of archival files). Judicial bodies, following the protests of prosecutors, rehabilitated less than 30,000 people out of a total number.

After the Decree, local authorities could no longer dismiss the efforts and proposals of the public to perpetuate the memory of the victims. In 1989-1990 with the help of the KGB or public efforts, many places of mass graves of the executed were discovered (information about them was carefully concealed during all the years of Soviet power), in many cities (or at places of burial in nearby suburbs) commemorative signs (foundation stones or crosses) were placed, perceived then as temporary, but remained permanent.

The decree, which gave rise to many hopes and largely justified them, along with public support, caused a lot of criticism. Former victims were dissatisfied with the fact that the Decree is not implemented (or poorly implemented) in terms of their (victims) social support - they expected the government to increase pensions, return housing lost as a result of repression, etc. The Russian public focused criticism on the chronological narrowness of rehabilitation under this Decree. In Ukraine and the Baltic states, many were dissatisfied with the exclusion from the process of rehabilitation of national resistance figures, who, in full accordance with the Soviet tradition, were referred to in the Decree as “members of nationalist bandit formations.” Meanwhile, today, when many internal party documents have become known to us, you understand that Gorbachev could hardly have done more than he did in the then real conditions.

His next step on the path of rehabilitation marked a definite and significant evolution in understanding the past. Gorbachev's decree (formally the Decree of the President of the USSR) of August 13, 1990 "On the restoration of the rights of all victims of political repressions of the 20s-50s" is more declarative than practical. The report condemns "mass repressions, arbitrariness and lawlessness, which were committed by the Stalinist leadership on behalf of the revolution, the party, the people", the border of repressions is attributed to the mid-1920s, i.e. shifted 10 years ago in comparison with all earlier acts, it speaks of the inconsistency of the rehabilitation process, which stopped in the mid-1960s. For the first time in state acts of this level, we see an appeal not only to justice, but also to law. The repressions are called "incompatible with the norms of civilization" and the Constitution. Gorbachev speaks of the deprivation of the Soviet people of freedoms “which are considered natural and inalienable in a democratic society”, that not only in extrajudicial bodies, but also in courts, the elementary norms of legal proceedings were violated.” The objects of rehabilitation, according to the Decree, were to be the peasants deported during collectivization, as well as the clergy and "citizens persecuted for religious reasons." The decree recognizes the repressions of the 20-50s. “for political, social, national, religious and other reasons” “illegal, contrary to basic civil and socio-economic human rights” and proposes to fully restore the rights of the victims of these repressions.” In general, the Decree was, of course, a new word in the understanding of repression at the highest state level. Unfortunately, the practical side of the Decree (the order of execution) was not worked out and, for real, it was not executed.

In general, to all appearances, real rehabilitation already in 1990 proceeded at a clearly slower pace than in the previous 1989. Apparently, the general discord in the state mechanism was affecting. Accurate data on the number of rehabilitated in 1990-1991. we do not have. The Politburo Rehabilitation Commission ceased to exist in the summer of 1990, declaring that its tasks had been completed. According to A.N. Yakovlev, there were 752,000 unreviewed cases in the archives of the KGB at the beginning of 1990. As the future showed, this figure was clearly underestimated.

In general, the Gorbachev era was a major breakthrough in understanding the past and, in particular, in rehabilitation. On the one hand, rehabilitation was still narrowed both chronologically and categorically. But the boundaries in both directions were constantly expanding. The rehabilitation process was quite effective - in 1988-1991. about 1.5 million people have been rehabilitated. In addition to the most important acts that we have mentioned, many others were issued at the all-Union level, evaluating repressions (in particular, repressions against

"punished peoples"). The theme of repression has returned to the center of public attention. For better or worse, the authorities interacted with society in the matter of rehabilitating and perpetuating the memory of the victims. For our topic, it is important that on the basis of Gorbachev's rehabilitation acts and practices, to some extent, in polemic with them, the basic principles of the Russian Law on Rehabilitation were developed, on the basis of which rehabilitation was carried out in Russia in all subsequent years.

The third stage of rehabilitation. 1992 - present. Law of the Russian Federation on rehabilitation.

The Russian Law on the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions began to be prepared in the spring of 1990, immediately after the first free elections to the Supreme Council

RSFSR. The law was drafted by the Human Rights Committee chaired by Sergei Kovalyov, a human rights activist and political prisoner in the 1970s. The main author (leader of the working group) was deputy Anatoly Kononov, later a judge of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. In addition to deputies and professional lawyers, the working group included representatives of Memorial Arseniy Roginsky and Oleg Orlov.

Already in the early stages of preparation, the Law encountered many difficulties. There were three main difficulties.

Firstly, the political preamble of the Law, which stated that all victims were subject to rehabilitation, was resisted by many deputies, starting from the first day of Soviet power (November 7, 1917) until the Law came into force. Recall that in 1990 the USSR still existed, and such a mention of the date of the founding of the country was perceived as an attack on the legitimacy of Soviet power. It is characteristic that the draft of the All-Union Law on Rehabilitation, which was written (by whom?) at the same time, assumed a chronological framework from 1920 to 1959.

Another claim was of a quasi-legal nature - the KGB of the USSR sent a negative review of the draft law, stating that the republican (Russian) parliament did not have the right to rehabilitate those convicted by the all-union bodies - and there were a significant number of those among the repressed. In addition, the KGB cynically stated that the chronological framework of rehabilitation should be narrowed down, because, in its opinion, in the 1960s and 1980s. there were no more violations and falsifications during arrests and investigations.

Another claim is that the Law provided for individual rehabilitation, and among the deputies there were many representatives of “punished peoples”, and they demanded the inclusion in the Law of the relevant clauses relating to the territorial, cultural, political rehabilitation of entire peoples. But it was quite obvious that the rehabilitation of peoples had to be the subject of a special law. The inclusion of clauses on “punished peoples” in this law would turn the law into a declaration and decisively change the general concept.

As a result of these and other claims, the Law, when it was submitted for discussion by the Supreme Council on October 30, 1990, was withdrawn from discussion and sent "for revision." With minor changes, the Law was adopted only a year later, on October 18, 1991, in an atmosphere of post-coup fright among the communist part of the deputies and the expectation of the inevitable collapse of the USSR.

The law retained the preamble with the original chronological framework, as well as the condemnation of terror as incompatible with the idea of ​​law and justice. The goal of the law was declared not only to restore the repressed in civil rights, but also "compensation of moral and material damage that was feasible at that time."

For the first time in Russian legislation, the Law defines political repressions and introduces the concept of “political motive” of the state. The circle of rehabilitated persons is clearly described. And here, for the first time, the victims of administrative repressions are listed: persons subjected to administrative exile, deportation, sent to a special settlement, etc. These are deported peasants, and "punished peoples" and many others. Among those rehabilitated are named and placed for political reasons in special or general psychiatric hospitals. The law provides for automatic, i.e. without consideration of the case, the rehabilitation of people convicted for exercising the right to freedom of conscience and opinion.

The law also contains exceptions. At first glance, it was possible to do without exceptions, which greatly hinder the rehabilitation process. Moreover, most people were convicted in absentia by extrajudicial bodies for political reasons. It would seem that the easiest and most correct way is to cancel mechanically all the decisions of these illegal bodies without exception. But it is impossible to do so. After all, these same bodies also condemned unconditional criminals - war criminals and punishers, for example. Repeal the Law of all extrajudicial sentences, and these punishers will be automatically rehabilitated. Of course, these people make up a very small percentage of the total mass of those rehabilitated, but still they will be rehabilitated, and this situation cannot be accepted by the mass Russian consciousness.

As a result, a list of exceptions was compiled, approximately the same as in the all-Union regulations, but much shorter and more specific. The list of exceptions was based on the sign of a person committing violent acts, that is, crimes punishable in any country.

The law describes in detail the procedure for rehabilitation. Not only the victim or his relative, but also any interested person or public organization can apply for rehabilitation. Cases of convicts on an individual basis (mainly stored in the archives of state security agencies) are considered by prosecutors, who themselves make decisions on rehabilitation or refusal to do so. All cases are reviewed, regardless of statements.

Cases of administrative repressions, mostly stored in the archives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, are considered by employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Here, the Law did not provide for a complete review of cases; rehabilitation is carried out on the basis of applications. This is, of course, a significant shortcoming of the Law.

The law describes in detail the consequences of rehabilitation - compensation, benefits for the rehabilitated, issues of returning property.

Immediately after the adoption of the Law, the struggle for its improvement began. Initially, it focused on the problem of expanding the circle of persons rehabilitated by the Law. The associations of the victims, as well as the "Memorial" society, insisted on this expansion most of all.

As a result of many years of efforts, it was possible to ensure that children who were with their parents in camps, exiles, labor settlements (previously they were recognized only as victims) were recognized as victims of repressions, and then children left as a result of repressions at a minor age without the care of one or two parents . The result of the adoption of these amendments (both of which were introduced into the Law thanks to the decisions of the Constitutional Court adopted in 1995 and in 2000) was the strange, at first glance, fact that the number of rehabilitated victims of repression living in Russia, in the late 1990s - early 2000s. increased sharply.

Unfortunately, no other significant changes to the Law could be made.

The social status of the victims

Already in Soviet times, some measures were taken not only for the political, but also for the social rehabilitation of the victims. However, the peculiarity of social rehabilitation in comparison with the legal one was its extreme limitation.

The rehabilitated were entitled to monetary compensation in the amount of two months' salary, calculated from the salary at the time of arrest, they could be out of the queue for housing, the disabled had the right to receive a pension with a credit for the seniority of the term of imprisonment.

However, many ordinary people - without connections and acquaintances - were often not even aware of these possibilities. Former "enemies of the people", as well as members of their families, continued to be bullied even when it was not officially encouraged. In particular, not all of the rehabilitated received permission to return to their places of former residence, and no restitution was expected upon return. People have not received back - neither the taken away habitation, nor the confiscated property. The only thing that some of the returnees got was the possibility of preferential housing registration and getting, in an expedited manner, significantly worse and smaller housing.

In the case of administrative deportees, social rehabilitation was fundamentally different for different categories of deportees. Some were allowed to return to their places of former residence and this was the maximum they could count on, while others (dispossessed kulaks or Crimean Tatars, for example) were unofficially prevented even from returning.

In fact, in the Soviet era, in the social sense, the rehabilitated victims were divided into three groups:

1. administratively deported, who were actually not rehabilitated, but pardoned;
2. the bulk of those convicted in a judicial or quasi-judicial order and subsequently rehabilitated, who received meager monetary compensation and extremely limited opportunities for social adaptation in a new life
3. a relatively small group of former party and statesmen and their relatives who received not only legal, but also party rehabilitation, which meant, in particular, the return of not only better housing, dachas and other privileges compared to others, but also the opportunity to return to their previous work.

In general, growing former victims into a new life was very difficult and painful. With a camp past, it was difficult to count on decent work and housing. The atmosphere around these people often remained wary and hostile. The stigma of "enemy of the people" continued to haunt the former prisoners themselves and their families. Their life remained unsettled and dysfunctional, for the most part they did not make a career, did not restore lost family and family ties. Many, having spent the best years of their lives in prison, did not create families at all, did not have children and support, and experienced extreme need.

Only the Law on Rehabilitation of 10/18/1991 established a system of compensation payments and benefits for these people, namely:

1. One-time cash compensation for the time of imprisonment or stay in compulsory psychiatric treatment.
2. Compensation for damage caused by illegal seizure of property.
3. Payment of an increased pension.
4. In-kind benefits (payment for housing and utilities in the amount of 50%, priority installation of a telephone and compensation for the costs of its installation, free travel in urban and suburban automobile, electric, rail and water public transport, as well as compensation once a year for the cost of travel on the territory of the Russian Federation on intercity transport, the manufacture and repair of dentures, preferential sanatorium treatment).

However, the proposed set of measures, which at first glance gives them the opportunity to provide social support to the victims, in reality has given them humiliatingly little.

For example, at the time of the adoption of the Law, the lump-sum compensation amounted to “three-quarters of the minimum wage established by law for each month of deprivation of liberty”, and in 2000 it was generally fixed at the level of 75 rubles (less than 2 euros). This means that a former prisoner for 10 years in the Kolyma camps receives a one-time compensation of 220 euros!

Compensation for the loss of a home, whether it be a confiscated apartment in Moscow or a house in a village, cannot exceed 10,000 rubles (250 euros!).

In the early 2000s, when the Russian state was becoming richer thanks to rising oil prices and it seemed that it would be possible to provide victims with adequate support, the government decided to monetize benefits. At the same time, they forgot that in 1991, when the Law on Rehabilitation was adopted, it actually provided the victims not with benefits, but with prolonged compensation in the form of regular benefits.

The monetization of benefits carried out in 2005 completely changed the basis for the social security of victims - instead of benefits, rehabilitated victims receive monthly cash payments (UDV), financing of payments is provided not by the federal budget, but by the regional budgets of the subjects of the federation.

In a legal sense, the situation has become absurd for at least two reasons:

The fact is that the disabled, depending on the disability group, receive monthly from the federal budget 1,620-2,830 rubles (40.5-70.5 euros). On a general level, this is a good and most importantly stable monthly support.

From a legal point of view, disabled victims of political repression should receive social support for two reasons, especially since there is a precedent for this in Russia - the liquidators of the Chernobyl accident receive support in this way.

However, the social services of Russia do not recognize the right of the rehabilitated to receive double support and, in fact, require to renounce the status of the rehabilitated in order to obtain the status of a disabled person.

As one of the activists of the Memorial, Margarita Anisimova, said, “They demand that I admit that I am disabled and renounce the status of a victim of political repression. I will never do this, even if disabled people are paid ten times more. To refuse the status of a victim means to refuse the rehabilitation of my parents who were shot.”

Necessary changes to the Law on Rehabilitation

Meanwhile, the following major changes to the Law on the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions are needed:

First. It is necessary to expand the circle of persons subject to rehabilitation.

In 1990-1991, when the Law was being drafted, some of the types of repression were not explicitly spelled out in the Law. This gave rise to doubts among the prosecutors who carried out the rehabilitation about certain categories of victims. Doubts were most often resolved by them in favor of refusing to rehabilitate. This happened, for example, with the "disenfranchised" - people deprived of their voting rights in 1918-1936. The number of this category was high - at least 4 million people. It included pre-revolutionary officials, and merchants, and the former clergy, and small artisans, and many others. The disenfranchisement in the first decades after the revolution in real life entailed many consequences - non-admission to higher educational institutions, to many places of service, etc.

In the Law, not only those arrested or direct victims of administrative repressions, but also persons subjected to “other restrictions on rights and freedoms” are included among those subject to rehabilitation.

Almost none of the "disenfranchised" is no longer alive, but for many descendants, the fact of the rehabilitation of their relatives seems important. For us, the rehabilitation of these people is important not only as a fact of restoring historical justice, but also as an affirmation of one of the unshakable principles of Law.

There are several more categories (not so numerous) of victims that should be explicitly listed in the Law.

Second. It is necessary to introduce a norm into the Law that will allow for rehabilitation in a situation where a criminal (investigative) file is lost or destroyed.

The existing procedure assumes that there is a case for its revision. In some cases, this question is fundamentally important. So, for example, the prosecutors refer to the lack of a case when they refuse to rehabilitate the victims of the mass execution of Polish citizens in 1940 (“Katyn” and other places).

But there are no such files on the executed Poles in nature - the files were deliberately (in order to hide the traces of the crime) destroyed in the late 1950s.

At the same time, there are many other (apart from investigative cases) documents that allow us to name the dead and prove that the “Katyn crime” was committed at the direction of the top Soviet leadership. These documents should be considered for the rehabilitation of the victims.

Third. In the article of the Law, which lists exceptions (ie, persons, although convicted, but not subject to rehabilitation), those who committed "crimes against justice" are named. The preamble to this article states that the grounds for refusing rehabilitation should be the evidence contained "in the files" of such persons.

In practice, this category is represented only by employees of the OGPU-N-KVD-MGB. Many of them were indeed repressed. During the Soviet era, many were rehabilitated, but the most notorious figures were denied rehabilitation. Basically, they refused to rehabilitate the regional chiefs- chairmen of extrajudicial bodies (“troikas”) in 1937-1938, heads of departments of the central apparatus of the OGPU-NKVD, investigators in high-profile cases that became famous in the Khrushchev era.

The Rehabilitation Act of 1991 gave birth to new practices. Very often, in the investigation files of such people, there was no indication that they had committed crimes against justice. They were convicted on fictitious charges of espionage or conspiracy against the Soviet regime. Based on the letter of the law, the prosecutors of the 1990s-2000s began to rehabilitate them. Including those who used to - in the 1960-1980s. rehabilitation was denied.

Thus, D. Dmitriev was rehabilitated, under whose leadership many thousands of citizens were shot in the Sverdlovsk region, V. Agas, an investigator in the case of Marshal Tukhachevsky, known for the constant use of torture, D. Apresyan, the head of the "Great Terror" in 1937-1938. in Uzbekistan, Ya. Agranov - one of the main leaders of terror against the intelligentsia in the 20s-30s. and many others.

It is necessary to amend the article of the Law and indicate that when it comes to employees of state security, internal affairs, the judicial and prosecutorial system, it is required

carefully check not only investigative cases, but also conduct special checks of their activities on the basis of additional archival materials.

When rehabilitating major party workers, about whom there is information about their participation in terror, it is also necessary to raise additional archival materials.

Fourth. It is necessary to change the norm of the Law concerning the rehabilitation of victims of administrative repression (this is done by the bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs). Instead of rehabilitation on individual applications, a complete review of cases should be carried out. Otherwise, millions of victims will remain unrehabilitated.

Fifth. The Law practically does not solve the problem of perpetuating the memory of the victims. It is said only about the compilation of "lists of rehabilitated persons." At the same time, it is not specified who and how should compose them, who should publish them. "Lists" have long been transformed into "Books of Memory", which are prepared and published in most regions on the initiative of various organizations - public and state. This is done without any uniform principles. And in a number of regions, this work is not carried out at all. The law lacks the task of creating museum and memorial complexes dedicated to the victims, searching for and memorializing places of mass graves of the victims, erecting monuments and memorial signs. We believe that a special chapter devoted to perpetuating the memory of the victims should be introduced into the Law.

Sixth. The Russian law on rehabilitation is not fully compatible with the same laws of the neighboring countries of Russia - the former republics of the USSR. It is impossible to rehabilitate not only individuals, but also entire categories of victims due to contradictions and gaps in the laws. To solve these problems, it is necessary to introduce minor adjustments to the Russian law. In addition, special agreements should be concluded between the countries interested in the rehabilitation process.

We can give many examples of necessary additions and clarifications to the Law. In the 20 years since the Law on Rehabilitation has been in operation, its strengths and weaknesses have already become fully apparent. Unfortunately, the deputies of the Russian parliament every time push aside almost any amendments to the Law - the theme of repressions clearly does not find a response from them.

Results of rehabilitation under the Law of October 18, 1991

In 1992, immediately after the adoption of the Law, special groups were formed throughout the country in the bodies of the Prosecutor's Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They actively worked during the 1990s, then the flow of rehabilitated people weakened, in the mid-2000s. (in some regions earlier) these groups were disbanded.

In 1992-2010 has been rehabilitated

• 800,000-805,000 people - prosecutor's offices (including military prosecutor's offices);
• about 280 thousand children of victims of repression - in connection with changes in the Law on Rehabilitation in the 2000s. the prosecutor's office recognized the children as victims of political repression;
• more than 2 million 940 thousand people - bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were rehabilitated due to administrative repressions.

Today, rehabilitation in the affairs of state security agencies (“on individual charges”) is considered almost complete in Russia. Many people disagree with this statement. In particular, according to Memorial, many cases in which rehabilitation was refused should be re-examined, especially during the Civil and Great Patriotic Wars.

The rehabilitation of those repressed in the administrative order should be continued - it is still very far from completion.

Finally, in order for society to be able to realistically assess the results of rehabilitation, society does not have enough general figures, which are periodically, for various random reasons, called the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB, the Prosecutor's Office. These departments must transfer the personal information at their disposal about the rehabilitated victims of repression into a single nationwide database. In order for them to do this, they must first get the federal government to declare that it is their task to create such a base.

Russia has a successful experience in creating a nationwide database on the victims of the Great Patriotic War. So far, it has not been possible to achieve a government decision to create a database that will include the names of all victims of political repression. Although society (including Memorial) has been demanding this for many years.

Ideally, such a database should include data not only from Russian archives, but also from the archives of the countries of the former Soviet republics. In these countries (unfortunately, not in all), the process of rehabilitation of victims has been going on for many years. But we don't know the results. Therefore, it is not yet possible to answer the question of what part of the total number of victims of Soviet repressions has been rehabilitated to date.

According to the Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation at the beginning of 2013, there are 776,667 people who have the status of victims in accordance with the Law on Rehabilitation. Over the past two years, according to the same official data, their number has decreased by 230,000 and continues to decline rapidly.

Alas, until now the Law on Rehabilitation is the only law dedicated to the past. It deals with the restoration of the rights of a huge number of people affected by the state, who today are mostly old, lonely and seriously ill.

But this first and important step towards assessing the Soviet regime remained the only one. Since the authorities treat history instrumentally, depending on their interests, they sometimes remember the victims, but mostly prefer not to talk about them. And so the victims of political repressions, as before, remain between sympathy and indifference on the part of the state and society.

Elena Zhemkova, Arseniy Roginsky

1. An accurate assessment is impossible due to fragmentary statistics, in particular the lack of information about the victims of extrajudicial executions of the Red and White Terror. Approximate estimates of losses are given by Vadim V. Erlikhman. Population losses in the 20th century.: Reference book// M.: Russkaya Panorama Publishing House, 2004. The documented figures we rely on are significantly lower (see below)
2. Military specialist - short for "military specialist". The concept was used in the first years of Soviet power and meant - "military specialist of the old Russian army, serving in the Red Army."
3. Assessment of the Commission under the President of the Russian Federation for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions, 2000
4. On October 6, 1991, the Decree of the President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin on the dissolution of the CPSU and the prohibition of the activities of its army and industrial organizations, which legally secured the dismantling of the CPSU, which had ruled the country for more than seventy years.
5. Victor V. Luneev. Political crime // M., State and law, 1994. No. 7. P. 107-127
6. The presented table includes data from the reports of the military counterintelligence agencies "SMERSH" ("Death to spies") for 1943-1946.
7. See: Pavel M. Polyan. Not on their own / / M., 2001; Stalin's deportations: 1928-1953//Compiled by Nikolay Pobol., Pavel Polyan// M., 2005.
8. Grigory Pomerants. The investigation is conducted by a convict//M., Peak. 2004, p.151.
9. Rehabilitation: how it was. Documents of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, transcripts of the meeting of the Commission of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU for additional study of materials related to the repressions that took place in the period of the 30-40s and early 50s, and other materials / / M., MFD, 2004, T .3, p. 77.
10. Rehabilitation: how it was ... V.3, p. 142.
11. Rehabilitation: how it was.. V.3, p. 197-198.
12. Rehabilitation: how it was ... V.3, p. 345.
13. Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 1655 of 09/08/1955 “On the length of service, employment and pension provision of citizens unreasonably prosecuted and subsequently rehabilitated” / / Sat. legislative and normative acts on repressions and rehabilitation of victims of political repressions. M., publishing house "Respublika", 1993.
14. From the Report of the Commission under the President of the Russian Federation for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions, 2011.
15. accurate information about parents
16. Lischenets - the unofficial name of a citizen of the USSR or Union republics, in 1918-1936. deprived of voting rights in accordance with the Constitutions of the RSFSR of 1918 and 1925. According to the results of the All-Union Census of 1926, the population in the USSR was 147,027,915 people. There were 1,040,894 people deprived of the right to vote in the country (1.63% of the total number of voters). 43.3% of them were merchants and intermediaries. Then followed the clergy and monks - 15.2%; living on unearned income - 13.8%; former tsarist officers and other ranks - 9%. Adult (over 18 years old) family members of the dispossessed also did not have the right to vote. Those were 6.4%. In 1927, already 3,038,739 people (4.27% of voters) did not have the right to vote. By this time, the number of merchants (down to 24.8%) and clergymen (up to 8.3%) among the deprived had decreased, but the number of family members of those deprived of their rights had increased - up to 38.5%. All-Union census of the population of 1926. M.: Edition of the Central Statistical Bureau of the USSR, 1928-29. For more information about the fate of the deprived, see Krasilnikov S.A. At the breaks of the social structure: Marginals in post-revolutionary Russian society (1917 - late 1930s). - Novosibirsk, NSU, 1998.
17. Y. Kantor "The Living and the Dead". Rossiyskaya gazeta, Federal issue No. 6088 (112), 05/28/2013

cult of personality political repression rehabilitation

Until the second half of the 1980s, it was not customary to think, much less talk about the rehabilitation of victims of mass political repressions as a process of moral cleansing of society, the restoration of historical justice. A whole period of the life of the country, and quite a significant one, fell out of national history.

Formally, the rehabilitation process took place as early as the late 1930s. He was associated with the arrival of Beria to the leadership of the NKVD and the removal of Yezhov from his post. At that time, a significant number of convicts were released from places of detention for short terms. But that, however, was the end of the matter. Here we are not talking about genuine rehabilitation, but only about certain political and even just tactical motives.

If we talk about real rehabilitation, then it must be counted from 1956, that is, from the 20th Party Congress. But, again, it was a purely legal rehabilitation: the public was not informed about the scale of the tragedy that was happening in the country. In addition, there was no material compensation for the victims: two salaries, which everyone knows about, do not compensate for 15-20 years spent in prisons, camps, exiles. And yet the process began and until 1962-1963 was quite active. Although, again, he touched mainly on persons who were imprisoned at that time. Special commissions were created to review the cases of convicts, and very many of them were released. Indeed, a great and important work was begun. But then the process of rehabilitation, due to well-known political events, began to stop. In the late 1970s, the name of Stalin began to revive, nostalgic films and books appeared, where he was given far from the last role, the restoration of historical justice was completely forgotten. The rehabilitation process can be conditionally divided into the following stages:

• - 1939-1940 - the first wave or partial rehabilitation associated with the cessation of mass arrests, the revision of a number of cases against those arrested and convicted;
• - 1953-1954 - review of archival criminal cases convicted for political reasons in the post-war period;
• - 1956 - mid-1960s - the rehabilitation of victims of political repression, arising from the decisions of the XX Congress of the CPSU and the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of May 4, 1956;
• - the middle of the 1960s - the beginning of the 1980s - the gradual suspension of the rehabilitation process, the revision of archival criminal cases only at the request of citizens;
• - from the second half of the 1980s - mass rehabilitation of victims of political repression, carried out on a clear legal basis.

The final period of rehabilitation has both common features with the previous stages: it began "from above" by the decision of the country's top party leadership and, above all, by the will of its leader, was at first half-hearted, and its own characteristics. Rehabilitation has become massive. On its wave, public organizations were created throughout the country, for example, "Memorial" in Moscow, uniting hundreds of thousands of innocent people or their relatives. Books of memory of those who died in the years of arbitrariness were published. Burial sites were searched. Documents and materials from the period of repressions from the archives of special services were declassified.

Finally, a solid legal framework has been created. The Law of the Russian Federation "On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions", Decrees of the President and Decrees of the Government of the Russian Federation not only allowed to return the honest name to all victims of repression for political, social and religious reasons in the country, starting from 1917, including dispossessed, Soviet prisoners of war, dissidents, but also provided for the full restoration of the rights of the rehabilitated, including material compensation for confiscated or seized property.

The resumption of the rehabilitation process became possible due to the socio-political changes in the country, democratization and publicity, which stirred up society and aroused an unprecedented interest in historical science.

The second half of the 1980s is a time of critical reflection on the past and present. Already after the publication of the first results of rehabilitation, many experienced shocks, even the shock of reading the terrible pages of Stalin's crimes. But there were also quite a few who demanded an end to the further filling of "blank spots", who went out and until now go out into the streets with portraits of Stalin. Therefore, it is necessary to limit in every possible way the influence of neo-Stalinists on our political life in order to prevent the repetition of past mistakes. Indeed, in the conditions of reforming modern society, aggravated by crisis phenomena, it is not difficult to find new enemies of the people.

The interests of the individual, society and the state require the full truth, no matter how difficult and difficult it may be. And therefore there should be no inaccessible archival documents for specialists. In accordance with the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation "On the removal of restrictive stamps from legislative and other acts that served as the basis for mass repressions and infringements on human rights", the decisions of government and party bodies, instructions and orders of the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD, which constituted the legal basis of lawlessness, were declassified and terror, minutes of meetings of extrajudicial bodies, information on the number of persons who were unjustifiably subjected to criminal and administrative proceedings for political and religious beliefs, official correspondence and other archival materials related to the period of mass repressions. A large number of documents from the archives of special services discovered in the course of the rehabilitation work makes it possible to include new information and facts in the information historical space. They clearly show that at certain stages the activities of the VChK-KGB bodies were regulated by the norms of Soviet law. Unfortunately, the existence of the above acts could not prevent the state security agencies from committing gross violations of the law. To a large extent, this became possible as a result of Stalin's personality cult, the loss of control over the work of the Cheka-KGB employees by the highest bodies of state power.

It is well known that the greatest number of repressions occurred in the mid-1930s. Documents from the FSB archive say that preparations for the "great terror" have been going on for many years. For example, the state system of total observation of the spiritual life of people, the control of their thoughts and statements began back in the 1920s, when some freedom of existence of public organizations was preserved, there was an intra-party struggle in the leadership of the CPSU (b), and the OGPU, on the instructions of the party center, already "tracked" public and political moods.

Restoring historical justice today, of course, one should not shift all the blame for crimes and mistakes onto Stalin alone. Many of his entourage voluntarily or unwittingly contributed to the creation of the Stalinist cult, although later they themselves became its victims.

In our country, the problem of restoring historical justice and protecting the individual from lawlessness has become the touchstone of democratization, and its resolution is one of the pillars of the new political mechanism. The protest against the excessive arbitrariness of the state from the very beginning turned into a nucleus, around which a broader anti-Stalinist wave objectively formed. The condemnation of the past was one of the most important levers for moving forward the policy of transforming society. Mass rehabilitation, carried out since the second half of the 1980s, made it possible to slightly open the unknown pages of our history, to take a different look and evaluate the events of those distant years. At the same time, it raised a number of new questions. Rehabilitation means restoration and, therefore, along with the abolition of illegal decisions, it involves the restoration of the socio-political and property rights of the victims. However, if in the first case the results are obvious, then in the second, despite the ever-increasing flow of requests and applications, the issues of material compensation to rehabilitated citizens or their relatives are still not fully resolved.

Rehabilitation was slow, contradictory and painful. It's not completed. Its implementation took place and is taking place in a fierce struggle between democratic and pro-communist forces. It began shortly after Stalin's death. On September 1, 1953, the Special Meeting was abolished by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Complaints and statements of those convicted by the OGPU collegium, "troikas" ("twos") and the Special Meeting began to be considered by the USSR Prosecutor's Office, but with a preliminary conclusion of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Supreme Court of the USSR was given the right to review the decisions of the special boards, "troikas" and the Special Meeting. Until 1954, 827,692 people convicted in 1917-1953 were rehabilitated. Rehabilitation almost did not concern serious charges. Of all those rehabilitated to death, only 1,128 people, or 0.14%, were sentenced (hereinafter, statistical data taken from the official materials of the Central Archive of the KGB-MB-FSK-FSB of Russia are used).
The punitive authorities in every possible way prevented objective rehabilitation and kept it under their control. To this end, the Prosecutor General of the USSR, the Minister of Justice of the USSR, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR and the Chairman of the KGB of the USSR on May 19, 1954 issued a joint top secret order No. in relation to convicts who are still serving their sentences, i.e. those who were mostly repressed when they were officials in power. The review of cases was supposed to be its own, departmental. For this, a Central Commission was created, which included the Prosecutor General, the Chairman of the KGB, the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Minister of Justice, the head of SMERSH, the head of the Main Directorate of Military Tribunals. She was ordered to review cases against persons convicted by the central authorities. The cases of the repressed on the ground were supposed to be reviewed by republican, regional and regional commissions, consisting of the heads of the same punitive bodies. According to the authors of the order, the decision of these commissions must be final. However, this did not work out.
By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of August 19, 1955, which was not published, the Supreme Court of the USSR (which, perhaps, was a little less in the blood of innocent people than the KGB), was allowed to review the decisions of the Central Commission, and on March 24, 1956 The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR formed its own commissions to check on the ground the validity of the detention of convicted persons accused of committing "political crimes". These commissions were also given the right to make final decisions. From the content of the analyzed normative acts on the procedure for rehabilitation, it can be seen that all the bodies involved in the repressions did not want to let go of control over rehabilitation.
On February 25, 1956, on the last day of the XX Congress of the CPSU, N.S. Khrushchev "On the cult of personality and its consequences". This was the first official recognition of Stalin's repressions. On August 7, 1957, by a closed Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Supreme Courts of the Union republics and the military tribunals of the districts (fleets) on the protests of the relevant prosecutors were also given the right to review all cases, including decisions of the Central and local commissions under the punitive bodies, and a few days later - and decisions of the commissions of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. During 1954-1961. 737,182 more people were rehabilitated (this number includes those convicted after 1953), including 353,231 people (47.9%) sentenced to death.
In the early 60s. the rehabilitation process began to be deliberately slowed down, the staff of the departments of the prosecutor's offices involved in the preparation of materials for submitting protests was reduced. And with the removal of Khrushchev in October 1964, mass rehabilitation practically stopped. For 25 years (1962-1987) only 157,055 people were rehabilitated. This process resumed only in 1988. Until 1993, another 1,264,750 people were acquitted (since 1992, only those convicted in Russia have been rehabilitated). In total, 2,986,679 repressed were personally rehabilitated. However, this is far from a complete account of lawlessness. It was almost impossible to open them during an individual review of the existing criminal cases after repeated efforts by the KGB. Therefore, the path of group rehabilitation began to be developed.
On January 16, 1989, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "On additional measures to restore justice in relation to the victims of repression that took place in the period of the 1930s-40s and early 50s," all decisions made by the "troikas", special boards and special meetings were canceled out-of-court decisions. This, however, was not enough. On November 14, 1989, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a declaration "On recognizing illegal and criminal repressive acts against peoples subjected to forced resettlement and ensuring their rights." But this did not solve all the issues. By a decree of the President of the USSR of August 13, 1990, repressions against peasants during the period of forced collectivization and other citizens repressed for political, social, national, religious and other reasons in the 20-50s were recognized as illegal.
The decree did not apply to persons justifiably convicted of crimes against the Motherland and the people. But how to identify them? Only by checking each case. Consequently, group rehabilitation still failed. Moreover, whether a convict was repressed justifiably or unreasonably was decided not by the court, but by private officials in the prosecutor's office. In about t and it turned out a secret rehabilitation of secret condemnations. Other difficulties have emerged. They were overcome in the Law of the RSFSR of April 26, 1991 "On the rehabilitation of repressed peoples" and the Law of the Russian Federation "On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression." The convicts were rehabilitated on decriminalized acts. However, not all compositions considered in the 20-50s. state crimes, were decriminalized, and not all the repressed were convicted illegally. Thus, according to these acts, rehabilitation required an individual approach. In 1993, the Law of the Russian Federation “On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions” was amended to give persons who were denied rehabilitation the right to apply to the court.
One of the last acts of rehabilitation was the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of January 24, 1995 "On the restoration of the legal rights of Russian citizens - former Soviet prisoners of war and civilians repatriated during the Great Patriotic War and in the post-war period." It recognizes as contrary to the fundamental rights of man and citizen, as well as political repression, the actions of the party and state leadership of the former USSR and coercive measures by state bodies taken against Russian citizens - former Soviet military personnel who were captured and surrounded in battles in defense of the Fatherland, and civilians repatriated during the war and in the post-war period. These persons, of whom few are left alive, are issued certificates of participants in the war, and they are subject to social benefits provided for citizens who were subjected to Nazi persecution. Naturally, all this does not apply to those persons who served in the combat and special formations of the Nazi troops and in the police.
And the last. The Law of the RSFSR "On the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples" refers to territorial, political, material, social and cultural rehabilitation. The most difficult was material and especially territorial rehabilitation for Germans, Meskhetian Turks, Crimean Tatars and some peoples of the North Caucasus. Until recently, for example, there has been a search for ways to settle the interethnic conflict between the Ingush and the Ossetians in connection with the territorial rehabilitation of the Ingush.
Not only in Russia, but also in other states formed on the territory of the former USSR, many regulations were adopted that determine the procedure for the rehabilitation of illegally repressed citizens, the restoration of their rights and legitimate interests, the provision of benefits and payment of monetary compensation.

More on the topic § 3. REHABILITATION OF VICTIMS OF POLITICAL REPRESSION:

1. § 2. IDEOLOGICAL AND LEGAL BASIS OF POLITICAL REPRESSIONS
2. § 2. Political and legal tendencies of political repressions in the USSR
3. § 1. The concept of rehabilitation and the grounds for the emergence of the right to rehabilitation
4. § 1. The concept of rehabilitation. Grounds for the emergence of the right to rehabilitation
5. 3.1. The concept and content of the definition of the victim of a crime 3.1.1. The concept of a victim of a crime
6. ON THE MEASURES OF PUNISHMENT FOR THE REPRESSED AND THE NUMBER OF THE SUBJECT TO REPRESSION

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