Stalinist repressions scale and consequences. Stalin's "repressions": what are the real numbers and who made Stalin the murderer of his people

The Sakharov Center hosted a discussion “Stalin’s Terror: Mechanisms and Legal Assessment,” organized jointly with the Free Historical Society. The discussion was attended by Oleg Khlevnyuk, leading researcher at the International Center for the History and Sociology of the Second World War and Its Consequences at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, and Nikita Petrov, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Memorial Center. Lenta.ru recorded the main points of their speeches.

Oleg Khlevnyuk:

Historians have long been grappling with the question of whether Stalin's repressions were necessary from the point of view of elementary expediency. Most experts are inclined to believe that such methods are not necessary for the progressive development of the country.

There is a point of view according to which terror became a kind of response to the crisis in the country (in particular, the economic one). I believe that Stalin decided to carry out repressions on such a scale precisely because everything was relatively good in the USSR by that time. After the completely disastrous first five-year plan, the policy of the second five-year plan was more balanced and successful. As a result, the country entered the so-called three good years (1934-1936), which were marked by successful rates of industrial growth, the abolition of the rationing system, the emergence of new incentives to work and relative stabilization in the countryside.

It was terror that plunged the country's economy and social well-being into a new crisis. If there had been no Stalin, then there would not have been not only mass repressions (at least in 1937-1938), but also collectivization in the form in which we know it.

Terror or fight against enemies of the people?

From the very beginning, the Soviet authorities did not try to hide the terror. The USSR government tried to make trials as public as possible, not only within the country, but also in the international arena: transcripts of court hearings were published in the main European languages.

The attitude towards terrorism was not clear from the very beginning. For example, the American Ambassador to the USSR Joseph Davis believed that enemies of the people were really in the dock. At the same time, the left defended the innocence of their comrades - the Old Bolsheviks.

Later, experts began to pay attention to the fact that terror was a broader process that covered not only the top of the Bolsheviks - after all, people of intellectual labor also fell into its millstones. But at that time, due to a lack of sources of information, there were no clear ideas about how all this was happening, who was being arrested and why.

Some Western historians continued to defend the theory of the significance of terror, while revisionist historians said that terror was a spontaneous, rather random phenomenon, to which Stalin himself had nothing to do. Some wrote that the number of those arrested was small and numbered in the thousands.

When the archives were opened, more accurate figures became known, and departmental statistics from the NKVD and MGB appeared, which recorded arrests and convictions. The Gulag statistics contained figures on the number of prisoners in the camps, mortality, and even the national composition of prisoners.

It turned out that this Stalinist system was extremely centralized. We saw how mass repressions were planned in full accordance with the planned nature of the state. At the same time, the true scope of Stalin’s terror was not determined by routine political arrests. It was expressed in large waves - two of them are associated with collectivization and the Great Terror.

In 1930, it was decided to launch an operation against peasant kulaks. The corresponding lists were prepared locally, the NKVD issued orders on the progress of the operation, and the Politburo approved them. They were executed with certain excesses, but everything happened within the framework of this centralized model. Until 1937, the mechanics of repression were worked out, and in 1937-1938 it was applied in its most complete and expanded form.

Prerequisites and basis of repression

Nikita Petrov:

All the necessary laws on the judicial system were adopted in the country back in the 1920s. The most important can be considered the law of December 1, 1934, which deprived the accused of the right to defense and cassation appeal of the verdict. It provided for the consideration of cases in the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court in a simplified manner: behind closed doors, in the absence of the prosecutor and defense attorneys, with the execution of the death sentence within 24 hours after its passing.

According to this law, all cases received by the Military Collegium in 1937-1938 were considered. Then about 37 thousand people were convicted, of which 25 thousand were sentenced to death.

Khlevnyuk:

The Stalinist system was designed to suppress and instill fear. Soviet society at that time needed forced labor. Various types of campaigns also played a role - for example, elections. However, there was a certain single impulse that gave special acceleration to all these factors precisely in 1937-38: the threat of war, already completely obvious at that time.

Stalin considered it very important not only to build up military power, but also to ensure the unity of the rear, which implied the destruction of the internal enemy. That's why the idea of ​​getting rid of all those who could stab you in the back arose. The documents leading to this conclusion are numerous statements by Stalin himself, as well as the orders on the basis of which the terror was carried out.

Enemies of the regime were fought out of court

Petrov:

The decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated July 2, 1937, signed by Stalin, marked the beginning of the “kulak operation.” In the preamble to the document, the regions were asked to set quotas for future extrajudicial sentences of execution and imprisonment of those arrested in camps, as well as to propose compositions of “troikas” for passing sentences.

Khlevnyuk:

The mechanics of the 1937-1938 operations were similar to those used in 1930, but it is important to note here that by 1937, NKVD records already existed on various enemies of the people and suspicious elements. The center decided to liquidate or isolate these registration contingents from society.

The limits on arrests established in the plans were in fact not limits at all, but minimum requirements, so NKVD officials set a course for exceeding these plans. This was even necessary for them, since internal instructions directed them to identify not individuals, but groups of unreliable people. The authorities believed that a lone enemy was not an enemy.

This resulted in the original limits being continually exceeded. Requests for the need for additional arrests were sent to Moscow, which promptly satisfied them. A significant part of the norms was approved personally by Stalin, the other - personally by Yezhov. Some were changed by decision of the Politburo.

Petrov:

It was decided to put an end to any hostile activity once and for all. It is this phrase that is inserted into the preamble of NKVD order No. 00447 of July 30, 1937 on the “kulak operation”: he ordered it to begin in most regions of the country on August 5, and on August 10 and 15 in Central Asia and the Far East.

There were meetings in the center, the heads of the NKVD came to see Yezhov. He told them that if an extra thousand people suffered during this operation, then there would be no big problem. Most likely, Yezhov did not say this himself - we recognize here the signs of Stalin's great style. The leader regularly had new ideas. There is his letter to Yezhov, in which he writes about the need to extend the operation and gives instructions (in particular, regarding the Socialist Revolutionaries).

Then the attention of the system turned to the so-called counter-revolutionary national elements. About 15 operations were carried out against counter-revolutionaries Poles, Germans, Balts, Bulgarians, Iranians, Afghans, former employees of the Chinese Eastern Railway - all these people were suspected of spying for those states to which they were ethnically close.

Each operation is characterized by a special mechanism of action. The repression of the kulaks did not reinvent the wheel: “troikas” as an instrument of extrajudicial reprisals were tested back during the Civil War. According to the correspondence of the top leadership of the OGPU, it is clear that in 1924, when the Moscow student unrest occurred, the mechanics of terror had already been perfected. “We need to assemble a troika, as has always been the case in troubled times,” writes one functionary to another. The Troika is an ideology and partly a symbol of the Soviet repressive authorities.

The mechanism of national operations was different - they used the so-called two. No limits were set on them.

Similar things happened when Stalin’s execution lists were approved: their fate was decided by a narrow group of people - Stalin and his inner circle. These lists contain personal notes from the leader. For example, opposite the name of Mikhail Baranov, head of the Sanitary Department of the Red Army, he writes “beat-beat.” In another case, Molotov wrote “VMN” (capital punishment) next to one of the women’s names.

There are documents according to which Mikoyan, who went to Armenia as an emissary of terror, asked to shoot an additional 700 people, and Yezhov believed that this figure needed to be increased to 1500. Stalin agreed with the latter on this issue, because Yezhov knew better. When Stalin was asked to give an additional limit on the execution of 300 people, he easily wrote “500”.

There is a debatable question about why limits were set for the “kulak operation”, but not for, for example, national ones. I think that if the “kulak operation” had no boundaries, then the terror could have become absolute, because too many people fit the category of “anti-Soviet element.” In national operations, more clear criteria were established: people with connections in other countries who arrived from abroad were repressed. Stalin believed that the circle of people here was more or less clear and delineated.

Mass operations were centralized

A corresponding propaganda campaign was carried out. Enemies of the people who infiltrated the NKVD and slanderers were blamed for unleashing the terror. Interestingly, the idea of ​​denunciations as a reason for repression is not documented. During mass operations, the NKVD functioned according to completely different algorithms, and if they responded to denunciations, it was quite selective and random. We mostly worked according to pre-prepared lists.

Quite a lot has been written about Stalin's repressions. Over the past 20 years, they have become the main argument of the liberal part of society and the media, which is used mainly for a specific, poorly disguised purpose. This goal is to discredit the Soviet system and, as a consequence, the population of the USSR. Indeed: taking such a phenomenon as political repression out of its historical context and blaming it that regime, gentlemen liberals blame the people who carried that same regime in their arms, and were (oh horror!) even happy under it. The Gulag system is presented as an exceptional invention of the Bolshevik regime, and the people who carried out the repressions are presented as bloody executioners with sadistic tendencies. However, this is not obvious to me personally.

I do not deny the existence of political repression and the repressive apparatus in the USSR. And I’m not trying to justify or condemn anyone. I want to try to objectively understand what was happening then and evaluate it in the context of history and the spirit of that time.

I’ll tell my opponents right away: I’m not a historian, I don’t have access to archives, and all the information I used was taken from open sources, which (at the time of writing) had not been refuted by anyone. Therefore, this article should be considered as a compilation of already existing sources. If there are reliable refutations of these very sources, then the author is ready to correct and reconsider both this article and his position in relation to political repression. I think, however, that there will be no denials. Since the collapse of the USSR, there has been more than enough time and opportunities for refutations.

1. Prerequisites.

1.1. Russia on the eve of repression.

It is not customary to say what state Russia was in at the time of the creation of the Gulag and at the beginning of the repressions themselves. We are not talking about geographical and economic factors, but exclusively about the moral and spiritual state of society. You need to have a clear idea of ​​what human life was worth in a country that has suffered 3 revolutions and 3 wars since the beginning of the 20th century, in a country where serfdom was abolished less than 70 years ago. Those who do not have the information get the wrong idea that Russia was in prosperity and prosperity, and then the terrible Gulag fell on it!

Here are the numbers taken from sources:

Population of the Russian Empire at the beginning of 1914 - 165.7 million people

Population of Russia, 1926 - 92.7 million people (Finland, Poland, etc. left the Empire)

Killed or died from wounds in the Russo-Japanese War - 50,688 people

Killed and died from wounds of the 1st World War (including civilians) - 3,324,369 people.

Killed during the civil war (on both sides) - 10.5 million people

In total, it turns out that only in the wars from 1904 to 1920. Russia lost about 14 million killed, i.e. almost every 12th inhabitant of the empire. If we take into account the uneven distribution of the dead according to the ethnic-regional composition, then we can safely talk about every 10th dead in the Russian part of the country. Taking into account the fact that the main percentage of losses were men aged 20 to 40 years, it turns out that every 5th person in this age category was killed!
Unfortunately, I do not have data on deaths from criminal offenses resulting in death. I think it makes no sense to provide data on the number of sick people left homeless, disabled people and orphans. Obviously, at the turning point of history, their number is terrifying.

I have given the number of victims for the purpose of making it clear with what attitude society (especially its active part, men from 20 to 40) approached human life at the time of the creation of the Gulag and the beginning of the political repressions themselves. I assume that society was ready to solve problems by eliminating objectionable ones, and did not counteract this in any way. And there were no other methods of political struggle. The cost of a single human life was minuscule.

1.2. The world around Russia at that time.

As already mentioned in the introduction, the creation of the Gulag, the repressive apparatus, and the implementation of the repressions themselves are attributed exclusively to the bloody Stalinist regime.

It must be said that if this were so, then Stalin and his associates could be considered geniuses (of course, evil ones) in the field of culling those undesirable to their power. But is this really so? Was it really true that in such a short period of time, without any experience or regard for anyone else, such a monstrous machine was created to destroy its own people?

As the source tells us, It is generally accepted that the first concentration camps in the modern sense were created by Lord Kitchener for Boer families in South Africa during the Boer War of 1899-1902. That is, the priority in creating a mechanism of repression does not belong to the Bolsheviks. Moreover, among those who hastened to create such institutions on their territories are almost all countries of the so-called “democratic camp.” And to speak about the development of infrastructure for the detention and “re-education” of prisoners is generally pointless, because enlightened Europe with its centuries-old traditions of torture and torment was engaged in this. What was the cost of the Holy Inquisition alone! If anyone doubts that such an experience occurred, I can suggest reading the article by Alexander Goryanin “The Price of Human Life. Truth and myths about Russian murderers and Western European tyrants." Here I will just give a quote:

I’m sorry, but I have to say an unpleasant thing: the history of Western civilization does not inspire enormous optimism - its practice was so bloody and brutal. And not only in the distant past - in the twentieth century too. In terms of the scale of bloodletting and atrocities, the 20th century surpassed any past. By and large, there are no guarantees that this civilization will not return to its usual practices.

Torture of a prisoner of war in a German camp during World War I

It is also necessary to say that Europe suffered from the 1st World War no less than Russia. According to the source, the count was tens of millions of people. Need I say that in the face of so many victims, the very fact of death ceases to be something shocking, out of the ordinary? Masses of prisoners from different sides had to be kept somewhere, and if anyone knows what to do with tens of thousands who are ready, upon returning to their homeland, to take up arms again and kill your soldiers - let them write, it will be very interesting to know a different opinion. But in those years, the reality was that the concentration camp was nothing more than an alternative to the mass extermination of unarmed prisoners.

The most democratic state in the world has not gone far. Let’s leave aside the genocide of the indigenous population and the creation of reservations for them with inhumane conditions. We will never find true numbers on this topic. But already in recent history, in the blessed 20th century, 8.5 million people were involved in public works in the United States. They lived in inhumane conditions in camps that were no different from the Gulag, and perhaps even worse. The main difference was that in the USSR in the GULAG imprisoned for a crime, and in the USA a person was simply left no choice, and he himself went to voluntary humiliation, and sometimes death.

So was the Gulag an invention of the “bloody” Stalinist regime? Not at all. Yes, he was his creation, but not his invention! Well, then maybe this regime invented such an abomination as the repressions themselves? If we look at the article about repressions, we will immediately see that the root of evil lies in the depths of centuries! Because long before the Stalinist repressions the following were already well known:
Repressions of the period of Byzantine iconoclasm (8th - early 9th centuries)
Oprichnina (1564—1572, Russia)
St. Bartholomew's Night (August 24, 1572, France)
Jacobin terror (1793-1794, France)
And if you think a little more, then repressions as such are generally a biblical story, and they existed as long as humanity existed. Just remember how Joshua exterminated the local population upon his arrival in Canaan, or how King David did when seizing territories the same. They didn’t do it because they liked it. In this way they suppressed resistance! Well, why not repression?

The fact that the camps and the mechanism for combating dissent were not invented by the leaders of Bolshevik Russia undoubtedly does not justify the repression of the innocent (if there were any). However, this does not give those who condone the genocide of the Russian people now the right to weave the most tragic moments from the history of the Great Country and give them a vile coloring.

2. Reasons.

It is generally accepted to classify all those who are politically repressed as victims. . Perhaps there were victims among them. But that’s not all! A person who has suffered at the hands of a criminal in a criminal case can be recognized as a victim. In this case, the cases should be reviewed, and those rehabilitated should not only be declared as such, but also acquitted by the court, and not by the rehabilitation commission. And those through whose fault they suffered must be convicted, recognized as criminals, and only then those rehabilitated can be recognized as victims! But as we know, this does not happen. Then something else happens. Russian Presidential Council for Human Rights I decided to take the shortest route, condemning everything and everyone in general, without going into the essence of what was happening then. However, this is the history of my country, and I would really like to know what caused those events. Where was the appropriate destruction of enemies, and where was the fight for good performance and stars on uniform? We are only interested in the truth about what really happened.

I feel sorry for the innocent victims of the political struggle. And in purely human terms they can be called victims. But to restore the truth, it is necessary to know exactly the reasons that prompted the government that was then at the head of the state to act in this way in relation to its own citizens. The gentlemen liberals have a ready-made formula for this: they were sadists, murderers, and any slightest dissent was only an excuse to carry out their manic plans. Is it so? Let's try to figure it out.

Those who think that after the revolution and a rather destructive civil war, peace, order, and the unanimous desire of all survivors to build a bright future reigned on the territory of the USSR are at least mistaken. And if this is a mistake, it is solely due to ignorance of the laws of that time and the realities that these laws created. But the realities were as follows: not all citizens of the country of the Soviets wanted to build that same bright future. Maybe someone will be surprised, but the former counts, princes, state councilors, collegiate assessors and others like them, of whom there are sufficient numbers left in the vastness of the RSFSR, did not really want simple peaceful labor! Not all White Guards were swept away by the Red Army on the civilian battlefields. Many dug in in the rear without having time, or without wanting to immigrate. Add here simply sympathizers who lived well under the master. There was also an internal criminal element that periodically robbed and killed. And if a party worker turned out to be killed, then the criminal was already charged with political charges. And the most interesting thing, which certainly passes by, and which now for some reason causes unhealthy laughter, is the presence of spies and other agents sent in. Do you think it's paranoia? Then I suggest you read the article by S.I. Tarasov. Here's a small excerpt:

...I came across a book by English authors Michael Sayers and Albert Kann, “The Fifth Column of the Secret War against Russia,” published in 1947 in four books on more than 450 pages. The authors immediately point out: “Not a single episode of the book is the author’s fiction... All conversations given in the book are taken from memoirs, from official reports or from other official sources.”

…………………………………………………

But what do we read in the book?

Firstly, the onset of counter-revolution began in Russia even before the October Revolution. The authors prove that the English and French bourgeoisie already in the summer of 1917 relied on Kornilov so that he would not allow the country to leave the war and would defend their financial interests in it: “In the ranks of Kornilov’s army in August 1917 there were French and English officers in Russian uniforms ", they testify.

As for Trotsky, his agent N. Krestinsky (who was secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) before Stalin and then held high political and diplomatic positions for a long time) “from 1923 to 1930 received from the German Reichswehr approximately 2 million gold marks to finance Trotskyist activities in exchange for spy information."

Since 1931, Trotsky, after being expelled from the USSR, “firmly took the position of violently overthrowing the Stalinist leadership by methods of terror and sabotage.”

In 1935, Trotsky wrote: in order to come to power... “it will inevitably have to make territorial concessions. We will have to cede Primorye and the Amur region to Japan, and Ukraine to Germany.”

At the same time, he concluded a specific five-point agreement with the Nazis:

- to guarantee a generally favorable attitude towards the German government...

- agree to territorial concessions...

- allow German entrepreneurs to operate enterprises that are vital to them in the USSR...

- create favorable conditions for the activities of German investors...

- to launch active sabotage work at military enterprises and at the front during the war (he believed that we were talking about 1937).

Tukhachevsky and his supporters knew about Trotsky’s deal with the Reichswehr, but considered it a “political” agreement. Tukhachevsky had his own plans: to establish a military dictatorship, making scapegoats of the political leaders of the conspiracy.

But the Soviet government was ahead of the conspirators. The trial in the Tukhachevsky case was the shortest and took only two days - June 11 and 12, 1937.

Lies? Oh, how I would like to believe the liberal public and progressive journalists that this is a lie! Moreover, Krestinsky was rehabilitated in 1963. in the course of the fight against the “cult of personality.” However, the source indicated by the author is precisely from there, from the birthplace of liberalism! What, gentlemen, liberals, will you no longer trust your own people? However, if anyone can refute it, we’ll be happy to read it! And the rehabilitation of the “innocents” in the 60s of the last century is very dubious. According to Valentin Falin, who was secretary of the CPSU Central Committee in those years, “...an entire KGB department of 200 people was planted to erase Khrushchev’s name from the archives. What could not be erased was simply destroyed stung." With a high degree of probability, it can be assumed that the rehabilitation proceeded in a similar way, with the aim of discrediting the name of Stalin, which was very beneficial to Khrushchev.

The above example is just one of many. But it vividly reflects what was happening at that time, and the intensity of the political struggle within the country.

In fact, to understand the essence of political repression, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with the list of articles of the Criminal Code of that time, or even better, with the articles themselves. Here is a list of the titles of these articles:

Treason to the Motherland (Article 58-1a, b)

Espionage (Art. 58-1a, b, 6; Art. 193-24)

Terror (v.58-8)

Terrorist intent

Sabotage (v.58-9)

Sabotage (vv.58-7)

Counter-revolutionary sabotage (except for those convicted of refusing to work in camps and escapes) (Article 58-14)

Counter-revolutionary sabotage (for refusing to work in the camp) (Article 58-14)

Counter-revolutionary sabotage (for escaping from places of detention) (Article 58-14)

Participation in anti-Soviet conspiracies, anti-Soviet organizations and groups (Article 58, paragraphs 2, 3, 4, 5, 11)

Anti-Soviet agitation (Articles 58-10, 59-7)

Insurgency and political banditry (Article 58, paragraph 2; 59, paragraphs 2, 3, 3b)

Members of the families of traitors to the Motherland (Article 58-1c)

Now please tell me which items from the list need to be deleted, taking into account the presence of internal and external enemies of the government, so that in the course of building the national economy and preparing the country for a terrible (as it later turned out) war, we would not subsequently receive accusations of tyranny? I recommend that you read the contents of the articles themselves. Even the controversial Article 58-1c, as it turned out later, is not always unjustifiably cruel. Remember how in 1976, Lieutenant Viktor Belenko stole the newest Mig-25 fighter from the seaside air base in Sokolovka? But he had a wife and a child who had NOTHING! It is possible that the Soviet government could afford the luxury of forgiving relatives of traitors. And in this particular case, I believe that the wife and child are really not to blame. But in the 20-40s the situation was completely different. And if Belenko built his plans quietly, within himself, then those crimes listed above would have been impossible to hide from family members. And it was a good incentive not to commit a crime at all, knowing in advance what awaited your relatives. This technique, by the way, is still used by democratic Israel to this day.

3. Conclusions.

Here we need to try to answer 2 main questions that arise in connection with the above: was it possible for the country that existed in that historical period to do without a political repressive apparatus and is it necessary to condemn that government and the country that carried out these same repressions?

The most important thing that we can understand by answering these questions is what to do with those who are now tearing the country apart, stealing its wealth, lining their own pockets. Isn’t this what some of the modern elite is fighting for, fighting for de-Stalinization (almost 60 years after Stalin’s death!), and throwing mud at the history of the USSR, so that the fate of politically repressed victims would never affect them?

In fairness, it must be admitted that the repressive apparatus, conceived with the aim of strengthening and preserving the state, periodically failed, because was imperfect. It is difficult to say now what reasons he had for the repression of people who not only did not bring any harm to the country, but were not even its ideological enemies.

John (Smirnov). Orthodox saint

December 7, 1937 - by a troika of the USSR NKVD in the Moscow region he was sentenced to death for “counter-revolutionary fascist agitation” (Article 58-10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR).

On December 10, 1937, he was shot at the Butovo training ground (Moscow region, Butovo village).

From the testimony of a witness in the case of Sschmch. Ioanna V.D. Lebedeva (b. 1884), November 13, 1937: “Smirnov declared that the Soviet government would soon be overthrown, and in vain the workers are trying to elect their deputies to the Supreme Council, the moment is not far off when I will deal with myself communists are dealt with as the fascists deal with in Germany."

On January 25, 1957, V.D. Lebedeva was interrogated again. A fragment of her testimony: “I recognized Smirnov around 1924, when he moved into our house. I got to know him better in 1929, when Smirnov moved to live in the same apartment with me. I had no other neighbors. Smirnov lived in the room 9 meters together with his adult daughter Maria, 22 - 23 years old, who... was studying foreign languages... Smirnov was a modest, taciturn person... only his wife and second daughter came to see him, but did not spend the night. I know nothing about Smirnov’s anti-Soviet activities... A few days before Smirnov’s arrest, I was summoned to the investigative authorities and interrogated regarding Smirnov... I gave testimony regarding autobiographical data on Smirnov, which I knew from the words of Smirnov himself... However, I did not give any testimony about Smirnov’s anti-Soviet activities then, nor did I they were not interrogated on this issue... The protocol of my interrogation after it was written was read to me by the investigator.However, nothing was recorded in it about Smirnov’s anti-Soviet statements. I remember that when I signed the interrogation protocol, I did not sign immediately after the text, but at the very bottom, where the investigator indicated to me... There was a space of several lines left unfilled. I was afraid to tell the investigator about this at the time, and I believed that this was the way it should be."

Who's lying here? Investigator? Citizen Smirnova? Who is the nameless informer? What are the true reasons for convicting a person of a serious crime and his execution? Alas, there are no answers, just as there is no excuse... And, most likely, this person is truly an innocent victim.

But is this a reason to criticize an entire era that brought the country to the level of a world superpower? What, maybe the innocent aren’t suffering now? Including in the most democratic countries? And is this a reason to say that repressions were not needed at all just because there were innocents among those convicted? The repression of the innocent is a tragedy. But this only speaks of imperfect repressive apparatus, and not about the lack of need for them! If we are to seek the truth, then it is necessary (where possible) to reconsider the cases, acquit those convicted, and condemn those who exceeded their powers (according to the laws of that time). Condemn not the activities of the state to protect its interests, but specific people who committed official crimes! But, you understand that all these cases will have to be stopped immediately due to the passage of time and due to the death of the accused, because they are probably no longer alive.

Let's get back to the numbers:

After the death of I.V. Stalin, the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee requested data from law enforcement agencies of the USSR on the number of people convicted of “counter-revolutionary crimes.” In a report presented in February 1954 by the USSR Prosecutor General Rudenko, the Minister of Internal Affairs Kruglov and the Minister of Justice Gorshenin, it was reported that 3,777,380 were convicted under counter-revolutionary articles from 1921 to February 1, 1954, of which 642,980 were sentenced to capital punishment. people, imprisoned in camps and prisons - 2,369,220 people, subject to exile and deportation - 765,180 people. About 2.9 million people were convicted by extrajudicial bodies (the OGPU collegium, “troikas” and the Special Conference), about 900 thousand people - by courts, military tribunals, the Special Collegium and the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court.

That is, there were 3,777,380 people repressed for political reasons during the entire period from the end of the civil war until the death of Stalin. Naturally, this does not include the expelled (not without reason!) Crimean Tatars, Chechens, and others. But excuse me, what kind of political ones are they? And can deportation be called repression in the full sense of the word? After all, they were not resettled to Antarctica, dooming them to starvation. They were resettled to where people lived, Soviet citizens!

By the way, criminals who refused to go to work in the camp fell under Article 58-14 of the Criminal Code, which automatically transferred them to the category of “political”, although de facto they were not such.

We should also not forget about those who were punished FOR REAL crimes against their country and their people. As mentioned above, there were many of them.

The number of rehabilitated people is 634,165 people. But this is for all courts, including those that we did not take into account (not all those rehabilitated were convicted under Article 58)! And for the most part, rehabilitation took place precisely on the principle that at the time of re-examination of the case, this person would not have been tried for this crime! This especially applies to those rehabilitated after 1960, when the criminal code was changed (as is known, the law does not have retroactive effect only in terms of punishment, but not justification). So, in particular, one of my distant relatives was surrounded during the war, and upon emerging from it he appeared before a tribunal. After the penal battalion, he continued to serve in the army, was reinstated in the officer rank, reached Prague, and then also smashed the Japanese army. He returned home with awards and lived and worked peacefully. However, he is probably among those repressed by the tribunal! And it seems to me that if he had lived to this day, and if he had applied for rehabilitation, he would certainly have received it, without being repressed in the full sense of the word! Fortunately, he never spoke badly about either the Soviet regime or that time, although the time was truly difficult.

And now let’s try to answer the main question: was it possible to do without political repression? I think that they could have been avoided in only one way - if the Bolsheviks had not come to power. But if this had happened, it’s scary to think what would have happened to the country. With all the shortcomings of the Soviet system, no other government has done more for the country, for Russia, than the Soviet government did. And I doubt I could do it. There was no such strength in 17th. And since they came to power, then the repressive mechanism would definitely have to be launched! Not a single revolution could have happened without him. No government can exist without a repressive apparatus. And if there is a need to talk about the harm of political repression, then we need to talk about the imperfection of that repressive apparatus, which, by the way, was formed literally on the fly, and it happened that completely random people ended up there. The main mistake in this process is that it was necessary not to mow, as in a field, but to pluck carefully, as in a garden bed! But whether the employees of the repressive bodies had such an opportunity is difficult to say now.

Stalin's repressions occupy one of the central places in the study of the history of the Soviet period.

Briefly characterizing this period, we can say that it was a cruel time, accompanied by mass repressions and dispossession.

What is repression - definition

Repression is a punitive measure that was used by government authorities against people trying to “shatter” the established regime. To a greater extent, this is a method of political violence.

During the Stalinist repressions, even those who had nothing to do with politics or the political system were destroyed. All those who were displeasing to the ruler were punished.

Lists of those repressed in the 30s

The period of 1937-1938 was the peak of repression. Historians called it the “Great Terror.” Regardless of origin, field of activity, during the 1930s, a huge number of people were arrested, deported, shot, and their property was confiscated in favor of the state.

All instructions on a particular “crime” were given personally to I.V. Stalin. It was he who decided where a person was going and what he could take with him.

Until 1991, in Russia there was no complete information on the number of people repressed and executed. But then the period of perestroika began, and this is the time when everything secret became clear. After the lists were declassified, after historians had done a lot of work in the archives and calculated data, truthful information was provided to the public - the numbers were simply terrifying.

Do you know that: According to official statistics, more than 3 million people were repressed.

Thanks to the help of volunteers, lists of victims in 1937 were prepared. Only after this did the relatives find out where their loved one was and what happened to him. But for the most part, they did not find anything comforting, since almost every life of a repressed person ended in execution.

If you need to clarify information about a repressed relative, you can use the website http://lists.memo.ru/index2.htm. On it you can find all the information you need by name. Almost all of those repressed were rehabilitated posthumously; this has always been a great joy for their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The number of victims of Stalin's repressions according to official data

On February 1, 1954, a memo was prepared addressed to N.S. Khrushchev, which contained the exact data of the dead and injured. The number is simply shocking - 3,777,380 people.

The number of those repressed and executed is striking in its scale. So there are officially confirmed data that were announced during the “Khrushchev Thaw”. Article 58 was political, and under it alone about 700 thousand people were sentenced to death.

And how many people died in the Gulag camps, where not only political prisoners were exiled, but also everyone who was not pleasing to the Stalin government.

In 1937-1938 alone, more than 1,200,000 people were sent to the Gulag (according to Academician Sakharov). And only about 50 thousand were able to return home during the “thaw”.

Victims of political repression - who are they?

Anyone could become a victim of political repression during Stalin's time.

The following categories of citizens were most often subjected to repression:

• Peasants. Those who were participants in the “green movement” were especially punished. Kulaks who did not want to join collective farms and who wanted to achieve everything on their own farm on their own were sent into exile, and all their acquired property was confiscated from them in full. And now wealthy peasants became poor.
• The military is a separate layer of society. Ever since the Civil War, Stalin did not treat them very well. Fearing a military coup, the leader of the country repressed talented military leaders, thereby protecting himself and his regime. But, despite the fact that he protected himself, Stalin quickly reduced the country's defense capability, depriving it of talented military personnel.
• All sentences were carried out by NKVD officers. But their repressions were not spared either. Among the workers of the People's Commissariat who followed all the instructions were those who were shot. Such people's commissars as Yezhov and Yagoda became some of the victims of Stalin's instructions.
• Even those who had something to do with religion were subjected to repression. There was no God at that time and faith in him “shaken” the established regime.

In addition to the listed categories of citizens, residents living on the territory of the Union republics suffered. Entire nations were repressed. So, Chechens were simply put into freight cars and sent into exile. At the same time, no one thought about the safety of the family. The father could be dropped off in one place, the mother in another, and the children in a third. No one knew about their family and their whereabouts.

Reasons for the repressions of the 30s

By the time Stalin came to power, a difficult economic situation had developed in the country.

The reasons for the start of repression are considered to be:

1. To save money on a national scale, it was necessary to force the population to work for free. There was a lot of work, but there was nothing to pay for it.
2. After Lenin was killed, the leader's place was vacant. The people needed a leader whom the population would follow unquestioningly.
3. It was necessary to create a totalitarian society in which the word of the leader should be law. At the same time, the measures used by the leader were cruel, but they did not allow organizing a new revolution.

How did the repressions take place in the USSR?

Stalin's repressions were a terrible time when everyone was ready to testify against their neighbor, even fictitiously, if only nothing happened to his family.

The entire horror of the process is captured in Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s work “The Gulag Archipelago”: “A sharp night call, a knock on the door, and several operatives enter the apartment. And behind them stands a frightened neighbor who had to become a witness. He sits all night, and only in the morning puts his signature on terrible and untruthful testimony.”

The procedure is terrible, treacherous, but by doing so, he will probably save his family, but no, the next person they will come to on the new night is him.

Most often, all testimony given by political prisoners was falsified. People were brutally beaten, thereby obtaining the information that was necessary. Moreover, torture was sanctioned personally by Stalin.

The most famous cases about which there is a huge amount of information:

• Pulkovo case. In the summer of 1936, there was supposed to be a solar eclipse across the country. The observatory offered to use foreign equipment in order to capture the natural phenomenon. As a result, all members of the Pulkovo Observatory were accused of having connections with foreigners. Until now, information about the victims and repressed people is classified.
• The case of the industrial party - the Soviet bourgeoisie received the accusation. They were accused of disrupting industrialization processes.
• It's the doctors' business. Doctors who allegedly killed Soviet leaders received charges.

The actions taken by the authorities were brutal. Nobody understood the guilt. If a person was on the list, then he was guilty and no proof was required.

The results of Stalin's repressions

Stalinism and its repressions are probably one of the most terrible pages in the history of our state. The repression lasted almost 20 years, and during this time a huge number of innocent people suffered. Even after the Second World War, repressive measures did not stop.

Stalin's repressions did not benefit society, but only helped the authorities establish a totalitarian regime, which our country could not get rid of for a long time. And residents were afraid to express their opinions. There were no people who didn't like anything. I liked everything - even working for the good of the country for practically nothing.

The totalitarian regime made it possible to build such objects as: BAM, the construction of which was carried out by the GULAG forces.

A terrible time, but it cannot be erased from history, since it was during these years that the country survived the Second World War and was able to restore the destroyed cities.

Public interest in Stalin's repressions continues to exist, and this is no coincidence.
Many feel that today's political problems are somewhat similar.
And some people think that Stalin's recipes might be suitable.

This is, of course, a mistake.
But it is still difficult to justify why this is a mistake using scientific rather than journalistic means.

Historians have figured out the repressions themselves, how they were organized and what their scale was.

Historian Oleg Khlevnyuk, for example, writes that “...now professional historiography has reached a high level of agreement based on in-depth research of archives.”
https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2017/06/29/701835-fenomen-terrora

However, from another of his articles it follows that the reasons for the “Great Terror” are still not entirely clear.
https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2017/07/06/712528-bolshogo-terrora

I have an answer, strict and scientific.

But first, about what “consent of professional historiography” looks like according to Oleg Khlevnyuk.
Let's discard the myths right away.

1) Stalin had nothing to do with it; he, of course, knew everything.
Stalin not only knew, he directed the “great terror” in real time, down to the smallest detail.

2) The “Great Terror” was not an initiative of regional authorities or local party secretaries.
Stalin himself never tried to blame the regional party leadership for the repressions of 1937-1938.
Instead, he proposed a myth about “enemies who infiltrated the ranks of the NKVD” and “slanderers” from ordinary citizens who wrote statements against honest people.

3) The “Great Terror” of 1937-1938 was not at all the result of denunciations.
Denunciations of citizens against each other did not have a significant impact on the course and scale of repressions.

Now about what is known about the “Great Terror of 1937-1938” and its mechanism.

Terror and repressions under Stalin were a constant phenomenon.
But the wave of terror of 1937-1938 was exceptionally large.
In 1937-1938 At least 1.6 million people were arrested, of whom more than 680,000 were executed.

Khlevnyuk gives a simple quantitative calculation:
“Taking into account the fact that the most intensive repressions were used for just over a year (August 1937 - November 1938), it turns out that about 100,000 people were arrested every month, of which more than 40,000 were shot.”
The scale of violence was monstrous!

The opinion that the terror of 1937-1938 consisted of the destruction of the elite: party workers, engineers, military men, writers, etc. not entirely correct.
For example, Khlevnyuk writes that there were several tens of thousands of managers at different levels. Of the 1.6 million victims.

Here's attention!
1) The victims of terror were ordinary Soviet people who did not hold positions and were not members of the party.

2) Decisions to conduct mass operations were made by the leadership, more precisely by Stalin.
The “Great Terror” was a well-organized, planned procession and followed orders from the center.

3) The goal was to “liquidate physically or isolate in camps those groups of the population that the Stalinist regime considered potentially dangerous - former “kulaks”, former officers of the tsarist and white armies, clergy, former members of parties hostile to the Bolsheviks - Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and other “suspicious” , as well as “national counter-revolutionary contingents” - Poles, Germans, Romanians, Latvians, Estonians, Finns, Greeks, Afghans, Iranians, Chinese, Koreans.

4) All “hostile categories” were taken into account in the authorities, according to the available lists, and the first repressions took place.
Subsequently, a chain was launched: arrest-interrogations - testimony - new hostile elements.
That is why arrest limits have increased.

5) Stalin personally directed the repressions.
Here are his orders quoted by the historian:
"Krasnoyarsk. Krasnoyarsk. The arson of the flour mill must be organized by enemies. Take all measures to uncover the arsonists. The perpetrators will be judged expeditiously. The sentence is execution"; “Beat Unschlicht for not handing over Polish agents to the regions”; “To T. Yezhov. Dmitriev seems to be acting rather sluggishly. It is necessary to immediately arrest all (both small and large) participants in the “rebel groups” in the Urals”; "To T. Yezhov. Very important. We need to walk through the Udmurt, Mari, Chuvash, Mordovian republics, walk with a broom"; "To T. Yezhov. Very good! Keep digging and cleaning out this Polish spy dirt"; "To T. Yezhov. The line of the Socialist Revolutionaries (left and right together) is not unwound<...>It must be borne in mind that we still have quite a few Socialist-Revolutionaries in our army and outside the army. Does the NKVD have a record of the Socialist Revolutionaries (“former”) in the army? I would like to receive it as soon as possible<...>What has been done to identify and arrest all Iranians in Baku and Azerbaijan?"

I think there can be no doubt after reading such orders.

Now let's return to the question - why?
Khlevnyuk points out several possible explanations and writes that the debate continues.
1) At the end of 1937, the first elections to the Soviets were held on the basis of secret ballot, and Stalin insured himself against surprises in a way that he understood.
This is the weakest explanation.

2) Repression was a means of social engineering
Society was subject to unification.
A fair question arises: why did unification need to be sharply accelerated in 1937-1938?

3) The “Great Terror” pointed out the reason for the difficulties and hard life of the people, while at the same time allowing them to let off steam.

4) It was necessary to provide labor for the growing Gulag economy.
This is a weak version - there were too many executions of able-bodied people, while the Gulag was unable to absorb new human intake.

5) Finally, a version that is widely popular today: the threat of war emerged, and Stalin was clearing out the rear, destroying the “fifth column”.
However, after Stalin's death, the vast majority of those arrested in 1937-1938 were found innocent.
They were not a “fifth column” at all.

My explanation allows us to understand not only why there was this wave and why it was in 1937-1938.
It also explains well why Stalin and his experience have not yet been forgotten, but have not been implemented.

The “Great Terror” of 1937-1938 took place during a period similar to ours.
In the USSR of 1933-1945 there was a question about the subject of power.
In the modern history of Russia, a similar issue is resolved in 2005-2017.

The subject of power can be either the ruler or the elite.
At that time, the sole ruler had to win.

Stalin inherited a party in which this same elite existed - the heirs of Lenin, equal to Stalin or even more eminent than himself.
Stalin successfully fought for formal leadership, but he became the undisputed sole ruler only after the Great Terror.
As long as the old leaders - recognized revolutionaries, Lenin's heirs - continued to live and work, the preconditions remained for challenging Stalin's power as the sole ruler.
The "Great Terror" of 1937-1938 was a means of destroying the elite and establishing the power of a single ruler.

Why did the repression affect the common people and not be limited to the top?
You need to understand the ideological basis, the Marxist paradigm.
Marxism does not recognize loners and the initiative of the elite.
In Marxism, any leader expresses the ideas of a class or social group.

Why is the peasantry dangerous, for example?
Not at all because it can rebel and start a peasant war.
The peasants are dangerous because they are the petty bourgeoisie.
This means that they will always support and/or nominate from their midst political leaders who will fight against the dictatorship of the proletariat, the power of the workers and the Bolsheviks.
It is not enough to root out prominent leaders with dubious views.
It is necessary to destroy their social support, those same “hostile elements” that have been taken into account.
This explains why the terror affected ordinary people.

Why exactly in 1937-1938?
Because during the first four years of each period of social reorganization, the basic plan is formed and the leading force of the social process emerges.
This is such a law of cyclical development.

Why are we interested in this today?
And why do some dream of a return to the practices of Stalinism?
Because we are going through the same process.
But he:
- ends,
- has opposite vectors.

Stalin established his sole power, in fact fulfilling the historical social order, albeit with very specific methods, even excessively.
He deprived the elite of its subjectivity and established the only subject of power - the elected ruler.
Such imperious subjectivity existed in our Fatherland until Putin.

However, Putin, more unconsciously than consciously, fulfilled a new historical social order.
In our country now the power of a single elected ruler is being replaced by the power of an elected elite.
In 2008, just in the fourth year of the new period, Putin gave presidential power to Medvedev.
The sole ruler was desubjectivized, and there were at least two rulers.
And it’s impossible to return everything back.

Now it’s clear why some part of the elite dreams of Stalinism?
They don’t want there to be many leaders, they don’t want collective power in which compromises must be sought and found, they want the restoration of individual rule.
And this can only be done by unleashing a new “great terror”, that is, by destroying the leaders of all other groups, from Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky to Navalny, Kasyanov, Yavlinsky and our modern Trotsky - Khodorkovsky (although perhaps the Trotsky of the new Russia was still Berezovsky), and out of habit of systemic thinking, their social base, at least some crackers and protest-opposition intelligentsia).

But none of this will happen.
The current vector of development is the transition to the power of an elected elite.
The elected elite is a set of leaders and power as their interaction.
If someone tries to return the sole power of an elected ruler, he will end his political career almost instantly.
Putin sometimes looks like the only, sole ruler, but he certainly is not.

Practical Stalinism has and will not have a place in modern social life in Russia.
And that's great.

One of the most terrible phenomena of Stalinism was mass repressions. With each year of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin's reign, as he became more and more suspicious, the number of repressed citizens of the Soviet Union increased. All those who were not pleasing to Stalin were subjected to repression, even if they had absolutely no guilt. Not only politicians, but also military commanders, scientists, writers and cultural figures were subjected to executions and persecution.

According to historians N.G. Okhotin and A.B. Roginsky, if the concept of repression is defined narrowly as repression by state security agencies on political charges, “then, with minor errors, the number of those repressed in the period from 1921 to 1953 will be about 5.5 million people.” If we include in their number “different types of deportees who died of artificial starvation and killed during provoked conflicts, and those children who were not born due to the fact that their possible parents were repressed or died of hunger,” then the number of victims will increase by an order of magnitude. The overall scale of mortality from famine and repression can be judged by demographic losses, which amounted to 9 million people in the period 1926-1940 alone.

The 1958 Statistical Digest of the Supreme Court speaks of 17.96 million people sentenced under wartime decrees, of which 22.9%, or 4,113 thousand, were sentenced to imprisonment, and the rest to fines or forced labor work. Of these, those convicted under the Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces of July 6, 1941 on responsibility for spreading false rumors in wartime that arouse alarm among the population can be classified as victims of political repression. According to these decrees, 15.75 million people were convicted of leaving work without permission (many categories of workers were prohibited from changing their place of work without permission even after the end of the war).

In addition, a significant number of people were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment and even execution for petty thefts in conditions of famine (the so-called “Spikelet Law”).

According to historian V.P. Popov, the total number of people convicted of political and criminal crimes in 1923-1953 is at least 40 million. In his opinion, this estimate is “very approximate and greatly underestimated, but it fully reflects the scale of repressive government policy. If we subtract from the total population persons under 14 years of age and over 60, as those with little capacity for criminal activity, it turns out that within the lifetime of one generation - from 1923 to 1953 - almost every third capable member of society was convicted.” In the RSFSR alone, general courts passed sentences on 39.1 million people, and in different years, from 37 to 65% of those convicted were sentenced to actual terms of imprisonment (not including those repressed by the NKVD, without sentences passed by judicial panels in criminal cases Supreme, regional and regional courts and permanent sessions operating at the camps, without sentences of military tribunals, without exiles, without deported peoples, etc.).

According to Anatoly Vishnevsky, “the total number of citizens of the USSR who were subjected to repression in the form of deprivation or significant restriction of freedom for more or less long periods” (in camps, special settlements, etc.) from the late 1920s to 1953 “was not less than 25-30 million people” (that is, those convicted under all articles of the USSR Criminal Code, including also special settlers).

When assessing the number of deaths as a result of repression, it is necessary to take into account both those executed and those who died in places of detention and exile.

According to the calculations of historian V.N. Zemskov, during the period from January 1, 1934 to December 31, 1947, 963,766 prisoners died in the Gulag forced labor camps, but this number includes not only political prisoners, but also those convicted of criminal offenses. However, demographer and sociologist A.G. Vishnevsky disputes these data.

According to available archival data, in 1930-1953, 1.76 million people died in all places of detention. Some researchers have noted noticeable contradictions and incompleteness in the available mortality statistics in the camps. According to calculations by A.G. Vishnevsky, those killed and died only in places of detention and exile amounted to 4-6 million.

Some people disagree with these numbers. In their opinion, the total number of victims of repression was much higher, while different figures are cited - from 10 to 60 million. Their opponents point out, however, that such figures appeared in the 1960-1980s, when the archives had not yet been opened , and, in fact, represent nothing more than estimates and rough calculations. In their opinion, these figures are refuted not only by archival data, but also by purely logical considerations. There is also no demographic effect, which such colossal repressions (in addition to famine and the Great Patriotic War) would certainly have produced. With increased mortality, the birth rate decreases, and a “hole” is formed on the corresponding diagram. Only two large “pits” are known - they correspond to the times of famine of the 1930s and war (there is also a third, 1966-1970s, which is also the result of war).

Supporters of the above figures, defending their point of view, often try to question the reliability of archival data. In some cases, they really should be approached critically. For example, in the tables of population movements of the Gulag there is a strange column “other decline”. It is unclear what kind of loss this is if the prisoners did not die, escape, were not freed, or were moved to other places. As demographer S. Maksudov suggests, “other decline” conceals the extermination of prisoners in the camps. On the other hand, V.N. Zemskov claims that those shot in the camps and during attempts to escape were counted as “died from diseases of the circulatory system,” and the column itself may reflect postscripts made by the camp authorities.

From all the data above, we can conclude that as a result of Stalin’s repressions, millions of Soviet citizens died, most of whom were innocent of anything.