IN USSR. I have tried to answer the nine most common questions about political repression.
1. What is political repression?
In the history of different countries, there have been periods when the state authorities, for some reason - pragmatic or ideological - began to perceive part of their population either as direct enemies, or as superfluous, "unnecessary" people. The principle of selection could be different - according to ethnic origin, according to religious views, according to material condition, according to political views, according to the level of education - but the result was the same: these "unnecessary" people were either physically destroyed without trial or investigation, or were subjected to criminal prosecution, or became victims of administrative restrictions (expelled from the country, sent to exile within the country, deprived of civil rights, and so on). That is, people suffered not for some personal fault, but simply because they were unlucky, simply because they ended up in a certain place at some time.
Political repressions were not only in Russia, but in Russia - not only under Soviet rule. However, remembering the victims of political repressions, we first of all think about those who suffered in 1917-1953, because they make up the majority among the total number of Russian repressed.
2. Why, speaking of political repressions, are they limited to the period of 1917-1953? There were no repressions after 1953?
The demonstration of August 25, 1968, also called the "demonstration of the seven", was held by a group of seven Soviet dissidents on Red Square and protested against the introduction of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia. Two of the participants were declared insane and subjected to compulsory treatment.
This period, 1917-1953, is singled out because it accounted for the vast majority of repressions. After 1953, repressions also took place, but on a much smaller scale, and most importantly, they mainly concerned people who, to one degree or another, opposed the Soviet political system. We are talking about dissidents who received prison terms or suffered from punitive psychiatry. They knew what they were getting into, they were not random victims - which, of course, does not justify what the authorities did to them.
3. Victims of Soviet political repression - who are they?
These were very different people, different in social origin, beliefs, worldview.
Sergei Korolev, scientist
Some of them are the so-called former”, that is, nobles, army or police officers, university professors, judges, merchants and industrialists, clergy. That is, those whom the communists who came to power in 1917 considered interested in the restoration of the former order and therefore suspected them of subversive activities.
Also, a huge proportion among the victims of political repression were " dispossessed“peasants, for the most part, strong owners who did not want to go to the collective farms (some, however, were not saved by joining the collective farm).
Many victims of repression were classified as " pests". This was the name given to specialists in production - engineers, technicians, workers, who were credited with the intent to inflict logistical or economic damage on the country. Sometimes this happened after some real production failures, accidents (in which it was necessary to find the perpetrators), and sometimes it was only about hypothetical troubles that, according to prosecutors, could have happened if the enemies had not been exposed in time.
The other part is communists and members of other revolutionary parties who joined the Communists after October 1917: Social Democrats, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Anarchists, Bundists, and so on. These people, who actively fit into the new reality and participate in the construction of Soviet power, at a certain stage turned out to be superfluous due to the intra-party struggle, which in the CPSU (b), and later in the CPSU, never stopped - at first openly, later - hidden. They are also communists who were hit because of their personal qualities: excessive ideology, insufficient servility ...
Sergeev Ivan Ivanovich Before his arrest, he worked as a watchman at the Chernivtsi collective farm "Iskra"
In the late 1930s, many were repressed military, starting with the highest command staff and ending with junior officers. They were suspected of potential participants in conspiracies against Stalin.
It is worth mentioning separately employees of the GPU-NKVD-NKGB, some of which were also repressed in the 30s during the "fight against excesses." "Excesses on the ground" - a concept that Stalin introduced into circulation, implying the excessive enthusiasm of the employees of the punitive bodies. It is clear that these "excesses" naturally followed from the general public policy, and therefore, in the mouth of Stalin, the words about excesses sound very cynical. By the way, almost the entire top of the NKVD, which carried out repressions in 1937-1938, was soon repressed and shot.
Naturally, there were many repressed for their faith(and not only Orthodox). This is the clergy, and monasticism, and active laity in the parishes, and just people who do not hide their faith. Although formally the Soviet government did not prohibit religion and the Soviet constitution of 1936 guaranteed freedom of conscience to citizens, in fact the open confession of faith could end sadly for a person.
Rozhkova Vera. Before her arrest, she worked at the Institute. Bauman. Was a secret nun
Not only certain people and certain classes were subjected to repressions, but also individual peoples- Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Chechens and Ingush, Germans. It happened during the Great Patriotic War. There were two reasons. Firstly, they were seen as potential traitors who could go over to the side of the Germans during the retreat of our troops. Secondly, when the German troops occupied the Crimea, the Caucasus and a number of other territories, some of the peoples living there really cooperated with them. Naturally, not all representatives of these peoples collaborated with the Germans, not to mention those who fought in the ranks of the Red Army - however, subsequently all of them, including women, children and the elderly, were declared traitors and sent into exile (where, by virtue of inhuman conditions, many died either on the way or on the spot).
Olga Berggolts, poetess, future “muse of besieged Leningrad”
And among the repressed there were many townsfolk, who seemed to have a completely safe social origin, but were arrested either because of a denunciation, or simply because of the distribution order (there were also plans to identify "enemies of the people" from above). If some major party functionary was arrested, then quite often his subordinates were also taken, right down to the lowest positions, such as a personal driver or housekeeper.
4. Who cannot be considered a victim of political repression?
General Vlasov inspects ROA soldiers
Not all those who suffered in 1917-1953 (and later, until the end of Soviet power) can be called victims of political repression.
In addition to the “political”, people were also imprisoned in prisons and camps under ordinary criminal articles (theft, fraud, robbery, murder, and so on).
Also, one cannot consider as victims of political repression those who committed obvious treason - for example, "Vlasovites" and "policemen", that is, those who went to the service of the German invaders during the Great Patriotic War. Regardless of the moral side of the matter, it was their conscious choice, they entered into a struggle with the state, and the state, accordingly, fought with them.
The same applies to various kinds of rebel movements - Basmachi, Bandera, "forest brothers", Caucasian abreks, and so on. One can discuss their rightness and wrongness, but the victims of political repressions are only those who did not take the path of war with the USSR, who simply lived an ordinary life and suffered regardless of their actions.
5. How were the repressions legally formalized?
Information about the execution of the death sentence of the NKVD troika against the Russian scientist and theologian Pavel Florensky. Reproduction ITAR-TASS
There were several options. Firstly, some of the repressed were shot or imprisoned after the institution of a criminal case, investigation and trial. Basically, they were charged under article 58 of the Criminal Code of the USSR (this article included many points, from treason to the motherland to anti-Soviet agitation). At the same time, in the 1920s and even in the early 1930s, all legal formalities were often observed - an investigation was carried out, then there was a trial with debates by the defense and the prosecution - just the verdict was a foregone conclusion. In the 1930s, especially since 1937, the judicial procedure turned into a fiction, since torture and other illegal methods of pressure were used during the investigation. That is why at the trial the accused massively admitted their guilt.
Secondly, starting from 1937, along with the usual court proceedings, a simplified procedure began to operate, when there were no judicial debates at all, the presence of the accused was not required, and sentences were passed by the so-called Special Conference, in other words, the “troika”, literally for 10-15 minutes.
Thirdly, some of the victims were repressed administratively, without investigation or trial at all - the same “dispossessed”, the same exiled peoples. The same often applied to family members of those convicted under Article 58. The official abbreviation CHSIR (a member of the family of a traitor to the motherland) was in use. At the same time, no personal charges were brought against specific people, and their exile was motivated by political expediency.
But besides, sometimes the repressions did not have any legal formalization at all, in fact they were lynchings - starting from the shooting in 1917 of a demonstration in defense of the Constituent Assembly and ending with the events of 1962 in Novocherkassk, where a workers’ demonstration protesting against the increase in prices for food.
6. How many people were repressed?
Photo by Vladimir Eshtokin
This is a difficult question to which historians still do not have an exact answer. The numbers are very different - from 1 to 60 million. There are two problems here - firstly, the inaccessibility of many archives, and secondly, the discrepancy in the methods of calculation. After all, even based on open archival data, one can draw different conclusions. Archival data is not only folders with criminal cases against specific people, but also, for example, departmental reporting on food supplies for camps and prisons, statistics on births and deaths, records in cemetery offices about burials, and so on and so forth. Historians try to take into account as many different sources as possible, but the data sometimes diverge from each other. The reasons are different - and accounting errors, and deliberate juggling, and the loss of many important documents.
It is also a very controversial issue - how many people were not just repressed, but exactly what was physically destroyed, did not return home? How to count? Only sentenced to death? Or plus those who died in custody? If we count the dead, then we need to deal with the causes of death: they could be caused by unbearable conditions (hunger, cold, beatings, overwork), or they could be natural (death from old age, death from chronic diseases that began long before the arrest). In certificates of death (which were not even always kept in a criminal case), “acute heart failure” most often appeared, but in fact it could be anything.
In addition, although any historian should be impartial, as a scientist should be, in reality, each researcher has his own worldview and political preferences, and therefore the historian may consider some data more reliable, and some less. Complete objectivity is an ideal to be strived for, but which has not yet been achieved by any historian. Therefore, when faced with any specific estimates, one should be careful. What if the author voluntarily or involuntarily overestimates or underestimates the figures?
But in order to understand the scale of repression, it is enough to give an example of the discrepancy in numbers. According to church historians, in 1937-38 more than 130 thousand clergy. According to historians committed to the communist ideology, in 1937-38 the number of arrested clergymen is much less - only about 47 thousand. Let's not argue about who is more right. Let's do a thought experiment: imagine that now, in our time, 47,000 railway workers are arrested in Russia during the year. What will happen to our transport system? And if 47,000 doctors are arrested in a year, will domestic medicine survive at all? What if 47,000 priests are arrested? However, we don't even have that many now. In general, even if we focus on the minimum estimates, it is easy to see that the repressions have become a social catastrophe.
And for their moral assessment, the specific numbers of victims are completely unimportant. Whether it's a million or a hundred million or a hundred thousand, it's still a tragedy, it's still a crime.
7. What is rehabilitation?
The vast majority of victims of political repression were subsequently rehabilitated.
Rehabilitation is the official recognition by the state that this person was convicted unfairly, that he is innocent of the charges brought against him and therefore is not considered convicted and gets rid of the restrictions that people who have been released from prison may be subject to (for example, the right to be elected a deputy, the right to work in law enforcement agencies, etc.).
Many believe that the rehabilitation of the victims of political repression began only in 1956, after the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, N.S. Khrushchev, at the 20th Party Congress, exposed Stalin's personality cult. In fact, this is not so - the first wave of rehabilitation took place in 1939, after the country's leadership condemned the rampant repressions of 1937-38 (which were called "excesses on the ground"). This, by the way, is an important point, because in this way the existence of political repressions in the country was recognized in general. Recognized even by those who launched these repressions. Therefore, the assertion of modern Stalinists that repression is a myth looks simply ridiculous. What about the myth, even if your idol Stalin recognized them?
However, few people were rehabilitated in 1939-41. And mass rehabilitation began in 1953 after the death of Stalin, its peak was in 1955-1962. Then, until the second half of the 1980s, there were few rehabilitations, but after the perestroika announced in 1985, their number increased dramatically. Separate acts of rehabilitation took place already in the post-Soviet era, in the 1990s (since the Russian Federation is legally the successor of the USSR, it has the right to rehabilitate those who were unjustly convicted before 1991).
But, shot in Yekaterinburg in 1918, she was officially rehabilitated only in 2008. Prior to that, the Prosecutor General's Office had resisted rehabilitation on the grounds that the murder royal family had no legal formalization and became the arbitrariness of local authorities. But the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in 2008 considered that even though there was no court decision, they shot royal family by decision of the local authorities, which have administrative powers and therefore are part of the state machine - and repression is a measure of coercion on the part of the state.
By the way, there are people who undoubtedly became victims of political repression, who did not commit what they were formally accused of - but there is no decision on the rehabilitation of which and, apparently, never will be. We are talking about those who, before falling under the rink of repression, were themselves the drivers of this rink. For example, the "iron Commissar" Nikolai Yezhov. Well, what kind of innocent victim is he? Or the same Lavrenty Beria. Of course, his execution was unjust, of course, he was not any English and French spy, as he was hastily attributed - but his rehabilitation would be a demonstrative justification for political terror.
The rehabilitation of victims of political repression did not always happen “automatically”, sometimes these people or their relatives had to be persistent, write letters to state bodies for years.
8. What is being said about political repressions now?
Photo by Vladimir Eshtokin
In modern Russia there is no consensus on this topic. Moreover, in relation to it, the polarization of society is manifested. The memory of the repressions is used by various political and ideological forces for their own political interests, but ordinary people, not politicians, can perceive it in very different ways.
Some people are convinced that political repression is a shameful page in our national history, that it is a monstrous crime against humanity, and therefore one must always remember the repressed. Sometimes this position is primitivized, all victims of repression are declared equally sinless righteous, and the blame for them is laid not only on the Soviet government, but also on the modern Russian one as the legal successor of the Soviet one. Any attempts to figure out how many were actually repressed are a priori declared to justify Stalinism and are condemned from a moral standpoint.
Others question the very fact of the repressions, claim that all these “so-called victims” are really guilty of the crimes attributed to them, they really harmed, blew up, plotted terrorist attacks, and so on. This extremely naive position is refuted, if only by the fact that the fact of the existence of repressions was recognized even under Stalin - then it was called "excesses" and at the end of the 30s, almost the entire leadership of the NKVD was condemned for these "excesses". The moral inferiority of such views is just as obvious: people are so eager to wishful thinking that they are ready, without any evidence in their hands, to slander millions of victims.
Still others admit that there were repressions, they agree that the victims of them were innocent, but they perceive all this quite calmly: they say, it was impossible otherwise. Repression, it seems to them, was necessary for the industrialization of the country, for the creation of a combat-ready army. Without repression, it would not have been possible to win the Great Patriotic War. Such a pragmatic position, regardless of how it corresponds to historical facts, is also morally flawed: the state is declared the highest value, in comparison with which the life of each individual person is worth nothing, and anyone can and should be destroyed for the sake of higher state interests. Here, by the way, one can draw a parallel with the ancient pagans, who brought human sacrifices to their gods, being one hundred percent sure that this would serve the good of the tribe, people, city. Now this seems fanatical to us, but the motivation was exactly the same as that of modern pragmatists.
One can, of course, understand where such motivation comes from. The USSR positioned itself as a society of social justice - and indeed, in many respects, especially in the late Soviet period, there was social justice. Our society is socially much less fair - plus now any injustice instantly becomes known to everyone. Therefore, in search of justice, people turn their eyes to the past - naturally, idealizing that era. This means that they are psychologically trying to justify the dark things that happened then, including repressions. Recognition and condemnation of repressions (especially those declared from above) goes with such people in conjunction with the approval of the current injustices. One can show the naivete of such a position in every possible way, but until social justice is restored, this position will be reproduced again and again.
9. How should Christians perceive political repression?
Icon of the New Martyrs of Russia
Among Orthodox Christians, unfortunately, there is also no unity on this issue. There are believers (including those who are churched, sometimes even in holy orders) who either consider all the repressed guilty and unworthy of pity, or justify their suffering with the benefit of the state. Moreover, sometimes - thank God, not very often! - You can also hear such an opinion that the repressions were a boon for the repressed themselves. After all, what happened to them happened according to God's Providence, and God will not do bad things to a person. This means, such Christians say, that these people had to suffer in order to be cleansed of heavy sins, to be spiritually reborn. Indeed, there are many examples of such a spiritual revival. As the poet Alexander Solodovnikov, who passed the camp, wrote, “The grate is rusty, thank you! // Thank you, bayonet blade! // Such a will could be given // Only for long centuries to me.
In fact, this is a dangerous spiritual substitution. Yes, suffering can sometimes save a human soul, but it does not at all follow from this that suffering in itself is good. And even more so, it does not follow that the executioners are righteous. As we know from the Gospel, King Herod, wishing to find and destroy the baby Jesus, ordered to preventively kill all the babies in Bethlehem and the surrounding area. These babies are canonized by the Church as saints, but their murderer Herod is not at all. Sin remains sin, evil remains evil, the criminal remains a criminal even if the long-term consequences of his crime are beautiful. In addition, it is one thing to talk about the benefits of suffering from personal experience, and quite another to talk about other people. Only God knows whether this or that trial will turn out for good or for worse for a particular person, and we have no right to judge this. But here is what we can and what we must do - if we consider ourselves Christians! is to keep God's commandments. Where there is not a word about the fact that for the sake of the public good it is possible to kill innocent people.
What are the conclusions?
First and the obvious - we must understand that repression is evil, evil, and social, and personal evil of those who arranged them. There is no justification for this evil - neither pragmatic nor theological.
Second- this is the right attitude towards the victims of repression. They should not be considered ideal in a crowd. They were very different people, both socially, culturally and morally. But their tragedy must be perceived without regard to their individual characteristics and circumstances. All of them were not guilty before the authorities that subjected them to suffering. We do not know which of them is a righteous man, who is a sinner, who is now in heaven, who is in hell. But we must pity them and pray for them. But what exactly should not be done is that it is not necessary to speculate on their memory, defending our own political views in polemics. The repressed should not become for us means.
Third- It is necessary to clearly understand why these repressions became possible in our country. The reason for them is not only the personal sins of those who were at the helm in those years. The main reason is the worldview of the Bolsheviks, based on godlessness and on the denial of all previous traditions - spiritual, cultural, family, and so on. The Bolsheviks wanted to build a paradise on earth, while allowing themselves any means. Only that which serves the cause of the proletariat is moral, they argued. It is not surprising that they were internally ready to kill by the millions. Yes, there were repressions in different countries (including ours) even before the Bolsheviks - but still there were some brakes that limited their scope. Now there are no more brakes - and what happened happened.
Looking at the various horrors of the past, we often say the phrase "this must not happen again." But this maybe repeat, if we discard moral and spiritual barriers, if we proceed solely from pragmatics and ideology. And it does not matter what color this ideology will be - red, green, black, brown ... It will still end in a lot of blood.
Repressions in the Stalin period
In the second case, the scale of mortality from famine and repression can be judged by demographic losses, which only in the period 1926-1940. amounted to 9 million people.
“In February 1954,” the text reads later, “a certificate was prepared in the name of N. S. Khrushchev, signed by the Prosecutor General of the USSR R. Rudenko, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR S. Kruglov and the Minister of Justice of the USSR K. Gorshenin, in which the number of those convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes for the period from 1921 to February 1, 1954 was called. In total, during this period, 3,777,380 people were convicted by the Collegium of the OGPU, "troikas" of the NKVD, the Special Conference, the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals, including to capital punishment - 642,980, to detention in camps and prisons for a term of 25 years or less - 2,369,220, to exile and exile - 765,180 people.
Repression after 1953
After Stalin's death, general rehabilitation began, the scale of repressions sharply decreased. At the same time, people with alternative political views (the so-called "dissidents") continued to be persecuted by the Soviet authorities until the end of the 1980s. Criminal liability for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda was abolished only in September 1989.
According to historian V.P. Popov, the total number of those convicted for political and criminal offenses 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 the repressive state policy ... If we subtract people under 14 and over 60 from the total population as incapable of criminal activity, it turns out that within the life of one generation - from 1923 to 1953 - almost every third capable member of society was convicted. Only in the RSFSR, general courts passed sentences against 39.1 million people, and in different years from 37 to 65% of the convicts were sentenced to real terms of imprisonment (not including those repressed by the NKVD, without sentences handed down by judicial collegiums for criminal cases of the Supreme, regional and regional courts and permanent sessions that operated 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 end of the 20th to the year" amounted to at least 25-30 million people"(that is, those convicted under all articles of the Criminal Code of the USSR, including also special settlers). According to him, with reference to Zemskov, “only in 1934-1947, 10.2 million people entered the camps (minus those returned from the run). However, Zemskov himself does not write about the newly arrived contingents, but describes the general movement of the GULAG camp population, that is, this number includes both newly arrived convicts and those who are already serving sentences.
According to Arseniy Roginsky, Chairman of the Board of the International Society "Memorial", for the period from 1918 to 1987, according to the surviving documents, there were 7 million 100 thousand people arrested by security agencies in the USSR. Some of them were arrested not on political grounds, as security agencies arrested in different years for such crimes as banditry, smuggling, counterfeiting. These calculations, although they were made by him by 1994, were deliberately not published by him, since they contradicted the significantly large numbers of arrests that existed in those years.
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 work.
This is, of course, a mistake.
But it is still difficult to justify why this is a mistake by scientific rather than journalistic means.
Historians have dealt with the repressions themselves, with how they were organized and what was their scale.
Historian Oleg Khlevnyuk, for example, writes that "... now professional historiography has reached high level consensus based on in-depth archival research".
https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2017/06/29/701835-phenomen-terrora
However, it follows from another article of his that the causes of 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 the "consent of professional historiography" looks like, according to Oleg Khlevnyuk.
We immediately discard the myths.
1) Stalin had nothing to do with it, he, of course, knew everything.
Stalin not only knew, he led the "great terror" in real time, down to the smallest detail.
2) The "Great Terror" was not an initiative of the regional authorities, local party secretaries.
Stalin himself never tried to shift the blame for the repressions of 1937-1938 onto the regional party leadership.
Instead, he proposed a myth about "enemies who made their way into 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, repression under Stalin were a constant phenomenon.
But the wave of terror in 1937-1938 was exceptionally large.
In 1937-1938. At least 1.6 million people were arrested, of which more than 680,000 were shot.
Khlevnyuk gives a simple quantitative calculation:
"Given that the most intensive repressions were used for a little 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 in the destruction of the elite: party workers, engineers, military men, writers, etc. not quite correct.
For example, Khlevnyuk writes that executives different levels there were several tens of thousands. Of the 1.6 million affected.
Here 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 physically eliminate or isolate in the 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 bodies, according to the available lists, and the first repressions took place.
In the future, a chain was launched: arrest-interrogations - testimony - new hostile elements.
That is why the limits on arrests have been increased.
5) Stalin led the repression personally.
Here are his orders quoted by the historian:
"Krasnoyarsk. Regional committee. The arson of the mill must be organized by enemies. Take all measures to expose the arsonists. The perpetrators should be judged quickly. The verdict is execution"; "To beat Unshlikht because he did not extradite Poland's agents in the regions"; "To T. Yezhov. Dmitriev seems to be acting sluggishly. We must immediately arrest all (both small and large) members of the "rebel groups" in the Urals"; "To T. Yezhov. Very important. You need to walk around the Udmurt, Mari, Chuvash, Mordovian republics, walk with a broom"; "To T. Yezhov. Very good! Dig and clean up this Polish spy dirt in the future"; "To T. Yezhov. The line of Socialist-Revolutionaries (left and right together) has not been 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 back to the question - why?
Khlevniuk points to several possible explanations and writes that the controversy continues.
1) At the end of 1937, the first elections to the Soviets were held on the basis of a secret ballot, and Stalin insured 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 exactly in 1937-1938 did the unification need to be sharply accelerated?
3) The "Great Terror" pointed to the cause of the difficulties and hard life of the people, while at the same time letting off steam.
4) It was necessary to provide labor for the growing economy of the Gulag.
This is a weak version - too many executions of able-bodied people, while the Gulag was unable to master the new human income.
5) Finally, the version that is widely popular today: there was a threat of war, and Stalin cleared the rear, destroyed the "fifth column".
However, after Stalin's death, the vast majority of those arrested in 1937-1938 were found not guilty.
They were not a "fifth column" at all.
My explanation makes it possible to understand not only why there was this wave and why it was precisely in 1937-1938.
It also explains well why Stalin and his experience have not yet been forgotten, but, moreover, they have not been realized.
The "Great Terror" of 1937-1938 took place in 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 being 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 very 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 for challenging the authority of Stalin as the sole ruler remained.
The "Great Terror" of 1937-1938 was a means of destroying the elite and asserting the power of the sole ruler.
Why did the repressions touch people who caught a cold, and were not limited to the top?
You need to understand the ideological base, the Marxist paradigm.
Marxism does not recognize individuals and independent activities 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 promote political leaders from among themselves who will fight against the dictatorship of the proletariat, the power of the workers and the Bolsheviks.
It is not enough to root out well-known leaders with dubious views.
It is necessary to destroy their social support, those very considered "hostile elements".
This explains why the terror touched ordinary people.
Why exactly in 1937-1938?
Because during the first four years of each period of social reorganization, a basic plan is formed and the leading force of the social process emerges.
This is such a law of cyclic development.
Why are we interested in this today?
And why do some dream of the return of the practices of Stalinism?
Because we are going through the same process.
But he:
- ends
- has opposite vector.
Stalin established his sole power, actually fulfilling the historical social order, albeit with very specific methods, even excessively.
He deprived the elite of subjectivity and approved the only subject of power - the elected ruler.
Such imperious subjectivity existed in our Fatherland right up to Putin.
However, Putin, more unconsciously than consciously, fulfilled a new historical social order.
In our country, the power of a single elected ruler is now being replaced by the power of an elected elite.
In 2008, just in the fourth year of the new period, Putin gave the presidency to Medvedev.
The sole ruler was desubjectivized, there were at least two rulers.
And you can't bring it all back.
Now it is clear why some part of the elite dreams of Stalinism?
They do not want to have many leaders, they do not want collective power, under which compromises must be sought and found, they want the restoration of one-man rule.
And this can be done only 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 it is possible that the Trotsky of new Russia was after all Berezovsky), and out of habit systems thinking, their social base, at least some kreakles and protest-opposition intelligentsia).
But none of this will happen.
The current vector of development is the transition to power by the elected elite.
The elected elite is a set of leaders and power as their interaction.
If someone tries to return the sole power of the elected ruler, he will end his political career almost instantly.
Putin sometimes looks like the sole, sole ruler, but he is definitely not.
Practical Stalinism does not and will not have a place in modern social life Russia.
And that's great.
Immediately after the end of World War II, in September 1945, the state of emergency was lifted and the State Defense Committee was abolished. In March 1946 the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was transformed into the Council of Ministers. At the same time, there was an increase in the number of ministries and departments, and the number of their apparatus grew.
At the same time, elections were held to local councils, the Supreme Soviets of the republics and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, as a result of which the deputies corps was updated, which did not change during the war years. By the beginning of the 50s. collegiality in the activities of the Soviets was strengthened as a result of more frequent convening of their sessions, an increase in the number of standing committees. In accordance with the Constitution, direct and secret elections of people's judges and assessors were held for the first time. However, all power still remained in the hands of the party leadership.
After a thirteen-year break, in October 1952, the 19th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks took place, which decided to rename the party into the CPSU. In 1949, congresses of trade unions and Komsomol were held (also not convened for 17 and 13 years). They were preceded by reporting and election party, trade union and Komsomol meetings, at which the leadership of these organizations was renewed. However, despite outwardly positive, democratic changes, in these very years the political regime was tightened in the country, a new wave of repressions was growing.
The Gulag system reached its apogee precisely in the post-war years, since to those who had been sitting there since the mid-30s. "enemies of the people" added millions of new ones. One of the first blows fell on prisoners of war, most of whom (about 2 million) after being released from fascist captivity were sent to Siberian and Ukhta camps. Tula was exiled "foreign elements" from the Baltic republics, Western Ukraine and Belarus. According to various sources, during these years the "population" of the Gulag ranged from 4.5 to 12 million people.
In 1948, “special regime” camps were set up for those convicted of “anti-Soviet activities” and “counter-revolutionary acts”, in which especially sophisticated methods of influencing prisoners were used. Not wanting to put up with their situation, political prisoners in a number of camps raised uprisings, sometimes held under political slogans. The most famous of them were performances in Pechora (1948), Salekhard (1950), Kingir (1952), Ekibastuz (1952), Vorkuta (1953) and Norilsk (1953).
Along with the political prisoners in the camps after the war, there were also quite a few workers who did not fulfill the existing production norms. Thus, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 2, 1948, local authorities were given the right to deport to remote areas persons who maliciously evade labor activity in agriculture.
Fearing the increased popularity of the military during the war, Stalin authorized the arrest of Air Marshal A.A. Novikov, generals P.N. Ponedelina, N.K. Kirillov, a number of colleagues of Marshal G.K. Zhukov. The commander himself was charged with putting together a group of disgruntled generals and officers, ingratitude and disrespect for Stalin. The repressions also affected some of the party functionaries, especially those who aspired to independence and greater independence from the central government. At the beginning of 1948, almost all the leaders of the Leningrad party organization were arrested. The total number of those arrested in the "Leningrad case" was about 2,000 people. After some time, 200 of them were put on trial and shot, including Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Russia M. Rodionov, member of the Politburo and Chairman of the State Planning Committee of the USSR N. Voznesensky, Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks A. Kuznetsov. The "Leningrad case" was supposed to be a stern warning to those who, at least in some way, thought differently than the "leader of the peoples."
The last of the trials being prepared was the "case of doctors" (1953), accused of improper treatment of top management, which led to the death of a number of prominent figures. Total victims of repression in 1948-1953. almost 6.5 million people became. The flywheel of repression was stopped only after the death of Stalin.
When I die, a lot of rubbish will be put on my grave, but the wind of time will mercilessly sweep it away.
Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich
Summary of the myth:
Stalin was the greatest tyrant of all times and peoples. Stalin destroyed his people on an unthinkable scale - from 10 to 100 million people were thrown into camps, where they were shot or died in inhuman conditions.
Reality:
What are the scales of "Stalin's repressions"?
Almost all publications that touch upon the issue of the number of repressed people can be classified into two groups. The first of them includes the works of accusers " totalitarian regime”, naming astronomical multi-million figures of those shot and imprisoned. At the same time, “truth-seekers” stubbornly try not to notice archival data, including published ones, pretending that they do not exist. To justify their figures, they either refer to each other, or simply confine themselves to phrases like: “according to my calculations”, “I am convinced”, etc.
However, any conscientious researcher who has taken up the study of this problem quickly discovers that in addition to the “memoirs of eyewitnesses”, there are a lot of documentary sources: "In the funds of the Central State Archive of the October Revolution, the highest bodies of state power and bodies government controlled USSR (TsGAOR USSR) revealed several thousand items of storage of documents related to the activities of the GULAG"
Having studied archival documents, such a researcher is surprised to be convinced that the scale of repression, which we “know” about thanks to the media, not only disagrees with reality, but is overestimated tenfold. After that, he finds himself in a painful dilemma: professional ethics require the publication of the data found, on the other hand, how not to be branded as a defender of Stalin. The result is usually a kind of "compromise" publication, containing both a standard set of anti-Stalinist epithets and curtsy to Solzhenitsyn and Co., and information about the number of repressed, which, unlike publications from the first group, are not taken from the ceiling and not sucked from the finger. , but confirmed by documents from the archives.
How many were repressed
February 1, 1954
To the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Comrade Khrushchev N. S.
In connection with the signals received by the Central Committee of the CPSU from a number of persons about illegal convictions for counter-revolutionary crimes in previous years by the Collegium of the OGPU, troikas of the NKVD, the Special Conference, the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals, and in accordance with your instruction on the need to review the cases of persons convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes and now held in camps and prisons, we report: from 1921 to the present, 3,777,380 people were convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes, including 642,980 people to VMN, to detention in camps and prisons for a term of 25 years and below - 2.369.220, in exile and exile - 765.180 people.Of the total number of convicts, approximately 2,900,000 people were convicted by the OGPU Collegium, NKVD troikas and the Special Meeting, and 877,000 people by courts, military tribunals, the Special Collegium and the Military Collegium.
... It should be noted that, created on the basis of the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of November 5, 1934, by the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR, which lasted until September 1, 1953, 442,531 people were convicted, including 10,101 people to VMN, to imprisonment - 360.921 people, to exile and expulsion (within the country) - 57.539 people and to other measures of punishment (offset of the time spent in custody, expulsion abroad, compulsory treatment) - 3.970 people ...
Prosecutor General R. Rudenko
Minister of Internal Affairs S. Kruglov
Minister of Justice K. Gorshenin
So, as it is clear from the above document, in total from 1921 to the beginning of 1954, on political charges, he was sentenced to death 642.980 person to imprisonment 2.369.220 , to the link - 765.180 . It should also be borne in mind that not all sentences were carried out. For example, from July 15, 1939 to April 20, 1940, 201 prisoners were sentenced to capital punishment for the disorganization of camp life and production, but then the death penalty was commuted to some of them by imprisonment for terms of 10 to 15 years. In 1934, 3849 prisoners sentenced to the highest measure with the replacement of imprisonment were kept in the camps, in 1935 - 5671, in 1936 - 7303, in 1937 - 6239, in 1938 - 5926, in 1939 - 3425, in 1940 - 4037.
Number of prisoners
« Are you sure that the information from this memorandum is true?”, exclaims a skeptical reader who, thanks to many years of brainwashing, firmly “knows” about the millions who were shot and tens of millions sent to camps. Well, let's turn to more detailed statistics, especially since, contrary to the assurances of the noteworthy "fighters against totalitarianism", such data is not only available in the archives, but has been repeatedly published.
Let's start with data on the number of prisoners in the Gulag camps. Let me remind you that those convicted for a term of more than 3 years, as a rule, served their sentences in corrective labor camps (ITL), and those convicted for short terms - in corrective labor colonies (ITK).
| Year | Prisoners |
|---|---|
| 1930 | 179.000 |
| 1931 | 212.000 |
| 1932 | 268.700 |
| 1933 | 334.300 |
| 1934 | 510.307 |
| 1935 | 725.483 |
| 1936 | 839.406 |
| 1937 | 820.881 |
| 1938 | 996.367 |
| 1939 | 1.317.195 |
| 1940 | 1.344.408 |
| 1941 | 1.500.524 |
| 1942 | 1.415.596 |
| 1943 | 983.974 |
| 1944 | 663.594 |
| 1945 | 715.505 |
| 1946 | 746.871 |
| 1947 | 808.839 |
| 1948 | 1.108.057 |
| 1949 | 1.216.361 |
| 1950 | 1.416.300 |
| 1951 | 1.533.767 |
| 1952 | 1.711.202 |
| 1953 | 1.727.970 |
However, those who are accustomed to taking the opuses of Solzhenitsyn and others like him for Holy Bible often do not convince even direct references to archival documents. " These are documents of the NKVD, and therefore they are falsified. they say. - Where did the numbers they cite come from?».
Well, especially for these incredulous gentlemen, I will give a couple of specific examples of where “these numbers” come from. So, the year is 1935:
Camps of the NKVD, their economic specialization and the number of prisoners
as of January 11, 1935
| Camp | Economic specialization | Number concluding |
| Dmitrovlag | Construction of the Moscow-Volga Canal | 192.649|
| Bamlag | Construction of the second tracks of the Trans-Baikal and Ussuri railways and Baikal-Amur Mainline | 153.547|
| Belomoro-Baltic- sky combine | Arrangement of the White Sea-Baltic Canal | 66.444|
| Siblag | Construction of the Gorno-Shorskaya railway; coal mining in the mines of Kuzbass; construction of the Chuisky and Usinsky tracts; providing labor to the Kuznetsk Iron and Steel Works, Novsibles, and others; own pig farms | 61.251|
| Dallag (later - Vladivostoklag) | Construction of the Volochaevka-Komsomolsk railway; coal mining at the Artem and Raichikha mines; construction of the Sedan water pipeline and oil storage facilities of "Benzostroy"; construction work of Dalpromstroy, the Committee of Reserves, aircraft building No. 126; fisheries | 60.417|
| Svirlag | Logging firewood and commercial timber for Leningrad | 40.032|
| Sevvostlag | Trust "Dalstroy", works in Kolyma | 36.010|
| Temlag, Mordov- kaya ASSR | Firewood and commercial timber harvesting for Moscow | 33.048|
| Central Asian camp (Sazlag) | Provision of manpower to Tekstilstroy, Chirchikstroy, Shakhrudstroy, Khazarbakhstroy, Chui novlubtrest, state farm "Pahta-Aral"; own cotton state farms | 26.829|
| Karaganda camp (Karlag) | Cattle-breeding state farms | 25.109|
| Ukhtpechlag | Works of the Ukhto-Pechora trust: mining of coal, oil, asphalt, radium, etc. | 20.656|
| Provlag (later - Astrakhanlag) | Fish industry | 10.583|
| Sarovskiy NKVD camp | Logging and sawmilling | 3.337|
| Vaygach | Mining of zinc, lead, platinum spar | 1.209|
| Ohunlag | road construction | 722|
| en route to the camps | 9.756 | |
| Total | 741.599 |
Four years later:
| Camp | Conclusion |
| Bamlag (BAM track) | 262.194 |
| Sevvostlag (Magadan) | 138.170 |
| Belbaltlag (Karelian ASSR) | 86.567 |
| Volgolag (district of Uglich-Rybinsk) | 74.576 |
| Dallag (Primorsky Territory) | 64.249 |
| Siblag (Novosibirsk region) | 46.382 |
| Ushosdorlag ( Far East) | 36.948 |
| Samarlag (Kuibyshev region) | 36.761 |
| Karlag (Karaganda region) | 35.072 |
| Sazlag (Uzbek SSR) | 34.240 |
| Usollag (Molotov region) | 32.714 |
| Kargopollag (Arkhangelsk region) | 30.069 |
| Sevzheldorlag (Komi ASSR and Arkhangelsk region) | 29.405 |
| Yagrinlag (Arkhangelsk region) | 27.680 |
| Vyazemlag (Smolensk region) | 27.470 |
| Ukhtimlag (Komi ASSR) | 27.006 |
| Sevurallag (Sverdlovsk region) | 26.963 |
| Lokchimlag (Komi ASSR) | 26.242 |
| Temlag (Mordovian ASSR) | 22.821 |
| Ivdellag (Sverdlovsk region) | 20.162 |
| Vorkutlag (Komi ASSR) | 17.923 |
| Soroklag (Arkhangelsk region) | 17.458 |
| Vyatlag (Kirov region) | 16.854 |
| Oneglag (Arkhangelsk region) | 16.733 |
| Unzhlag (Gorky region) | 16.469 |
| Kraslag (Krasnoyarsk Territory) | 15.233 |
| Taishetlag (Irkutsk region) | 14.365 |
| Ustvymlag (Komi ASSR) | 11.974 |
| Thomasinlag (Novosibirsk region) | 11.890 |
| Gorno-Shorsky ITL ( Altai region) | 11.670 |
| Norillag (Krasnoyarsk Territory) | 11.560 |
| Kuloylag (Arkhangelsk region) | 10.642 |
| Raichilag (Khabarovsk Territory) | 8.711 |
| Arkhbumlag (Arkhangelsk region) | 7.900 |
| Luga camp (Leningrad region) | 6.174 |
| Bukachachlag (Chita region) | 5.945 |
| Provlag (Lower Volga) | 4.877 |
| Likovlag (Moscow region) | 4.556 |
| Southern harbor (Moscow region) | 4.376 |
| Stalinskaya station (Moscow region) | 2.727 |
| Dmitrov Mechanical Plant (Moscow region) | 2.273 |
| Building No. 211 (Ukrainian SSR) | 1.911 |
| transit prisoners | 9.283 |
| Total | 1.317.195 |
However, as I wrote above, in addition to ITL, there were also ITK - corrective labor colonies. Until the autumn of 1938, they, together with prisons, were subordinate to the Department of Places of Confinement (OMZ) of the NKVD. Therefore, for the years 1935–1938, only joint statistics have been found so far:
Since 1939, the penitentiaries were under the jurisdiction of the Gulag, and the prisons were under the jurisdiction of the Main Prison Directorate (GTU) of the NKVD.
Number of prisoners in prisons
| Year | 1st of January | January | March | May | July | September | December |
| 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 | 352.508 186.278 470.693 268.532 237.534 151.296 275.510 245.146 293.135 280.374 | 350.538 178.258 401.146 229.217 201.547 170.767 267.885 191.930 259.078 349.035 228.258 | 186.278 434.871 247.404 221.669 171.708 272.486 235.092 290.984 284.642 230.614 |
The information in the table is given at the middle of each month. In addition, again, for especially stubborn anti-Stalinists, a separate column gives information as of January 1 of each year (highlighted in red), taken from A. Kokurin's article posted on the Memorial website. This article, among other things, provides links to specific archival documents. In addition, those who wish can read an article by the same author in the Military Historical Archive magazine.
Now we can compile a summary table of the number of prisoners in the USSR under Stalin:
It cannot be said that these figures are some kind of revelation. Since 1990, such data have been presented in a number of publications. Thus, in an article by L. Ivashov and A. Emelin, published in 1991, it is stated that the total number of prisoners in camps and colonies by 1.03. 1940 was 1.668.200 people, as of June 22, 1941 - 2.3 million; on 1.07.1944 - 1.2 million .
V. Nekrasov in his book “Thirteen Iron Commissars” reports that “in places of deprivation of liberty” in 1933 there were 334 thousand prisoners, in 1934 - 510 thousand, in 1935 - 991 thousand, in 1936 - 1296 thousand; on December 21, 1944 in camps and colonies - 1.450.000 ; on March 24, 1953, ibid. - 2.526.402 .
According to A. Kokurin and N. Petrov (especially significant, since both authors are associated with the Memorial society, and N. Petrov is even an employee of Memorial), as of 1.07. 1944 guards in the camps and colonies of the NKVD contained about 1.2 million prisoners, and in NKVD prisons on the same date - 204.290 . On 30.12. 1945 guards in the labor camps of the NKVD contained about 640 thousand prisoners, in corrective labor colonies - about 730 thousand, in prisons - about 250 thousand, in the bullpen - about 38 thousand, in colonies for minors - about 21 thousand, in special camps and prisons of the NKVD in Germany - about 84 thousand .
Finally, here is the data on the number of prisoners in places of deprivation of liberty subordinate to the territorial bodies of the Gulag, taken directly from the already mentioned Memorial website:
| January 1935 January 1937 1.01.1939 1.01.1941 1.01.1945 1.01.1949 1.01.1953 | 307.093 375.376 381.581 434.624 745.171 1.139.874 741.643 |
So, let's summarize - for the entire period of Stalin's rule, the number of prisoners who were simultaneously in places of deprivation of liberty never exceeded 2 million 760 thousand (naturally, not counting German, Japanese and other prisoners of war). Thus, there can be no talk of any “tens of millions of Gulag prisoners”.
Let us now calculate the number of prisoners per capita. On January 1, 1941, as can be seen from the table above, the total number of prisoners in the USSR amounted to 2,400,422 people. The exact population of the USSR at this point is unknown, but is usually estimated at 190–195 million. Thus we get from 1230 to 1260 prisoners for every 100,000 people. In January 1950, the number of prisoners in the USSR was 2,760,095 people - the maximum figure for the entire period of Stalin's rule. The population of the USSR at that moment totaled 178 million 547 thousand. We get 1546
Now let's calculate a similar figure for the modern United States. Currently, there are two types of places of deprivation of liberty: prison- an approximate analogue of our temporary detention facilities, in prison persons under investigation are kept, as well as convicts serving short sentences, and prison- actually a prison. So, at the end of 1999 in prisons contained 1.366.721 people, in jails- 687.973 (see: website of the Bureau of Legal Statistics), which gives a total of 2.054.694. The population of the United States at the end of 1999 is approximately 275 million (see: US population), therefore, we get 747 prisoners per 100,000 people.
Yes, half as much as Stalin, but not ten times. It is somehow undignified for a power that has taken upon itself the “protection of human rights” on a global scale. And if we take into account the growth rate of this indicator - when this article was first published, it was (in mid-1998) 693 prisoners per 100,000 American population, 1990-1998. average annual increase in the number of inhabitants jails – 4,9%, prisons- 6.9%, then, you see, in ten years the overseas friends of our domestic Stalin-haters will catch up and overtake the Stalinist USSR.
By the way, here in one Internet discussion an objection was made - they say, these figures include all the arrested Americans, including those who were detained for several days. I emphasize once again - by the end of 1999 in the United States there were more than 2 million prisoners who are serving time or are in pre-trial detention. As for the arrests, they were made in 1998 14.5 million(see: FBI report).
Now a few words about the total number of those who were in places of detention under Stalin. Of course, if you take the table above and sum up the rows, the result will be incorrect, since most of the Gulag prisoners were sentenced to more than a year. However, to a certain extent, the following note allows us to estimate the number of those who passed through the Gulag:
To the head of the Gulag of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Major General Yegorov S. E.
In total, 11 million units of archival materials are stored in the Gulag units, of which 9.5 million are the personal files of prisoners.
Head of the Secretariat of the Gulag of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR
Major Podymov
How many of the prisoners were "political"
It is fundamentally wrong to believe that most of those imprisoned under Stalin were "victims of political repression":
The number of those convicted for counter-revolutionary and other especially dangerous state crimes
| Year | higher measure | camps, colonies and prisons | link and expulsion | others measures | Total condemned |
| 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 | 9701 1962 414 2550 2433 990 2363 869 2109 20201 10651 2728 2154 2056 1229 1118 353074 328618 2552 1649 8011 23278 3579 3029 4252 2896 1105 – 8 475 1609 1612 198 | 21724||||
| Total | 799455 | 2634397 413512 215942 4060306
“Other measures” refers to the deduction of time spent in custody, compulsory treatment and expulsion abroad. For 1953, only the first half of the year is given.
From this table it follows that there were slightly more "repressed" than indicated in the above report addressed to Khrushchev - 799.455 sentenced to capital punishment instead of 642.980 and 2.634.397 sentenced to imprisonment instead of 2.369.220. However, this difference is relatively small - the numbers are of the same order.
In addition, there is one more point - it is very possible that a fair number of criminals have "clucked" into the above table. The fact is that on one of the certificates stored in the archive, on the basis of which this table was compiled, there is a pencil mark: “Total convicts for 1921-1938. - 2944879 people, of which 30% (1062 thousand) are criminals ". In this case, the total number of "repressed" does not exceed 3 million. However, in order to finally clarify this issue, additional work with sources is needed.
Now let's see what percentage were "repressed" of the total number of inhabitants of the Gulag:
The composition of the camps of the Gulag NKVD for
| Year | amount | % to all composition of the camps |
| 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 | 135.190 118.256 105.849 104.826 185.324 454.432 444.999 420.293 407.988 345.397 268.861 289.351 333.883 427.653 416.156 420.696 578.912* 475.976 480.766 465.256 | 26.5 16.3 12.6 12.6 18.6 34.5 33.1 28.7 29.6 35.6 40.7 41.2 59.2 54.3 38.0 34.9 22.7 31.0 28.1 26.9 |
* in camps and colonies.
Let us now consider in more detail the composition of the inhabitants of the Gulag at certain moments of its existence.
The composition of the prisoners of labor camps for alleged crimes
(as of April 1, 1940)
| Charged crimes | population | % |
| Counter-revolutionary crimes including: Trotskyists, Zinovievites, rightists treason terror sabotage espionage sabotage leaders of counterrevolutionary organizations anti-Soviet agitation other counter-revolutionary crimes family members of traitors to the Motherland without instructions | 417381
17621 | 32,87
|
| Particularly dangerous crimes against the order of management including: banditry and robbery defectors other crimes | 46374
29514 | 3,65
|
| Other crimes against the order of management including: hooliganism speculation violation of the law on passportization other crimes | 182421
90291 | 14,37
|
| Theft of social property (Law of August 7, 1932) Crimes against the person Property crimes Socially harmful and socially dangerous element War crimes Other crimes No instructions | 23549 96193 66708 152096 220835 11067 41706 11455 | 1,85|
| Total | 1269785 | 100,00
REFERENCE
on the number of people convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes and banditry,
held in camps and colonies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs as of July 1, 1946
| By the nature of the crime | In the camps | % | In the colonies | % | Total | % |
| General presence of convicts | 616.731 | 100 755.255 100 1.371.986100 | ||||
| Of them for k / r crimes, including: Treason to the Motherland (art. 58-1) Espionage (58-6) Terrorism Wrecking (58-7) Sabotage (58-9) K-r sabotage (58-14) Participation in a/s conspiracy (58–2, 3, 4, 5, 11) Anti-Soviet agitation (58-10) Polit. bandit. (58–2, 5, 9) Illegal border crossing Smuggling Family members of traitors to the Motherland Socially dangerous elements | 354.568
137.463 | 57,5
37,6
14,8 |
Head of the OURZ GULAG of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR
Aleshinsky
Pom. Head of the URZ GULAG of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR
Yatsevich
The composition of the Gulag prisoners by the nature of the crimes
(as of January 1, 1951)
| crimes | Total | including in the camps | including in the colonies |
| Counter-revolutionary crimes Treason to the Motherland (art. 58-1a, b) Espionage (art. 58-1a, b, 6; art. 193-24) Terror (Art. 58-8) Terrorist intent Sabotage (Art. 58-9) Wrecking (v. 58-7) Counter-revolutionary sabotage (except for those convicted for refusing to work in the camps and running away) (art. 58-14) Counter-revolutionary sabotage (for refusing from work in the camp) (v. 58-14) Counter-revolutionary sabotage (for escapes from places of detention) (Art. 58-14) Participation in anti-Soviet conspiracies, anti-Soviet organizations and groups (art. 58, paragraphs 2, 3, 4, 5, 11) Anti-Soviet agitation (art. 58-10, 59-7) Rebellion and political banditry (Art. 58, paragraph 2; 59, paragraphs 2, 3, 3 b) Family members of traitors to the Motherland (Article 58-1c) Socially dangerous element Other counter-revolutionary crimes Total convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes | 334538 18337 7515 2329 3250 1165 46582 | ||
| Criminal offenses Theft of social property (Decree of August 7, 1932) According to the Decree of June 4, 1947 "On strengthening the security personal property of citizens According to the Decree of June 4, 1947 "On criminal liability for embezzlement of state and public property" Speculation not committed in places of detention Banditry and armed robberies (art. 59-3, 167), committed while serving a sentence not in prison Intentional killings (art. 136, 137, 138), committed in places of detention Illegal border crossing (art. 59–10, 84) Smuggling activities (art. 59-9, 83) Cattle stealing (art. 166) Thieves-recidivists (Article 162-c) Property crimes (Art. 162-178) Hooliganism (Article 74 and Decree of August 10, 1940) Violation of the law on passportization (Article 192-a) For escapes from places of detention, exile and exile (art. 82) For unauthorized departure (escape) from places of compulsory settlements (Decree of November 26, 1948) For harboring deportees who fled from places compulsory settlement, or aiding Socially harmful element Desertion (s.193-7) Self-mutilation (Art. 193-12) Looting (v.193-27) Other war crimes (Art. 193, except for paragraphs 7, 12, 17, 24, 27) Illegal possession of weapons (Article 182) Official and economic crimes (Art. 59-3c, 109-121, 193 paras. 17, 18) According to the Decree of June 26, 1940 (unauthorized departure from enterprises and from institutions and absenteeism) According to the Decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (other than those listed above) Other criminal offenses Total convicted for criminal offenses | 72293 637055 3635 1021 19648 35518 | ||
| Total: | 2528146 | 1533767 994379
Thus, among the prisoners held in the Gulag camps, the majority were criminals, and as a rule, less than 1/3 were "repressed". The exception is 1944-1948, when this category received a worthy replenishment in the person of Vlasov, policemen, elders and other "fighters against communist tyranny." Even less was the percentage of "political" in corrective labor colonies.
Mortality among prisoners
The available archival documents make it possible to shed light on this issue as well.
Mortality of prisoners in the Gulag camps
| Year | Average quantity prisoners | Died | % |
| 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1949 1950 1951 1952 | 240.350 301.500 422.304 617.895 782.445 830.144 908.624 1.156.781 1.330.802 1.422.466 1.458.060 1.199.785 823.784 689.550 658.202 704.868 958.448 1.316.331 1.475.034 1.622.485 1.719.586 | 7283
Data for 1948 has not yet been found.
Mortality in prisons
| Year | Average quantity prisoners | Died | % |
| 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 | 269.393 328.486 369.613 253.033 194.415 213.403 260.328 269.141 286.755 255.711 214.896 181.712 158.647 | 7036
The arithmetic mean between the figures for January 1 and December 31 was taken as the average number of prisoners.
Mortality in the colonies on the eve of the war was lower than in the camps. For example, in 1939 it was 2.30%
Mortality of prisoners in Gulag colonies
Thus, as the facts testify, contrary to the assurances of the "denunciators", the death rate of prisoners under Stalin was kept at a very low level. However, during the war, the situation of the Gulag prisoners worsened. Nutritional rations were significantly reduced, which immediately led to a sharp increase in mortality. By 1944, the food rations of Gulag prisoners were slightly increased: for bread - by 12%, cereals - 24%, meat and fish - 40%, fats - 28% and vegetables - by 22%, after which the death rate began to noticeably decrease . But even after that, they remained about 30% lower in calories than pre-war nutritional standards.
Nevertheless, even in the most difficult years of 1942 and 1943, the death rate of prisoners was about 20% per year in camps and about 10% per year in prisons, and not 10% per month, as, for example, A. Solzhenitsyn claims. By the beginning of the 50s, in the camps and colonies, it fell below 1% per year, and in prisons - below 0.5%.
In conclusion, a few words should be said about the notorious Special Camps (special charges) created in accordance with the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 416-159ss of February 21, 1948. all those sentenced to imprisonment for espionage, sabotage, terror, as well as Trotskyists, rightists, Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, anarchists, nationalists, white émigrés, members of anti-Soviet organizations and groups and "persons who pose a danger due to their anti-Soviet connections." Prisoners of special services should have been used for heavy physical work.
Reference
on the presence of a special contingent held in special camps on January 1, 1952
| №№ | Name special camps | Spy- they | Diver- santa | Ter- pop | Trots- cysts | Great- you | Men- sheviks | SRs | Anar- histists | National nalists | White- emig- welts | Participation antisov. org. | Dangerous elem. | Total |
| 1 | Mineral | 4012 | 284 | 1020 | 347 | 7 | 36 | 63 | 23 | 11688 | 46 | 4398 | 8367 | 30292 |
| 2 | Mountain | 1884 | 237 | 606 | 84 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 9546 | 24 | 2542 | 5279 | 20218 |
| 3 | dubravny | 1088 | 397 | 699 | 278 | 5 | 51 | 70 | 16 | 7068 | 223 | 4708 | 9632 | 24235 |
| 4 | steppe | 1460 | 229 | 714 | 62 | – | 16 | 4 | 3 | 10682 | 42 | 3067 | 6209 | 22488 |
| 5 | Coastal | 2954 | 559 | 1266 | 109 | 6 | – | 5 | – | 13574 | 11 | 3142 | 10363 | 31989 |
| 6 | River | 2539 | 480 | 1429 | 164 | – | 2 | 2 | 8 | 14683 | 43 | 2292 | 13617 | 35459 |
| 7 | Ozerny | 2350 | 671 | 1527 | 198 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 8 | 7625 | 379 | 5105 | 14441 | 32342 |
| 8 | Sandy | 2008 | 688 | 1203 | 211 | 4 | 23 | 20 | 9 | 13987 | 116 | 8014 | 12571 | 38854 |
| 9 | Reed | 174 | 118 | 471 | 57 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3973 | 5 | 558 | 2890 | 8251 |
| Total | 18475 | 3663 | 8935 | 1510 | 41 | 140 | 190 | 69 | 93026 | 884 | 33826 | 83369 | 244128 |
Deputy Head of the 2nd Department of the 2nd Directorate of the Gulag, Major Maslov
The death rate of prisoners of special services can be judged from the following document:
| №№ p.p. | Camp name | For kr. crime | For criminal crime | Total | Died in IV sq. 1950 | Released |
| 1 | Mineral | 30235 | 2678 | 32913 | 91 | 479 |
| 2 | Mountain | 15072 | 10 | 15082 | 26 | 1 |
| 3 | dubravny | |||||
| 4 | steppe | 18056 | 516 | 18572 | 124 | 131 |
| 5 | Coastal | 24676 | 194 | 24870 | No | No |
| 6 | River | 15653 | 301 | 15954 | 25 | No |
| 7 | Ozerny | 27432 | 2961 | 30393 | 162 | 206 |
| 8 | Sandy | 20988 | 182 | 21170 | 24 | 21 |
| 9 | Lugovoi | 9611 | 429 | 10040 | 35 | 15 |
As can be seen from the table, in 8 special charges for which information is given, out of 168,994 prisoners in the fourth quarter of 1950, 487 (0.29%) died, which, in terms of a year, corresponds to 1.15%. That is, only a little more than in ordinary camps. Contrary to popular belief, special services were not "death camps" in which dissident intelligentsia were allegedly destroyed, and the most numerous contingent of their inhabitants were "nationalists" - forest brothers and their accomplices.
A. Dugin. Stalinism: legends and facts // Slovo. 1990, No. 7.° C.24.
3. V. N. Zemskov. GULAG (historical and sociological aspect) // Sociological research. 1991, No. 6.°C.15.
4. V. N. Zemskov. Prisoners in the 1930s: socio-demographic problems // Patriotic history. 1997, No. 4.° C.67.
5. A. Dugin. Stalinism: legends and facts // Slovo. 1990, No. 7.° C.23; archival