Victims of Stalinism. How many victims of "Stalinist repressions" were in fact

In a contest of liars

archival documents say

"To the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU

Comrade Khrushchev N. S.

…
Prosecutor General R. Rudenko
Minister of Internal Affairs S. Kruglov
Minister of Justice K. Gorshenin

Number of prisoners

Mortality of prisoners

Special Camps

Notes:

6. Ibid. S. 26.

9. Ibid. S. 169

24. Ibid. L.53.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid. D. 1155. L.2.

Repression

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Mass repressions in the USSR were carried out in the period 1927-1953. These repressions are directly associated with the name of Joseph Stalin, who during these years led the country. Social and political persecution in the USSR began after the end of the last stage of the civil war. These phenomena began to gain momentum in the second half of the 1930s and did not slow down during the Second World War, as well as after its end. Today we will talk about what the social and political repressions of the Soviet Union were, consider what phenomena underlie those events, and also what consequences this led to.

They say: a whole people cannot be suppressed without end. Lie! Can! We see how our people have become devastated, run wild, and indifference descended on them not only to the fate of the country, not only to the fate of their neighbor, but even to their own fate and the fate of children. Indifference, the last saving reaction of the body, has become our defining feature . That is why the popularity of vodka is unprecedented even in Russia. This is a terrible indifference, when a person sees his life not punctured, not with a broken corner, but so hopelessly fragmented, so up and down filthy, that only for the sake of alcoholic oblivion is it still worth living. Now, if vodka were banned, a revolution would immediately break out in our country.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Reasons for repression:

• Forcing the population to work on a non-economic basis. A lot of work had to be done in the country, but there was not enough money for everything. The ideology formed new thinking and perception, and also had to motivate people to work practically for free.
• Strengthening personal power. For the new ideology, an idol was needed, a person who was unquestioningly trusted. After the assassination of Lenin, this post was vacant. Stalin had to take this place.
• Strengthening the exhaustion of a totalitarian society.

If you try to find the beginning of repression in the union, then the starting point, of course, should be 1927. This year was marked by the fact that mass executions began in the country, with the so-called pests, as well as saboteurs. The motive of these events should be sought in the relations between the USSR and Great Britain. So, at the beginning of 1927, the Soviet Union was involved in a major international scandal, when the country was openly accused of trying to transfer the seat of the Soviet revolution to London. In response to these events, Great Britain severed all relations with the USSR, both political and economic. Inside the country, this step was presented as London's preparation for a new wave of intervention. At one of the party meetings, Stalin declared that the country "needs to destroy all remnants of imperialism and all supporters of the White Guard movement." Stalin had an excellent reason for this on June 7, 1927. On this day, the political representative of the USSR, Voikov, was killed in Poland.

As a result, terror began. For example, on the night of June 10, 20 people who contacted the empire were shot. They were representatives of ancient noble families. In total, in June 27, more than 9 thousand people were arrested, who were accused of treason, aiding imperialism and other things that sound menacing, but are very difficult to prove. Most of those arrested were sent to prison.

Pest control

After that, a number of major cases began in the USSR, which were aimed at combating sabotage and sabotage. The wave of these repressions was based on the fact that in most large companies that operated within the Soviet Union, senior positions were occupied by people from imperial Russia. Of course, most of these people did not feel sympathy for the new government. Therefore, the Soviet regime was looking for pretexts by which this intelligentsia could be removed from leadership positions and, if possible, destroyed. The problem was that it needed a weighty and legal basis. Such grounds were found in a number of lawsuits that swept through the Soviet Union in the 1920s.

Among the most striking examples of such cases are the following:

• Shakhty business. In 1928, repressions in the USSR affected miners from Donbass. A show trial was staged from this case. The entire leadership of Donbass, as well as 53 engineers, were accused of espionage with an attempt to sabotage the new state. As a result of the trial, 3 people were shot, 4 were acquitted, the rest received prison terms from 1 to 10 years. It was a precedent - society enthusiastically accepted the repressions against the enemies of the people ... In 2000, the Russian prosecutor's office rehabilitated all the participants in the Shakhty case, in view of the lack of corpus delicti.
• Pulkovo case. In June 1936, a large solar eclipse was supposed to be visible on the territory of the USSR. The Pulkovo Observatory appealed to the world community to attract personnel to study this phenomenon, as well as to obtain the necessary foreign equipment. As a result, the organization was accused of espionage. The number of victims is classified.
• The case of the industrial party. The defendants in this case were those whom the Soviet authorities called bourgeois. This process took place in 1930. The defendants were accused of trying to disrupt industrialization in the country.
• The case of the peasant party. The Socialist-Revolutionary organization is widely known, under the name of the Chayanov and Kondratiev groups. In 1930, representatives of this organization were accused of trying to disrupt industrialization and interfering in agricultural affairs.
• Union Bureau. The Union Bureau case was opened in 1931. The defendants were representatives of the Mensheviks. They were accused of undermining the creation and implementation of economic activity within the country, as well as having links with foreign intelligence.

At that moment, a massive ideological struggle was taking place in the USSR. The new regime tried with all its might to explain its position to the population, as well as to justify its actions. But Stalin understood that ideology alone could not bring order to the country and could not allow him to retain power. Therefore, along with ideology, repressions began in the USSR. Above, we have already given some examples of cases from which repressions began. These cases have always raised big questions, and today, when the documents on many of them have been declassified, it becomes absolutely clear that most of the accusations were unfounded. It is no coincidence that the Russian prosecutor's office, having examined the documents of the Shakhtinsk case, rehabilitated all participants in the process. And this despite the fact that in 1928 none of the party leadership of the country had any idea about the innocence of these people. Why did this happen? This was due to the fact that, under the guise of repression, as a rule, everyone who did not agree with the new regime was destroyed.

The events of the 1920s were only the beginning, the main events were ahead.

Socio-political meaning of mass repressions

A new massive wave of repression within the country unfolded at the beginning of 1930. At that moment, the struggle began not only with political competitors, but also with the so-called kulaks. In fact, a new blow of the Soviet power against the rich began, and this blow caught not only wealthy people, but also the middle peasants and even the poor. One of the stages of delivering this blow was dispossession. Within the framework of this material, we will not dwell on the issues of dispossession, since this issue has already been studied in detail in the corresponding article on the site.

Party composition and governing bodies in repression

A new wave of political repressions in the USSR began at the end of 1934. At that time, there was a significant change in the structure of the administrative apparatus within the country. In particular, on July 10, 1934, the special services were reorganized. On this day, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR was created. This department is known by the acronym NKVD. This division included the following services:

• Main Directorate of State Security. It was one of the main bodies that dealt with almost all cases.
• Main Directorate of Workers' and Peasants' Militia. This is an analogue of the modern police, with all the functions and responsibilities.
• Main Directorate of the Border Service. The department was engaged in border and customs affairs.
• Headquarters of the camps. This department is now widely known under the acronym GULAG.
• Main Fire Department.

In addition, in November 1934, a special department was created, which was called the "Special Meeting". This department received broad powers to combat the enemies of the people. In fact, this department could, without the presence of the accused, the prosecutor and the lawyer, send people into exile or to the Gulag for up to 5 years. Of course, this applied only to the enemies of the people, but the problem is that no one really knew how to define this enemy. That is why the Special Meeting had unique functions, since virtually any person could be declared an enemy of the people. Any person could be sent into exile for 5 years on one simple suspicion.

Mass repressions in the USSR

The events of December 1, 1934 became the reason for mass repressions. Then Sergei Mironovich Kirov was killed in Leningrad. As a result of these events, a special procedure for judicial proceedings was approved in the country. In fact, we are talking about accelerated litigation. Under the simplified system of proceedings, all cases where people were accused of terrorism and complicity in terrorism were transferred. Again, the problem was that this category included almost all people who fell under repression. Above, we have already talked about a number of high-profile cases that characterize the repressions in the USSR, where it is clearly seen that all people, one way or another, were accused of aiding terrorism. The specificity of the simplified system of proceedings was that the sentence had to be pronounced within 10 days. The defendant received the summons the day before the trial. The trial itself took place without the participation of prosecutors and lawyers. At the conclusion of the proceedings, any request for clemency was prohibited. If in the course of the proceedings a person was sentenced to death, then this measure of punishment was executed immediately.

Political repression, purge of the party

Stalin staged active repression within the Bolshevik Party itself. One of the illustrative examples of repression that affected the Bolsheviks happened on January 14, 1936. On this day, the replacement of party documents was announced. This step has long been discussed and was not unexpected. But when replacing documents, new certificates were not awarded to all party members, but only to those who "deserved trust." Thus began the purge of the party. According to official data, when new party documents were issued, 18% of the Bolsheviks were expelled from the party. These were the people to whom the repressions were applied, first of all. And we are talking about only one of the waves of these purges. In total, the cleaning of the batch was carried out in several stages:

• In 1933. 250 people were expelled from the top leadership of the party.
• In 1934-1935, 20,000 people were expelled from the Bolshevik Party.

Stalin actively destroyed people who could claim power, who had power. To demonstrate this fact, it is only necessary to say that of all the members of the Politburo of 1917, only Stalin survived after the purge (4 members were shot, and Trotsky was expelled from the party and expelled from the country). In total, there were 6 members of the Politburo at that time. In the period between the revolution and the death of Lenin, a new Politburo of 7 people was assembled. By the end of the purge, only Molotov and Kalinin survived. In 1934, the next congress of the VKP(b) party took place. The congress was attended by 1934 people. 1108 of them were arrested. Most were shot.

The assassination of Kirov aggravated the wave of repressions, and Stalin himself addressed a statement to party members about the need for the final extermination of all enemies of the people. As a result, the Criminal Code of the USSR was amended. These changes stipulated that all cases of political prisoners were considered in an expedited manner without attorneys for prosecutors within 10 days. The executions were carried out immediately. In 1936, a political trial took place over the opposition. In fact, Lenin's closest associates, Zinoviev and Kamenev, ended up in the dock. They were accused of murdering Kirov, as well as an attempt on Stalin's life. A new stage of political repressions against the Leninist guards began. This time, Bukharin was subjected to repressions, as well as the head of the government, Rykov. The socio-political meaning of repression in this sense was associated with the strengthening of the personality cult.

Repression in the army

Beginning in June 1937, repressions in the USSR affected the army. In June, the first trial took place over the high command of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA), including the commander-in-chief, Marshal Tukhachevsky. The leadership of the army was accused of attempting a coup. According to the prosecutors, the coup was to take place on May 15, 1937. The accused were found guilty and most of them were shot. Tukhachevsky was also shot.

An interesting fact is that out of the 8 members of the trial who sentenced Tukhachevsky to death, later five were themselves repressed and shot. However, from that time on, repressions began in the army, which affected the entire leadership. As a result of such events, 3 marshals of the Soviet Union, 3 army commanders of the 1st rank, 10 army commanders of the 2nd rank, 50 corps commanders, 154 division commanders, 16 army commissars, 25 corps commissars, 58 divisional commissars, 401 regimental commanders were repressed. In total, 40 thousand people were subjected to repressions in the Red Army. It was 40 thousand leaders of the army. As a result, more than 90% of the command staff was destroyed.

Strengthening repression

Beginning in 1937, the wave of repressions in the USSR began to intensify. The reason was order No. 00447 of the NKVD of the USSR of July 30, 1937. This document declared the immediate repression of all anti-Soviet elements, namely:

• Former kulaks. All those whom the Soviet government called kulaks, but who escaped punishment, or were in labor camps or in exile, were subject to repression.
• All representatives of religion. Anyone who had anything to do with religion was subject to repression.
• Participants in anti-Soviet actions. Under such participants, everyone who had ever acted actively or passively against the Soviet regime was involved. In fact, this category included those who did not support the new government.
• Anti-Soviet politicians. Inside the country, all those who were not members of the Bolshevik Party were called anti-Soviet politicians.
• The White Guards.
• People with a criminal record. People who had a criminal record were automatically considered enemies of the Soviet regime.

• hostile elements. Any person who was called a hostile element was sentenced to be shot.
• Inactive elements. The rest, who were not sentenced to death, were sent to camps or prisons for a term of 8 to 10 years.

All cases were now dealt with in an even more expedited manner, where most cases were dealt with en masse. According to the same order of the NKVD, repressions applied not only to convicts, but also to their families. In particular, the following punishments were applied to the families of the repressed:

• Families of those who were repressed for active anti-Soviet actions. All members of such families were sent to camps and labor settlements.
• The families of the repressed, who lived in the border zone, were subject to resettlement inland. Often special settlements were formed for them.
• The family of the repressed, who lived in large cities of the USSR. Such people were also resettled inland.

In 1940, a secret department of the NKVD was created. This department was engaged in the destruction of political opponents of Soviet power abroad. The first victim of this department was Trotsky, who was killed in Mexico in August 1940. In the future, this secret department was engaged in the destruction of members of the White Guard movement, as well as representatives of the imperialist emigration of Russia.

In the future, repressions continued, although their main events had already passed. In fact, repressions in the USSR continued until 1953.

The results of repression

In total, from 1930 to 1953, 3,800,000 people were repressed on charges of counter-revolution. Of these, 749,421 people were shot ... And this is only according to official information ... And how many more people died without trial or investigation, whose names and surnames are not included in the list?

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 a high level of agreement based on deep research of archives."
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, Khlevniuk writes that there were several tens of thousands of executives at various levels. 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 - the recognized revolutionaries, the heirs of Lenin - 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 the habit of systemic 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 the modern social life of Russia.
And that's great.

MASS REPRESSIONS OF THE 1920s EARLY 1950s in the USSR - coercive measures against large groups of the population, used by the Soviet government and the Communist Party in solving economic and political problems, to suppress dissent and speeches against the authorities, non-economic coercion to work.

For-tro-well-whether all social-qi-al-nye, in-li-tich., Confessional-nal-nye and nat. groups. Pro-in-di-lis both in co-ot-vet-st-wii with an angle-lov-ny for-no-da-tel-st-vom, and according to special. in a hundred-nov-le-ni-yam part. and owls. or-ga-nov, in the form of-me for-key-che-niya in prison-we, on-right-le-niya in right-vi-tel-no-work-to-vye la-ge-rya (ITL), links and you-syl-ki to from-da-len-ny districts of the country, de-port-ta-tion, you-syl-ki abroad. A big role in the development of M. p. syg-ra-whether in-li-ti-che-sky pro-cesses of the 1920s - on-cha-la of the 1950s Osu-sche-st-in-la-li-su-deb-ny-mi, as well as outside-su-deb-ny-mi or-ha-na-mi (Kol-le-gi-her GPU - OGPU , A special co-thing with the OGPU - the NKVD of the USSR, through-you-tea-we-mi "three-ka-mi", "double-koy" - ko-miss-si-her NKVD and pro-ku-ra-tu-ry).

Brief description of the myth

Massive political repressions are a unique feature of the Russian state, especially during the Soviet period. "Stalin's mass repressions" 1921-1953 accompanied by violations of the law, they suffered tens, and even hundreds of millions of citizens of the USSR. The slave labor of Gulag prisoners was the main labor resource of Soviet modernization in the 1930s.

Meaning

First of all: the very word "repression" in translation from late Latin literally means "suppression". Encyclopedic dictionaries interpret it as "a punitive measure, a punishment applied by state bodies" ("Modern Encyclopedia", "Legal Dictionary") or "a punitive measure emanating from state bodies" ("Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary").

Here and criminal repressions, ie. the use of coercive measures, including imprisonment and even life. Here and moral repression, ie. creation in society of a climate of intolerance in relation to some forms of behavior that are undesirable from the point of view of the state. Let's say, "dandies" in the USSR were not subjected to criminal repressions, but they were subjected to moral repressions, and very serious ones: from cartoons and feuilletons to exclusion from the Komsomol, which in those conditions entailed a sharp reduction in social opportunities.

As a recent foreign example of repression, one can cite the current widespread custom in North America to prevent lecturers whose views students are dissatisfied from speaking at universities, or even completely dismiss them from teaching jobs. This applies specifically to repression, and not only moral - because in this case there is the possibility of depriving a person and a source of existence.

The practice of repression has existed and exists among all peoples and at all times - simply because society is forced to defend itself against destabilizing factors the more actively, the stronger the possible destabilization.

This is the theoretical part.

In today's political circulation, the word "repressions" is used in a very specific sense - they mean "Stalinist repressions", "mass repressions in the USSR of 1921-1953. This concept, regardless of its dictionary meaning, is a kind of "ideological marker". This word itself is a ready-made argument in a political discussion; it does not seem to need definition and content.

However, even in this usage it is useful to know what is actually meant.

Court verdicts

"Stalin's repressions" were elevated to the rank of "marker words" by N.S. Khrushchev exactly 60 years ago. In his famous report at the plenum of the Central Committee, elected by the XX Congress of the CPSU, he significantly overestimated the scope of these repressions. Moreover, he overestimated it as follows: he announced quite accurately information about the total number of convictions under the articles "treason" and "banditry" handed down from the end of 1921 (when the Civil War ended in the European part of the country) and until March 5, 1953, the day of death, - but he structured this part of his report in such a way that the impression was created that he was talking only about condemned communists. And since the communists made up a small part of the country's population, then, naturally, the illusion of some incredible total volume of repressions arose.

Different people estimated this total volume in different ways - again, guided by not scientific and historical considerations, but political ones.

Meanwhile, data on repressions are not secret and are determined by specific official figures, which are considered to be more or less accurate. They are indicated in the certificate drawn up on behalf of N.S. Khrushchev in February 1954 by the Prosecutor General of the USSR V. Rudenko, the Minister of Internal Affairs S. Kruglov and the Minister of Justice K. Gorshenin.

The total number of guilty verdicts - 3,770,380. At the same time, the actual number of convicts is less, since quite a few were convicted for various elements of the crime, then covered by the concept of "Treason to the Motherland", several times. The total number of people affected by these repressions for 31 years, according to various estimates, is about three million people.

Of the 3,770,380 sentences mentioned 2 369 220 provided for serving sentences in prisons and camps, 765,180 - exile and expulsion, 642 980 - capital punishment (death penalty). Taking into account sentences under other articles and according to later studies, they give another figure - about 800,000 death sentences, of which 700 thousand were executed.

It should be taken into account that everyone who in one form or another collaborated with the German occupiers during the Great Patriotic War was naturally placed among the traitors to the Motherland. In addition, this number also included thieves in law - for refusing to work in the camps: the camp administration qualified the refusal to work as sabotage, and sabotage was then one of the various forms of treason. Consequently, among the repressed there are several tens of thousands of thieves in law.

I can add another purely household option: let's say you stole a sheet of iron from a factory to block your barn. This, of course, qualifies as embezzlement of state property under a purely criminal article. But if the plant you work at is a defense plant, then this may be considered not just theft, but an attempt to undermine the state's defense capability, and this is already one of the elements of a crime provided for in the article “Treason to the Motherland”.

During the period while L.P. Beria acted as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, the practice of issuing criminal cases for politics and "political appendages" in purely criminal cases ceased. But on December 15, 1945, he left this post, and under his successor, this practice was resumed.

Here's the thing. The then criminal code, adopted in 1922 and finalized in 1926, proceeded from the idea of ​​"external conditionality of crimes" - they say, a Soviet person violates the law only under the pressure of some external circumstances, incorrect upbringing or "the heavy legacy of tsarism." Hence, the inappropriately mild punishments provided for by the Criminal Code under serious criminal articles, for the “weighting” of which political articles were added.

Thus, it can be judged that, at least from the guilty verdicts under the article “treason against the Motherland”, handed down under N.I. Yezhov, about half of the sentences were unfounded(We pay special attention to what happened under N.I. Yezhov, since it was during this period that the peak of repressions of 1937-1938 fell.). How far this conclusion can be extrapolated to the entire period 1921-1953 is an open question.