Repressions of the 30s. Causes, scales, consequences. Were they inevitable

mass repression intelligentsia Holodomor

It was when I smiled

Only the dead, happy with peace.

And swayed with an unnecessary pendant

Near the prisons of their Leningrad.

And when, mad with torment,

There were already condemned regiments,

And a short parting song

Locomotive whistles sang,

The death stars were above us

And innocent Rus' writhed

Under the bloody boots

And under the tires of black marus.

A. Akhmatova "Requiem"

"History is the witness of centuries, the torch of truth, the soul of memory, the mentor of life." Cicero.

Throughout the millennial path of development of the Russian state, each century is marked by its own special milestones - aggressive and liberation warriors, unrest and uprisings, periods of economic and cultural growth and decline, spiritual quests and their influence.

However, it is the 20th century that stands out as the most striking and tragic, when the turning point events and moments in the history of Russia and the world took place incredibly quickly, the fall of age-old foundations and moral norms, unprecedented scientific and industrial progress, abrupt change state system, its forms and the emergence of completely new ones.

A galaxy of the brightest personalities - the greatest scientists and deceivers, revolutionaries and dictators, great generals and terrifying inquisitors. In an uncompromising struggle, theories of social and economic development and political programs, all kinds of models for the organization of Russian and world society collided.

Much has been mixed up in the kaleidoscope of events, something has been tried and discarded, something has been destroyed and irretrievably lost, something has been accepted and elevated to the rank of an absolute.

The destinies of people and the destinies of states were crushed and sacrificed to the ambitions and vanity of individuals. But this century was also marked by the manifestation of unprecedented courage and sacrifice of individuals and entire nations. Loss of spirituality and acquisition of new ideals.

The need to know, feel, evaluate, passing through oneself, the history of this century, is due to the need to anticipate and prevent the possibility of repeating the terrible pages of Russian history, but at the same time not discarding all the positive and important things that one can really be proud of.

As a thinking person, it is first of all important for me to understand the role and influence of an individual on certain historical processes. What factors and how influence the formation of the personality and the influence of the personality itself on the world. This is important for understanding the shortcomings of modern society, as well as for answering the most important philosophical question What is the price human life Without an answer to which, in my opinion, it is impossible to build a moral, highly spiritual and progressive modern society.

It is no coincidence that I chose the theme of the repressions of the 30s. In my opinion, the most troubled and terrible period of time in all of Russian history. The horror was not only in the number of victims, but also in the complete break and degradation of the human personality as a whole.

To answer the question about the causes of the mass repressions that took place, one should pay attention to the sequence of events of previous years.

If we return to the times of the great October Revolution and the civil war that followed it, it becomes clear that these events served as the starting point of mass terror and extermination that swept across a vast territory and stretched out for many years. The methods by which the Bolsheviks seized and retained power, permissiveness and impunity, made it possible in the future to move from mass terror to the total destruction of all those who were objectionable using the most inhumane means and methods.

After the death of V. Lenin and the physical elimination of political opponents (Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries), the Bolshevik Party gradually began to turn into a state structure with a complete rejection of democracy. A group of old Bolsheviks headed by Trotsky came out against the line of combining the functions of the party and the Soviet, in particular economic work. Speaking as a spokesman for the mood of the working masses, Trotsky and the opposition were supporters of the socialist sector of the economy and directive planning. However, the opposition to the triumvirate of Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev ended in his defeat and a round of political purges. Which led to the destruction of the old Bolshevik guard and the strengthening of Stalin's position as the sole leader of the party and the country.

The lack of experience in managing a huge state with an economy undermined by revolution and terror, an overgrown nominklatura and bureaucratic apparatus, and low literacy of members of the ruling party led the country to a severe economic and economic crisis. In this connection, as a temporary measure of relaxation, the NEP is introduced. The confiscated factories and plants are partially returned, small traders and entrepreneurs appear, the peasants get the opportunity to sell the surplus of their products. However, the discontent of the working class, which does not feel any improvement in its own well-being, is gradually growing.

A new opposition is emerging in the party apparatus, the center of which is industrial Leningrad, where the stratification of society was more acutely felt.

Zinoviev and Kamenev launched a campaign against the majority in the Politburo. They criticized the then economic course, bureaucracy in the apparatus and the growing role of the state party nomenklatura with its leader Stalin at the head. The rejection of the idea of ​​world revolution and integration into the world economic economy was also blamed on Stalin. However, the skillful manipulation and growing influence of Stalin led to a crushing defeat for Kamenev, Zinoviev and their supporters in December 1925. At the Congress of the AUCPB. Which led to the defeat of the Leningrad party organization and new mass purges in the party as a whole. In later years internal party struggle constantly escalates. The opposition, consisting of the united Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev and a number of old Bolsheviks, trying to resist Stalin and the unquestioningly subordinate nomenklatura apparatus selected by him, suffered a complete defeat. The whole of 1927 was marked by a campaign to discredit the oppositionists and expel them from the party ranks. The aggravation of the diplomatic relations of the USSR with a number of countries (England, Poland, China, etc.) made it possible to create the image of an accomplice and a spy, which made it possible to slander and condemn anyone who disagreed with the supreme leadership. As a result, at the Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Belarus, after the failure to publish its program of economic reforms and democratization of the party, Trotsky, Kamenev and 93 prominent oppositionists were expelled from the party. Relying on his henchmen and nominees: V. M. Molotov, M. I. Kalinin, L. M. Kaganovich, S. Ordzhonikidze, S. M. Kirov, A. I. Mikoyan, A. A. Andreev and others. Stalin first, he pushed aside Lenin’s closest associates in the October Revolution and the Civil War (L. D. Trotsky, L. B. Kamenev, G. E. Zinoviev, N. I. Bukharin, A. I. Rykov, M. P. Tomsky and others. ) and then deprived of party and state positions.

In 1928, Bukharin said: “Stalin is an unprincipled intriguer who subordinates everything to the preservation of his power. He changes theories for the sake of who should be removed at the moment. Stalin is not interested in anything except maintaining his power.” USSR Secretary of Stalin Boris Bazhanov: "The passion is all-consuming, absolute, in which he is entirely - a thirst for power. Manic passion ... the passion of an Asian satrap of distant times. Only he serves her, only he is busy with her all the time, only in her he sees the goal of life " . This purge was of great importance.

Thus, by the year 30, power was completely concentrated in the hands of one person - Stalin. To a certain extent, his victory was due to the system of autocratic oligarchic rule, as in the days of tsarist Russia as well as in the USSR. It is also true that Stalin put forward more understandable ideas that met the needs of the majority in the council of the AUCPB. The idea of ​​building socialism in a single state was proclaimed. There was a fusion of the party and state apparatus, all posts were placed completely controlled and managed by puppets clearly following the orders of one person. The seizure and retention of power, the desire for absolute domination by I. V. Stalin is one of the reasons for the mass repressions.

In fact, this process has been gaining momentum over the past 20 years. The inhuman policy of the Bolsheviks began with the Red Terror of the times civil war. When mass executions of hostages from the civilian population were carried out without trial or investigation. In retaliation for insubordination, the Cossacks were almost completely exterminated. Intentional famine, which led to huge casualties among the peasantry. The most brutal suppression of mass uprisings throughout the country, resisting surplus appropriation and robbery. The destruction of the church and its ministers is one of the institutions of moral values. Construction of a network of concentration camps for employees to destroy intimidation and slave labor.

By the end of the 20s. despite some stabilization of the economy, the growth of industrialization is insufficient. Just as fearful of a return to capitalist values ​​among the rising peasantry, which would mean a threat to the power of the Bolsheviks, Stalin decides to abandon the NEP and force the peasants to grow into socialism. The pretext was Stalin's assertion that the free market and the NEP hold back the accelerated industrialization of the country, as they make the state dependent on the private owner. In reality, two tasks were set - the complete enslavement of the peasantry - forever and accelerated industrialization. Its essence was formulated by I. V. Stalin in a speech at the plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on November 19, 1928: “The rapid pace of industrialization is dictated by the external and internal conditions of our development. In technical terms, we are considerably behind the advanced capitalist countries, therefore “we must catch up and overtake these countries ... in technical and economic terms. Either we achieve it, or we will be overwhelmed.”

In the summer of 1929, despite adopted law about the five-year plan, the hype began around its target figures. Counter plans were unconditionally accepted, as if they already had material support. In response to the slogan "Five-year plan in four years!" Stalin called for it to be completed in three years. Tasks for heavy industry (in metallurgy, mechanical engineering, etc.) were sharply increased. At the same time, a campaign began to develop mass socialist competition in factories, factories, transport, and construction. For several months, the entire press, headed by Pravda, party, trade union, and Komsomol organs, intensively propagated various labor initiatives, many of which were taken up by the workers. Such forms of competition as the movement of shock workers, the movement for the adoption of counter plans, the "continuity", the movement to "catch up and overtake" the capitalist countries in terms of output and labor productivity, etc., became widespread. Socialist competition was proclaimed one of the main conditions for fulfilling the tasks of the five-year plan. It revived the revolutionary-romantic mood of the masses, the confidence that with the help of an assault, a swoop, an impulse, everything can be done.

A cascade of arbitrary, unsupported financial measures, carried out in the form of resolutions, orders, orders, literally tormented the country.

That is, one of the reasons for the repressions was illiterate economic management, unjustified and inappropriate storming against the backdrop of abnormal, hysterical public enthusiasm, which led to the fact that the rate of industrialization growth required by the Bolsheviks could be achieved only through violent measures, free slave labor and complete subordination.

Which brings us to another reason for the repression of a total change in human consciousness and moral values ​​in general.

In fact, no one from the top of the party, from Lenin to Stalin, was ever interested in and did not take into account the needs and rights of an individual person. Proclaiming really advanced slogans and promises for that time, in fact, everything came down to ordinary populism in the struggle for power. The path to the utopian idea of ​​universal equality and prosperity was sent by the corpses of millions of people. Communist and socialist ideas were distorted depending on the requirements of the political situation or personal ambitions. Immoral, unprincipled people came to power, striving to achieve their selfish goals at any cost. And for this they needed to create people of a new formation, people capable of killing and torturing on orders without any moral regret or repentance, capable of hypocrisy and lying - opportunists. And, accordingly, to destroy any dissent and spirituality. First of all, all religious institutions, regardless of confession, were subjected to terror. The most valuable works of art and architecture were destroyed and sold. The largest figures of science and culture were shot or exiled to camps. At the most everyday level, people were driven to a bestial state by hunger, cold, lack of rights. All this gave rise to the moral degradation of cannibalism, waves of homeless children, sexual promiscuity, the collapse of family values, slander and betrayal. After the civil war, the repressive authorities began to form an extensive network of informers. Whistleblowing has become commonplace, even among members of the same family.

As a result, there are three main components - political, economic and moral historical processes that happened in the 20s and 30s. were shaping the appearance and essence of the new Soviet state.

Let us consider the specific scale of the tragedy unfolding in these years.

In the early 1930s, the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary parties were finally done away with. Almost all opponents after high-profile trials were either shot or exiled to prisons and camps. In the political sphere, a monopoly of the Communist Party was established. It also seized a monopoly of power. In fact, the country was ruled not by the authorities, but by the highest party bodies, which approved the main economic, social and political tasks of the country. The local party structures made the main decisions for the regions and managed them - in accordance with the instructions of the leader and the Politburo.

Stalin's personality cult was established. The wide celebration of the fiftieth anniversary (December 21, 1929) of I.V. , which had no analogue in the entire history of Russia, either before or after. The system of sycophancy extended to other bosses as well, until they suffered the sad fate of being repressed by their own authorities. Everything was renamed or renamed again - cities, streets, steamboats, theaters, factories, collective farms, mountain peaks.

In 1933 was conquered highest point USSR - Stalin Peak in the Pamirs.

In 1931, Stalin, in a letter to the editors of the Proletarian Revolution magazine "On Some Questions in the History of Bolshevism," announced that only "hopeless bureaucrats" could search for documents; in history, it is not the sources that are important, but the correct attitude. Since then, Stalin's dictate in the field of ideology has become indisputable.

They began to exalt him as the "father of peoples", the leader of the world proletariat, the keeper of Lenin's precepts, the "teacher of the universe." Many literary and artistic panegyrics in his honor were initiated and directed by Stalin himself. At the same time, he deeply despised the people who “adored” him, often calling him a flock of sheep.

Marxism-Leninism became the official state ideology. In accordance with this, the education system in the country was changed, educational plans and content training courses. The works of the ideological opponents of the Bolsheviks have been removed from libraries. Soviet people from birth received the "correct" ideological education. A significant role was played humanities(philosophy, linguistics, political economy, philology, etc.) designed, according to Stalin, to form a new worldview of people.

Severe censorship has been introduced in the media and in the arts. With their help, as well as extensive networks of "political education" bodies and grassroots party cells, an atmosphere of spy mania, anger, and intolerance towards any manifestation of dissent is being whipped up in the country. Any dissent was prosecuted as the gravest crime.

A powerful punitive system has been created - the OGPU, the NKVD, a huge network of prisons and concentration camps is united into a common GULAG system.

On January 17, 1930, an article by People's Commissar of Justice N.V. Krylenko was published on the pages of Pravda, which, in particular, stated: “Based on the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR on May 29, 1929, imprisonment for terms of less than a year is no longer practiced. It is proposed to develop the system of forced labor to the maximum extent. A number of measures have been taken to use the labor of persons sentenced to more than 3 years in socially necessary work in special camps in remote areas.

In the winter of 1930, there were more than 400,000 prisoners in the USSR. By 1933, using free slave labor, the White Sea-Baltic Canal was dug and built by hand. Hundreds of thousands of people died from starvation, unbearable labor and inhuman conditions of existence. In 1930 - 1940. at least 500,000 people died in the Gulag. With the help of the labor of prisoners, they mastered Natural resources KomiSSR, Kolyma, Taimyr. On March 1, 1940, the GULAG consisted of 53 camps, 425 correctional labor colonies (CITs), 50 juvenile colonies; in total - 1,668,200 prisoners.

In addition, in January 1932, there were 1.4 million deported "kulaks" and members of their families in special settlements. A smaller part of them were engaged in agriculture, most worked in the forestry and mining industries. Labor settlements of the NKVD were established in accordance with the decrees of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of August 16, 1931, 174s), April 20, 1933 (No. 775/146s) and August 21, 1933.

(1796/393s). The GULAG was responsible for supervision, organization, household services and the labor use of evicted kulaks.

By the spring of 1935, 445 thousand special settlers (including family members) worked in 1271 non-statutory agricultural artels (the difference from the usual one, in particular, was that the board was headed by a commandant); 640 thousand - in industry. For 1930-1937 Special settlers uprooted 183,416 hectares and cleared 58,800 hectares of shrubs and small forests. In Narym and the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, swamps were drained on an area of ​​2988 hectares; in the arid regions of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, 12,857 hectares of land have been irrigated. 243,161 hectares of virgin lands were also raised and developed. Forces of special settlers laid dirt roads in roadless areas. By January 1, 1938, their total length was 7294 km. Since 1932, the removal of restrictions and the granting of civil rights to special settlers began, affecting a narrow circle of people. In September 1938, non-statutory artels were transferred to the general charter of an agricultural artel. By the beginning of 1941, there were 930,221 people in the places of settlements.

In 1935, the forced labor sector numbered approximately 2 million 85 thousand people: 1 million 85 thousand in special settlements, 1 million in the Gulag; as of January 1, 1941, about 1,930,000 people in the Gulag, 930,221 people living in settlements, worked in conditions close to those usual in the country.

After the Shakhty case, which took place at the end of the 20s, the fight against "pests" from among the scientific, technical and creative intelligentsia began.

In the spring of 1930, an open political trial took place in Ukraine in the case of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine, headed by the largest Ukrainian scientist, vice-president of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (VUAN) S. O. Efremov. In addition to him, there were over 40 people in the dock.

In the same year, it was announced that another counter-revolutionary organization had been uncovered - the Labor Peasant Party, which was allegedly headed by economists N. D. Kondratiev, A. V. Chayanov, L. N. Yurovsky, agronomist A. G. Doyarenko and some other. In the autumn of 1930, a report appeared about the discovery by the OGPU of a sabotage and espionage organization in the sphere of supplying the population with the most important foodstuffs, especially meat, fish and vegetables. According to the OGPU, the organization was headed by the former landowner Professor A. V. Ryazantsev and the former landowner General E. S. Karatygin, as well as other former nobles and industrialists, Cadets and Mensheviks, who “sneaked” into leading economic positions. As reported in the press, they managed to upset the food supply system of many cities and workers' settlements, organize famine in a number of regions of the country, they were blamed for raising prices for meat and meat products, etc. Unlike other similar trials, the verdict in this The case was extremely harsh - all those involved (46 people) were shot by order of a closed court.

November 25-December 7, 1930, an open trial took place in Moscow over a group of authoritative technical specialists accused of sabotage and counter-revolutionary activities - the trial of the Industrial Party. Eight people were brought to trial: L. K. Ramzin, director of the Thermal Engineering Institute, a specialist in the field of heat engineering and boiler building; specialists in the field of technical sciences and planning: V. A. Larichev, I. A. Kalinnikov, N. F. Charnevsky, A. A. Fedotov, S. V. Kupriyanov, V. I. Ochkin, K. V. Sitnin. At trial, all the defendants pleaded guilty.

Political processes of the late 20's - early 30's. served as a pretext for mass repressions against the old ("bourgeois") intelligentsia, whose representatives worked in various people's commissariats, educational institutions, in the Academy of Sciences, in museums, cooperative organizations, in the army. The punitive organs dealt the main blow in 1928-1932. according to the technical intelligentsia - "specialists". Prisons at that time were called by wits "rest houses for engineers and technicians"

Between 1928 and 1939 carried out both physical and moral destruction of the intelligentsia, the eradication of its moral foundations and principles. During these years, the following were repressed, ended up in camps or shot: writers - S. Klychkov, O. Mendelstam, Babel, Pilnyak, Artem Vesely, director V. Meyerhold, theologian and learned priest P. Florensky, scientists of such a scale as S. Korolev, A Tupolev, B. Stechkin, etc. During this period, the directors and chief engineers of the largest enterprises and mines were destroyed.

Stalin responded to the financial difficulties of 1929 by ordering the execution of several dozen employees of financial departments, from leading economists to ordinary cashiers;

In November 1929, Stalin's article "The Year of the Great Change" was published, in which it was stated that it had already been possible to organize a "radical change in the depths of the peasantry itself" in favor of the collective farms. At the end of December of the same year, at the All-Union Conference of Marxist Agrarians, he announced that "one of the decisive turns" had taken place in the policy of the party and the state: "... from the policy of limiting the exploitative tendencies of the kulaks, we switched to the policy of liquidating the kulaks as a class"; it is necessary to "break the kulaks", "strike the kulaks... so that they can no longer rise to their feet..."

The policy of "eliminating the kulaks as a class on the basis of complete collectivization" was announced by a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of January 5, 1930. Up to 30,000 Bolsheviks are sent to the villages. Robbed wealthy peasants and their families are deprived of their rights and property and relocated to uninhabited, unsettled territories unsuitable for agricultural activities. In total, during collectivization, 2.1 million people were deported to remote areas and approximately the same number within their regions. Of the total, about 4 million - 1.8 million died.

These are only adults, children were not taken into account, and almost all of them died.

In 1932, when internal passports were introduced, peasants did not receive them, which deprives them of the right to change both their place of residence and work. Practically returns and consolidates in the country serfdom the peasants become slaves. To suppress the numerous peasant revolts that arose during collectivization, conditions were artificially created for the onset of famine. In 1932-33. famine raged on the territory of Ukraine, the Volga region, the North Caucasus, the southern Urals, central Russia and Kazakhstan. About 6.5 million people died of starvation.

A new round of repressions against the church began.

An "anti-religious five-year plan" is announced, setting as its goal by May 1, 1937. the destruction of all temples and "the very concept of God". In the early 1930s, there was a campaign of "ceremonial" dropping of bells from churches. Many priceless bells, cast by Russian craftsmen over half a millennium, perished. In the villages, churches were massively closed, they were turned into collective farm warehouses or clubs.

The greatest monuments were destroyed Christian culture(Temple of Christ

Savior, Chudov Monastery in the Moscow Kremlin). The priests were sent into exile along with the kulaks. Decrees of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of April 8, 1929. and the later instruction of the NKVD not only deprived the church of any legal rights, but also almost completely deprived the opportunity to engage in any spiritual and propaganda activities. In the period 1929 to 1934, almost 40,000 people (clergy and monasticism) were repressed, 5,000 were killed. A union of militant atheists was created (1925 - 1943)

As a result of the anti-church policy, by the beginning of the Second World War, only 4 ruling bishops remained free in the USSR, no more than 350 active churches, in which less than 500 priests served. Russian Orthodox Church, which was in the early 20th century. the largest Local Church of the Orthodox world, was almost completely destroyed.

The punitive system has acquired a solid legislative and organizational basis.

In 20 - 30 years. The OGPU created an agent-sabotage espionage network to eliminate prominent figures white movement outside the USSR. In 1940, Trotsky, who emigrated to Mexico, was killed by the secret department of the NKVD on the orders of Stalin. The same fate befell many leaders of the white movement, the monarchist emigration. In 1932, a law was passed according to which even minor theft was punishable by execution.

On June 8, 1934, a law was passed introducing the death penalty for treason. Relatives of the traitor also fell under this law, who determined their punishment from exile to a concentration camp.

In December 1934, the first secretary of the Leningrad Provincial Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, S. M. Kirov, was killed in Leningrad. This was the reason for a new wave of repression. A few hours after the assassination, a law was passed on the "simplified procedure" for dealing with cases of terrorist acts and organizations. He introduced accelerated consideration of cases without a prosecutor and a lawyer. All cases were to be considered within 10 days. Requests for pardon were prohibited. Death sentences were carried out immediately after they were announced.

In 1935, a government decree was issued that lowered the age of criminal responsibility. Now children from the age of 12 were subjected to criminal prosecution on an equal basis with adults. For them, all measures of criminal punishment were introduced - up to the death penalty.

In 1936, show trials of Stalin's main opponents began in Moscow. The first was the trial of the leaders of the inner-party opposition - Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates. They were accused of killing Kirov, trying to kill Stalin and other party leaders, and striving to overthrow Soviet power. According to the verdict of the court, they were shot.

From February 23 to March 5, 1937, the infamous Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks took place, at which on March 3, I.V. intensification of the class struggle.

He declared: “... the more we move forward, the more we have successes, the more the remnants of the defeated exploiting classes will become embittered, the sooner they will go to sharper forms of struggle, the more they will harm the Soviet state, the more they will grab for the most desperate means of struggle as the last means of the doomed."

The main enemies of the Soviet state were declared the Trotskyists, who, according to Stalin, turned into "...an unprincipled and unprincipled gang of wreckers, saboteurs, spies, assassins, employed by some intelligence agencies." He called "in the fight against modern Trotskyism" to use ... "not the old methods, not the methods of discussion, but new methods, methods of uprooting and defeat"

In fact, this was a task clearly formulated before the NKVD of the USSR to destroy the "enemies of the people." In his closing remarks at the Plenum on March 5, 1937, Stalin, relying on the results of the party discussion in 1927, even named a specific number of "enemies" - 30 thousand Trotskyists, Zinovievists and any other "riff-raff: rightists and so on."

Since July 5, 1937, the “troikas” (“Troikas”, as an extrajudicial body, were created on October 29, 1929 by an OGPU circular for preliminary consideration of investigative cases and a report at court hearings.) had the right to impose death sentences. The composition of the "troikas" included the head of the regional or regional UNKVD, regional or regional prosecutors, secretaries of regional committees, regional committees. The personal composition of the "troikas" was approved by the Politburo of the Central Committee. At a meeting of the Politburo, the control figures for the arrest and execution of enemies of the people were approved.

On July 30, 1937, Yezhov signed Order No. 00447 on the start of a massive repressive operation against the remnants of the hostile classes.

In less than two years, 1937-38, according to official figures, 1,575,259 people were arrested and 681,692 were shot.

All those subjected to punishment were divided into two categories. Those assigned to the 1st category of the “troika” were given orders - execution, to the 2nd category - imprisonment in camps for a period of 8 to 10 years. A long list of "contingents" subject to repression was identified: "former kulaks", "socially dangerous elements in rebel, fascist, terrorist and bandit formations", "members of anti-Soviet parties", "former whites, gendarmes, officials, punishers, bandits, gang accomplices, ferryers, re-emigrants", "the most hostile and active participants in the Cossack-White Guard rebel organizations, fascist, terrorist and spy-sabotage counter-revolutionary formations", "sectarian activists, churchmen", "criminals".

The punishing sword of the NKVD was supposed to hit numerous enemies, regardless of their location: those held “in custody, in prisons, camps, labor settlements and colonies”, who continued to “conduct active anti-Soviet subversive work there”, who lived in the countryside, city and worked “in collective farms, state farms, agricultural enterprises .... at industrial and commercial enterprises, transport, in Soviet institutions and in construction.

The repressive operation should begin on August 5, in the Uzbek, Turkmen, Tajik and Kirghiz SSRs - on August 10, in the Far East and Krasnoyarsk Territories and the East Siberian Region - on August 15, 1937 and end within four months. The order approved a specific number of persons subject to repression in the first and second categories for each republic, territory or region. In total, 268,950 people in the country "in a planned manner" were to be repressed in the first and second categories, including 10,000 people in the NKVD camps in the first category. These figures are "indicative". But the people's commissars of the republican NKVD and the heads of the regional and regional departments of the NKVD had the right to "independently exceed them." It was allowed to “reduce the numbers” and transfer “persons scheduled for repression in the first category to the second and vice versa ...”

However, execution norms were often overfulfilled due to local initiative.

So in the cipher telegram of the head of the UNKVD for the Omsk region G. F. Gorbach to N. I. Yezhov dated August 14, 1937, it was reported that on August 13, 5444 people were arrested in the 1st category. G. F. Gorbach asked to increase the "indicative" figure for the first category from 1,000 to 8,000 people. This document was shown to Stalin, who with his own hand imposed a resolution “To T. Yezhov, For increasing the limit to 8 thousand. I. Stalin. There was an increase in the "planned task" of the NKVD of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, which initially set a completely "insignificant" figure for the elimination of "enemies of the people" in the first category - 750 people. On August 20, I. V. Stalin and V. M. Molotov “corrected” the mistake by expanding the “limit” by 6,600 people. Thus, in 1937 the limits on the repressed were increased - twice as much.

On September 8, N. I. Yezhov reported in a special message to Stalin that in August 146,225 people were arrested, that is, the five-month plan was fulfilled by 54.37%. "Threes" condemned 31,530 people to execution and 13,669 people to imprisonment in camps and prisons. The "troikas" considered investigative cases in absentia, in an expedited manner.

For example:. The "troika" of the Krasnodar Territory in one day on November 20, 1937 considered 1252 criminal cases. If we assume that the “troika” worked without interruption for all 24 hours, then 1 minute was spent on one case. 15 seconds. The same "troika" on the day of November 1, 1938 passed 619 death sentences - 2.5 minutes were spent on one case.

Denunciation, especially against superiors, neighbors or colleagues, has become for many a means of promotion or improvement of living conditions.

In 1937, the second trial took place. Another group of leaders of the "Leninist Guard" was convicted. Most of the higher commanders Red Army led by Marshal Tukhachevsky. Most of the regimental commanders were killed, 40,000 commanders were repressed.

In 1938, the third trial took place. The “favorite of the party” Bukharin and the former head of the government Rykov were shot.

In the course of these trials, tens of thousands of people were repressed - relatives and acquaintances of the convicts, their colleagues, housemates.

The executions of the party elite were carried out under the direct supervision of the Politburo. 383 “hit lists” approved by Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich and others have been preserved in the archives. They included 44.5 thousand names, some of them are entitled “Wives of the enemies of the people”, “Children of the enemies of the people”.

The Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in the resolution of July 5, 1937 "The Question of the NKVD". This ruling stated:

“1. Accept the proposal of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs to imprison in camps for 5-8 years all the wives of convicted traitors to the motherland, members of the Right-Trotskyist espionage and sabotage organizations, according to the list presented.

• 3. Establish henceforth a procedure according to which all wives of exposed traitors to the homeland of Right-Trotskyist spies are to be imprisoned in camps for at least 5-8 years.
• 4. All orphans under the age of 15 remaining after the conviction should be taken to state support ...
• 5. To propose to the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs to place children in the existing network of orphanages and closed boarding schools of the People's Commissariat of Education of the republics ... ".

In pursuance of this resolution, the NKVD on August 15, 1937 issues order No. 00486 "On the operation to repress the wives and children of traitors to the motherland."

Women's camps for traitors to the motherland and orphanages of the NKVD were opened in the country.

On May 20, 1938, a special order of the NKVD demanded a tougher regime in orphanages for the children of executed parents. Many of them, like, for example, Yuri Kamenev, were killed upon reaching the age of 16 or even 14.

In 1937-1938. On the orders of Stalin and with the consent of Dmitrov and the executive committee of the Comintern, many prominent figures of the Comintern, including those of foreign origin, were killed and tortured to death in the camps.

The perpetrators of terror, Yagoda and Yezhov, and almost all of the original leadership of the Gulag were also liquidated. Of the 20 people of the highest authorities of the NKVD who joined the party under tsarism, all were shot. Of the 20 who joined the party after the revolution, 15 were shot.

In total, according to official data, in the period from 1930 to 1953, 3.8 million people were repressed (shot or exiled). Of these, only in the 30s, more than 700 thousand people were sentenced to death.

The consequences of this decade are difficult to assess unambiguously, since it cannot be denied that it was during this time period that the largest state on the planet was formed, which became the Motherland of our great-grandfathers, grandfathers and parents.

Stalinist socialism was fundamentally different from everything that was in the world surrounding the USSR, both in political, economic and social terms.

The main thing is that state ownership was introduced for all means of production, which excluded the stratification of society into antagonistic classes, that is, there is no “exploitation of man by man”. Exploitation by the state is not considered, since the state is a workers' and peasants' state.

Thanks to the state monopoly:

Eliminated unemployment - the most pressing problem capitalist society that time. Create as many jobs as needed.

The capital market has been abolished - there is no stock exchange, no ups and downs of economic conjuncture. The Great Depression begins in the West at this time.

A fairly even distribution of income is being carried out - practically free housing, education, and medical care.

High social mobility of the population - young people are always dear to us.

High rates of industrialization - built a large number of enterprises, infrastructure, development of science.

However, the real cost of these achievements is enormous:

Low standard of living - a constant shortage of everything, low assortment and quality, is the result of the lack of market relations.

Complete defenselessness before the apparatus of power, violence - the complete alienation of property in order to maintain the system in a tough, predatory way.

"Active lack of freedom" - any member of society was not only completely isolated from the outside world, not only had to know the official propaganda, but also take an active part in the social life interpreted by it in order to show their consciousness.

Daily life was hard and exhausting. The lack of housing led to an overpopulation of the existing communal apartments, which led to constant domestic conflicts and problems. Constant queues, shortages, lack of the most necessary things gave rise to theft at all levels. Being in constant fear forced people to excessively abuse alcohol and tobacco. The most difficult situation for women (low wages, hard work, harsh life), due to the ban on abortion, increased mortality.

All these components have become an integral feature of Soviet life.

This is just a general historical picture of that period of time. She is unable to convey the pain, horror, hopelessness and fear of every repression ground by the millstones.

No pain from the betrayal of comrades, no horror from the loss of a loved one, no hopelessness from eternal separation from relatives.

Each individual person is a whole world, a vast universe - destroyed and buried in the ruins of the terrible years of Stalinist terror.

Huge losses of human capital and massive spiritual degradation were the result of these years.

Was it possible to avoid reprisals?

In my opinion, the objective demands made by the world economy and the actions of the political forces that came to power during this period of time, with their utopian, radical views, could not but be accompanied by a huge wave of violence.

Without violence, the social model imposed on society in those years was not viable.

A huge number of objective and subjective reasons brought the Bolshevik Party and Stalin in particular to power. The role of his personality played a decisive role in the process of establishing the socialist model of the state, accompanied by the destruction of a whole generation of people.

Despite wars, revolutions, illiteracy and inhumanity of power, a person inside many survived, having managed to preserve the highest spiritual values ​​​​and the ability, first of all, to think independently.

Repressions in the USSR: socio-political meaning

Mass repression 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

Beginning of repressions in the Soviet Union

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 have been found in a number of litigation that swept through the Soviet Union in the 20s.

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

Shakhty case. 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.

Industrial Party case. 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 the affairs Agriculture.

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.

Repressions in the USSR in the 30s

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 has begun Soviet power on the rich, and this blow hit not only wealthy people, but also the middle peasants and even the poor. One of the stages of delivering this blow was dispossession.

The question of the repressions of the thirties of the last century is of fundamental importance not only for understanding the history of Russian socialism and its essence as a social system, but also for assessing the role of Stalin in the history of Russia.

This question plays a key role in the accusations not only of Stalinism, but, in fact, of the entire Soviet government. To date, the assessment of the “Stalinist terror” has become in our country a touchstone, a password, a milestone in relation to the past and future of Russia. Do you judge? Decisively and irrevocably? Democrat and common man! Any doubts? - Stalinist!

Let's try to deal with a simple question: did Stalin organize the "great terror"? Maybe there are other causes of terror, about which common people - liberals prefer to remain silent?

So. After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks tried to create a new type of ideological elite, but these attempts stalled from the very beginning. Mainly because the new "people's" elite believed that by their revolutionary struggle they fully earned the right to enjoy the benefits that the "elite" anti-people had by birthright.

In the noble mansions, the new nomenclature quickly settled in, and even the old servants remained in place, they only began to call them servants. This phenomenon was very wide and was called "kombarstvo".

Even the right measures proved ineffective, thanks to massive sabotage by the new elite. I am inclined to attribute the introduction of the so-called "party maximum" to the correct measures - a ban on party members receiving a salary greater than the salary of a highly skilled worker.

That is, a non-party plant director could receive a salary of 2000 rubles, and a communist director only 500 rubles, and not a penny more.

In this way, Lenin sought to avoid the influx of careerists into the party, who use it as a springboard in order to quickly break into the grain places. However, this measure was half-hearted without the simultaneous destruction of the system of privileges attached to any position.

By the way. V.I. Lenin strongly resisted the reckless growth in the number of party members, which was later taken up in the CPSU, starting with Khrushchev. In his work “Childhood disease of leftism in communism,” he wrote: “We are afraid of the excessive expansion of the party, because careerists and rogues who deserve only to be shot inevitably strive to cling to the government party.”

Moreover, in the conditions of the post-war shortage of consumer goods, material goods were not so much bought as distributed. Any power performs the function of distribution, and if so, then the one who distributes, he uses the distributed.

Therefore, the next step was to update the upper floors of the party.

Stalin stated this in his usual cautious manner at the XVII Congress of the CPSU (b) (March 1934).

In his Report, the General Secretary described a certain type of workers interfering with the party and the country: “... These are people with well-known merits in the past, people who believe that party and Soviet laws are not written for them, but for fools. These are the same people who do not consider it their duty to carry out the decisions of the party organs...

What are they counting on by violating Party and Soviet laws? They hope that the Soviet authorities will not dare to touch them because of their old merits. These arrogant nobles think that they are irreplaceable and that they can violate the decisions of the governing bodies with impunity ... ".

The results of the first five-year plan showed that the old Bolshevik-Leninists, with all their revolutionary merits, are not able to cope with the scale of the reconstructed economy. Not burdened with professional skills, poorly educated (Yezhov wrote in his autobiography: education - unfinished primary), washed in the blood of the Civil War, they could not "saddle" the complex production realities.

Formally, the real power in the localities belonged to the Soviets, since the party did not have any legal authority. But the party bosses were elected chairmen of the Soviets, and, in fact, they appointed themselves to these positions, since the elections were held on a non-alternative basis, that is, they were not elections.

And then Stalin undertakes a very risky maneuver - he proposes to establish real, and not nominal, Soviet power in the country, that is, to hold secret general elections in party organizations and councils at all levels on an alternative basis.

Stalin tried to get rid of the party regional barons, as they say, in a good way, through elections, and really alternative ones. Considering Soviet practice, this sounds rather unusual, but it is true nonetheless. He expected that the majority of this public would not overcome the popular filter without support from above.

In addition, according to the new constitution, it was planned to nominate candidates to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR not only from the CPSU (b), but also from public organizations and groups of citizens.

What happened next? On December 5, 1936, the new Constitution of the USSR was adopted, the most democratic constitution of that time in the whole world, even according to the ardent critics of the USSR. For the first time in Russian history, secret alternative elections were to be held. By secret ballot.

Despite the fact that the party elite tried to put a spoke in the wheel even at the time when the draft constitution was being created, Stalin managed to bring the matter to an end.

The regional party elite understood very well that with the help of these new elections to the new Supreme Soviet, Stalin plans to carry out a peaceful rotation of the entire ruling element. And there were about 250 thousand of them. By the way, the NKVD was counting on about this number of investigations.

Understand something they understood, but what to do? I don't want to part with my chairs. And they perfectly understood one more circumstance - in the previous period they had done such a thing, especially during the Civil War and collectivization, that the people with great pleasure would not only not have chosen them, but also would have broken their heads. The hands of many high regional party secretaries were up to the elbows in blood.

During the period of collectivization in the regions there was complete arbitrariness. In one of the regions Khataevich, this nice man, actually declared a civil war in the course of collectivization in his particular region.

As a result, Stalin was forced to threaten him that he would shoot him immediately if he did not stop mocking people. Do you think that comrades Eikhe, Postyshev, Kosior and Khrushchev were better, were less "nice"? Of course, the people remembered all this in 1937, and after the elections these bloodsuckers would have gone into the woods.

Stalin really planned such a peaceful rotation operation, he openly told the American correspondent in March 1936, Howard Roy, about this. He stated that these elections would be a good whip in the hands of the people to change the leadership, he said it directly - "a whip." Will yesterday's "gods" of their districts tolerate the whip?

The Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, held in June 1936, directly aimed the party elite at new times. When discussing the draft of the new constitution, A. Zhdanov, in his extensive report, spoke quite unambiguously: “The new electoral system ... will give a powerful impetus to improving the work of Soviet bodies, eliminating bureaucratic bodies, eliminating bureaucratic shortcomings and perversions in the work of our Soviet organizations.

And these shortcomings, as you know, are very significant. Our party organs must be ready for the electoral struggle...”. And he went on to say that these elections would be a serious, serious test of Soviet workers, because the secret ballot gives ample opportunities to reject candidates who are undesirable and objectionable to the masses, that party organs are obliged to distinguish such criticism FROM HOSTILE ACTIVITY, that non-party candidates should be treated with all support. and attention, because, to put it delicately, there are several times more of them than party members.

In Zhdanov's report, the terms "intra-party democracy", "democratic centralism", "democratic elections" were publicly voiced. And demands were put forward: to ban the "nomination" of candidates without elections, to ban voting at party meetings by a "list", to ensure "an unlimited right to reject candidates nominated by party members and an unlimited right to criticize these candidates."

The last phrase referred entirely to the elections of purely party bodies, where there had not been a shadow of democracy for a long time. But, as we see, the general elections to the Soviet and party bodies have not been forgotten either.

Stalin and his people demand democracy! And if this is not democracy, then explain to me what, then, is considered democracy ?!

And how do the party nobles who gathered at the plenum react to Zhdanov's report, the first secretaries of the regional committees, regional committees, and the Central Committee of the national communist parties? And they miss it all! Because such innovations are by no means to the taste of the very “old Leninist guard”, which has not yet been destroyed by Stalin, but is sitting at the plenum in all its grandeur and splendor.

Because the vaunted "Leninist guard" is a bunch of petty satrapchiks. They are used to living in their estates as barons, single-handedly managing the life and death of people. The debate on Zhdanov's report was practically disrupted.

Despite Stalin's direct calls to discuss the reforms seriously and in detail, the old guard with paranoid persistence turns to more pleasant and understandable topics: terror, terror, terror! What the hell are reforms?!

There are more urgent tasks: beat the hidden enemy, burn, catch, reveal! The people's commissars, the first secretaries - all talk about the same thing: how they recklessly and on a large scale reveal the enemies of the people, how they intend to raise this campaign to cosmic heights ...

Stalin is losing patience. When the next speaker appears on the podium, without waiting for him to open his mouth, he ironically throws: - Have all the enemies been identified or are there still? The speaker, the first secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee, Kabakov, (another future "innocent victim of the Stalinist terror") lets the irony fall on deaf ears and habitually crackles about the fact that the electoral activity of the masses, so you know, is just "quite often used by hostile elements for counter-revolutionary work ".

They are incurable!!! They just don't know how! They don't want reforms, they don't want secret ballots, they don't want a few candidates on the ballot. Foaming at the mouth, they defend the old system, where there is no democracy, but only the "boyar volushka" ...

On the podium - Molotov. He says practical, sensible things: you need to identify real enemies and pests, and not throw mud at all, without exception, "captains of production." We must finally learn to DIFFERENTIATE THE GUILTY FROM THE INNOCENT.

It is necessary to reform the bloated bureaucratic apparatus, IT IS NECESSARY TO EVALUATE PEOPLE ON THEIR BUSINESS QUALITIES AND DO NOT LIST THE PAST ERRORS. And the party boyars are all about the same thing: to look for and catch enemies with all the ardor! Eradicate deeper, plant more! For a change, they enthusiastically and loudly begin to drown each other: Kudryavtsev - Postysheva, Andreev - Sheboldaeva, Polonsky - Shvernik, Khrushchev - Yakovlev.

Molotov, unable to stand it, openly says:

- In a number of cases, listening to the speakers, one could come to the conclusion that our resolutions and our reports went past the ears of the speakers ...

Exactly! They didn't just pass - they whistled... Most of those gathered in the hall do not know how to work or reform. But they perfectly know how to catch and identify enemies, they adore this occupation and cannot imagine life without it.

Doesn't it seem strange to you that this "executioner" Stalin directly imposed democracy, and his future "innocent victims" ran away from this democracy like hell from incense. Yes, and demanded repression, and more.

In short, it was not the “tyrant Stalin,” but precisely the “cosmopolitan Leninist party guard,” who ruled the roost at the June 1936 plenum, buried all attempts at a democratic thaw. She did not give Stalin the opportunity to get rid of them, as they say, in a GOOD way, through the elections.

Stalin's authority was so great that the party barons did not dare to openly protest, and in 1936 the Constitution of the USSR was adopted, and nicknamed Stalin's, which provided for the transition to real Soviet democracy. However, the party nomenklatura reared up and carried out a massive attack on the leader in order to convince him to postpone the holding of free elections until the fight against the counter-revolutionary element was completed.

Regional party bosses, members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, began to whip up passions, referring to the recently revealed conspiracies of the Trotskyists and the military: they say, it is only necessary to give such an opportunity, as hidden kulak underdogs, clergymen, former white officers and nobles, Trotskyists-saboteurs will rush into politics .

They demanded not only to curtail any plans for democratization, but also to strengthen emergency measures, and even introduce special quotas for mass repressions by region, supposedly in order to finish off those Trotskyists who escaped punishment. The party nomenklatura demanded the powers to repress these enemies, and it won these powers for itself.

And then the small-town party barons, who made up the majority in the Central Committee, frightened for their leadership positions, begin repressions, first of all, against those honest communists who could become competitors in future elections by secret ballot.

The nature of the repressions against honest communists was such that the composition of some district committees and regional committees changed two or three times in a year. Communists at party conferences refused to be members of city committees and regional committees. We understood that after a while you can be in the camp. And that's the best...

In 1937, about 100,000 people were expelled from the party (24,000 in the first half of the year and 76,000 in the second). About 65,000 appeals accumulated in district committees and regional committees, which there was no one and no time to consider, since the party was engaged in the process of denunciation and expulsion.

At the January plenum of the Central Committee in 1938, Malenkov, who made a report on this issue, said that in some areas the Party Control Commission restored from 50 to 75% of those expelled and convicted.

Moreover, at the June 1937 Plenum of the Central Committee, the nomenklatura, mainly from among the first secretaries, actually delivered an ultimatum to Stalin and his Politburo: either he approves the lists submitted "from below" subject to repression, or he himself will be removed.

The party nomenklatura at this plenum demanded authority for repression. And Stalin was forced to give them permission, but he acted very cunningly - he gave them a short time, five days. Of these five days, one day is Sunday. He expected that they would not meet in such a short time.

But it turns out that these scoundrels already had lists. They simply took lists of kulaks, former white officers and nobles, wrecking Trotskyists, priests, and simply ordinary citizens who had served time in prison, and sometimes not who did, classified as class alien elements.

Literally on the second day, telegrams from the localities went - the first comrades Khrushchev and Eikhe. Then, in 1954, Nikita Khrushchev was the first to rehabilitate his friend Robert Eikhe, who was shot in justice for all his cruelties in 1939.

Ballot papers with several candidates were no longer discussed at the Plenum: reform plans were reduced solely to the fact that candidates for elections would be nominated “jointly” by communists and non-party people. And from now on, there will be only one candidate in each ballot - for the sake of rebuffing intrigues.

And in addition - another verbose verbiage about the need to identify the masses of entrenched enemies.

Stalin also made another mistake. He sincerely believed that N.I. Yezhov was a man of his team. After all, for so many years they worked together in the Central Committee, shoulder to shoulder. And Yezhov has long been the best friend of Evdokimov, an ardent Trotskyist.

For 1937-38 troikas in the Rostov region, where Evdokimov was the first secretary of the regional committee, 12,445 people were shot, more than 90 thousand were repressed. These are the figures carved by the "Memorial" society in one of the Rostov parks on the monument to the victims of ... Stalinist (?!) repressions.

Subsequently, when Yevdokimov was shot, an audit found that in the Rostov region he lay motionless and more than 18.5 thousand appeals were not considered. And how many of them were not written! The best party cadres, experienced business executives, the intelligentsia were destroyed ... But what, he was the only one like that.

Memories are interesting in this regard. famous poet Nikolai Zabolotsky: “A strange confidence was ripening in my head that we were in the hands of the Nazis, who, under the nose of our government, found a way to destroy Soviet people, acting in the very center of the Soviet punitive system.

I told this guess of mine to an old party member who was sitting with me, and with horror in his eyes he confessed to me that he himself thought the same thing, but did not dare to hint about it to anyone. And indeed, how else could we explain all the horrors that happened to us ... "

But back to Nikolai Yezhov. By 1937, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, G. Yagoda, staffed the NKVD with scum, obvious traitors and those who replaced their work with hack work. N. Yezhov, who replaced him, followed the lead of the hacks and, in order to distinguish himself from the country, turned a blind eye to the fact that NKVD investigators opened hundreds of thousands of hack cases against people, mostly completely innocent. (For example, Generals A. Gorbatov and K. Rokossovsky were sent to prison.)

And the flywheel of the “great terror” began to spin with its infamous extrajudicial triples and limits on the highest measure. Fortunately, this flywheel quickly crushed those who initiated the process itself, and Stalin's merit is that he made the most of the opportunities to clean up the upper echelons of power from all kinds of bastards.

Not Stalin, but Robert Indrikovich Eikhe proposed the creation of extrajudicial reprisals, the famous "troikas", similar to Stolypin's, consisting of the first secretary, the local prosecutor and the head of the NKVD (city, region, region, republic). Stalin was against it. But the Politburo voted.

Well, in the fact that a year later it was precisely such a trio that leaned Comrade Eikhe against the wall, there is, in my deep conviction, nothing but sad justice. The party elite directly joined in the massacre with rapture!

And let's take a closer look at him, the repressed regional party baron. And, in fact, what were they like, both in business and moral, and in purely human terms? What did they cost as people and specialists? ONLY THE NOSE FIRST CLAMP, I RECOMMEND SOULLY.

In short, party members, military men, scientists, writers, composers, musicians and everyone else, up to noble rabbit breeders and Komsomol members, ate each other with rapture (four million denunciations were written in 1937-38). Who sincerely believed that he was obliged to exterminate the enemies, who settled scores. So there is no need to talk about whether the NKVD beat on the noble physiognomy of this or that “innocently injured figure” or not.

The party regional nomenklatura has achieved the most important thing: after all, in conditions of mass terror, free elections are not possible. Stalin was never able to carry them out. The end of a brief thaw. Stalin never pushed through his block of reforms. True, at that plenum he said remarkable words: “Party organizations will be freed from economic work, although this will not happen immediately. This takes time."

But, again, back to Yezhov N.I. Nikolai Ivanovich was a new man in the "bodies", he started well, but quickly fell under the influence of his deputy: Frinovsky (former head of the Special Department of the First Cavalry Army). He taught the new People's Commissar the basics of Chekist work right "in production." The basics were extremely simple: the more enemies of the people we catch, the better. You can and should hit, but hitting and drinking is even more fun.

Drunk on vodka, blood and impunity, the People's Commissar soon frankly "floated". He did not particularly hide his new views from others. “What are you afraid of? he said at one of the banquets. After all, all power is in our hands. Whom we want - we execute, whom we want - we pardon: - After all, we are everything. It is necessary that everyone, starting from the secretary of the regional committee, walk under you.

If the secretary of the regional committee was supposed to go under the head of the regional department of the NKVD, then who, one wonders, was supposed to go under Yezhov? With such personnel and such views, the NKVD became mortally dangerous for both the authorities and the country.

It is difficult to say when the Kremlin began to realize what was happening. Probably somewhere in the first half of 1938. But to realize - they realized, but how to curb the monster? It is clear that by that time the People's Commissar of the NKVD had become deadly dangerous, and it had to be "normalized".

But how? What, raise the troops, bring all the Chekists to the courtyards of the administrations and line them up against the wall? There is no other way, because, having barely sensed the danger, they would simply have swept away the authorities.

The same NKVD was in charge of protecting the Kremlin, so the members of the Politburo would have died without even having time to understand anything. After that, a dozen “blood-washed” would be put in their places, and the whole country would turn into one large West Siberian region with Robert Eikhe at the head. THE COMING OF THE HITLER TROOPS THE PEOPLES OF THE USSR WOULD BE ACCEPTED AS HAPPINESS.

There was only one way out - to put your man in the NKVD. Moreover, a person of such a level of loyalty, courage and professionalism that he could, on the one hand, cope with the management of the NKVD, and on the other, stop the monster. It is unlikely that Stalin had a large selection of such people. Well, at least one was found. But what - Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich.

The first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, a former Chekist, a talented manager, in no way a party idler, a man of action. And how it appears! For four hours, the "tyrant" Stalin and Malenkov persuade Yezhov to take Lavrenty Pavlovich as First Deputy. Four o'clock!!!

Yezhov is being crushed slowly - Beria is slowly taking control of the people's commissariat into his own hands state security, slowly places loyal people in key positions, just as young, energetic, smart, businesslike, not at all like the former barons who have been snickering.

Elena Prudnikova, a journalist and writer who devoted several books to researching the activities of L.P. Beria, said in one of the TV programs that Lenin, Stalin, Beria are three titans whom the Lord God in His great mercy sent to Russia, because, apparently He still needed Russia. I hope that she is Russia and in our time He will need it soon.

In general, the term "Stalin's repressions" is speculative, because it was not Stalin who initiated them. The unanimous opinion of one part of the liberal perestroika and current ideologists that Stalin thus strengthened his power by physically eliminating his opponents is easily explained.

These wimps simply judge others by themselves: if they have such an opportunity, they will readily devour anyone they see as a danger. No wonder Alexander Sytin is a political scientist, doctor historical sciences, a prominent neo-liberal, in one of the recent TV programs with V. Solovyov, argued that in Russia it is NECESSARY TO CREATE A DICTATORY OF TEN PERCENT OF A LIBERAL MINORITY, which then will definitely lead the peoples of Russia into a bright capitalist tomorrow.

Another part of these gentlemen believes that supposedly Stalin, who wanted to finally turn into the Lord God on Soviet soil, decided to crack down on everyone who had the slightest doubt about his genius. And, above all, with those who, together with Lenin, created the October Revolution.

Like, that's why almost the entire "Leninist guard" innocently went under the ax, and at the same time the top of the Red Army, who were accused of a never-existing conspiracy against Stalin. However, a closer study of these events raises many questions that cast doubt on this version.

In principle, thinking historians have had doubts for a long time. And doubts were sown not by some Stalinist historians, but by those eyewitnesses who themselves did not like the "father of all Soviet peoples."

For example, in the West, memoirs of the former Soviet spy Alexander Orlov (Leiba Feldbin), who fled our country at the end of the 30s, taking a huge amount of government dollars. Orlov, who knew well the "inner kitchen" of his native NKVD, wrote directly that a coup d'état was being prepared in the Soviet Union.

Among the conspirators, according to him, were both representatives of the leadership of the NKVD and the Red Army in the person of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and the commander of the Kyiv military district, Iona Yakir. The conspiracy became known to Stalin, who took very tough retaliatory actions ...

And in the 80s, the archives of Joseph Vissarionovich's main opponent, Lev Trotsky, were declassified in the United States. From these documents it became clear that Trotsky had an extensive underground network in the Soviet Union.

Living abroad, Lev Davidovich demanded from his people decisive action to destabilize the situation in the Soviet Union, up to the organization of mass terrorist actions.

In the 1990s, our archives already opened up access to the protocols of interrogations of the repressed leaders of the anti-Stalinist opposition. By the nature of these materials, by the abundance of facts and evidence presented in them, today's independent experts have drawn three important conclusions.

First, the overall picture of a broad conspiracy against Stalin looks very, very convincing. Such testimonies could not be orchestrated or faked to please the “father of nations”. Especially in the part where it was about the military plans of the conspirators.

Here is what the well-known historian and publicist Sergei Kremlev said about this: “Take and read the testimony of Tukhachevsky given to him after his arrest. The very confessions of conspiracy are accompanied by a deep analysis of the military-political situation in the USSR in the mid-30s, with detailed calculations on general situation in the country, with our mobilization, economic and other opportunities.

The question is whether such testimony could have been invented by an ordinary NKVD investigator who was in charge of the marshal's case and who allegedly set out to falsify Tukhachevsky's testimony?! No, these testimonies, and voluntarily, could only be given by a knowledgeable person no less than the level of the deputy people's commissar of defense, which was Tukhachevsky.

Secondly, the very manner of the conspirators' handwritten confessions, their handwriting spoke of what their people wrote themselves, in fact voluntarily, without physical influence from the investigators. This destroyed the myth that the testimony was rudely knocked out by the force of "Stalin's executioners", although this was also the case.

Third. Western Sovietologists and the emigre public, having no access to archival materials, were forced to actually suck their judgments about the scale of repressions. At best, they contented themselves with interviews with dissidents who either themselves had been imprisoned in the past, or cited the stories of those who had gone through the Gulag.

A. Solzhenitsyn set the highest bar in assessing the number of “victims of communism”, when in 1976 in an interview with Spanish television about 110 million victims. The ceiling of 110 million announced by Solzhenitsyn was systematically reduced to 12.5 million people of the Memorial society.

However, based on the results of 10 years of work, Memorial managed to collect data on only 2.6 million victims of repression, which is very close to the figure announced by Zemskov almost 20 years ago - 4 million people.

After the archives were opened, the West did not believe that the number of those repressed was much less than R. Conquest indicated. In total, according to archival data, for the period from 1921 to 1953, 3,777,380 were convicted, of which 642,980 people were sentenced to capital punishment.

Subsequently, this figure was increased to 4,060,306 people at the expense of 282,926 shot under paragraphs. 2 and 3 Art. 59 (especially dangerous banditry) and Art. 193 24 (military espionage and sabotage). Where the blood-washed Basmachi, Bandera, Baltic "forest brothers" and other especially dangerous, bloody bandits, spies and saboteurs entered. There is more human blood on them than there is water in the Volga. And they are also considered innocent victims of Stalinist repressions. And Stalin is blamed for all this.

(Let me remind you that until 1928, Stalin was not the sole leader of the USSR. AND HE RECEIVED FULL POWER OVER THE PARTY, THE ARMY AND THE NKVD ONLY FROM THE END OF 1938).

These figures are at first glance scary. But only for the first. Let's compare. On June 28, 1990, an interview with the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR appeared in the national newspapers, where he said: “We are literally being overwhelmed by a wave of criminality. Over the past 30 years, 38 MILLION OUR CITIZENS have been under trial, investigation, in prisons and colonies. It's a terrible number! Every ninth…”.

So. A crowd of Western journalists came to the USSR in 1990. The goal is to familiarize yourself with open archives. We got acquainted with the archives of the NKVD - they did not believe it. They demanded the archives of the People's Commissariat railways. We got acquainted - it turned out 4 million. They did not believe it. They demanded the archives of the People's Commissariat of Food. We got acquainted - it turned out 4 million repressed. We got acquainted with the clothing allowance of the camps. It turned out - 4 million repressed.

Do you think that after that, articles with the correct numbers of repressions appeared in the Western media in batches. Yes, nothing of the sort. They still write and talk about tens of millions of victims of repressions.

I want to note that the analysis of the process called “mass repressions” shows that this phenomenon is extremely multi-layered. There are real cases there: about conspiracies and espionage, political trials against hard-nosed oppositionists, cases about the crimes of the presumptuous owners of the regions and the Soviet party officials who “floated” from power.

But there are also many falsified cases: settling scores in the corridors of power, sitting around at work, communal squabbles, literary rivalry, scientific competition, persecution of clergymen who supported the kulaks during collectivization, squabbles between artists, musicians and composers.

AND THERE IS ALSO CLINICAL PSYCHIATRY - THE MILLNESS OF THE INVESTIGATORS AND THE MILLNESS OF THE INFORMERS. But what has not been found is the cases concocted at the direction of the Kremlin. There are reverse examples - when, at the will of Stalin, someone was taken out from under execution, or even released altogether.

There is one more thing to be understood. The term “repression” is a medical term (suppression, blocking) and was introduced specifically to remove the question of guilt. Imprisoned in the late 30s, which means he is innocent, as he was “repressed”.

In addition, the term "repression" was put into circulation to be used initially in order to give an appropriate moral coloring to the entire Stalinist period without going into details.

The events of the 1930s showed that the main problem for the Soviet government was the party and state "apparatus", which consisted to a large extent of unprincipled, illiterate and greedy co-workers, leading party members-talkers, attracted by the fat smell of revolutionary robbery.

Such an apparatus was exceptionally inefficient and uncontrollable, which was like death for the totalitarian Soviet state, in which everything depended on the apparatus.

It was from then on that Stalin made repression an important institution. government controlled and a means of restraining the "apparatus" in check. Naturally, the apparatus became the main object of these repressions. Moreover, repression has become an important instrument of state building. Stalin assumed that it was possible to make a workable bureaucracy out of the corrupted Soviet apparatus only after SEVERAL STAGES of repressions.

Liberals will say that this is the whole of Stalin, that he could not live without repressions, without the persecution of honest people. But here is what American intelligence officer John Scott reported to the US State Department about who was repressed. He found these repressions in the Urals in 1937.

“The director of the construction office, who was engaged in the construction of new houses for the workers of the plant, was not satisfied with his salary, which amounted to a thousand rubles a month, and a two-room apartment. So he built himself a separate house. The house had five rooms, and he was able to furnish it well: he hung silk curtains, set up a piano, covered the floor with carpets, etc.

Then he began to drive around the city in a car at a time (this happened in early 1937) when there were few private cars in the city. At the same time, the annual construction plan was completed by his office by only about sixty percent. At meetings and in the newspapers, he was constantly asked questions about the reasons for such poor performance. He answered that there were no building materials, not enough labor, and so on.

An investigation began, during which it turned out that the director appropriated state funds and sold Construction Materials to nearby state farms at speculative prices. It was also discovered that there were people in the construction office whom he specially paid to do his "business".

An open trial took place, lasting several days, at which all these people were judged. They talked a lot about him in Magnitogorsk. In his accusatory speech at the trial, the prosecutor spoke not about theft or bribery, but about sabotage. The director was accused of sabotaging the construction of workers' housing. He was convicted after he fully admitted his guilt, and then shot.”

And here is the reaction of the Soviet people to the purge of 1937 and their position at that time. “Often the workers even rejoice when they arrest some “ important bird”, the leader, whom they for some reason disliked. Workers are also very free to express their critical thoughts both in meetings and in private conversations.

I've heard them use the strongest language when talking about bureaucracy and poor performance by individuals or organizations. ... in the Soviet Union, the situation was somewhat different in that the NKVD, in its work to protect the country from the intrigues of foreign agents, spies and the onset of the old bourgeoisie, counted on the support and assistance from the population and basically received them.

Well, and: “... During the purges, thousands of bureaucrats trembled for their seats. Officials and administrative employees who had previously come to work at ten o'clock and left at half past five and only shrugged their shoulders in response to complaints, difficulties and failures, now sat at work from sunrise to sunset, they began to worry about the successes and failures of the led enterprises, and they actually began to fight for the implementation of the plan, savings and for good living conditions for their subordinates, although before this they did not bother at all.

Readers who are interested in this issue are aware of the incessant moaning of liberals that during the years of the purge, " the best people, the smartest and most capable. Scott also hints at this all the time, but, nevertheless, he seems to sum it up: “After the purges, the administrative apparatus of the entire plant was almost one hundred percent young Soviet engineers.

There are practically no specialists from among the prisoners, and foreign specialists have actually disappeared. However, by 1939 most of the departments, such as the Railroad Administration and the coking plant of the plant, began to work better than ever before.

In the course of party purges and repressions, all prominent party barons, drinking away the gold reserves of Russia, bathing with prostitutes in champagne, seizing noble and merchant palaces for personal use, all disheveled, drugged revolutionaries disappeared like smoke. And this is FAIR.

But to clean out the snickering scoundrels from the high offices is half the battle, it was also necessary to replace them with worthy people. It is very curious how this problem was solved in the NKVD. Firstly, a person was placed at the head of the department who was alien to the kombartvo, who had no ties with the capital's party top, but a proven professional in business - Lavrenty Beria.

The latter, secondly, ruthlessly cleared out the Chekists who had compromised themselves, and thirdly, carried out a radical reduction in staff, sending people who seemed to be not vile, but unsuitable for retirement or to work in other departments. And, finally, the Komsomol conscription to the NKVD was announced, when completely inexperienced guys came to the bodies instead of deserved pensioners or shot scoundrels.

But ... the main criterion for their selection was an impeccable reputation. If in the characteristics from the place of study, work, place of residence, along the Komsomol or party line, there were at least some hints of their unreliability, a tendency to selfishness, laziness, then no one invited them to work in the NKVD.

So, here is a very important point that you should pay attention to - the team is formed not on the basis of past merits, professional data of applicants, personal acquaintance and ethnicity, and not even on the basis of the desire of applicants, but solely on the basis of their moral and psychological characteristics.

Professionalism is a gain, but in order to punish any bastard, a person must be completely unstained. Well, yes, clean hands, a cold head and a warm heart - this is all about the youth of the Beria draft. The fact is that it was at the end of the 1930s that the NKVD became a truly effective special service, and not only in the matter of internal cleansing.

During the war, the Soviet counterintelligence outplayed German intelligence with a devastating score - and this is the great merit of those very Beria Komsomol members who came to the bodies three years before the start of the war.

Purge 1937-1939 played a positive role - now not a single boss felt his impunity, there were no more untouchables. Fear did not add intelligence to the nomenklatura, but at least warned it against outright meanness.

Unfortunately, immediately after the end of the great purge, alternative elections were not allowed to be held, which began in 1939. World War. And again, the question of democratization was put on the agenda by Iosif Vissarionovich in 1952, shortly before his death. But after Stalin's death, Khrushchev returned the leadership of the entire country to the party. And not only.

Almost immediately after Stalin's death, a network of special distributors and special rations appeared, through which the new elites realized their predominant position. But in addition to formal privileges, a system of informal privileges quickly formed. Which is very important.

Since we touched on the activities of our dear Nikita Sergeevich, let's talk about it in a little more detail. With a light hand or the language of Ilya Ehrenburg, the period of Khrushchev's rule was called the "thaw". Let's see what Khrushchev did during the Great Terror?

The February-March Plenum of the Central Committee of 1937 is underway. It is from him, as it is believed, that the great terror began. Here is the speech of Nikita Sergeevich at this plenum: “... We need to destroy these scoundrels. Destroying a dozen, a hundred, a thousand, we are doing the work of millions. Therefore, it is necessary that the hand does not tremble, it is necessary to step over the corpses of enemies for the benefit of the people.

But how did Khrushchev act as First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee and the Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks? In 1937-1938. out of 38 senior leaders of the MGK, only 3 survived, out of 146 party secretaries, 136 were repressed. It's hard to understand where in the Moscow region he managed to find 20,000 kulaks who fell under repression. In total, in 1937-1938, he personally repressed 55,741 people.

But, perhaps, speaking at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev was worried that innocent ordinary people were shot? Yes, Khrushchev did not care about the arrests and executions of ordinary people. His entire report at the 20th Congress was devoted to Stalin's accusations that he imprisoned and shot prominent Bolsheviks and marshals. Those. elite.

Khrushchev in his report did not even mention the repressed ordinary people. What kind of people should he worry about, “women are still giving birth”, but the cosmopolitan elite, the lapotnik Khrushchev, was oh, what a pity.

What were the motives for the appearance of the revealing report at the 20th Party Congress?

First, without trampling his predecessor in the dirt, it was unthinkable to hope for Khrushchev's recognition as a leader after Stalin. No! Stalin, even after his death, remained a competitor for Khrushchev, who had to be humiliated and destroyed by any means. Kicking a dead lion, as it turned out, is a pleasure - it does not give back.

The second motive was Khrushchev's desire to return the party to managing the economic activities of the state. To lead everything, for nothing, without answering and not obeying anyone

The third motive, and perhaps the most important, was the terrible fear of the remnants of the "Leninist Guard" for what they had done. After all, all of their hands, as Khrushchev himself put it, were up to the elbows in blood. Khrushchev and people like him wanted not only to rule the country, but also to have guarantees that they would never be dragged on the rack, no matter what they did while in leadership positions.

The 20th Congress of the CPSU gave them such guarantees in the form of indulgence for the release of all sins, both past and future. The whole riddle of Khrushchev and his associates is not worth a damn thing: it is THE IRRESSIBLE ANIMAL FEAR SITTING IN THEIR SOULS AND THE PAINFUL THIRST FOR POWER.

The first thing that strikes the de-Stalinizers is their complete disregard for the principles of historicism, which everyone seems to have been taught in the Soviet school. No historical figure cannot be judged by the standards of our contemporary era. He must be judged by the standards of his era - and nothing else. In jurisprudence, they say this: “the law retroactive doesn't have." That is, the ban introduced this year cannot apply to last year's acts.

Historicism of assessments is also necessary here: one cannot judge a person of one era by the standards of another era (especially the new era that he created with his work and genius). For the beginning of the 20th century, the horrors in the position of the peasantry were so commonplace that many contemporaries practically did not notice them.

The famine did not begin with Stalin, it ended with Stalin. It seemed like forever - but the current liberal reforms are again dragging us into that swamp, from which we seem to have already got out ...

The principle of historicism also requires the recognition that Stalin had a completely different intensity of political struggle than in later times. It is one thing to maintain the existence of the system (although Gorbachev failed to cope with this), and another to create new system on the ruins of a country ravaged by civil war.

The resistance energy in the second case is many times greater than in the first.

It must be understood that many of those killed under Stalin themselves were going to quite seriously kill him, and if he hesitated even for a minute, he himself would have received a bullet in the forehead. The struggle for power in the era of Stalin had a completely different sharpness than now: it was the era of the revolutionary "Praetorian Guard" - accustomed to rebellion and ready to change emperors like gloves.

Trotsky, Rykov, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev and a whole crowd of people who were accustomed to killings, as to peeling potatoes, claimed the supremacy ...

For any terror, not only the ruler is responsible before history, but also his opponents, as well as society as a whole. When the outstanding historian L. Gumilyov was asked already under Gorbachev whether he was angry with Stalin, under whom he was in prison, he answered: “But it was not Stalin who imprisoned me, but colleagues in the department” ...

Well, God bless him with Khrushchev and the 20th Congress of the CPSU. Let's talk about what the liberal media are constantly talking about, let's talk about Stalin's guilt.

Liberals accuse Stalin of shooting about 700,000 people in 30 years. The logic of the liberals is simple - all the victims of Stalinism. All 700 thousand.

Those. at that time there could be no murderers, no bandits, no sadists, no molesters, no swindlers, no traitors, no wreckers, etc. All victims for political reasons, all crystal clear and decent people.

Meanwhile, the CIA analytical center Rand Corporation, based on demographic data and archival documents, calculated the number of repressed in Stalin era. It turned out that less than 700 thousand people were shot from 1921 to 1953. Stalin had real power somewhere from 1927-29.

At the same time, no more than a quarter of cases fall to the share of those sentenced to an article under the political article 58. By the way, the same proportion was observed among the prisoners of the labor camps.

“Do you like it when they destroy their people in the name of a great goal?” the liberals continue. I will answer. The people - no, BUT THE BANDITS, THIVES AND MORAL FREAKS - YES. BUT I DON'T LIKE IT ANY MORE WHEN YOUR OWN PEOPLE ARE DESTROYED IN THE NAME OF FILLING THEIR POCKETS WITH BUBBLE, hiding behind beautiful liberal-democratic slogans.

Academician Tatyana Zaslavskaya, a great supporter of reforms, who at that time was part of the administration of President Yeltsin, admitted a decade and a half later that in just three years of shock therapy in Russia alone, middle-aged men died 8 million (!!!). Yes, Stalin stands on the sidelines and nervously smokes a pipe. Didn't improve.

However, your words about Stalin's non-involvement in the massacres of honest people are not convincing, the LIBERALS continue. Even if this is allowed, then in this case he was simply obliged, firstly, to honestly and openly admit to the whole people in the committed lawlessness, secondly, to rehabilitate the unjustly victims and, thirdly, to take measures to prevent such lawlessness in the future. None of this has been done.

Again a lie. Dear. You just do not know the history of the USSR.

As for the first and second, the December Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1938 openly recognized the lawlessness committed against honest communists and non-party people, adopting a special resolution on this matter, published, by the way, in all central newspapers.

Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, noting "provocations on an all-Union scale", demanded: Expose careerists who seek to distinguish themselves ... on repression. To expose a skillfully disguised enemy ... seeking to kill our Bolshevik cadres by carrying out measures of repression, sowing uncertainty and excessive suspicion in our ranks.

Just as openly, the entire country was told about the harm caused by unjustified repressions at the XVIII Congress of the CPSU (b) held in 1939.

Immediately after the December Plenum of the Central Committee in 1938, thousands of illegally repressed people, including prominent military leaders, began to return from places of detention. All of them were officially rehabilitated, and Stalin personally apologized to some.

Well, and about, thirdly, I have already said that the NKVD apparatus almost suffered the most from repressions, and a significant part was brought to justice precisely for abuse of official position, for reprisals against honest people.

What liberals do not talk about is the rehabilitation of innocent victims.

Immediately at the December Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1938, criminal cases began to be reviewed and released from the camps. It was produced: in 1939 - 230 thousand, in 1940 - 180 thousand, until June 1941 another 65 thousand.

What liberals are not talking about yet. About how they fought the consequences of the great terror. With the advent of Beria L.P. In November 1938, 7,372 operational officers, or 22.9% of their payroll, were dismissed from the state security agencies for the post of People's Commissar of the NKVD in November 1938, of which 937 went to jail.

And since the end of 1938, the country's leadership has achieved the prosecution of more than 63 thousand NKVD workers who allowed falsification and created far-fetched, fake counter-revolutionary cases, OF WHICH EIGHT THOUSAND WAS SHOT.

I will give only one example from the article by Yu.I. Mukhina: "Minutes No. 17 of the Meeting of the Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on Judicial Affairs"

In this article Mukhin Yu.I. writes: “I was told that this type of documents was never laid out on the Web due to the fact that free access to them was very quickly banned in the archive. And the document is interesting, and something interesting can be gleaned from it ... ".

Lots of interesting things. But most importantly, the article shows what the NKVD officers were shot for after L.P. Beria came to the post of People's Commissar of the NKVD. Read. The names of those shot on the slides are shaded.

Note: You can view the slide in full size by clicking on the picture and selecting the "Original" link.

P O T O C O L No. 17

Meetings of the Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on Judicial Affairs

Chairman - comrade Kalinin M.I.

Present: t.t.: Shklyar M.F., Ponkratiev M.I., Merkulov V.N.

1. Listened

G ... Sergey Ivanovich, M ... Fedor Pavlovich, by the decision of the military tribunal of the NKVD troops of the Moscow Military District of December 14-15, 1939, were sentenced to death under Art. 193-17 p. b of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for making unreasonable arrests of command and Red Army personnel, actively falsifying investigation cases, conducting them using provocative methods and creating fictitious K / R organizations, as a result of which a number of people were shot according to the fictitious ones they created materials.

Resolved:

Agrees with the use of execution to G ... S.I. and M…F.P.

17. Listened. And ... Fedor Afanasyevich was sentenced to death under Art. 193-17 p.b of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for being an employee of the NKVD, making mass illegal arrests of citizens of railway workers, falsifying interrogation protocols and creating artificial C/R cases, as a result of which over 230 people were sentenced to death and to various terms of imprisonment for more than 100 people, and of the latter, 69 people have been released at this time.

Resolved:

Agree with the use of execution against A ... F.A.

Have you read? Well, how do you like the dearest Fedor Afanasyevich? One (one!!!) investigator-falsifier summed up 236 people under execution. And what, he was the only one like that, how many of them were such scoundrels? I gave the number above. That Stalin personally set tasks for these Fedors and Sergeys to destroy honest people?

By the way. These 8,000 executed NKVD investigators are also included in the MEMORIAL list as victims of "Stalin's repressions".

What are the conclusions?

Conclusion N1. Judging Stalin's time only by repressions is the same as judging the activities of the chief physician of a hospital only by the hospital's morgue - there will always be corpses there.

If you approach with such a measure, then every doctor is a bloody ghoul and a murderer, i.e. deliberately ignore the fact that the team of doctors successfully cured and prolonged the life of thousands of patients and blame them only for a small percentage of those who died due to some inevitable misdiagnosis or died during serious operations.

But even in the teachings of Jesus, people see only what they want to see. Studying the history of world civilization, one has to observe how wars, chauvinism, the "Aryan theory", serfdom, and Jewish pogroms were justified by Christian doctrine.

This is not to mention the executions "without the shedding of blood" - that is, the burning of heretics. And how much blood was shed during the crusades and religious wars? So, maybe because of this, to ban the teachings of our Creator? Just like today, some wimps propose to ban the communist ideology.

If we look at the mortality graph of the population of the USSR, with all the desire, it is impossible to find traces of "cruel" repressions, and not because they did not exist, but because their scale is exaggerated.

What is the purpose of this exaggeration and inflation? The goal is to instill in the Russians a guilt complex similar to the guilt complex of the Germans after the defeat in World War II. The "pay and repent" complex.

But the great ancient Chinese thinker and philosopher Confucius, who lived 500 years before our era, even then said: “Beware of those who want to impute guilt to you. For they want power over you."

Do we need it? Judge for yourself. When the first time Khrushchev stunned all the so-called. truth about Stalin's repressions, then the authority of the USSR in the world immediately collapsed to the delight of the enemies. There was a split in the world communist movement. We have quarreled with great China, and tens of millions of people in the world have left the communist parties.

Eurocommunism appeared, denying not only Stalinism, but also, what is scary, the Stalinist economy. The myth of the 20th Congress created distorted ideas about Stalin and his time, deceived and psychologically disarmed millions of people when the question of the fate of the country was being decided.

When Gorbachev did this for the second time, not only the socialist bloc collapsed, but our Motherland - the USSR collapsed.

Now the team of Putin V.V. he is doing this for the third time: again he speaks only of repressions and other "crimes" of the Stalinist regime. What this leads to is clearly seen in the Zyuganov-Makarov dialogue. They are told about development, new industrialization, and they immediately begin to switch arrows to repression. That is, they immediately break off a constructive dialogue, turning it into a squabble, a civil war of meanings and ideas.

Conclusion N2. Why do they need it? To prevent the restoration of a strong and great Russia. It is more convenient for them to rule a weak and fragmented country, where people will pull each other's hair at the mention of the name of Stalin or Lenin. So it is more convenient for them to rob and deceive us. The policy of "divide and conquer" is as old as the world. Moreover, they can always dump from Russia to where their stolen capital is stored, children, wives and mistresses live.

Conclusion N3. And why do the patriots of Russia need it? It’s just that we and our children don’t have another country. Think about this first before you start cursing our history for repressions and other things. After all, we have nowhere to fall and retreat. As our victorious ancestors said in similar cases: there is no land for us behind Moscow and beyond the Volga!

Only, after the return of socialism to Russia, one must be vigilant and remember Stalin's warning that as the socialist state is built, the class struggle intensifies, that is, there is a threat of degeneration. And so it happened, and certain segments of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Central Committee of the Komsomol and the KGB were among the first to be reborn.

The Stalinist party inquisition did not work properly.

Based on materials from books and articles by Elena Anatolyevna Prudnikova, Yuri Ignatievich Mukhin and other authors.

Copy of someone else's materials

Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation

Federal State Educational Institution

Higher professional education

"SAINT PETERSBURG STATE UNIVERSITY OF CULTURE AND ARTS"

Library and Information Faculty

Department of Contemporary History of the Fatherland

Well: recent history Fatherland

Mass political repressions in the 30s. Attempts to resist the Stalinist regime.

Artist: Meerovich V.I.

Student correspondence department BIF

262 groups

Lecturer: Sherstnev V.P.

The fight against "sabotage"

Introduction

Political repressions of the 20-50s. The 20th century left a big imprint on Russian history. These were years of arbitrariness, lawless violence. Historians evaluate this period of Stalin's rule in different ways. Some of them call it a "black spot in history", others - a necessary measure to strengthen and increase the power of the Soviet state.

The very concept of "repression" in Latin means "suppression, punitive measure, punishment." In other words, suppression through punishment.

At the moment, political repression is one of the hot topics, as they have affected almost many residents of our country. IN Lately very often terrible secrets of that time emerge, thereby increasing the importance of this problem.

Versions about the causes of mass repressions

When analyzing the formation of the mechanism of mass repression in the 1930s, the following factors should be taken into account.

The transition to the policy of collectivization of agriculture, industrialization and the cultural revolution, which required significant material investments or the attraction of free labor (it is indicated, for example, that grandiose plans for the development and creation of an industrial base in the regions of the north of the European part of Russia, Siberia and the Far East required the movement of huge human wt.

Preparations for war with Germany, where the Nazis who came to power proclaimed their goal the destruction of communist ideology.

To solve these problems, it was necessary to mobilize the efforts of the entire population of the country and provide absolute support public policy, and for this - to neutralize the potential political opposition, on which the enemy could rely.

At the same time, at the legislative level, the supremacy of the interests of society and the proletarian state in relation to the interests of the individual was proclaimed and more severe punishment for any damage caused to the state, compared to similar crimes against the individual.

The policy of collectivization and accelerated industrialization led to a sharp drop in the standard of living of the population and to mass starvation. Stalin and his entourage understood that this increased the number of those dissatisfied with the regime and tried to portray "saboteurs" and saboteurs - "enemies of the people", responsible for all economic difficulties, as well as accidents in industry and transport, mismanagement, etc. According to Russian researchers, demonstrative repressions made it possible to explain the hardships of life by the presence of an internal enemy.

Stalinist repression dispossession collectivization

As the researchers point out, the period of mass repressions was also predetermined by the "restoration and active use of the political investigation system" and the strengthening of the authoritarian power of I. Stalin, who moved from discussions with political opponents on the choice of the country's development path to declaring them "enemies of the people, a gang of professional wreckers, spies, saboteurs, murderers", which was perceived by the state security agencies, the prosecutor's office and the court as a prerequisite for action.

The ideological basis of repression

The ideological basis of Stalin's repressions was formed during the years of the civil war. Stalin himself formulated a new approach at the plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in July 1928.

It cannot be imagined that socialist forms will develop, ousting the enemies of the working class, and that the enemies will retreat silently, making way for our advance, that then we will again advance, and they will retreat again, and then "suddenly" all without exception social groups, both kulaks and the poor, both workers and capitalists, will find themselves "suddenly", "imperceptibly", without struggle or unrest, in socialist society.

It has not happened and will not happen that the moribund classes voluntarily give up their positions without trying to organize resistance. It has not happened and will not happen that the advance of the working class towards socialism in a class society can do without struggle and unrest. On the contrary, the advance towards socialism cannot but lead to the resistance of the exploiting elements to this advance, and the resistance of the exploiters cannot but lead to the inevitable intensification of the class struggle.

dispossession

In the course of the forced collectivization of agriculture carried out in the USSR in 1928-1932, one of the directions of state policy was the suppression of anti-Soviet actions of the peasants and the associated "liquidation of the kulaks as a class" - "dispossession", which implied the forcible and extrajudicial deprivation of wealthy peasants, using wage labor, all means of production, land and civil rights, and eviction to remote areas of the country. Thus, the state destroyed the main social group of the rural population, capable of organizing and financially supporting the resistance to the measures taken.

Almost any peasant could get on the lists of kulaks compiled locally. The scale of the resistance to collectivization was such that it captured not only the kulaks, but also many middle peasants who opposed collectivization. The ideological feature of this period was the widespread use of the term "podkulaknik", which made it possible to repress any peasant population in general, up to farm laborers.

The protests of the peasants against collectivization, against high taxes and the forced seizure of "surplus" grain were expressed in its harboring, arson and even the murder of rural party and Soviet activists, which was regarded by the state as a manifestation of the "kulak counter-revolution".

On January 30, 1930, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution "On measures to eliminate kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization." According to this decree, kulaks were divided into three categories:

The heads of kulak families of the 1st category were arrested, and cases of their actions were referred to special construction units consisting of representatives of the OGPU, regional committees (krai committees) of the CPSU (b) and the prosecutor's office. Family members of kulaks of the 1st category and kulaks of the 2nd category were subject to eviction to remote areas of the USSR or remote areas of a given region (krai, republic) to a special settlement. The kulaks, assigned to the 3rd category, settled within the district on new lands specially allocated for them outside the collective farms.

On February 2, 1930, the order of the OGPU of the USSR No. 44/21 was issued, which provided for the immediate liquidation of "counter-revolutionary kulak activists", especially "cadres of active counter-revolutionary and insurgent organizations and groups" and "the most malicious, terry loners."

The families of those arrested, imprisoned in concentration camps or sentenced to death were subject to deportation to the remote northern regions of the USSR.

The order also provided for the mass eviction of the richest kulaks, i.e. former landowners, semi-landowners, "local kulak authorities" and "the entire kulak cadre, from which the counter-revolutionary activist is formed", "kulak anti-Soviet activist", "churchmen and sectarians", as well as their families to the remote northern regions of the USSR. As well as the priority conduct of campaigns for the eviction of kulaks and their families in the following regions of the USSR.

In this regard, the OGPU bodies were entrusted with the task of organizing the resettlement of the dispossessed and their labor use at the place of their new residence, suppressing unrest of the dispossessed in special settlements, and searching for those who had fled from places of exile. The direct management of the mass resettlement was carried out by a special task force under the leadership of the head of the Secret Operational Directorate E.G. Evdokimov. The spontaneous unrest of the peasants in the field was suppressed instantly. Only in the summer of 1931 did it take the involvement of army units to reinforce the OGPU troops in suppressing major unrest of special settlers in the Urals and Western Siberia.

In total, in 1930-1931, as indicated in the certificate of the Department for Special Settlers of the Gulag of the OGPU, 381,026 families with a total number of 1,803,392 people were sent to a special settlement. For 1932-1940. 489,822 dispossessed people arrived in special settlements.

The fight against "sabotage"

The solution of the problem of accelerated industrialization required not only the investment of huge funds, but also the creation of numerous technical personnel. The bulk of the workers, however, were yesterday's illiterate peasants who did not have sufficient qualifications to work with complex equipment. The Soviet state was also heavily dependent on the technical intelligentsia, inherited from tsarist times. These specialists were often rather skeptical of communist slogans.

The Communist Party, which grew up under conditions of civil war, perceived all the failures that arose in the course of industrialization as deliberate sabotage, which resulted in a campaign against the so-called "wrecking". In a number of sabotage and sabotage trials, for example, the following accusations were made:

Sabotage of the observation of solar eclipses (Pulkovo case);

Preparation of incorrect reports on the financial situation of the USSR, which led to the undermining of its international authority (the case of the Labor Peasant Party);

Sabotage on the instructions of foreign intelligence services through the insufficient development of textile factories, the creation of disproportions in semi-finished products, which should have led to the undermining of the USSR economy and general discontent (the case of the Industrial Party);

Damage to seed material through its contamination, deliberate sabotage in the field of mechanization of agriculture by insufficient supply of spare parts (case of the Labor Peasant Party);

Uneven distribution of goods by region on assignment from foreign intelligence agencies, which led to the formation of surpluses in some places and shortages in others (the case of the Menshevik "Union Bureau").

Also, the clergy, freelancers, small businessmen, merchants and artisans were victims of the "anti-capitalist revolution" that began in the 1930s. The population of cities was now included in the category of "working class, builder of socialism", however, the working class was also subjected to repression, which, in accordance with the dominant ideology, became an end in itself, hindering the active movement of society towards progress.

In four years, from 1928 to 1931, 138,000 industry and administrative specialists were excluded from the life of society, 23,000 of them were written off in the first category ("enemies of the Soviet regime") and deprived of their civil rights. The persecution of specialists took on enormous proportions at enterprises, where they were forced to unreasonably increase output, which led to an increase in the number of accidents, defects, and machine breakdowns. From January 1930 to June 1931, 48% of Donbass engineers were fired or arrested: 4,500 "specialist saboteurs" were "exposed" in the first quarter of 1931 in the transport sector alone. The advancement of goals that obviously cannot be achieved, which led to the failure to fulfill plans, a strong drop in labor productivity and work discipline, to a complete disregard for economic laws, ended up upsetting the work of enterprises for a long time.

The crisis emerged on a grandiose scale, and the leadership of the party was forced to take some "corrective measures." On July 10, 1931, the Politburo decided to limit the persecution of specialists who became victims of the hunt declared on them in 1928. The necessary measures were taken: several thousand engineers and technicians were immediately released, mainly in the metallurgical and coal industries, discrimination in access to higher education for the children of the intelligentsia was stopped, the OPTU was forbidden to arrest specialists without the consent of the relevant people's commissariat.

From the end of 1928 to the end of 1932, the Soviet cities were flooded with peasants, whose number was close to 12 million - these were those who fled from collectivization and dispossession. Three and a half million migrants appeared in Moscow and Leningrad alone. Among them were many enterprising peasants who preferred to flee the countryside to self-dispossession or join collective farms. In 1930-1931, countless construction projects swallowed up this very unpretentious workforce. But beginning in 1932, the authorities began to fear a continuous and uncontrolled flow of population that turned cities into villages, when the authorities needed to make them the showcase of a new socialist society; population migration jeopardized this entire elaborate ration card system from 1929, in which the number of "entitled" ration cards increased from 26 million at the beginning of 1930 to almost 40 by the end of 1932. Migration turned factories into huge camps of nomads. According to the authorities, "new arrivals from the countryside can cause negative phenomena and ruin production by an abundance of truants, a decline in work discipline, hooliganism, an increase in marriage, the development of crime and alcoholism."

In the spring of 1934, the government took repressive measures against juvenile homeless children and hooligans, whose number in the cities increased significantly during the period of famine, dispossession and exacerbation of social relations. under the law, sanctions against minors who have reached the age of 12, convicted of robbery, violence, bodily harm, self-mutilation and murder. A few days later, the government sent a secret instruction to the prosecutor's office, which specified the criminal measures that should be applied to adolescents, in particular, it was said that any measures should be applied, "including the highest measure of social protection", in other words, the death penalty. Thus, the previous paragraphs of the Criminal Code, which prohibited the death penalty for minors, were repealed.

Mass terror

On July 30, 1937, the NKVD Order No. 00447 "On the operation to repress former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements" was adopted.

According to this order, the categories of persons subject to repression were determined:

A) Former kulaks (previously repressed, hiding from repression, escaping from camps, exile and labor settlements, as well as those who fled from dispossession to cities);

B) Former repressed "churchmen and sectarians";

C) Former active participants in anti-Soviet armed uprisings;

D) Former members of anti-Soviet political parties (Socialist-Revolutionaries, Georgian Mensheviks, Armenian Dashnaks, Azerbaijani Musavatists, Ittihadists, etc.);

E) Former active "participants in bandit uprisings";

E) Former White Guards, "punishers", "repatriates" ("re-emigrants"), etc.;

g) criminals.

All the repressed were divided into two categories:

1) "the most hostile elements" were subject to immediate arrest and, after considering their cases in troikas, to execution;

2) "less active, but still hostile elements" were subject to arrest and imprisonment in camps or prisons for a period of 8 to 10 years.

By order of the NKVD, for the accelerated consideration of thousands of cases, "operational troikas" were formed at the level of republics and regions. The troika usually included: the chairman - the local head of the NKVD, the members - the local prosecutor and the first secretary of the regional, regional or republican committee of the CPSU (b).

For each region Soviet Union limits were set for both categories.

Part of the repression was carried out against people who had already been convicted and were in the camps. Limits of the "first category" (10 thousand people) were allocated for them, and triples were also formed.

The order established repressions against family members of the sentenced:

Families "whose members are capable of active anti-Soviet actions" were subject to deportation to camps or work settlements.

The families of the executed, living in the border zone, were subject to resettlement outside the border strip within the republics, territories and regions.

The families of the executed, living in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Tbilisi, Baku, Rostov-on-Don, Taganrog and in the regions of Sochi, Gagra and Sukhumi, were subject to eviction to other regions of their choice, with the exception of border regions.

All families of the repressed were subject to registration and systematic observation.

The duration of the "kulak operation" (as it was sometimes called in the documents of the NKVD, since the former kulaks made up the majority of those repressed) was extended several times, and the limits were revised. So, on January 31, 1938, by a resolution of the Politburo, additional limits of 57,200 people were allocated for 22 regions, including 48,000 for the "first category". On February 1, the Politburo approves an additional limit for camps in the Far East of 12,000 people. "first category", February 17 - an additional limit for Ukraine of 30 thousand for both categories, July 31 - for the Far East (15 thousand for the "first category", 5 thousand for the second), August 29 - 3 thousand for Chita region.

In total, during the operation, 818 thousand people were convicted by troikas, of which 436 thousand were sentenced to death.

Former employees of the Chinese Eastern Railway accused of spying for Japan were also repressed.

On May 21, 1938, by order of the NKVD, "militia troikas" were formed, which had the right to sentence "socially dangerous elements" to exile or terms of imprisonment for 3-5 years without trial. These troikas delivered various sentences to 400,000 people. The category of persons under consideration included, among other things, criminals - recidivists and buyers of stolen goods.

Repression against foreigners and ethnic minorities

On March 9, 1936, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks issued a resolution "On measures protecting the USSR from the penetration of espionage, terrorist and sabotage elements." In accordance with it, the entry of political emigrants into the country was complicated and a commission was created to "purge" international organizations on the territory of the USSR.

On July 25, 1937, Yezhov signed and put into effect order No. 00439, which ordered the local NKVD bodies to arrest all German subjects, including political emigrants, working or previously working in military factories and factories with defense workshops, within 5 days, as well as in railway transport, and in the process of investigating their cases, "to seek an exhaustive opening of the German intelligence agents that have not been exposed so far." On August 11, 1937, Yezhov signed order No. local organizations of the "Polish Military Organization" and complete it within 3 months. In these cases, 103,489 people were convicted, including 84,471 people sentenced to death.

August 17, 1937 - an order to conduct a "Romanian operation" against emigrants and defectors from Romania to Moldova and Ukraine. 8292 people were convicted, including 5439 people sentenced to death.

November 30, 1937 - Directive of the NKVD to conduct an operation against defectors from Latvia, activists of Latvian clubs and societies. 21,300 people were convicted, of which 16,575 shot.

December 11, 1937 - Directive of the NKVD on the operation against the Greeks. 12,557 people were convicted, of which 10,545 people. sentenced to be shot.

December 14, 1937 - Directive of the NKVD on the spread of repression along the "Latvian line" to Estonians, Lithuanians, Finns, and Bulgarians. 9,735 people were convicted on the "Estonian line", including 7,998 people sentenced to death, 11,066 people were convicted on the "Finnish line", of which 9,078 people were sentenced to death;

January 29, 1938 - Directive of the NKVD on the "Iranian operation". 13,297 people were convicted, of which 2,046 were sentenced to death. February 1, 1938 - NKVD directive on the "national operation" against the Bulgarians and Macedonians. February 16, 1938 - NKVD directive on arrests along the "Afghan line". 1,557 people were convicted, of which 366 were sentenced to death. On March 23, 1938, the Politburo issued a resolution on the cleansing of the defense industry from persons belonging to nationalities against whom repressions are being carried out. June 24, 1938 - Directive of the People's Commissariat of Defense on the dismissal from the Red Army of military nationalities not represented on the territory of the USSR.

On November 17, 1938, by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the activities of all emergency bodies were terminated, arrests were allowed only with the permission of a court or prosecutor. By the directive of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Beria of December 22, 1938, all sentences of the emergency authorities were declared null and void if they were not carried out or declared convicted before November 17.

Stalin's repressions had several goals: they destroyed possible opposition, created an atmosphere of general fear and unquestioning obedience to the will of the leader, ensured the rotation of personnel through the promotion of young people, weakened social tensions, blaming "enemies of the people" for the difficulties of life, ensured labor force Main Directorate of Camps (GULAG).

By September 1938, the main task of repression was completed. The repressions have already begun to threaten the new generation of party and Chekist leaders who came to the fore during the repressions. In July-September, a mass shooting of previously arrested party functionaries, communists, military leaders, NKVD officers, intellectuals and other citizens was carried out, this was the beginning of the end of terror. In October 1938, all extrajudicial sentencing bodies were dissolved (with the exception of the Special Meeting at the NKVD, as it received after Beria joined the NKVD).

Conclusion

Massive repressions, arbitrariness and lawlessness, which were committed by the Stalinist leadership on behalf of the revolution, the party, and the people, were a heavy legacy of the past.

The desecration of the honor and life of compatriots, begun in the mid-1920s, continued with the most severe consistency for several decades. Thousands of people were subjected to moral and physical torture, many of them were exterminated. The life of their families and loved ones was turned into a hopeless period of humiliation and suffering. Stalin and his entourage appropriated practically unlimited power, depriving the Soviet people of the freedoms that were granted to them during the years of the revolution. Mass repressions were carried out for the most part by extrajudicial reprisals through the so-called special meetings, boards, "troikas" and "twos". However, the elementary norms of legal proceedings were also violated in the courts.

The restoration of justice, begun by the XX Congress of the CPSU, was carried out inconsistently and, in essence, ceased in the second half of the 60s.

Today, thousands of lawsuits have not been raised yet. The stain of injustice has not yet been removed from the Soviet people, who suffered innocently during the forced collectivization, were imprisoned, evicted with their families to remote areas without a livelihood, without the right to vote, even without an announcement of a term of imprisonment.

List of used literature

2) Aralovets N.A. Losses of the population of the Soviet society in the 1930s: problems, sources, methods of study in Russian historiography // Otechestvennaya istoriya. 1995. No. 1. P.135-146

3) www.wikipedia.org - free encyclopedia

4) Lyskov D.Yu. "Stalin's repressions". Great lie of the XX century, 2009. - 288 p.

Subject political repression in the USSR under Stalin is one of the most discussed historical topics of our time. First, let's define the term "political repression". That's what the dictionaries say.

Repression (lat. repressio - suppression, oppression) - a punitive measure, punishment used by state bodies, the state. Political repressions are coercive measures applied on the basis of political motives, such as imprisonment, expulsion, exile, deprivation of citizenship, forced labor, deprivation of life, etc.

Obviously, the cause of political repression is political struggle in the state, causing some "political motives" for punitive measures. And the more fierce this struggle is, the greater the scope of repression. Thus, in order to explain the causes and scope of the repressive policy pursued in the USSR, it is necessary to understand what political forces acted at this historical stage. What goals did they pursue? And what did they achieve? Only such an approach can lead us to a deep understanding of this phenomenon.

In domestic historical journalism, regarding the issue of repressions of the 1930s, two directions have developed, which can be conditionally called “anti-Soviet” and “patriotic”. Anti-Soviet journalism presents this historical phenomenon in a simplified black and white picture, attributing b O most of the causal relationships to the personal qualities of Stalin. A purely philistine approach to history is used, which consists in explaining events only by the actions of individuals.

From the patriotic camp, the vision of the process of political repression also suffers from bias. This position, in my opinion, is objective and is due to the fact that pro-Soviet historians were initially in the minority and, as it were, on the defensive. They constantly had to defend and justify, and not put forward their own version of events. Therefore, their works, as an antithesis, contain only the signs "+". But thanks to their criticism of anti-Sovietism, it was possible to somehow sort out problem areas Soviet history, to see direct lies, to get away from myths. Now, it seems to me, the time has come to restore an objective picture of events.

Doctor of Historical Sciences Yuri Zhukov

Regarding the political repressions of the pre-war USSR (the so-called "great terror"), one of the first attempts to recreate this picture was the work "Another Stalin" by Doctor of Historical Sciences Yuri Nikolayevich Zhukov, published in 2003. I would like to talk about his conclusions in this article, as well as express some of my thoughts on this issue. Here is what Yuri Nikolayevich himself writes about his work.

“Myths about Stalin are far from new. The first, apologetic, began to take shape as early as the thirties, taking on finished outlines by the beginning of the fifties. The second, revelatory, - after that, after Khrushchev's closed report at the XX Congress of the CPSU. It actually was a mirror image of the previous one, it simply turned from “white” to “black”, without changing its nature at all...
... Far from claiming completeness and therefore indisputability, I will venture only one thing: to get away from both preconceived points of view, from both myths; try to restore the old, once well known, and now carefully forgotten, decidedly unnoticed, ignored by everyone.

Well, a very commendable desire for a historian (without quotes).

"I'm just a student of Lenin..."- I. Stalin

To begin with, I would like to talk about Lenin and Stalin, as his successor. Both liberal and patriotic historians frequently oppose Stalin to Lenin. Moreover, if the former oppose the portrait of the cruel dictator Stalin, as it were, to the more democratic Lenin (after all, he introduced the NEP, etc.). The latter, on the contrary, expose Lenin as a radical revolutionary as opposed to the statesman Stalin, who removed the unbelted "Leninist guard" from the political scene.

In fact, it seems to me that such oppositions are incorrect, tearing the logic of the formation of the Soviet state into two opposing stages. It would be more correct to speak of Stalin as the successor of what Lenin started (especially since Stalin always spoke about this, and by no means out of modesty). And try to find common features in them.

Here is what, for example, the historian Yuri Emelyanov says about this:

"First of all, Stalin was constantly guided by the Leninist principle of the creative development of Marxist theory, rejecting "dogmatic marxism". Constantly making adjustments to the daily implementation of the policy so that it corresponded to the real situation, Stalin at the same time followed the main Leninist guidelines. Putting forward the task of building a socialist society in one single country, Stalin consistently continued the activities of Lenin, which led to the victory of the world's first socialist revolution in Russia. Stalin's five-year plans followed logically from Lenin's GOELRO plan. The Stalinist program of collectivization and modernization of the countryside met the tasks of mechanization of agriculture set by Lenin.

Yuri Zhukov agrees with him (, p. 5): “To understand Stalin's views, his approach to solving all problems without exception is important - “concrete historical conditions”. It was they, and not someone's authoritative statement, that official dogmas and theories became the main ones for Stalin. They, and nothing else, explain his adherence to the policy of the same pragmatist Lenin as he himself, explain his own hesitations and fractures, his readiness, under the influence of real conditions, not at all embarrassed, to abandon previously expressed proposals and insist on other sometimes diametrically opposed.

There are good reasons to assert that Stalin's policy was a continuation of Lenin's. Perhaps, if Lenin were in Stalin's place, in the same "concrete historical conditions" he acted in a similar way. In addition, it is worth noting the phenomenal performance of these people, and the constant desire for development and self-learning.

The struggle for the Leninist legacy

Even during Lenin's lifetime, but when he was already seriously ill, a struggle for leadership in the party unfolded between Trotsky's group and the "left" (Zinoviev, Kamenev), as well as the "right" (Bukharin, Rykov) and Stalin's "centrist group". We will not particularly go into the vicissitudes of this struggle, but note the following. In the turbulent process of party discussions, it was the Stalinist group that stood out and received the support of the party, which initially occupied much worse “starting positions”. Anti-Soviet historians say that Stalin's special cunning and cunning contributed to this. He, they say, skillfully maneuvered among opponents, pushed them against each other, used their ideas, and so on.

We will not deny Stalin's ability to play a political game, but the fact remains that the Bolshevik Party supported him. And this was facilitated, firstly, by the position of Stalin, who, despite all the differences, tried to prevent a split in the party at this difficult time. And, secondly, the focus and ability of the Stalinist group to practical state activities, the thirst for which, apparently, was very strongly felt among the Bolsheviks who won the civil war.

Stalin and his associates, unlike their opponents, having objectively assessed the current situation in the world, understood the impossibility of a world revolution at this historical stage and, proceeding from this, began to consolidate the successes achieved in Russia, and not “export” them outside. From Stalin's report to the 17th Congress: "We were oriented in the past and are oriented in the present to the USSR and only to the USSR".

It is impossible to say exactly from what date the full-fledged domination of the Stalinist group in the country's leadership began. Apparently, this is the period of 1928-1929, when it can be said that this political force began to pursue an independent policy. At this stage, the repressions against the party opposition were rather mild. Usually, for opposition leaders, defeat ended in removal from leadership positions, expulsion from Moscow or the country, expulsion from the party.

The scale of repression

Now it's time to talk about numbers. What were the scales of political repressions in the Soviet state? According to discussions with anti-Sovietists (see "The Court of History" or "The Historical Trial"), it is precisely this question that causes a painful reaction on their part and accusations of "justification, inhumanity", etc. But talking about numbers really matters, as the number often says a lot about the nature of the repression. At the moment, the most widely known studies have received Dr. V. N. Zemskova.

Table 1. Comparative statistics of convicts in 1921-1952
for political reasons (according to the data of the 1st Special Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR and the KGB of the USSR)

Table 1 shows Zemskov's data obtained from two sources: the statistical reporting of the OGPU-NKVD-MVD-MGB and data from the I Special Department of the former USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

V. N. Zemskov:

“In early 1989, by decision of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, a commission of the Department of History of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR was established, headed by Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences Yu.A. Polyakov to determine the loss of the population. As part of this commission, we were among the first historians to have access to the statistical reporting of the OGPU-NKVD-MVD-MGB, which had not previously been issued to researchers ...

...The vast majority of them were convicted under the famous 58th article. There is a rather significant discrepancy in the statistical calculations of these two departments, which, in our opinion, is not at all explained by the incompleteness of the information of the former KGB of the USSR, but by the fact that employees of the 1st Special Department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs interpreted the concept of "political criminals" more widely and in the statistics compiled by them there was a significant "criminal admixture".

It should be noted that so far among historians there is no unity in assessing the process of dispossession. Should the dispossessed be classified as politically repressed? Table 1 includes only those dispossessed of the 1st category, that is, those who were arrested and convicted. Those deported to a special settlement (category 2) and simply dispossessed but not expelled (category 3) were not included in the table.

Now let's use these data to identify some special periods. This is 1921, 35,000 were convicted, of which 6,000 were sentenced to the highest measure - the end of the civil war. 1929 - 1930 - carrying out collectivization. 1941 - 1942 - the beginning of the war, the increase in the number of those shot to 23-26 thousand is associated with the elimination of "particularly dangerous elements" in prisons that fell under occupation. And a special place is occupied by 1937-1938 (the so-called "great terror"), it is during this period that a sharp surge of political repressions occurs, especially those sentenced to VMN 682 thousand (or over 82% for the entire period). What happened during this period? If everything is more or less clear with other years, then 1937 looks truly very terrifying. The work of Yury Zhukov is devoted to the explanation of this phenomenon.

Such a picture emerges from archival data. And there is a lot of controversy about these numbers. Very much they do not coincide with the tens of millions of victims voiced by our liberals.

Of course, one cannot say that the scale of repressions was very low, based only on the fact that the real number of repressed people turned out to be an order of magnitude. fewer numbers liberals. The repressions were significant in the indicated special years, when large-scale events were committed for the whole country, compared with the level of "calm" years. But at the same time, we must understand that being repressed for political reasons does not automatically mean innocent. There were those convicted of serious crimes against the state (robbery, terror, espionage, etc.).

Stalin's course

Now, after talking about numbers, let's move on to describing historical processes. However, I would like to make one digression. The topic of the article is very painful and gloomy: political intrigues and repression inspire few people. However, we must understand that the life of the Soviet people in these years was by no means filled with this. In the 20s - 30s in Soviet Russia there were truly global changes in which the people took a direct part. The country has developed at an incredible pace. The breakthrough was not only industrial: public education, health care, culture and labor rose to a qualitatively new level, and the citizens of the USSR saw it with their own eyes. The "Russian miracle" of the Stalinist five-year plans was rightly perceived by the Soviet people as the fruit of their own efforts.

What was the policy of the new leadership of the country? First of all, the strengthening of the USSR. This was expressed in the accelerated collectivization and industrialization. In raising the country's economy to a whole new level. Creation of a modern army based on a new military industry. For these purposes, all the resources of the country were thrown. The source was agricultural products, minerals, forests, and even cultural and church values. Stalin here was the toughest conductor of such a policy. And, as history has shown, not in vain ...

In international politics new course consisted in curtailing activities on the "export of the world revolution", normalizing relations with the capitalist countries, and searching for allies before the war. This was primarily due to the growing tension in the international arena and the expectation new war. The USSR, at the "proposal" of a number of countries, joins the League of Nations. These steps, at first glance, run counter to the tenets of Marxism-Leninism.

Lenin once spoke of the League of Nations:

“An undisguised instrument of the imperialist Anglo-French desires ... The League of Nations is a dangerous instrument directed with its tip against the country of the dictatorship of the proletariat”.

Whereas Stalin in an interview:

“Despite the withdrawal of Germany and Japan from the League of Nations - or perhaps precisely for this reason - the League can become a kind of brake in order to delay the outbreak of hostilities or prevent them. If this is so, if the League can turn out to be a kind of bump on the road to at least somewhat complicating the cause of war and to some extent facilitating the cause of peace, then we are not against the League. Yes, if that's the way it goes historical events, then it is possible that we will support the League, the nations, despite its colossal shortcomings..

Also in international politics, there is an adjustment in the activities of the Comintern, an organization called upon to conduct world peace. proletarian revolution. Stalin, with the help of G. Dimitrov, who returned from Nazi dungeons, calls on the Communist Parties of European countries to join the "People's Fronts" with the Social Democrats, which again can be interpreted as "opportunism." From Dimitrov's speech at the 7th World Congress of the Communist International:

“Let the communists recognize democracy, come out in defense of it, then we are ready for a united front. We are supporters of Soviet democracy, the democracy of the working people, the most consistent democracy in the world. But we defend and will continue to defend in the capitalist countries every inch of bourgeois democratic freedoms that are encroached upon by fascism and bourgeois reaction, because this is dictated by the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat!”

At the same time, the Stalinist group (in foreign policy this is Molotov, Litvinov) went to the creation of the Eastern Pact as part of the USSR, France, Czechoslovakia, England, suspiciously similar in composition to the former Entente.

Such a new course in foreign policy could not but cause protest moods in some party circles, but the Soviet Union objectively needed it.

Normalization also took place within the country. public life. returned new year holidays with a Christmas tree and a carnival, the activities of the communes were curtailed, the army introduced officer ranks(oh horror!), and much more. Here is one illustration that I think captures the atmosphere of that time. From the decision of the Politburo:

.

ihistorian. Stalin's Democracy 1937 [online].

Alexander Sabov."Stalin's Bogey". Conversation with the historian Yu. Zhukov. [in the Internet] .

The decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the operational order of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs on anti-Soviet elements. [in the Internet] .

Prudnikova, E. A. Khrushchev. Terror makers. 2007.

Prudnikova, E. A.Beria. The last knight of Stalin.: Olma Media Group, 2010.

F. I. Chuev. Kaganovich. Shepilov. Moscow: OLMA-PRES, 2001.

Grover Furr. Anti-Stalin meanness. Moscow: "Algorithm", 2007.