What were the mass repressions after the war. Stalinist repressions. What are the conclusions

Stalinist repressions occupy one of the central places in the study of the history of the Soviet period.

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

What is repression - definition

Repression is a punitive measure that was used by state authorities in relation to people trying to “undermine” the formed regime. To a greater extent, it is a method of political violence.

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

Lists of the repressed in the 30s

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

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

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

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

Thanks to the help of volunteers, lists of victims in 1937 were prepared. Only after that did the relatives find out where their family was. native person and what happened to him. But to a greater extent, they did not find anything comforting, since almost every life of the repressed ended in execution.

If you need more information about repressed relative, then you can use the site http://lists.memo.ru/index2.htm. On it by name you can find all the information of interest. Almost all the repressed were rehabilitated posthumously, which has always been a great joy for their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The number of victims of Stalinist repressions according to official data

On February 1, 1954, a memorandum was prepared in the name of N. S. Khrushchev, in which the exact data of the dead and injured were spelled out. The number is simply shocking - 3,777,380 people.

The number of repressed and executed is striking in its scale. So there are officially confirmed data that were announced during the “Khrushchev thaw”. Article 58 was political, and about 700,000 people were sentenced to death under it alone.

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

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

Victims of political repression - who are they?

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

The following categories of citizens were most often repressed:

Peasants. Those who were members of the "green movement" were especially punished. The kulaks who did not want to join the collective farms and who wanted to achieve everything on their own farms were sent into exile, while all the acquired farming was confiscated from them in full. And now the wealthy peasants were becoming poor.
The military is a separate layer of society. Ever since the time civil war Stalin did not treat them very well. Fearing a military coup, the leader of the country repressed talented military leaders, thereby securing himself and his regime. But, despite the fact that he secured himself, Stalin quickly reduced the country's defense capability, depriving it of talented military personnel.
All the sentences were turned into reality by the NKVD officers. But their repression was not bypassed. Among the employees of the people's commissariat who followed all the instructions, there were those who were shot. Such people's commissars like Yezhov, Yagoda became one of the victims of Stalin's instructions.
Even those who had something to do with religion were subjected to repression. God did not exist at that time, and belief in him "shattered" the established regime.

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

Reasons for the repressions of the 30s

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

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

Savings at the national level, it was required to force the population to work for free. There was a lot of work, and there was nothing to pay for it.
After Lenin was killed, the leader's seat was free. The people needed a leader, whom the population would follow unquestioningly.
It was necessary to create a totalitarian society in which the word of the leader should be law. At the same time, the measures used by the leader were cruel, but they did not allow organizing a new revolution.

How were the repressions in the USSR

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

The whole horror of the process is captured in the work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn "The Gulag Archipelago": “A sharp night call, a knock on the door, and several operatives enter the apartment. And behind them is a frightened neighbor who had to become understood. He sits all night, and only in the morning puts his painting under terrible and untrue testimony.

The procedure is terrible, treacherous, but thus understood, perhaps, it will save his family, but no, it was he who became the next to whom they would come to a new night.

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

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

Pulkovo case. In the summer of 1936, there should have been solar eclipse. The observatory offered to use foreign equipment in order to capture a natural phenomenon. As a result, all members of the Pulkovo Observatory were accused of having links with foreigners. Until now, data on the victims and repressed are classified.
The case of the industrial party - the Soviet bourgeoisie received the accusation. They were accused of disrupting industrialization processes.
Doctors business. Charges were received by doctors who allegedly killed Soviet leaders.

The actions taken by the government were brutal. No one understood guilt. If a person was included in the list, then he was guilty and no evidence was required for this.

The results of Stalin's repressions

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

Stalinist repressions did not benefit society, but only helped the authorities establish a totalitarian regime, from which our country could not get rid of for a long time. And the residents were afraid to express their opinion. There wasn't anyone who didn't like it. I liked everything - even to work for the good of the country practically for free.

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

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

IN THE USSR. I have tried to answer the nine most common questions about political repression.

1. What is political repression?

In the history of different countries, there have been periods when the state authorities, for some reason - pragmatic or ideological - began to perceive part of their population either as direct enemies, or as superfluous, "unnecessary" people. The principle of selection could be different - according to ethnic origin, according to religious views, according to material condition, according to political views, according to the level of education - but the result was the same: these "unnecessary" people were either physically destroyed without trial or investigation, or were subjected to criminal prosecution, or became victims of administrative restrictions (expelled from the country, sent to exile within the country, deprived of civil rights, and so on). That is, people suffered not for some personal fault, but simply because they were unlucky, simply because they ended up in a certain place at some time.

Political repressions were not only in Russia, but in Russia - not only under Soviet power. However, remembering the victims political repression, we are primarily thinking about those who suffered in 1917-1953, because they make up the majority among the total number of Russian repressed.

2. Why, speaking of political repressions, are they limited to the period of 1917-1953? There were no repressions after 1953?

The demonstration on August 25, 1968, also called the "demonstration of the seven", was carried out by a group of seven Soviet dissidents on Red Square and protested against the introduction of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia. Two of the participants were declared insane and subjected to compulsory treatment.

This period, 1917-1953, is singled out because it accounted for the vast majority of repressions. After 1953, repressions also took place, but on a much smaller scale, and most importantly, they mainly concerned people who, to one degree or another, opposed the Soviet political system. We are talking about dissidents who received prison terms or suffered from punitive psychiatry. They knew what they were getting into, they were not random victims - which, of course, does not justify what the authorities did to them.

3. Victims of Soviet political repression - who are they?

These were very different people, different in social origin, beliefs, worldview.

Sergei Korolev, scientist

Some of them are the so-called former”, that is, nobles, army or police officers, university professors, judges, merchants and industrialists, clergy. That is, those whom the communists who came to power in 1917 considered interested in the restoration of the former order and therefore suspected them of subversive activities.

Also, a huge proportion among the victims of political repression were " dispossessed“peasants, for the most part, strong owners who did not want to go to the collective farms (some, however, were not saved by joining the collective farm).

Many victims of repression were classified as " pests". This was the name of specialists in production - engineers, technicians, workers, who were credited with the intent to inflict logistical or economic damage on the country. Sometimes this happened after some real production failures, accidents (in which it was necessary to find the perpetrators), and sometimes it was only about hypothetical troubles that, according to prosecutors, could happen if the enemies had not been exposed in time.

The other part is communists and members of other revolutionary parties who joined the Communists after October 1917: Social Democrats, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Anarchists, Bundists, and so on. These people, who actively fit into the new reality and participate in the construction of Soviet power, at a certain stage turned out to be superfluous due to the intra-party struggle, which in the CPSU (b), and later in the CPSU, never stopped - at first openly, later - hidden. They are also communists who were hit because of their personal qualities: excessive ideology, insufficient servility ...

Sergeev Ivan Ivanovich Before his arrest, he worked as a watchman at the Chernivtsi collective farm "Iskra"

In the late 1930s, many were repressed military, starting with the highest commanders and ending with junior officers. They were suspected of potential participants in conspiracies against Stalin.

It is worth mentioning separately employees of the GPU-NKVD-NKGB, some of which were also repressed in the 30s during the "fight against excesses." "Excesses on the ground" - a concept that Stalin introduced into circulation, implying the excessive enthusiasm of the employees of the punitive bodies. It is clear that these "excesses" naturally followed from the general public policy, and therefore, in the mouth of Stalin, the words about excesses sound very cynical. By the way, almost the entire top of the NKVD, which carried out repressions in 1937-1938, was soon repressed and shot.

Naturally, there were many repressed for their faith(and not only Orthodox). This is the clergy, and monasticism, and active laity in the parishes, and just people who do not hide their faith. Although formally the Soviet authorities did not prohibit religion and soviet constitution 1936 guaranteed freedom of conscience to citizens, in fact an open confession of faith could end sadly for a person.

Rozhkova Vera. Before her arrest, she worked at the Institute. Bauman. Was a secret nun

Not only certain people and certain classes were subjected to repressions, but also individual peoples - Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Chechens and Ingush, Germans. It happened during the Great Patriotic War. There were two reasons. Firstly, they were seen as potential traitors who could go over to the side of the Germans during the retreat of our troops. Second, when German troops occupied the Crimea, the Caucasus and a number of other territories, some of the peoples living there really cooperated with them. Naturally, not all representatives of these peoples collaborated with the Germans, not to mention those of them who fought in the ranks of the Red Army - however, subsequently all of them, including women, children and the elderly, were declared traitors and sent into exile (where, by virtue of inhuman conditions, many died either on the way or on the spot).

Olga Berggolts, poetess, future “muse of besieged Leningrad”

And among the repressed there were many townsfolk, who seemed to have a completely safe social origin, but were arrested either because of a denunciation, or simply because of the distribution order (there were also plans to identify "enemies of the people" from above). If some major party functionary was arrested, then quite often his subordinates were also taken, right down to the lowest positions, such as a personal driver or a housekeeper.

4. Who cannot be considered a victim of political repression?

General Vlasov inspects ROA soldiers

Not all those who suffered in 1917-1953 (and later, until the end of Soviet power) can be called victims of political repression.

In addition to the “political”, people were also imprisoned in prisons and camps under ordinary criminal articles (theft, fraud, robbery, murder, and so on).

Also, one cannot consider as victims of political repression those who committed obvious treason - for example, "Vlasovites" and "policemen", that is, those who went to the service of the German invaders during the Great Patriotic War. Regardless of the moral side of the matter, it was their conscious choice, they entered into a struggle with the state, and the state, accordingly, fought with them.

The same applies to various kinds of rebel movements - Basmachi, Bandera, "forest brothers", Caucasian abreks, and so on. You can discuss their rightness and wrongness, but the victims of political repression are only those who did not take the path of war with the USSR, who simply lived ordinary life and suffered regardless of their actions.

5. How were the repressions legally formalized?

Information about the execution of the death sentence of the NKVD troika against the Russian scientist and theologian Pavel Florensky. Reproduction ITAR-TASS

There were several options. Firstly, some of the repressed were shot or imprisoned after the institution of a criminal case, investigation and trial. Basically, they were charged under article 58 of the Criminal Code of the USSR (this article included many points, from treason to the motherland to anti-Soviet agitation). At the same time, in the 1920s and even in the early 1930s, all legal formalities were often observed - an investigation was carried out, then there was a trial with debates by the defense and the prosecution - just the verdict was a foregone conclusion. In the 1930s, especially since 1937, the judicial procedure turned into a fiction, since torture and other illegal methods of pressure were used during the investigation. That is why at the trial the accused massively admitted their guilt.

Secondly, starting from 1937, along with the usual court proceedings, a simplified procedure began to operate, when there were no judicial debates at all, the presence of the accused was not required, and sentences were passed by the so-called Special Conference, in other words, the “troika”, literally for 10-15 minutes.

Thirdly, some of the victims were repressed administratively, without investigation or trial at all - the same “dispossessed”, the same exiled peoples. The same often applied to family members of those convicted under Article 58. The official abbreviation CHSIR (a member of the family of a traitor to the motherland) was in use. At the same time, no personal charges were brought against specific people, and their exile was motivated by political expediency.

But besides, sometimes the repressions did not have any legal formalization at all, in fact they were lynchings - starting from the shooting in 1917 of a demonstration in defense of the Constituent Assembly and ending with the events of 1962 in Novocherkassk, where a workers’ demonstration protesting against the increase in prices for food.

6. How many people were repressed?

Photo by Vladimir Eshtokin

This is a difficult question to which historians still do not have an exact answer. The numbers are very different - from 1 to 60 million. There are two problems here - firstly, the inaccessibility of many archives, and secondly, the discrepancy in the methods of calculation. After all, even based on open archival data, one can draw different conclusions. Archival data is not only folders with criminal cases against specific people, but also, for example, departmental reporting on food supplies for camps and prisons, statistics of births and deaths, records in cemetery offices about burials, and so on and so forth. Historians try to take into account as many different sources as possible, but the data sometimes diverge from each other. The reasons are different - and accounting errors, and deliberate juggling, and the loss of many important documents.

It is also a very controversial issue - how many people were not just repressed, but exactly what was physically destroyed, did not return home? How to count? Only sentenced to death? Or plus those who died in custody? If we count the dead, then we need to deal with the causes of death: they could be caused by unbearable conditions (hunger, cold, beatings, overwork), and could be natural (death from old age, death from chronic diseases that began long before the arrest). In certificates of death (which were not even always kept in a criminal case), “acute heart failure” most often appeared, but in fact it could be anything.

In addition, although any historian should be impartial, as a scientist should be, in reality, each researcher has his own worldview and political preferences, and therefore the historian may consider some data more reliable, and some less. Complete objectivity is an ideal to be strived for, but which has not yet been achieved by any historian. Therefore, when faced with any specific estimates, one should be careful. What if the author voluntarily or involuntarily overestimates or underestimates the figures?

But in order to understand the scale of repression, it is enough to give an example of the discrepancy in numbers. According to church historians, in 1937-38 more than 130 thousand clergy. According to historians committed to the communist ideology, in 1937-38 the number of arrested clergymen is much less - only about 47 thousand. Let's not argue about who is more right. Let's do a thought experiment: imagine that now, in our time, 47,000 railway workers are arrested in Russia during the year. What will happen to our transport system? And if 47,000 doctors are arrested in a year, will domestic medicine survive at all? What if 47,000 priests are arrested? However, we don't even have that many now. In general, even if we focus on the minimum estimates, it is easy to see that the repressions have become a social catastrophe.

And for their moral assessment, the specific numbers of victims are completely unimportant. Whether it's a million or a hundred million or a hundred thousand, it's still a tragedy, it's still a crime.

7. What is rehabilitation?

The vast majority of victims of political repression were subsequently rehabilitated.

Rehabilitation is the official recognition by the state that this person was convicted unfairly, that he is innocent of the charges brought against him and therefore is not considered convicted and gets rid of the restrictions that people who have been released from prison may be subject to (for example, the right to be elected a deputy, the right to work in law enforcement agencies, etc.).

Many believe that the rehabilitation of the victims of political repression began only in 1956, after the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, N.S. Khrushchev, at the 20th Party Congress, exposed Stalin's personality cult. In fact, this is not so - the first wave of rehabilitation took place in 1939, after the country's leadership condemned the rampant repressions of 1937-38 (which were called "excesses on the ground"). This, by the way, is an important point, because in this way the existence of political repressions in the country was recognized in general. Recognized even by those who launched these repressions. Therefore, the assertion of modern Stalinists that repression is a myth looks simply ridiculous. What about the myth, even if your idol Stalin recognized them?

However, few people were rehabilitated in 1939-41. And mass rehabilitation began in 1953 after the death of Stalin, its peak was in 1955-1962. Then, until the second half of the 1980s, there were few rehabilitations, but after the perestroika announced in 1985, their number increased dramatically. Separate acts of rehabilitation took place already in the post-Soviet era, in the 1990s (since the Russian Federation is legally the successor of the USSR, it has the right to rehabilitate those who were unjustly convicted before 1991).

But, shot in Yekaterinburg in 1918, she was officially rehabilitated only in 2008. Prior to that, the Prosecutor General's Office resisted rehabilitation on the grounds that the murder of the royal family had no legal formalization and became the arbitrariness of local authorities. But the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in 2008 considered that even though there was no court decision, they shot royal family by decision of the local authorities, which have administrative powers and therefore are part of the state machine - and repression is a measure of coercion on the part of the state.

By the way, there are people who undoubtedly became victims of political repressions, who did not commit what they were formally accused of - but there is no decision on the rehabilitation of which and, apparently, never will be. We are talking about those who, before falling under the rink of repression, were themselves the drivers of this rink. For example, the "iron Commissar" Nikolai Yezhov. Well, what kind of innocent victim is he? Or the same Lavrenty Beria. Of course, his execution was unjust, of course, he was not any English and French spy, as he was hastily attributed - but his rehabilitation would be a demonstrative justification for political terror.

The rehabilitation of victims of political repression did not always happen “automatically”, sometimes these people or their relatives had to be persistent, write letters to state bodies for years.

8. What is being said about political repressions now?

Photo by Vladimir Eshtokin

IN modern Russia there is no consensus on this topic. Moreover, in relation to it, the polarization of society is manifested. The memory of the repressions is used by various political and ideological forces in their political interests, but also ordinary people, not politicians, can perceive it very differently.

Some people are convinced that political repression is a shameful page national history that this is a monstrous crime against humanity, and therefore we must always remember the repressed. Sometimes this position is primitivized, all victims of repression are declared equally sinless righteous, and the blame for them is laid not only on the Soviet government, but also on the modern Russian one as the legal successor of the Soviet one. Any attempts to figure out how many were actually repressed are a priori declared to justify Stalinism and are condemned from a moral standpoint.

Others question the very fact of the repressions, claim that all these “so-called victims” are really guilty of the crimes attributed to them, they really harmed, blew up, plotted terrorist attacks, and so on. This extremely naive position is refuted, if only by the fact that the fact of the existence of repressions was recognized even under Stalin - then it was called "excesses" and at the end of the 30s, almost the entire leadership of the NKVD was condemned for these "excesses". The moral inferiority of such views is just as obvious: people are so eager to wishful thinking that they are ready, without any evidence in their hands, to slander millions of victims.

Still others admit that there were repressions, they agree that the victims of them were innocent, but they perceive all this quite calmly: they say, it was impossible otherwise. Repression, it seems to them, was necessary to carry out the industrialization of the country, to create efficient army. Without repression, it would not have been possible to win the Great Patriotic War. Such a pragmatic position, regardless of how it corresponds historical facts, is also morally flawed: the state is declared the highest value, in comparison with which the life of each individual person is worth nothing, and anyone can and should be destroyed for the sake of the highest state interests. Here, by the way, one can draw a parallel with the ancient pagans, who brought human sacrifices to their gods, being one hundred percent sure that this would serve the good of the tribe, people, city. Now this seems fanatical to us, but the motivation was exactly the same as that of modern pragmatists.

One can, of course, understand where such motivation comes from. The USSR positioned itself as a society of social justice - and indeed, in many respects, especially in the late Soviet period, there was social justice. Our society is socially much less fair - plus now any injustice instantly becomes known to everyone. Therefore, in search of justice, people turn their eyes to the past - naturally, idealizing that era. This means that they are psychologically trying to justify the dark things that happened then, including repressions. Recognition and condemnation of repressions (especially those declared from above) goes with such people in conjunction with the approval of the current injustices. One can show the naivete of such a position in every possible way, but until social justice is restored, this position will be reproduced again and again.

9. How should Christians perceive political repression?

Icon of the New Martyrs of Russia

Among Orthodox Christians, unfortunately, there is also no unity on this issue. There are believers (including those who are churched, sometimes even in holy orders) who either consider all the repressed guilty and unworthy of pity, or justify their suffering with the benefit of the state. Moreover, sometimes - thank God, not very often! - You can also hear such an opinion that the repressions were a boon for the repressed themselves. After all, what happened to them happened according to God's Providence, and God will not do bad things to a person. This means, such Christians say, that these people had to suffer in order to be cleansed of heavy sins, to be spiritually reborn. Indeed, there are many examples of such a spiritual revival. As the poet Alexander Solodovnikov, who passed the camp, wrote, “The grate is rusty, thank you! // Thank you, bayonet blade! // Such a will could be given // Only for long centuries to me.

In fact, this is a dangerous spiritual substitution. Yes, suffering can sometimes save a human soul, but it does not at all follow from this that suffering in itself is good. And even more so, it does not follow that the executioners are righteous. As we know from the Gospel, King Herod, wishing to find and destroy the baby Jesus, ordered to preventively kill all the babies in Bethlehem and the surrounding area. These babies are canonized by the Church as saints, but their murderer Herod is not at all. Sin remains sin, evil remains evil, the criminal remains a criminal even if the long-term consequences of his crime are beautiful. In addition, one case personal experience talk about the benefits of suffering, and quite another - to talk about other people. Only God knows whether this or that trial will turn out for good or for worse for a particular person, and we have no right to judge this. But here is what we can and what we must do - if we consider ourselves Christians! is to keep God's commandments. Where there is not a word about the fact that for the sake of the public good it is possible to kill innocent people.

What are the conclusions?

First and the obvious - we must understand that repression is evil, evil, and social, and personal evil of those who arranged them. There is no justification for this evil - neither pragmatic nor theological.

Second- This right attitude to the victims of repression. They should not be considered ideal in a crowd. They were very different people, both socially, culturally and morally. But one must perceive their tragedy regardless of their individual characteristics and circumstances. All of them were not guilty before the authorities that subjected them to suffering. We do not know which of them is a righteous man, who is a sinner, who is now in heaven, who is in hell. But we must pity them and pray for them. But what exactly should not be done is that it is not necessary to speculate on their memory, defending our own political views in polemics. The repressed should not become for us means.

Third- It is necessary to clearly understand why these repressions became possible in our country. The reason for them is not only the personal sins of those who were at the helm in those years. The main reason is the worldview of the Bolsheviks, based on godlessness and on the denial of all previous traditions - spiritual, cultural, family, and so on. The Bolsheviks wanted to build a paradise on earth, while allowing themselves any means. Only that which serves the cause of the proletariat is moral, they argued. It is not surprising that they were internally ready to kill by the millions. Yes, there were repressions in different countries (including ours) even before the Bolsheviks - but still there were some brakes that limited their scope. Now there are no more brakes - and what happened happened.

Looking at the various horrors of the past, we often say the phrase "this must not happen again." But this Maybe repeat, if we discard moral and spiritual barriers, if we proceed solely from pragmatics and ideology. And it does not matter what color this ideology will be - red, green, black, brown ... It will still end in a lot of blood.

Estimates of the number of victims of Stalin's repressions differ dramatically. Some call numbers in the tens of millions of people, others are limited to hundreds of thousands. Which of them is closer to the truth?

Who is guilty?

Today our society is almost equally divided into Stalinists and anti-Stalinists. The former pay attention to the positive transformations that have taken place in the country in Stalin era, the latter urge not to forget about the huge numbers of victims of the repressions of the Stalinist regime.
However, almost all Stalinists recognize the fact of repressions, however, they note their limited nature and even justify them with political necessity. Moreover, they often do not associate repressions with the name of Stalin.
Historian Nikolay Kopesov writes that in the majority of investigative cases on those repressed in 1937-1938 there were no resolutions of Stalin - everywhere there were sentences of Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria. According to the Stalinists, this is evidence that the heads of the punitive organs were engaged in arbitrariness and, in confirmation, they quote Yezhov: “Who we want, we execute, whom we want, we have mercy.”
For that part of the Russian public that sees Stalin as the ideologist of repression, these are just particulars that confirm the rule. Yagoda, Yezhov and many other arbiters of human destinies themselves became victims of terror. Who but Stalin was behind all this? they ask rhetorically.
Doctor historical sciences, Oleg Khlevnyuk, chief specialist of the State Archives of the Russian Federation, notes that despite the fact that Stalin's signature was not on many execution lists, it was he who sanctioned almost all mass political repressions.

Who got hurt?

Even more significant in the controversy surrounding the Stalinist repressions was the question of the victims. Who and in what capacity suffered during the period of Stalinism? Many researchers note that the very concept of “victims of repression” is rather vague. Historiography has not worked out clear definitions on this matter.
Undoubtedly, convicts, imprisoned in prisons and camps, shot, deported, deprived of property should be counted among the victims of the actions of the authorities. But what about, for example, those who were subjected to "hard interrogations" and then released? Should there be a separation between criminal and political prisoners? In what category should we classify the “nonsense” caught in petty single thefts and equated with state criminals?
The deportees deserve special attention. To what category do they belong - repressed or administratively deported? It is even more difficult to decide on those who fled without waiting for dispossession or deportation. They were sometimes caught, but someone was lucky enough to start a new life.

Such different numbers

Uncertainty in the issue of who is responsible for the repressions, in identifying the categories of victims and the period for which the victims of repressions should be counted lead to completely different figures. The most impressive figures were given by the economist Ivan Kurganov (Solzhenitsyn referred to these data in the novel The Gulag Archipelago), who calculated that from 1917 to 1959 the victims internal war Soviet regime against their people were 110 million people.
This number of Kurgans includes the victims of famine, collectivization, peasant exile, camps, executions, civil war, as well as "the neglectful and slovenly conduct of the Second World War."
Even if such calculations are correct, can these figures be considered a reflection of Stalin's repressions? The economist, in fact, answers this question himself, using the expression "victims of the internal war of the Soviet regime." It is worth noting that Kurganov counted only the dead. It is difficult to imagine what figure could have appeared if the economist had taken into account all the victims of the Soviet regime in the specified period.
The figures cited by the head of the human rights society "Memorial" Arseniy Roginsky are more realistic. He writes: “On the scale of everything Soviet Union 12.5 million people are considered victims of political repression,” but adds that in a broad sense, up to 30 million people can be considered repressed.
The leaders of the Yabloko movement, Elena Kriven and Oleg Naumov, counted all categories of victims of the Stalinist regime, including those who died in the camps from diseases and harsh working conditions, the dispossessed, the victims of hunger, those who suffered from unjustifiably cruel decrees and received excessively severe punishment for minor offenses in the force of the repressive nature of the legislation. The final figure is 39 million.
The researcher Ivan Gladilin notes on this occasion that if the count of the victims of repression has been carried out since 1921, this means that it is not Stalin who is responsible for a significant part of the crimes, but the “Leninist Guard”, which immediately after October revolution launched terror against the White Guards, clergy and kulaks.

How to count?

Estimates of the number of victims of repression vary greatly depending on the method of counting. If we take into account those convicted only under political articles, then according to the data of the regional departments of the KGB of the USSR, given in 1988, the Soviet authorities (VChK, GPU, OGPU, NKVD, NKGB, MGB) arrested 4,308,487 people, of which 835,194 were shot.
Employees of the "Memorial" society, when counting the victims of political trials, are close to these figures, although their figures are still noticeably higher - 4.5-4.8 million were convicted, of which 1.1 million were shot. If we consider everyone who went through the Gulag system as victims of the Stalinist regime, then this figure, according to various estimates, will range from 15 to 18 million people.
Very often, Stalinist repressions are associated exclusively with the concept of the "Great Terror", which peaked in 1937-1938. According to the commission headed by academician Pyotr Pospelov to establish the causes of mass repressions, the following figures were announced: 1,548,366 people were arrested on charges of anti-Soviet activities, of which 681,692 thousand were sentenced to capital punishment.
One of the most authoritative experts on the demographic aspects of political repression in the USSR, historian Viktor Zemskov, names a smaller number of those convicted during the years of the Great Terror - 1,344,923 people, although his data coincides with the figure of those executed.
If the dispossessed kulaks are included in the number of those subjected to repressions in Stalin's time, then the figure will grow by at least 4 million people. Such a number of dispossessed is given by the same Zemskov. The Yabloko party agrees with this, noting that about 600,000 of them died in exile.
The victims of Stalinist repressions were also representatives of some peoples who were subjected to forcible deportation - Germans, Poles, Finns, Karachays, Kalmyks, Armenians, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars. Many historians agree that the total number of deportees is about 6 million people, while about 1.2 million people did not live to see the end of the journey.

Trust or not?

The above figures are mostly based on the reports of the OGPU, NKVD, MGB. However, not all documents of the punitive departments have been preserved, many of them were purposefully destroyed, many are still in the public domain.
It should be recognized that historians are very dependent on statistics collected by various special agencies. But the difficulty is that even the available information reflects only the officially repressed, and therefore, by definition, cannot be complete. Moreover, it is possible to verify it from primary sources only in the rarest cases.
Acute lack of reliable and complete information often provoked both the Stalinists and their opponents to name radically different figures from each other in favor of their position. “If the “rights” exaggerated the scale of the repressions, then the “lefts”, partly from dubious youth, having found much more modest figures in the archives, were in a hurry to make them public and did not always ask themselves whether everything was reflected - and could be reflected - in the archives ", - notes the historian Nikolai Koposov.
It can be stated that estimates of the scale of Stalinist repressions based on the sources available to us can be very approximate. A good help for modern researchers would be the documents stored in federal archives, but many of them have been reclassified. A country with such a history will jealously guard the secrets of its past.

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

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

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

Historian Oleg Khlevnyuk, for example, writes that "... now professional historiography has reached high level consensus based on in-depth archival research".
https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2017/06/29/701835-phenomen-terrora

However, it follows from another article of his that the causes of the "great terror" are still not entirely clear.
https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2017/07/06/712528-bolshogo-terrora

I have an answer, strict and scientific.

But first, about what the "consent of professional historiography" looks like, according to Oleg Khlevnyuk.
We immediately discard the myths.

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

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

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

Now about what is known about the "great terror of 1937-1938" and its mechanism.

Terror, repression under Stalin were a constant phenomenon.
But the wave of terror in 1937-1938 was exceptionally large.
In 1937-1938. At least 1.6 million people were arrested, of which more than 680,000 were shot.

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

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

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

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

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

4) All "hostile categories" were taken into account in the bodies, according to the available lists, and the first repressions took place.
In the future, a chain was launched: arrest-interrogations - testimony - new hostile elements.
That is why the limits on arrests have been increased.

5) Stalin led the repression personally.
Here are his orders quoted by the historian:
"Krasnoyarsk. Regional committee. The arson of the mill must be organized by enemies. Take all measures to expose the arsonists. The perpetrators should be judged quickly. The verdict is execution"; "To beat Unshlikht because he did not extradite Poland's agents in the regions"; "To T. Yezhov. Dmitriev seems to be acting sluggishly. We must immediately arrest all (both small and large) members of the "rebel groups" in the Urals"; "To T. Yezhov. Very important. You need to walk around the Udmurt, Mari, Chuvash, Mordovian republics, walk with a broom"; "To T. Yezhov. Very good! Dig and clean up this Polish spy dirt in the future"; "To T. Yezhov. The line of Socialist-Revolutionaries (left and right together) has not been unwound<...>It must be borne in mind that we still have quite a few Socialist-Revolutionaries in our army and outside the army. Does the NKVD have a record of the Socialist-Revolutionaries (“former”) in the army? I would like to receive it as soon as possible<...>What has been done to identify and arrest all Iranians in Baku and Azerbaijan?"

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

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

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

3) The "Great Terror" pointed to the cause of the difficulties and hard life of the people, while at the same time letting off steam.

4) It was necessary to provide labor force the growing economy of the Gulag.
This is a weak version - too many executions of able-bodied people, while the Gulag was unable to master the new human income.

5) Finally, the version that is widely popular today: there was a threat of war, and Stalin cleared the rear, destroyed the "fifth column".
However, after Stalin's death, the vast majority of those arrested in 1937-1938 were found not guilty.
They were not a "fifth column" at all.

My explanation makes it possible to understand not only why there was this wave and why it was precisely in 1937-1938.
It also explains well why Stalin and his experience have not yet been forgotten, but, moreover, they have not been realized.

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

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

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

Why did the repressions touch people who caught a cold, and were not limited to the top?
You need to understand the ideological base, the Marxist paradigm.
Marxism does not recognize individuals and independent activities of the elite.
In Marxism, any leader expresses the ideas of a class or social group.

Why is the peasantry dangerous, for example?
Not at all because it can rebel and start a peasant war.
The peasants are dangerous because they are the petty bourgeoisie.
This means that they will always support and / or promote from their environment political leaders who will fight against the dictatorship of the proletariat, the power of the workers and the Bolsheviks.
It is not enough to root out well-known leaders with dubious views.
It is necessary to destroy their social support, those very considered "hostile elements".
This explains why the terror touched ordinary people.

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

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

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

However, Putin, more unconsciously than consciously, fulfilled a new historical social order.
In our country, the power of a single elected ruler is now being replaced by the power of an elected elite.
In 2008, just in the fourth year of the new period, Putin gave the presidency to Medvedev.
The sole ruler was desubjectivized, there were at least two rulers.
And you can't bring it all back.

Now it is clear why some part of the elite dreams of Stalinism?
They do not want to have many leaders, they do not want collective power, under which compromises must be sought and found, they want the restoration of one-man rule.
And this can be done only by unleashing a new "great terror", that is, by destroying the leaders of all other groups, from Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky to Navalny, Kasyanov, Yavlinsky and our modern Trotsky-Khodorkovsky (although it is possible that Trotsky new Russia was still Berezovsky), and out of the habit of systemic thinking, their social base, at least some kreakl and protest-opposition intelligentsia).

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

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

In the 20s and ended in 1953. During this period, mass arrests took place, and special camps for political prisoners were created. No historian can name the exact number of victims of Stalinist repressions. More than a million people were convicted under Article 58.

Origin of the term

The Stalinist terror affected almost all sectors of society. For more than twenty years, Soviet citizens lived in constant fear- one wrong word or even a gesture could cost a life. It is impossible to unequivocally answer the question of what the Stalinist terror rested on. But of course, the main component of this phenomenon is fear.

The word terror in translation from Latin is "horror". The method of governing the country, based on instilling fear, has been used by rulers since ancient times. For Soviet leader Ivan the Terrible served as a historical example. Stalinist terror is in some way more modern version Oprichnina.

Ideology

The midwife of history is what Karl Marx called violence. The German philosopher saw only evil in the safety and inviolability of members of society. Marx's idea was used by Stalin.

The ideological basis of the repressions that began in the 1920s was formulated in July 1928 in " short course At first, the Stalinist terror was a class struggle, which was allegedly needed to resist the overthrown forces. But the repressions continued even after all the so-called counter-revolutionaries were sent to the camps or were shot. A feature of Stalinist policy was the complete non-observance of the Soviet Constitution.

If at the beginning of the Stalinist repressions the state security agencies fought against the opponents of the revolution, then by the mid-thirties, the arrests of old communists began - people selflessly devoted to the party. Ordinary Soviet citizens were already afraid not only of the NKVD officers, but also of each other. Denunciation has become the main tool in the fight against "enemies of the people."

Stalin's repressions were preceded by the "Red Terror", which began during the Civil War. These two political phenomena have many similarities. However, after the end of the Civil War, almost all cases of political crimes were based on the falsification of charges. During the "Red Terror", those who did not agree with the new regime were imprisoned and shot, first of all, there were many of them at the stages of creating a new state.

Case of lyceum students

Officially, the period of Stalinist repressions begins in 1922. But one of the first high-profile cases dates back to 1925. It was in this year that a special department of the NKVD fabricated a case on charges of counter-revolutionary activities of graduates of the Alexander Lyceum.

On February 15, over 150 people were arrested. Not all of them were related to the above educational institution. Among those convicted were former students Law schools and officers of the Semyonovsky Life Guards Regiment. Those arrested were accused of assisting the international bourgeoisie.

Many were shot already in June. 25 people were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. 29 arrested were sent into exile. Vladimir Schilder - a former teacher - at that time was 70 years old. He died during the investigation. Nikolai Golitsyn, the last chairman of the Council of Ministers, was sentenced to death Russian Empire.

Shakhty case

The accusations under Article 58 were ridiculous. The man who does not own foreign languages and never in my life communicated with a citizen western state, could easily be accused of collusion with American agents. During the investigation, torture was often used. Only the strongest could withstand them. Often, those under investigation signed a confession only in order to complete the execution, which sometimes lasted for weeks.

In July 1928, specialists in the coal industry became victims of the Stalinist terror. This case was called "Shakhtinskoe". The heads of Donbas enterprises were accused of sabotage, sabotage, the creation of an underground counter-revolutionary organization, and assistance to foreign spies.

There were several high-profile cases in the 1920s. Until the beginning of the thirties, dispossession continued. It is impossible to calculate the number of victims of Stalinist repressions, because no one in those days carefully kept statistics. In the nineties, the KGB archives became available, but even after that, researchers did not receive exhaustive information. However, separate execution lists were made public, which became a terrible symbol of Stalin's repressions.

The Great Terror is a term applied to a small period Soviet history. It lasted only two years - from 1937 to 1938. About the victims during this period, the researchers provide more accurate data. 1,548,366 people were arrested. Shot - 681 692. It was a struggle "against the remnants of the capitalist classes."

Causes of the "Great Terror"

In Stalin's time, a doctrine was developed to intensify the class struggle. It was only a formal reason for the destruction of hundreds of people. Among the victims of the Stalinist terror of the 1930s were writers, scientists, military men, and engineers. Why was it necessary to get rid of representatives of the intelligentsia, specialists who could benefit the Soviet state? Historians suggest various options answers to these questions.

Among modern researchers there are those who are convinced that Stalin had only an indirect relation to the repressions of 1937-1938. However, his signature appears on almost every execution list, in addition, there is a lot of documentary evidence of his involvement in mass arrests.

Stalin strove for sole power. Any indulgence could lead to a real, not fictional conspiracy. One of foreign historians compared the Stalinist terror of the 1930s with the Jacobin terror. But if the last phenomenon that took place in France in late XVIII centuries, assumed the destruction of representatives of a certain social class, then in the USSR often unrelated people were arrested and shot.

So, the reason for the repression was the desire for sole, unconditional power. But what was needed was a wording, an official justification for the need for mass arrests.

Occasion

On December 1, 1934, Kirov was killed. This event became the formal reason for the murderer to be arrested. According to the results of the investigation, again fabricated, Leonid Nikolaev did not act independently, but as a member of an opposition organization. Stalin subsequently used the assassination of Kirov in the fight against political opponents. Zinoviev, Kamenev and all their supporters were arrested.

Trial of officers of the Red Army

After the assassination of Kirov, trials of the military began. One of the first victims of the Great Terror was G. D. Gai. The commander was arrested for the phrase "Stalin must be removed," which he uttered while intoxicated. It is worth saying that in the mid-thirties, denunciation reached its zenith. People who worked in the same organization for many years stopped trusting each other. Denunciations were written not only against enemies, but also against friends. Not only for selfish reasons, but also out of fear.

In 1937 took place trial over a group of officers of the Red Army. They were accused of anti-Soviet activities and assistance to Trotsky, who by that time was already abroad. The hit list included:

Tukhachevsky M. N.
Yakir I. E.
Uborevich I. P.
Eideman R.P.
Putna V.K.
Primakov V. M.
Gamarnik Ya. B.
Feldman B. M.

The witch hunt continued. In the hands of the NKVD officers was a record of negotiations between Kamenev and Bukharin - it was about creating a "right-left" opposition. In early March 1937, with a report that spoke of the need to eliminate the Trotskyists.

According to the report of General Commissar of State Security Yezhov, Bukharin and Rykov were planning terror against the leader. A new term appeared in Stalinist terminology - "Trotsky-Bukharin", which means "directed against the interests of the party."

In addition to the aforementioned politicians, about 70 people were arrested. 52 shot. Among them were those who were directly involved in the repressions of the 1920s. Yes, employees were shot. state security and politicians Yakov Agronomist, Alexander Gurevich, Levon Mirzoyan, Vladimir Polonsky, Nikolai Popov and others.

In the "Tukhachevsky case" Lavrenty Beria was involved, but he managed to survive the "purge". In 1941, he took the post of General Commissar of State Security. Beria was already shot after the death of Stalin - in December 1953.

Repressed scientists

In 1937, revolutionaries and politicians became victims of the Stalinist terror. And very soon, arrests of representatives of completely different social strata began. People who had nothing to do with politics were sent to the camps. It is easy to guess what the consequences of Stalin's repressions were by reading the lists below. The "Great Terror" became a brake on the development of science, culture, and art.

Scientists who became victims of Stalinist repressions:

Matthew Bronstein.
Alexander Witt.
Hans Gelman.
Semyon Shubin.
Evgeny Pereplyokin.
Innokenty Balanovsky.
Dmitry Eropkin.
Boris Numerov.
Nikolay Vavilov.
Sergei Korolev.

Writers and poets

In 1933, Osip Mandelstam wrote an epigram with obvious anti-Stalinist overtones, which he read to several dozen people. Boris Pasternak called the poet's act a suicide. He turned out to be right. Mandelstam was arrested and sent into exile in Cherdyn. There he made an unsuccessful suicide attempt, and a little later, with the assistance of Bukharin, he was transferred to Voronezh.

Boris Pilnyak wrote The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon in 1926. The characters in this work are fictitious, at least as the author claims in the preface. But to anyone who read the story in the 1920s, it became clear that it was based on the version about the murder of Mikhail Frunze.

Somehow Pilnyak's work got into print. But soon it was banned. Pilnyak was arrested only in 1937, and before that he remained one of the most published prose writers. The writer's case, like all similar ones, was completely fabricated - he was accused of spying for Japan. Shot in Moscow in 1937.

Other writers and poets subjected to Stalinist repressions:

Viktor Bagrov.
Julius Berzin.
Pavel Vasiliev.
Sergey Klychkov.
Vladimir Narbut.
Petr Parfenov.
Sergei Tretyakov.

It is worth telling about the famous theatrical figure, accused under Article 58 and sentenced to capital punishment.

Vsevolod Meyerhold

The director was arrested at the end of June 1939. His apartment was later searched. A few days later, Meyerhold's wife was killed. The circumstances of her death have not yet been clarified. There is a version that the NKVD officers killed her.

Meyerhold was interrogated for three weeks, tortured. He signed everything the investigators demanded. February 1, 1940 Vsevolod Meyerhold was sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out the next day.

During the war years

In 1941, the illusion of the abolition of repression appeared. In Stalin's pre-war times, there were many officers in the camps, who were now needed at large. Together with them, about six hundred thousand people were released from places of deprivation of liberty. But it was a temporary relief. At the end of the forties, a new wave of repressions began. Now the ranks of the "enemies of the people" have been replenished by soldiers and officers who have been in captivity.

Amnesty 1953

On March 5, Stalin died. Three weeks later, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree according to which a third of the prisoners were to be released. About a million people were released. But the first to leave the camps were not political prisoners, but criminals, which instantly worsened the criminal situation in the country.