The number of victims of Stalinism. Stalin's repressions in figures and facts

Mass repressions in the USSR were carried out in the period 1927 - 1953. These repressions are directly associated with the name of Joseph Stalin, who led the country during these years. 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 30s 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 what consequences this led to.

They say: an entire people cannot be suppressed endlessly. Lie! Can! We see how our people have become devastated, gone wild, and indifference has 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 their children. Indifference, the last saving reaction of the body, has become our defining feature . That is why the popularity of vodka is unprecedented even on a Russian scale. This is terrible indifference when a person sees his life not chipped, not with a corner broken off, but so hopelessly fragmented, so corrupted along and across that only for the sake of alcoholic oblivion is it still worth living. Now, if vodka were banned, a revolution would immediately break out in our country.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Reasons for repression:

Forcing the population to work on a non-economic basis. There was a lot of work to be done in the country, but there was not enough money for everything. The ideology shaped new thinking and perceptions, and was also supposed to motivate people to work for virtually nothing.
Strengthening personal power. The new ideology needed an idol, a person who was unquestioningly trusted. After Lenin's assassination 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 massacres of so-called pests, as well as saboteurs, began to take place in the country. The motive for these events should be sought in the relations between the USSR and Great Britain. Thus, at the beginning of 1927, the Soviet Union became 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 broke off all relations with the USSR, both political and economic. Domestically, this step was presented as preparation by London 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 were in contact with the empire were shot. These were representatives of ancient noble families. In total, in June 27, more than 9 thousand people were arrested, accused of high treason, complicity with imperialism and other things that sound menacing, but are very difficult to prove. Most of those arrested were sent to prison.

Pest Control

After this, 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, leadership positions were occupied by immigrants from imperial Russia. Of course, these people for the most part did not feel sympathy for the new government. Therefore, the Soviet regime was looking for pretexts on which this intelligentsia could be removed from leadership positions and, if possible, destroyed. The problem was that this required compelling and legal reasons. Such grounds were found in a number of trials that swept across the Soviet Union in the 1920s.

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

Shakhty case. In 1928, repressions in the USSR affected miners from Donbass. This case was turned into a show trial. The entire leadership of Donbass, as well as 53 engineers, were accused of espionage activities 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 sentences from 1 to 10 years. This was a precedent - society enthusiastically accepted the repressions against the enemies of the people... In 2000, the Russian prosecutor's office rehabilitated all participants in the Shakhty case, due to the absence of corpus delicti.
Pulkovo case. In June 1936, a major 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 ties. The number of victims is classified.
The case of the industrial party. Those accused 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 group. In 1930, representatives of this organization were accused of attempting to disrupt industrialization and interfering in agricultural affairs.
Union Bureau. The case of the union bureau was opened in 1931. The defendants were representatives of the Mensheviks. They were accused of undermining the creation and implementation of economic activities within the country, as well as connections with foreign intelligence.

At this moment, a massive ideological struggle was taking place in the USSR. The new regime tried its best to explain its position to the population, as well as justify its actions. But Stalin understood that ideology alone could not restore order in the country and could not allow him to retain power. Therefore, along with ideology, repression began in the USSR. Above we have already given some examples of cases from which repression began. These cases have always raised big questions, and today, when 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 Shakhty case, rehabilitated all participants in the process. And this despite the fact that in 1928, no one from the country’s party leadership 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 20s were just the beginning; the main events were ahead.

Socio-political meaning of mass repressions

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

Party composition and governing bodies in repression

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

Main Directorate of State Security. It was one of the main bodies that dealt with almost all matters.
Main Directorate of Workers' and Peasants' Militia. This is an analogue of the modern police, with all the functions and responsibilities.
Main Directorate of Border Guard Service. The department dealt with border and customs affairs.
Main Directorate of Camps. This administration is now widely known by the abbreviation GULAG.
Main Fire Department.

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

Mass repressions in the USSR

The events of December 1, 1934 became the reason for mass repressions. Then Sergei Mironovich Kirov was killed in Leningrad. As a result of these events, a special procedure for judicial proceedings was established in the country. In fact, we are talking about expedited trials. All cases where people were accused of terrorism and aiding terrorism were transferred under the simplified trial system. Again, the problem was that almost all the people who came under repression fell into this category. Above, we have already talked about a number of high-profile cases that characterize repression in the USSR, where it is clearly visible that all people, one way or another, were accused of aiding terrorism. The specificity of the simplified trial system was that the verdict had to be passed within 10 days. The accused received a summons a day before the trial. The trial itself took place without the participation of prosecutors and lawyers. At the conclusion of the proceedings, any requests for clemency were prohibited. If during the proceedings a person was sentenced to death, this penalty was carried out immediately.

Political repression, party purge

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

In 1933. 250 people were expelled from the party's senior leadership.
In 1934 - 1935, 20 thousand people were expelled from the Bolshevik Party.

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

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

Repression in the army

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

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

Increased repression

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

Former kulaks. All those whom the Soviet authorities called kulaks, but who escaped punishment, or were in labor camps or in exile, were subject to repression.
All representatives of religion. Anyone who had anything to do with religion was subject to repression.
Participants in anti-Soviet actions. These participants included everyone who had ever actively or passively opposed Soviet power. In fact, this category included those who did not support the new government.
Anti-Soviet politicians. Domestically, anti-Soviet politicians defined everyone who was not a member of the Bolshevik Party.
White Guards.
People with a criminal record. People who had a criminal record were automatically considered enemies of the Soviet regime.

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

All cases were now considered in an even more accelerated manner, where most cases were considered en masse. According to the same NKVD orders, repressions applied not only to convicts, but also to their families. In particular, the following penalties were applied to the families of those repressed:

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

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

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

Results of repression

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

One of the darkest pages in the history of the entire post-Soviet space were the years from 1928 to 1952, when Stalin was in power. For a long time, biographers kept silent or tried to distort some facts from the tyrant’s past, but it turned out to be quite possible to restore them. The fact is that the country was ruled by a repeat offender who had been in prison 7 times. Violence and terror, forceful methods of solving problems were well known to him from his early youth. They were also reflected in his policies.

Officially, the course was taken in July 1928 by the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. It was there that Stalin spoke, who stated that the further advancement of communism would encounter increasing resistance from hostile, anti-Soviet elements, and they must be fought harshly. Many researchers believe that the repressions of 30 were a continuation of the policy of Red Terror, adopted back in 1918. It is worth noting that the number of victims of repression does not include those who suffered during the Civil War from 1917 to 1922, because after the First World War a population census was not conducted. And it is unclear how to establish the cause of death.

The beginning of Stalin's repressions was aimed at political opponents, officially - at saboteurs, terrorists, spies conducting subversive activities, and anti-Soviet elements. However, in practice there was a struggle with wealthy peasants and entrepreneurs, as well as with certain peoples who did not want to sacrifice national identity for the sake of dubious ideas. Many people were dispossessed and forced into resettlement, but usually this meant not only the loss of their home, but also the threat of death.

The fact is that such settlers were not provided with food and medicine. The authorities did not take into account the time of year, so if it happened in winter, people often froze and died of hunger. The exact number of victims is still being established. There are still debates about this in society. Some defenders of the Stalinist regime believe that we are talking about hundreds of thousands of “everything.” Others point to millions of forcibly resettled people, and of these, about 1/5 to half died due to the complete lack of any living conditions.

In 1929, the authorities decided to abandon conventional forms of imprisonment and move to new ones, reform the system in this direction, and introduce correctional labor. Preparations began for the creation of the Gulag, which many quite rightly compare with the German death camps. It is characteristic that the Soviet authorities often used various events, for example, the murder of the plenipotentiary representative Voikov in Poland, to deal with political opponents and simply unwanted people. In particular, Stalin responded to this by demanding the immediate liquidation of the monarchists by any means. At the same time, no connection was even established between the victim and those to whom such measures were applied. As a result, 20 representatives of the former Russian nobility were shot, about 9 thousand people were arrested and subjected to repression. The exact number of victims has not yet been established.

Sabotage

It should be noted that the Soviet regime was completely dependent on specialists trained in the Russian Empire. Firstly, at the time of the 30s, not much time had passed, and our own specialists, in fact, were absent or were too young and inexperienced. And all scientists, without exception, received training in monarchist educational institutions. Secondly, very often science openly contradicted what the Soviet government was doing. The latter, for example, rejected genetics as such, considering it too bourgeois. There was no study of the human psyche; psychiatry had a punitive function, that is, in fact, it did not fulfill its main task.

As a result, the Soviet authorities began to accuse many specialists of sabotage. The USSR did not recognize such concepts as incompetence, including those that arose in connection with poor preparation or incorrect assignment, mistake, or miscalculation. The real physical condition of employees of a number of enterprises was ignored, which is why common mistakes were sometimes made. In addition, mass repressions could arise on the basis of suspiciously frequent, according to the authorities, contacts with foreigners, publication of works in the Western press. A striking example is the Pulkovo case, when a huge number of astronomers, mathematicians, engineers and other scientists suffered. Moreover, in the end, only a small number were rehabilitated: many were shot, some died during interrogations or in prison.

The Pulkovo case very clearly demonstrates another terrible moment of Stalin’s repressions: the threat to loved ones, as well as the slander of others under torture. Not only the scientists suffered, but also the wives who supported them.

Grain procurement

Constant pressure on peasants, half-starvation, grain weaning, and labor shortages negatively affected the pace of grain procurements. However, Stalin did not know how to admit mistakes, which became official state policy. By the way, it is for this reason that any rehabilitation, even of those who were convicted by accident, by mistake or instead of a namesake, took place after the death of the tyrant.

But let's return to the topic of grain procurements. For objective reasons, fulfilling the norm was not always possible and not everywhere. And in connection with this, the “culprits” were punished. Moreover, in some places entire villages were repressed. Soviet power also fell on the heads of those who simply allowed the peasants to keep their grain as an insurance fund or for sowing the next year.

There were things to suit almost every taste. Cases of the Geological Committee and the Academy of Sciences, "Vesna", the Siberian Brigade... A complete and detailed description can take many volumes. And this despite the fact that all the details have not yet been disclosed; many NKVD documents continue to remain classified.

Historians attribute some relaxation that occurred in 1933–1934 primarily to the fact that the prisons were overcrowded. In addition, it was necessary to reform the punitive system, which was not aimed at such mass participation. This is how the Gulag came into being.

Great Terror

The main terror occurred in 1937-1938, when, according to various sources, up to 1.5 million people suffered, more than 800 thousand of them were shot or killed in other ways. However, the exact number is still being established, and there is quite an active debate on this matter.

Characteristic was NKVD Order No. 00447, which officially launched the mechanism of mass repression against former kulaks, Socialist Revolutionaries, monarchists, re-emigrants, and so on. At the same time, everyone was divided into 2 categories: more and less dangerous. Both groups were subject to arrest, the first had to be shot, the second had to be given a sentence of 8 to 10 years on average.

Among the victims of Stalin's repressions there were quite a few relatives taken into custody. Even if family members could not be convicted of anything, they were still automatically registered, and sometimes forcibly relocated. If the father and (or) mother were declared “enemies of the people,” then this put an end to the opportunity to make a career, often to getting an education. Such people often found themselves surrounded by an atmosphere of horror and were subjected to boycott.

The Soviet authorities could also persecute on the basis of nationality and previous citizenship of certain countries. So, in 1937 alone, 25 thousand Germans, 84.5 thousand Poles, almost 5.5 thousand Romanians, 16.5 thousand Latvians, 10.5 thousand Greeks, 9 thousand 735 Estonians, 9 thousand Finns, 2 thousand Iranians, 400 Afghans. At the same time, persons of the nationality against which repression was carried out were dismissed from industry. And from the army - persons belonging to a nationality not represented on the territory of the USSR. All this happened under the leadership of Yezhov, but, which does not even require separate evidence, without a doubt, had a direct relation to Stalin, and was constantly personally controlled by him. Many execution lists bear his signature. And we are talking about, in total, hundreds of thousands of people.

It's ironic that recent stalkers have often become victims. Thus, one of the leaders of the described repressions, Yezhov, was shot in 1940. The sentence was put into effect the very next day after the trial. Beria became the head of the NKVD.

Stalin's repressions spread to new territories along with the Soviet regime itself. Cleanings were ongoing; they were mandatory elements of control. And with the onset of the 40s they did not stop.

Repressive mechanism during the Great Patriotic War

Even the Great Patriotic War could not stop the repressive machine, although it partially extinguished the scale, because the USSR needed people at the front. However, now there is an excellent way to get rid of unwanted people - sending them to the front line. It is unknown exactly how many died while carrying out such orders.

At the same time, the military situation became much tougher. Suspicion alone was enough to shoot even without the appearance of a trial. This practice was called “prison decongestion.” It was especially widely used in Karelia, the Baltic states, and Western Ukraine.

The tyranny of the NKVD intensified. Thus, execution became possible not even by a court verdict or some extrajudicial body, but simply by order of Beria, whose powers began to increase. They don’t like to publicize this point widely, but the NKVD did not stop its activities even in Leningrad during the siege. Then they arrested up to 300 students from higher educational institutions on trumped-up charges. 4 were shot, many died in isolation wards or in prisons.

Everyone is able to say unequivocally whether the detachments can be considered a form of repression, but they definitely made it possible to get rid of unwanted people, and quite effectively. However, the authorities continued to persecute in more traditional forms. Filtration detachments awaited everyone who was captured. Moreover, if an ordinary soldier could still prove his innocence, especially if he was captured wounded, unconscious, sick or frostbitten, then the officers, as a rule, were waiting for the Gulag. Some were shot.

As Soviet power spread throughout Europe, intelligence was involved in the return and trial of emigrants by force. In Czechoslovakia alone, according to some sources, 400 people suffered from its actions. Quite serious damage in this regard was caused to Poland. Often, the repressive mechanism affected not only Russian citizens, but also Poles, some of whom were extrajudicially executed for resisting Soviet power. Thus, the USSR broke the promises it made to its allies.

Post-war events

After the war, the repressive apparatus was deployed again. Overly influential military men, especially those close to Zhukov, doctors who were in contact with the allies (and scientists) were under threat. The NKVD could also arrest Germans in the Soviet zone of responsibility for attempting to contact residents of other regions under the control of Western countries. The ongoing campaign against people of Jewish nationality looks like black irony. The last high-profile trial was the so-called “Doctors' Case,” which collapsed only in connection with the death of Stalin.

Use of torture

Later, during the Khrushchev Thaw, the Soviet prosecutor's office itself investigated the cases. The facts of mass falsification and obtaining confessions under torture, which were used very widely, were recognized. Marshal Blucher was killed as a result of numerous beatings, and in the process of extracting testimony from Eikhe, his spine was broken. There are cases when Stalin personally demanded that certain prisoners be beaten.

In addition to beatings, sleep deprivation, placement in too cold or, on the contrary, too hot room without clothes, and hunger strike were also practiced. The handcuffs were periodically not removed for days, and sometimes for months. Correspondence and any contact with the outside world were prohibited. Some were “forgotten”, that is, they were arrested, and then the cases were not considered and no specific decision was made until Stalin’s death. This, in particular, is indicated by the order signed by Beria, which ordered an amnesty for those who were arrested before 1938 and for whom a decision had not yet been made. We are talking about people who have been waiting for their fate to be decided for at least 14 years! This can also be considered a kind of torture.

Stalinist statements

Understanding the very essence of Stalin's repressions in the present is of fundamental importance, if only because some still consider Stalin to be an impressive leader who saved the country and the world from fascism, without which the USSR would have been doomed. Many try to justify his actions by saying that in this way he boosted the economy, ensured industrialization, or protected the country. In addition, some are trying to downplay the number of victims. In general, the exact number of victims is one of the most disputed issues today.

However, in fact, to assess the personality of this person, as well as everyone who carried out his criminal orders, even the recognized minimum of those convicted and executed is sufficient. During the fascist regime of Mussolini in Italy, a total of 4.5 thousand people were subjected to repression. His political enemies were either expelled from the country or placed in prisons, where they were given the opportunity to write books. Of course, no one is saying that Mussolini is getting better from this. Fascism cannot be justified.

But what assessment can be given to Stalinism at the same time? And taking into account the repressions that were carried out on ethnic grounds, it at least has one of the signs of fascism - racism.

Characteristic signs of repression

Stalin's repressions have several characteristic features that only emphasize what they were. This:

Mass character. The exact data depends heavily on estimates, whether relatives are taken into account or not, internally displaced people or not. Depending on the method of calculation, it ranges from 5 to 40 million.
Cruelty. The repressive mechanism did not spare anyone, people were subjected to cruel, inhumane treatment, starved, tortured, relatives were killed in front of their eyes, loved ones were threatened, and forced to abandon family members.
Focus on protecting party power and against the interests of the people. In fact, we can talk about genocide. Neither Stalin nor his other henchmen were at all interested in how the constantly diminishing peasantry should provide everyone with bread, what is actually beneficial to the production sector, how science will move forward with the arrest and execution of prominent figures. This clearly demonstrates that the real interests of the people were ignored.
Injustice. People could suffer simply because they had property in the past. Wealthy peasants and the poor who took their side, supported them, and somehow protected them. Persons of “suspicious” nationality. Relatives who returned from abroad. Sometimes academicians and prominent scientific figures who contacted their foreign colleagues to publish data about invented drugs after they received official permission from the authorities for such actions could be punished.
Connection with Stalin. The extent to which everything was tied to this figure can be eloquently seen from the cessation of a number of cases immediately after his death. Many rightly accused Lavrentiy Beria of cruelty and inappropriate behavior, but even he, through his actions, recognized the false nature of many cases, the unjustified cruelty used by NKVD officers. And it was he who banned physical measures against prisoners. Again, as in the case of Mussolini, there is no question of justification here. It’s just about emphasizing.
Illegality. Some of the executions were carried out not only without trial, but also without the participation of judicial authorities as such. But even when there was a trial, it was exclusively about the so-called “simplified” mechanism. This meant that the trial was carried out without a defense, exclusively with the prosecution and the accused being heard. There was no practice of reviewing cases; the court's decision was final, often carried out the next day. At the same time, there were widespread violations even of the legislation of the USSR itself, which was in force at that time.
Inhumanity. The repressive apparatus violated the basic human rights and freedoms that had been proclaimed in the civilized world for several centuries at that time. Researchers see no difference between the treatment of prisoners in the dungeons of the NKVD and how the Nazis behaved towards prisoners.
Unfounded. Despite the attempts of the Stalinists to demonstrate the presence of some kind of underlying reason, there is not the slightest reason to believe that anything was aimed at any good goal or helped to achieve it. Indeed, a lot was built by the GULAG prisoners, but it was the forced labor of people who were greatly weakened due to the conditions of their detention and the constant lack of food. Consequently, errors in production, defects and, in general, a very low level of quality - all this inevitably arose. This situation also could not but affect the pace of construction. Taking into account the expenses that the Soviet government incurred to create the Gulag, its maintenance, as well as such a large-scale apparatus as a whole, it would be much more rational to simply pay for the same labor.

The assessment of Stalin's repressions has not yet been definitively made. However, it is beyond any doubt clear that this is one of the worst pages in world history.

Ours with D.R. Khapaeva’s article on the collective ideas of post-Soviet people about Soviet history prompted a number of letters to the editor demanding that the following phrase contained in it be refuted:

“73% of respondents are in a hurry to take their place in the military-patriotic epic, indicating that their families included those who died during the war. And although twice as many people suffered from Soviet terror than died during the war , 67% deny the presence of victims of repression in their families.”

Some readers a) considered the comparison of quantities incorrect victims from repressions with numbers dead during the war, b) found the very concept of victims of repression blurred and c) were outraged by the extremely inflated, in their opinion, estimate of the number of repressed people. If we assume that 27 million people died during the war, then the number of victims of repression, if it were twice as large, would have to be 54 million, which contradicts the data given in the famous article by V.N. Zemskov “GULAG (historical and sociological aspect)”, published in the journal “Sociological Research” (No. 6 and 7 for 1991), which says:

“...In fact, the number of people convicted for political reasons (for “counter-revolutionary crimes”) in the USSR for the period from 1921 to 1953, i.e. for 33 years, there were about 3.8 million people... Statement... of the Chairman of the KGB of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov that in 1937-1938. no more than a million people were arrested, which is quite consistent with the current Gulag statistics we studied for the second half of the 30s.

In February 1954, addressed to N.S. Khrushchev, a certificate was prepared signed by the Prosecutor General of the USSR R. Rudenko, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR S. Kruglov and the Minister of Justice of the USSR K. Gorshenin, which indicated the number of people convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes for the period from 1921 to February 1, 1954. In total During this period, the OGPU Collegium, the NKVD “troikas”, the Special Conference, the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals condemned 3,777,380 people, including 642,980 to capital punishment, to detention in camps and prisons for a term of 25 years and more. below - 2,369,220, into exile and deportation - 765,180 people.”

In the article by V.N. Zemskov also provides other data based on archival documents (primarily on the number and composition of Gulag prisoners), which in no way confirms the estimates of the victims of terror by R. Conquest and A. Solzhenitsyn (about 60 million). So how many victims were there? This is worth understanding, and not only for the sake of evaluating our article. Let's start in order.

1.Is the quantity comparison correct? victims from repressions with numbers dead during the war?

It is clear that the injured and the dead are different things, but whether they can be compared depends on the context. We were not interested in what cost the Soviet people more - repression or war - but in how today the memory of the war is more intense than the memory of repression. Let's address a possible objection in advance - the intensity of memory is determined by the strength of the shock, and the shock from mass death is stronger than from mass arrests. Firstly, the intensity of the shock is difficult to measure, and it is not known what the relatives of the victims suffered more from - from the “shameful” fact of the arrest of a loved one, which poses a very real threat to them, or from his glorious death. Secondly, memory of the past is a complex phenomenon, and it depends only partly on the past itself. It depends no less on the conditions of its own functioning in the present. I believe that the question in our questionnaire was formulated quite correctly.

The concept of “victims of repression” is indeed blurred. Sometimes you can use it without comment, and sometimes you can’t. We could not specify it for the same reason that we could compare the killed with the injured - we were interested in whether compatriots remembered the victims of terror in their families, and not at all in what percentage of them had injured relatives. But when it comes to how many “actually” were injured, who is considered injured, it is necessary to stipulate.

Hardly anyone will argue that those shot and imprisoned in prisons and camps were victims. But what about those who were arrested, subjected to “biased interrogation”, but by a happy coincidence were released? Contrary to popular belief, there were many of them. They were not always re-arrested and convicted (in this case they are included in the statistics of those convicted), but they, as well as their families, certainly retained the impressions of the arrest for a long time. Of course, one can see the fact of the release of some of those arrested as a triumph of justice, but perhaps it is more appropriate to say that they were only touched, but not crushed, by the machine of terror.

It is also appropriate to ask the question whether those convicted under criminal charges should be included in the statistics of repression. One of the readers said that he was not ready to consider criminals as victims of the regime. But not everyone who was convicted by ordinary courts on criminal charges were criminals. In the Soviet kingdom of distorting mirrors, almost all criteria were shifted. Looking ahead, let's say that V.N. Zemskov in the passage quoted above concerns only those convicted under political charges and is therefore obviously underestimated (the quantitative aspect will be discussed below). During rehabilitation, especially during the perestroika period, some people convicted of criminal charges were rehabilitated as actually victims of political repression. Of course, in many cases it is possible to understand this only individually, however, as is known, numerous “nonsense” who picked up ears of corn on a collective farm field or took home a pack of nails from a factory were also classified as criminals. During the campaigns to protect socialist property at the end of collectivization (the famous Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of August 7, 1932) and in the post-war period (Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 4, 1947), as well as during the struggle to improve labor discipline in the pre-war and war years (the so-called wartime decrees), millions were convicted of criminal charges. True, the majority of those convicted under the Decree of June 26, 1940, which introduced serfdom in enterprises and prohibited unauthorized departure from work, received minor sentences of corrective labor (ITR) or were given suspended sentences, but a fairly significant minority (22.9% or 4,113 thousand people for 1940-1956, judging by the statistical report of the Supreme Court of the USSR in 1958) were sentenced to imprisonment. Everything is clear with these latter ones, but what about the former? Some readers feel that they were simply treated a little harshly, and not repressed. But repression means going beyond the limits of generally accepted severity, and the sentences of technical and technical personnel for absenteeism, of course, were such an excess. Finally, in some cases, the number of which is impossible to estimate, those sentenced to technical labor force due to a misunderstanding or due to the excessive zeal of the guardians of the law ended up in camps.

A special issue concerns war crimes, including desertion. It is known that the Red Army was largely held together by methods of intimidation, and the concept of desertion was interpreted extremely broadly, so that it is quite appropriate to consider some, but it is not known what, part of those convicted under the relevant articles as victims of the repressive regime. The same victims, undoubtedly, can be considered those who fought their way out of encirclement, escaped or were released from captivity, who usually immediately, due to the prevailing spy mania and for “educational purposes” - so that others would be discouraged from surrendering into captivity - ended up in NKVD filtration camps, and often further into the Gulag.

Further. Victims of deportations, of course, can also be classified as repressed, as well as those administratively expelled. But what about those who, without waiting for dispossession or deportation, hurriedly packed up what they could carry overnight and fled until dawn, and then wandered, sometimes being caught and convicted, and sometimes starting a new life? Again, everything is clear with those who were caught and convicted, but with those who were not? In the broadest sense, they also suffered, but here again we must look individually. If, for example, a doctor from Omsk, warned of arrest by his former patient, an NKVD officer, took refuge in Moscow, where it was quite possible to get lost if the authorities announced only a regional search (as happened with the author’s grandfather), then perhaps it would be more correct to say about him that he miraculously escaped repression. There were apparently many such miracles, but it is impossible to say exactly how many. But if – and this is just a well-known figure – two or three million peasants flee to the cities to escape dispossession, then this is rather repression. After all, they were not only deprived of property, which, at best, they sold in a hurry, for as much as they could, but they were also forcibly torn out of their usual habitat (we know what it means for the peasant) and were often actually declassed.

A special question concerns “members of the families of traitors to the motherland.” Some of them were “definitely repressed”, others – a lot of children – were exiled to colonies or imprisoned in orphanages. Where to count such children? Where to count people, most often wives and mothers of convicted persons, who not only lost loved ones, but were also evicted from apartments, deprived of work and registration, were under surveillance and awaiting arrest? Shall we say that terror - that is, the policy of intimidation - did not touch them? On the other hand, it is difficult to include them in statistics - their numbers simply cannot be taken into account.

It is fundamentally important that different forms of repression were elements of a single system, and this is how they were perceived (or, more precisely, experienced) by contemporaries. For example, local punitive authorities often received orders to tighten the fight against enemies of the people from among those exiled to the districts under their jurisdiction, condemning such and such a number of them “in the first category” (that is, to death) and such and such a number in the second (to imprisonment). ). No one knew on which step of the ladder leading from “working through” at a meeting of the work collective to the Lubyanka basement he was destined to linger - and for how long. Propaganda introduced into the mass consciousness the idea of the inevitability of the beginning of the fall, since the bitterness of the defeated enemy was inevitable. Only by virtue of this law could the class struggle intensify as socialism was built. Colleagues, friends, and sometimes even relatives recoiled from those who stepped on the first step of the stairs leading down. Dismissal from work or even just “working” under conditions of terror had a completely different, much more menacing meaning than they might have in ordinary life.

3. How can you assess the scale of repression?

3.1. What do we know and how do we know it?

To begin with, let’s talk about the state of the sources. Many documents of the punitive departments were lost or purposefully destroyed, but many secrets are still kept in the archives. Of course, after the fall of communism, many archives were declassified, and many facts were made public. Many - but not all. Moreover, in recent years, a reverse process has emerged - the re-classification of archives. With the noble goal of protecting the sensitivity of the descendants of the executioners from exposing the glorious deeds of their fathers and mothers (and now, rather, grandfathers and grandmothers), the timing of declassification of many archives has been pushed into the future. It is amazing that a country with a history similar to ours carefully preserves the secrets of its past. Probably because it is still the same country.

In particular, the result of this situation is the dependence of historians on statistics collected by the “relevant bodies”, which are verified on the basis of primary documents in the rarest cases (although when it is possible, the verification often gives a rather positive result). These statistics were presented in different years by different departments, and it is not easy to bring them together. In addition, it concerns only the “officially” repressed and is therefore fundamentally incomplete. For example, the number of people repressed under criminal charges, but for actual political reasons, in principle could not be indicated in it, since it was based on the categories of understanding of reality by the above authorities. Finally, there are difficult to explain discrepancies between different “certificates”. Estimates of the scale of repression based on available sources can be very rough and cautious.

Now about the historiographical context of V.N.’s work. Zemskova. The cited article, as well as the even more famous joint article written on its basis by the same author with the American historian A. Getty and the French historian G. Rittersporn, are characteristic of the formation that took shape in the 80s. the so-called “revisionist” trend in the study of Soviet history. Young (then) left-wing Western historians tried not so much to whitewash the Soviet regime as to show that the “right-wing” “anti-Soviet” historians of the older generation (such as R. Conquest and R. Pipes) wrote unscientific history, since they were not allowed into the Soviet archives. Therefore, if the “right” exaggerated the scale of repression, the “left”, partly out of dubious youth, having found much more modest figures in the archives, hastened to make them public and did not always ask themselves whether everything was reflected - and could be reflected - in the archives. Such “archival fetishism” is generally characteristic of the “tribe of historians,” including the most qualified. It is not surprising that the data of V.N. Zemskov, who reproduced the figures cited in the documents he found, in the light of a more careful analysis turn out to be underestimated indicators of the scale of repression.

To date, new publications of documents and studies have appeared that provide, of course, far from complete, but still a more detailed idea of the scale of repression. These are, first of all, books by O.V. Khlevnyuk (it still exists, as far as I know, only in English), E. Applebaum, E. Bacon and J. Paul, as well as the multi-volume “ History of Stalin's Gulag"and a number of other publications. Let's try to understand the data presented in them.

3.2. Sentence statistics

Statistics were kept by different departments, and today it is not easy to make ends meet. Thus, the Certificate of the Special Department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs on the number of those arrested and convicted by the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD-MGB of the USSR, compiled by Colonel Pavlov on December 11, 1953 (hereinafter referred to as Pavlov’s certificate), gives the following figures: for the period 1937-1938. These bodies arrested 1,575 thousand people, of which 1,372 thousand were for counter-revolutionary crimes, and 1,345 thousand were convicted, including 682 thousand sentenced to capital punishment. Similar indicators for 1930-1936. amounted to 2,256 thousand, 1,379 thousand, 1,391 thousand and 40 thousand people. In total, for the period from 1921 to 1938. 4,836 thousand people were arrested, of which 3,342 thousand were for counter-revolutionary crimes, and 2,945 thousand were convicted, including 745 thousand people sentenced to death. From 1939 to mid-1953, 1,115 thousand people were convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes, of which 54 thousand were sentenced to death. Total in 1921-1953. 4,060 thousand were convicted on political charges, including 799 thousand sentenced to death.

However, these data concern only those convicted by the system of “extraordinary” bodies, and not by the entire repressive apparatus as a whole. Thus, this does not include those convicted by ordinary courts and military tribunals of various kinds (not only the army, navy and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but also railway and water transport, as well as camp courts). For example, the very significant discrepancy between the number of arrested and the number of convicted is explained not only by the fact that some of those arrested were released, but also by the fact that some of them died under torture, while others were referred to ordinary courts. As far as I know, there is no data to judge the relationship between these categories. The NKVD kept better statistics on arrests than statistics on sentences.

Let us also draw attention to the fact that in the “Rudenko certificate” quoted by V.N. Zemskov, data on the number of those convicted and executed by sentences of all types of courts are lower than the data from Pavlov’s certificate only for “emergency” justice, although presumably Pavlov’s certificate was only one of the documents used in Rudenko’s certificate. The reasons for such discrepancies are unknown. However, on the original of Pavlov’s certificate, stored in the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GARF), a note was made in pencil by an unknown hand to the figure 2,945 thousand (the number of those convicted for 1921-1938): “30% angle. = 1,062.” "Corner." - these are, of course, criminals. Why 30% of 2,945 thousand amounted to 1,062 thousand, one can only guess. Probably, the postscript reflected some stage of “data processing”, and in the direction of underestimation. It is obvious that the figure of 30% was not derived empirically based on a generalization of the initial data, but represents either an “expert assessment” given by a high rank, or an estimated “by eye” equivalent of the figure (1,062 thousand) by which the said rank considered it necessary to reduce certificate data. It is unknown where such expert assessment could come from. Perhaps it reflected the ideologeme widespread among high officials, according to which criminals were actually condemned “for politics.”

As for the reliability of statistical materials, the number of people convicted by “extraordinary” authorities in 1937-1938. is generally confirmed by the research conducted by Memorial. However, there are cases when regional departments of the NKVD exceeded the “limits” allocated to them by Moscow for convictions and executions, sometimes managing to receive a sanction, and sometimes not having time. In the latter case, they risked getting into trouble and therefore could not show the results of excessive zeal in their reports. According to a rough estimate, such “unshown” cases could be 10-12% of the total number of convicts. However, it should be taken into account that statistics do not reflect repeated convictions, so these factors could well be approximately balanced.

In addition to the bodies of the Cheka-GPU-NKVD-MGB, the number of those repressed can be judged by statistics collected by the Department for the preparation of petitions for pardon under the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR for 1940 - the first half of 1955. (“Babukhin’s certificate”). According to this document, 35,830 thousand people were convicted by ordinary courts, as well as military tribunals, transport and camp courts during the specified period, including 256 thousand people sentenced to death, 15,109 thousand to imprisonment and 20,465 thousand. person to forced labor and other types of punishment. Here, of course, we are talking about all types of crimes. 1,074 thousand people (3.1%) were sentenced for counter-revolutionary crimes - slightly less than for hooliganism (3.5%), and twice as many as for serious criminal offenses (banditry, murder, robbery, robbery, rape together give 1.5%). Those convicted of military crimes amounted to almost the same number as those convicted of political offenses (1,074 thousand or 3%), and some of them can probably be considered politically repressed. Thefts of socialist and personal property - including an unknown number of "nonsense" - accounted for 16.9% of those convicted, or 6,028 thousand. 28.1% were accounted for by "other crimes." Punishments for some of them could well have been in the nature of repression - for the unauthorized seizure of collective farm lands (from 18 to 48 thousand cases per year between 1945 and 1955), resistance to power (several thousand cases per year), violation of the serfdom passport regime (from 9 to 50 thousand cases per year), failure to meet the minimum workdays (from 50 to 200 thousand per year), etc. The largest group included penalties for leaving work without permission - 15,746 thousand or 43.9%. At the same time, the statistical collection of the Supreme Court of 1958 speaks of 17,961 thousand sentenced under wartime decrees, of which 22.9% or 4,113 thousand were sentenced to imprisonment, and the rest to fines or technical technical regulations. However, not all those sentenced to short terms actually made it to the camps.

So, 1,074 thousand were convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes by military tribunals and ordinary courts. True, if we add up the figures of the Department of Judicial Statistics of the Supreme Court of the USSR (“Khlebnikov’s certificate”) and the Office of Military Tribunals (“Maksimov’s certificate”) for the same period, we get 1,104 thousand (952 thousand convicted by military tribunals and 152 thousand – ordinary courts), but this, of course, is not a very significant discrepancy. In addition, Khlebnikov’s certificate contains an indication of another 23 thousand convicted in 1937-1939. Taking this into account, the cumulative total of the certificates of Khlebnikov and Maksimov gives 1,127 thousand. True, the materials of the statistical collection of the Supreme Court of the USSR allow us to speak (if we sum up different tables) of either 199 thousand or 211 thousand convicted by ordinary courts of counter-revolutionary crimes for 1940–1955 and, accordingly, about 325 or 337 thousand for 1937-1955, but this does not change the order of the numbers.

The available data does not allow us to determine exactly how many of them were sentenced to death. Ordinary courts in all categories of cases handed down death sentences relatively rarely (usually several hundred cases a year, only for 1941 and 1942 we are talking about several thousand). Even long-term imprisonment in large numbers (an average of 40-50 thousand per year) appeared only after 1947, when the death penalty was briefly abolished and penalties for theft of socialist property were tightened. There is no data on military tribunals, but presumably they were more likely to impose harsh punishments in political cases.

These data show that to 4,060 thousand were convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes by the Cheka-GPU-NKVD-MGB for 1921-1953. one should add either 1,074 thousand convicted by ordinary courts and military tribunals for 1940-1955. according to Babukhin’s certificate, either 1,127 thousand convicted by military tribunals and ordinary courts (the cumulative total of the certificates of Khlebnikov and Maksimov), or 952 thousand convicted of these crimes by military tribunals for 1940-1956. plus 325 (or 337) thousand convicted by ordinary courts for 1937-1956. (according to the statistical collection of the Supreme Court). This gives, respectively, 5,134 thousand, 5,187 thousand, 5,277 thousand or 5,290 thousand.

However, ordinary courts and military tribunals did not sit idly by until 1937 and 1940, respectively. Thus, there were mass arrests, for example, during the period of collectivization. Given in " Stories of Stalin's Gulag" (vol. 1, pp. 608-645) and in " Gulag stories» O.V. Khlevnyuk (pp. 288-291 and 307-319) statistical data collected in the mid-50s. do not concern (with the exception of data on those repressed by the Cheka-GPU-NKVD-MGB) of this period. Meanwhile, O.V. Khlevnyuk refers to a document stored in the GARF, which indicates (with the caveat that the data is incomplete) the number of people convicted by ordinary courts of the RSFSR in 1930-1932. – 3,400 thousand people. For the USSR as a whole, according to Khlevnyuk (p. 303), the corresponding figure could be at least 5 million. This gives approximately 1.7 million per year, which is in no way inferior to the average annual result of courts of general jurisdiction of the 40s - early 50s gg. (2 million per year - but population growth should be taken into account).

Probably, the number of people convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes for the entire period from 1921 to 1956 was hardly much less than 6 million, of which hardly much less than 1 million (and most likely more) were sentenced to death.

But along with 6 million “repressed in the narrow sense of the word” there was a considerable number of “repressed in the broad sense of the word” - primarily, those convicted on non-political charges. It is impossible to say how many of the 6 million “nonsuns” were convicted under the decrees of 1932 and 1947, and how many of the approximately 2-3 million deserters, “invaders” of collective farm lands who did not fulfill the workday quota, etc. should be considered victims of repression, i.e. punished unfairly or disproportionately to the gravity of the crime due to the terrorist nature of the regime. But 18 million were convicted under serfdom decrees of 1940-1942. all were repressed, even if “only” 4.1 million of them were sentenced to imprisonment and ended up, if not in a colony or camp, then in prison.

3.2. Population of Gulag

Estimating the number of repressed people can be approached in another way - through an analysis of the “population” of the Gulag. It is generally accepted that in the 20s. prisoners for political reasons were more likely to number in the thousands or a few tens of thousands. There were about the same number of exiles. The year the “real” Gulag was created was 1929. After this, the number of prisoners quickly exceeded one hundred thousand and by 1937 had grown to approximately a million. Published data show that from 1938 to 1947. it was, with some fluctuations, about 1.5 million, and then exceeded 2 million in the early 1950s. amounted to about 2.5 million (including colonies). However, the turnover of the camp population (caused by many reasons, including high mortality) was very high. Based on an analysis of data on the admission and departure of prisoners, E. Bacon suggested that between 1929 and 1953. About 18 million prisoners passed through the Gulag (including colonies). To this we must add those kept in prisons, of which at any given moment there were about 200-300-400 thousand (minimum 155 thousand in January 1944, maximum 488 thousand in January 1941). A significant portion of them probably ended up in the Gulag, but not all. Some were released, but others may have received minor sentences (for example, most of the 4.1 million people sentenced to imprisonment under wartime decrees), so there was no point in sending them to camps and perhaps even to colonies. Therefore, the figure of 18 million should probably be increased slightly (but hardly by more than 1-2 million).

How reliable are Gulag statistics? Most likely, it is quite reliable, although it was not maintained carefully. The factors that could lead to gross distortions, either in the direction of exaggeration or understatement, roughly balanced each other, not to mention the fact that, with the partial exception of the period of the Great Terror, Moscow took the economic role of the forced labor system seriously and monitored statistics and demanded a reduction in the very high mortality rate among prisoners. Camp commanders had to be prepared for reporting checks. Their interest, on the one hand, was to underestimate mortality and escape rates, and on the other, not to overinflate the total contingent so as not to obtain unrealistic production plans.

What percentage of prisoners can be considered “political”, both de jure and de facto? E. Applebaum writes about this: “Although it is true that millions of people were convicted of criminal charges, I do not believe that any significant part of the total were criminals in any normal sense of the word” (p. 539). Therefore, she considers it possible to talk about all 18 million as victims of repression. But the picture was probably more complex.

Table of data on the number of Gulag prisoners, given by V.N. Zemskov, gives a wide variety of percentages of “political” prisoners from the total number of prisoners in the camps. The minimum figures (12.6 and 12.8%) occurred in 1936 and 1937, when the wave of victims of the Great Terror simply did not have time to reach the camps. By 1939, this figure had increased to 34.5%, then decreased slightly, and from 1943 began to grow again, to reach its apogee in 1946 (59.2%) and decrease again to 26.9% in 1953 The percentage of political prisoners in the colonies also fluctuated quite significantly. Noteworthy is the fact that the highest percentage of “political” ones occurred during the war and especially the first post-war years, when the Gulag was somewhat depopulated due to the particularly high mortality rate of prisoners, their sending to the front and some temporary “liberalization” of the regime. In the “full-blooded” Gulag of the early 50s. the share of “political” ones ranged from a quarter to a third.

If we move on to absolute figures, then usually there were about 400-450 thousand political prisoners in the camps, plus several tens of thousands in the colonies. This was the case in the late 30s and early 40s. and again in the late 40s. In the early 50s, the number of political ones was more like 450-500 thousand in the camps plus 50-100 thousand in the colonies. In the mid-30s. in the Gulag, which had not yet gained strength, there were about 100 thousand political prisoners a year in the mid-40s. – about 300 thousand. According to V.N. Zemskova, as of January 1, 1951, there were 2,528 thousand prisoners in the Gulag (including 1,524 thousand in camps and 994 thousand in colonies). There were 580 thousand of them “political” and 1,948 thousand “criminal”. If we extrapolate this proportion, then out of 18 million Gulag prisoners, hardly more than 5 million were political.

But this conclusion would be a simplification: after all, some of the criminals were de facto political. Thus, among 1,948 thousand prisoners convicted under criminal charges, 778 thousand were convicted of theft of socialist property (in the vast majority - 637 thousand - according to the Decree of June 4, 1947, plus 72 thousand - according to the Decree of 7 August 1932), as well as for violations of the passport regime (41 thousand), desertion (39 thousand), illegal border crossing (2 thousand) and unauthorized departure from work (26.5 thousand). In addition to this, in the late 30s and early 40s. usually there were about one percent of “family members of traitors to the motherland” (by the 50s there were only a few hundred people left in the Gulag) and from 8% (in 1934) to 21.7% (in 1939) “socially harmful and socially dangerous elements” (by the 50s there were almost none left). All of them were not officially included in the number of those repressed for political reasons. One and a half to two percent of prisoners served camp sentences for violating the passport regime. Those convicted for theft of socialist property, whose share in the Gulag population was 18.3% in 1934 and 14.2% in 1936, decreased to 2-3% by the end of the 30s, which is appropriate to associate with the special role persecution of the “nonsuns” in the mid-30s. If we assume that the absolute number of thefts during the 30s. has not changed dramatically, and if we consider that the total number of prisoners by the end of the 30s. increased approximately threefold compared to 1934 and one and a half times compared to 1936, then perhaps there is reason to assume that at least two-thirds of the victims of repression were among the plunderers of socialist property.

If we add up the number of de jure political prisoners, members of their families, socially harmful and socially dangerous elements, violators of the passport regime and two-thirds of the plunderers of socialist property, it turns out that at least a third, and sometimes over half of the population of the Gulag were actually political prisoners. E. Applebaum is right that there were not so many “real criminals”, namely those convicted of serious criminal offenses such as robbery and murder (in different years 2-3%), but still, in general, hardly less than half of prisoners cannot be considered political.

So, the rough proportion of political and non-political prisoners in the Gulag is approximately fifty to fifty, and of the political ones, about half or a little more (that is, approximately a quarter or a little more of the total number of prisoners) were de jure political, and half or a little less were political prisoners. political de facto.

3.3. How do the statistics of sentences and the statistics of the population of the Gulag agree?

A rough calculation gives approximately the following result. Of the approximately 18 million prisoners, about half (approximately 9 million) were de jure and de facto political, and about a quarter or slightly more were de jure political. It would seem that this quite accurately coincides with the data on the number of people sentenced to imprisonment for political offenses (about 5 million). However, the situation is more complicated.

Despite the fact that the average number of de facto political people in the camps at a particular moment was approximately equal to the number of de jure political ones, in general, for the entire period of repression, de facto political ones should have been significantly greater than de jure political ones, because usually the sentences in criminal cases were significantly Briefly speaking. Thus, about a quarter of those convicted on political charges were sentenced to terms of imprisonment of 10 years or more, and another half - from 5 to 10 years, while in criminal cases the majority of terms were less than 5 years. It is clear that various forms of prisoner turnover (primarily mortality, including executions) could somewhat smooth out this difference. Nevertheless, de facto there should have been more than 5 million political ones.

How does this compare with a rough estimate of the number of people sentenced to imprisonment under criminal charges for actually political reasons? Most of the 4.1 million people convicted under wartime decrees probably did not make it to the camps, but some of them could well have made it to the colonies. But of the 8-9 million convicted of military and economic crimes, as well as for various forms of disobedience to authorities, the majority made it to the Gulag (the death rate during transit was supposedly quite high, but there are no accurate estimates of it). If it is true that about two-thirds of these 8-9 million were actually political prisoners, then together with those convicted under wartime decrees who reached the Gulag, this probably gives no less than 6-8 million.

If this figure was closer to 8 million, which is better consistent with our ideas about the comparative length of terms of imprisonment under political and criminal articles, then it should be assumed that either the estimate of the total population of the Gulag for the period of repression at 18 million is somewhat underestimated, or the estimate the total number of de jure political prisoners of 5 million is somewhat overestimated (perhaps both of these assumptions are correct to some extent). However, the figure of 5 million political prisoners would seem to exactly coincide with the result of our calculations of the total number of those sentenced to imprisonment on political charges. If in reality there were fewer than 5 million de jure political prisoners, then this most likely means that many more death sentences were handed down for war crimes than we assumed, and also that death in transit was a particularly common fate namely de jure political prisoners.

Probably, such doubts can be resolved only on the basis of further archival research and at least a selective study of “primary” documents, and not just statistical sources. Be that as it may, the order of magnitude is obvious - we are talking about 10-12 million people convicted under political articles and under criminal articles, but for political reasons. To this must be added approximately a million (and possibly more) executed. This gives 11-13 million victims of repression.

3.4. In total there were repressed...

To the 11-13 million executed and imprisoned in prisons and camps should be added:

About 6-7 million special settlers, including more than 2 million “kulaks,” as well as “suspicious” ethnic groups and entire nations (Germans, Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Ingush, etc.), as well as hundreds of thousands of “socially aliens”, expelled from those captured in 1939-1940. territories, etc. ;

About 6-7 million peasants who died as a result of an artificially organized famine in the early 30s;

About 2-3 million peasants who left their villages in anticipation of dispossession, often declassed or, at best, actively involved in the “building of communism”; the number of deaths among them is unknown (O.V. Khlevniuk. P.304);

The 14 million who received sentences of ITR and fines under wartime decrees, as well as the majority of those 4 million who received short prison sentences under these decrees, presumably served them in prisons and therefore were not counted in the Gulag population statistics; Overall, this category probably adds at least 17 million victims of repression;

Several hundred thousand were arrested on political charges, but for various reasons were acquitted and were not subsequently arrested;

Up to half a million military personnel who were captured and, after liberation, passed through NKVD filtration camps (but not convicted);

Several hundred thousand administrative exiles, some of whom were subsequently arrested, but not all (O.V. Khlevniuk. P.306).

If the last three categories taken together are estimated at approximately 1 million people, then the total number of victims of terror at least approximately taken into account will be for the period 1921-1955. 43-48 million people. However, that's not all.

The Red Terror did not begin in 1921, and it did not end in 1955. True, after 1955 it was relatively sluggish (by Soviet standards), but still the number of victims of political repression (suppression of riots, fight against dissidents and etc.) after the 20th Congress amounts to a five-digit figure. The most significant wave of post-Stalinist repressions took place in 1956-69. The period of revolution and civil war was less “vegetarian”. There are no exact figures here, but it is assumed that we can hardly talk about less than one million victims - counting those killed and repressed during the suppression of numerous popular uprisings against Soviet power, but not counting, of course, forced emigrants. Forced emigration, however, also occurred after World War II, and in each case it amounted to seven figures.

But that's not all. It is impossible to accurately estimate the number of people who lost their jobs and became outcasts, but who happily escaped a worse fate, as well as people whose world collapsed on the day (or more often the night) of the arrest of a loved one. But “cannot be counted” does not mean that there were none. In addition, some considerations can be made regarding the last category. If the number of people repressed for political reasons is estimated at 6 million people and if we assume that only in a minority of families more than one person was shot or imprisoned (thus, the share of “family members of traitors to the motherland” in the Gulag population, as we have already noted, did not exceed 1%, while we approximately estimated the share of the “traitors” themselves at 25%), then we should be talking about several million more victims.

In connection with assessing the number of victims of repression, we should also dwell on the question of those killed during the Second World War. The fact is that these categories partially overlap: we are primarily talking about people who died during hostilities as a result of the terrorist policies of the Soviet regime. Those who were convicted by the military justice authorities are already taken into account in our statistics, but there were also those whom commanders of all ranks ordered to be shot without trial or even personally shot, based on their understanding of military discipline. Examples are probably known to everyone, but quantitative estimates do not exist here. We are not touching here on the problem of justification for purely military losses - senseless frontal attacks, which many famous commanders of Stalin’s ilk were eager for, were also, of course, a manifestation of the state’s complete disregard for the lives of citizens, but their consequences, naturally, have to be taken into account in the category of military losses.

The total number of victims of terror during the years of Soviet power can thus be approximately estimated at 50-55 million people. The vast majority of them occur, naturally, in the period before 1953. Therefore, if the former chairman of the KGB of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov, with whom V.N. Zemskov did not distort the data on the number of those arrested during the Great Terror too much (by only 30%, towards underestimation, of course), but in the general assessment of the scale of repressions A.I. Solzhenitsyn was, alas, closer to the truth.

By the way, I wonder why V.A. Kryuchkov spoke about a million, and not about one and a half million, repressed in 1937-1938? Perhaps he was not so much fighting to improve terror indicators in the light of perestroika as simply sharing the above-mentioned “expert assessment” of the anonymous reader of Pavlov’s certificate, convinced that 30% of the “political” are actually criminals?

We said above that the number of those executed was hardly less than a million people. However, if we talk about those killed as a result of terror, we will get a different figure: death in the camps (at least half a million in the 1930s alone - see O.V. Khlevniuk. P. 327) and in transit (which cannot be calculated), death under torture, suicides of those awaiting arrest, death of special settlers from hunger and disease both in settlement areas (where about 600 thousand kulaks died in the 1930s - see O.V. Khlevniuk, p. 327), and on the way to them, executions “alarmists” and “deserters” without trial or investigation, and finally, the death of millions of peasants as a result of a provoked famine - all this gives a figure hardly less than 10 million people. “Formal” repressions were only the tip of the iceberg of the terrorist policy of the Soviet regime.

Some readers - and, of course, historians - wonder what percentage of the population were victims of repression. O.V. Khlevnyuk in the above book (P.304) in relation to the 30s. suggests that one in six of the country's adult population was affected. However, he proceeds from an estimate of the total population according to the 1937 census, without taking into account the fact that the total number of people living in the country for ten years (and even more so throughout the almost thirty-five year period of mass repressions from 1917 to 1953 .) was greater than the number of people living in it at any given moment.

How can you estimate the total population of the country in 1917-1953? It is well known that Stalin's population censuses are not entirely reliable. Nevertheless, for our purpose - a rough estimate of the scale of repression - they serve as a sufficient guide. The 1937 census gives a figure of 160 million. Probably this figure can be taken as the “average” population of the country in 1917-1953. 20s – first half of 30s. were characterized by “natural” demographic growth, which significantly exceeded losses as a result of wars, famine and repression. After 1937, growth also took place, including due to the annexation in 1939-1940. territories with a population of 23 million people, but repression, mass emigration and military losses largely balanced it.

In order to move from the “average” number of people living in a country at one time to the total number of people living in it for a certain period, it is necessary to add to the first number the average annual birth rate multiplied by the number of years making up this period. The birth rate, understandably, varied quite significantly. Under the traditional demographic regime (characterized by the predominance of large families), it usually amounts to 4% per year of the total population. The majority of the population of the USSR (Central Asia, the Caucasus, and indeed the Russian village itself) still lived to a large extent under such a regime. However, in some periods (years of wars, collectivization, famine), even for these areas the birth rate should have been somewhat lower. During the war years it was about 2% on average throughout the country. If we estimate it at 3-3.5% on average over the period and multiply it by the number of years (35), it turns out that the average “one-time” figure (160 million) must be increased by a little over two times. This gives about 350 million. In other words, during the period of mass repressions from 1917 to 1953. Every seventh resident of the country, including minors (50 out of 350 million), suffered from terrorism. If adults made up less than two-thirds of the total population (100 out of 160 million, according to the 1937 census), and among the 50 million victims of repression we counted there were “only” several million, then it turns out that at least every fifth the adult was a victim of a terrorist regime.

4. What does all this mean today?

It cannot be said that fellow citizens are poorly informed about mass repressions in the USSR. The answers to the question in our questionnaire about how to estimate the number of repressed people were distributed as follows:

less than 1 million people – 5.9%
from 1 to 10 million people – 21.5%
from 10 to 30 million people – 29.4%
from 30 to 50 million people – 12.4%
over 50 million people – 5.9%
find it difficult to answer – 24.8%

As we can see, the majority of respondents have no doubt that the repressions were large-scale. True, every fourth respondent is inclined to look for objective reasons for repression. This, of course, does not mean that such respondents are ready to absolve the executioners of any responsibility. But they are unlikely to be ready to unequivocally condemn these latter.

In modern Russian historical consciousness, the desire for an “objective” approach to the past is very noticeable. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is no coincidence that we put the word “objective” in quotation marks. The point is not that complete objectivity is hardly achievable in principle, but that a call for it can mean very different things - from the honest desire of a conscientious researcher - and any interested person - to understand the complex and contradictory process that we call history, to the irritated reaction of an average person stuck on an oil needle to any attempts to disturb his peace of mind and make him think that he inherited not only valuable minerals that ensure his - alas, fragile - well-being, but also unresolved political, cultural and psychological problems , generated by seventy years of experience of “endless terror”, his own soul, which he is afraid to look into - perhaps not without reason. And, finally, the call for objectivity may hide the sober calculation of the ruling elites, who are aware of their genetic connection with the Soviet elites and are not at all inclined to “allow the lower classes to engage in criticism.”

It is perhaps no coincidence that the phrase from our article that aroused the indignation of readers concerns not just an assessment of repression, but an assessment of repression in comparison with war. The myth of the “Great Patriotic War” in recent years, as it once did in the Brezhnev era, has again become the main unifying myth of the nation. However, in its genesis and functions, this myth is largely a “barrage myth”, trying to replace the tragic memory of repression with an equally tragic, but still partly heroic memory of a “national feat”. We will not go into a discussion of the memory of the war here. Let us only emphasize that the war was not least a link in the chain of crimes committed by the Soviet government against its own people, an aspect of the problem that is almost completely obscured today by the “unifying” role of the myth of the war.

Many historians believe that our society needs “cliotherapy”, which will rid it of its inferiority complex and convince it that “Russia is a normal country.” This experience of “normalizing history” is by no means a uniquely Russian attempt to create a “positive self-image” for the heirs of the terrorist regime. Thus, in Germany, attempts were made to prove that fascism should be considered “in its era” and in comparison with other totalitarian regimes in order to show the relativity of the “national guilt” of the Germans - as if the fact that there was more than one murderer justified them. In Germany, however, this position is held by a significant minority of public opinion, while in Russia it has become predominant in recent years. Only a few in Germany would dare to name Hitler among the sympathetic figures of the past, while in Russia, according to our survey, every tenth respondent names Stalin among the historical characters he liked, and 34.7% believe that he played a positive or rather positive role. role in the history of the country (and another 23.7% find that “today it is difficult to give an unambiguous assessment”). Other recent polls indicate similar – and even more positive – assessments of Stalin’s role by compatriots.

Russian historical memory today turns away from repressions - but this, alas, does not mean at all that “the past has passed.” The structures of Russian everyday life to a large extent reproduce forms of social relations, behavior and consciousness that came from the imperial and Soviet past. This does not seem to be to the liking of the majority of respondents: increasingly imbued with pride in their past, they perceive the present quite critically. Thus, when asked in our questionnaire whether modern Russia is inferior to the West in terms of culture or superior to it, only 9.4% chose the second answer, while the same figure for all previous historical eras (including Moscow Rus' during the Soviet period) ranges from 20 to 40 %. Fellow citizens probably do not bother to think that the “golden age of Stalinism,” as well as the subsequent, albeit somewhat more faded period of Soviet history, may have something to do with what they are not happy with in our society today. Turning to the Soviet past in order to overcome it is possible only on the condition that we are ready to see the traces of this past in ourselves and recognize ourselves as heirs not only of glorious deeds, but also of the crimes of our ancestors.

Due to the fact that a memo to Khrushchev on the number of convicted people from 1921 to 1953 has once again come to light, I cannot ignore the topic of repression.

The memorandum itself and, most importantly, the information it contains, became known to many people interested in politics for quite a long time. The note contains absolutely accurate numbers of repressed citizens. Of course, these numbers are not small and they will frighten and terrify a person who knows the topic. But as you know, everything is learned by comparison. This is what we will do, we will compare.

Those who have not yet managed to remember the exact numbers of repressions by heart - you now have such an opportunity.

So, from 1921 to 1953, 642,980 people were executed; 765,180 people were exiled

Placed in detention - 2,369,220 people.

Total - 3,777,380

Anyone who dares to say a figure even somewhat large about the scale of repression is blatantly and shamelessly lying. Many people have questions: why are the numbers so large? Well, let's figure it out.

Amnesty of the Provisional Government.

One of the reasons why so many people were repressed by the Soviet government was the general amnesty of the provisional government. And to be more precise, Kerensky. You don’t have to go far to find this data, you don’t have to rummage through the archives, just open Wikipedia and type “Provisional Government”:

A general political amnesty has been declared in Russia, and the prison terms of persons held in custody under court sentences for general criminal offenses have been reduced by half. About 90 thousand prisoners were released, among whom were thousands of thieves and raiders, popularly nicknamed “Kerensky’s chicks” (Wiki).

On March 6, the Provisional Government adopted a Decree on political amnesty. In total, as a result of the amnesty, more than 88 thousand prisoners were released, of which 67.8 thousand were convicted of criminal offenses. As a result of the amnesty, the total number of prisoners from March 1 to April 1, 1917 was reduced by 75%.

On March 17, 1917, the Provisional Government issued a Resolution “On easing the fate of persons who have committed criminal offenses,” i.e. on amnesty for those convicted of ordinary crimes. However, only those convicts who expressed their readiness to serve their Motherland on the battlefield were subject to amnesty.

The Provisional Government's hopes of recruiting prisoners into the army did not materialize, and many of those released fled from their units when possible. - Source

Thus, a huge number of criminals, thieves, murderers and other asocial elements were released, with whom the Soviet government would have to fight directly in the future. What can we say about the fact that all the exiled people who were not in prison quickly fled all over Russia after the amnesty.

Civil War.

There is nothing more terrible in the History of people and civilization than civil war.

A war in which brother goes against brother and son against father. When citizens of one country, subjects of one state kill each other on the basis of political and ideological differences.

We still haven't recovered from this civil war, let alone the state of society right after the civil war ended. And the realities of such events are such that after a civil war, in any, even the most democratic country in the world, the winning side will repress the losing side.

For the simple reason that in order for society to continue to develop, it must be holistic, unified, it must look forward to a bright future, and not engage in self-destruction. It is for this reason that those who have not accepted defeat, those who have not accepted the new order, those who continue direct or hidden confrontation, those who continue to incite hatred and encourage people to fight - are subject to destruction.

Here you have political repression and persecution of the church. But not because pluralism of opinions is impermissible, but because these people actively participated in the civil war and did not stop their “struggle” after its end. This is another reason why so many people ended up in the Gulags.

Relative numbers.

And now we come to the most interesting thing, to comparison and the transition from absolute numbers to relative numbers.

Population of the USSR in 1920 - 137,727,000 people Population of the USSR in 1951 - 182,321,000 people

An increase of 44,594,000 people despite the civil war and the Second World War, which claimed far more lives than repression.

On average, we get that the population of the USSR in the period from 1921 to 1951 was 160 million people.

In total, 3,777,380 people were convicted in the USSR, which is two percent (2%) of the total average population of the country, 2% - in 30 years!!! Divide 2 by 30, it turns out that per year, 0.06% of the total population was repressed. This is despite the civil war and the fight against fascist collaborators (collaborators, traitors and traitors who sided with Hitler) after the Great Patriotic War.

This means that every year 99.94% of law-abiding citizens of our Motherland quietly worked, worked, studied, received treatment, gave birth to children, invented, rested, and so on. In general, we lived the most normal human life.

Half the country was sitting. Half the country was guarded.

Well, the last and most important thing. Many people like to say that we supposedly sat half a third of the country, guarded a third of the country, and knocked on a third of the country. And the fact that in the memo only counter-revolutionary fighters are indicated, but if you add up the number of those who were imprisoned for political reasons and those who were imprisoned for criminal reasons, the numbers will be generally terrible.

Yes, the numbers are scary until you compare them with anything. Here is a table that shows the total number of prisoners, both repressed and criminals, both in prisons and in camps. And their comparison with the total number of prisoners in other countries

According to this table, it turns out that on average, in the Stalinist USSR there were 583 prisoners (both criminal and repressive) per 100,000 free people.

In the early 90s, at the height of crime in our country, only in criminal cases, without political repression, there were 647 prisoners per 100,000 free people.

The table shows the United States during the Clinton era. Quite calm years even before the global financial crisis, and even then, it turned out that in the United States there were 626 people imprisoned per 100 available.

I decided to do a little digging into modern numbers. According to WikiNews, there are currently 2,085,620 prisoners in the United States, which is 714 prisoners per 100,000.

And in Putin’s stable Russia, the number of prisoners has sharply decreased compared to the dashing 90s, and now we have 532 prisoners per 100,000.

This post is interesting as it indicates, probably, all the irresponsible sources, the names of their authors, as well as numbers according to the principle: who is more?
In short: good material for memory and reflection!

Original taken from takoe_nebo V

“The concept of dictatorship means nothing more than power that is unrestricted by anything, not constrained by any laws, absolutely not constrained by any rules, and directly based on violence.”
V.I. Ulyanov (Lenin). Collection Op. T. 41, p. 383

“As we move forward, the class struggle will intensify, and the Soviet government, whose forces will increase more and more, will pursue a policy of isolating these elements.” I.V. Dzhugashvili (Stalin). Soch., vol. 11, p. 171

V.V. Putin: “Repressions crushed people without regard to nationalities, beliefs, or religions. Entire classes in our country became their victims: Cossacks and priests, simple peasants, professors and officers, teachers and workers.
There can be no justification for these crimes." http://archive.government.ru/docs/10122/

How many people in Russia/USSR were killed by the communists under Lenin-Stalin?

Preface

This is a subject of ongoing debate and this is a very important historical topic that needs to be addressed. I spent several months studying all possible materials available on the Internet; at the end of the article there is an extensive list of them. The picture turned out to be more than sad.

There are a lot of words in the article, but now you can confidently poke any communist face into it (pardon my French), broadcasting that “there were no mass repressions and deaths in the USSR.”

For those who do not like long texts: according to dozens of studies, the Lenin-Stalinist communists destroyed a minimum of 31 million people (direct irretrievable losses without emigration and the Second World War), a maximum of 168 million (including emigration and, most importantly, demographic losses from the unborn ). See the General Figures Statistics section. The most reliable figure seems to be direct losses of 34.31 million people - the arithmetic average of the sums of several of the most serious works on actual losses, which in general do not differ very much from each other. Excluding the unborn. See the Average Figure section.

For ease of use, this article consists of several sections.

“Pavlov’s Help” is an analysis of the most important myth of the neocommies and Stalinists about “less than 1 million people who were repressed.”
“Average figure” is a calculation of the number of victims by year and topic, with the corresponding minimum and maximum figures from sources, from which the arithmetic average figure of losses is derived.
“Statistics of general figures” - statistics on general figures from the 20 most serious studies found.
“Materials used” - quotes and links in the article.
“Other important materials on the topic” - interesting and useful links and information on the topic that are not included in this article or not directly mentioned in it.

I would be grateful for any constructive criticism and additions.

Pavlov's help

The minimum death toll, which all neo-communists and Stalinists adore, “only” 800 thousand executed (and according to their mantras, no one else was destroyed) is given in a 1953 certificate. It is called "Certificate of the special department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs on the number of those arrested and convicted by the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD of the USSR in 1921-1953." and is dated December 11, 1953. The certificate is signed by the acting. the head of the 1st special department, Colonel Pavlov (the 1st special department was the accounting and archival department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs), which is why its name “Pavlov’s certificate” is found in modern materials.

This certificate in itself is false and a little more than completely absurd, etc. it is the main and main argument of the neocomms - it must be analyzed in detail. There is indeed a second document, no less beloved by the neocommies and Stalinists, a memorandum to the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Comrade N.S. Khrushchev. dated February 1, 1954, signed by Prosecutor General R. Rudenko, Minister of Internal Affairs S. Kruglov and Minister of Justice K. Gorshenin. But the data in it practically coincides with the Help and, unlike the Help, does not contain any details, so it makes sense to parse the Help.

So, according to this Certificate from the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, during the years 1921-1953, a total of 799,455 were shot. Excluding the years 1937 and 1938, 117,763 people were shot. 42,139 were shot in the years 1941-1945. Those. during the years 1921-1953 (excluding the years 1937-1938 and the years of war), during the struggle against the White Guards, against the Cossacks, against the priests, against the kulaks, against the peasant uprisings, ... only 75,624 people were shot (according to “quite reliable” data). Only in the 1937s under Stalin did they slightly increase activity in the purge of “enemies of the people.” And so, according to this certificate, even in the bloody times of Trotsky and the cruel “Red Terror”, it turns out that everything was quiet.

I will give for consideration an excerpt from this certificate for the period 1921-1931.

Let us first pay attention to the data on those convicted of anti-Soviet (counter-revolutionary) propaganda. In 1921-1922, at the height of the fierce struggle against the counter-control and the officially declared “Red Terror”, when people were seized only for belonging to the bourgeoisie (bespectacled and white hands), no one was arrested for counter-revolutionary, anti-Soviet propaganda (according to the Reference). Openly campaign against the Soviets, speak at rallies against the surplus appropriation system and other actions of the Bolsheviks, curse the blasphemous new government from church pulpits and you’ll get nothing. Just freedom of speech! In 1923, however, 5,322 people were arrested for propaganda, but then again (until 1929) there was complete freedom of speech for anti-Soviet activists, and only starting in 1929 did the Bolsheviks finally begin to “tighten the screws” and prosecute for counter-revolutionary propaganda. And such freedom and patient acceptance of anti-Sovietists (in accordance with an honest document, for many years NOT ONE was imprisoned for anti-government propaganda) occurs during the officially declared “Red Terror”, when the Bolsheviks closed all opposition newspapers and parties, imprisoned and shot clergymen for what they said was not what was needed... As an example of the complete falsity of this data, one can cite the surname index of those executed in the Kuban (75 pages, of the names that I read, all were acquitted after Stalin).

For 1930, regarding those convicted of anti-Soviet agitation, it is generally modestly noted that “There is no information.” Those. The system worked, people were convicted and shot, but no information was received!
This certificate from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the “No information” written in it directly openly confirms and is documentary evidence that much information about the punishments carried out was not registered and disappeared altogether.

Now I want to examine the point of the fascinating Information on the number of executions (CMN - Capital Punishment). The Certificate for 1921 indicates 9,701 executed. In 1922 there were only 1,962 people, and in 1923 there were only 414 people (in 3 years 12,077 people were shot).

Let me remind you that this is still the time of the “Red Terror” and the ongoing civil war (which ended only in 1923), a terrible famine that claimed several million lives and was organized by the Bolsheviks, who took away almost all the grain from the “class alien” breadwinners - the peasants, and also the time of peasant uprisings caused by this surplus appropriation and hunger, and the cruelest suppression of those who dared to be indignant.
At a time when, according to the official Information, the number of executions was already small in 1921, in 1922 it was still greatly reduced, and in 1923 it almost stopped altogether, in reality, due to the most severe surplus appropriation system, a terrible famine reigned in the country, dissatisfaction with the Bolsheviks intensified and the opposition intensified, everywhere Peasant uprisings broke out. The Bolshevik leadership demands that the unrest of the dissatisfied, the opposition and uprisings be suppressed in the most brutal manner.

Church sources provide data on those killed as a result of the implementation of the wisest “general plan” in 1922: 2,691 priests, 1,962 monks, 3,447 nuns (Russian Orthodox Church and the Communist State, 1917-1941, M., 1996, p. 69). In 1922, 8,100 clergy were killed (and the most honest Information states that in total, including criminals, 1,962 people were shot in 1922).

Suppression of the Tambov uprising of 1921-22. If we recall how this was reflected in the surviving documents of that time, Uborevich reported to Tukhachevsky: “1000 people were captured, 1000 were shot,” then “500 people were captured, all 500 were shot.” How many such documents were destroyed? And how many such executions were not reflected in the documents at all?

Note (interesting comparison):
According to official data, in the peaceful USSR from 1962 to 1989, 24,422 people were sentenced to death. On average, 2,754 people for 2 years in a very calm, peaceful time of golden stagnation. In 1962, 2,159 people were sentenced to death. Those. During the benign times of the “golden stagnation”, more people were shot than during the most brutal “Red Terror”. According to the Certificate, in 2 years 1922-1923, only 2,376 were shot (almost as many as in 1962 alone).

The Certificate from the 1st Special Department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs on repressions includes only those convicted who were officially registered as “contra.” Bandits, criminals, violators of labor discipline and public order, naturally, were not included in the statistics of this Certificate.
For example, in the USSR in 1924, 1,915,900 people were officially convicted (see: Results of the decade of Soviet power in figures. 1917-1927. M, 1928. pp. 112-113), and according to the Information through the special departments of the Cheka-OGPU this year only 12,425 people were convicted (and only they can officially be considered as repressed; the rest are simply criminals).
Need I remind you that in the USSR they tried to declare that we have no political ones, only criminals. Trotskyists were tried as saboteurs and saboteurs. The rebellious peasants were suppressed as bandits (even the Commission under the RVSR, which led the suppression of peasant uprisings, was officially called the “Commission for Combating Banditry”), etc.

Let me add two more facts to the wonderful statistics of the Help.

According to the well-known archives of the NKVD, which are cited to refute the scale of the Gulags, the number of prisoners in prisons, camps and colonies at the beginning of 1937 was 1.196 million people
However, in the population census conducted on January 6, 1937, 156 million people were obtained (without the population recorded by the NKVD and NPOs (that is, without the special contingent of the NKVD and the army), and without passengers on trains and ships). The total population according to the census was 162,003,225 people (including contingents of the Red Army, NKVD and passengers).

Considering the size of the army at that time was 2 million (experts call the figure 1,645,983 as of January 1, 1937) and assuming that there were about 1 million passengers, we obtain approximately that the NKVD special contingent (prisoners) by the beginning of 1937 was about 3 million. Close to our calculated specific number of 2.75 million prisoners was indicated in the NKVD certificate provided by TsUNKHU for the 1937 population census. Those. according to another OFFICIAL certificate (and also, of course, truthful), the actual number of prisoners was 2.3 times higher than the generally accepted one.

And one more, last example from official, truthful information about the number of prisoners.
A report on the use of prisoner labor in 1939 reports that there were 94,773 in the UZHD system at the beginning of the year, and 69,569 at the end of the year. (In principle, everything is wonderful, researchers simply reprint this data and compile the total amount of prisoners from them. But the trouble is, the same report gives another interesting figure) The prisoners, as stated in the same report, worked 135,148,918 people days. Such a combination is impossible, since if during the year 94 thousand people worked every day without days off, then the number of days they worked would be only 34,310 thousand (94 thousand per 365). If we agree with Solzhenitsyn, who claims that prisoners were entitled to three days off per month, then 135,148,918 man-days could be provided by approximately 411 thousand workers (135,148,918 for 329 working days). Those. and here the OFFICIAL distortion of reporting is about 5 times.

To summarize, we can once again emphasize that the Bolsheviks/communists did not record all of their crimes, and what was recorded was then repeatedly purged: Beria destroyed incriminating evidence on himself, Khrushchev cleared archives in his favor, Trotsky, Stalin, Kaganovich also did not they really liked to save materials that were “ugly” for themselves; Likewise, the leaders of the republics, regional committees, city committees, and departments of the NKVD cleaned out local archives for themselves. ,

And yet, knowing full well about the practice of extrajudicial executions that existed at that time, about the numerous purges of archives, the neocommies summarize the found remnants of the lists and give a final figure of less than 1 million executed from 1921 to 1953, including criminals sentenced to capital punishment. The falsity and cynicism of these statements “beyond good and evil”...

Average figure

Now about the real numbers of communist victims. These figures of people killed by the communists consist of several main points. The numbers themselves are indicated as the minimum and maximum values I have encountered in various studies, indicating the study/author. Figures in items marked with an asterisk are for reference only and are not included in the final calculation.

1. “Red Terror” from October 1917 - 1.7 million people (Denikin Commission, Melgunov) - 2 million.

2. Epidemics of 1918-1922. - 6-7 million,

3. Civil war 1917-1923, losses on both sides, soldiers and officers killed and died from wounds - 2.5 million (Poles) - 7.5 million (Alexandrov)
(For reference: even the minimum figures are greater than the number of deaths during the entire First World War - 1.7 million.)

4. The first artificial Famine of 1921-1922, 1 million (Polyakov) - 4.5 million (Alexandrov) - 5 million (with 5 million indicated in the TSB)
5. Suppression of peasant uprisings of 1921-1923. - 0.6 million (own calculations)

6. Victims of forced Stalinist collectivization 1930-1932 (including victims of extrajudicial repressions, peasants who died of starvation in 1932 and special settlers in 1930-1940) - 2 million.

7. Second artificial famine 1932-1933 - 6.5 million (Alexandrov), 7.5 million, 8.1 million (Andreev)

8. Victims of political terror of the 1930s - 1.8 million.

9. Those who died in prison in the 1930s - 1.8 million (Alexandrov) - more than 2 million

10*. “Lost” as a result of Stalin’s corrections of the population censuses of 1937 and 1939 - 8 million - 10 million.
According to the results of the first census, 5 leaders of TsUNKHU were shot in a row, as a result the statistics were “improved” - the population was “increased” by several million. These figures are probably distributed in paragraphs. 6, 7, 8 and 9.

11. Finnish war 1939-1940 - 0.13 million

12*. Irreversible losses in the war of 1941-1945 are 38 million, 39 million according to Rosstat, 44 million according to Kurganov.
The criminal mistakes and orders of Dzhugashvili (Stalin) and his henchmen led to colossal and unjustified casualties among the Red Army personnel and the civilian population of the country. At the same time, no mass murders of the civilian non-combatant population by the Nazis (except Jews) were recorded. Moreover, all that is known is that the fascists deliberately exterminated communists, commissars, Jews and partisan saboteurs. The civilian population was not subjected to genocide. But of course, it is impossible to isolate from these losses the part for which the communists are directly to blame, so this is not taken into account. Nevertheless, the mortality rate of prisoners in Soviet camps over the years is known; according to various sources, it is about 600,000 people. This is entirely on the conscience of the communists.

13. Repressions 1945-1953 - 2.85 million (together with clauses 13 and 14)

14. Famine of 1946-47 - 1 million.

15. In addition to deaths, the country’s demographic losses also include irrevocable emigration as a result of the actions of the communists. In the period after the coup of 1917 and the beginning of the 1920s, it accounted for 1.9 million (Volkov) - 2.9 million (Ramsha) - 3 million (Mikhailovsky). As a result of the war of 41-45, 0.6 million - 2 million people did not want to return to the USSR.
The arithmetic average figure for losses is 34.31 million people.

Used materials.

Calculation of the number of victims of the Bolsheviks according to the official methodology of the USSR State Statistics Committee http://www.slavic-europe.eu/index.php/articles/57-russia-articles/255-2013-05-21-31

A well-known incident of the summary statistics of those repressed in GB cases (“Pavlov’s certificate”) on the number of executions in 1933 (although this is actually defective statistics from the summary certificates of the GB, deposited in the 8th Central Asia of the FSB), disclosed by Alexey Teplyakov http://corporatelie.livejournal .com/53743.html
There, the number of people executed was underestimated by at least 6 times. And perhaps more.

Repressions in Kuban, index of those executed by name (75 pages) http://ru.convdocs.org/docs/index-15498.html?page=1 (from what I have read, everyone was rehabilitated after Stalin).

Stalinist Igor Pykhalov. “What is the scale of “Stalinist repressions”?” http://warrax.net/81/stalin.html

Population census of the USSR (1937) https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%8C_ %D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D0%A1%D0%A1%D0%A1%D0 %A0_%281937%29
The Red Army before the war: organization and personnel http://militera.lib.ru/research/meltyukhov/09.html

Archival materials on the number of prisoners in the late 30s. Central State Archive of National Economy (TSANH) of the USSR, fund of the People's Commissariat - Ministry of Finance of the USSR http://scepsis.net/library/id_491.html

Article by Oleg Khlevnyuk about massive distortions of statistics of the Turkmen NKVD in 1937-1938. Hlevnjuk O. Les mecanismes de la “Grande Terreur” des annees 1937-1938 au Turkmenistan // Cahiers du Monde russe. 1998. 39/1-2. http://corporatelie.livejournal.com/163706.html#comments

A special investigative commission to investigate the atrocities of the Bolsheviks of the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR, General Denikin, provides figures for the victims of the Red Terror only for 1918-19. - 1,766,118 Russians, including 28 bishops, 1,215 clergy, 6,775 professors and teachers, 8,800 doctors, 54,650 officers, 260,000 soldiers, 10,500 policemen, 48,650 police agents, 12,950 landowners, 355,250 intellectuals, 193.35 0 workers, 815,000 peasants.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9E%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0 %B4%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B8 %D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D0%BF%D0%BE_%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0 %B4%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8E_%D0%B7%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%8F %D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%88%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0 %BE%D0%B2#cite_note-Meingardt-6

Suppression of peasant uprisings of 1921-1923.

The number of victims during the suppression of the Tambov uprising. A large number of Tambov villages were wiped off the face of the earth as a result of cleansing operations (as punishment for supporting “bandits”). As a result of the actions of the occupation-punitive army and the Cheka in the Tambov region, according to Soviet data alone, at least 110 thousand people were killed. Many analysts put the figure at 240 thousand people. How many “Antonovites” were later destroyed from organized famine
Tambov security officer Goldin said: “For execution, we do not need any evidence or interrogations, as well as suspicions and, of course, useless, stupid paperwork. We find it necessary to shoot and shoot.”

At the same time, almost all of Russia was engulfed in peasant uprisings. In Western Siberia and the Urals, on the Don and Kuban, in the Volga region and the central provinces, peasants, who only yesterday had fought against the whites and the interventionists, spoke out against Soviet power. The scale of the performances was enormous.
book Materials for the study of the history of the USSR (1921 - 1941), Moscow, 1989 (compiled by Dolutsky I.I.)
The largest of them was the West Siberian uprising of 1921-22. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%97%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%BE-%D0%A1%D0%B8% D0%B1%D0%B8%D1%80%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B5_%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D1%82%D0% B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%281921%E2%80%941922%29
And all of them were suppressed by this government with approximately the same extreme measure of cruelty, briefly described in the example of the Tambov province. I will give just one extract from the protocols on the methods of suppressing the West Siberian uprising: http://www.proza.ru/2011/01/28/782

Fundamental research by the largest historian of the revolution and the Civil War S.P. Melgunov “Red Terror in Russia. 1918-1923." is documentary evidence of the atrocities of the Bolsheviks committed under the slogan of the fight against class enemies in the first years after the October Revolution. It is based on testimony collected by the historian from various sources (the author was a contemporary of those events), but primarily from the printed organs of the Cheka itself (VChK Weekly, Red Terror magazine), even before his expulsion from the USSR. Published from the 2nd, expanded edition (Berlin, Vataga Publishing House, 1924). You can buy it on Ozone.
The human losses of the USSR in the Second World War were 38 million. A book by a group of authors with an eloquent title - “Washed in Blood”? Lies and truth about losses in the Great Patriotic War." Authors: Igor Pykhalov, Lev Lopukhovsky, Viktor Zemskov, Igor Ivlev, Boris Kavalerchik. Publishing house "Yauza" - "Eksmo, 2012. Volume - 512 pages, of which by author: I Pykhalov - 19 pp., L. Lopukhovsky in collaboration with B. Kavalerchik - 215 pp., V. Zemskov - 17 pp., I. Ivlev - 249 pp. Circulation 2000 copies.

Rosstat's anniversary collection dedicated to the Second World War indicates the country's demographic losses in the war at 39.3 million people. http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/doc_2015/vov_svod_1.pdf

Genby. “The demographic cost of communist rule in Russia” http://genby.livejournal.com/486320.html.

The terrible famine of 1933 in figures and facts http://historical-fact.livejournal.com/2764.html

Statistics of executions in 1933 underestimated by 6 times, detailed analysis http://corporatelie.livejournal.com/53743.html

Calculation of the number of communist victims, Kirill Mikhailovich Aleksandrov - Candidate of Historical Sciences, senior researcher (specializing in "History of Russia") of the encyclopedic department of the Institute of Philological Research of St. Petersburg State University. Author of three books on the history of the anti-Stalin resistance during the Second World War and more than 250 publications on Russian history of the 19th-20th centuries.http://www.white-guard.ru/go.php?n=4&id=82

Repressed census of 1937 http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2007/0313/tema07.php

Demographic losses from repression, A. Vishnevsky http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2007/0313/tema06.php

Censuses of 1937 and 1939 Demographic losses using the balance method. http://genby.livejournal.com/542183.html

Red terror - documents.

On May 14, 1921, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) supported the expansion of the rights of the Cheka with regard to the application of Capital Punishment (CMP).

On June 4, 1921, the Politburo decided to “give the Cheka a directive to intensify the fight against the Mensheviks in view of the intensification of their counter-revolutionary activities.”

Between January 26 and 31, 1922. V.I. Lenin - I.S. Unshlikht: “The transparency of the revolutionary tribunals is not always; strengthen their composition with “yours” [i.e. Cheka - G.Kh.] people, strengthen their connection (in every way) with the Cheka; increase the speed and force of their repressions, increase the attention of the Central Committee to this. The slightest increase in banditry, etc. should entail martial law and executions on the spot. The Council of People's Commissars will be able to carry this out quickly if you don't miss it, and it can be done by telephone” (Lenin, PSS, vol. 54, p. 144).

In March 1922, in a speech at the XI Congress of the RCP(b), Lenin stated: “For public proof of Menshevism, our revolutionary courts must be shot, otherwise they are not our courts.”

May 15, 1922. “t. Kursk! In my opinion, it is necessary to expand the use of execution... to all types of activities of the Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, etc. ... "(Lenin, PSS, vol. 45, p. 189). (According to the figures from the Reference, it follows that the use of executions, on the contrary, was rapidly reduced in these years)

Telegram dated August 11, 1922, endorsed by the Deputy Chairman of the State Political Administration of the Republic I. S. Unshlikht and the Head of the Secret Department of the GPU. T.P. Samsonov, ordered the provincial departments of the GPU: “immediately liquidate all active Socialist Revolutionaries in your area.”

On March 19, 1922, Lenin, in a letter addressed to members of the Politburo, explains the need now, using the terrible famine, to begin an active campaign to expropriate church values and deal a “deadly blow to the enemy” - the clergy and the bourgeoisie: The greater the number of representatives of the reactionary clergy and the reactionary bourgeoisie succeeds we should be shot over this, so much the better: we must now teach this public a lesson so that for several decades they will not dare to think about any resistance<...>» RCKHIDNI, 2/1/22947/1-4.

Spanish Flu pandemic 1918-1920 in the context of other influenza pandemics and bird flu, M.V. Supotnitsky, Ph.D. Sciences http://www.supotnitskiy.ru/stat/stat51.htm

S.I. Zlotogorov, “Typhus” http://sohmet.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000004/st002.shtml

Statistics on general figures from the studies found:

I. The most minimal direct victims of the Bolsheviks according to the official methodology of the USSR State Statistics Committee, without emigration - 31 million http://www.slavic-europe.eu/index.php/articles/57-russia-articles/255-2013-05-21- 31
If it is impossible to establish the number of victims of war “communism” through the Bolshevik archives, then is it even possible to establish here, other than speculation, something that corresponds to reality? It turns out that it is possible. Moreover, quite simply - through the bed and the laws of ordinary physiology, which no one has yet canceled. Men sleep with women regardless of who got into the Kremlin.
Let us note that it is in this way (and not by compiling lists of the dead) that all serious scientists (and the State Commission of the USSR State Statistics Committee, in particular) calculate human losses during the Second World War.
Total losses of 26.6 million people - the calculation was carried out by the Department of Demographic Statistics of the USSR State Statistics Committee during work as part of a comprehensive commission to clarify the number of human losses of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War. - Mobile Administration of the GOMU of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, no. 142, 1991, inv. No. 04504, l.250." (Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century: Statistical research. M., 2001. p. 229.)
31 million people appears to be the low end of the regime's death toll.
II. In 1990, statistician O.A. Platonov: “According to our calculations, the total number of people who died a non-natural death from mass repressions, hunger, epidemics, and wars amounted to more than 87 million people during the years 1918-1953. And in total, if we add up the number of people who did not die a natural death, those who left their homeland, as well as the number of children that could have been born to these people, then the total human damage to the country will be 156 million people.”

III. Outstanding philosopher and historian Ivan Ilyin, “The size of the Russian population.”
http://www.rus-sky.com/gosudarstvo/ilin/nz/nz-52.htm
“All this is just during the years of the Second World War. Adding this new shortage to the previous one of 36 million, we get a monstrous sum of 72 million lives. This is the price of the revolution.”

IV. Calculation of the number of communist victims, Kirill Mikhailovich Aleksandrov - Candidate of Historical Sciences, senior researcher (specializing in "History of Russia") of the encyclopedic department of the Institute of Philological Research of St. Petersburg State University. Author of three books on the history of the anti-Stalin resistance during the Second World War and more than 250 publications on Russian history of the 19th-20th centuries.http://www.white-guard.ru/go.php?n=4&id=82
"Civil War 1917-1922 7.5 million.
The first artificial famine 1921-1922 more than 4.5 million.
Victims of Stalin's collectivization 1930-1932 (including victims of extrajudicial repressions, peasants who died of starvation in 1932 and special settlers in 1930-1940) ≈ 2 million.
Second artificial famine 1933 - 6.5 million.
Victims of political terror - 800 thousand.
Deaths in places of detention - 1.8 million.
Victims of World War II ≈ 28 million.
Total ≈ 51 million."

V. Data from the article by A. Ivanov “Demographic losses of Russia-USSR” - http://ricolor.org/arhiv/russkoe_vozrojdenie/1981/8/:
"...All this makes it possible to judge the total losses of the country's population with the formation of the Soviet state, caused by its internal policies, its conduct of the civil and world wars during 1917-1959. We have identified three periods:
1. Establishment of Soviet power - 1917-1929, the number of human losses - over 30 million people.
2. The costs of building socialism (collectivization, industrialization, liquidation of the kulaks, the remnants of the “former classes”) - 1930-1939. - 22 million people.
3. World War II and post-war difficulties - 1941-1950 - 51 million people; Total - 103 million people.
As we see, this approach, using the latest demographic indicators, leads to the same assessment of the magnitude of human casualties suffered by the peoples of our country during the years of Soviet power and the communist dictatorship, which was arrived at by different researchers using different methods and different demographic statistics. This once again demonstrates that the 100-110 million human sacrifices of building socialism are the real “price” of this “building.”
VI. Opinion of the liberal historian R. Medvedev: “Thus, the total number of victims of Stalinism reaches, according to my calculations, a figure of approximately 40 million people” (R. Medvedev “Tragic Statistics // Arguments and Facts. 1989, February 4-10. No. 5(434). P. 6.)

VII. Opinion of the commission for the rehabilitation of victims of political repression (headed by A. Yakovlev): “According to the most conservative estimates of the specialists of the rehabilitation commission, our country lost about 100 million people during the years of Stalin’s rule. This number includes not only the repressed themselves, but also those doomed to the death of members of their families and even children who could have been born, but were never born." (Mikhailova N. Underpants of counter-revolution // Premier. Vologda, 2002, July 24-30. No. 28(254). P. 10.)

VIII. Fundamental demographic research by a team led by Doctor of Economics, Professor Ivan Koshkin (Kurganov) “Three Figures. About human losses for the period from 1917 to 1959." http://slavic-europe.eu/index.php/comments/66-comments-russia/177-2013-04-15-1917-1959 http://rusidea.org/?a=32030
“Nevertheless, the widespread belief in the USSR that all or most of the human losses in the USSR are associated with military events is incorrect. The losses associated with military events are enormous, but they do not cover all the losses of the people during Soviet power. Contrary to the opinion spread in the USSR, they account for only a part of these losses. Here are the corresponding figures (in millions of people):
The total number of casualties in the USSR during the dictatorship of the Communist Party from 1917 to 1959. 110.7 million - 100%.
Including:
Losses in wartime 44.0 million, - 40%.
Losses in non-military revolutionary times 66.7 million - 60%.

P.S. It was this work that Solzhenitsyn mentioned in a famous interview with Spanish television, which is why it arouses the especially fierce hatred of Stalinists and neo-Commies.

IX. The opinion of the historian and publicist B. Pushkarev is about 100 million (Pushkarev B. Unexplained issues of demography of Russia in the 20th century // Posev. 2003. No. 2. P. 12.)

X. Book edited by the leading Russian demographer Vishnevsky "Demographic modernization of Russia, 1900-2000". Demographic losses from communists 140 million (mainly due to unborn generations).
http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2007/0313/tema07.php

XI. O. Platonov, book "Memoirs of the National Economy", total losses of 156 million people.
XII. Russian emigrant historian Arseny Gulevich, book “Tsarism and Revolution”, the direct losses of the revolution amounted to 49 million people.
If we add to them the losses due to the birth rate deficit, then with the victims of two world wars, we get the same 100-110 million people destroyed by communism.

XIII. According to the documentary series "History of Russia in the 20th Century", the total number of direct demographic losses suffered by the peoples of the former Russian Empire from the actions of the Bolsheviks from 1917 to 1960. is about 60 million people.

XIV. According to the documentary film "Nicholas II. Throttled Triumph", the total number of victims of the Bolshevik dictatorship is about 40 million people.

XV. According to the forecasts of the French scientist E. Théry, the population of Russia in 1948, without unnatural deaths and taking into account normal population growth, should have been 343.9 million people. At that time, 170.5 million people lived in the USSR, i.e. demographic losses (including unborns) for 1917-1948. - 173.4 million people

XVI. Genby. the demographic price of communist rule in Russia is 200 million. http://genby.livejournal.com/486320.html.

XVII. Summary tables of victims of Lenin-Stalin repressions