In the world of postmodernism, a variety of practices and theories coexist - from completely caveman ones to classic authoritarian and complex ones (although it is no secret that even in the 20th century authoritarianism is very different from authoritarianism). When they talk about the “hybridity” of the current regime, they mean that real authoritarianism and real repression can no longer exist - they say we have a too open, information society, too pragmatic elites and too much interest in the economy, they say no one has any ideas anymore fanatically does not believe, etc. And in general, I noticed one characteristic feature among some political scientists - they say that repeating the past is impossible, because it is impossible exactly (they stay outside the framework of historical terms, when these terms exist in such an “understanding” only in their own heads (well, maybe maybe, with reservations, also in their narrow circle), and real life does not stand still, complicating and deepening any words and phenomena.
Well, yes, an exact repetition of what happened seems to be impossible, and the current socio-political forms, at first glance, are different - but, let me take another liberty, and say that they are “different” also because we often We over-primitivize our past, reducing it to certain schemes, generalizations, meaningless concepts (but if you become a real specialist in the culture of a particular era, immerse yourself in that life, you will immediately find elements of everything in it , but, most importantly, basic things - respect for human dignity regardless of anything and sacrifice of everything, anything, for the sake of the implementation of a certain plan or the implementation of some supra- or extra-human idea).
Mass repressions today are impossible not because there is no resource for their implementation (I don’t believe in this, because when the flywheel really begins to spin up, and the smell of blood permeates the whole country, convulsions of human suffering are seized, when the groans of victims and the groans of terrified citizens are heard , then the consciousness of society changes sharply and inevitably), and because they are not needed yet, the authorities keep everything under control even without them. The latter, however, does not mean that this will continue in the future. All the Kremlin’s signals say only one thing: sit quietly and quietly, and no matter what they do to you, don’t scream, but, most importantly, don’t unite and don’t resist, otherwise we will do something completely terrible to you. Like in that joke about two partisans whom the Nazis were leading to execution, and one said: “Listen, let’s knock the machine gun out of his hands and try to escape? What if we succeed?!” And the other one answers him: “Hush, hush! What if it gets worse?!”
Considering the extremely low level of empathy of people and the extremely high level of virtualization of our lives, everything that is happening (the destruction of all living, free, independent, persecution of dissidents, etc.) is perceived by many as nothing more than a computer game or an episode of some “Game of Thrones”. Moreover, such a worldview obviously sympathizes with the most powerful, brutal, successful, the one “who has everything and who has nothing for it.” The only way out of this impasse can be faith in what you do and say and high humanistic ideals as a guide to action. But when these ideals turn into their opposite, then you have to act creatively, unconventionally, provocatively - like Pussy Riot or Pyotr Pavlensky. When salt loses its strength, who will make it salty?
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 rendered 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?
Stalin's repressions:
What was it?
On the Day of Remembrance of Victims of Political Repression
In this material we have collected the memories of eyewitnesses, fragments from official documents, figures and facts provided by researchers in order to provide answers to questions that haunt our society again and again. The Russian state has never been able to give clear answers to these questions, so until now, everyone is forced to look for answers on their own.
Who was affected by the repression?
Representatives of various groups of the population fell under the flywheel of Stalin's repressions. The most famous names are artists, Soviet leaders and military leaders. About peasants and workers, often only names are known from execution lists and camp archives. They did not write memoirs, tried not to remember the camp past unnecessarily, and their relatives often abandoned them. The presence of a convicted relative often meant the end of a career or education, so the children of arrested workers and dispossessed peasants might not know the truth about what happened to their parents.
When we heard about another arrest, we never asked, “Why was he taken?”, but there were few like us. People distraught with fear asked each other this question for pure self-comfort: people are taken for something, which means they won’t take me, because there’s nothing! They became sophisticated, coming up with reasons and justifications for each arrest - “She really is a smuggler,” “He allowed himself to do this,” “I myself heard him say...” And again: “You should have expected this - he has such terrible character”, “It always seemed to me that something was wrong with him”, “This is a complete stranger.” That’s why the question: “Why was he taken?” – became forbidden for us. It's time to understand that people are taken for nothing.
- Nadezhda Mandelstam , writer and wife of Osip Mandelstam
From the very beginning of terror to this day, attempts have not ceased to present it as a fight against “sabotage”, enemies of the fatherland, limiting the composition of the victims to certain classes hostile to the state - kulaks, bourgeois, priests. The victims of terror were depersonalized and turned into “contingents” (Poles, spies, saboteurs, counter-revolutionary elements). However, the political terror was total in nature, and its victims were representatives of all groups of the population of the USSR: the “cause of engineers”, the “cause of doctors”, persecution of scientists and entire directions in science, personnel purges in the army before and after the war, deportations of entire peoples.
Poet Osip Mandelstam
He died during transit; the place of death is not known for certain.
Directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold
Marshals of the Soviet Union
Tukhachevsky (shot), Voroshilov, Egorov (shot), Budyony, Blucher (died in Lefortovo prison).
How many people were affected?
According to the estimates of the Memorial Society, there were 4.5-4.8 million people convicted for political reasons, and 1.1 million people were shot.
Estimates of the number of victims of repression vary and depend on the calculation method. If we take into account only those convicted on political charges, then according to an analysis of statistics from the regional departments of the KGB of the USSR, carried out in 1988, the bodies of the Cheka-GPU-OGPU-NKVD-NKGB-MGB arrested 4,308,487 people, of which 835,194 were shot. According to the same data, about 1.76 million people died in the camps. According to the estimates of the Memorial Society, there were more people convicted for political reasons - 4.5-4.8 million people, of which 1.1 million people were shot.
The victims of Stalin's repressions were representatives of some peoples who were subjected to forced deportation (Germans, Poles, Finns, Karachais, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars and others). This is about 6 million people. Every fifth person did not live to see the end of the journey - about 1.2 million people died during the difficult conditions of deportation. During the dispossession, about 4 million peasants suffered, of which at least 600 thousand died in exile.
In total, about 39 million people suffered as a result of Stalin's policies. The number of victims of repression includes those who died in the camps from disease and harsh working conditions, those deprived of their money, victims of hunger, victims of unjustifiably cruel decrees “on absenteeism” and “on three ears of corn” and other groups of the population who received excessively harsh punishment for minor offenses due to repressive the nature of the legislation and the consequences of that time.
Why was this necessary?
The worst thing is not that you are suddenly taken away from a warm, well-established life like this overnight, not Kolyma and Magadan, and hard labor. At first, the person desperately hopes for a misunderstanding, for a mistake by the investigators, then painfully waits for them to call him, apologize, and let him go home to his children and husband. And then the victim no longer hopes, no longer painfully searches for an answer to the question of who needs all this, then there is a primitive struggle for life. The worst thing is the senselessness of what is happening... Does anyone know what this was for?
Evgenia Ginzburg,
writer and journalist
In July 1928, speaking at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Joseph Stalin described the need to fight “alien elements” as follows: “As we move forward, the resistance of capitalist elements will increase, the class struggle will intensify, and Soviet power, forces which will increase more and more, will pursue a policy of isolating these elements, a policy of disintegrating the enemies of the working class, and finally, a policy of suppressing the resistance of the exploiters, creating a basis for the further advancement of the working class and the bulk of the peasantry.”
In 1937, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N. Yezhov published order No. 00447, in accordance with which a large-scale campaign to destroy “anti-Soviet elements” began. They were recognized as the culprits of all the failures of the Soviet leadership: “Anti-Soviet elements are the main instigators of all kinds of anti-Soviet and sabotage crimes, both on collective and state farms, and in transport, and in some areas of industry. The state security agencies are faced with the task of most mercilessly defeating this entire gang of anti-Soviet elements, protecting the working Soviet people from their counter-revolutionary machinations and, finally, once and for all putting an end to their vile subversive work against the foundations of the Soviet state. In accordance with this, I order - from August 5, 1937, in all republics, territories and regions, to begin an operation to repress former kulaks, active anti-Soviet elements and criminals.” This document marks the beginning of an era of large-scale political repression, which later became known as the “Great Terror.”
Stalin and other members of the Politburo (V. Molotov, L. Kaganovich, K. Voroshilov) personally compiled and signed execution lists - pre-trial circulars listing the number or names of victims to be convicted by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court with a predetermined punishment. According to researchers, the death sentences of at least 44.5 thousand people bear Stalin’s personal signatures and resolutions.
The myth of the effective manager Stalin
Until now, in the media and even in textbooks one can find justification for political terror in the USSR by the need to carry out industrialization in a short time. Since the release of the decree obliging those sentenced to more than 3 years to serve their sentences in forced labor camps, prisoners have been actively involved in the construction of various infrastructure facilities. In 1930, the Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps of the OGPU (GULAG) was created and huge flows of prisoners were sent to key construction sites. During the existence of this system, from 15 to 18 million people passed through it.
During the 1930-1950s, GULAG prisoners carried out the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal, the Moscow Canal. Prisoners built Uglich, Rybinsk, Kuibyshev and other hydroelectric power stations, erected metallurgical plants, objects of the Soviet nuclear program, the longest railways and highways. Dozens of Soviet cities were built by Gulag prisoners (Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Dudinka, Norilsk, Vorkuta, Novokuibyshevsk and many others).
Beria himself characterized the efficiency of prisoners’ labor as low: “The existing food standard in the Gulag of 2000 calories is designed for a person sitting in prison and not working. In practice, even this reduced standard is supplied by supplying organizations only by 65-70%. Therefore, a significant percentage of the camp workforce falls into the categories of weak and useless people in production. In general, labor utilization is no higher than 60-65 percent.”
To the question “is Stalin necessary?” we can give only one answer - a firm “no”. Even without taking into account the tragic consequences of famine, repression and terror, even considering only economic costs and benefits - and even making all possible assumptions in favor of Stalin - we get results that clearly indicate that Stalin's economic policies did not lead to positive results. Forced redistribution significantly worsened productivity and social welfare.
- Sergey Guriev , economist
The economic efficiency of Stalinist industrialization at the hands of prisoners is also rated extremely low by modern economists. Sergei Guriev gives the following figures: by the end of the 30s, productivity in agriculture had reached only the pre-revolutionary level, and in industry it was one and a half times lower than in 1928. Industrialization led to huge losses in welfare (minus 24%).
Brave New World
Stalinism is not only a system of repression, it is also the moral degradation of society. The Stalinist system made tens of millions of slaves - it broke people morally. One of the most terrible texts I have read in my life is the tortured “confessions” of the great biologist Academician Nikolai Vavilov. Only a few can endure torture. But many – tens of millions! – were broken and became moral monsters for fear of being personally repressed.
- Alexey Yablokov , Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Philosopher and historian of totalitarianism Hannah Arendt explains: in order to turn Lenin's revolutionary dictatorship into a completely totalitarian rule, Stalin had to artificially create an atomized society. To achieve this, an atmosphere of fear was created in the USSR and denunciation was encouraged. Totalitarianism did not destroy real “enemies,” but imaginary ones, and this is its terrible difference from an ordinary dictatorship. None of the destroyed sections of society were hostile to the regime and probably would not become hostile in the foreseeable future.
In order to destroy all social and family ties, repressions were carried out in such a way as to threaten the same fate to the accused and everyone in the most ordinary relations with him, from casual acquaintances to closest friends and relatives. This policy penetrated deeply into Soviet society, where people, out of selfish interests or fearing for their lives, betrayed neighbors, friends, even members of their own families. In their quest for self-preservation, masses of people abandoned their own interests and became, on the one hand, a victim of power, and on the other, its collective embodiment.
The consequence of the simple and ingenious technique of "guilt for association with the enemy" is that, as soon as a person is accused, his former friends immediately turn into his worst enemies: in order to save their own skin, they rush out with unsolicited information and denunciations, supplying non-existent data against accused. Ultimately, it was by developing this technique to its latest and most fantastic extremes that the Bolshevik rulers succeeded in creating an atomized and disunited society, the likes of which we have never seen before, and whose events and catastrophes would hardly have occurred in such a pure form without it.
- Hannah Arendt, philosopher
The deep disunity of Soviet society and the lack of civil institutions were inherited by the new Russia and became one of the fundamental problems hindering the creation of democracy and civil peace in our country.
How the state and society fought the legacy of Stalinism
To date, Russia has survived “two and a half attempts at de-Stalinization.” The first and largest was launched by N. Khrushchev. It began with a report at the 20th Congress of the CPSU:
“They were arrested without the prosecutor’s sanction... What other sanction could there be when Stalin allowed everything. He was the chief prosecutor in these matters. Stalin gave not only permission, but also instructions for arrests on his own initiative. Stalin was a very suspicious man, with morbid suspicion, as we became convinced of while working with him. He could look at a person and say: “something is wrong with your eyes today,” or: “why do you often turn away today, don’t look straight into the eyes.” Morbid suspicion led him to sweeping mistrust. Everywhere and everywhere he saw “enemies”, “double-dealers”, “spies”. Having unlimited power, he allowed cruel arbitrariness and suppressed people morally and physically. When Stalin said that so-and-so should be arrested, one had to take it on faith that he was an “enemy of the people.” And the Beria gang, which ruled the state security agencies, went out of its way to prove the guilt of the arrested persons and the correctness of the materials they fabricated. What evidence was used? Confessions of those arrested. And the investigators extracted these “confessions.”
As a result of the fight against the cult of personality, sentences were revised, more than 88 thousand prisoners were rehabilitated. However, the “thaw” era that followed these events turned out to be very short-lived. Soon many dissidents who disagreed with the policies of the Soviet leadership would become victims of political persecution.
The second wave of de-Stalinization occurred in the late 80s and early 90s. Only then did society become aware of at least approximate figures characterizing the scale of Stalin’s terror. At this time, the sentences passed in the 30s and 40s were also revised. In most cases, the convicts were rehabilitated. Half a century later, the dispossessed peasants were posthumously rehabilitated.
A timid attempt at a new de-Stalinization was made during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev. However, it did not bring significant results. Rosarkhiv, on the instructions of the president, posted on its website documents about 20 thousand Poles executed by the NKVD near Katyn.
Programs to preserve the memory of victims are being phased out due to lack of funding.
At one time I helped 4 acquaintances who also had “someone who was repressed” in their family to find information about them. People spent a lot of time going to various archives, and a lot of money too. As a result, it turned out that one of his grandmothers was imprisoned not because “she was the daughter of a tsar’s officer,” but because, as an accountant at a factory, she took money from the factory cash register and bought herself a fur coat. Another’s grandfather was imprisoned not “for telling a joke about Stalin,” but for participating in gang rape. The third’s grandfather turned out to be not a “dispossessed peasant for nothing,” but a repeat offender who received a punishment for the murder of an entire family (father, mother and two teenage children). Only one’s grandfather turned out to be truly politically repressed, but again not “for telling an anecdote about Stalin,” but because during the war he was a policeman and worked for the Germans.
This is about the question of whether we should trust family legends about repressed relatives.
Vladimir Startsev, senior assistant prosecutor of the Leningrad region:
Quote:
In recent years, there has been a flood of appeals from children of repressed citizens. They ask that their parents be recognized as rehabilitated, since they can receive social benefits - about 800 rubles a month. We raise cases from the archives and in many cases we are faced with the fact that those repressed in Soviet times were shot or were in camps for a reason - someone received a sentence for robbery and theft, someone served as a headman under the Germans... Children learn about the past your parents for the first time! This is a real shock for some people."
http://forum.sadov.com/thread-402-post-40600.html#pid40600
Stalin's time was a time of reaction and retribution.
How long can you walk in a circle? How long can you push within the imposed paradigm? We, like idiots, were hooked on the lip and led in a circle.
Why the hell are we always trying to prove that Stalin is not a “bloody executioner”?
“Executioner is a special person who carries out execution” (Ushakov’s dictionary). What is it about your profession that you don’t like? The work is hard, but necessary. Of course the executioner. Executed you, bitch. There was a reason.
Are we now dreaming of an “effective manager”, or of an executioner who will hang all this abomination on the street lamps?
How long can one pretend that Stalin is the successor of Lenin’s work? He lied then.
It was necessary.
But why should we obediently repeat this nonsense? We, like wavy little assholes, repeat this lie, and the abomination happily blames all Leninist-Trotskyist sins on it. Stalin carried out a counter-revolution. Stalin's time was a time of reaction and retribution. Executed you, bitch. There was a reason.
Stop fussing. Stop arguing. We must agree! Yes! Executioner! Bloody! And we are waiting for him!
And then there is no subject for dispute. They know whose souls he will come for. Execute them, bitches. There is a reason.
An entertaining biography of Mr. Barshchevsky.
Yesterday at “Honest Monday” Mr. (who the hell is he, “Mr., huh?”) Barshchevsky shouted about his executed grandfather. At the same time keeping silent about my grandmother.
And Barshchevsky’s grandmother, the wife of that same grandfather, Tatyana Alpert, was a very interesting person. At first she served in the Cheka in Ukraine. Shudder, Ukrainian friends? Do you remember what the curly-haired security officers did? And in the 30s Tatyana Alpert was deputy. Moscow prosecutor. Yeah.
Barshchevsky has a big problem with his grandfathers. There were actually two of them. And both are the husbands of the security officer Alpert. And both, by a strange coincidence, were shot.
Barshchevsky recently stated that his grandfather was killed on Stalin’s personal order. So this is clearly not about his own grandfather, Dmitry Barshchevsky. He was executed in 1935. And after that Alpert became deputy. prosecutor in the capital.
Even though she is an ex-wife, it doesn’t work that way. Probably, comrade lawyer Barshchevsky was going to be shot under some other article. I could be wrong, but, in my opinion, gold speculation, for example, was also punishable by execution. In addition, his descendant, supposedly the “son of an enemy of the people,” quite successfully graduated from law school and worked in Stalin’s time (don’t laugh) as an investigator in the prosecutor’s office.
So, most likely, M. Barshchevsky had another grandfather in mind - Alexei Pavlovich Selivanovsky.
A.P. Selivanovsky is the one from the edge. In a strange way, he is very similar to Barshchevsky, so you can’t go wrong.
Selivanovsky was a little-known critic, but an active figure in RAPP. He bullied Pasternak, called Gumilyov a “Russian fascist,” but was especially noted for his persecution of Mikhail Sholokhov. RAPP was an extremely entertaining organization. It was headed by a genius with five classes of education, Leopold Averbakh. Mother is the sister of Yakov Sverdlov, sister is the wife of Genrikh Yagoda, wife is the daughter of Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich. With such connections, he didn’t need education. And talent, however, was also unnecessary. A faithful apologist for Trotsky and comrade-in-arms of Yagoda, Lyolik Averbakh commanded the writers and tested them for “ideological purity.” In general, Sholokhov got a fair amount from this Rappov company. They dragged him straight under the 58th.
Minutes No. 23 of the RAPP Secretariat faction meeting dated 6.VIII-29, where it is written:
"We listened:
4. Information comrade. Selivanovsky about the investigation into the Sholokhov case at the MCC.
Resolved:
4. Take note. Invite Comrade Korabelnikov to submit additional materials."
But additional materials did not help. Stalin did not let Sholokhov be devoured. And the Rappovites went to the NKVD in friendly ranks. Some of the writers then went to the camps, but Selivanovsky was shot. Well, of course not for Sholokhov. However, M. Barshchevsky in vain enrolls Sholokhov as Selivanovsky’s friend. He was not his friend.
They shot him in '38. Almost earlier than Averbakh. He was spanked in August, and Selivanovsky was shot in April... Well, yes: earlier.
If I’m not mistaken, it was then that Lavrentiy Palych came to the NKVD and began to restore order.
Why am I telling all this? Moreover, we need to understand very well who is now VERY loudly screaming about the “bloody executioner” and pouring dirt on Stalin.
Children of the White Guards? I beg you... They respect him. West? May it be for you! For them it is just a toy to be manipulated. In fact, they know his worth very well.
And I’m talking about those who ENTIRELY. About those who SINCERELY. With animal hatred. These are the descendants of Trotskyist-Leninist underdogs. Those who again got their hands on the Russian throat. Whose renaissance is it now? They remember the fatty piece well, they remember well how it ended. And they are very afraid. Because they know: there will be no rehabilitation.
If M. Barshchevsky demands satisfaction, he is always at your service.
There were repressions under Stalin, but the country developed by leaps and bounds; because these were repressions of the agents of the world Alienal; who then killed Stalin and carried out the second Jewish revolution in Russia in 1991 and turned the country into ruins, just like in the 1920s.
I will show them, Watson, these aliens, how to kick the weak-minded goyim; crypto-aliens are used to blaming any crap on the goyim, and they believe everything - they don’t have their own brains. But we, Watson, will “put in the wick” for the aliens. — Even if we accept that Stalin alone is responsible for the entire time from the moment he became the almost-almost non-opposition leader of the country, and this is only since 1929, then there are about 50 million goyish corpses made by the Jewish Bolsheviks
From 1917 to 1929 - this is all on Broshtein - Trotsky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WhiteArmyPropagandaPosterOfTrotsky.jpg - Lord Sydenham announced in 1923 in the English Parliament for 1920-21 a figure of 30 million victims of Bolshevism in Russia, and ahead there was still an unfinished civil war, the Holodomor and Solovki. Is there no talk about this Holocaust? And the crypto-Jewish “Memorial” also keeps count only since 1929! Or is this the Holocaust who needs the Holocaust? A?
http://www.zarubezhom.com/ 02.11.2009
***
I managed to dig up interesting data in an American book on the number of prisoners in different countries during the Stalin and Yeltsin era: before the 1950s and in the 1990s. These figures overturn all the ideas imposed on us.
Firstly, during Stalin’s time in the USA there were almost the same number of prisoners as in the Stalinist USSR, to which the USA stuck Solzhenitsev’s label GULAG, and
There are now 10 times more prisoners in the USA than in the Stalinist USSR! And in today’s “democratic Russia” there are 12 times more prisoners than in the Stalinist “dictatorship”
Moreover, the figures are pure, that is, per 100 thousand inhabitants, so everything is proportional. That is, it is clear that China has the most prisoners, but if we bring the number of prisoners to the total population in the country, it turns out that now in the same “democratic” Switzerland there are 2 times more prisoners than in the Stalinist USSR!
In addition, the table shows a sharp increase in the number of prisoners in all civilized countries. Apparently, this should speak of “increasing democratization”; you don’t know what to eat it with, this “democratization”. The whole point, apparently, Watson, is that Stalin knew who to imprison, and therefore the country developed. And now in Russia there are 12 times more prisoners than under Stalin, and the country is falling apart and falling apart, and, by the way, not a single bomb has been thrown at Medvedev, unlike the tsars! Didn't notice, Watson, that
Now in Russia they throw bombs at the people and not at the leader.
From here you can see who is blowing up whom: the president’s people or the president’s people. So, Watson, it turns out that
Stalin was for the people and Stalin knew who to imprison!
There was a cult, but there was also a personality. By the way, Watson, there is nothing bad in the word “cult” - “culture, cult” is good when the cult is positive. It's bad when the cult is negative. Now, for example, the cult of pornography. Under Stalin there was a cult of positivity, and the person who carried it out cannot be negative by definition. And who killed Stalin - now you see what they did to our country; They killed our country and ourselves and blamed everything on Stalin!
http://www.zarubezhom.com/
***
As we talk about Stalin, liberals lie
Every time you mention the name of Stalin, you come across new, more and more sophisticated forms of liberal lies. How much Stalin has annoyed the “de-Stalinizers” if, almost 60 years after his death, they lie shamelessly all the time, trying to tarnish his name.
A clear example of such lies was provided by the resource RBC.ru, owned by the “young politician” and part-time billionaire Prokhorov.
An article dated October 29, 2012 on this resource is called “Victims of the Great Terror are commemorated in Moscow”: “In Moscow, on New Square in the park opposite the Polytechnic Museum, a mourning rally “Return of Names” is being held, dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Great Terror: several dozen Muscovites gathered to honor the memory of the victims of political repression.”
We must pay tribute - in the entire article the name of Stalin is not mentioned even once. Even the repressions are called not Stalinist, but political. And it is right. The most complex tangle of intrigue and struggle for power of those years gave Stalin exactly the same opportunity to become a victim of “Stalinist repressions” as Tukhachevsky or Yagoda.
The more sophisticated the lie, the thinner it is. Without naming Stalin directly as the culprit, RBC does not name other culprits. Those who had long been called criminals in the USSR were convicted and shot for violating the law and crimes against innocent citizens. This is the head of the NKVD in the period 1937-1938, Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov and his accomplices.
It was Yezhov who spun the flywheel of repression against innocent people and was convicted for this. There is not a word about this in the article. There is not a word about who exactly, on Stalin’s orders, stopped the repressions and began to release those convicted by the Yezhovites. Why? Because it is impossible for a liberal to say this name and surname in a positive way. The repressions were stopped by Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, replacing Yezhov as People's Commissar of the NKVD on November 25, 1938.
But a conscientious journalist cannot write about this. But you can write, striking a blow to emotions: “...Here, near the building of the former NKVD, opposite the monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky, demolished in 1991, the Solovetsky stone was installed, which in 1990. was delivered by the human rights society "Memorial" from the Solovetsky special purpose camp. There are flowers and lamps with lit candles on the Solovetsky Stone, and “Return of Names” posters are unfurled. The square where the rally is taking place is cordoned off by police and metal detectors have been installed.”
Why not write the truth? The fact that the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON), opened under Lenin, at the height of the Civil War, was closed... in 1939. Yes Yes. This terrible camp was closed not in 1953, after the death of the “bloody tyrant,” but in 1939.
And Beria closed it. Why don't you write the truth, gentlemen, journalists? Is this truth inconvenient?
“The Great Terror was a period of mass repression and political persecution in the USSR, which took place in 1937-1938. It was established that during these years a total of 681 thousand 692 people were shot for political reasons. Together with those who died during this period in the Gulag, correctional labor institutions and prisons, as well as political prisoners executed under criminal charges, the number of victims for 1937-1938. amounted to about 1 million people.”
Please note: it has been installed. By whom? Apparently, the author of the article. Who was embarrassed to leave a signature under his material.
And who uses “lies squared”.
The figure he gives is very similar to the real one: 681,692 people.
In reality, 642,980 people were sentenced to capital punishment.
Do the numbers seem similar? No. Before us is a blatant liberal lie.
And here's the truth:
According to the certificate, which in February 1954 was prepared for Khrushchev by the USSR Prosecutor General R. Rudenko, the USSR Minister of Internal Affairs S. Kruglov and the USSR Minister of Justice K. Gorshenin, for the period from 1921 to February 1, 1954, that is, for 33 years 3,777,380 people were convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes by the OGPU board, the NKVD troikas, the Special Conference, the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals, including 642,980 people sentenced to death.
Public interest in Stalin's repressions continues to exist, and this is no coincidence.
Many feel that today's political problems are somewhat similar.
And some people think that Stalin's recipes might be suitable.
This is, of course, a mistake.
But it is still difficult to justify why this is a mistake using scientific rather than journalistic means.
Historians have figured out the repressions themselves, how they were organized and what their scale was.
Historian Oleg Khlevnyuk, for example, writes that “...now professional historiography has reached a high level of agreement based on in-depth research of archives.”
https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2017/06/29/701835-fenomen-terrora
However, from another of his articles it follows that the reasons for the “Great Terror” are still not entirely clear.
https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2017/07/06/712528-bolshogo-terrora
I have an answer, strict and scientific.
But first, about what “consent of professional historiography” looks like according to Oleg Khlevnyuk.
Let's discard the myths right away.
1) Stalin had nothing to do with it; he, of course, knew everything.
Stalin not only knew, he directed the “great terror” in real time, down to the smallest detail.
2) The “Great Terror” was not an initiative of regional authorities or local party secretaries.
Stalin himself never tried to blame the regional party leadership for the repressions of 1937-1938.
Instead, he proposed a myth about “enemies who infiltrated the ranks of the NKVD” and “slanderers” from ordinary citizens who wrote statements against honest people.
3) The “Great Terror” of 1937-1938 was not at all the result of denunciations.
Denunciations of citizens against each other did not have a significant impact on the course and scale of repressions.
Now about what is known about the “Great Terror of 1937-1938” and its mechanism.
Terror and repressions under Stalin were a constant phenomenon.
But the wave of terror of 1937-1938 was exceptionally large.
In 1937-1938 At least 1.6 million people were arrested, of whom more than 680,000 were executed.
Khlevnyuk gives a simple quantitative calculation:
“Taking into account the fact that the most intensive repressions were used for just over a year (August 1937 - November 1938), it turns out that about 100,000 people were arrested every month, of which more than 40,000 were shot.”
The scale of violence was monstrous!
The opinion that the terror of 1937-1938 consisted of the destruction of the elite: party workers, engineers, military men, writers, etc. not entirely correct.
For example, Khlevnyuk writes that there were several tens of thousands of managers at different levels. Of the 1.6 million victims.
Here's attention!
1) The victims of terror were ordinary Soviet people who did not hold positions and were not members of the party.
2) Decisions to conduct mass operations were made by the leadership, more precisely by Stalin.
The “Great Terror” was a well-organized, planned procession and followed orders from the center.
3) The goal was to “liquidate physically or isolate in camps those groups of the population that the Stalinist regime considered potentially dangerous - former “kulaks”, former officers of the tsarist and white armies, clergy, former members of parties hostile to the Bolsheviks - Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and other “suspicious” , as well as “national counter-revolutionary contingents” - Poles, Germans, Romanians, Latvians, Estonians, Finns, Greeks, Afghans, Iranians, Chinese, Koreans.
4) All “hostile categories” were taken into account in the authorities, according to the available lists, and the first repressions took place.
Subsequently, a chain was launched: arrest-interrogations - testimony - new hostile elements.
That is why arrest limits have increased.
5) Stalin personally directed the repressions.
Here are his orders quoted by the historian:
"Krasnoyarsk. Krasnoyarsk. The arson of the flour mill must be organized by enemies. Take all measures to uncover the arsonists. The perpetrators will be judged expeditiously. The sentence is execution"; “Beat Unschlicht for not handing over Polish agents to the regions”; “To T. Yezhov. Dmitriev seems to be acting rather sluggishly. It is necessary to immediately arrest all (both small and large) participants in the “rebel groups” in the Urals”; "To T. Yezhov. Very important. We need to walk through the Udmurt, Mari, Chuvash, Mordovian republics, walk with a broom"; "To T. Yezhov. Very good! Keep digging and cleaning out this Polish spy dirt"; "To T. Yezhov. The line of the Socialist Revolutionaries (left and right together) is not unwound<...>It must be borne in mind that we still have quite a few Socialist-Revolutionaries in our army and outside the army. Does the NKVD have a record of the Socialist Revolutionaries (“former”) in the army? I would like to receive it as soon as possible<...>What has been done to identify and arrest all Iranians in Baku and Azerbaijan?"
I think there can be no doubt after reading such orders.
Now let's return to the question - why?
Khlevnyuk points out several possible explanations and writes that the debate continues.
1) At the end of 1937, the first elections to the Soviets were held on the basis of secret ballot, and Stalin insured himself against surprises in a way that he understood.
This is the weakest explanation.
2) Repression was a means of social engineering
Society was subject to unification.
A fair question arises: why did unification need to be sharply accelerated in 1937-1938?
3) The “Great Terror” pointed out the reason for the difficulties and hard life of the people, while at the same time allowing them to let off steam.
4) It was necessary to provide labor for the growing Gulag economy.
This is a weak version - there were too many executions of able-bodied people, while the Gulag was unable to absorb new human intake.
5) Finally, a version that is widely popular today: the threat of war emerged, and Stalin was clearing out the rear, destroying the “fifth column”.
However, after Stalin's death, the vast majority of those arrested in 1937-1938 were found innocent.
They were not a “fifth column” at all.
My explanation allows us to understand not only why there was this wave and why it was in 1937-1938.
It also explains well why Stalin and his experience have not yet been forgotten, but have not been implemented.
The “Great Terror” of 1937-1938 took place during a period similar to ours.
In the USSR of 1933-1945 there was a question about the subject of power.
In the modern history of Russia, a similar issue is resolved in 2005-2017.
The subject of power can be either the ruler or the elite.
At that time, the sole ruler had to win.
Stalin inherited a party in which this same elite existed - the heirs of Lenin, equal to Stalin or even more eminent than himself.
Stalin successfully fought for formal leadership, but he became the undisputed sole ruler only after the Great Terror.
As long as the old leaders - recognized revolutionaries, Lenin's heirs - continued to live and work, the preconditions remained for challenging Stalin's power as the sole ruler.
The "Great Terror" of 1937-1938 was a means of destroying the elite and establishing the power of a single ruler.
Why did the repression affect the common people and not be limited to the top?
You need to understand the ideological basis, the Marxist paradigm.
Marxism does not recognize loners and the initiative of the elite.
In Marxism, any leader expresses the ideas of a class or social group.
Why is the peasantry dangerous, for example?
Not at all because it can rebel and start a peasant war.
The peasants are dangerous because they are the petty bourgeoisie.
This means that they will always support and/or nominate from their midst political leaders who will fight against the dictatorship of the proletariat, the power of the workers and the Bolsheviks.
It is not enough to root out prominent leaders with dubious views.
It is necessary to destroy their social support, those same “hostile elements” that have been taken into account.
This explains why the terror affected ordinary people.
Why exactly in 1937-1938?
Because during the first four years of each period of social reorganization, the basic plan is formed and the leading force of the social process emerges.
This is such a law of cyclical development.
Why are we interested in this today?
And why do some dream of a return to the practices of Stalinism?
Because we are going through the same process.
But he:
- ends,
- has opposite vectors.
Stalin established his sole power, in fact fulfilling the historical social order, albeit with very specific methods, even excessively.
He deprived the elite of its subjectivity and established the only subject of power - the elected ruler.
Such imperious subjectivity existed in our Fatherland until Putin.
However, Putin, more unconsciously than consciously, fulfilled a new historical social order.
In our country now the power of a single elected ruler is being replaced by the power of an elected elite.
In 2008, just in the fourth year of the new period, Putin gave presidential power to Medvedev.
The sole ruler was desubjectivized, and there were at least two rulers.
And it’s impossible to return everything back.
Now it’s clear why some part of the elite dreams of Stalinism?
They don’t want there to be many leaders, they don’t want collective power in which compromises must be sought and found, they want the restoration of individual rule.
And this can only be done by unleashing a new “great terror”, that is, by destroying the leaders of all other groups, from Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky to Navalny, Kasyanov, Yavlinsky and our modern Trotsky - Khodorkovsky (although perhaps the Trotsky of the new Russia was still Berezovsky), and out of habit of systemic thinking, their social base, at least some crackers and protest-opposition intelligentsia).
But none of this will happen.
The current vector of development is the transition to the power of an elected elite.
The elected elite is a set of leaders and power as their interaction.
If someone tries to return the sole power of an elected ruler, he will end his political career almost instantly.
Putin sometimes looks like the only, sole ruler, but he certainly is not.
Practical Stalinism has and will not have a place in modern social life in Russia.
And that's great.