Massive Stalinist repressions. How many victims of “Stalinist repressions” were there really?

Today, the assessment of “Stalin’s terror” has become in our country a touchstone, a password, a milestone in relation to the past and future of Russia. Are you judging? Determined and irrevocable? - A democrat and a common man! Any doubts? - Stalinist!

Let's try to figure out a simple question: did Stalin organize the “Great Terror”? Perhaps there are other causes of terror that common people - liberals - prefer to remain silent about?

So. After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks tried to create a new type of ideological elite, but these attempts stalled from the very beginning. Mainly because the new “people’s” elite believed that through their revolutionary struggle they had fully earned the right to enjoy the benefits that the anti-people “elite” had simply by birthright. In the noble mansions, the new nomenclature quickly became accustomed, and even the old servants remained in place, they only began to be called servants. This phenomenon was very widespread and was called “combarism”.

Even the right measures turned out to be ineffective, thanks to the massive sabotage of the new elite. I am inclined to include the introduction of the so-called “party maximum” as the right measures - a ban on party members receiving a salary greater than the salary of a highly qualified worker.

That is, a non-party director of a plant could receive a salary of 2,000 rubles, and a communist director only 500 rubles, and not a penny more. In this way, Lenin sought to avoid the influx of careerists into the party, who use it as a springboard to quickly get into the bread-and-butter positions. However, this measure was half-hearted without simultaneously destroying the system of privileges attached to any position.

By the way, V.I. Lenin strongly opposed the reckless growth in the number of party members, which is what the CPSU later did, starting with Khrushchev. In his work “The Infantile Disease of Leftism in Communism,” he wrote: “We are afraid of excessive expansion of the party, because careerists and scoundrels who deserve only to be shot inevitably try to attach themselves to the government party.”

Moreover, in the conditions of the post-war shortage of consumer goods, material goods were not so much purchased as distributed. Any power performs the function of distribution, and if so, then the one who distributes uses what is distributed. Especially the clingy careerists and crooks. Therefore, the next step was to renovate the upper floors of the party.

Stalin announced this in his characteristic cautious manner at the 17th Congress of the CPSU(b) (March 1934). In his Report, the Secretary General described a certain type of workers who interfere with the party and the country: “... These are people with well-known merits in the past, people who believe that party and Soviet laws were written not for them, but for fools. These are the same people who do not consider it their duty to carry out the decisions of party bodies... What do they count on by violating party and Soviet laws? They hope that the Soviet government will not dare to touch them because of their old merits. These arrogant nobles think that they are irreplaceable and that they can violate the decisions of governing bodies with impunity...”

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

Formally, real local power belonged to the Soviets, since the party legally did not possess any powers of authority. But the party bosses were elected chairmen of the Soviets, and, in fact, appointed themselves to these positions, since the elections were held on an uncontested basis, that is, they were not elections. And then Stalin undertakes a very risky maneuver - he proposes to establish real, rather than nominal, Soviet power in the country, that is, to hold secret general elections in party organizations and councils at all levels on an alternative basis. Stalin tried to get rid of the regional party barons, as they say, in an amicable way, through elections, and truly alternative ones.

Considering Soviet practice, this sounds quite unusual, but nevertheless it is true. He hoped that the majority of this public would not overcome the popular filter without support from above. Moreover, according to the new constitution, it was planned to nominate candidates to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR not only from the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), but also from public organizations and groups of citizens.

What happened next? On December 5, 1936, a new Constitution of the USSR was adopted, the most democratic constitution of that time in the whole world, even according to ardent critics of the USSR. For the first time in Russian history, secret alternative elections were to take place. By secret ballot. Despite the fact that the party elite tried to put a spoke in the wheels even during the period when the draft constitution was being created, Stalin managed to bring the matter to an end.

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

They understood, but what to do? I don't want to part with my chairs. And they perfectly understood one more circumstance - in the previous period they had done such a thing, especially during the Civil War and collectivization, that the people with great pleasure would not only not have elected them, but would have also broken their heads. Many high-ranking regional party secretaries had blood on their hands up to their elbows. During the period of collectivization, the regions had complete self-government. In one of the regions, Khataevich, this nice man, actually declared a civil war during collectivization in his particular region. As a result, Stalin was forced to threaten him that he would shoot him immediately if he did not stop mocking people. Do you think that comrades Eikhe, Postyshev, Kosior and Khrushchev were better, less “nice”? Of course, the people remembered all this in 1937, and after the elections these bloodsuckers would have gone into the woods.

Stalin really planned such a peaceful rotation operation; he openly told an American correspondent about this in March 1936, Howard Roy. He said that these elections would be a good whip in the hands of the people to change leadership cadres, and he just said so - “a whip.” Will yesterday’s “gods” of their counties tolerate the whip?

The Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, held in June 1936, directly aimed the party leadership at new times. When discussing the draft of the new constitution, A. Zhdanov spoke completely unambiguously in his extensive report: “The new electoral system... will give a powerful impetus to improving the work of Soviet bodies, eliminating bureaucratic bodies, eliminating bureaucratic shortcomings and distortions in the work of our Soviet organizations. And these shortcomings, as you know, are very significant. Our party bodies must be ready for the electoral struggle...” And he went on to say that these elections will be a serious, serious test of Soviet workers, because secret voting provides ample opportunities to reject candidates who are undesirable and undesirable to the masses, that party bodies are obliged to distinguish such criticism from HOSTILE ACTIVITIES, that non-party candidates should be treated with all support and attention, because, to put it delicately, there are several times more of them than party members.

In Zhdanov’s report, the terms “intra-party democracy,” “democratic centralism,” and “democratic elections” were publicly voiced. And demands were put forward: to prohibit the “nomination” of candidates without elections, to prohibit voting by “list” at party meetings, to ensure “the unlimited right of party members to challenge nominated candidates and the unlimited right to criticize these candidates.” The last phrase entirely referred to the elections of purely party bodies, where long ago there was not a shadow of democracy. But, as we see, the general elections to Soviet and party bodies have not been forgotten.

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

And how do the party dignitaries who gathered at the plenum - the first secretaries of regional committees, regional committees, and the Central Committee of national communist parties - react to Zhdanov’s report? And they ignore all this! Because such innovations are by no means to the taste of that same “Leninist old guard”, which has not yet been destroyed by Stalin, but sits at the plenum in all its grandeur and splendor.

Because the vaunted “Leninist Guard” is a bunch of petty satraps. They are accustomed to living in their estates as barons, with sole control over the life and death of people.

The debate on Zhdanov's report was practically disrupted.

Despite Stalin's direct calls to discuss reforms seriously and in detail, the old guard with paranoid persistence turns to more pleasant and understandable topics: terror, terror, terror! What the hell kind of reforms?! There are more pressing tasks: hit the hidden enemy, burn, catch, reveal! People's Commissars, first secretaries - everyone talks about the same thing: how passionately and on a large scale they identify the enemies of the people, how they intend to raise this campaign to cosmic heights...

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

They are incurable!!! They simply don’t know any other way! They don't need reforms, secret ballots, or multiple candidates on the ballot. They foam at the mouth and defend the old system, where there is no democracy, but only “boyar will”...
On the podium is Molotov. He says sensible, sensible things: it is necessary to identify real enemies and saboteurs, and not throw mud at all “captains of production” without exception. We must finally learn to distinguish the GUILTY from the INNOCENT. It is necessary to reform the bloated bureaucratic apparatus, IT IS NEEDED TO EVALUATE PEOPLE BY THEIR BUSINESS QUALITIES AND NOT PUT PAST MISTAKES IN THE LINE. And the party boyars are all about the same thing: to look for and catch enemies with all their ardor! Root deeper, plant more! For a change, they enthusiastically and loudly begin to drown each other: Kudryavtsev - Postysheva, Andreev - Sheboldaeva, Polonsky - Shvernik, Khrushchev - Yakovleva.

Molotov, unable to bear it, openly says:

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

Exactly! They didn’t just pass, they whistled... Most of those gathered in the hall know neither how to work nor how to reform. But they are excellent at catching and identifying enemies, they adore this activity and cannot imagine life without it.

Don’t you think it’s strange that this “executioner” Stalin directly imposed democracy, and his future “innocent victims” ran away from this democracy like the devil from incense. Moreover, they demanded repression, and more.

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

Stalin's authority was so great that the party barons did not dare to openly protest, and in 1936 the Constitution of the USSR, nicknamed Stalin's, was adopted, which provided for a transition to real Soviet democracy.

However, the party nomenklatura reared up and carried out a massive attack on the leader in order to convince him to postpone the holding of free elections until the fight against the counter-revolutionary element was completed.

Regional party bosses, members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), began to stir up passions, referring to recently discovered conspiracies of Trotskyists and the military: they say, as soon as such an opportunity is given, former white officers and nobles, hidden kulak underdogs, clergy and Trotskyist saboteurs will rush into politics .

They demanded not only to curtail any plans for democratization, but also to strengthen emergency measures, and even introduce special quotas for mass repressions in the regions - they say, in order to finish off those Trotskyists who escaped punishment. The party nomenklatura demanded powers to repress these enemies, and it wrested these powers for itself. And then the small-town party barons, who made up the majority in the Central Committee, feared for their leadership positions, began repression, first of all, against those honest communists who could become competitors in future elections by secret ballot.

The nature of the repressions against honest communists was such that the composition of some district and regional committees changed two or three times in a year. Communists at party conferences refused to join city and regional committees. They understood that after a while they might end up in a camp. And this is at best...

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

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

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

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

But it turns out that these scoundrels already had lists. They simply took lists of previously imprisoned, and sometimes not imprisoned, kulaks, former white officers and nobles, Trotskyist saboteurs, priests and simply ordinary citizens classified as class alien elements. Literally on the second day telegrams arrived from the localities: the first were Comrades Khrushchev and Eiche.

Then Nikita Khrushchev was the first to rehabilitate his friend Robert Eiche, who was justly shot in 1939 for all his cruelties, in 1954.

There was no longer any talk of ballot papers with several candidates at the Plenum: the reform plans boiled down solely to the fact that candidates for the elections would be nominated “jointly” by communists and non-party members. And from now on there will be only one candidate on each ballot - in order to repel the machinations. And in addition - another long-winded verbiage about the need to identify the masses of entrenched enemies.

Stalin also made another mistake. He sincerely believed that N.I. Yezhov is a man of his team. After all, they worked together in the Central Committee for so many years, shoulder to shoulder. And Yezhov had long been the best friend of Evdokimov, an ardent Trotskyist. For 1937 -38 Troikas in the Rostov region, where Evdokimov was the first secretary of the regional committee, shot 12,445 people, more than 90 thousand were repressed. These are the numbers carved by the Memorial Society in one of the Rostov parks on the monument to the victims of... Stalinist (?!) repressions. Subsequently, when Evdokimov was shot, an audit found that in the Rostov region more than 18.5 thousand appeals lay motionless and had not been considered. And how many of them were not written! The best party cadres, experienced business executives, and intelligentsia were destroyed... Was he the only one?

Interesting in this regard are the memoirs of the famous poet Nikolai Zabolotsky: “A strange confidence was ripening in my head that we were in the hands of the fascists, who, under the noses of our government, had found a way to destroy the Soviet people, acting in the very center of the Soviet punitive system. I told this guess of mine to an old party member who was sitting with me, and with horror in his eyes he confessed to me that he himself thought the same thing, but did not dare to mention it to anyone. And really, how else could we explain all the horrors that happened to us...”

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

And the flywheel of the “Great Terror” began to spin, with its notorious extrajudicial threes and limits on capital punishment. Fortunately, this flywheel quickly crushed those who initiated the process itself, and Stalin’s merit is that he made the most of the opportunities to cleanse the highest echelons of power of all kinds of crap.

It was not Stalin, but Robert Indrikovich Eikhe who proposed creating extrajudicial killing bodies, the famous “troikas”, similar to the “Stolypin” ones, consisting of the first secretary, the local prosecutor and the head of the NKVD (city, region, region, republic). Stalin was against it. But the Politburo voted. Well, the fact that a year later it was just such a troika that pushed Comrade Eikhe against the wall is, in my deep conviction, nothing but sad justice.

The party leadership literally joined in the massacre with gusto!

Let’s take a closer look at himself, at the repressed regional party baron. And, in fact, what were they like, both in business, and in moral, and in purely human terms? What were they worth as people and specialists? JUST PLUG YOUR NOSE FIRST, I STRONGLY RECOMMEND IT. In short, party members, military men, scientists, writers, composers, musicians and everyone else, right down to noble rabbit breeders and Komsomol members, ate each other with gusto. Those who sincerely believed that they were obliged to exterminate their enemies, those who settled scores. So there is no need to chat about whether the NKVD beat the noble face of this or that “innocently injured figure” or not.

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

But let’s return to Yezhov again. Nikolai Ivanovich was a new person in the “authorities”, he started out well, but quickly fell under the influence of his deputy: Frinovsky (former head of the Special Department of the First Cavalry Army). He taught the new People's Commissar the basics of security service work directly “on the job.” The basics were extremely simple: the more enemies of the people we catch, the better. You can and should hit, but hitting and drinking is even more fun.

Drunk on vodka, blood and impunity, the People's Commissar soon openly “swimmed.”

He did not particularly hide his new views from those around him. “What are you afraid of? - he said at one of the banquets. - After all, all the power is in our hands. Whoever we want, we execute, whoever we want, we pardon: - After all, we are everything. You need everyone, starting from the regional committee secretary, to follow you.”

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

It is difficult to say when the Kremlin began to realize what was happening. Probably sometime in the first half of 1938. But to realize - they realized, but how to curb the monster? It is clear that the People's Commissariat of the NKVD had become mortally dangerous by that time, and it had to be “normalized.” But how? What, raise the troops, take all the security officers into the courtyards of the departments and line them up against the wall? There is no other way, because, as soon as they sensed danger, they would simply sweep away the government.

After all, the same NKVD was in charge of guarding the Kremlin, so the members of the Politburo would have died without even having time to understand anything. After which a dozen “blood-washed” would be put in their place, and the whole country would turn into one large West Siberian region with Robert Eiche at its head. The peoples of the USSR would have perceived the arrival of Hitler's troops as happiness.

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

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

In general, the term “Stalinist repressions” is speculative, because Stalin did not initiate them. The unanimous opinion of one part of the liberal perestroika and current ideologists that Stalin thus strengthened his power by physically eliminating his opponents is easily explainable. These idiots simply judge others by themselves: given the opportunity, they will readily devour anyone they see as a danger.

It is not for nothing that Alexander Sytin, a political scientist, Doctor of Historical Sciences, a prominent neoliberal, in one of V. Solovyov’s recent TV programs, argued that in Russia it is necessary to create a DICTATORSHIP OF TEN PERCENT OF THE LIBERAL MINORITY, which will then definitely lead the peoples of Russia into a bright capitalist tomorrow. He modestly kept silent about the cost of this approach.

Another part of these gentlemen believes that Stalin, who wanted to finally turn into the Lord God on Soviet soil, decided to deal with everyone who doubted his genius in the slightest. And, above all, with those who, together with Lenin, created the October Revolution. They say that this is why almost the entire “Leninist Guard” innocently went under the ax, and at the same time the top of the Red Army, who were accused of a never-existent conspiracy against Stalin. However, upon closer examination of these events, many questions arise that cast doubt on this version. In principle, thinking historians have had doubts for a long time. And doubts were sown not by some Stalinist historians, but by those eyewitnesses who themselves did not like the “father of all Soviet peoples.”

For example, the West once published the memoirs of the former Soviet intelligence officer Alexander Orlov (Leiba Feldbin), who fled our country in the late 30s, taking a huge amount of government dollars. Orlov, who knew well the “inner workings” of his native NKVD, directly wrote that a coup was being prepared in the Soviet Union. Among the conspirators, according to him, were both representatives of the leadership of the NKVD and the Red Army in the person of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and the commander of the Kyiv Military District, Jonah Yakir. Stalin became aware of the conspiracy, and took very tough retaliatory actions...

And in the 80s, the archives of Joseph Vissarionovich’s most important opponent, Leon Trotsky, were declassified in the United States. From these documents it became clear that Trotsky had an extensive underground network in the Soviet Union. Living abroad, Lev Davidovich demanded from his people decisive action to destabilize the situation in the Soviet Union, even to the point of organizing mass terrorist actions.

In the 90s, our archives already opened access to interrogation protocols of repressed leaders of the anti-Stalinist opposition. Based on the nature of these materials and the abundance of facts and evidence contained in them, today’s independent experts have made three important conclusions.

Firstly, the overall picture of a broad conspiracy against Stalin looks very, very convincing. It was impossible to somehow stage-manage or falsify such testimony to please the “father of nations.” Especially in the part where it was about the military plans of the conspirators. Here is what the famous historian and publicist Sergei Kremlev said about this: “Take and read the testimony of Tukhachevsky, given by him after his arrest. The confessions of the conspiracy themselves are accompanied by a deep analysis of the military-political situation in the USSR in the mid-30s, with detailed calculations on the general situation in the country, with our mobilization, economic and other capabilities.

The question arises: could such testimony be invented by an ordinary NKVD investigator who was in charge of the marshal’s case and who allegedly set out to falsify Tukhachevsky’s testimony?! No, this testimony, and voluntarily, could only be given by a knowledgeable person no less than the level of Deputy People’s Commissar of Defense, which is what Tukhachevsky was.”

Secondly, the very manner of the conspirators’ handwritten confessions, their handwriting indicated that their people wrote themselves, in fact voluntarily, without physical pressure from the investigators. This destroyed the myth that testimony was brutally extracted by the force of “Stalin’s executioners,” although this also happened.

Thirdly, Western Sovietologists and the émigré public, without access to archival materials, had to actually make their judgments about the scale of repression out of thin air. At best, they contented themselves with interviews with dissidents who had either been imprisoned in the past or cited stories of those who had been through the Gulag.

The highest bar in estimating the number of “victims of communism” was set by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who stated in an interview with Spanish television in 1976 about 110 million victims. The ceiling of 110 million voiced by Solzhenitsyn was systematically reduced to 12.5 million people of the Memorial Society. However, following the results of 10 years of work, Memorial managed to collect data on only 2.6 million victims of repression, which is very close to the figure announced by Zemskov almost 20 years ago - 4 million people.

After the opening of the archives, the West did not believe that the number of those repressed was significantly less than that indicated by the same R. Conquest or A. Solzhenitsyn. In total, according to archival data, for the period from 1921 to 1953, 3,777,380 people were convicted, of which 642,980 people were sentenced to capital punishment. Subsequently, this figure was increased to 4,060,306 people due to 282,926 executed according to paragraphs. 2 and 3 tbsp. 59 (especially dangerous banditry) and Art. 193 - 24 (military espionage). This included the Basmachi, Bandera, washed in blood, the Baltic “forest brothers” and other especially dangerous, bloody bandits, spies and saboteurs. There is more human blood on them than water in the Volga. And they are also considered “innocent victims of Stalin’s repressions.” And Stalin is blamed for all this. (Let me remind you that until 1928, Stalin was not the sole leader of the USSR. AND HE RECEIVED FULL POWER OVER THE PARTY, ARMY AND NKVD ONLY SINCE THE END OF 1938).

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

So. A crowd of Western journalists came to the USSR in 1990. The goal is to familiarize yourself with open archives. They studied the archives of the NKVD - they didn’t believe it. The archives of the People's Commissariat of Railways were requested. We looked it up and it turned out to be four million. We didn’t believe it. The archives of the People's Commissariat of Food were requested. We got acquainted and it turned out that there were 4 million repressed people. We got acquainted with the clothing allowances of the camps. It turned out - 4 million repressed. Do you think that after this the Western media published batches of articles with the correct numbers of repressions? Nothing like that. They still write and talk about tens of millions of victims of repression.

I would like to note that an analysis of the process called “mass repression” shows that this phenomenon is extremely multi-layered. There are real cases there: about conspiracies and espionage, political trials of die-hard oppositionists, cases about the crimes of presumptuous regional owners and party officials who have “floated” from power. But there are also many falsified cases: settling scores in the corridors of power, cheating in the service, communal squabbles, literary rivalry, scientific competition, persecution of clergy who supported the kulaks during collectivization, squabbles between artists, musicians and composers.

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

Origin of the term

Stalin's terror affected almost all sectors of society. For more than twenty years, Soviet citizens lived in constant fear - one wrong word or even a gesture could cost their lives. It is impossible to unequivocally answer the question of what Stalin’s terror was based on. But of course, the main component of this phenomenon is fear.

The word terror translated from Latin is “horror”. The method of governing a country based on instilling fear has been used by rulers since ancient times. For the Soviet leader, Ivan the Terrible served as a historical example. Stalin's terror is in some ways a more modern version of the Oprichnina.

Ideology

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

The ideological basis of the repressions that began in the 20s was formulated in July 1928 in the “Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party.” At first, Stalin's terror was a class struggle, which was supposedly needed to resist the overthrown forces. But the repressions continued even after all the so-called counter-revolutionaries ended up in camps or were shot. The peculiarity of Stalin's policy was its complete non-compliance with the Soviet Constitution.

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

Stalin's repressions were preceded by the "Red Terror", which began during the Civil War. These two political phenomena have many similarities. However, after the end of the Civil War, almost all cases of political crimes were based on falsification of charges. During the “Red Terror,” those who disagreed with the new regime, of whom there were many during the creation of the new state, were imprisoned and shot first of all.

The case of lyceum students

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

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

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

Shakhty case

The charges under Article 58 were ridiculous. A person who does not speak foreign languages ​​and has never communicated with a citizen of a Western state in his life could easily be accused of colluding with American agents. During the investigation, torture was often used. Only the strongest could withstand them. Often those under investigation signed a confession only in order to complete the execution, which sometimes lasted for weeks.

In July 1928, coal industry specialists became victims of Stalin's terror. This case was called "Shakhty". The heads of Donbass enterprises were accused of sabotage, sabotage, creating an underground counter-revolutionary organization, and assisting foreign spies.

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

The Great Terror is a term that applies to a short period of Soviet history. It lasted only two years - from 1937 to 1938. Researchers provide more accurate data about victims during this period. 1,548,366 people were arrested. Shot - 681,692. It was a fight “against the remnants of the capitalist classes.”

Causes of the "Great Terror"

During Stalin's times, a doctrine was developed to strengthen the class struggle. This was only a formal reason for the extermination of hundreds of people. Among the victims of Stalin's terror of the 30s were writers, scientists, military men, and engineers. Why was it necessary to get rid of representatives of the intelligentsia, specialists who could benefit the Soviet state? Historians offer various answers to these questions.

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

Stalin strove for sole power. Any relaxation could lead to a real, not fictitious conspiracy. One of the foreign historians compared the Stalinist terror of the 30s with the Jacobin terror. But if the last phenomenon, which took place in France at the end of the 18th century, involved the destruction of representatives of a certain social class, then in the USSR people who were often unrelated to each other were arrested and executed.

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

Occasion

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

Trial of Red Army officers

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

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

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

The witch hunt continued. In the hands of NKVD officers there was a recording of Kamenev’s negotiations with Bukharin - there was talk of creating a “right-left” opposition. At the beginning of March 1937, with a report that spoke of the need to eliminate the Trotskyists.

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

In addition to the above-mentioned political figures, about 70 people were arrested. 52 were shot. Among them were those who took a direct part in the repressions of the 20s. Thus, state security officers and political figures Yakov Agronom, Alexander Gurevich, Levon Mirzoyan, Vladimir Polonsky, Nikolai Popov and others were shot.

Lavrentiy Beria was involved in the “Tukhachevsky case”, but he managed to survive the “purge”. In 1941, he took the post of General Commissioner of State Security. Beria was already executed after the death of Stalin - in December 1953.

Repressed scientists

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

Scientists who became victims of Stalinist repressions:

• Matvey Bronstein.
• Alexander Witt.
• Hans Gelman.
• Semyon Shubin.
• Evgeny Pereplekin.
• Innokenty Balanovsky.
• Dmitry Eropkin.
• Boris Numerov.
• Nikolay Vavilov.
• Sergei Korolev.

Writers and poets

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

Boris Pilnyak wrote “The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon” in 1926. The characters in this work are fictitious, at least that’s what the author claims in the preface. But everyone who read the story in the 20s, it became clear that it was based on the version of the murder of Mikhail Frunze.

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

Other writers and poets who were subjected to Stalinist repression:

• Victor Bagrov.
• Yuliy Berzin.
• Pavel Vasiliev.
• Sergey Klychkov.
• Vladimir Narbut.
• Petr Parfenov.
• Sergei Tretyakov.

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

Vsevolod Meyerhold

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

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

During the war years

In 1941, the illusion of lifting repressions appeared. In Stalin's pre-war times, there were many officers in the camps who were now needed free. Together with them, about six hundred thousand people were released from prison. But this was a temporary relief. At the end of the forties, a new wave of repression began. Now the ranks of “enemies of the people” have been joined by soldiers and officers who have been in captivity.

Amnesty 1953

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

The history of Russia, like other former post-Soviet republics in the period from 1928 to 1953, is called the “era of Stalin.” He is positioned as a wise ruler, a brilliant statesman, acting on the basis of “expediency.” In reality, he was driven by completely different motives.

When talking about the beginning of the political career of a leader who became a tyrant, such authors bashfully hush up one indisputable fact: Stalin was a repeat offender with seven prison sentences. Robbery and violence were the main form of his social activity in his youth. Repression became an integral part of the government course he pursued.

Lenin received a worthy successor in his person. “Having creatively developed his teaching,” Joseph Vissarionovich came to the conclusion that the country should be ruled by methods of terror, constantly instilling fear in his fellow citizens.

A generation of people whose lips can speak the truth about Stalin’s repressions is leaving... Are not newfangled articles whitening the dictator a spit on their suffering, on their broken lives...

The leader who sanctioned torture

As you know, Joseph Vissarionovich personally signed execution lists for 400,000 people. In addition, Stalin tightened the repression as much as possible, authorizing the use of torture during interrogations. It was they who were given the green light to complete chaos in the dungeons. He was directly related to the notorious telegram of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated January 10, 1939, which literally gave the punitive authorities a free hand.

Creativity in introducing torture

Let us recall excerpts from a letter from Corps Commander Lisovsky, a leader bullied by the satraps...

"...A ten-day assembly-line interrogation with a brutal, vicious beating and no opportunity to sleep. Then - a twenty-day punishment cell. Next - forced to sit with your hands raised up, and also stand bent over with your head hidden under the table, for 7-8 hours..."

The detainees' desire to prove their innocence and their failure to sign fabricated charges led to increased torture and beatings. The social status of the detainees did not play a role. Let us remember that Robert Eiche, a candidate member of the Central Committee, had his spine broken during interrogation, and Marshal Blucher in Lefortovo prison died from beatings during interrogation.

Leader's motivation

The number of victims of Stalin's repressions was calculated not in tens or hundreds of thousands, but in seven million who died of starvation and four million who were arrested (general statistics will be presented below). The number of those executed alone was about 800 thousand people...

How did Stalin motivate his actions, immensely striving for the Olympus of power?

What does Anatoly Rybakov write about this in “Children of Arbat”? Analyzing Stalin's personality, he shares his judgments with us. “The ruler whom the people love is weak because his power is based on the emotions of other people. It's another matter when people are afraid of him! Then the power of the ruler depends on himself. This is a strong ruler! Hence the leader’s credo - to inspire love through fear!

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin took steps adequate to this idea. Repression became his main competitive tool in his political career.

The beginning of revolutionary activity

Joseph Vissarionovich became interested in revolutionary ideas at the age of 26 after meeting V.I. Lenin. He was engaged in robbery of funds for the party treasury. Fate sent him 7 exiles to Siberia. Stalin was distinguished by pragmatism, prudence, unscrupulousness in means, harshness towards people, and egocentrism from a young age. Repressions against financial institutions - robberies and violence - were his. Then the future leader of the party participated in the Civil War.

Stalin in the Central Committee

In 1922, Joseph Vissarionovich received a long-awaited opportunity for career growth. The ill and weakening Vladimir Ilyich introduces him, along with Kamenev and Zinoviev, to the Central Committee of the party. In this way, Lenin creates a political counterbalance to Leon Trotsky, who really aspires to leadership.

Stalin simultaneously heads two party structures: the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee and the Secretariat. In this post, he brilliantly studied the art of party behind-the-scenes intrigue, which later came in handy in his fight against competitors.

Positioning of Stalin in the system of red terror

The machine of red terror was launched even before Stalin came to the Central Committee.

09/05/1918 The Council of People's Commissars issues the Resolution “On Red Terror”. The body for its implementation, called the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK), operated under the Council of People's Commissars from December 7, 1917.

The reason for this radicalization of domestic politics was the murder of M. Uritsky, chairman of the St. Petersburg Cheka, and the assassination attempt on V. Lenin by Fanny Kaplan, acting from the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Both events occurred on August 30, 1918. Already this year, the Cheka launched a wave of repression.

According to statistical information, 21,988 people were arrested and imprisoned; 3061 hostages taken; 5544 were shot, 1791 were imprisoned in concentration camps.

By the time Stalin came to the Central Committee, gendarmes, police officers, tsarist officials, entrepreneurs, and landowners had already been repressed. First of all, the blow was dealt to the classes that are the support of the monarchical structure of society. However, having “creatively developed the teachings of Lenin,” Joseph Vissarionovich outlined new main directions of terror. In particular, a course was taken to destroy the social base of the village - agricultural entrepreneurs.

Stalin since 1928 - ideologist of violence

It was Stalin who turned repression into the main instrument of domestic policy, which he justified theoretically.

His concept of intensifying class struggle formally becomes the theoretical basis for the constant escalation of violence by state authorities. The country shuddered when it was first voiced by Joseph Vissarionovich at the July Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1928. From that time on, he actually became the leader of the Party, the inspirer and ideologist of violence. The tyrant declared war on his own people.

Hidden by slogans, the real meaning of Stalinism manifests itself in the unrestrained pursuit of power. Its essence is shown by the classic - George Orwell. The Englishman made it very clear that power for this ruler was not a means, but a goal. Dictatorship was no longer perceived by him as a defense of the revolution. The revolution became a means to establish a personal, unlimited dictatorship.

Joseph Vissarionovich in 1928-1930. began by initiating the fabrication by the OGPU of a number of public trials that plunged the country into an atmosphere of shock and fear. Thus, the cult of Stalin’s personality began its formation with trials and the instillation of terror throughout society... Mass repressions were accompanied by public recognition of those who committed non-existent crimes as “enemies of the people.” People were brutally tortured to sign charges fabricated by the investigation. The brutal dictatorship imitated class struggle, cynically violating the Constitution and all norms of universal morality...

Three global trials were falsified: the “Union Bureau Case” (putting managers at risk); “The Case of the Industrial Party” (the sabotage of the Western powers regarding the economy of the USSR was imitated); “The Case of the Labor Peasant Party” (obvious falsification of damage to the seed fund and delays in mechanization). Moreover, they were all united into a single cause in order to create the appearance of a single conspiracy against Soviet power and provide scope for further falsifications of the OGPU - NKVD organs.

As a result, the entire economic management of the national economy was replaced from old “specialists” to “new personnel”, ready to work according to the instructions of the “leader”.

Through the lips of Stalin, who ensured that the state apparatus was loyal to repression through the trials, the Party’s unshakable determination was further expressed: to displace and ruin thousands of entrepreneurs - industrialists, traders, small and medium-sized ones; to ruin the basis of agricultural production - the wealthy peasantry (indiscriminately calling them “kulaks”). At the same time, the new voluntarist party position was masked by “the will of the poorest strata of workers and peasants.”

Behind the scenes, parallel to this “general line,” the “father of peoples” consistently, with the help of provocations and false testimony, began to implement the line of eliminating his party competitors for supreme state power (Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev).

Forced collectivization

The truth about Stalin's repressions of the period 1928-1932. indicates that the main object of repression was the main social base of the village - an effective agricultural producer. The goal is clear: the entire peasant country (and in fact at that time these were Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic and Transcaucasian republics) was, under the pressure of repression, to transform from a self-sufficient economic complex into an obedient donor for the implementation of Stalin’s plans for industrialization and maintaining hypertrophied power structures.

In order to clearly identify the object of his repressions, Stalin resorted to an obvious ideological forgery. Economically and socially unjustifiably, he achieved that party ideologists obedient to him singled out a normal self-supporting (profit-making) producer into a separate “class of kulaks” - the target of a new blow. Under the ideological leadership of Joseph Vissarionovich, a plan was developed for the destruction of the social foundations of the village that had developed over centuries, the destruction of the rural community - the Resolution “On the liquidation of ... kulak farms” dated January 30, 1930.

The Red Terror has come to the village. Peasants who fundamentally disagreed with collectivization were subjected to Stalin's “troika” trials, which in most cases ended with executions. Less active “kulaks”, as well as “kulak families” (the category of which could include any persons subjectively defined as a “rural asset”) were subjected to forcible confiscation of property and eviction. A body for permanent operational management of the eviction was created - a secret operational department under the leadership of Efim Evdokimov.

Migrants to the extreme regions of the North, victims of Stalin's repressions, were previously identified on a list in the Volga region, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Siberia, and the Urals.

In 1930-1931 1.8 million were evicted, and in 1932-1940. - 0.49 million people.

Organization of hunger

However, executions, ruin and eviction in the 30s of the last century are not all of Stalin’s repressions. A brief listing of them should be supplemented by the organization of famine. Its real reason was the inadequate approach of Joseph Vissarionovich personally to insufficient grain procurements in 1932. Why was the plan fulfilled by only 15-20%? The main reason was crop failure.

His subjectively developed plan for industrialization was under threat. It would be reasonable to reduce the plans by 30%, postpone them, and first stimulate the agricultural producer and wait for a harvest year... Stalin did not want to wait, he demanded immediate provision of food to the bloated security forces and new gigantic construction projects - Donbass, Kuzbass. The leader made a decision to confiscate grain intended for sowing and consumption from the peasants.

On October 22, 1932, two emergency commissions under the leadership of the odious personalities Lazar Kaganovich and Vyacheslav Molotov launched a misanthropic campaign of “fight against the fists” to confiscate grain, which was accompanied by violence, quick-to-death troika courts and the eviction of wealthy agricultural producers to the Far North. It was genocide...

It is noteworthy that the cruelty of the satraps was actually initiated and not stopped by Joseph Vissarionovich himself.

Well-known fact: correspondence between Sholokhov and Stalin

Mass repressions of Stalin in 1932 -1933. have documentary evidence. M.A. Sholokhov, the author of “The Quiet Don,” addressed the leader, defending his fellow countrymen, with letters exposing lawlessness during the confiscation of grain. The famous resident of the village of Veshenskaya presented the facts in detail, indicating the villages, the names of the victims and their tormentors. The abuse and violence against the peasants is horrifying: brutal beatings, breaking out joints, partial strangulation, mock executions, eviction from houses... In his response Letter, Joseph Vissarionovich only partially agreed with Sholokhov. The real position of the leader is visible in the lines where he calls the peasants saboteurs, “secretly” trying to disrupt the food supply...

This voluntaristic approach caused famine in the Volga region, Ukraine, the North Caucasus, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Siberia, and the Urals. A special Statement of the Russian State Duma published in April 2008 revealed previously classified statistics to the public (previously, propaganda did its best to hide these repressions of Stalin.)

How many people died from hunger in the above regions? The figure established by the State Duma commission is terrifying: more than 7 million.

Other areas of pre-war Stalinist terror

Let's also consider three more areas of Stalin's terror, and in the table below we present each of them in more detail.

With the sanctions of Joseph Vissarionovich, a policy was also pursued to suppress freedom of conscience. A citizen of the Land of Soviets had to read the newspaper Pravda, and not go to church...

Hundreds of thousands of families of previously productive peasants, fearing dispossession and exile to the North, became an army supporting the country's gigantic construction projects. In order to limit their rights and make them manipulable, it was at that time that passporting of the population in cities was carried out. Only 27 million people received passports. Peasants (still the majority of the population) remained without passports, did not enjoy the full scope of civil rights (freedom to choose a place of residence, freedom to choose a job) and were “tied” to the collective farm at their place of residence with the obligatory condition of fulfilling workday norms.

Antisocial policies were accompanied by the destruction of families and an increase in the number of street children. This phenomenon has become so widespread that the state was forced to respond to it. With Stalin's sanction, the Politburo of the Country of Soviets issued one of the most inhumane regulations - punitive towards children.

The anti-religious offensive as of April 1, 1936 led to a reduction in Orthodox churches to 28%, mosques to 32% of their pre-revolutionary number. The number of clergy decreased from 112.6 thousand to 17.8 thousand.

For repressive purposes, passportization of the urban population was carried out. More than 385 thousand people did not receive passports and were forced to leave the cities. 22.7 thousand people were arrested.

One of Stalin’s most cynical crimes is his authorization of the secret Politburo resolution of 04/07/1935, which allows teenagers from 12 years of age to be brought to trial and determines their punishment up to capital punishment. In 1936 alone, 125 thousand children were placed in NKVD colonies. As of April 1, 1939, 10 thousand children were exiled to the Gulag system.

Great Terror

The state flywheel of terror was gaining momentum... The power of Joseph Vissarionovich, starting in 1937, as a result of repressions over the entire society, became comprehensive. However, their biggest leap was just ahead. In addition to the final and physical reprisals against former party colleagues - Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev - massive “cleansings of the state apparatus” were carried out.

Terror has reached unprecedented proportions. The OGPU (from 1938 - the NKVD) responded to all complaints and anonymous letters. A person's life was ruined for one carelessly dropped word... Even the Stalinist elite - statesmen: Kosior, Eikhe, Postyshev, Goloshchekin, Vareikis - were repressed; military leaders Blucher, Tukhachevsky; security officers Yagoda, Yezhov.

On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, leading military personnel were shot on trumped-up cases “under an anti-Soviet conspiracy”: 19 qualified corps-level commanders - divisions with combat experience. The cadres who replaced them did not adequately master operational and tactical art.

It was not only the shopfront facades of Soviet cities that were characterized by the personality cult of Stalin. The repressions of the “leader of the peoples” gave rise to a monstrous system of Gulag camps, providing the Land of Soviets with free labor, mercilessly exploited labor resources to extract the wealth of the underdeveloped regions of the Far North and Central Asia.

The dynamics of the increase in those kept in camps and labor colonies is impressive: in 1932 there were 140 thousand prisoners, and in 1941 - about 1.9 million.

In particular, ironically, the prisoners of Kolyma mined 35% of the Union's gold, while living in terrible conditions. Let us list the main camps included in the Gulag system: Solovetsky (45 thousand prisoners), logging camps - Svirlag and Temnikovo (43 and 35 thousand, respectively); oil and coal production - Ukhtapechlag (51 thousand); chemical industry - Bereznyakov and Solikamsk (63 thousand); development of the steppes - Karaganda camp (30 thousand); construction of the Volga-Moscow canal (196 thousand); construction of the BAM (260 thousand); gold mining in Kolyma (138 thousand); Nickel mining in Norilsk (70 thousand).

Basically, people arrived in the Gulag system in a typical way: after a night arrest and an unfair, biased trial. And although this system was created under Lenin, it was under Stalin that political prisoners began to enter it en masse after mass trials: “enemies of the people” - kulaks (essentially effective agricultural producers), and even entire evicted nationalities. The majority served sentences from 10 to 25 years under Article 58. The investigation process involved torture and the breaking of the will of the convicted person.

In the case of the resettlement of kulaks and small peoples, the train with prisoners stopped right in the taiga or in the steppe and the convicts built a camp and a special purpose prison (TON) for themselves. Since 1930, the labor of prisoners was mercilessly exploited to fulfill five-year plans - 12-14 hours a day. Tens of thousands of people died from overwork, poor nutrition, and poor medical care.

Instead of a conclusion

The years of Stalin's repressions - from 1928 to 1953. - changed the atmosphere in a society that has ceased to believe in justice and is under the pressure of constant fear. Since 1918, people were accused and shot by revolutionary military tribunals. The inhumane system developed... The Tribunal became the Cheka, then the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, then the OGPU, then the NKVD. Executions under Article 58 were in effect until 1947, and then Stalin replaced them with 25 years in camps.

In total, about 800 thousand people were shot.

Moral and physical torture of the entire population of the country, in fact, lawlessness and arbitrariness, was carried out in the name of the workers' and peasants' power, the revolution.

The powerless people were terrorized by the Stalinist system constantly and methodically. The process of restoring justice began with the 20th Congress of the CPSU.

The results of Stalin's rule speak for themselves. In order to devalue them, to form a negative assessment of the Stalin era in the public consciousness, fighters against totalitarianism, willy-nilly, have to escalate the horrors, attributing monstrous atrocities to Stalin.

At the liar's competition

In an accusatory rage, the writers of anti-Stalin horror stories seem to be competing to see who can tell the biggest lies, vying with each other to name the astronomical numbers of those killed at the hands of the “bloody tyrant.” Against their background, dissident Roy Medvedev, who limited himself to a “modest” figure of 40 million, looks like some kind of black sheep, a model of moderation and conscientiousness:

“Thus, the total number of victims of Stalinism reaches, according to my calculations, approximately 40 million people.”

And in fact, it is undignified. Another dissident, the son of the repressed Trotskyist revolutionary A.V. Antonov-Ovseenko, without a shadow of embarrassment, names twice the figure:

“These calculations are very, very approximate, but I am sure of one thing: the Stalinist regime bled the people dry, destroying more than 80 million of its best sons.”

Professional “rehabilitators” led by former member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee A. N. Yakovlev are already talking about 100 million:

“According to the most conservative estimates of rehabilitation commission specialists, our country lost about 100 million people during the years of Stalin’s rule. This number includes not only the repressed themselves, but also members of their families doomed to death and even children who could have been born, but were never born.”

However, according to Yakovlev, the notorious 100 million includes not only direct “victims of the regime,” but also unborn children. But the writer Igor Bunich without hesitation claims that all these “100 million people were mercilessly exterminated.”

However, this is not the limit. The absolute record was set by Boris Nemtsov, who announced on November 7, 2003 in the “Freedom of Speech” program on the NTV channel about 150 million people allegedly lost by the Russian state after 1917.

Who are these fantastically ridiculous figures, eagerly replicated by the Russian and foreign media, intended for? For those who have forgotten how to think for themselves, who are accustomed to uncritically accepting on faith any nonsense coming from television screens.

It’s easy to see the absurdity of the multimillion-dollar numbers of “victims of repression.” It is enough to open any demographic directory and, picking up a calculator, make simple calculations. For those who are too lazy to do this, I will give a small illustrative example.

According to the population census conducted in January 1959, the population of the USSR was 208,827 thousand people. By the end of 1913, 159,153 thousand people lived within the same borders. It is easy to calculate that the average annual population growth of our country in the period from 1914 to 1959 was 0.60%.

Now let's see how the population of England, France and Germany grew in those same years - countries that also took an active part in both world wars.

So, the rate of population growth in the Stalinist USSR turned out to be almost one and a half times higher than in Western “democracies,” although for these states we excluded the extremely unfavorable demographic years of the 1st World War. Could this have happened if the “bloody Stalinist regime” had destroyed 150 million or at least 40 million inhabitants of our country? Of course no!
Archival documents say

To find out the true number of those executed under Stalin, it is not at all necessary to engage in fortune telling on coffee grounds. It is enough to familiarize yourself with the declassified documents. The most famous of them is a memo addressed to N. S. Khrushchev dated February 1, 1954:

"To the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee

Comrade Khrushchev N.S.

In connection with signals received by the CPSU Central Committee from a number of individuals about illegal convictions for counter-revolutionary crimes in past years by the OGPU Collegium, NKVD troikas, and the Special Meeting. By the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals and in accordance with your instructions on the need to review the cases of persons convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes and currently held in camps and prisons, we report:

According to data available from the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, for the period from 1921 to the present, 3,777,380 people were convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes by the OGPU Collegium, NKVD troikas, the Special Conference, the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals, including:

Of the total number of those arrested, approximately, 2,900,000 people were convicted by the OGPU Collegium, NKVD troikas and the Special Conference, and 877,000 people were convicted by courts, military tribunals, the Special Collegium and the Military Collegium.

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

As is clear from the document, in total, from 1921 to the beginning of 1954, on political charges, 642,980 people were sentenced to death, 2,369,220 to imprisonment, and 765,180 to exile. However, there are more detailed data on the number of those convicted

Thus, between 1921 and 1953, 815,639 people were sentenced to death. In total, in 1918–1953, 4,308,487 people were brought to criminal liability in cases of state security agencies, of which 835,194 were sentenced to capital punishment.

So, there were slightly more “repressed” than indicated in the report dated February 1, 1954. However, the difference is not too great - the numbers are of the same order.

In addition, it is quite possible that among those who received sentences on political charges there were a fair number of criminals. On one of the certificates stored in the archives, on the basis of which the above table was compiled, there is a pencil note:

“Total convicts for 1921–1938. - 2,944,879 people, of which 30% (1,062 thousand) are criminals"

In this case, the total number of “victims of repression” does not exceed three million. However, to finally clarify this issue, additional work with sources is necessary.

It should also be borne in mind that not all sentences were carried out. For example, of the 76 death sentences handed down by the Tyumen District Court in the first half of 1929, by January 1930, 46 had been changed or overturned by higher authorities, and of the remaining, only nine were carried out.

From July 15, 1939 to April 20, 1940, 201 prisoners were sentenced to capital punishment for disorganizing camp life and production. However, then for some of them the death penalty was replaced by imprisonment for terms of 10 to 15 years.

In 1934, there were 3,849 prisoners in NKVD camps who were sentenced to death and commuted to imprisonment. In 1935 there were 5671 such prisoners, in 1936 - 7303, in 1937 - 6239, in 1938 - 5926, in 1939 - 3425, in 1940 - 4037 people.
Number of prisoners

At first, the number of prisoners in forced labor camps (ITL) was relatively small. So, on January 1, 1930, it amounted to 179,000 people, on January 1, 1931 - 212,000, on January 1, 1932 - 268,700, on January 1, 1933 - 334,300, on January 1, 1934 - 510 307 people.

In addition to the ITL, there were correctional labor colonies (CLCs), where those sentenced to short terms were sent. Until the fall of 1938, the penitentiary complexes, together with the prisons, were subordinate to the Department of Places of Detention (OMP) of the NKVD of the USSR. Therefore, for the years 1935–1938, only joint statistics have been found so far. Since 1939, penal colonies were under the jurisdiction of the Gulag, and prisons were under the jurisdiction of the Main Prison Directorate (GTU) of the NKVD of the USSR.

How much can you trust these numbers? All of them are taken from the internal reports of the NKVD - secret documents not intended for publication. In addition, these summary figures are quite consistent with the initial reports; they can be broken down monthly, as well as by individual camps:

Let us now calculate the number of prisoners per capita. On January 1, 1941, as can be seen from the table above, the total number of prisoners in the USSR was 2,400,422 people. The exact population of the USSR at this time is unknown, but is usually estimated at 190–195 million.

Thus, we get from 1230 to 1260 prisoners for every 100 thousand population. On January 1, 1950, the number of prisoners in the USSR was 2,760,095 people - the maximum figure for the entire period of Stalin's reign. The population of the USSR at this time numbered 178 million 547 thousand. We get 1546 prisoners per 100 thousand population, 1.54%. This is the highest figure ever.

Let's calculate a similar indicator for the modern United States. Currently, there are two types of places of deprivation of liberty: jail - an approximate analogue of our temporary detention centers, in which those under investigation are kept, as well as convicts serving short sentences, and prison - the prison itself. At the end of 1999, there were 1,366,721 people in prisons and 687,973 in jails (see the website of the Bureau of Legal Statistics of the US Department of Justice), which gives a total of 2,054,694. The population of the United States at the end of 1999 was approximately 275 million Therefore, we get 747 prisoners per 100 thousand population.

Yes, half as much as Stalin, but not ten times. It’s somehow undignified for a power that has taken upon itself the protection of “human rights” on a global scale.

Moreover, this is a comparison of the peak number of prisoners in the Stalinist USSR, which was also caused first by the civil and then by the Great Patriotic War. And among the so-called “victims of political repression” there will be a fair share of supporters of the white movement, collaborators, Hitler’s accomplices, members of the ROA, policemen, not to mention ordinary criminals.

There are calculations that compare the average number of prisoners over a period of several years.

The data on the number of prisoners in the Stalinist USSR exactly coincides with the above. According to these data, it turns out that on average for the period from 1930 to 1940, there were 583 prisoners per 100,000 people, or 0.58%. Which is significantly less than the same figure in Russia and the USA in the 90s.

What is the total number of people who were imprisoned under Stalin? Of course, if you take a table with the annual number of prisoners and sum up the rows, as many anti-Sovietists do, the result will be incorrect, since most of them were sentenced to more than a year. Therefore, it should be assessed not by the amount of those imprisoned, but by the amount of those convicted, which was given above.
How many of the prisoners were “political”?

As we see, until 1942, the “repressed” made up no more than a third of the prisoners held in the Gulag camps. And only then their share increased, receiving a worthy “replenishment” in the person of Vlasovites, policemen, elders and other “fighters against communist tyranny.” The percentage of “political” in correctional labor colonies was even smaller.
Prisoner mortality

Available archival documents make it possible to illuminate this issue.

In 1931, 7,283 people died in the ITL (3.03% of the average annual number), in 1932 - 13,197 (4.38%), in 1933 - 67,297 (15.94%), in 1934 - 26,295 prisoners (4.26%).

For 1953, data is provided for the first three months.

As we see, mortality in places of detention (especially in prisons) did not reach those fantastic values ​​that denouncers like to talk about. But still its level is quite high. It increases especially strongly in the first years of the war. As was stated in the certificate of mortality according to the NKVD OITK for 1941, compiled by the acting. Head of the Sanitary Department of the Gulag NKVD I.K. Zitserman:

Basically, mortality began to increase sharply from September 1941, mainly due to the transfer of convicts from units located in the front-line areas: from the BBK and Vytegorlag to the OITK of the Vologda and Omsk regions, from the OITK of the Moldavian SSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Leningrad region. in OITK Kirov, Molotov and Sverdlovsk regions. As a rule, a significant part of the journey of several hundred kilometers before loading into wagons was carried out on foot. Along the way, they were not at all provided with the minimum necessary food products (they did not receive enough bread and even water); as a result of this confinement, the prisoners suffered severe exhaustion, a very large % of vitamin deficiency diseases, in particular pellagra, which caused significant mortality along the route and along arrival at the respective OITKs, which were not prepared to receive a significant number of replenishments. At the same time, the introduction of reduced food standards by 25–30% (order No. 648 and 0437) with an extended working day to 12 hours, and often the absence of basic food products, even at reduced standards, could not but affect the increase in morbidity and mortality

However, since 1944, mortality has decreased significantly. By the beginning of the 1950s, in camps and colonies it fell below 1%, and in prisons - below 0.5% per year.
Special camps

Let's say a few words about the notorious Special Camps (special camps), created in accordance with Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 416-159ss of February 21, 1948. These camps (as well as the Special Prisons that already existed by that time) were supposed to concentrate all those sentenced to imprisonment for espionage, sabotage, terrorism, as well as Trotskyists, right-wingers, Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, anarchists, nationalists, white emigrants, members of anti-Soviet organizations and groups and “individuals who pose a danger due to their anti-Soviet connections.” Prisoners of special prisons were to be used for hard physical work.

As we see, the mortality rate of prisoners in special detention centers was only slightly higher than the mortality rate in ordinary correctional labor camps. Contrary to popular belief, the special camps were not “death camps” in which the elite of the dissident intelligentsia were supposedly exterminated; moreover, the largest contingent of their inhabitants were “nationalists” - the forest brothers and their accomplices.
Notes:

1. Medvedev R. A. Tragic statistics // Arguments and facts. 1989, February 4–10. No. 5(434). P. 6. The well-known researcher of repression statistics V.N. Zemskov claims that Roy Medvedev immediately renounced his article: “Roy Medvedev himself even before the publication of my articles (meaning Zemskov’s articles in “Arguments and Facts” starting with no. 38 for 1989. - I.P.) placed in one of the issues of “Arguments and Facts” for 1989 an explanation that his article in No. 5 for the same year is invalid. Mr. Maksudov is probably not entirely aware of this story, otherwise he would hardly have undertaken to defend calculations that are far from the truth, which their author himself, having realized his mistake, publicly renounced” (Zemskov V.N. On the issue of the scale of repression in USSR // Sociological Research. 1995. No. 9. P. 121). However, in reality, Roy Medvedev did not even think of disavowing his publication. In No. 11 (440) for March 18–24, 1989, his answers to questions from a correspondent of “Arguments and Facts” were published, in which, confirming the “facts” stated in the previous article, Medvedev simply clarified that responsibility for the repressions was not the entire Communist Party as a whole, but only its leadership.

2. Antonov-Ovseenko A.V. Stalin without a mask. M., 1990. P. 506.

3. Mikhailova N. Underpants of counter-revolution // Premier. Vologda, 2002, July 24–30. No. 28(254). P. 10.

4. Bunich I. Sword of the President. M., 2004. P. 235.

5. Population of the countries of the world / Ed. B. Ts. Urlanis. M., 1974. P. 23.

6. Ibid. P. 26.

7. GARF. F.R-9401. Op.2. D.450. L.30–65. Quote by: Dugin A.N. Stalinism: legends and facts // Word. 1990. No. 7. P. 26.

8. Mozokhin O. B. Cheka-OGPU Punishing sword of the dictatorship of the proletariat. M., 2004. P. 167.

9. Ibid. P. 169

10. GARF. F.R-9401. Op.1. D.4157. L.202. Quote by: Popov V.P. State terror in Soviet Russia. 1923–1953: sources and their interpretation // Domestic archives. 1992. No. 2. P. 29.

11. About the work of the Tyumen District Court. Resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR of January 18, 1930 // Judicial practice of the RSFSR. 1930, February 28. No. 3. P. 4.

12. Zemskov V. N. GULAG (historical and sociological aspect) // Sociological studies. 1991. No. 6. P. 15.

13. GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D. 1155. L.7.

14. GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D. 1155. L.1.

15. Number of prisoners in the correctional labor camp: 1935–1948 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.1155. L.2; 1949 - Ibid. D.1319. L.2; 1950 - Ibid. L.5; 1951 - Ibid. L.8; 1952 - Ibid. L.11; 1953 - Ibid. L. 17.

In penal colonies and prisons (average for the month of January):. 1935 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.2740. L. 17; 1936 - Ibid. L.ZO; 1937 - Ibid. L.41; 1938 -Ibid. L.47.

In the ITK: 1939 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.1145. L.2ob; 1940 - Ibid. D.1155. L.30; 1941 - Ibid. L.34; 1942 - Ibid. L.38; 1943 - Ibid. L.42; 1944 - Ibid. L.76; 1945 - Ibid. L.77; 1946 - Ibid. L.78; 1947 - Ibid. L.79; 1948 - Ibid. L.80; 1949 - Ibid. D.1319. L.Z; 1950 - Ibid. L.6; 1951 - Ibid. L.9; 1952 - Ibid. L. 14; 1953 - Ibid. L. 19.

In prisons: 1939 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.1145. L.1ob; 1940 - GARF. F.R-9413. Op.1. D.6. L.67; 1941 - Ibid. L. 126; 1942 - Ibid. L.197; 1943 - Ibid. D.48. L.1; 1944 - Ibid. L.133; 1945 - Ibid. D.62. L.1; 1946 - Ibid. L. 107; 1947 - Ibid. L.216; 1948 - Ibid. D.91. L.1; 1949 - Ibid. L.64; 1950 - Ibid. L.123; 1951 - Ibid. L. 175; 1952 - Ibid. L.224; 1953 - Ibid. D.162.L.2ob.

16. GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.1155. L.20–22.

17. Population of the countries of the world / Ed. B. Ts. Urlaisa. M., 1974. P. 23.

18. http://lenin-kerrigan.livejournal.com/518795.html | https://de.wikinews.org/wiki/Die_meisten_Gefangenen_weltweit_leben_in_US-Gef%C3%A4ngnissen

19. GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D. 1155. L.3.

20. GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.1155. L.26–27.

21. Dugin A. Stalinism: legends and facts // Slovo. 1990. No. 7. P. 5.

22. Zemskov V. N. GULAG (historical and sociological aspect) // Sociological studies. 1991. No. 7. pp. 10–11.

23. GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.2740. L.1.

24. Ibid. L.53.

25. Ibid.

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

27. Mortality in ITL: 1935–1947 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.1155. L.2; 1948 - Ibid. D. 1190. L.36, 36v.; 1949 - Ibid. D. 1319. L.2, 2v.; 1950 - Ibid. L.5, 5v.; 1951 - Ibid. L.8, 8v.; 1952 - Ibid. L.11, 11v.; 1953 - Ibid. L. 17.

Penal colonies and prisons: 1935–1036 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.2740. L.52; 1937 - Ibid. L.44; 1938 - Ibid. L.50.

ITK: 1939 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1. D.2740. L.60; 1940 - Ibid. L.70; 1941 - Ibid. D.2784. L.4ob, 6; 1942 - Ibid. L.21; 1943 - Ibid. D.2796. L.99; 1944 - Ibid. D.1155. L.76, 76ob.; 1945 - Ibid. L.77, 77ob.; 1946 - Ibid. L.78, 78ob.; 1947 - Ibid. L.79, 79ob.; 1948 - Ibid. L.80: 80rpm; 1949 - Ibid. D.1319. L.3, 3v.; 1950 - Ibid. L.6, 6v.; 1951 - Ibid. L.9, 9v.; 1952 - Ibid. L.14, 14v.; 1953 - Ibid. L.19, 19v.

Prisons: 1939 - GARF. F.R-9413. Op.1. D.11. L.1ob.; 1940 - Ibid. L.2ob.; 1941 - Ibid. L. Goiter; 1942 - Ibid. L.4ob.; 1943 -Ibid., L.5ob.; 1944 - Ibid. L.6ob.; 1945 - Ibid. D.10. L.118, 120, 122, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133; 1946 - Ibid. D.11. L.8ob.; 1947 - Ibid. L.9ob.; 1948 - Ibid. L.10ob.; 1949 - Ibid. L.11ob.; 1950 - Ibid. L.12ob.; 1951 - Ibid. L.1 3v.; 1952 - Ibid. D.118. L.238, 248, 258, 268, 278, 288, 298, 308, 318, 326ob., 328ob.; D.162. L.2ob.; 1953 - Ibid. D.162. L.4v., 6v., 8v.

28. GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1.D.1181.L.1.

29. System of forced labor camps in the USSR, 1923–1960: Directory. M., 1998. P. 52.

30. Dugin A. N. Unknown GULAG: Documents and facts. M.: Nauka, 1999. P. 47.

31. 1952 - GARF.F.R-9414. Op.1.D.1319. L.11, 11 vol. 13, 13v.; 1953 - Ibid. L. 18.

The question of the repressions of the thirties of the last century is of fundamental importance not only for understanding the history of Russian socialism and its essence as a social system, but also for assessing the role of Stalin in the history of Russia. This question plays a key role in the accusations not only of Stalinism, but, in fact, of the entire Soviet regime.

Today, the assessment of “Stalin’s terror” has become in our country a touchstone, a password, a milestone in relation to the past and future of Russia. Are you judging? Determined and irrevocable? - A democrat and a common man! Any doubts? - Stalinist!

Let's try to figure out a simple question: did Stalin organize the “Great Terror”? Perhaps there are other causes of terror that common people - liberals - prefer to remain silent about?

So. After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks tried to create a new type of ideological elite, but these attempts stalled from the very beginning. Mainly because the new “people’s” elite believed that through their revolutionary struggle they had fully earned the right to enjoy the benefits that the anti-people “elite” had simply by birthright. In the noble mansions, the new nomenclature quickly became accustomed, and even the old servants remained in place, they only began to be called servants. This phenomenon was very widespread and was called “combarism”.

Even the right measures turned out to be ineffective, thanks to the massive sabotage of the new elite. I am inclined to include the introduction of the so-called “party maximum” as the right measures - a ban on party members receiving a salary greater than the salary of a highly qualified worker.

That is, a non-party director of a plant could receive a salary of 2,000 rubles, and a communist director only 500 rubles, and not a penny more. In this way, Lenin sought to avoid the influx of careerists into the party, who use it as a springboard to quickly get into the bread-and-butter positions. However, this measure was half-hearted without simultaneously destroying the system of privileges attached to any position.

By the way, V.I. Lenin strongly opposed the reckless growth in the number of party members, which is what the CPSU later did, starting with Khrushchev. In his work “The Infantile Disease of Leftism in Communism” he wrote: “ We are afraid of excessive expansion of the party, because careerists and scoundrels who deserve only to be shot inevitably try to join the government party».

Moreover, in the conditions of the post-war shortage of consumer goods, material goods were not so much purchased as distributed. Any power performs the function of distribution, and if so, then the one who distributes uses what is distributed. Especially the clingy careerists and crooks. Therefore, the next step was to renovate the upper floors of the party.

Stalin announced this in his characteristic cautious manner at the 17th Congress of the CPSU(b) (March 1934). In his Report, the Secretary General described a certain type of workers who interfere with the party and the country: “... These are people with well-known merits in the past, people who believe that party and Soviet laws were written not for them, but for fools. These are the same people who do not consider it their duty to carry out the decisions of party bodies... What do they count on by violating party and Soviet laws? They hope that the Soviet government will not dare to touch them because of their old merits. These arrogant nobles think that they are irreplaceable and that they can violate the decisions of governing bodies with impunity...».

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

Formally, real local power belonged to the Soviets, since the party legally did not possess any powers of authority. But the party bosses were elected chairmen of the Soviets, and, in fact, appointed themselves to these positions, since the elections were held on an uncontested basis, that is, they were not elections. And then Stalin undertakes a very risky maneuver - he proposes to establish real, rather than nominal, Soviet power in the country, that is, to hold secret general elections in party organizations and councils at all levels on an alternative basis. Stalin tried to get rid of the regional party barons, as they say, in an amicable way, through elections, and truly alternative ones.

Considering Soviet practice, this sounds quite unusual, but nevertheless it is true. He hoped that the majority of this public would not overcome the popular filter without support from above. Moreover, according to the new constitution, it was planned to nominate candidates to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR not only from the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), but also from public organizations and groups of citizens.

What happened next? On December 5, 1936, a new Constitution of the USSR was adopted, the most democratic constitution of that time in the whole world, even according to ardent critics of the USSR. For the first time in Russian history, secret alternative elections were to take place. By secret ballot. Despite the fact that the party elite tried to put a spoke in the wheels even during the period when the draft constitution was being created, Stalin managed to bring the matter to an end.

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

They understood, but what to do? I don't want to part with my chairs. And they perfectly understood one more circumstance - in the previous period they had done such a thing, especially during the Civil War and collectivization, that the people with great pleasure would not only not have chosen them, but would also have broken their heads. Many high-ranking regional party secretaries had blood on their hands up to their elbows. During the period of collectivization, the regions had complete self-government. In one of the regions, Khataevich, this nice man, actually declared a civil war during collectivization in his particular region. As a result, Stalin was forced to threaten him that he would shoot him immediately if he did not stop mocking people. Do you think that comrades Eikhe, Postyshev, Kosior and Khrushchev were better, less “nice”? Of course, the people remembered all this in 1937, and after the elections these bloodsuckers would have gone into the woods.

Stalin really planned such a peaceful rotation operation; he openly told an American correspondent about this in March 1936, Howard Roy. He said that these elections would be a good whip in the hands of the people to change leadership cadres, and he just said so – “a whip.” Will yesterday’s “gods” of their counties tolerate the whip?

The Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, held in June 1936, directly aimed the party leadership at new times. When discussing the draft of the new constitution, A. Zhdanov, in his extensive report, spoke absolutely unequivocally: “ The new electoral system... will give a powerful impetus to improving the work of Soviet bodies, eliminating bureaucratic bodies, eliminating bureaucratic shortcomings and distortions in the work of our Soviet organizations. And these shortcomings, as you know, are very significant. Our party bodies must be prepared for the electoral struggle..." And he went on to say that these elections will be a serious, serious test of Soviet workers, because secret voting provides ample opportunities to reject candidates who are undesirable and undesirable to the masses, that party bodies are obliged to distinguish such criticism from HOSTILE ACTIVITIES, that non-party candidates should be treated with all support and attention, because, to put it delicately, there are several times more of them than party members.

In Zhdanov’s report, the terms “intra-party democracy,” “democratic centralism,” and “democratic elections” were publicly voiced. And demands were put forward: to prohibit the “nomination” of candidates without elections, to prohibit voting by “list” at party meetings, to ensure “the unlimited right of party members to challenge nominated candidates and the unlimited right to criticize these candidates.” The last phrase entirely referred to the elections of purely party bodies, where long ago there was not a shadow of democracy. But, as we see, the general elections to Soviet and party bodies have not been forgotten.

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

And how do the party dignitaries who gathered at the plenum - the first secretaries of regional committees, regional committees, and the Central Committee of national communist parties - react to Zhdanov’s report? And they ignore all this! Because such innovations are by no means to the taste of that same “Leninist old guard”, which has not yet been destroyed by Stalin, but sits at the plenum in all its grandeur and splendor. Because the vaunted “Leninist Guard” is a bunch of petty satraps. They are accustomed to living in their estates as barons, with sole control over the life and death of people.

The debate on Zhdanov's report was practically disrupted.

Despite Stalin's direct calls to discuss reforms seriously and in detail, the old guard with paranoid persistence turns to more pleasant and understandable topics: terror, terror, terror! What the hell kind of reforms?! There are more pressing tasks: hit the hidden enemy, burn, catch, reveal! People's Commissars, first secretaries - everyone talks about the same thing: how passionately and on a large scale they identify the enemies of the people, how they intend to raise this campaign to cosmic heights...

Stalin is losing patience. When the next speaker appears on the podium, without waiting for him to open his mouth, he ironically throws out: “Have all the enemies been identified or are there still some left?” The speaker, first secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee Kabakov, (another future “innocent victim of Stalin’s terror”) misses the irony and habitually rants about the fact that the electoral activity of the masses, so you know, is just “ Quite often used by hostile elements for counter-revolutionary work».

They are incurable!!! They simply don’t know any other way! They don't need reforms, secret ballots, or multiple candidates on the ballot. They foam at the mouth and defend the old system, where there is no democracy, but only “boyar will”...
On the podium is Molotov. He says sensible, sensible things: it is necessary to identify real enemies and saboteurs, and not throw mud at all “captains of production” without exception. We must finally learn to distinguish the GUILTY from the INNOCENT. It is necessary to reform the bloated bureaucratic apparatus, IT IS NEEDED TO EVALUATE PEOPLE BY THEIR BUSINESS QUALITIES AND NOT PUT PAST MISTAKES IN THE LINE. And the party boyars are all about the same thing: to look for and catch enemies with all their ardor! Root deeper, plant more! For a change, they enthusiastically and loudly begin to drown each other: Kudryavtsev - Postysheva, Andreev - Sheboldaeva, Polonsky - Shvernik, Khrushchev - Yakovleva.

Molotov, unable to bear it, openly says:
– In a number of cases, listening to the speakers, one could come to the conclusion that our resolutions and our reports went over the ears of the speakers...
Exactly! They didn’t just pass, they whistled... Most of those gathered in the hall know neither how to work nor how to reform. But they are excellent at catching and identifying enemies, they adore this activity and cannot imagine life without it.

Don’t you think it’s strange that this “executioner” Stalin directly imposed democracy, and his future “innocent victims” ran away from this democracy like the devil from incense. Moreover, they demanded repression, and more.

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

Stalin's authority was so great that the party barons did not dare to openly protest, and in 1936 the Constitution of the USSR, nicknamed Stalin's, was adopted, which provided for a transition to real Soviet democracy.

However, the party nomenklatura reared up and carried out a massive attack on the leader in order to convince him to postpone the holding of free elections until the fight against the counter-revolutionary element was completed.

Regional party bosses, members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), began to stir up passions, referring to recently discovered conspiracies of Trotskyists and the military: they say, as soon as such an opportunity is given, former white officers and nobles, hidden kulak underdogs, clergy and Trotskyist saboteurs will rush into politics .

They demanded not only that any plans for democratization be curtailed, but also that emergency measures be strengthened, and even the introduction of special quotas for mass repressions in the regions - they say, in order to finish off those Trotskyists who escaped punishment. The party nomenklatura demanded powers to repress these enemies, and it wrested these powers for itself. And then the small-town party barons, who made up the majority in the Central Committee, feared for their leadership positions, began repression, first of all, against those honest communists who could become competitors in future elections by secret ballot.

The nature of the repressions against honest communists was such that the composition of some district and regional committees changed two or three times in a year. Communists at party conferences refused to join city and regional committees. They understood that after a while they might end up in a camp. And this is at best...

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

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

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

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

But it turns out that these scoundrels already had lists. They simply took lists of previously imprisoned, and sometimes not imprisoned, kulaks, former white officers and nobles, Trotskyist saboteurs, priests and simply ordinary citizens classified as class alien elements. Literally on the second day telegrams arrived from the localities: the first were Comrades Khrushchev and Eiche.

Then Nikita Khrushchev was the first to rehabilitate his friend Robert Eiche, who was justly shot in 1939 for all his cruelties, in 1954.

There was no longer any talk of ballot papers with several candidates at the Plenum: the reform plans boiled down solely to the fact that candidates for the elections would be nominated “jointly” by communists and non-party members. And from now on there will be only one candidate on each ballot - in order to repel the machinations. And in addition - another long-winded verbiage about the need to identify the masses of entrenched enemies.

Stalin also made another mistake. He sincerely believed that N.I. Yezhov is a man of his team. After all, they worked together in the Central Committee for so many years, shoulder to shoulder. And Yezhov had long been the best friend of Evdokimov, an ardent Trotskyist. For 1937–38 Troikas in the Rostov region, where Evdokimov was the first secretary of the regional committee, shot 12,445 people, more than 90 thousand were repressed. These are the numbers carved by the Memorial Society in one of the Rostov parks on the monument to the victims of... Stalinist (?!) repressions. Subsequently, when Evdokimov was shot, an audit found that in the Rostov region more than 18.5 thousand appeals lay motionless and had not been considered. And how many of them were not written! The best party cadres, experienced business executives, and intelligentsia were destroyed... Was he the only one?

Interesting in this regard are the memoirs of the famous poet Nikolai Zabolotsky: “ A strange confidence was ripening in my head that we were in the hands of fascists, who, under the noses of our government, had found a way to destroy Soviet people, acting in the very center of the Soviet punitive system. I told this guess of mine to an old party member who was sitting with me, and with horror in his eyes he confessed to me that he himself thought the same thing, but did not dare to mention it to anyone. And really, how else could we explain all the horrors that happened to us?.».

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

And the flywheel of the “Great Terror” began to spin, with its notorious extrajudicial threes and limits on capital punishment. Fortunately, this flywheel quickly crushed those who initiated the process itself, and Stalin’s merit is that he made the most of the opportunities to cleanse the highest echelons of power of all kinds of crap.

It was not Stalin, but Robert Indrikovich Eikhe who proposed creating extrajudicial killing bodies, the famous “troikas”, similar to the “Stolypin” ones, consisting of the first secretary, the local prosecutor and the head of the NKVD (city, region, region, republic). Stalin was against it. But the Politburo voted. Well, the fact that a year later it was just such a troika that pushed Comrade Eikhe against the wall is, in my deep conviction, nothing but sad justice.

The party leadership literally joined in the massacre with gusto!

Let’s take a closer look at himself, at the repressed regional party baron. And, in fact, what were they like, both in business, and in moral, and in purely human terms? What were they worth as people and specialists? JUST PLUG YOUR NOSE FIRST, I STRONGLY RECOMMEND IT. In short, party members, military men, scientists, writers, composers, musicians and everyone else, right down to noble rabbit breeders and Komsomol members, ate each other with gusto. Those who sincerely believed that they were obliged to exterminate their enemies, those who settled scores. So there is no need to chat about whether the NKVD beat the noble face of this or that “innocently injured figure” or not.

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

But let’s return to Yezhov again. Nikolai Ivanovich was a new person in the “authorities”, he started out well, but quickly fell under the influence of his deputy: Frinovsky (former head of the Special Department of the First Cavalry Army). He taught the new People's Commissar the basics of security service work directly “on the job.” The basics were extremely simple: the more enemies of the people we catch, the better. You can and should hit, but hitting and drinking is even more fun.
Drunk on vodka, blood and impunity, the People's Commissar soon openly “swimmed.”
He did not particularly hide his new views from those around him. " What do you have to fear? - he said at one of the banquets. - After all, all the power is in our hands. Whoever we want, we execute, whoever we want, we pardon: - After all, we are everything. You need everyone, starting from the regional committee secretary, to follow you».

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

It is difficult to say when the Kremlin began to realize what was happening. Probably sometime in the first half of 1938. But to realize - they realized, but how to curb the monster? It is clear that the People's Commissariat of the NKVD had become mortally dangerous by that time, and it had to be “normalized.” But how? What, raise the troops, take all the security officers into the courtyards of the departments and line them up against the wall? There is no other way, because, as soon as they sensed danger, they would simply sweep away the government.

After all, the same NKVD was in charge of guarding the Kremlin, so the members of the Politburo would have died without even having time to understand anything. After which a dozen “blood-washed” would be put in their place, and the whole country would turn into one large West Siberian region with Robert Eiche at its head. The peoples of the USSR would have perceived the arrival of Hitler's troops as happiness.

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

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

In general, the term “Stalinist repressions” is speculative, because Stalin did not initiate them. The unanimous opinion of one part of the liberal perestroika and current ideologists that Stalin thus strengthened his power by physically eliminating his opponents is easily explainable. These idiots simply judge others by themselves: given the opportunity, they will readily devour anyone they see as a danger.

It is not for nothing that Alexander Sytin, a political scientist, Doctor of Historical Sciences, a prominent neoliberal, in one of V. Solovyov’s recent TV programs, argued that in Russia it is necessary to create a DICTATORSHIP OF TEN PERCENT OF THE LIBERAL MINORITY, which will then definitely lead the peoples of Russia into a bright capitalist tomorrow. He modestly kept silent about the cost of this approach.

Another part of these gentlemen believes that Stalin, who wanted to finally turn into the Lord God on Soviet soil, decided to deal with everyone who doubted his genius in the slightest. And, above all, with those who, together with Lenin, created the October Revolution. They say that this is why almost the entire “Leninist Guard” innocently went under the ax, and at the same time the top of the Red Army, who were accused of a never-existent conspiracy against Stalin. However, upon closer examination of these events, many questions arise that cast doubt on this version. In principle, thinking historians have had doubts for a long time. And doubts were sown not by some Stalinist historians, but by those eyewitnesses who themselves did not like the “father of all Soviet peoples.”

For example, the West once published the memoirs of the former Soviet intelligence officer Alexander Orlov (Leiba Feldbin), who fled our country in the late 30s, taking a huge amount of government dollars. Orlov, who knew well the “inner workings” of his native NKVD, directly wrote that a coup was being prepared in the Soviet Union. Among the conspirators, according to him, were both representatives of the leadership of the NKVD and the Red Army in the person of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and the commander of the Kyiv Military District, Jonah Yakir. Stalin became aware of the conspiracy, and took very tough retaliatory actions...

And in the 80s, the archives of Joseph Vissarionovich’s most important opponent, Leon Trotsky, were declassified in the United States. From these documents it became clear that Trotsky had an extensive underground network in the Soviet Union. Living abroad, Lev Davidovich demanded from his people decisive action to destabilize the situation in the Soviet Union, even to the point of organizing mass terrorist actions.
In the 90s, our archives already opened access to interrogation protocols of repressed leaders of the anti-Stalinist opposition. Based on the nature of these materials and the abundance of facts and evidence contained in them, today’s independent experts have made three important conclusions.

Firstly, the overall picture of a broad conspiracy against Stalin looks very, very convincing. It was impossible to somehow stage-manage or falsify such testimony to please the “father of nations.” Especially in the part where it was about the military plans of the conspirators. Here is what the famous historian and publicist Sergei Kremlev said about this: “Take and read the testimony of Tukhachevsky, given by him after his arrest. The confessions of the conspiracy themselves are accompanied by a deep analysis of the military-political situation in the USSR in the mid-30s, with detailed calculations on the general situation in the country, with our mobilization, economic and other capabilities.

The question arises: could such testimony be invented by an ordinary NKVD investigator who was in charge of the marshal’s case and who allegedly set out to falsify Tukhachevsky’s testimony?! No, this testimony, and voluntarily, could only be given by a knowledgeable person no less than the level of Deputy People’s Commissar of Defense, which is what Tukhachevsky was.”

Secondly, the very manner of the conspirators’ handwritten confessions, their handwriting indicated that their people wrote themselves, in fact voluntarily, without physical pressure from the investigators. This destroyed the myth that testimony was brutally extracted by the force of “Stalin’s executioners,” although this also happened.

Thirdly, Western Sovietologists and the émigré public, without access to archival materials, had to actually make their judgments about the scale of repression out of thin air. At best, they contented themselves with interviews with dissidents who had either been imprisoned in the past or cited stories of those who had been through the Gulag.

The highest bar in estimating the number of “victims of communism” was set by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who stated in an interview with Spanish television in 1976 about 110 million victims. The ceiling of 110 million voiced by Solzhenitsyn was systematically reduced to 12.5 million people of the Memorial Society. However, following the results of 10 years of work, Memorial managed to collect data on only 2.6 million victims of repression, which is very close to the figure announced by Zemskov almost 20 years ago - 4 million people.

After the opening of the archives, the West did not believe that the number of those repressed was significantly less than that indicated by the same R. Conquest or A. Solzhenitsyn. In total, according to archival data, for the period from 1921 to 1953, 3,777,380 people were convicted, of which 642,980 people were sentenced to capital punishment. Subsequently, this figure was increased to 4,060,306 people due to 282,926 executed according to paragraphs. 2 and 3 tbsp. 59 (especially dangerous banditry) and Art. 193 - 24 (military espionage). This included the Basmachi, Bandera, washed in blood, the Baltic “forest brothers” and other especially dangerous, bloody bandits, spies and saboteurs. There is more human blood on them than water in the Volga. And they are also considered “innocent victims of Stalin’s repressions.” And Stalin is blamed for all this. (Let me remind you that until 1928, Stalin was not the sole leader of the USSR. AND HE RECEIVED FULL POWER OVER THE PARTY, ARMY AND NKVD ONLY SINCE THE END OF 1938).

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

So. A crowd of Western journalists came to the USSR in 1990. The goal is to familiarize yourself with open archives. They studied the archives of the NKVD - they didn’t believe it. The archives of the People's Commissariat of Railways were requested. We looked it up and it turned out to be four million. We didn’t believe it. The archives of the People's Commissariat of Food were requested. We got acquainted and it turned out that there were 4 million repressed people. We got acquainted with the clothing allowances of the camps. The result was 4 million repressed. Do you think that after this the Western media published batches of articles with the correct numbers of repressions? Nothing like that. They still write and talk about tens of millions of victims of repression.

I would like to note that an analysis of the process called “mass repression” shows that this phenomenon is extremely multi-layered. There are real cases there: about conspiracies and espionage, political trials of die-hard oppositionists, cases about the crimes of presumptuous regional owners and party officials who have “floated” from power. But there are also many falsified cases: settling scores in the corridors of power, cheating in the service, communal squabbles, literary rivalry, scientific competition, persecution of clergy who supported the kulaks during collectivization, squabbles between artists, musicians and composers.

AND THERE IS CLINICAL PSYCHIATRY - THE MEANNESS OF INVESTIGATORS AND THE MEANNESS OF INFORMERS (four million denunciations were written in 1937-38). But what was never discovered were the cases concocted at the direction of the Kremlin. There are opposite examples - when, by the will of Stalin, someone was taken out from execution, or even completely released.

One more thing should be understood. The term “repression” is a medical term (suppression, blocking) and was introduced specifically to remove the question of guilt. He was imprisoned in the late 30s, which means he is innocent, since he was “repressed.” In addition, the term “repression” was introduced for use initially with the aim of giving an appropriate moral coloring to the entire Stalinist period, without going into details.

The events of the 1930s showed that the main problem for the Soviet government was the party and state “apparatus,” which consisted to a large extent of unprincipled, illiterate and greedy co-workers, leading party chatterboxes attracted by the fatty smell of revolutionary robbery. Such an apparatus was extremely ineffective and uncontrollable, which was like death for the totalitarian Soviet state, in which everything depended on the apparatus.

It was from then on that Stalin made repression an important institution of government and a means of keeping the “apparatus” in check. Naturally, the apparatus became the main object of these repressions. Moreover, repression has become an important tool of state building.

Stalin assumed that the corrupted Soviet apparatus could be transformed into an efficient bureaucracy only after SEVERAL STAGES of repression. Liberals will say that this is what Stalin is all about, that he could not live without repression, without persecuting honest people. But this is what American intelligence officer John Scott reported to the US State Department about who was being repressed. He witnessed these repressions in the Urals in 1937.

“The director of a construction office, who was involved in the construction of new houses for the workers of the plant, was not satisfied with his salary, which amounted to a thousand rubles a month, and his two-room apartment. So he built himself a separate house. The house had five rooms, and he was able to furnish it well: he hung silk curtains, installed a piano, covered the floor with carpets, etc. He then began driving around the city in a car at a time (this was in early 1937) when there were few private cars in the city. At the same time, his office completed the annual construction work plan by only about sixty percent. At meetings and in newspapers he was constantly asked questions about the reasons for such poor performance. He replied that there were no building materials, not enough labor, etc.

An investigation began, during which it became clear that the director was embezzling state funds and selling building materials to nearby collective and state farms at speculative prices. It was also discovered that in the construction office there were people whom he specially paid in order to carry out his “business”.
An open trial took place, lasting several days, at which all these people were tried. They talked a lot about him in Magnitogorsk. In his indictment speech at the trial, the prosecutor spoke not about theft or bribery, but about sabotage. The director was accused of sabotaging the construction of housing for workers. He was convicted after fully admitting his guilt, and then shot.”

And here is the reaction of the Soviet people to the purge of 1937 and their position at that time. “Often workers even rejoice when they arrest some “big bird,” a leader whom they for some reason dislike. Workers are also very free to express critical thoughts, both in meetings and in private conversations. I have heard them use strong language when talking about bureaucracy and poor performance by individuals or organizations. ... in the Soviet Union the situation was somewhat different in that the NKVD, in its work to protect the country from the machinations of foreign agents, spies and the advance of the old bourgeoisie, counted on the support and assistance of the population and basically received it.”

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

Readers interested in this issue are aware of the continuous groans of liberals that during the years of purge, “the best people,” the smartest and most capable, died. Scott also hints at this all the time, but still, as it were, sums it up: “After the purges, the administrative apparatus of the management of the entire plant was almost one hundred percent young Soviet engineers. There are practically no specialists left from among the prisoners and foreign specialists have virtually disappeared. However, by 1939, most departments, such as the Railroad Administration and the plant's coking plant, were performing better than ever before."

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

But clearing out the snickering scoundrels from high offices is half the battle; it was also necessary to replace them with worthy people. It is very interesting how this problem was solved in the NKVD.

Firstly, a man was put at the head of the department, who was alien to the kombarism, who had no connections with the capital’s party leadership, but was a proven professional in the field - Lavrenty Beria.

The latter, secondly, mercilessly cleared out the security officers who had compromised themselves,
thirdly, he carried out a radical staff reduction, sending people who seemed to be not vile, but unfit for the profession, to retire or to work in other departments.

And finally, the Komsomol conscription to the NKVD was announced, when completely inexperienced guys came to the authorities to replace honored pensioners or executed scoundrels. But... the main criterion for their selection was an impeccable reputation. If in the characteristics from their place of study, work, place of residence, on the Komsomol or party line there were at least some hints of their unreliability, tendency to selfishness, laziness, then no one invited them to work in the NKVD.

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

Professionalism is a gain, but in order to punish all kinds of bastards, a person must be completely clean. Well, yes, clean hands, a cool head and a warm heart - this is all about the youth of Beria’s call. The fact is that it was at the end of the 30s that the NKVD became a truly effective intelligence service, and not only in the matter of internal cleansing.

Soviet counterintelligence decisively outplayed German intelligence during the war - and this is a great merit of those very Beria Komsomol members who came to the authorities three years before the start of the war.

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

Unfortunately, immediately after the end of the great purge, the world war that began in 1939 did not allow holding alternative elections. And again, the issue of democratization was put on the agenda by Joseph Vissarionovich in 1952, shortly before his death. But after Stalin's death, Khrushchev returned the leadership of the entire country to the party, without answering for anything. And not only.

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

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

The February-March plenum of the Central Committee of 1937 is underway. It is with him that the great terror is believed to have begun. Here is Nikita Sergeevich’s speech at this plenum: “... We need to destroy these scoundrels. By destroying a dozen, a hundred, a thousand, we are doing the work of millions. Therefore, it is necessary that the hand does not tremble, it is necessary to step over the corpses of enemies for the good of the people».

But how did Khrushchev act as First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee and Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks? In 1937-1938 out of 38 senior leaders of the Moscow City Committee, only three people survived, out of 146 party secretaries, 136 were repressed. Where he found 22,000 kulaks in the Moscow region in 1937 cannot be explained to a sober head. In total for 1937-1938 only in Moscow and the Moscow region. he personally repressed 55,741 people.

But perhaps, speaking at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev was worried that innocent ordinary people were shot? Yes, Khrushchev didn’t give a damn about the arrests and executions of ordinary people. His entire report at the 20th Congress was devoted to accusations against Stalin that he imprisoned and shot prominent Bolsheviks and marshals. Those. elite. Khrushchev in his report did not even remember the repressed ordinary people. Why should he worry about the people, “the women are still giving birth,” but the cosmopolitan elite, the Lapotnik Khrushchev, was oh, what a pity.

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

Firstly, without trampling his predecessor into the mud, it was unthinkable to hope for Khrushchev’s recognition as a leader after Stalin. No! Even after his death, Stalin remained a competitor for Khrushchev, who had to be humiliated and destroyed by any means. Kicking a dead lion, as it turns out, is a pleasure – it doesn’t give you any change.

The second incentive was Khrushchev’s desire to return the party to managing the economic activities of the state. To lead everyone, for nothing, without answering and obeying no one.

The third motive, and perhaps the most important, was the terrible fear of the remnants of the “Leninist Guard” for what they had done. After all, all of their hands, as Khrushchev himself put it, were up to the elbows in blood. Khrushchev and others like him wanted not only to rule the country, but also to have guarantees that they would never be dragged on the rack, no matter what they did while in leadership positions. The 20th Congress of the CPSU gave them such guarantees in the form of an indulgence for remission of all sins, both past and future. The whole mystery of Khrushchev and his associates is not worth a damn: it is the Irrepressible ANIMAL FEAR SITTING IN THEIR SOULS AND THE PATHIOUS THIRST FOR POWER.

The first thing that strikes the de-Stalinizers is their complete disregard for the principles of historicism, which everyone seemed to have been taught in Soviet schools. No historical figure can be assessed by the standards of our contemporary era. He must be judged by the standards of his era - and nothing else. In jurisprudence they say this: “the law has no retroactive force.” That is, the ban introduced this year cannot apply to last year’s actions.

Here, historicism of assessments is also necessary: ​​one cannot judge a person of one era by the standards of another era (especially the new era that he created with his work and genius). At the beginning of the 20th century, the horrors in the situation of the peasantry were so commonplace that many contemporaries practically did not notice them. The famine did not begin with Stalin, it ended with Stalin. It seemed like forever - but the current liberal reforms are again dragging us into that swamp from which we seem to have already climbed out...

The principle of historicism also requires recognizing that Stalin had a completely different intensity of political struggle than in subsequent times. It is one thing to maintain the existence of the system (although Gorbachev failed to cope with this too), and another thing to create a new system on the ruins of a country destroyed by civil war. The resistance energy in the second case is several times greater than in the first.

You must understand that many of those executed under Stalin themselves were quite seriously planning to kill him, and if he had hesitated even for a minute, he himself would have received a bullet in the forehead. The struggle for power in the era of Stalin had a completely different severity than now: it was the era of the revolutionary “Praetorian Guard” - accustomed to rebellion and ready to change emperors like gloves. Trotsky, Rykov, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev and a whole crowd of people who were as accustomed to murder as to peeling potatoes laid claim to supremacy.

For any terror, not only the ruler, but also his opponents, as well as society as a whole, are responsible to history. When the outstanding historian L. Gumilyov, already under Gorbachev, was asked if he held a grudge against Stalin, under whom he was imprisoned, he answered: “ But it wasn’t Stalin who imprisoned me, but my colleagues in the department»…

Well, God bless him with Khrushchev and the 20th Congress. Let's talk about what the liberal media constantly talk about, let's talk about Stalin's guilt.
Liberals accuse Stalin of executing about 700 thousand people over 30 years. The logic of liberals is simple - all are victims of Stalinism. All 700 thousand.

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

Meanwhile, even the CIA analytical center Rand Corporation, based on demographic data and archival documents, calculated the number of people repressed during the Stalin era. This center claims that less than 700 thousand people were executed from 1921 to 1953. At the same time, no more than a quarter of the cases were sentenced under the political article 58. By the way, the same proportion was observed among prisoners in labor camps.

“Do you like it when your people are destroyed in the name of a great goal?” the liberals continue. I will answer. THE PEOPLE - NO, BUT BANDITS, THIEVES AND MORAL MORGES - YES. But I no longer LIKE it when their own people are destroyed in the name of filling their pockets with dough, hiding behind beautiful liberal-democratic slogans.

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

However, your words about Stalin’s non-involvement in reprisals against honest people do not convince, the LIBERALS continue. Even if we admit this, then in this case he was simply obliged, firstly, to honestly and openly admit to all the people the lawlessness committed against innocent people, secondly, to rehabilitate the unjustly victims and, thirdly, to take measures to prevent similar lawlessness in the future. None of this was done.

Again a lie. Dear. You simply don’t know the history of the USSR.

As for first and second, the December Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1938 openly recognized the lawlessness committed against honest communists and non-party members, adopting a special resolution on this matter, published, by the way, in all central newspapers. The Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, noting “provocations on an all-Union scale,” demanded: To expose careerists seeking to distinguish themselves... through repression. To expose a skillfully disguised enemy... seeking to kill our Bolshevik cadres through repressive measures, sowing uncertainty and excessive suspicion in our ranks.”

The harm caused by unjustified repressions was also openly discussed throughout the country at the XVIII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) held in 1939. Immediately after the December Plenum of the Central Committee in 1938, thousands of illegally repressed people, including prominent military leaders, began to return from places of imprisonment. All of them were officially rehabilitated, and Stalin apologized to some of them personally.

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

What are liberals not talking about? About the rehabilitation of innocent victims.
Immediately after the December Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1938, they began to revise
criminal cases and release from camps. It was produced: in 1939 - 330 thousand,
in 1940 - 180 thousand, until June 1941 another 65 thousand.

What liberals aren't talking about yet. About how they fought the consequences of the Great Terror.
With the arrival of Beria L.P. to the post of People's Commissar of the NKVD in November 1938, 7,372 operational employees, or 22.9% of their payroll, were dismissed from the state security agencies in 1939, of which 937 were imprisoned. And since the end of 1938, the country's leadership succeeded in bringing to trial more than 63 thousand NKVD workers who committed falsifications and created far-fetched, fake counter-revolutionary cases, OF WHICH EIGHT THOUSAND WERE SHOOT.

I will give just one example from the article by Yu.I. Mukhina: “Minutes No. 17 of the Meeting of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Commission on Judicial Cases.” There are more than 60 photographs presented there. I will show a piece of one of them in the form of a table. (http://a7825585.hostink.ru/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=752.)

In this article Mukhin Yu.I. writes: " I was told that this type of documents was never posted on the Internet due to the fact that free access to them was very quickly prohibited in the archive. But the document is interesting, and you can glean something interesting from it...».

There are a lot of interesting things. But most importantly, the article shows why the NKVD officers were shot after L.P. came to the post of People's Commissar of the NKVD. Beria. Read. The names of those executed are shaded in the photographs.

Top secret
P R O T O C O L No. 17
Meetings of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Commission on Judicial Cases
dated February 23, 1940
Chaired by Comrade M.I. Kalinin.
Present: t.t.: Shklyar M.F., Ponkratiev M.I., Merkulov V.N.

1. Listened
G... Sergei Ivanovich, M... Fedor Pavlovich, by a resolution of the military tribunal of the NKVD troops of the Moscow Military District dated December 14-15, 1939, were sentenced to death under Art. 193-17 p. b of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for making unfounded arrests of command and Red Army personnel, actively falsifying investigative cases, conducting them with provocative methods and creating fictitious K/R organizations, as a result of which a number of people were shot according to the fictitious ones they created materials.
It was decided.
Agrees with the use of execution against G... S.I. and M... F.P.

17. Listened
A... Fedor Afanasyevich, by a resolution of the military tribunal of the NKVD troops of the Leningrad Military District dated July 19-25, 1939, was sentenced to death under Art. 193-17 p.b of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for the fact that, being an employee of the NKVD, he made massive illegal arrests of citizens, railway transport workers, falsified interrogation reports and created artificial criminal investigation cases, as a result of which over 230 people were sentenced to death and for various more than 100 people have been sentenced to imprisonment, and 69 of the latter have been released at this time.
Decided
Agree with the use of execution against A... F.A.

Have you read it? Well, how do you like it, dear Fyodor Afanasyevich? One (one!!!) investigator-falsifier brought 236 people to death. Was he the only one like that? How many such scoundrels were there? I gave the figure above. That Stalin personally set tasks for these Fedors and Sergei to exterminate innocent people? What conclusions arise?

Conclusion N1. Judging the Stalin era only by repressions is the same as judging the activities of the head physician of a hospital only by the hospital morgue - there will always be corpses there. If we approach this yardstick, then every doctor is a bloody ghoul and a murderer, i.e. deliberately ignore the fact that a team of doctors has successfully cured and prolonged the lives of thousands of patients and blame them only for a small percentage of those who died due to some inevitable diagnostic errors or who died during difficult operations.

The authority of Jesus Christ is not comparable to Stalin’s. But even in the teachings of Jesus, people only see what they want to see. Studying the history of world civilization one has to observe how wars, chauvinism, the “Aryan theory”, serfdom, and Jewish pogroms were justified by Christian teaching. This is not to mention executions “without shedding blood” - that is, the burning of heretics. How much blood was shed during the Crusades and religious wars? So, maybe because of this we should ban the teachings of our Creator? Just like today some idiots propose to ban communist ideology.

If we look at the graph of the mortality rate of the population of the USSR, no matter how hard we try, we cannot find traces of “cruel” repressions, not because they did not happen, but because their scale is exaggerated. What is the purpose of this exaggeration and hype? The goal is to instill in Russians a guilt complex similar to the guilt complex of the Germans after their defeat in World War II. The “pay and repent” complex. But the great ancient Chinese thinker and philosopher Confucius, who lived 500 years BC, even then said: “ Beware of those who want to make you feel guilty. For they crave power over you».

Do we need this? Judge for yourself. When the first time Khrushchev stunned all the so-called. truth about Stalin’s repressions, the authority of the USSR in the world immediately collapsed to the delight of its enemies. There was a split in the world communist movement. We fell out with great China, AND TENS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD LEFT THE COMMUNIST PARTIES. Eurocommunism appeared, denying not only Stalinism, but also, scary, the Stalinist economy. The myth of the 20th Congress created distorted ideas about Stalin and his time, deceived and psychologically disarmed millions of people when the question of the fate of the country was being decided. When Gorbachev did this for the second time, not only did the socialist bloc collapse, but our Motherland, the USSR, collapsed.

Now Putin’s team is doing this for the third time: again they are talking only about repressions and other “crimes” of the Stalinist regime. What this leads to is clearly visible in the “Zyuganov-Makarov” dialogue. They are told about development, new industrialization, and they immediately begin to turn the dial on repression. That is, they immediately break off a constructive dialogue, turning it into a quarrel, a Civil War of meanings and ideas.

Conclusion N2. Why do they need this? To prevent the restoration of a strong and great Russia. It is more convenient for them to rule a weak and fragmented country, where people will pull each other by the hair at the mention of the name Stalin or Lenin. This makes it easier for them to rob and deceive us. The policy of “divide and rule” is as old as time. Moreover, they can always leave Russia to where their stolen capital is stored and their children, wives and mistresses live.

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

Only, after the return of socialism to Russia, taking into account all the advantages and disadvantages of the USSR, you need to be vigilant and remember Stalin’s warning that as the socialist state is built, the class struggle intensifies, i.e. there is a threat of degeneration. And so it happened, and certain segments of the CPSU Central Committee, the Komsomol Central Committee and the KGB were among the first to degenerate. The Stalinist party inquisition was not completed properly.