Victims of repression in the USSR. What do they say now about political repression? A huge number of groups

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 historical example Ivan the Terrible served. 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 in the years 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 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, was sentenced to death Russian Empire.

Shakhty case

The charges under Article 58 were ridiculous. A person who doesn't own foreign languages and never communicated with a citizen in my life Western state, 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, specialists became victims of Stalin's terror coal industry. 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 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 suggest various options 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 there was trial over a group of Red Army officers. 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 began of representatives of completely different social strata. 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.

1. Formation of the penitentiary system. It was the USSR that became a pioneer in this area, building a system of correctional institutions based on the communist idea of the educational benefits of labor. Yes, before that there were prisons, camps, hard labor. But it was in the pre-war Soviet Union that the humanitarian goal of imprisonment was formulated: not punishment as such, not isolation for the sake of isolation, but personal correction through physical labor.

The introduction of a network of labor camps proceeded in parallel and in conjunction with the emerging educational system. For example, through labor colonies it was possible to return thousands of street children and adolescents to normal life.

In the West, the experience of the Union was initially presented in a caricature and according to the principle “since we don’t have it, it means it’s something terrible.” The bias is clearly visible in the fact that what is most often condemned is not death sentences (a common practice in all forms of government in Europe, not to mention America), but forced labor. After World War II, to simplify the horror, the Gulag began to be equated with Nazi camps, whose goal was exactly the opposite of what the Soviets proclaimed.

2. Post-revolutionary restoration

It always happens after all revolutions and not because evil ultimately overcomes good, but because good in turbulent times becomes so unruly that in addition to the fighters for all the good against all the bad, a mass of criminal elements emerge to the surface who simply take advantage of the turmoil .

The fighters themselves are also usually carried away, let’s remember the courts during the French Revolution. It is unthinkable to imagine that order in such conditions could be restored with a quiet kind word.

3. Militarism in society

Unlike schoolchildren, bloggers and other creative designers who go to protests today, in the 30s the politically active society consisted mainly of participants in the First World War and the Civil War, that is, they had experience of military operations. The electorate of that time resorted to proven skills and available means much more willingly, since in the ruins of a decade of chaos they were not afraid of losing a source of income to pay for the Ford Focus loan, and generally acted more radically.

Of course, the authorities did not respond to all this by going to prison for 15 days in a paddy wagon.

4. Breaking social ties

The Stalin era was a time of large migrations: from villages to cities, from west to east and to the north of the country. Personal connections, which largely prevent crime in society, have been severed. Morally unstable people took advantage of the incognito situation in a new place and committed light crimes without fear of shame.

This same fact significantly influenced denunciations. Not bound by moral obligations to their neighbors, people denounced, seeking for themselves and their loved ones privileges and improved living conditions, which in cities overcrowded with new settlers were incomparably worse than those to which a peasant in a Russian village was accustomed.

5. Implementation of universal literacy

Surprisingly, but so. Along with literacy, social activity also increased - well, why was it necessary to learn to write in old age, if not to pin down an annoying neighbor?

Representatives of the authorities, who themselves were barely able to accept complaints from illiterate informers, were hardly able to analyze the text well; as a result, tragedy easily occurred. Remember the classic litigious grandmother who writes complaints about her neighbor, a UFO agent, only here it is not a UFO agent, but an enemy of the revolution.

The fact of mentally ill informers is clearly illustrated in the film “We'll Live Until Monday,” where even the educated hero barely manages to understand the reasons that force the father of one of his students to send him angry messages with threats. In addition, the informer was not always aware of what would happen to his victim in the future.

6. Contingent of punitive authorities

It is quite expected that the repressive apparatus will gather people with experience in violence. It is also expected that he, in attempts to reform, will begin to devour himself. A certain proportion of those repressed were the participants in punitive institutions themselves.

7. Difficult economic situation

The thirties represented a long global crisis, from which not only the USSR suffered - the Great Depression in the USA has long been awaiting its objective assessment with numbers.

It is clear that where there is nothing to eat, it is expected that there will be thieves, including among people who do not belong to marginal elements. There will be corruption, embezzlement and other embezzlement.

8. A huge number of groups

Unlike today's realities, where people can hardly be divided into patriots and creaks, that era was characterized by big amount all kinds public formations– from political parties to poetry circles. There were no bloggers yet, so in order to be heard, people grouped together according to their interests and led social activities. Moreover, often what looked like a circle of young poetesses turned out to be quite a revolutionary engaged cell.

An additional intimidating effect was had by the concentration of such groups in the capitals, where the breakdown of the social hierarchy was most clearly manifested, the housing problem was most acute, etc. That is, repressions much more often affected such crowded metropolitan communities, which is why, in the exaggerated view of Muscovites and St. Petersburg residents, there was an opinion that half the country was already imprisoned.

9. Refusal of the world revolution

Disappointed.

The entire post-revolutionary period before Stalin came to power was colored by the idea of a new world order. Many supporters of the revolution of that time on both sides of the border opposed the state in principle, new course on domestic policy They categorically did not like it.

The lion's share of political prisoners during the Stalinist period were Trotskyists, many of whom radicalized into terrorist organizations. Now their role is described by Stalin’s opponents exclusively pitifully, but at that time it was they who posed the greatest danger both to the capitalist countries and to the young socialist Union.

10. Politicization of society

This phenomenon is generally typical for Russia, as a result of which the list of political prisoners often included people from professions far removed from politics.

At first glance, it seems that the authorities punish harmless passers-by for any seditious thought, but if you take a closer look, all these “passers-by” and “poets” acted as political activists. This does not mean that they are necessarily guilty, but the fact is that these people took part in the struggle for power.

Well, “don’t touch the artist, he was just trying to beautifully burn down the FSB building” - this also wasn’t invented today.

11. Geographical coverage

The USSR became the first real social state, where “everyone was counted.” For many, many figures of that period, it was a huge surprise that they could get it at all. Get it anywhere, even in the taiga, even in the Caucasus mountains. This applies to both opponents of the government and common criminals.

12. Hostile environment

Neighboring countries have never welcomed a single real revolution, that is, one that brings radical, hitherto unprecedented, social transformations. The reason is banal: the elite is afraid of losing power and money. Undermine someone else's state, knock it out of competition, rob it on the sly - as much as you like, but never establish a stable order in it, different from your own.

Socialist revolution in huge country, full of resources and weapons, were not welcomed three times, and therefore all means against were good. For decades, the young USSR, with great difficulty, made its way to the banal establishment of diplomatic relations; today this seems unthinkable. Of course, foreign agents did not disdain any conspiracies and influences.

13. The rise of Nazism

This should be included in a separate paragraph because of its ideological content. It is foolish to think that, having formulated the idea of living space in the east and the theory of racial inferiority of the Slavs, Nazi Germany did nothing in this direction until June 22, 1941, but only traded with the USSR and generally signed pacts.

It should also be noted that at that time the theory of social Darwinism gained momentum in the world, according to which the lower strata of society had innately low mental abilities and weak moral qualities. The USSR with its dictatorship of the proletariat looked absolutely wild against this background, the Reich looked much more “handshake”, because it only finalized the idea of elitism that was dominant in the West.

Moreover, under Stalin, the trend towards a “dictatorship of the proletariat” only intensified. In particular, the widespread introduction of classical education began - the cook began to be taught to govern the state. This is something that the West defiantly resisted until the end of World War II, and is still resisting in a hidden form. Because knowledge is power.

14. Pre-war collaborationism

Bright Russian phenomenon, when part of the population begins to cooperate with the future invader even before the war. It still blooms magnificently, and in the 30s it bloomed even brighter: the Nazis were not only not disgusting to many, they were desired even with weapons and bringing death.

Of course, finding those willing to cooperate with Nazi intelligence was not difficult. Nuremberg forced many to reconsider their views and hide evidence, but even so it is not difficult to find passionate appeals to the Reich from our Soviet intellectuals of that era.

15. High level of freedom

Historically, Russia, with its vast territories, low population density and large amounts of fertile land, enjoyed considerable freedom. This intensified after October revolution due to communist ideology, as well as civil war and anarchy.

When, under such conditions, freedom begins to be curtailed, the cry of protest and guard is heard much louder than where there was no freedom at all, but it has become even less. And, of course, that cry was echoed by all the opponents of the USSR, who in the same era created death camps, used lobotomies, evicted people into barren reservations with no chance of life, and so on and so forth.

Now let’s take into account the historical realities of that era, and they tell us that:

The death penalty in the 30s of the 20th century was a widespread and commonplace phenomenon. In France, the guillotine was used for the amusement of the public, the electric chair was actively introduced in the USA, and free Lithuania, for example, dabbled in gas chambers for the instigators of peasant riots. That is, its application cannot be compared with today.

It was not only criminals who were deprived of their lives in the rest of the world. Even in the USA, where there was no revolution, no post-revolutionary restoration, no extremely hostile state with an anti-human ideology at hand, political figures were executed. For example, communists.

Total number of prisoners in Stalin's USSR per capita was less than those in the current United States.

Most prisoners in the Stalinist USSR were criminals.

Therefore, if we want to prove that the USSR significantly exceeded the prison quota, we must admit the following:

In the Stalinist USSR, unlike the current USA, there was no comparable crime, and political prisoners were imprisoned under criminal charges. There were no thefts or murders, although the USA today is one of the richest countries in the world, and the USSR then was a state in ruins, in the midst of a global crisis, at the time of breakdown and global restructuring of the social structure.

Stalin's USSR had no enemies. Unlike the current United States, which is forced to hold its political prisoners without trial, the USSR did not even have a reason to arrest for political reasons. Although, having made a revolution, it was under siege from a significant part of the world and was adjacent to the Nazi state, which declared its peoples to be an inferior race. But all codes contain articles for treason, this is a crime.

Can this be allowed? Of course not. By installing a new social order threatening global capital, the Union inevitably had to fear subversion on the part of those in power and white emigrants.

How did such an inflated myth come about?

Firstly, a huge role was played by Khrushchev’s revelations and the pedaling of the political component, as a result of which every legitimate thief and swindler could say that he had suffered for a joke. Well, who would refuse to whitewash themselves or a close relative?

Secondly, oddly enough, German Nazism significantly influenced - the USSR was conveniently included in the doctrine of totalitarianism, leveling two opposing ideologies and attributing Nazi crimes to the Union. The most popular myth in this vein is about the Gulag camps as concentration camps. That is, places where prisoners were held without trial are sometimes even referred to as death camps. There were no concentration camps, much less death camps, in the USSR, but they were in some democratic, “non-totalitarian” countries.

Third, the myth of the most terrible regime was beneficial to the powers that be in the capitalist camp, since it made a system so attractive to the proletariat unattractive.

Let's sum it up

Why do you need to dig up all this, refute it, recalculate it? After all, it seems that over-grieving is better than under-grieving.

There were tragedies, innocent prisoners who lost their health, loved ones, homeland, killed? Of course there were. As well as overly harsh sentences, poor supply of camps, the severity of being in a criminal environment for those who were not criminals.

But we need to remember this. As noted above, the number of prisoners at that time barely exceeded the current situation in the Russian Federation and did not even reach that in the United States. This means that it will not be difficult to surpass the Stalin years in terms of repression even today.

By denigrating that historical period to absolute evil, we seem to distance ourselves from the people who participated in it. They say, well, we wouldn’t, but never! Well, maybe we’ll imprison all the corrupt officials. And those who are now in power. Who brought the country. We will find the culprits and that.

How easy is it to organize not just a big, but a gigantic terror today?

Lock up everyone who evades taxes. Not just big business. Freelance programmers, tutors, web designers, photographers and other freelancers.

Put everyone who gives or takes bribes in prison. Not only deputies and governors. Teachers, doctors, hostel concierge.

Lock up everyone who doesn't pay fines.

The less we denigrate, the less we distance ourselves, the more we admit that we ourselves could find ourselves not only in the place of the victims, but also the executioners, the better we understand the reasons, the less likely it is that we will repeat this.

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Now in Russia the same thing is happening as in 1937-39 in the USSR: traitors and ideological enemies have seized almost all government bodies; sabotage, sabotage and terrorist acts were committed everywhere. It was necessary to fight enemies...
Stalin's “repressions”? No! Fight against the enemies of Soviet Russia!
Fragment from the book by B.G. Solovyov and V.V. Sukhodeev "Commander Stalin"

Surprisingly, we sometimes don’t even notice that we habitually use vocabulary imposed on us by those who do not at all wish the best for Russia and its people. Who benefits from giving a truly sinister coloring to the actions of the ruler of a country that is fighting its internal enemies, those who wish harm to it and its people?

Khrushchev, who really carried out repressions in order to curry favor. To which Stalin wrote to him “calm down, you fool.” Khrushchev in order to shift his blame onto the deceased leader of the USSR. And anti-Russian writers like Solzhenitsyn did the most to spread the word “repression.” Plus, all Western sociologists and historians without exception.
So, for some reason, we still use the established meme “Stalinist repressions.” Then why don’t they talk about American repression during the era of the “witch hunt”? And when those same Americans interned indiscriminately people of Japanese descent? Without trial or investigation, focusing only on belonging to Japanese blood? After all, this is precisely repression!
One can recall the British gallows, the French guillotines, the German concentration camps even before the start of the war, the Israeli terror... Not to mention the millions of innocent victims during the repression of the British in the colonial territories under their jurisdiction...
But no, for some reason Western and Russian liberals do not mention such facts, and if they say anything about this, you won’t get the word “repression” from them.
There were no “Stalinist repressions”. There was a fierce struggle with the enemies of Russia: Zionists, Trotskyists and liberals of all stripes. And only thanks to the security measures taken we were able to win the most brutal war imposed on us by the same Zionists, Trotskyists and liberals.
There is one remarkable criterion that clearly illustrates the entire lie of the myth of “repression.” This is mass sincere grief of people when the death of I.V. is announced. Stalin.

Residents of Khabarovsk listen to a message about the death of Stalin, 1953.

In Vilnius and Prague.

The entire experience of history shows that class struggle, especially at turning points in development, is cruel and merciless. Not only enemies, but also innocent people fall into its millstones.
The unprecedented, rapid enrichment of a handful of people in recent years in our country is based on the genocide of the people, on their extinction on a monstrous scale, reaching one and a half million a year, on the plunder of the fruits of the labor of many generations of Soviet people.
This embodies the manifestation of class struggle at the present stage. Not seeing this means being blind. “Democratic” propaganda does everything to obscure these facts, to hide them from the people. With diabolical persistence, she tries to hide the class essence, the historical conditionality of the “repressions” of the 30s.
In order to understand the issue of “repression” more deeply, it is necessary to consider at least three the most important aspects this problem.
Firstly, it is necessary to clearly determine whether the “repressions” were justified, directed against persons who committed serious crimes against the state, and whether these persons received the deserved punishment. Or “repression” was brought down on innocent people, and the victims were supporters of the socialist state of workers and peasants.
This is a fundamental question and the answer to it is of decisive importance for judging the legality or criminality of the “repressions” themselves.

Khrushchev, his followers, and modern “democrats” have distorted and confused it to the last degree. No effort should be spared to establish the truth in this matter. Too much is connected with him in the past history of the country, and even now his decision, without exaggeration, has a fateful significance for the very foundations of ideological and moral life and the prospects for the development of our society.
Second the most important aspect problems of “repression” – their scale. There is a complete bacchanalia of numbers and monstrous inventions here. Figures are given that are exaggerated to incredible proportions, far beyond the scope of basic common sense. And along with this, a line is being drawn to completely ignore, deliberately, one might say, completely suppress official, fairly reliable data available on this matter.
“Democrats” have widely circulated the argument that, by its very essence, there could not have been such a widespread defection from the cause of socialism in the 30s and there could not have been such a betrayal in the highest echelons of party and state power on the part of the old Bolsheviks. This is presented as a truth that does not require proof. However, the experience of subsequent years completely rejects the validity of these arguments.
We cannot discount our recent tragic experience of perestroika and reforms, when the leading core of the party - Secretary General Gorbachev, Politburo members Yakovlev, Shevardnadze, candidate member of the Politburo Yeltsin and others - acted as traitors to the cause of socialism, destroyers of a great country. We must not forget that many of the leading cadres of the party and state followed their criminal path.
These events and their dire consequences for the fate of the country and people unfolded before our eyes. Why should we now a priori exclude the reality of such betrayal on the part of individual figures of that time at the early stage of the history of the Soviet state? And following the “democrats”, deny the necessity and inevitability of the “repressions” carried out in those 30s, which were legally aimed at suppressing their anti-state, anti-Soviet activities. These lessons from history must be taken into account when considering the problem of “repression”.
Now let us dwell, at least in general terms, on the third side of the problem of repression - whether the severity of the punishment corresponded to the achievement main goal, saving the country in the face of the rapidly approaching threat of a war of extermination? Were the harsh measures of repression justified and necessary? First of all, it is necessary to establish against what crimes they were used. The severity of guilt must correspond to and follow from the gravity of the crime.
Neither Khrushchev nor his followers were able to refute the indisputable facts showing that in the 30s and subsequent years in our country mines were blown up, grain storage facilities were burned, trains with people and cargo were derailed, policemen and policemen went to serve the German occupiers. punitive forces, and they betrayed and killed Soviet people. After all, all this happened specific people. It is ridiculous to say that these were only isolated cases. Tens of thousands of facts confirm that this is a manifestation of the class struggle.
How was the government obliged to respond to this, defending the interests and integrity of the state, the interests of the people and socialism in the conditions of the impending and then ongoing war?
After all, before this Stalin long years conducted discussions with his opponents on the most important issues of the fate of the country and the party. It was not possible to convince them to abandon the struggle, sabotage, and terror. Was it possible for the authorities to respond to their gravest crimes with some half-measures? Could they bring the required result?
IN highest degree this is doubtful. It is also necessary to take into account the fact that only cruel forms of retribution could frighten rabid enemies and force them to abandon subversive activities. Terror against enemies was a measure of protection. It seems that these considerations need to be taken into account when considering the problem of “repression”.
Ultimately, both the Trotskyists and the Bukharinites degenerated into the worst enemies of the Soviet Union, working in the service of foreign intelligence services.

They were closely connected with German fascism, which was preparing a war against the USSR. Both Trotskyists and Bukharinites were actively engaged in sabotage, sabotage, espionage, and organizing terrorist acts against the leaders of our country. Their defeat was the most important condition for the victorious construction of socialism in the Soviet Union and later for victory in the Great Patriotic War.
There is a need to dwell on one more aspect of this fundamentally important issue, namely the so-called case of Marshal Tukhachevsky. A huge role in the case of Tukhachevsky and his supporters was played by secret documents sent to Stalin by Czechoslovak President Benes about the existence of a conspiracy in the Soviet Union. The latter (as well as experts from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the security and foreign intelligence services of this country) were absolutely confident of their authenticity. At that time, the threat of aggression from Nazi Germany loomed over Czechoslovakia, and Benes was interested in strengthening the power of his ally, the USSR, and in preventing the military coup that was being prepared in the country.
There is ample evidence that not only Benes and Stalin, but also many leading and well-informed Western statesmen in 1937, and in subsequent years, considered the incriminating evidence put forward at the 1937 trials as reasonable and true.
Churchill in his memoirs “The Second World War“On this occasion he writes: “In the autumn of 1936, President Benes received a notification from a high-ranking military official in Germany that if he wanted to take advantage of the Fuhrer’s offer, he should hurry up, since events would soon occur in Russia that would make any possible assistance from Benes to Germany insignificant.
While Benes was pondering this alarming hint, he became aware that communication was being carried out through the Soviet embassy in Prague between high-ranking officials in Russia and the German government. This was one of the elements of the so-called conspiracy of the military and the old guard of the communists, who sought to overthrow Stalin and establish new mode based on pro-German orientation. Without wasting any time, President Benes told Stalin everything he could find out.
This was followed by a merciless, but perhaps not useless, purge of the military and political apparatus in Soviet Russia and a series of trials in January 1937, in which Vyshinsky so brilliantly acted as state prosecutor... The Russian army was cleared of pro-German elements, although this caused severe damage to its combat effectiveness... Stalin was aware of what he personally owed to Benes, and the Soviet government was inspired strong desire to help him and his endangered country resist the Nazi danger...” (W. Churchill, “The Second World War,” vol. 1. M., 1955, pp. 266, 267).
It is characteristic that the first information received about Tukhachevsky’s conspiracy was received by the Soviet side with distrust. A historian from Germany, I. Pfaff, who studied the circumstances of the “Tukhachevsky case,” writes: “From the categorical and brief formulations in the notes contained in the presidential office, it seems even clear that the first two conversations with Aleksandrovsky, April 22 and 24, were accompanied by excited discussions between the Soviet envoy, who sought to refute the accusations against Tukhachevsky as absurd, and Benes, who failed to shake this confidence of the envoy, and that Aleksandrovsky only capitulated on April 26 and May 7 to the “incriminating material” provided to him by Benes.”
Pfaff further writes that the information received from Benes was discussed at a meeting of the Politburo on May 24, 1937, and from the decision taken there it is possible to at least outline the charges against Tukhachevsky and other generals. The “conspirators” allegedly planned “in cooperation with the German General Staff and the Gestapo... as a result of a military coup, to overthrow Stalin and the Soviet government, as well as all organs of the party and Soviet power, to establish... a military dictatorship.”
This was to be done with the help of an anti-communist “national government” associated with Germany and whose goal was to carry out the assassination of Stalin and his leading associates, “to provide Germany with special privileges within the Soviet Union for its assistance” and to make “territorial concessions to Germany ... in Ukraine”, not to mention the dissolution of alliances with Paris and Prague. All this would have to happen under the slogan of creating a “national Russia”, which would be under strong military power.”
I. Pfaff refers to documents that indicate that Benesh informed not only Stalin about Tukhachevsky’s conspiracy. Already on May 8, he informed the French Prime Minister about the conspiracy of the Soviet high command. And two days later he asked that when carrying out French “contacts with the Soviet General Staff, maximum caution should be observed, since members of the leadership of the Soviet General Staff maintain suspicious contacts with Germany.”
At the end of June 1937, the French ambassador in London reported to Paris that the British government had received information from a reliable source about secret negotiations between the German General Staff and Soviet military leaders. In September 1937, Benes informed the American envoy in Prague about the Tukhachevsky plot. (“Military Historical Journal”. 1988, No. 11, pp. 49, 50, 51, 54; No. 12, p. 65).

It is quite obvious that in the case of Tukhachevsky and his accomplices, the documents sent by President Benes to Stalin played a crucial role. However, Khrushchev kept silent about these documents at the 20th Party Congress. When rumors about their presence leaked out and began to excite the public, he mentioned them only six years later at the XXII Party Congress as a minor trifle. Once again, the congress delegates were deprived of the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the contents of these documents. An objective examination of these documents has not yet been carried out, and political speculation continues.
When examining documents about Tukhachevsky’s activities, it is apparently advisable to take into account the following testimony of V. Schellenberg: “At one time it was argued that the material collected by Heydrich to discredit Tukhachevsky consisted mostly of deliberately fabricated documents. In reality, no more was forged than was necessary to fill in some gaps. This is confirmed by the fact that a very voluminous dossier was prepared and presented to Hitler in a short period of time - four days...” (Quoted from: Yu. Mukhin “The Journey from Democracy to ************ and the Road Back ". M., 1993, p. 199).
Analyzing materials regarding Tukhachevsky and his group, one of the leaders of Soviet intelligence, General P.A. Sudoplatov writes: “Even those historians who are eager to expose Stalin’s crimes cannot help but admit that the materials of the Tukhachevsky case contain various kinds of documentary evidence regarding plans for reshuffling in the country’s military leadership... The criminal case against Tukhachevsky was entirely based on his own confessions, and any references to specific incriminating facts received from abroad are completely absent...” (P.A. Sudoplatov “Intelligence and the Kremlin.” M., 1997, pp. 103, 104).
Resolving the issue of the army's loyalty was then an urgent task, and it could only be solved by carrying out radical, large-scale measures, by cleansing the army of Trotsky's supporters. From the point of view of both domestic politics and strengthening the country's defense capability in the conditions of the impending war, the task of purging army personnel was put forward as an urgent, urgent need. Although it was undoubtedly an extremely painful and, to a certain extent, dangerous task.
And yet, the cleansing carried out in the army was a necessary act. It strengthened the country's defense capability, fundamentally undermined Trotskyist influence in the Armed Forces, and cleansed them of traitorous and spy elements. Thus, the British Ambassador W. Seeds reported to London on June 6, 1939: “a) the Red Army is currently devoted to the regime and will, if it receives an order, wage a war, both offensive and defensive; b) she suffered heavy losses as a result of the “purges”, but will be a serious obstacle in the event of an attack...” (“ Winter War 1939-1940. Book 1. Political history". M., 1998, p. 103). The remaining combat capability of the Red Army was pointed out in reports from Moscow by the military attachés of France, as well as the United States.

A few days after the German attack on the USSR, the US Ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1936-1938, Joseph Davis, answering the question “what do you say about the members of the “fifth column” in Russia?”, said: “They don’t have those, they have them.” shot." And he continued: “Suddenly, a picture arose before me that I should have clearly seen even when I was in Russia. A significant part of the whole world then believed that the famous trials of traitors and purges of 1935-1939 were outrageous examples of barbarity, ingratitude and manifestations of hysteria. However, it has now become obvious that they testified to the amazing foresight of Stalin and his close associates..."
Touching on the same issues already in 1943, according to the American newspaper Kansas City Times on May 26, J. Davis said that the processes in Moscow resulted in the fact that “the Germans did not have a “fifth column” to provide assistance to them in carrying out the invasion of Russia...” (“Dialogue”. 1996. No. 10, p. 72).
Nowadays they name a huge number of army and navy commanders and political workers who were repressed and especially executed in 1937-1938. Thus, A. Solzhenitsyn states: “We lost up to 60 million just from the terror of the communist regime against our own people...” (Quoted in: “Soviet Russia.” 1998. December 24).
A certain literary critic A. Albats believes that 66 million people were destroyed. Some authors, including historians, bring this number even to 80 million or more people. In this case, official data and documents are ignored. For example, according to the census, the population of the USSR on January 17, 1939 was 170,467,186 people. The question is, where could these tens of millions come from?
Having studied the reports on the work of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR and military tribunals, which were sent by the representative of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the NGO of the USSR, Deputy Chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, Major General of Justice A.T. Ukolov and Lieutenant Colonel V.I. Ivkin reports the following information. Persons of the highest, middle and junior command and command staff, as well as the rank and file, were convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes by year: 1936 - 925 people, 1937 - 4079, 1938 - 3132, 1939 - 1099 and 1940 - 1603 people.
According to the Archive of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, 52 military personnel were sentenced to capital punishment in 1938, in 1939 - 112 and in 1940 - 528 military personnel. “The analysis of judicial statistics,” they conclude, “allows us to conclude that the number of victims of political repression in the Red Army in the second half of the 30s is approximately 10 times less than what modern publicists and researchers cite. A more precise scale of repression against the command and political personnel of the army and navy can be established after studying the archival documents of extrajudicial bodies, which should be stored in the archives of the Ministry of Security of the Russian Federation (former KGB of the USSR)..." (Military Historical Journal. 1993, No. 1, p. 57, 59).
The indiscriminate rehabilitation of the “victims” of these repressions carried out in the 50-80s not only did not eliminate the “blank spots” of the past, but, on the contrary, further confused all these issues, subordinating their consideration to the purely propaganda and political goals of first the “perestroika”, and then the “demo-reformers”.

There is every reason to assert that the repressions carried out in the USSR in the 30s were not the product of arbitrariness. They were a factor social relations and an instrument for strengthening the power and defense capability of the young Soviet state.
In the 30s, it was a matter of radical transformations of the country, which occupied one sixth of the earth's landmass, transformations of epoch-making proportions, and the establishment and development of a new socio-political system in the USSR. And this was of decisive importance both domestically and globally. They, these transformations, were supposed to lead, ultimately, to fundamental shifts in the balance of forces between emerging socialism and existing capitalism on a global scale. And this had to be done within a decade.
Khrushchev deliberately kept silent about all this, about the enormity of the tasks being solved in the pre-war years. Unfortunately, Khrushchev’s lies from the rostrum of the 20th Party Congress were dutifully swallowed by the congress delegates.
Perhaps we have exaggerated the scale of achievements planned and carried out in the country in the pre-war years? And Khrushchev is right?
No. What was created during these years was embodied in thousands of plants and factories built, in the transformation Agriculture, in millions of people who have mastered new professions, in tens of thousands of tanks and aircraft produced, embodied in the created personnel, modern army, armed with new military equipment. All this cannot be erased from the real life of the country.
The idea expressed by the Chairman of the UPC-CPSU and the International Committee “For the Union and Brotherhood of Peoples” O.S. deserves careful attention. Shenin:
“Only an intellectual purist who replaces the analysis of a specific situation with empty abstract reasoning can be indignant at the fact that Stalin fulfilled the main task in the way that was only possible in that specific situation. To him, Stalin's repressions seem only inhuman and barbaric. He does not understand that in the specific conditions of that period, the logic of the struggle forced Stalin to make such sacrifices that seemed cruelty to an “intellectual” brought up on abstractions, and that any of the “smart intellectuals” who had proven themselves by that time would have performed the task of preserving the gains of October worse, than Stalin, and most likely would not have fulfilled it at all...” (“Glasnost.” 1999, January 30).
Any objective researcher cannot help but admit this. And the truth, although with great difficulty, breaks through the lies. But the truth cannot be found in the “democratic” press. Sometimes it breaks through abroad. Thus, in the book “The Impact of the Second World War on the Soviet Union,” published in New York in 1995, it is stated: “The Second World War showed the vitality of economic and political system, created by the Bolsheviks in the 30s, and the party itself. They (the Bolsheviks) proved this by going through the most difficult trials imaginable... it is unlikely that this country could survive under any other system..." (P. 71, 286. See Glasnost. 1997, no. 8).
Khrushchev’s statement that the mobilization of “industry was not carried out in a timely manner” is also completely untrue. Facts testify: all five-year plans were drawn up with the expectation of the maximum possible use of all the country's resources, and the struggle for their implementation was carried out with the utmost effort. The party was not embarrassed by the huge volume of work ahead or the extremely short deadlines available for its completion. The cries of the opposition about the impossibility of carrying out this work in a backward country, that the Soviet Union was doomed to defeat and death, did not stop either.

The work began without hesitation and immediately at the highest possible pace in all planned areas. The 16th, 17th and 18th Party Congresses stated that the threat of war was growing more and more and strongly demanded that the efforts of the Party and the people be concentrated on strengthening the country's defense capability. Based on the first and second five-year development plans National economy Five-year plans for the construction of the Red Army were developed and implemented. These plans provided for the rearmament of the armed forces on a massive scale with the latest models of military equipment and the creation of new technical branches of the military.
The implementation of the first five-year plan for military construction made it possible to develop in 1933 the second five-year plan for the construction of the Red Army. Its main task was to ensure the Soviet Armed Forces superiority over capitalist armies in all decisive means of combat: aviation, tanks and artillery.
The creator of the famous 76-mm cannon V.G. Grabin writes in the book “Weapons of Victory”: “Khrushchev said that we were not preparing for war. And I made all my guns before the war. But if they had listened to Tukhachevsky, they would not have existed. I asked Tukhachevsky to display our gun at the inspection. He flatly refused. Then I said that I would report it to the Politburo. At the review, Stalin got acquainted with the data about our “little yellow one,” then turned to me and began asking questions. He was interested in the firing range, the effect of all types of shells on the target, armor penetration, mobility, the weight of the gun, the number of gun crews, whether the crew could handle the gun in a firing position, and much more. I answered briefly. This gun turned out to be the best in the war. Stalin said on January 1, 1942: “Your gun saved Russia...” This is how the weapon of victory was forged in the era of I.V. Stalin..."
Based on the economic and social transformations that took place in the country, in 1935-1936 a transition was made from a mixed territorial personnel system to a unified personnel structure of the army. The size of the Red Army grew rapidly. If in 1933 there were 885 thousand people in it, then by January 1, 1938 its total number was 1,513,400 people. (“50 years of the Armed Forces of the USSR.” M., 1968, pp. 196-198).
Don’t these facts indicate that the party, the government, and Stalin made incredible efforts to increase the country’s defense power? The Soviet Armed Forces have come a long way in their development. The struggle was for every ton of metal, ore, coal, oil, for every tank and plane. The aviation industry worked on a daily schedule with a daily report to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on the production of aircraft and engines for each plant.

From January 1939 to June 22, 1941, the Red Army received from industry about 18 thousand combat aircraft, of which 2.7 thousand were new types, more than 7 thousand tanks, but only 1864 KV and T-34. Since May 1940 Before the start of the war, the gun fleet grew by more than one and a half times. In 1941, the production of ammunition increased more than three times compared to the previous year. ("The Second World War. Short story" M., 1984, p. 103-104).
This made it possible to radically rearm the Red Army. Behind all these processes stood the selfless labor of millions of Soviet people, the gigantic figure of Stalin, his enormous energy, and the correctness of the course chosen by the party.
In testimony given at the Nuremberg trials, I. Ribbentrop admitted that “Hitler considered Stalin’s greatest achievement to be the creation of the Red Army” (I. von Ribbentrop. “Memoirs of a Nazi diplomat.” Smolensk, 1998. P. 359).
At the same time, we must not forget that military industry The USSR was still in a state of technical re-equipment. Factories had great difficulty mastering the serial production of military equipment. In 1940, only 64 Yak-1 fighters, 20 MiG-3 fighters, 2 Pe-2 dive bombers, and 115 T-34 tanks were produced. Il-2 attack aircraft and LaGG-3 fighters were not produced at all until 1941. (“Military Historical Journal”. 1998, No. 3, p. 3).
Life itself has shown with utmost convincingness how enormously important those almost two years of peaceful respite that we received under the treaty with Germany in 1939 had for the fate of the country, the formation of its military-industrial complex, the production of the latest types of weapons, and the mastery of them by the troops.
“How can you forget about all this? How can one discount all the enormous work that was carried out by the party and government on the eve of the war to prepare the country and army to repel the enemy? – asked Army General S.M. Shtemenko answered: “Another question is that due to lack of time, we were not able to fully solve the tasks that confronted us, such as the formation of mechanized corps and new aviation regiments, the equipment of fortified areas in new border areas and others...
By June 1941, the country could not fully equip the troops with new weapons and equipment, due to which not all Soviet divisions were equipped and many of them lacked these weapons, combat vehicles, transport, and communications equipment, and the capabilities of old weapons and military equipment lagged behind those demands that the war made..." (S. M. Shtemenko, "The General Staff during the War..." Book 1. M.. 1981, pp. 27-28).
The enormity of the achievements accomplished in the pre-war decade is especially striking in comparison with the rot and terrible decline that our country is experiencing in the decade of the rule of the “perestroika” and “de-reformers”. The greatness of the pre-war years is especially contrasting when compared with the total destruction of the Russian army taking place before our eyes. This is not “reform”, but the death of the Russian army and with it the country itself.
Without a strong army in modern conditions a state with a huge territory and rich natural resources cannot exist. In its powerlessness, it will be torn to pieces not only by large predators (such as the USA, Germany, Japan), but also by small ones, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan. The process has already begun in Chechnya. The figures who are now at the head of the Russian state either do not understand this, or deliberately follow this path.
Let's go back to the 30s. The limit of time allotted to the country, like shagreen leather, was catastrophically narrowed. War was raging in Europe. Not one of the significant European states that had to experience the force of the blow of the German military machine could resist the predatory actions of the Wehrmacht.
Poland was defeated in 28 days; in 45 days - France: in a few weeks Norway was conquered. It took the Nazis the same amount of time to enslave and plunder the Balkans. Not a single politician, not even the Nazis themselves, expected such a rapid development of events.
War, like the sword of Damocles, hung over the USSR. And not everything has yet been done to prepare the Soviet Union to repel the fascist aggressor. Stalin fought desperately to extend the peaceful respite, taking enormous risks. His calculations in this regard were not destined to come true.
Germany took a fatal step for itself. The rapid growth of the power of the socialist state called into question the possibility of conquering territory not only in the East, but also in the West. But the ruling circles of Germany, intoxicated by the ease of victories in Europe, did not think of abandoning their aggressive plans and took the risk of a war on two fronts. It was a gamble. Ultimately, it led to the defeat of the Third Reich.
Yes, in the pre-war years, not everything necessary was done. And in the time available, it was impossible to do everything. This does not mean that there were no mistakes, miscalculations and failures in the gigantic work carried out in the country. They were inevitable in such a huge matter. After all, over the past twenty years, essentially a new country has appeared in the world in many respects.
But undeniable Grand total, which was of decisive importance for the fate of not only our state, but also for the whole world, the feat of the Soviet people in the pre-war 30s ensured the creation of a powerful foundation for the defense capability of a socialist power and paved the way for our victory over the Nazi-fascist aggressors. Without the feat of the 30s there would not have been a victorious 1945.

Before the October Revolution of 1917 there was criminal penalty for a crime against morality. In schools they teach that the first decree of the Bolsheviks was the Decree on Peace and Earth. In fact, their first Decree was about the abolition of criminal penalties for crimes against morality, i.e. abolition of criminal penalties for homosexuality. Why? Because 99% of fiery revolutionaries were homosexuals. Stalin again introduced criminal penalties for homosexuality. And he put all the fiery blue ones against the wall.

Good article colleague! But really, against the backdrop of the general history of the USSR, there were no repressions as such. In some “democratic” countries the situation was much worse. But this is the USSR, the eternal enemy of capitalists of all stripes, and it had to be denigrated. “Our” home-grown liberals did a very good job, and I’ll say right at the beginning they were able to do it. But alas, the truth always remains the truth, no matter how bitter it is. And I believe that justice will still prevail!

As modern Russian historians note, one of the features of Stalin’s repressions was that a significant part of them violated existing legislation and the basic law of the country - the Soviet Constitution.

1. Formation of the penitentiary system.

It was the USSR that became a pioneer in this area, building a system of correctional institutions based on the communist idea of the educational benefits of labor. Yes, before that there were prisons, camps, hard labor. But it was in the pre-war Soviet Union that the humanitarian goal of imprisonment was formulated: not punishment as such, not isolation for the sake of isolation, but personal correction through physical labor.

In the West, the experience of the Union was initially presented in a caricature and according to the principle “since we don’t have it, it means it’s something terrible.” The bias is clearly visible in the fact that what is most often condemned is not death sentences (a common practice in all forms of government in Europe, not to mention America), but forced labor. After World War II, to simplify the horror, the Gulag began to be equated with Nazi camps, the purpose of which was exactly the opposite of what the Soviets proclaimed.

2. Post-revolutionary restoration

3. Militarism in society

Of course, the authorities did not respond to all this by going to prison for 15 days in a paddy wagon.

4. Breaking social ties

5. Implementation of universal literacy

Surprisingly, but so. Along with literacy, social activity also increased - well, why was it necessary to learn to write in old age, if not to pin down an annoying neighbor?

6. Contingent of punitive authorities

7. Difficult economic situation

The thirties represented a long global crisis, from which not only the USSR suffered - the Great Depression in the USA has long been awaiting its objective assessment with numbers.

8. A huge number of groups

Unlike today's realities, where people can hardly be divided into patriots and creaks, that era was characterized by a large number of all kinds of social formations - from political parties to poetry circles. There were no bloggers yet, so in order to be heard, people gathered according to their interests and carried out social activities. Moreover, often what looked like a circle of young poetesses turned out to be quite a revolutionary engaged cell.

9. Refusal of the world revolution

Disappointed.

The entire post-revolutionary period before Stalin came to power was colored by the idea of a new world order. Many supporters of the revolution of that time on both sides of the border opposed the state in principle; they categorically did not like the new course on domestic policy.

10. Politicization of society

This phenomenon is generally typical for Russia, as a result of which the list of political prisoners often included people from professions far removed from politics.

Well, “don’t touch the artist, he was just trying to beautifully burn down the FSB building” - this also wasn’t invented today.

11. Geographical coverage

The USSR became the first real social state where “everyone was counted.” For many, many figures of that period, it was a huge surprise that they could get it at all. Get it anywhere, even in the taiga, even in the Caucasus mountains. This applies to both opponents of the government and common criminals.

12. Hostile environment

The socialist revolution in a huge country full of resources and weapons was not welcomed threefold, and therefore all means against it were good. For decades, the young USSR, with great difficulty, made its way to the banal establishment of diplomatic relations; today this seems unthinkable. Of course, foreign agents did not disdain any conspiracies and influences.

13. The rise of Nazism

14. Pre-war collaborationism

A striking Russian phenomenon, when part of the population begins to cooperate with the future invader even before the war. It still blooms magnificently, and in the 30s it bloomed even brighter: the Nazis were not only not disgusting to many, they were desired even with weapons and bringing death.

15. High level of freedom

Historically, Russia, with its vast territories, low population density and large amounts of fertile land, enjoyed considerable freedom. This intensified after the October Revolution due to communist ideology, as well as civil war and anarchy.

Now let’s take into account the historical realities of that era, and they tell us that:

The total number of prisoners in the Stalinist USSR per capita was less than those in the current United States.

Most prisoners in the Stalinist USSR were criminals.

Therefore, if we want to prove that the USSR significantly exceeded the prison quota, we must admit the following:

Can this be allowed? Of course not. Having established a new social order that threatened global capital, the Union inevitably had to fear subversion on the part of those in power and white emigrants.

How did such an inflated myth come about?

Third, the myth of the most terrible regime was beneficial to the powers that be in the capitalist camp, since it made a system so attractive to the proletariat unattractive.

Let's sum it up

Why do you need to dig up all this, refute it, recalculate it? After all, it seems that over-grieving is better than under-grieving.

How easy is it to organize not just a big, but a gigantic terror today?

Lock up everyone who evades taxes. Not just big business. Freelance programmers, tutors, web designers, photographers and other freelancers.

Put everyone who gives or takes bribes in prison. Not only deputies and governors. Teachers, doctors, hostel concierge.

Lock up everyone who doesn't pay fines.

At one time I helped 4 acquaintances who also had “someone who was repressed” in their family to find information about them. People spent a lot of time going to various archives, and a lot of money too. In the end, it turned out that one of the grandmothers was imprisoned not because “she was a daughter tsarist officer”, but because she, being an accountant at the factory, took money from the factory cash register and bought herself a fur coat. Another’s grandfather was imprisoned not “for telling a joke about Stalin,” but for participating in gang rape. The third’s grandfather turned out to be not a “dispossessed peasant for nothing,” but a repeat offender who received a punishment for the murder of an entire family (father, mother and two teenage children). Only one’s grandfather turned out to be truly politically repressed, but again not “for telling an anecdote about Stalin,” but because during the war he was a policeman and worked for the Germans.

This is about the question of whether we should trust family legends about repressed relatives.

Vladimir Startsev, senior assistant prosecutor of the Leningrad region:

Quote:
In recent years, there has been a flood of appeals from children of repressed citizens. They ask that their parents be recognized as rehabilitated, since they can receive social benefits - about 800 rubles monthly payment. We raise cases from the archives and in many cases we are faced with the fact that those repressed in Soviet times were shot or were in camps for a reason - someone received a sentence for robbery and theft, someone served as a headman under the Germans... Children learn about the past your parents for the first time! This is a real shock for some people."
http://forum.sadov.com/thread-402-post-40600.html#pid40600

Stalin's time was a time of reaction and retribution.

How long can you walk in a circle? How long can you push within the imposed paradigm? We, like idiots, were hooked on the lip and led in a circle.

Why the hell are we always trying to prove that Stalin is not a “bloody executioner”?

“Executioner is a special person who carries out execution” (Ushakov’s dictionary). What is it about your profession that you don’t like? The work is hard, but necessary. Of course the executioner. Executed you, bitch. There was a reason.

Are we now dreaming of an “effective manager”, or of an executioner who will hang all this abomination on the street lamps?

How long can one pretend that Stalin is the successor of Lenin’s work? He lied then.

It was necessary.

But why should we obediently repeat this nonsense? We, like wavy little assholes, repeat this lie, and the abomination happily blames all Leninist-Trotskyist sins on him. Stalin carried out a counter-revolution. Stalin's time was a time of reaction and retribution. Executed you, bitch. There was a reason.

Stop fussing. Stop arguing. We must agree! Yes! Executioner! Bloody! And we are waiting for him!
And then there is no subject for dispute. They know whose souls he will come for. Execute them, bitches. There is a reason.

An entertaining biography of Mr. Barshchevsky.

Yesterday at “Honest Monday” Mr. (who the hell is he, “Mr., huh?”) Barshchevsky shouted about his executed grandfather. At the same time keeping silent about my grandmother.

And Barshchevsky’s grandmother, the wife of that same grandfather, Tatyana Alpert, was a very interesting person. At first she served in the Cheka in Ukraine. Shudder, Ukrainian friends? Do you remember what the curly-haired security officers did? And in the 30s Tatyana Alpert was deputy. Moscow prosecutor. Yeah.

Barshchevsky has a big problem with his grandfathers. There were actually two of them. And both are the husbands of the security officer Alpert. And both, by a strange coincidence, were shot.

Barshchevsky recently stated that his grandfather was killed on Stalin’s personal order. So this is clearly not about his own grandfather, Dmitry Barshchevsky. He was executed in 1935. And after that Alpert became deputy. prosecutor in the capital.

Even though she is an ex-wife, it doesn’t work that way. Probably, comrade lawyer Barshchevsky was going to be shot under some other article. I could be wrong, but, in my opinion, gold speculation, for example, was also punishable by execution. In addition, his descendant, supposedly the “son of an enemy of the people,” quite successfully graduated from law school and worked in Stalin’s time (don’t laugh) as an investigator in the prosecutor’s office.

So, most likely, M. Barshchevsky had another grandfather in mind - Alexei Pavlovich Selivanovsky.

A.P. Selivanovsky is the one from the edge. In a strange way, he is very similar to Barshchevsky, so you can’t go wrong.

Selivanovsky was a little-known critic, but an active figure in RAPP. He bullied Pasternak, called Gumilyov a “Russian fascist,” but was especially noted for his persecution of Mikhail Sholokhov. RAPP was an extremely entertaining organization. It was headed by a genius with five classes of education, Leopold Averbakh. Mother - Native sister Yakova Sverdlova, sister - wife of Genrikh Yagoda, wife - daughter of Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich. With such connections, he didn’t need education. And talent, however, was also unnecessary. A faithful apologist for Trotsky and comrade-in-arms of Yagoda, Lyolik Averbakh commanded the writers and tested them for “ideological purity.” In general, Sholokhov got a fair amount from this Rappov company. They dragged him straight under the 58th.

Minutes No. 23 of the RAPP Secretariat faction meeting dated 6.VIII-29, where it is written:
"We listened:
4. Information comrade. Selivanovsky about the investigation into the Sholokhov case at the MCC.
Resolved:
4. Take note. Invite Comrade Korabelnikov to present Additional materials»

But additional materials did not help. Stalin did not let Sholokhov be devoured. And the Rappovites went to the NKVD in friendly ranks. Some of the writers then went to the camps, but Selivanovsky was shot. Well, of course not for Sholokhov. However, M. Barshchevsky in vain enrolls Sholokhov as Selivanovsky’s friend. He was not his friend.

They shot him in '38. Almost earlier than Averbakh. He was spanked in August, and Selivanovsky was shot in April... Well, yes: earlier.
If I’m not mistaken, it was then that Lavrentiy Palych came to the NKVD and began to restore order.

Why am I telling all this? Moreover, we need to understand very well who is now VERY loudly screaming about the “bloody executioner” and pouring dirt on Stalin.

Children of the White Guards? I beg you... They respect him. West? May it be for you! For them it is just a toy to be manipulated. In fact, they know his worth very well.

And I’m talking about those who ENTIRELY. About those who SINCERELY. With animal hatred. These are the descendants of Trotskyist-Leninist underdogs. Those who again got their hands on the Russian throat. Whose renaissance is it now? They remember the fatty piece well, they remember well how it ended. And they are very afraid. Because they know: there will be no rehabilitation.

If M. Barshchevsky demands satisfaction, he is always at your service.

There were repressions under Stalin, but the country developed by leaps and bounds; because these were repressions of the agents of the world Alienal; who then killed Stalin and carried out the second Jewish revolution in Russia in 1991 and turned the country into ruins, just like in the 1920s.

I will show them, Watson, these aliens, how to kick the weak-minded goyim; crypto-aliens are used to blaming any crap on the goyim, and they believe everything - they don’t have their own brains. But we, Watson, will “put in the wick” for the aliens. — Even if we accept that Stalin alone is responsible for the entire time from the moment he became the almost-almost non-opposition leader of the country, and this is only since 1929, then there are about 50 million goyish corpses made by the Jewish Bolsheviks

From 1917 to 1929 - this is all on Broshtein - Trotsky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WhiteArmyPropagandaPosterOfTrotsky.jpg - Lord Sydenham announced in 1923 in the English Parliament for 1920-21 a figure of 30 million victims of Bolshevism in Russia, and ahead there was still an unfinished civil war, the Holodomor and Solovki. Is there no talk about this Holocaust? And the crypto-Jewish “Memorial” also keeps count only since 1929! Or is this the Holocaust who needs the Holocaust? A?
http://www.zarubezhom.com/ 02.11.2009
***

I managed to dig up interesting data in an American book on the number of prisoners in different countries during the Stalin and Yeltsin era: before the 1950s and in the 1990s. These figures overturn all the ideas imposed on us.

Firstly, during Stalin’s time in the USA there were almost the same number of prisoners as in the Stalinist USSR, to which the USA stuck Solzhenitsev’s label GULAG, and

There are now 10 times more prisoners in the USA than in the Stalinist USSR! And in today’s “democratic Russia” there are 12 times more prisoners than in the Stalinist “dictatorship”

Moreover, the figures are pure, that is, per 100 thousand inhabitants, so everything is proportional. That is, it is clear that China has the most prisoners, but if we bring the number of prisoners to total number population in the country, it turns out that now in the same “democratic” Switzerland there are 2 times more prisoners than in the Stalinist USSR!

In addition, the table shows a sharp increase in the number of prisoners in all civilized countries. Apparently, this should speak of “increasing democratization”; you don’t know what to eat it with, this “democratization”. The whole point, apparently, Watson, is that Stalin knew who to imprison, and therefore the country developed. And now in Russia there are 12 times more prisoners than under Stalin, and the country is falling apart and falling apart, and, by the way, not a single bomb has been thrown at Medvedev, unlike the tsars! Didn't notice, Watson, that

Now in Russia they throw bombs at the people and not at the leader.

From here you can see who is blowing up whom: the president’s people or the president’s people. So, Watson, it turns out that
Stalin was for the people and Stalin knew who to imprison!

There was a cult, but there was also a personality. By the way, Watson, there is nothing bad in the word “cult” - “culture, cult” is good when the cult is positive. It's bad when the cult is negative. Now, for example, the cult of pornography. Under Stalin there was a cult of positivity, and the person who carried it out cannot be negative by definition. And who killed Stalin - now you see what they did to our country; They killed our country and ourselves and blamed everything on Stalin!
http://www.zarubezhom.com/
***
As we talk about Stalin, liberals lie

Every time you mention the name of Stalin, you come across new, more and more sophisticated forms of liberal lies. How much Stalin has annoyed the “de-Stalinizers” if, almost 60 years after his death, they lie shamelessly all the time, trying to tarnish his name.

A clear example of such lies was provided by the resource RBC.ru, owned by the “young politician” and part-time billionaire Prokhorov.

An article dated October 29, 2012 on this resource is called “Victims of the Great Terror are commemorated in Moscow”: “In Moscow, on New Square in the park opposite the Polytechnic Museum, a mourning rally “Return of Names” is being held, dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Great Terror: several dozen Muscovites gathered to honor the memory of the victims of political repression.”

We must pay tribute - in the entire article the name of Stalin is not mentioned even once. Even the repressions are called not Stalinist, but political. And it is right. The most complex tangle of intrigue and struggle for power of those years gave Stalin exactly the same opportunity to become a victim of “Stalinist repressions” as Tukhachevsky or Yagoda.

The more sophisticated the lie, the thinner it is. Without naming Stalin directly as the culprit, RBC does not name other culprits. Those who had long been called criminals in the USSR were convicted and shot for violating the law and crimes against innocent citizens. This is the head of the NKVD in the period 1937-1938, Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov and his accomplices.

It was Yezhov who spun the flywheel of repression against innocent people and was convicted for this. There is not a word about this in the article. There is not a word about who exactly, on Stalin’s orders, stopped the repressions and began to release those convicted by the Yezhovites. Why? Because it is impossible for a liberal to say this name and surname in a positive way. The repressions were stopped by Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, replacing Yezhov as People's Commissar of the NKVD on November 25, 1938.

But a conscientious journalist cannot write about this. But you can write, striking a blow to emotions: “...Here, near the building of the former NKVD, opposite the monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky, demolished in 1991, the Solovetsky stone was installed, which in 1990. was delivered by the human rights society "Memorial" from the Solovetsky camp special purpose. There are flowers and lamps with lit candles on the Solovetsky Stone, and “Return of Names” posters are unfurled. The square where the rally is taking place is cordoned off by police and metal detectors have been installed.”

Why not write the truth? The fact that the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON), opened under Lenin, at the height of the Civil War, was closed... in 1939. Yes Yes. This terrible camp was closed not in 1953, after the death of the “bloody tyrant,” but in 1939.

And Beria closed it. Why don't you write the truth, gentlemen, journalists? Is this truth inconvenient?

"The Great Terror - period mass repression and political persecution in the USSR, which took place in 1937-1938. It was established that during these years a total of 681 thousand 692 people were shot for political reasons. Together with those who died during this period in the Gulag, correctional labor institutions and prisons, as well as political prisoners executed under criminal charges, the number of victims for 1937-1938. amounted to about 1 million people.”

Please note: it has been installed. By whom? Apparently, the author of the article. Who was embarrassed to leave a signature under his material.

And who uses “lies squared”.

The figure he gives is very similar to the real one: 681,692 people.

In reality, 642,980 people were sentenced to capital punishment.

Do the numbers seem similar? No. Before us is a blatant liberal lie.

And here's the truth:

According to the certificate, which in February 1954 was prepared for Khrushchev by the USSR Prosecutor General R. Rudenko, the USSR Minister of Internal Affairs S. Kruglov and the USSR Minister of Justice K. Gorshenin, for the period from 1921 to February 1, 1954, that is, for 33 years 3,777,380 people were convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes by the OGPU board, the NKVD troikas, the Special Conference, the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals, including 642,980 people sentenced to death.

There is a real genocide going on in Russian prisons. Destruction of a nation. Turning the population into slaves. The number of prisoners in Russia is three times higher than the world average. 80% of those in colonies are able-bodied young people. Their future is being taken away from them. They are turned into cripples, beaten, tortured with hunger and cold, deprived of medical care, and deliberately infected with tuberculosis. They are turned into slaves, deprived of access to information, the opportunity to communicate with loved ones, and forced to work practically for free. They are deprived of access to legal assistance, denied access to a lawyer, and moved from place to place without the opportunity to contact their loved ones. They extort money from them, using blackmail and threats to take away everything that can be taken away, forcing relatives to go into debt in order to somehow alleviate the plight of those who are behind bars.

Lawlessness and daily physical and moral violence reign in the Russian colonies. The life of every prisoner in Russia is accompanied by a constant feeling of fear, hopelessness, and the impossibility of changing anything.

For what purpose does the government do this to its own people? Why do those in power break, intimidate, maim, and exterminate their nation?

I can understand the logic of the great terror Soviet period. Not to accept and not to justify (my relatives were repressed, like millions of our other compatriots). But I can understand. The world was torn apart by a social experiment called communism. The possible loss of the “new elites” meant physical destruction for them. Therefore, they were ready to do anything to maintain power. Even to repression and murder of their fellow citizens.

But are the current elites really in danger? Are we talking about their physical destruction? No. So the reason is different. And it’s disgustingly simple – money. Russian people destroyed for the sake of expensive watches, yachts, fur warehouses, mansions. So that the children of the elitists, the “golden youth,” could drive around the capital of the country in Gelendvagens. Use expensive drugs that ordinary mortals are forbidden to even name (just mentioning them out loud can land you in jail for promoting drug addiction).

The repressive machine has been revived only so that the elites can continue to steal with impunity. And so that no one dares to call them swindlers or thieves and demand an account for the appropriation of national wealth. And words about patriotism are nothing more than false. Our country does not produce anything that is called the beautiful imported word “luxury”. No premium cars, no luxury jewelry, no million-dollar watches. This means that everything that was stolen from us feeds the economies of other countries.

Human rights activists told me that the authorities deliberately keep the prison system in such a disgusting state. “To have something to be afraid of.” I didn't believe it. To believe in this is simply beyond the bounds. But I had to believe it. On December 23, 2016, I sat at a press conference 20 meters from V. Putin. In my hands I had large signs with questions about the prison system. The President saw them. But he ignored it. Although the signs screamed for themselves. The whole country (and the whole world) saw them: “FSIN is a budget black hole”, “FSIN: 2nd place in Europe in terms of mortality”, “Prisoners: 10% - HIV, 4% - tuberculosis”, etc.

Immediately after the press conference, I sent an analytical report with information about what was actually happening in the prison system to the Presidential Administration addressed to S. Kiriyenko and D. Peskov. With high-quality analytics, a huge number of figures, tables, diagrams, facts, links to primary sources. With specific proposals for changing the prison system. A group of analysts and human rights activists and I have been preparing this report for a whole year.

The answer came quickly - in just two days. With the wording “Your submission does not contain the essence of the proposal, statement and complaint, as well as a request for information, so it is not possible to give an answer on the merits of its content.” Although in these two days it would not have been easy to even study the report. That means no one even read it.

I was personally convinced that the thesis “the king is good - the boyars are bad” does not work. That the “king” is not only aware of the situation, but that it is beneficial to him. That the entire current punitive system serves as a support for power and its irremovability. Yes, you saw it too. When at a press conference one of the journalists managed to ask an awkward question about luxury real estate, V. Putin said “you need to be more modest.” Although we were all waiting for words that in a country where a decent part of the population lives below the poverty line, having such a large salary in a state-owned company is tantamount to theft. But the “tsar” prefers to protect the elite, not you and me. He is not interested in ordinary citizens with their simple needs for security, legality and justice.

A whole staff of PR specialists is working to create beautiful pictures from Russian life. For example, about how wonderful life is in exemplary colonies. Where all exemplary behavior rests on animal fear. Fear physical pain, moral torture, humiliation, murder. The pictures have big titles, such as “Report on the implementation of Russian Federation Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.” In which it is written what a beautiful and humane country we live in. We are ready to confirm the authenticity of these pictures and public figures, and famous human rights activists. Because if they don't do this, they will be deprived of the opportunity to work and receive funding. And the most principled may be deprived of their freedom. After all, only in Russia there is a saying: “If only there were a person, there would be an article.”

According to human rights activists, 20 million citizens have experience of “close acquaintance” with Russian prisons. These are those who have been in dungeons, and their relatives and friends. All of them became closely acquainted with falsification of evidence, extortion, blackmail and bribery, failure to comply with the law, and constant violence against the individual. Lawlessness in Russian criminal system– this is the norm not only in relation to accused and convicted people, but also in relation to their relatives.

This is exactly what the Gulag was built on. Everyone who came into close contact with him had to relay the animal horror that appeared in them to the rest of society. This horror was so strong that it was driven into the genetic memory of our entire nation. Almost every Russian citizen knows: a person in uniform is not a bastion of protection and order, but a potential threat. Which is best to stay away from. Just in case. You will be healthier.

And the authorities are conducting this experiment with the country again. Under the slogan of protecting society from criminals, the security forces protect the elites from society. And in return, the elites allow security forces to break the law with impunity. And some security forces are even allowed to join the elite club for “special merits.”

During the press conference, V. Putin received standing ovations several times. Old Soviet chronicles recorded applause for Stalin. Those who vehemently applauded the leader reviled him just as vehemently a few years later. It is not a fact that history will not repeat itself this time. Any leader of any country wants to leave a mark on history. But he usually forgets that descendants evaluate former leaders based on the morality of their time. And what seems like a trifle (“the forest is being cut down, the chips are flying”) will be perceived by descendants as crimes for which there is no justification.

Despite all the merits. Of which the Stalinist regime clearly had more than the Putinist regime. Victory in the Great Patriotic War will never compare with the annexation of Crimea and the operation in Syria. Restoring a country from devastation after the war and creating a powerful industrial empire cannot be compared with “reducing oil dependence.” Building nuclear power from scratch is no match for creating “nanotechnology,” which no one has seen but some believe exists. Just like the Russian tablet. Just like Yo-mobile. Remember when there were such “super projects”?

The current elites have done nothing to somehow justify themselves to their people. But someday you will have to make excuses. As the US experience shows, the inviolability of the elites is very elusive. Just a year ago it seemed that the United States had only an alternative between the Bush clan and the Clinton clan. But suddenly a new candidate appeared and everything changed. And the fact that among the current opposition there is not yet someone who can really occupy the chair of the President does not mean that such a person does not exist in nature. And when he comes, millions will follow him. In the hope that he can restore law, justice, justice and order to our tormented country.