The place where the repressed were sent. Stalin's "repressions": what are the real numbers and who made Stalin the murderer of his people

Political repressions are mass repressions that began in the USSR in the late 1920s and lasted until the 1950s inclusive. They are usually called Stalinist repressions and are associated with the name of I.V. Stalin, the de facto leader of the state during this period.

Many consider it the beginning political repression 30s of the 20th century, but this is not entirely true. The first stage of political repression in the USSR should be considered the period of confiscation of landowners' lands and the nationalization of industry in 1917. This stage was characterized by civil war, white and red terror.

The second stage was the nationalization of private property and the confiscation of land from the kulaks in the late 20s - the first half of the 30s. During these years, resistance was in the nature of disobedience and erupting episodes of violence - the accumulated potential of cruelty over the years of world war, civil war, intervention and rebellion. Millions of people had been in armed struggle against each other for a number of years, and it was difficult to expect quick reconciliation and general consolidation.

By 1931, mass arrests began, imprisonment in concentration camps, executions of kulaks and the eviction of kulak families to the remote northern regions of the USSR; in total, in 1930-1931, 381,026 families with a total number of 1,803,392 people were sent to special settlements. For 1932-1940 Another 489,822 dispossessed people arrived in special settlements

During these years, the situation in the country and the deployment of political repression were greatly influenced by subjective reasons, including: - an acute political struggle within the Communist Party and in its leadership on the choice of ways and methods of building a new society and for leading positions in the party and state. Such a struggle manifested itself between L. D. Trotsky, I. V. Stalin and N. I. Bukharin.

In the USSR, the first major political trials took place in 1922 against members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, who led the struggle against Soviet power during the Civil War. In the summer of 1928, a trial took place in the so-called “Shakhty case”, accusing specialist engineers of wrecking the mines. In 1930, an open trial was held in the “Industrial Party” case, the accused were mainly representatives of the so-called “bourgeois intelligentsia”, who were charged with sabotaging the industrialization of the USSR, collaborating with foreign intelligence services, and preparing foreign military intervention in the USSR. Also in 1930, the case of the so-called “counter-revolutionary Socialist Revolutionary-Kulak group Chayanov-Kondratiev” took place; the accused were charged with sabotage in the field of agriculture and industrialization. During these and other trials, a number of foreign technicians, mainly British and German, were also convicted. They were accused, in particular, of setting up a spy station in the USSR under the cover of branches of their companies.

During these years, the struggle against the internal party opposition developed widely - in just two and a half months - from the second half of November 1927 to the end of January 1928 - 2,288 people were expelled from the party for belonging to the “left opposition” (another 970 oppositionists were expelled before November 15 1927). The cleansing of the party from the opposition continued throughout 1928. Most of those expelled were sent into administrative exile in distant areas of the country.

The murder of S. M. Kirov, which occurred in Leningrad on December 1, 1934, served as a pretext for a new wave of political repression. The repressions mainly affected Moscow and Leningrad.

The third stage of political repression is 1937-1938 - these years are the peak of political repression. From February 23 to March 5, 1937, the infamous Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks) was held, at which on March 3, J. V. Stalin made the main report “On the shortcomings of party work and measures to eliminate Trotskyist and other double-dealers,” repeating his well-known conclusion about intensification of the class struggle. The Trotskyists were declared the main enemies of the Soviet state; Stalin called for “in the fight against modern Trotskyism” to use... “not old methods, not methods of discussion, but new methods, methods of uprooting and defeat”3. In fact, this was a clearly formulated task for the NKVD of the USSR to destroy “enemies of the people.” IN closing remarks at the Plenum on March 5, 1937, J.V. Stalin, based on the results of the party discussion in 1927, even named a specific number of “enemies” - 30 thousand Trotskyists, Zinovievites and all other “riffraff: right-wing and others...”. By the time of the Plenum, 18 thousand of them had already been arrested.

After the end of the Plenum, numerous arrests of “Trotskyists,” “Zinovievites,” “rightists,” and others continued throughout the country. From May 14 to May 29, 1937, arrests were made of the high military command (M. N. Tukhachevsky, I. E. Yakir, I. P. Uborevich, etc.) in the case of the so-called fascist military conspiracy. On May 23, 1937, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution to evict them to non-industrial areas of the Union. By 1938, “Enemies of the People” were already identified en masse, arrested, members of their families were deported to the outlying regions of the country, the NKVD exposed one after another “anti-Soviet,” “fascist,” “terrorist” organization.

On July 30, 1937, NKVD Order No. 00447 “On the operation to repress former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements” was adopted. According to this order, categories of persons subject to repression were determined: former kulaks (previously repressed, those who fled from repression, those who fled from camps, exile and labor settlements, as well as those who fled from dispossession to the cities); former repressed “church members and sectarians”; former active participants in anti-Soviet armed protests; former members anti-Soviet political parties (Socialist Revolutionaries, Georgian Mensheviks, etc.); former White Guards, “punishers”; criminals.

All those repressed were divided into two categories: 1 - “the most hostile elements” were subject to immediate arrest and, upon consideration of their cases by operational troikas, execution. 2 - “less active, but still hostile elements” were subject to arrest and imprisonment in camps or prisons for a period of 8 to 10 years.

From August 5, 1937 until mid-November 1938, the NKVD-UNKVD “troikas” convicted at least 800 thousand people, half of whom were sentenced to death. 800 thousand people is almost 60% of the total number of those repressed during these years for political reasons. The rest were convicted of counter-revolutionary and other especially dangerous state crimes.

On May 21, 1938, by order of the NKVD, “police troikas” were formed, which had the right to sentence “socially dangerous elements” to exile or imprisonment for 3-5 years without trial. These troikas handed down various sentences to 400 thousand people.

The fourth stage of political repression - 1939 - 1941. With the arrival of L.P. Beria as head of the NKVD of the USSR, the scale of repression decreased. In 1939, on charges of counter-revolutionary crimes, they were sentenced to to the highest degree punishment of 2.6 thousand people, in 1940 - 1.6 thousand.

After a military operation to establish control over the eastern regions of Poland - Western Belarus and Western Ukraine, a campaign of arrests began in these territories. From September 1939 to June 1941, 108,063 people were arrested there on charges of counter-revolutionary crimes.

In May - June 1941, in all territories annexed to the USSR in 1939-1940 (Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, Baltic States, Moldova, Chernivtsi and Izmail regions of the Ukrainian SSR) the NKVD carried out massive operations to arrest and deport “socially alien” elements. Members of “counter-revolutionary parties and anti-Soviet nationalist organizations”, former landowners, large traders, factory owners and officials, former gendarmes, security guards, police and prison officials were arrested. According to the decisions of a Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR, they were sent to camps for a period of 5-8 years, followed by exile to remote areas for a period of 20 years.

The fifth stage is the years of the Great Patriotic War. At the beginning of the war, when German troops approached, those suspected or accused of “counter-revolutionary activities” were often shot extrajudicially. In May-June 1941, some high-ranking military and defense industry leaders were arrested. During the war, 21 generals were arrested on charges of counter-revolutionary crimes. Soviet military personnel who escaped from captivity and were released by Soviet troops were, as a rule, sent for testing to filtration camps specially created for this purpose, the length of stay in which was not limited. After the end of the war, they were sent to work battalions, many thousands of them were accused of treason, arrested and sentenced to imprisonment in Gulag camps.

The sixth stage includes political repressions of the post-war period that continued until the 1950s. There is no doubt that in 1946-1953 there were quite a lot of all kinds of cruelties, injustices, and violence. But, as is clear from the facts, the “political climate” in the country has become much less severe and cruel. But political repression continued. In the period from 1946 – 1948. Some persons with the highest military ranks were arrested: Air Marshal S.A. Khudyakov, Marshal AA. Novikov, Minister of the Navy Afanasyev and others. In the period from March to August 1952, they were convicted by the Military Collegium Supreme Court The USSR sentenced 35 generals to long terms of imprisonment.

Since 1948, all spies, saboteurs, terrorists, Trotskyists, right-wingers, Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, anarchists, nationalists, white emigrants and members of other anti-Soviet organizations and groups who had previously been released after serving their sentences since the end of the war were sent into exile for settlement in remote areas of the USSR. , as well as persons “who pose a danger due to their anti-Soviet connections and enemy activities.”

There are no exact statistics of victims of political repression in the USSR, however, when assessing the scale of political repression in the USSR, historians provide the following figures: from 1921 to 1953, state security bodies (VChK - OGPU - NKVD - MGB) were sentenced to death penalty and for various periods of imprisonment about 5.5 ml. Human; during the mass campaign of “destruction of the kulaks as a class,” from 2.5 to 4 ml were sent to special settlements. people; the number of peoples deported from places of traditional settlement to Siberia, Central Asia and Kazakhstan – 2.5 ml. people; total number those convicted by courts and military tribunals in 1941 - 1956 are 36,262,505 people.

Mass political repressions in the USSR in the 1920s-1950s had serious negative consequences for the life of society and the state:

The repressions caused enormous damage to all spheres of society. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people were subjected to arbitrariness. The repressions decapitated industry, the army, the spheres of education, science, and culture;

The policy of mass forced relocation was “tested”; dozens of deported peoples became its victims;

Political terror had a pronounced economic aspect. All large industrial facilities of the first five-year plans were built using cheap, forced labor prisoners, including political ones. Without the use of slave force, it was impossible to introduce an average of 700 enterprises per year;

In the 1920s-1950s, tens of millions of people passed through camps, colonies, prisons and other places of deprivation of liberty. In the 1930s alone, about 2 million people convicted for political reasons were sent to places of imprisonment, exile and deportation, and as a result, the subculture of the criminal world, its values, priorities, and language were imposed on society.

Stalin's repressions- massive political repressions carried out in the USSR during the period of Stalinism (late 1920s - early 1950s). The number of direct victims of repression (persons sentenced to death or imprisonment for political (counter-revolutionary) crimes, expelled from the country, evicted, exiled, deported) is estimated in the millions. In addition, researchers point to the serious negative consequences that these repressions had for Soviet society as a whole and its demographic structure.

The period of the most massive repressions, so-called " Great Terror", occurred in 1937-1938. A. Medushevsky, professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, chief researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, calls the “Great Terror” “a key tool of Stalin’s social engineering.” According to him, there are several different approaches to interpreting the essence of the “Great Terror”, the origins of the plan for mass repression, the influence of various factors and the institutional basis of terror. “The only thing,” he writes, “that apparently does not raise doubts is the decisive role of Stalin himself and the main punitive agency of the country - the GUGB NKVD in organizing mass repressions.”

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. In particular, the creation of numerous extrajudicial bodies was contrary to the Constitution. It is also characteristic that as a result of the opening of Soviet archives, a significant number of documents signed by Stalin were discovered, indicating that it was he who sanctioned almost all mass political repressions.

When analyzing the formation of the mechanism of mass repression in the 1930s, the following factors should be taken into account:

The transition to a policy of collectivization of agriculture, industrialization and cultural revolution, which required significant material investments or the attraction of free work force(it is indicated, for example, that grandiose plans for the development and creation of an industrial base in the northern regions of the European part of Russia, Siberia and the Far East required the movement of huge masses of people.

Preparations for war with Germany, where the Nazis who came to power declared their goal to be the destruction of communist ideology.

To solve these problems, it was necessary to mobilize the efforts of the entire population of the country and ensure absolute support for state policy, and for this - neutralize potential political opposition, on which the enemy could rely.

At the same time, at the legislative level, the supremacy of the interests of society and the proletarian state in relation to the interests of the individual and a more severe punishment for any damage caused to the state was proclaimed, compared to similar crimes against the individual.

The policy of collectivization and accelerated industrialization led to a sharp drop in the standard of living of the population and mass famine. Stalin and his entourage understood that this was increasing the number of people dissatisfied with the regime and tried to portray " pests"and saboteurs-" enemies of the people", responsible for all economic difficulties, as well as accidents in industry and transport, mismanagement, etc. According to Russian researchers, demonstrative repressions made it possible to explain the hardships of life by the presence of an internal enemy.

As researchers point out, the period of mass repression was also predetermined " restoration and active use of the political investigation system"and the strengthening of the authoritarian power of I. Stalin, who moved from discussions with political opponents on the choice of the country's development path to declaring them "enemies of the people, a gang of professional saboteurs, spies, saboteurs, murderers," which was perceived by state security agencies, the prosecutor's office and the court as a prerequisite to action.

Ideological basis of repression

The ideological basis of Stalin's repressions was formed during the civil war. Stalin himself formulated a new approach at the plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in July 1928.

It is impossible to imagine that socialist forms will develop, displacing the enemies of the working class, and the enemies will retreat silently, making way for our advancement, that then we will again move forward, and they will retreat back again, and then “unexpectedly” everyone without exception social groups, both kulaks and the poor, both workers and capitalists, will find themselves “suddenly,” “imperceptibly,” without struggle or unrest, in a socialist society.

It has not happened and will not happen that moribund classes voluntarily surrendered their positions without trying to organize resistance. It has not happened and will not happen that the advancement of the working class towards socialism in a class society could do without struggle and unrest. On the contrary, progress towards socialism cannot but lead to resistance from the exploiting elements to this advancement, and the resistance of the exploiters cannot but lead to an inevitable intensification of the class struggle.

Dispossession

During the violent collectivization agriculture carried out in the USSR in 1928-1932, one of the directions of state policy was the suppression of anti-Soviet protests by peasants and the associated “liquidation of the kulaks as a class” - “dekulakization”, which involved the forced and extrajudicial deprivation of wealthy peasants using hired labor, of all means of production, land and civil rights, and eviction to remote areas of the country. Thus, the state destroyed the main social group rural population, capable of organizing and materially supporting resistance to the ongoing measures.

The fight against sabotage

Solving the problem of accelerated industrialization required not only the investment of huge funds, but also the creation of numerous technical personnel. The bulk of the workers, however, were yesterday's illiterate peasants who did not have sufficient qualifications to work with complex equipment. The Soviet state also depended heavily on the technical intelligentsia inherited from tsarist times. These specialists were often quite skeptical of communist slogans.

The Communist Party, which grew up in conditions of civil war, perceived all the disruptions that arose during industrialization as deliberate sabotage, which resulted in a campaign against so-called “sabotage.”

Repression of foreigners and ethnic minorities

On March 9, 1936, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks issued a resolution “On measures to protect the USSR from the penetration of espionage, terrorist and sabotage elements.” In accordance with it, the entry of political emigrants into the country was complicated and a commission was created to “cleanse” international organizations on the territory of the USSR.

Mass terror

On July 30, 1937, NKVD Order No. 00447 “On the operation to repress former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements” was adopted.

Stalin's repressions:
What was it?

On the Day of Remembrance of Victims of Political Repression

In this material we have collected the memories of eyewitnesses, fragments from official documents, figures and facts provided by researchers in order to provide answers to questions that haunt our society again and again. Russian state was never able to give clear answers to these questions, so until now, everyone is forced to look for answers on their own.

Who was affected by the repression?

Representatives of the most different groups population. The most famous names are artists, Soviet leaders and military leaders. About peasants and workers, often only names are known from execution lists and camp archives. They did not write memoirs, tried not to remember the camp past unnecessarily, and their relatives often abandoned them. The presence of a convicted relative often meant the end of a career or education, so the children of arrested workers and dispossessed peasants might not know the truth about what happened to their parents.

When we heard about another arrest, we never asked, “Why was he taken?”, but there were few like us. People distraught with fear asked each other this question for pure self-comfort: people are taken for something, which means they won’t take me, because there’s nothing! They became sophisticated, coming up with reasons and justifications for each arrest - “She really is a smuggler,” “He allowed himself to do this,” “I myself heard him say...” And again: “You should have expected this - he has such terrible character”, “It always seemed to me that something was wrong with him”, “This is a complete stranger.” That’s why the question: “Why was he taken?” – became forbidden for us. It's time to understand that people are taken for nothing.

- Nadezhda Mandelstam , writer and wife of Osip Mandelstam

From the very beginning of terror to this day, attempts have not ceased to present it as a fight against “sabotage”, enemies of the fatherland, limiting the composition of the victims to certain classes hostile to the state - kulaks, bourgeois, priests. The victims of terror were depersonalized and turned into “contingents” (Poles, spies, saboteurs, counter-revolutionary elements). However, the political terror was total in nature, and its victims were representatives of all groups of the population of the USSR: the “cause of engineers”, the “cause of doctors”, persecution of scientists and entire directions in science, personnel purges in the army before and after the war, deportations of entire peoples.

Poet Osip Mandelstam

He died during transit; the place of death is not known for certain.

Directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold

Marshals of the Soviet Union

Tukhachevsky (shot), Voroshilov, Egorov (shot), Budyony, Blucher (died in Lefortovo prison).

How many people were affected?

According to the estimates of the Memorial Society, there were 4.5-4.8 million people convicted for political reasons, and 1.1 million people were shot.

Estimates of the number of victims of repression vary and depend on the calculation method. If we take into account only those convicted on political charges, then according to an analysis of statistics from the regional departments of the KGB of the USSR, carried out in 1988, the bodies of the Cheka-GPU-OGPU-NKVD-NKGB-MGB arrested 4,308,487 people, of which 835,194 were shot. According to the same data, about 1.76 million people died in the camps. According to the estimates of the Memorial Society, there were more people convicted for political reasons - 4.5-4.8 million people, of which 1.1 million people were shot.

The victims of Stalin's repressions were representatives of some peoples who were subjected to forced deportation (Germans, Poles, Finns, Karachais, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars and others). This is about 6 million people. Every fifth person did not live to see the end of the journey - about 1.2 million people died during the difficult conditions of deportation. During the dispossession, about 4 million peasants suffered, of which at least 600 thousand died in exile.

In total, about 39 million people suffered as a result of Stalin's policies. The number of victims of repression includes those who died in the camps from disease and harsh working conditions, those deprived of their money, victims of hunger, victims of unjustifiably cruel decrees “on absenteeism” and “on three ears of corn” and other groups of the population who received excessively harsh punishment for minor offenses due to repressive the nature of the legislation and the consequences of that time.

Why was this necessary?

The worst thing is not that you are suddenly taken away from a warm, well-established life like this overnight, not Kolyma and Magadan, and hard labor. At first, the person desperately hopes for a misunderstanding, for a mistake by the investigators, then painfully waits for them to call him, apologize, and let him go home to his children and husband. And then the victim no longer hopes, no longer painfully searches for an answer to the question of who needs all this, then there is a primitive struggle for life. The worst thing is the senselessness of what is happening... Does anyone know what this was for?

Evgenia Ginzburg,

writer and journalist

In July 1928, speaking at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Joseph Stalin described the need to fight “alien elements” as follows: “As we move forward, the resistance of capitalist elements will increase, the class struggle will intensify, and Soviet power, forces which will increase more and more, will pursue a policy of isolating these elements, a policy of disintegrating the enemies of the working class, and finally, a policy of suppressing the resistance of the exploiters, creating a basis for the further advancement of the working class and the bulk of the peasantry.”

In 1937, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N. Yezhov published order No. 00447, in accordance with which a large-scale campaign to destroy “anti-Soviet elements” began. They were recognized as the culprits of all the failures of the Soviet leadership: “Anti-Soviet elements are the main instigators of all kinds of anti-Soviet and sabotage crimes, both on collective and state farms, and in transport, and in some areas of industry. The state security agencies are faced with the task of defeating this entire gang of anti-Soviet elements in the most merciless manner and protecting the working people. Soviet people from their counter-revolutionary machinations and, finally, once and for all to put an end to their vile subversive work against the foundations of the Soviet state. In accordance with this, I order - from August 5, 1937, in all republics, territories and regions, to begin an operation to repress former kulaks, active anti-Soviet elements and criminals.” This document marks the beginning of an era of large-scale political repression, which later became known as the “Great Terror.”

Stalin and other members of the Politburo (V. Molotov, L. Kaganovich, K. Voroshilov) personally compiled and signed execution lists - pre-trial circulars listing the number or names of victims to be convicted by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court with a predetermined punishment. According to researchers, the death sentences of at least 44.5 thousand people bear Stalin’s personal signatures and resolutions.

The myth of the effective manager Stalin

Still in the media and even in textbooks one can find justification for political terror in the USSR by the need to carry out industrialization in short time. Since the release of the decree obliging those sentenced to more than 3 years to serve their sentences in forced labor camps, prisoners have been actively involved in the construction of various infrastructure facilities. In 1930, the Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps of the OGPU (GULAG) was created and huge flows of prisoners were sent to key construction sites. During the existence of this system, from 15 to 18 million people passed through it.

During the 1930-1950s, GULAG prisoners carried out the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal, the Moscow Canal. Prisoners built the Uglich, Rybinsk, Kuibyshev and other hydroelectric power stations, erected metallurgical plants, objects of the Soviet nuclear program, the most extensive railways and freeways. Dozens of Soviet cities were built by Gulag prisoners (Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Dudinka, Norilsk, Vorkuta, Novokuibyshevsk and many others).

Beria himself characterized the efficiency of prisoners’ labor as low: “The existing food standard in the Gulag of 2000 calories is designed for a person sitting in prison and not working. In practice, even this reduced standard is supplied by supplying organizations only by 65-70%. Therefore, a significant percentage of the camp workforce falls into the categories of weak and useless people in production. In general, labor utilization is no higher than 60-65 percent.”

To the question “is Stalin necessary?” we can give only one answer - a firm “no”. Even without taking into account the tragic consequences of hunger, repression and terror, even considering only economic costs and benefits - and even making all possible assumptions in favor of Stalin - we get results that clearly indicate that Stalin's economic policies did not lead to positive results. Forced redistribution significantly worsened productivity and social welfare.

- Sergey Guriev , economist

The economic efficiency of Stalinist industrialization at the hands of prisoners is also rated extremely low by modern economists. Sergei Guriev gives the following figures: by the end of the 30s, productivity in agriculture reached only the pre-revolutionary level, and in industry it turned out to be one and a half times lower than in 1928. Industrialization led to huge losses in welfare (minus 24%).

Brave New World

Stalinism is not only a system of repression, it is also the moral degradation of society. The Stalinist system made tens of millions of slaves - it broke people morally. One of the most terrible texts I have read in my life is the tortured “confessions” of the great biologist Academician Nikolai Vavilov. Only a few can endure torture. But many – tens of millions! – were broken and became moral monsters for fear of being personally repressed.

- Alexey Yablokov , Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Philosopher and historian of totalitarianism Hannah Arendt explains: in order to turn Lenin's revolutionary dictatorship into a completely totalitarian rule, Stalin had to artificially create an atomized society. To achieve this, an atmosphere of fear was created in the USSR and denunciation was encouraged. Totalitarianism did not destroy real “enemies,” but imaginary ones, and this is its terrible difference from an ordinary dictatorship. None of the destroyed sections of society were hostile to the regime and probably would not become hostile in the foreseeable future.

In order to destroy all social and family ties, repressions were carried out in such a way as to threaten the same fate to the accused and everyone in the most ordinary relations with him, from casual acquaintances to closest friends and relatives. This policy penetrated deeply into Soviet society, where people, out of selfish interests or fearing for their lives, betrayed neighbors, friends, even members of their own families. In their quest for self-preservation, masses of people abandoned their own interests and became, on the one hand, a victim of power, and on the other, its collective embodiment.

The consequence of the simple and ingenious device of "guilt for association with the enemy" is that, as soon as a person is accused, his former friends immediately turn into his worst enemies: To save their own skin, they rush out with unsolicited information and incrimination, supplying non-existent evidence against the accused. Ultimately, it was by developing this technique to its latest and most fantastic extremes that the Bolshevik rulers succeeded in creating an atomized and disunited society, the likes of which we have never seen before, and whose events and catastrophes would hardly have occurred in such a pure form without it.

- Hannah Arendt, philosopher

The deep disunity of Soviet society and the lack of civil institutions were inherited and new Russia, have become one of the fundamental problems hindering the creation of democracy and civil peace in our country.

How the state and society fought the legacy of Stalinism

To date, Russia has survived “two and a half attempts at de-Stalinization.” The first and largest was launched by N. Khrushchev. It began with a report at the 20th Congress of the CPSU:

“They were arrested without the prosecutor’s sanction... What other sanction could there be when Stalin allowed everything. He was the chief prosecutor in these matters. Stalin gave not only permission, but also instructions for arrests on his own initiative. Stalin was a very suspicious man, with morbid suspicion, as we became convinced of while working with him. He could look at a person and say: “something is wrong with your eyes today,” or: “why do you often turn away today, don’t look straight into the eyes.” Morbid suspicion led him to sweeping mistrust. Everywhere and everywhere he saw “enemies”, “double-dealers”, “spies”. Having unlimited power, he allowed cruel arbitrariness and suppressed people morally and physically. When Stalin said that so-and-so should be arrested, one had to take it on faith that he was an “enemy of the people.” And the Beria gang, which ruled the state security agencies, went out of its way to prove the guilt of the arrested persons and the correctness of the materials they fabricated. What evidence was used? Confessions of those arrested. And the investigators extracted these “confessions.”

As a result of the fight against the cult of personality, sentences were revised, more than 88 thousand prisoners were rehabilitated. However, the “thaw” era that followed these events turned out to be very short-lived. Soon many dissidents who disagreed with the policies of the Soviet leadership would become victims of political persecution.

The second wave of de-Stalinization occurred in the late 80s and early 90s. Only then did society become aware of at least approximate figures characterizing the scale of Stalin’s terror. At this time, the sentences passed in the 30s and 40s were also revised. In most cases, the convicts were rehabilitated. Half a century later, the dispossessed peasants were posthumously rehabilitated.

A timid attempt at a new de-Stalinization was made during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev. However, it did not bring significant results. Rosarkhiv, on the instructions of the president, posted on its website documents about 20 thousand Poles executed by the NKVD near Katyn.

Programs to preserve the memory of victims are being phased out due to lack of funding.

Mass repressions in the USSR were carried out in the period 1927 - 1953. These repressions are directly associated with the name of Joseph Stalin, who led the country during these years. Social and political persecution in the USSR began after the completion of last stage civil war. These phenomena began to gain momentum in the second half of the 30s and did not slow down during the Second World War, as well as after its end. Today we will talk about what the social and political repressions of the Soviet Union were, consider what phenomena underlie those events, and what consequences this led to.

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

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Reasons for repression:

• Forcing the population to work on a non-economic basis. There was a lot of work to be done in the country, but there was not enough money for everything. The ideology shaped new thinking and perceptions, and was also supposed to motivate people to work for virtually nothing.
• Strengthening personal power. The new ideology needed an idol, a person who was unquestioningly trusted. After Lenin's assassination this post was vacant. Stalin had to take this place.
• Strengthening the exhaustion of a totalitarian society.

If you try to find the beginning of repression in the union, then Starting point 1927 should definitely serve. This year was marked by the fact that massacres of so-called pests, as well as saboteurs, began to take place in the country. The motive for these events should be sought in the relations between the USSR and Great Britain. Thus, at the beginning of 1927, the Soviet Union became involved in a major international scandal, when the country was openly accused of trying to transfer the seat of the Soviet revolution to London. In response to these events, Great Britain broke off all relations with the USSR, both political and economic. Domestically, this step was presented as preparation by London for a new wave of intervention. At one of the party meetings, Stalin declared that the country “needs to destroy all remnants of imperialism and all supporters of the White Guard movement.” Stalin had an excellent reason for this on June 7, 1927. On this day, the political representative of the USSR, Voikov, was killed in Poland.

As a result, terror began. For example, on the night of June 10, 20 people who were in contact with the empire were shot. These were representatives of ancient noble families. In total, in June 27, more than 9 thousand people were arrested, accused of high treason, complicity with imperialism and other things that sound menacing, but are very difficult to prove. Most of those arrested were sent to prison.

Pest Control

After this, a number of major cases began in the USSR, which were aimed at combating sabotage and sabotage. The wave of these repressions was based on the fact that in most large companies that operated inside the Soviet Union, leadership positions occupied by immigrants from imperial Russia. Of course, these people for the most part did not feel sympathy for the new government. Therefore, the Soviet regime was looking for pretexts on which this intelligentsia could be removed from leadership positions and, if possible, destroyed. The problem was that this required significant and legal grounds. Such grounds were found in a number of trials that swept across the Soviet Union in the 1920s.

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

• Shakhty case. In 1928, repressions in the USSR affected miners from Donbass. This case was turned into a show trial. The entire leadership of Donbass, as well as 53 engineers, were accused of espionage activities with an attempt to sabotage the new state. As a result of the trial, 3 people were shot, 4 were acquitted, the rest received prison sentences from 1 to 10 years. This was a precedent - society enthusiastically accepted the repressions against the enemies of the people... In 2000, the Russian prosecutor's office rehabilitated all participants in the Shakhty case, due to the absence of corpus delicti.
• Pulkovo case. In June 1936, a major solar eclipse was supposed to be visible on the territory of the USSR. The Pulkovo Observatory appealed to the world community to attract personnel to study this phenomenon, as well as to obtain the necessary foreign equipment. As a result, the organization was accused of espionage ties. The number of victims is classified.
• The case of the industrial party. Those accused in this case were those whom the Soviet authorities called bourgeois. This process took place in 1930. The defendants were accused of trying to disrupt industrialization in the country.
• The case of the peasant party. The Socialist Revolutionary organization is widely known under the name of the Chayanov and Kondratiev group. In 1930, representatives of this organization were accused of attempting to disrupt industrialization and interfering in agricultural affairs.
• Union Bureau. The case of the union bureau was opened in 1931. The defendants were representatives of the Mensheviks. They were accused of undermining the creation and implementation economic activity within the country, as well as in relations with foreign intelligence.

At this moment, a massive ideological struggle was taking place in the USSR. The new regime tried its best to explain its position to the population, as well as justify its actions. But Stalin understood that ideology alone could not restore order in the country and could not allow him to retain power. Therefore, along with ideology, repression began in the USSR. Above we have already given some examples of cases from which repression began. These cases have always caused big questions, and today, when documents on many of them have been declassified, it becomes absolutely clear that most of the accusations were unfounded. It is no coincidence that the Russian prosecutor's office, having examined the documents of the Shakhty case, rehabilitated all participants in the process. And this despite the fact that in 1928, no one from the country’s party leadership had any idea about the innocence of these people. Why did this happen? This was due to the fact that, under the guise of repression, as a rule, everyone who did not agree with the new regime was destroyed.

The events of the 20s were just the beginning; the main events were ahead.

Socio-political meaning of mass repressions

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

Party composition and governing bodies in repression

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

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

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

Mass repressions in the USSR

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

Political repression, party purge

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

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

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

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

Repression in the army

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

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

Increased repression

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Results of repression

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

Monument to the victims of Stalin's repressions .

Moscow. Lyubyanskaya Square. The stone for the monument was taken from the territory of the Solovetsky special purpose camp. Established October 30, 1990

Repression is a punitive measure of punishment by government agencies in order to protect the state system and public order. Often repressions are carried out for political reasons against those who threaten society with their actions, speeches, and publications in the media.

During the reign of Stalin, mass repressions were carried out

(late 1920s to early 1950s)

Repression was seen as necessary measure in the interests of the people and the construction of socialism in the USSR. This was noted in « Short course history of the CPSU (b)", which was republished in 1938-1952.

Goals:

Destruction of opponents and their supporters

Intimidation of the population

Shift responsibility for political failures to “enemies of the people”

Establishment of the autocratic rule of Stalin

The use of free prison labor in the construction of production facilities during the period of accelerated industrialization

There were repressions a consequence of the fight against the opposition, which began already in December 1917.

July 1918 - the end of the left Socialist Revolutionary bloc was put to an end, establishment of a one-party system.

September 1918 - implementation of the policy of “war communism”, the beginning of the “Red Terror”, tightening of the regime.

1921 - creation of revolutionary tribunals ® Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal, VChK ® NKVD.

Creation of State Political Administration ( GPU). Chairman - F.E. Dzerzhinsky. November 1923 - GPU ® United GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Prev. - F.E. Dzerzhinsky, since 1926 - V.R. Menzhinsky.

August 1922 XIIRCP(b) conference- all anti-Bolshevik movements are recognized as anti-Soviet,” that is, anti-state, and therefore subject to destruction.

1922 - Resolution of the GPU on the expulsion from the country of a number of prominent scientists, writers, and specialists National economy. Berdyaev, Rozanov, Frank, Pitirim Sorokin - "philosophical ship"

Main events

1st period: 1920s

Competitors of Stalin I.V..(since 1922 - General Secretary)

Trotsky L.D..- People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs, Chairman of the RVS

Zinoviev G.E.– Head of the Leningrad party organization, chairman of the Comintern since 1919.

Kamenev L.B. - head of the Moscow party organization

Bukharin N.I.- editor of the newspaper Pravda, main party ideologist after the death of Lenin V.I.

All of them are members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

2nd period: 1930s

3rd period: post-war years

Far from it full list political processes, as a result of which many prominent scientists, political and military figures of the country were convicted.

Results of the policy of repression:

Conviction for political reasons, charges of “sabotage, espionage. Connections with foreign intelligence2 more allegedly. Human.

For many years, during the reign of I.V. Stalin, a strict totalitarian regime was established, the Constitution was violated, lives were violated, and the freedoms and rights of the people were deprived.

The emergence of fear in society, the fear of expressing one’s opinion.

Strengthening the autocratic rule of Stalin I.V.

The use of large free labor in the construction of industrial facilities, etc. Thus, the White Sea-Baltic Canal was built by GULAG prisoners ( Government controlled camps) in 1933

Stalin's repressions are one of the darkest and most terrible pages of Soviet history.

Rehabilitation

Rehabilitation – this is release, dismissal of charges, restoration of an honest name

The rehabilitation process began already at the end of the 1930s, when Beria became the head of the NKVD instead of Yezhov. But this was a small number of people.

1953 - Beria, having come to power, conducts a large-scale amnesty. But the majority of the approximately 1 million 200 thousand people are convicted felons.

The next mass amnesty took place in 1954-1955. Approximately 88,200 thousand people were released - citizens convicted of collaborating with the occupiers during the Great Patriotic War.

Rehabilitation took place in 1954-1961 and 1962-1983.

Under Gorbachev M.S. rehabilitation resumed in the 1980s, with more than 844,700 people rehabilitated.

On October 18, 1991, the Law “ On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression" Until 2004, over 630 thousand people were rehabilitated. Some repressed persons (for example, many leaders of the NKVD, persons involved in terrorism and committed non-political criminal offenses) were recognized as not subject to rehabilitation - in total, over 970 thousand applications for rehabilitation were considered.

September 9, 2009 novel Alexander Solzhenitsyn “The Gulag Archipelago” made mandatory school curriculum in literature for high school students.

Monuments to the victims of Stalin's repressions