Stages of Stalin's repressions. Stalinist repressions: what was it? Repression in the army

IN THE USSR. I have tried to answer the nine most common questions about political repression.

1. What is political repression?

In the history of different countries, there have been periods when the state authorities, for some reason - pragmatic or ideological - began to perceive part of their population either as direct enemies, or as superfluous, "unnecessary" people. The principle of selection could be different - according to ethnic origin, according to religious views, according to material condition, according to political views, according to the level of education - but the result was the same: these "unnecessary" people were either physically destroyed without trial or investigation, or were subjected to criminal prosecution, or became victims of administrative restrictions (expelled from the country, sent to exile within the country, deprived of civil rights, and so on). That is, people suffered not for some personal fault, but simply because they were unlucky, simply because they ended up in a certain place at some time.

Political repressions were not only in Russia, but in Russia - not only under Soviet rule. However, remembering the victims of political repressions, we first of all think about those who suffered in 1917-1953, because they make up the majority among the total number of Russian repressed.

2. Why, speaking about political repressions, are they limited to the period of 1917-1953? There were no repressions after 1953?

The demonstration on August 25, 1968, also called the "demonstration of the seven", was held by a group of seven Soviet dissidents on Red Square and protested against the introduction of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia. Two of the participants were declared insane and subjected to compulsory treatment.

This period, 1917-1953, is singled out because it accounted for the vast majority of repressions. After 1953, repressions also took place, but on a much smaller scale, and most importantly, they mainly concerned people who, to one degree or another, opposed the Soviet political system. We are talking about dissidents who received prison terms or suffered from punitive psychiatry. They knew what they were getting into, they were not random victims - which, of course, does not justify what the authorities did to them.

3. Victims of Soviet political repression - who are they?

They were very different people, different in social origin, beliefs, worldview.

Sergei Korolev, scientist

Some of them are the so-called former”, that is, nobles, army or police officers, university professors, judges, merchants and industrialists, clergy. That is, those whom the communists who came to power in 1917 considered interested in the restoration of the former order and therefore suspected them of subversive activities.

Also, a huge proportion among the victims of political repression were " dispossessed“peasants, for the most part, strong owners who did not want to go to the collective farms (some, however, were not saved by joining the collective farm).

Many victims of repression were classified as " pests". This was the name of specialists in production - engineers, technicians, workers, who were credited with the intent to inflict logistical or economic damage on the country. Sometimes this happened after some real production failures, accidents (in which it was necessary to find the perpetrators), and sometimes it was only about hypothetical troubles that, according to prosecutors, could happen if the enemies had not been exposed in time.

The other part is communists and members of other revolutionary parties who joined the Communists after October 1917: Social Democrats, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Anarchists, Bundists, and so on. These people, who actively fit into the new reality and participate in the construction of Soviet power, at a certain stage turned out to be superfluous due to the intra-party struggle, which in the CPSU (b), and later in the CPSU, never stopped - at first openly, later - hidden. They are also communists who were hit because of their personal qualities: excessive ideology, insufficient servility ...

Sergeev Ivan Ivanovich Before his arrest, he worked as a watchman at the Chernivtsi collective farm "Iskra"

In the late 1930s, many were repressed military, starting with the highest command staff and ending with junior officers. They were suspected of potential participants in conspiracies against Stalin.

It is worth mentioning separately employees of the GPU-NKVD-NKGB, some of which were also repressed in the 30s during the "fight against excesses." "Excesses on the ground" - a concept that Stalin introduced into circulation, implying the excessive enthusiasm of the employees of the punitive bodies. It is clear that these "excesses" naturally followed from the general state policy, and therefore, in the mouth of Stalin, the words about excesses sound very cynical. By the way, almost the entire top of the NKVD, which carried out repressions in 1937-1938, was soon repressed and shot.

Naturally, there were many repressed for their faith(and not only Orthodox). This is the clergy, and monasticism, and active laity in the parishes, and just people who do not hide their faith. Although formally the Soviet government did not prohibit religion and the Soviet constitution of 1936 guaranteed freedom of conscience to citizens, in fact the open confession of faith could end sadly for a person.

Rozhkova Vera. Before her arrest, she worked at the Institute. Bauman. Was a secret nun

Not only certain people and certain classes were subjected to repressions, but also individual peoples- Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Chechens and Ingush, Germans. It happened during the Great Patriotic War. There were two reasons. Firstly, they were seen as potential traitors who could go over to the side of the Germans during the retreat of our troops. Secondly, when the German troops occupied the Crimea, the Caucasus and a number of other territories, some of the peoples living there really cooperated with them. Naturally, not all representatives of these peoples collaborated with the Germans, not to mention those of them who fought in the ranks of the Red Army - however, subsequently all of them, including women, children and the elderly, were declared traitors and sent into exile (where, by virtue of inhuman conditions, many died either on the way or on the spot).

Olga Berggolts, poetess, future “muse of besieged Leningrad”

And among the repressed there were many townsfolk, who seemed to have a completely safe social origin, but were arrested either because of a denunciation, or simply because of the distribution order (there were also plans to identify "enemies of the people" from above). If some major party functionary was arrested, then quite often his subordinates were also taken, right down to the lowest positions, such as a personal driver or a housekeeper.

4. Who cannot be considered a victim of political repression?

General Vlasov inspects ROA soldiers

Not all those who suffered in 1917-1953 (and later, until the end of Soviet power) can be called victims of political repression.

In addition to the “political”, people were also imprisoned in prisons and camps under ordinary criminal articles (theft, fraud, robbery, murder, and so on).

Also, one cannot consider as victims of political repression those who committed obvious treason - for example, "Vlasovites" and "policemen", that is, those who went to the service of the German invaders during the Great Patriotic War. Regardless of the moral side of the matter, it was their conscious choice, they entered into a struggle with the state, and the state, accordingly, fought with them.

The same applies to various kinds of rebel movements - Basmachi, Bandera, "forest brothers", Caucasian abreks, and so on. One can discuss their rightness and wrongness, but the victims of political repressions are only those who did not take the path of war with the USSR, who simply lived an ordinary life and suffered regardless of their actions.

5. How were the repressions legally formalized?

Information about the execution of the death sentence of the NKVD troika against the Russian scientist and theologian Pavel Florensky. Reproduction ITAR-TASS

There were several options. Firstly, some of the repressed were shot or imprisoned after the institution of a criminal case, investigation and trial. Basically, they were charged under article 58 of the Criminal Code of the USSR (this article included many points, from treason to the motherland to anti-Soviet agitation). At the same time, in the 1920s and even in the early 1930s, all legal formalities were often observed - an investigation was carried out, then there was a trial with debates by the defense and prosecution - just the verdict was a foregone conclusion. In the 1930s, especially since 1937, the judicial procedure turned into a fiction, since torture and other illegal methods of pressure were used during the investigation. That is why at the trial the accused massively admitted their guilt.

Secondly, starting from 1937, along with the usual court proceedings, a simplified procedure began to operate, when there were no judicial debates at all, the presence of the accused was not required, and sentences were passed by the so-called Special Conference, in other words, the “troika”, literally for 10-15 minutes.

Thirdly, some of the victims were repressed administratively, without investigation or trial at all - the same “dispossessed”, the same exiled peoples. The same often applied to family members of those convicted under Article 58. The official abbreviation CHSIR (a member of the family of a traitor to the motherland) was in use. At the same time, no personal charges were brought against specific people, and their exile was motivated by political expediency.

But besides, sometimes the repressions did not have any legal formalization at all, in fact they were lynchings - starting from the execution in 1917 of a demonstration in defense of Constituent Assembly and ending with the events of 1962 in Novocherkassk, where a workers' demonstration protesting against rising food prices was shot down.

6. How many people were repressed?

Photo by Vladimir Eshtokin

This is a difficult question to which historians still do not have an exact answer. The numbers are very different - from 1 to 60 million. There are two problems here - firstly, the inaccessibility of many archives, and secondly, the discrepancy in the methods of calculation. After all, even based on open archival data, one can draw different conclusions. Archival data is not only folders with criminal cases against specific people, but also, for example, departmental reporting on food supplies for camps and prisons, statistics of births and deaths, records in cemetery offices about burials, and so on and so forth. Historians try to take into account as many different sources as possible, but the data sometimes diverge from each other. The reasons are different - and accounting errors, and deliberate juggling, and the loss of many important documents.

It is also a very controversial issue - how many people were not just repressed, but exactly what was physically destroyed, did not return home? How to count? Only sentenced to death? Or plus those who died in custody? If we count the dead, then we need to deal with the causes of death: they could be caused by unbearable conditions (hunger, cold, beatings, overwork), or they could be natural (death from old age, death from chronic diseases that began long before the arrest). In certificates of death (which were not even always kept in a criminal case), “acute heart failure” most often appeared, but in fact it could be anything.

In addition, although any historian must be impartial, as a scientist should be, in reality, each researcher has his own worldview and political preferences, and therefore the historian may consider some data more reliable, and some less. Complete objectivity is an ideal to be strived for, but which has not yet been achieved by any historian. Therefore, when faced with any specific estimates, one should be careful. What if the author voluntarily or involuntarily overestimates or underestimates the numbers?

But in order to understand the scale of repression, it is enough to give an example of the discrepancy in numbers. According to church historians, in 1937-38 more than 130 thousand clergy. According to historians committed to the communist ideology, in 1937-38 the number of arrested clergymen is much less - only about 47 thousand. Let's not argue about who is more right. Let's do a thought experiment: imagine that now, in our time, 47,000 railway workers are arrested in Russia during the year. What will happen to our transport system? And if 47,000 doctors are arrested in a year, will domestic medicine survive at all? What if 47,000 priests are arrested? However, we don't even have that many now. In general, even if we focus on the minimum estimates, it is easy to see that the repressions have become a social catastrophe.

And for their moral assessment, the specific numbers of victims are completely unimportant. Whether it's a million or a hundred million or a hundred thousand, it's still a tragedy, it's still a crime.

7. What is rehabilitation?

The vast majority of victims of political repression were subsequently rehabilitated.

Rehabilitation is an official recognition by the state that this person was convicted unjustly, that he is innocent of the charges against him and therefore is not considered convicted and gets rid of the restrictions that people who have been released from prison may be subject to (for example, the right to be elected a deputy, the right to work in law enforcement organs, etc.).

Many believe that the rehabilitation of the victims of political repression began only in 1956, after the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, N. S. Khrushchev, at the 20th Party Congress, exposed Stalin's personality cult. In fact, this is not so - the first wave of rehabilitation took place in 1939, after the country's leadership condemned the rampant repressions of 1937-38 (which were called "excesses on the ground"). This, by the way, is an important point, because in this way the existence of political repressions in the country was recognized in general. Recognized even by those who launched these repressions. Therefore, the assertion of modern Stalinists that repression is a myth looks simply ridiculous. What about the myth, even if your idol Stalin recognized them?

However, few people were rehabilitated in 1939-41. And mass rehabilitation began in 1953 after the death of Stalin, its peak was in 1955-1962. Then, until the second half of the 1980s, there were few rehabilitations, but after the perestroika announced in 1985, their number increased dramatically. Separate acts of rehabilitation took place already in the post-Soviet era, in the 1990s (since the Russian Federation is legally the successor of the USSR, it has the right to rehabilitate those who were unjustly convicted before 1991).

But, shot in Yekaterinburg in 1918, she was officially rehabilitated only in 2008. Prior to that, the Prosecutor General's Office resisted rehabilitation on the grounds that the murder of the royal family had no legal formalization and became the arbitrariness of local authorities. But Supreme Court In 2008, the Russian Federation considered that although there was no court decision, the royal family was shot by decision of the local authorities, which have administrative powers and therefore are part of the state machine - and repression is a measure of coercion by the state.

By the way, there are people who undoubtedly became victims of political repressions, who did not commit what they were formally accused of - but there is no decision on the rehabilitation of which and, apparently, never will be. We are talking about those who, before falling under the rink of repression, were themselves the drivers of this rink. For example, the "iron Commissar" Nikolai Yezhov. Well, what kind of innocent victim is he? Or the same Lavrenty Beria. Of course, his execution was unjust, of course, he was not any English and French spy, as he was hastily attributed - but his rehabilitation would be a demonstrative justification for political terror.

The rehabilitation of victims of political repression did not always happen “automatically”, sometimes these people or their relatives had to be persistent, write letters to state bodies for years.

8. What is being said about political repressions now?

Photo by Vladimir Eshtokin

IN modern Russia there is no consensus on this topic. Moreover, in relation to it, the polarization of society is manifested. The memory of the repressions is used by various political and ideological forces for their own political interests, but ordinary people, not politicians, can perceive it in very different ways.

Some people are convinced that political repression is a shameful page national history that this is a monstrous crime against humanity, and therefore we must always remember the repressed. Sometimes this position is primitivized, all victims of repression are declared equally sinless righteous, and the blame for them is laid not only on the Soviet government, but also on the modern Russian one as the legal successor of the Soviet one. Any attempts to figure out how many were actually repressed are a priori declared to justify Stalinism and are condemned from a moral standpoint.

Others question the very fact of the repressions, claim that all these “so-called victims” are really guilty of the crimes attributed to them, they really harmed, blew up, plotted terrorist attacks, and so on. This extremely naive position is refuted, if only by the fact that the fact of the existence of repressions was recognized even under Stalin - then it was called "excesses" and at the end of the 30s, almost the entire leadership of the NKVD was condemned for these "excesses". The moral inferiority of such views is just as obvious: people are so eager to wishful thinking that they are ready, without any evidence in their hands, to slander millions of victims.

Still others admit that there were repressions, they agree that the victims of them were innocent, but they perceive all this quite calmly: they say, it was impossible otherwise. Repression, it seems to them, was necessary for the industrialization of the country, for the creation of a combat-ready army. Without repression, it would not have been possible to win the Great Patriotic War. Such a pragmatic position, regardless of how it corresponds to historical facts, is also morally flawed: the state is declared the highest value, in comparison with which the life of each individual person is worth nothing, and anyone can and should be destroyed for the sake of higher state interests. Here, by the way, one can draw a parallel with the ancient pagans, who made human sacrifices to their gods, being one hundred percent sure that this would serve the good of the tribe, people, city. Now this seems fanatical to us, but the motivation was exactly the same as that of modern pragmatists.

One can, of course, understand where such motivation comes from. The USSR positioned itself as a society of social justice - and indeed, in many respects, especially in the late Soviet period, there was social justice. Our society is socially much less fair - plus now any injustice instantly becomes known to everyone. Therefore, in search of justice, people turn their eyes to the past - naturally, idealizing that era. This means that they are psychologically trying to justify the dark things that happened then, including repressions. Recognition and condemnation of repressions (especially those declared from above) goes with such people in conjunction with the approval of the current injustices. One can show the naivete of such a position in every possible way, but until social justice is restored, this position will be reproduced again and again.

9. How should Christians perceive political repression?

Icon of the New Martyrs of Russia

Among Orthodox Christians, unfortunately, there is also no unity on this issue. There are believers (including those who are churched, sometimes even in holy orders) who either consider all the repressed guilty and unworthy of pity, or justify their suffering with the benefit of the state. Moreover, sometimes - thank God, not very often! - You can also hear such an opinion that the repressions were a boon for the repressed themselves. After all, what happened to them happened according to God's Providence, and God will not do bad things to a person. This means, such Christians say, that these people had to suffer in order to be cleansed of heavy sins, to be spiritually reborn. Indeed, there are many examples of such a spiritual revival. As the poet Alexander Solodovnikov, who passed the camp, wrote, “The grate is rusty, thank you! // Thank you, bayonet blade! // Such a will could be given // Only for long centuries to me.

In fact, this is a dangerous spiritual substitution. Yes, suffering can sometimes save human soul but it does not at all follow that suffering in itself is good. And even more so, it does not follow that the executioners are righteous. As we know from the Gospel, King Herod, wishing to find and destroy the baby Jesus, ordered to preventively kill all the babies in Bethlehem and the surrounding area. These babies are canonized by the Church as saints, but their murderer Herod is not at all. Sin remains sin, evil remains evil, the criminal remains a criminal even if the long-term consequences of his crime are beautiful. In addition, one case personal experience talk about the benefits of suffering, and quite another - to talk about other people. Only God knows whether this or that trial will turn out for good or for worse for a particular person, and we have no right to judge this. But here is what we can and what we must do - if we consider ourselves Christians! is to keep God's commandments. Where there is not a word about the fact that for the sake of the public good it is possible to kill innocent people.

What are the conclusions?

First and the obvious - we must understand that repression is evil, evil, and social, and personal evil of those who arranged them. There is no justification for this evil - neither pragmatic nor theological.

Second- this is the right attitude towards the victims of repression. They should not be considered ideal in a crowd. They were very different people, both socially, culturally and morally. But their tragedy must be perceived without regard to their individual characteristics and circumstances. All of them were not guilty before the authorities that subjected them to suffering. We do not know which of them is a righteous man, who is a sinner, who is now in heaven, who is in hell. But we must pity them and pray for them. But what exactly should not be done is that it is not necessary to speculate on their memory, defending our own political views in polemics. The repressed should not become for us means.

Third- It is necessary to clearly understand why these repressions became possible in our country. The reason for them is not only the personal sins of those who were at the helm in those years. The main reason is the worldview of the Bolsheviks, based on godlessness and on the denial of all previous traditions - spiritual, cultural, family, and so on. The Bolsheviks wanted to build a paradise on earth, while allowing themselves any means. Only that which serves the cause of the proletariat is moral, they argued. It is not surprising that they were internally ready to kill by the millions. Yes, there have been repressions different countries(including ours) and before the Bolsheviks - but still there were some brakes that limited their scope. Now there are no more brakes - and what happened happened.

Looking at the various horrors of the past, we often say the phrase "this must not happen again." But this Maybe repeat, if we discard moral and spiritual barriers, if we proceed solely from pragmatics and ideology. And it does not matter what color this ideology will be - red, green, black, brown ... It will still end in a lot of blood.

In the 20s and ended 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 Stalinist repressions. More than a million people were convicted under Article 58.

Origin of the term

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

The word terror in translation from Latin is "horror". The method of governing the country, based on instilling fear, has been used by rulers since ancient times. Ivan the Terrible served as a historical example for the Soviet leader. Stalinist terror is in some way more modern version 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. Marx's idea was used by Stalin.

The ideological basis of the repressions that began in the 1920s was formulated in July 1928 in the Short Course on the History of the CPSU. At first, the Stalinist 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 the complete non-observance of the Soviet Constitution.

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

Stalin's repressions were preceded by the "Red Terror", which began during the Civil War. These two political phenomena have many similarities. However, after the end of the Civil War, almost all cases of political crimes were based on the falsification of charges. During the "Red Terror", those who did not agree with the new regime were imprisoned and shot, first of all, there were many of them at the stages of creating a new state.

Case of lyceum students

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

On February 15, over 150 people were arrested. Not all of them were related to the above-named educational institution. Among the convicts were former students of the School of Law and officers of the Life Guards of the Semenovsky 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 arrested were sent into exile. Vladimir Schilder - a former teacher - at that time was 70 years old. He died during the investigation. Nikolai Golitsyn, the last chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire, was sentenced to death.

Shakhty case

The accusations under Article 58 were ridiculous. The man who does not own foreign languages and had never communicated with a citizen of a Western state in his life, they could easily be accused of collusion 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 in the coal industry became victims of the Stalinist terror. This case was called "Shakhtinskoe". The heads of Donbas enterprises were accused of sabotage, sabotage, the creation of an underground counter-revolutionary organization, and assistance to foreign spies.

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

The Great Terror is a term applied to a small period Soviet history. It lasted only two years - from 1937 to 1938. About the victims during this period, the researchers provide more accurate data. 1,548,366 people were arrested. Shot - 681 692. It was a struggle "against the remnants of the capitalist classes."

Causes of the "Great Terror"

In Stalin's time, a doctrine was developed to intensify the class struggle. It was only a formal reason for the destruction of hundreds of people. Among the victims of the Stalinist terror of the 1930s were writers, scientists, military men, and engineers. Why was it necessary to get rid of representatives of the intelligentsia, specialists who could benefit the Soviet state? Historians offer different answers to these questions.

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

Stalin strove for sole power. Any indulgence could lead to a real, not fictional conspiracy. One of the foreign historians compared the Stalinist terror of the 1930s with the Jacobin terror. But if the latest 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 often unrelated people were subjected to arrest and execution.

So, the reason for the repression was the desire for sole, unconditional power. But what was needed was a wording, 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 murderer to be arrested. According to the results of the investigation, again fabricated, Leonid Nikolaev did not act independently, but as a member of an opposition organization. Stalin subsequently used the assassination of Kirov in the fight against political opponents. Zinoviev, Kamenev and all their supporters were arrested.

Trial of officers of the Red Army

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

In 1937, a trial took place over a group of officers of the Red Army. 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 the NKVD officers was a record of negotiations between Kamenev and Bukharin - it was about creating a "right-left" opposition. In early March 1937, with a report that spoke of the need to eliminate the Trotskyists.

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

In addition to the aforementioned politicians, about 70 people were arrested. 52 shot. Among them were those who were directly involved in the repressions of the 1920s. Thus, state security officers and political figures Yakov Agronomist, Alexander Gurevich, Levon Mirzoyan, Vladimir Polonsky, Nikolai Popov and others were shot.

In the "Tukhachevsky case" Lavrenty Beria was involved, but he managed to survive the "purge". In 1941, he took the post of General Commissar of State Security. Beria was already shot after the death of Stalin - in December 1953.

Repressed scientists

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

Scientists who became victims of Stalinist repressions:

• Matthew Bronstein.
• Alexander Witt.
• Hans Gelman.
• Semyon Shubin.
• Evgeny Pereplyokin.
• 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 a 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 as the author claims in the preface. But to anyone who read the story in the 1920s, it became clear that it was based on the version about the murder of Mikhail Frunze.

Somehow Pilnyak's work got into print. But soon it was 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 subjected to Stalinist repressions:

• Viktor Bagrov.
• Julius Berzin.
• Pavel Vasiliev.
• Sergey Klychkov.
• Vladimir Narbut.
• Petr Parfenov.
• Sergei Tretyakov.

It is worth telling about the famous theatrical 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 the NKVD officers killed her.

Meyerhold was interrogated for three weeks, tortured. He signed everything the investigators demanded. 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 the abolition of repression appeared. In Stalin's pre-war times, there were many officers in the camps, who were now needed at large. Together with them, about six hundred thousand people were released from places of deprivation of liberty. But it was a temporary relief. At the end of the forties, a new wave of repressions began. Now the ranks of the "enemies of the people" have been replenished 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.

Original taken from takoe_sky V

"The concept of dictatorship means nothing more than power unrestricted by any laws, absolutely not constrained by any rules, based directly on violence."
V.I. Ulyanov (Lenin). Sobr. Op. T. 41, p. 383

"As we move forward, the class struggle will intensify, and the Soviet government, whose strength will grow more and more, will pursue a policy of isolating these elements." I.V. Dzhugashvili (Stalin). Works, vol. 11, p. 171

Vladimir Putin: “Repressions crushed people without considering nationalities, beliefs, or religions. Entire estates in our country became their victims: Cossacks and priests, ordinary peasants, professors and officers, teachers and workers.
There can be no justification for these crimes.” http://archive.government.ru/docs/10122/

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

Foreword

This question is a subject of constant debate, and in this extremely important historical theme needs to be sorted out. For several months I studied all the possible and available materials on the network, at the end of the article there is an extensive list of them. The picture turned out to be more than sad.

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

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

For ease of reference, this article is divided into several sections.

"Pavlov's Help" - an analysis of the most important myth of the neo-Commies and Stalinists about "less than 1 million people were repressed."
"Average figure" - calculation of the number of victims by years and topics, with the ghost of the corresponding minimum and maximum figures from sources, from which the arithmetic average figure of losses is derived.
"Statistics of total numbers" - statistics on total numbers from the 20 most serious studies found.
"Used materials" - quotes and links in the article.
"Other important related materials" - interesting and useful links and information on the topic, not included in this article or not directly mentioned in it.

I would be grateful for any constructive criticism and additions.

Pavlov's help

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

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

So, according to this Certificate from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR for the years 1921-1953, a total of 799.455 were shot. Excluding the years 1937 and 1938, 117,763 people were shot. 42.139 shot in the years 1941-1945. Those. in the years 1921-1953 (excluding the years 1937-1938 and the years of the war), during the struggle against the White Guards, against the Cossacks, against priests, against kulaks, against peasant uprisings, ... a total of 75,624 people were shot (according to "quite reliable" data). Only in the 37s, under Stalin, did they slightly increase activity in purges of "enemies of the people." And so, according to this information, even in the bloody times of Trotsky and the cruel "Red Terror", it turns out, it was quiet.

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

Let us first pay attention to the data on those convicted for anti-Soviet (counter-revolutionary) propaganda. In 1921-1922, at the height of the fiercest struggle against counter-terrorism and the officially declared "Red Terror", when people were seized only for belonging to the bourgeoisie (bespectacled and white hands), no one was arrested for counter-revolutionary, anti-Soviet propaganda (according to the Help). Openly agitate against the Soviets, speak at rallies against the surplus appraisal and other actions of the Bolsheviks, curse the blasphemous new government from church ambos, and nothing will happen to you. Direct freedom of speech! In 1923, however, 5,322 people were arrested for propaganda, but then again (until 1929) complete freedom of speech for anti-Sovietists, and only starting from 1929 did the Bolsheviks finally begin to “tighten the screws” and persecute counter-revolutionary propaganda. And such freedom and patient perception of anti-Soviet people (according to an honest document, for many years NOT A SINGLE one imprisoned for anti-government propaganda) occurs during the officially declared "Red Terror", when the Bolsheviks closed down all opposition newspapers and parties, imprisoned and shot clergymen for what they said is not what is needed ... As an example of the complete falsity of these data, one can cite a surname index of those shot in the Kuban (75 pages, of those surnames that I read - all were acquitted after Stalin).

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

Now I want to analyze the point of the fascinating Help on the number of executions (VMN - Capital Punishment). In the Certificate for 1921, 9,701 were shot. In 1922, only 1,962 people, and in 1923, in general, only 414 people (12,077 people were shot in 3 years).

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

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

The suppression of the Tambov uprising of 1921-22. If we recall how this was reflected in the surviving documents of that time, then Uborevich reported to Tukhachevsky: "1000 people were taken prisoner, 1000 were shot", then "500 people were taken prisoner, all 500 were shot." And how many of these documents were destroyed? And how many such executions were not reflected in the documents at all?

Note (curious comparison):
According to official figures, 24,422 people were sentenced to death in the peaceful USSR from 1962 to 1989. An average of 2,754 people over 2 years in a very calm, Peaceful time golden stagnation. In 1962, 2,159 people were sentenced to death. Those. in the benevolent times of the "golden stagnation" they were shot, it turns out more than during the cruelest "red terror". According to the Information for 2 years 1922-1923, only 2,376 were shot (almost as many as in 1962 alone).

In the Certificate from the 1st Special Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR on repressions, only those convicts who were officially registered as "contra" are included. Bandits, criminals, violators of labor discipline and public order, of course, were not included in the statistics of this Certificate.
For example, in the USSR in 1924, 1,915,900 people were officially convicted (see: Results of the Decade Soviet power in numbers. 1917-1927. M, 1928. S. 112-113), and according to the Information through the special departments of the Cheka-OGPU, only 12,425 people were convicted this year (and only they can officially be considered as repressed; the rest are just criminals).
Do I need to remind you that in the USSR they tried to declare that we do not have political people, there are only criminals. Trotskyists were sued as wreckers and saboteurs. The rebellious peasants were suppressed as bandits (even the Commission under the RVSR, which led the suppression of peasant uprisings, was officially called the “Commission for Combating Banditry”), etc.

I will give two more facts to the wonderful statistics of the Help.

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

Considering the size of the army at that time 2 million (specialists give the figure 1.645.983 on 1.01.37) and assuming that there were about 1 million passengers, we get approximately that the NKVD special contingent (prisoners) by the beginning of 1937 was about 3 million. Close to our calculated specific number of 2.75 million prisoners was indicated in the certificate of the NKVD provided by the TsUNKhU for the 1937 census. Those. according to another OFFICIAL certificate (and also, of course, true), the actual number of prisoners was 2.3 times higher than the generally accepted one.

And one more, last example from official, truthful information about the number of prisoners.
In a report on the use of prisoner labor in 1939, it is reported that there were 94,773 of them in the UZHDS system at the beginning of the year, and 69,569 at the end of the year. (In principle, everything is fine, it is these data that the researchers simply reprint and make up the total amount of prisoners from them. But the trouble is, another interesting figure is given in the same report) The prisoners worked, as stated in the same report, 135,148,918 people days. Such a combination is impossible, since if 94 thousand people worked every day without days off during the year, then the number of days worked by them would be only 34.310 thousand (94 thousand for 365). If we agree with Solzhenitsyn, who claims that the prisoners were supposed to have three days off per month, then 135,148,918 man-days could be provided by approximately 411 thousand workers (135,148,918 for 329 working days). Those. and here the OFFICIAL distortion of reporting is about 5 times.

Summing up, it can be emphasized once again that the Bolsheviks / Communists far from recorded all their crimes, and what was nevertheless recorded was then repeatedly subjected to purges: Beria destroyed compromising evidence on himself, Khrushchev cleared the archives in his favor, Trotsky, Stalin, Kaganovich also did not they were very fond of keeping “ugly” materials for themselves; similarly, the leaders of the republics, regional committees, city committees, and departments of the NKVD cleaned out the local archives for themselves. ,

And yet, knowing full well about the then practice of executions without trial or investigation, about the numerous purges of the archives, the neo-commies summarize the remnants of the lists found and give the final figure of less than 1 million executed from 1921 to 1953, including those sentenced to the highest degree of criminals. The falsity and cynicism of these statements "beyond good and evil" ...

Average figure

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

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

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

3. Civil War 1917-1923, losses on both sides, soldiers and officers killed and died of wounds - 2.5 million (Polyakov) - 7.5 million (Aleksandrov)
(For reference: even the minimum figures are more than the death toll for the entire First World War - 1.7 million.)

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

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

7. The second artificial famine of 1932-1933 - 6.5 million (Aleksandrov), 7.5 million, 8.1 million (Andreev)

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

9. Those who died in places of detention in the 1930s - 1.8 million (Aleksandrov) - more than 2 million

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

11. Finnish War 1939-1940 - 0.13 million

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

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

14. Famine of 1946-47 - 1 million

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

Used materials.

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

The well-known incident of the summary statistics of the repressed in cases of the State Security Service ("Pavlov's certificate") in terms of the number of executions in 1933 (although this is actually defective statistics from the summary certificates of the State Security Committee deposited in the 8th of the CA FSB), disclosed by Alexei Teplyakov http://corporatelie.livejournal .com/53743.html
It resulted in an underestimation of the number of those shot by at least 6 times. And perhaps more.

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

Stalinist Igor Pykhalov. "What are the scales of the 'Stalinist repressions'?" http://warrax.net/81/stalin.html

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

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

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

The Special Investigation Commission to investigate the atrocities of the Bolsheviks, Commander-in-Chief of the All-Union Socialist Republic of General Denikin, cites the numbers of victims of the Red Terror only for 1918-19. - 1,766,118 Russians, including 28 bishops, 1,215 clergy, 6,775 professors and teachers, 8,800 doctors, 54,650 officers, 260,000 soldiers, 10,500 policemen, 48,650 police agents, 12,950 landowners, 355,250 intellectuals, 19 3.350 workers, 815.000 peasants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9E%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0 %B4%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B8 %D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D0%BF%D0%BE_%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0 %B4%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8E_%D0%B7%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%8F %D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%88%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0 %BE%D0%B2#cite_note-Meingardt-6

Suppression of peasant uprisings 1921-1923

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

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

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

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

Genby. "The Demographic Cost of Communist Rule in Russia" http://genby.livejournal.com/486320.html.

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

Underestimated by 6 times the statistics of executions in 1933, detailed analysis http://corporatelie.livejournal.com/53743.html

Calculation of the number of victims of the communists, Kirill Mikhailovich Alexandrov - Candidate of Historical Sciences, Senior Researcher(major in History of Russia) of the Encyclopedic Department of the Institute of Philological Research of St. Petersburg State University. Author of three books on the history of anti-Stalinist resistance during World War II and more than 250 publications on national history of the 19th-20th centuries. http://www.white-guard.ru/go.php?n=4&id=82

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

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

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

Red terror - documents.

On May 14, 1921, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) supported the expansion of the rights of the Cheka in relation to the application of capital punishment (CMN).

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

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

In March 1922, in a speech at the 11th Congress of the RCP(b), Lenin declared: "Our revolutionary courts must be shot for public proof of Menshevism, otherwise these are not our courts."

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

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

March 19, 1922 Lenin, in a letter addressed to members of the Politburo, explains the need right now, using a terrible famine, to launch an active campaign to expropriate church property and inflict a "mortal blow on the enemy" - the clergy and the bourgeoisie: The greater the number of representatives of the reactionary clergy and the reactionary bourgeoisie will succeed we shoot on this occasion, so much the better: it is necessary right now to teach this public a lesson so that for several decades they will not even dare to think about any resistance<...>» RTSKHIDNI, 2/1/22947/1-4.

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

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

Statistics on the total numbers from the studies found:

I. The most minimal direct victims of the Bolsheviks according to the official methodology of the USSR State Statistics Committee, without emigration - 31 million http://www.slavic-europe.eu/index.php/articles/57-russia-articles/255-2013-05-21- 31
If it is impossible to establish the number of victims of military "communism" through the Bolshevik archives, then is it possible to establish here, apart from speculation, anything corresponding to reality? It turns out that it is possible. Moreover, quite simply - through the bed and the laws of ordinary physiology, which no one has yet canceled. Men sleep with women regardless of who has snuck into the Kremlin.
Note that it is in this way (and not by compiling lists of the dead) that all serious scientists (and the State Commission of the USSR State Statistics Committee, in particular) calculate the loss of life during the Second World War.
Total losses of 26.6 million people - the calculation was made by the Department of Demographic Statistics of the USSR State Statistics Committee in the course of work as part of a comprehensive commission to clarify the number of casualties Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War. - Mobupravlenie GOMU of the General Staff of the AFRF, d.142, 1991, inv. No. 04504, sheet 250. (Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century: Statistical research. M., 2001. p. 229.)
31 million people seems to be the lowest point in the regime's death toll.
II. In 1990, statistician O.A. Platonov: “According to our calculations, the total number of people who did not die of their own death from mass repression, famine, epidemics, wars amounted to more than 87 million people in 1918-1953. And in total, if we add up the number of people who died not of their own death, who left their homeland, as well as the number of children that could be born to these people, then the total human damage to the country will be 156 million people.

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

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

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

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

VIII. Fundamental demographic research of the team led by Doctor of Economic Sciences Professor Ivan Koshkin (Kurganov) “Three figures. About human losses for the period from 1917 to 1959. http://slavic-europe.eu/index.php/comments/66-comments-russia/177-2013-04-15-1917-1959 http://rusidea.org/?a=32030
"Nevertheless, the widespread belief in the USSR that all or most of the human losses in the USSR are associated with military events is wrong. The losses associated with military events are grandiose, but they far from cover all the losses of the people during the Soviet period. They, contrary to popular belief in the USSR, they account for only a part of these losses.Here are the corresponding figures (in million people):
The total number of casualties in the USSR during the dictatorship of the Communist Party from 1917 to 1959 110.7 million - 100%.
Including:
Losses in wartime 44.0 million - 40%.
Losses in non-military revolutionary times 66.7 million - 60%.

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

IX. The opinion of the historian and publicist B. Pushkarev is about 100 million.

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

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

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

XIV. According to the documentary "Nicholas II. A thwarted triumph", the total number of victims of the Bolshevik dictatorship is about 40 million people.

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

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

XVII. Summary tables of victims of Lenin-Stalin repressions

The share and number of citizens of the USSR who were repressed during the years of Stalin's rule:

no, that's a lie.

About 3.5 million were dispossessed, and about 2.1 million were deported (Kazakhstan, North).

in total, about 2.3 million passed during the period of 30-40, including the "declassed urban element" such as prostitutes and beggars.

(I noticed how many schools and libraries were in the settlements.)

many people successfully escaped from there, were released upon reaching the age of 16, released due to admission to study at higher or secondary educational establishments.

"Stalin's repressions"

Is it true that 40 million were convicted?

no, that's a lie.

from 1921 to 1954, 3,777,380 people were convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes, of which 642,980 people were convicted of VMN.

During this entire period, the total number of prisoners (not only "political") did not exceed 2.5 million, during this time about 1.8 million died, of which about 600 thousand were political. The lion's share of deaths occurred in 42-43 years.

Writers such as Solzhenitsyn, Suvorov, Lev Razgon, Antonov-Ovseenko, Roy Medvedev, Vyltsan, Shatunovskaya are liars and falsifiers.

You see, the Gulag or prisons were not "death camps" like the Nazis, every year 200-350 thousand people came out of them, the term of which ended.

Another point, in the USSR - Nikolaev, who killed Kirov, is an obvious "political one, but in the USA Oswald, the assassin of Kennedy, is a criminal one.

Another blatant lie about the total repression of repatriates. In reality, only a few percent were convicted and sent to serve time. I think it is obvious that among the repatriates there were former "Vlasovites", punishers, policemen.

The Holodomor, of course, was not planned, the number of victims was about 3 million in 1933-34.

The losses during the eviction of peoples are greatly exaggerated: Chechens, Crimean Tatars, they amounted to about 0.13%.

Zemskov does not assess the reasons for the eviction.

Zemskov determines the number of repressed (expelled "kulaks", resettled peoples convicted under Article 58, victims for religious reasons, Cossacks, etc.) at 10 million. (Memorial has 14 million).

During the time period of 1918 to 1958, about 400 million people lived on the territory of the USSR, that is, 2.5% of the population of the USSR was repressed.

Accordingly, 97.5% of the population of the USSR was not subjected to any repressions.

On the eve of the war.

Is it true that the Soviet people were afraid and hated the authorities?

no, that's a lie.

Before the war, people understood its inevitability and prepared, but hoped that it would not happen.

The attitude towards the Red Army was remarkable. "Army best school for peasant youth.

The civilization of the USSR was a young, healthy, unique organism, with a huge potential for development and complication. Her spirit was combativeness, readiness for work, exploits, self-sacrifice.

One can only wonder at the shortsightedness of Hitler, who believed that it would fall apart at the first press.

Of course, the USSR had groups with anti-Soviet sentiments, but they made up an insignificant number of the population. The USSR was the embodiment of the ideals of October, a country with great social achievements, a state of workers and peasants with the highest passionarity. The peoples of the USSR were ready to defend not only their land, the lives of their loved ones, but also the state and social system of the USSR. The regime of the USSR was assessed by contemporaries as the most just and the best.

The survival of the regime was not at stake, it was the fate and physical survival of the peoples of the USSR, primarily the Russians.

During the war years

Is it true that the people wanted to throw off the "yoke of Bolshevism"?

no, that's a lie.

The Soviet peasants regarded the collective farm land as their own. The German fascists were deeply struck by peasant patriotism and peasant support for the Soviet army. Western researchers erroneously believe that the matter is in the miscalculations of the German command, which did not restrain the atrocities of its army and thus "miscalculated" in the policy of "attracting" the peasants to their side. The most worthless historians write that "Soviet peasants extended their hand to the Nazis, but they did not accept it."

The Soviet people, the peasants, in their overwhelming majority, did not extend any hand to the Nazis, the Soviet power was their power, they saw the Germans as murderers and invaders. The collaborationism of some peasants is the rarest exception, even among the exiled "kulaks".

Another lie is the allegation of forced labor on collective farms/state farms. (Of course, even earlier people joined collective farms voluntarily, a collective farm / state farm is a more progressive and effective form of organization than an individual or farm enterprise)

People carried out a labor feat not under fear of punishment, but due to the highest motivation to help the front, the country, their loved ones at war with the enemy. From among the peasants came a lot of initiatives: shock work, new ones. more effective methods work, social competition, social obligations. All this happened against the backdrop of a sharp reduction in the number of working equipment, workers, and agricultural areas. They said: "The tractor is our tank on which we go to battle for the harvest!"

It is this work, when a child or an old man fulfilled 50% of the norm of an adult, and an adult a few norms, that is an indicator of the greatness of the people, his feat.

Is it true that the NKVD repressed our prisoners and repatriates?

no, that's a lie.

Of course, Stalin did not say: "We do not have retreated or captured, we have traitors."

The policy of the USSR did not put an equal sign between "traitor" and "captured". "Vlasovites", policemen, "Krasnov's Cossacks" and other scum that the traitor Prosvirnin slandered were considered traitors. And even then, the Vlasovites did not receive not only VMN, but even prisons. They were sent into exile for 6 years.

Many traitors did not receive any punishment when it turned out that they had joined the ROA under torture by starvation.

Most of those who were forcibly taken to work in Europe, having successfully and quickly passed the check, returned home.

A myth is also a statement. that many repatriates did not want to return to the USSR.

From myself, I’ll add a couple of figures for Chapter 5: after the liberation of Soviet prisoners of war from Nazi camps, out of 1.8 million survivors, 333 thousand people did not pass the test for cooperation with the Germans. They received a punishment in the form of exile and life in settlements for a period of 6 years.

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

Talking about the beginning political career leader who became a tyrant, such authors bashfully hush up one indisputable fact: Stalin was a recidivist convict with seven "walkers". Robbery and violence were the main form of his social activity in his youth. Repression became an integral part of the state course pursued by him.

Lenin received in him a worthy successor. “Creatively developing his teachings,” Iosif Vissarionovich came to the conclusion that he should rule the country by methods of terror, constantly instilling fear in his fellow citizens.

The generation of people whose mouths can speak the truth about Stalin's repressions is leaving... Are the newfangled articles that whiten the dictator a spit on their suffering, on their broken life...

Leader who sanctioned torture

As you know, Iosif Vissarionovich personally signed the death lists for 400,000 people. In addition, Stalin toughened repression as much as possible, authorizing the use of torture during interrogations. It was they who were given the green light to complete lawlessness in the dungeons. It was directly related to the notorious telegram of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated January 10, 1939, which literally unleashed the hands of the punitive authorities.

Creativity in introducing torture

Let us recall excerpts from the letter of commander Lisovsky, who is being abused by the satraps of the leader ...

"... A ten-day conveyor interrogation with a cruel vicious beating and no opportunity to sleep. Then - a twenty-day punishment cell. Then - forcing to sit with arms raised up, and also to stand bent over, with his head hidden under the table, for 7-8 hours ..."

The desire of the detainees to prove their innocence and their failure to sign fabricated charges caused an increase in torture and beatings. The social status of the detainees did not play a role. Recall that Robert Eikhe, a candidate member of the Central Committee, had his spine broken during interrogation, and Marshal Blucher died from beatings during interrogations in Lefortovo prison.

Leader's motivation

The number of victims of Stalin's repressions was not tens, not hundreds of thousands, but seven million starved to death and four million arrested (general statistics will be presented below). Only the number of those shot was about 800 thousand people ...

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

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

Steps adequate to this idea were taken by Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. Repression became his main competitive tool in his political career.

Beginning of revolutionary activity

Iosif Vissarionovich became interested in revolutionary ideas at the age of 26 after meeting V. I. Lenin. He was robbing Money for the party treasury. Fate took him 7 links to Siberia. Stalin was distinguished by pragmatism, prudence, promiscuity in means, rigidity towards people, egocentrism from a young age. Repressions against financial institutions - robberies and violence - were his. Then the future leader of the party participated in the Civil War.

Stalin in the Central Committee

In 1922, Joseph Vissarionovich received a long-awaited career opportunity. Sick and weakening, Vladimir Ilyich introduces him, along with Kamenev and Zinoviev, to the Central Committee of the party. Thus, Lenin creates a political counterbalance to Leon Trotsky, who really claims to be the leader.

Stalin simultaneously heads two party structures: the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee and the Secretariat. In this post, he brilliantly studied the art of party undercover intrigues, which was useful to him later in the fight against competitors.

Stalin's position in the system of red terror

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

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

The reason for this radicalization domestic policy was the murder of M. Uritsky, chairman of the St. Petersburg Cheka, and the attempt on the life of V. Lenin, Fanny Kaplan, acting from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Both events took place on August 30, 1918. Already this year, the Cheka unleashed a wave of repression.

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

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

Stalin since 1928 - the ideologist of violence

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

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

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

Iosif Vissarionovich in 1928-1930 began by initiating the fabrication by the OGPU of a number of public trials that plunged the country into an atmosphere of shock and fear. Thus, Stalin's cult of personality began to form with trials and instilling horror in the whole society ... Mass repressions were accompanied by public recognition of those who committed non-existent crimes as "enemies of the people." People were brutally tortured into signing accusations fabricated by the investigation. The cruel dictatorship imitated the class struggle, cynically violating the Constitution and all norms of universal morality...

Three global litigation: "The case of the Union Bureau" (putting managers at risk); "The Case of the Industrial Party" (the wrecking of the Western powers against the economy of the USSR was imitated); "The Case of the Labor Peasant Party" (obvious falsification of damage to the seed fund and delays with mechanization). Moreover, they all united in a single cause in order to create the appearance of a single conspiracy against the Soviet government and provide scope for further falsifications of the OGPU - NKVD.

As a result, the entire economic management of the national economy was replaced from the old "specialists" to "new cadres" ready to work on the instructions of the "leader".

Through the mouths of Stalin, who provided the state apparatus loyal to repressions with the courts, the adamant determination of the Party was further expressed: to oust and ruin thousands of entrepreneurs - industrialists, merchants, small and medium; destroy the basis of agricultural production - the prosperous peasantry (indiscriminately calling it "kulaks"). At the same time, the new voluntarist party position was masked by "the will of the poorest strata of workers and peasants."

Behind the scenes, parallel to this "general line", the "father of the peoples" consistently, with the help of provocations and false evidence, began to implement the line of liquidating their party competitors for the highest state power (Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev).

Forced collectivization

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

In order to clearly indicate the object of his repressions, Stalin went on an obvious ideological forgery. Economically and socially unjustified, he managed to ensure that party ideologists obedient to him singled out a normal self-supporting (profitable) producer into a separate "class of kulaks" - the target of a new blow. Under the ideological leadership of Joseph Vissarionovich, a plan was developed for the destruction of the social foundations of the village that had developed over the centuries, the destruction of the rural community - the Decree "On the liquidation of ... kulak farms" of 01/30/1930

The Red Terror came to the village. Peasants who fundamentally disagreed with collectivization were subjected to Stalinist trials - "troikas", in most cases ending in executions. Less active “kulaks”, as well as “kulak families” (any persons subjectively defined as “rural activists” could fall into the category) were subjected to forcible confiscation of property and eviction. A body of permanent operational management of the eviction was created - a secret operational management under the leadership of Efim Evdokimov.

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

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

Organization of hunger

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

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

On October 22, 1932, two extraordinary commissions led by the odious personalities Lazar Kaganovich and Vyacheslav Molotov launched a misanthropic campaign of “fighting the kulaks” to seize bread, which was accompanied by violence, quick to punish by troika courts and the eviction of wealthy agricultural producers to the regions of the Far North. It was genocide...

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

Known fact: correspondence between Sholokhov and Stalin

Mass repressions of Stalin in 1932-1933. are documented. M. A. Sholokhov, author " Quiet Don”, addressed the leader, defending his countrymen, with letters, exposing lawlessness during the confiscation of grain. In detail, with an indication of the villages, the names of the victims and their tormentors, the famous resident of the village of Veshenskaya stated the facts. Bullying and violence against the peasants are horrifying: brutal beatings, breaking out of joints, partial strangulation, mock execution, eviction from houses ... In a response letter, Joseph Vissarionovich only partially agreed with Sholokhov. The real position of the leader can be seen in the lines where he calls the peasants saboteurs, "quietly" trying to disrupt the provision of food...

Such a voluntaristic approach caused famine in the Volga region, Ukraine, the North Caucasus, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Siberia, and the Urals. A special Statement of the State Duma of Russia, published in April 2008, disclosed to the public previously classified statistics (previously, propaganda concealed these repressions of Stalin in every possible way.)

How many people died of starvation in the above regions? The figure set by the State Duma commission is appalling: more than 7 million.

Other areas of pre-war Stalinist terror

We will also consider three more directions of Stalinist terror, and in the following table we will present each of them in more detail.

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

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

Antisocial policy was accompanied by the destruction of families, an increase in the number of homeless children. This phenomenon has acquired such a scale that the state was forced to respond to it. With the sanction of Stalin, the Politburo of the Land of Soviets issued one of the most inhuman decrees - punitive in relation to children.

The anti-religious offensive as of 04/01/1936 led to a reduction in Orthodox churches to 28%, mosques - to 32% of their pre-revolutionary number. The number of clergy decreased from 112.6 thousand to 17.8 thousand.

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

One of the most cynical crimes of Stalin is his sanctioning of the secret resolution of the Politburo of 04/07/1935, which allows teenagers from 12 years old to be brought to trial and determines their punishment up to the death penalty. In 1936 alone, 125,000 children were placed in NKVD colonies. As of April 1, 1939, 10,000 children were exiled to the Gulag system.

Great terror

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

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

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

Stalin's cult of personality was characterized not only by the showcase facades of Soviet cities. The repressions of the “leader of the peoples” gave rise to the monstrous system of Gulag camps, providing the Land of Soviets with free labor, a mercilessly exploited labor resource for extracting wealth from the underdeveloped regions of the Far North and Central Asia.

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

In particular, ironically, the convicts of Kolyma mined 35% of the allied gold, being in terrible conditions of detention. We list the main camps that are part of the GULAG system: Solovetsky (45 thousand prisoners), logging camps - Svirlag and Temnikovo (respectively 43 and 35 thousand); oil and coal production - Ukhtapechlag (51 thousand); chemical industry- Bereznyakov and Solikamsk (63 thousand); development of the steppes - Karaganda camp (30 thousand); construction of the Volga-Moscow canal (196 thousand); construction of BAM (260 thousand); gold mining in Kolyma (138 thousand); Nickel mining in Norilsk (70 thousand).

For the most part, people stayed in the Gulag system in a typical way: after a night of arrest and an ill-judged prejudiced trial. And although this system was created under Lenin, but it was under Stalin that political prisoners began to enter it en masse after mass trials: “enemies of the people” - kulaks (in fact, an effective agricultural producer), or even entire deported nationalities. Most served a sentence of 10 to 25 years under Article 58. The process of investigation on it involved torture and a break in the will of the convict.

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

Instead of a conclusion

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

In total, about 800 thousand people were shot.

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

The disenfranchised people were terrorized by the Stalinist system constantly and methodically. The beginning of the process of restoring justice was laid by the 20th Congress of the CPSU.