How many victims of Stalinist repressions. Stalinist repressions: what was it? Repression in the army

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 Stalin's repressions. More than a million people were convicted under Article 58.

Origin of the term

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

The word terror in Latin means "horror". The method of ruling 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. The Stalinist terror is in a way a more modern version of the Oprichnina.

Ideology

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

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 All-Union Communist Party". 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 were in camps or were shot. The peculiarity of the Stalinist policy was the complete non-observance of the Soviet Constitution.

If at the beginning of the Stalinist repressions the state security bodies 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 officers, but also of each other. Denunciation has become the main tool in the fight against "enemies of the people."

The Stalinist 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 political crimes cases were based on falsification of charges. During the "red terror", they imprisoned and shot primarily those who disagreed with the new regime, of whom there were many at the stages of the creation of the new state.

The case of lyceum students

Officially, the period of Stalinist repression 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 the graduates of the Alexandrovsky Lyceum.

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

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

Shakhty affair

The charges under Article 58 were ridiculous. Of a person who does not own foreign languages and never in my life communicated with a citizen of a Western state, 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 just to complete the execution, which sometimes lasted for weeks.

In July 1928, specialists of the coal industry became victims of the Stalinist terror. This case was named "Shakhty". The leaders of Donbass enterprises were accused of sabotage, sabotage, creation of an underground counter-revolutionary organization, and assistance to foreign spies.

In the 1920s, there were several high-profile cases. Dekulakization continued until the early thirties. It is impossible to count the number of victims of Stalin's 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 comprehensive information. However, separate execution lists were made public, which became a terrible symbol of Stalin's repressions.

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

Reasons for the "great terror"

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

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

Stalin strove for one-man 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 last phenomenon, which took place in France at the end of the 18th century, presupposed the destruction of representatives of a certain social class, then in the USSR people were often arrested and executed without interconnection.

So, the reason for the repression was the desire for one-man, unconditional power. But a formulation was needed, 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 Killer was 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 later used Kirov's assassination in the fight against political opponents. Zinoviev, Kamenev and all their supporters were arrested.

The trial of the officers of the Red Army

After Kirov's murder, the military trials began. One of the first victims of the Great Terror was GD Guy. The commander was arrested for the phrase "Stalin must be removed", which he uttered while intoxicated. It is worth saying that in the mid-thirties, denunciation reached its climax. People who have worked in the same organization for many years ceased to trust 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 following were on the execution list:

• Tukhachevsky M.N.
• Yakir I.E.
• I. P. Uborevich
• 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, there was a record of the negotiations between Kamenev and Bukharin - they were talking about the creation of a "right-left" opposition. At the beginning of March 1937 with a report, which spoke of the need to eliminate the Trotskyists.

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

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

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

Repressed scientists

In 1937, revolutionaries and politicians became victims of the Stalinist terror. And very soon the 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 the Stalinist repressions are after reading the lists below. The "Great Terror" became a brake on the development of science, culture and art.

Scientists who became victims of Stalinist repression:

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

Writers and poets

In 1933, Osip Mandelstam wrote an epigram with a clear anti-Stalinist overtones, which he read to several dozen people. Boris Pasternak called the poet's act a suicide. He was 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 Unquenched Moon in 1926. The characters in this work are fictional, at least so the author states in the preface. But to everyone who read the story in the 1920s, it became clear that it was based on the version of the murder of Mikhail Frunze.

Somehow, Pilnyak's work got into print. But it was soon banned. Pilnyak was arrested only in 1937, and before that he remained one of the most published prose writers. The case of the writer, like all others like it, was completely fabricated - he was accused of spying for Japan. He was shot in Moscow in 1937.

Other writers and poets who were subjected to Stalinist repression:

• Victor Bagrov.
• Julius Berzin.
• Pavel Vasiliev.
• Sergey Klychkov.
• Vladimir Narbut.
• Peter Parfenov.
• Sergei Tretyakov.

It is worth talking about the famous theatrical figure, charged 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 are still not clear. There is a version that the NKVD officers killed her.

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

During the war

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 prison. But this was a temporary relief. In the late forties, a new wave of repression began. Now the ranks of "enemies of the people" have been joined by soldiers and officers who have been in captivity.

1953 amnesty

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

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

In a contest of liars

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

"Thus, the total number of victims of Stalinism reaches, according to my calculations, the figure of about 40 million people."

Indeed, it is undignified. Another dissident, the son of the repressed revolutionary Trotskyist A.V. Antonov-Ovseenko, without a shadow of embarrassment calls a double figure:

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

Professional "rehabilitators" headed by a former member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee A. N. Yakovlev are already talking about 100 million:

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

However, according to Yakovlev, the notorious 100 million include not only direct "victims of the regime", but also unborn children. But the writer Igor Bunich does not hesitate to assert that all these "100 million people were mercilessly exterminated."

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

Who are these fantastically ridiculous figures for, which are readily replicated by Russian and foreign funds? mass media? Those who have forgotten how to think independently, who are used to uncritically taking on faith any nonsense that rushes from TV screens.

It is easy to be convinced of the absurdity of the multimillion-dollar figures of "victims of repression". It is enough to open any demographic reference book and, picking up a calculator, make simple calculations. For those who are too lazy to do this, I will give a small illustrative example.

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

Now let's see how the population of England, France and Germany, countries that also adopted Active participation in both world wars.

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

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

"To the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee

To Comrade Khrushchev N. S.

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

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

Out of the total number of those arrested, roughly, convicted: 2,900,000 people - by the OGPU Collegium, the NKVD troikas and the Special Council and 877,000 people - by the courts, military tribunals, the Special Collegium and the Military Collegium.

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

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

Thus, in 1921-1953, 815,639 people were sentenced to death. All in all, in 1918-1953, 4,308,487 people were prosecuted for the affairs of the state security bodies, of which 835,194 were sentenced to death.

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

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

“Total convicts for 1921-1938. - 2 944 879 people, of which 30% (1062 thousand) are criminals "

In this case, the total number of "victims of repression" does not exceed three million. However, in order to finally clarify this issue, additional work with sources is required.

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

From July 15, 1939 to April 20, 1940, 201 prisoners were sentenced to capital punishment for disrupting camp life and production. However, some of them later replaced the death penalty with imprisonment for terms ranging from 10 to 15 years.

In 1934, in the camps of the NKVD, 3849 prisoners were held, sentenced to capital punishment with replacement of imprisonment. In 1935 there were 5671 such prisoners, in 1936 - 7303, in 1937 - 6239, in 1938 - 5926, in 1939 - 3425, in 1940 - 4037 people.
Number of prisoners

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

In addition to the ITL, there were correctional labor colonies (NTK), where convicts were sent for short periods. Until the fall of 1938, the ITK, together with the prisons, were subordinate to the Department of Places of Detention (OMZ) of the NKVD of the USSR. Therefore, for the years 1935-1938, so far it has been possible to find only joint statistics. Since 1939, ITKs were under the jurisdiction of the GULAG, and prisons were under the jurisdiction of the Main Prison Administration (GTU) of the NKVD of the USSR.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is the total number of those who have been in places of detention under Stalin? Of course, if you take the table with the annual number of prisoners and add up the lines, as many anti-Soviet people do, the result will be incorrect, since most of them were sentenced to more than a year. Therefore, this should be assessed by the amount not imprisoned, but by the amount of convicts, which was given above.
How many of the prisoners were "political"?

As we can see, up to 1942, the "repressed" accounted for no more than a third of the prisoners held in the gulag camps. And only then their share increased, having received a worthy "replenishment" in the person of Vlasovites, policemen, elders and other "fighters against communist tyranny." Even less was the percentage of "political" in the correctional labor colonies.
Prisoner mortality

The available archival documents make it possible to illuminate this issue as well.

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

For 1953, data are given for the first three months.

As we can see, the mortality rate in places of detention (especially in prisons) did not at all reach those fantastic values ​​that accusers like to talk about. But still, its level is quite high. It grows especially strongly in the first years of the war. As it was said in the certificate of mortality according to the OITK NKVD for 1941, compiled by the acting. I.K. Zitserman, Chief of the Sanitary Department of the GULAG of the NKVD:

Basically, mortality began to increase sharply from September 41, mainly due to the transfer of w / c from units located in the front-line areas: from the BBK and Vytegorlag to the OITK of the Vologda and Omsk regions, from the OITK of the Moldavian SSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Leningrad region. in OITK Kirovskaya, Molotovskaya and Sverdlovskaya oblasts. As a rule, the stages of a significant part of the journey, several hundred kilometers before loading into wagons, were on foot. On the way, they were not provided with the minimum necessary food at all (they did not receive bread and even water), as a result of such a transfer, the s / c gave a sharp depletion, a very large %% of avitaminosis diseases, in particular pellagra, which gave significant mortality along the route and along arrival at the appropriate OITK, which were not prepared to receive a significant number of replenishments. At the same time, the introduction of reduced norms of allowance by 25-30% (order No. 648 and 0437) with an extended working day up to 12 hours, often the absence of basic food products even at reduced norms could not but affect the increase in morbidity and mortality

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

Let's say a few words about the notorious Special camps (special camps), created in accordance with the decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 416-159ss of February 21, 1948. These camps (just like the Special Prisons that already existed by that time) were supposed to concentrate all those sentenced to imprisonment for espionage, sabotage, terror, as well as Trotskyists, rightists, Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries, anarchists, nationalists, White emigrants, members of anti-Soviet organizations and groups and "persons posing a danger in their anti-Soviet ties." The prisoners of the special camps were to be used for hard physical labor.

As we can see, the mortality rate of inmates in special camps was only slightly higher than the mortality rate in conventional labor camps. Contrary to popular belief, the special lords were not “death camps” in which the bloom of the dissenting intelligentsia was allegedly destroyed, moreover, the most numerous contingent of their inhabitants were “nationalists” - forest brothers and their accomplices.
Notes:

1. Medvedev RA Tragic statistics // Arguments and facts. 1989, February 4-10. No. 5 (434). P. 6. The well-known researcher of repression statistics VN Zemskov claims that Roy Medvedev immediately renounced his article: “Roy Medvedev himself even before the publication of my articles (meaning Zemskov's articles in“ Arguments and Facts ”starting with No. 38 for 1989. - IP) placed in one of the issues of "Arguments and Facts" for 1989 an explanation that his article in No. 5 for the same year is invalid. Mr. Maksudov, probably, is not quite aware of this story, otherwise he would hardly have undertaken to defend calculations that are far from the truth, from which their author himself, realizing his mistake, publicly denied "(Zemskov V. N. On the question of the scale of repressions in USSR // Sociological Research. 1995. No. 9. P. 121). However, in reality, Roy Medvedev did not even think to disavow his publication. In No. 11 (440) for March 18-24, 1989, his answers to the questions of the correspondent of "Arguments and Facts" were published, in which, confirming the "facts" set out in the previous article, Medvedev merely clarified that he was not responsible for the repression. the entire communist party as a whole, but only its leadership.

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

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

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

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

6. Ibid. P. 26.

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

8. Mozokhin OB VChK-OGPU Punishing sword of the dictatorship of the proletariat. M., 2004.S. 167.

9. Ibid. P. 169

10. GARF. F.R-9401. Op. 1. D.4157. L. 202. Cit. Quoted from: V.P. Popov. State Terror in Soviet Russia. 1923–1953: sources and their interpretation // Otechestvennye archives. 1992. No. 2.P. 29.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

17. Population of the countries of the world / Ed. B. Ts. Urlais. M., 1974.S. 23.

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

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

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

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

22. Zemskov VN GULAG (historical and sociological aspect) // Sociological studies. 1991. No. 7. P. 10-11.

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

24. Ibid. L.53.

25. Ibid.

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

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

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

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

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

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

29. The system of forced labor camps in the USSR, 1923-1960: Handbook. M., 1998.S. 52.

30. Dugin A. N. Unknown GULAG: Documents and facts. Moscow: Nauka, 1999.S. 47.

31.1952 - GARF.F.R-9414. Op.1.D.1319. L.11, 11v. 13, 13ob .; 1953 - Ibid. L. 18.

Estimates of the number of victims of Stalinist repressions differ dramatically. Some cite numbers in tens of millions of people, others limit themselves to hundreds of thousands. Which of them is closer to the truth?

Who is guilty?

Today our society is almost equally divided into Stalinists and anti-Stalinists. The first ones pay attention to the positive transformations that have taken place in the country in Stalin era, the latter urge not to forget about the huge numbers of victims of the repressions of the Stalinist regime.
However, almost all Stalinists recognize the fact of repression, but note their limited nature and even justify it by political necessity. Moreover, they often do not associate repression with the name of Stalin.
Historian Nikolai Kopesov writes that in most of the investigative cases on the repressed in 1937-1938 there were no resolutions of Stalin - everywhere there were sentences of Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria. In the opinion of the Stalinists, this is proof that the heads of the punitive organs were engaged in arbitrariness and in support of this they quote Yezhov's quotation: "Whoever we want, we execute, whoever we want, we have mercy."
For that part of the Russian public who sees Stalin as the ideologue of repression, these are just particulars that confirm the rule. Yagoda, Yezhov and many other rulers of human destinies themselves were victims of terror. Who else but Stalin was behind all this? - they ask a rhetorical question.
Doctor of Historical Sciences, chief specialist of the State Archives of the Russian Federation Oleg Khlevnyuk notes that despite the fact that Stalin's signature was not on many execution lists, it was he who sanctioned almost all mass political repressions.

Who was hurt?

The issue of victims acquired even more weighty significance in the controversy surrounding the Stalinist repressions. Who suffered during the Stalinist period and in what capacity? Many researchers note that the very concept of “victims of repression” is rather vague. Historiography has not worked out clear definitions on this matter.
Of course, convicts, imprisoned in prisons and camps, shot, deported, deprived of property should be counted among the victims of the actions of the authorities. But what about, for example, those who were subjected to "interrogation with partiality" and then released? Should we distinguish between criminal and political prisoners? What category should we classify "thugs" caught in small single thefts and equated to state criminals?
The deported deserve special attention. To what category should they be classified - repressed or administratively deported? It is even more difficult to decide on those who fled without waiting for dispossession or deportation. They were sometimes caught, but someone was lucky enough to start a new life.

Such different numbers

Uncertainties in the question of who is responsible for the repression, in identifying the categories of victims and the period for which the victims of repression should be counted lead to completely different figures. The most impressive figures were given by the economist Ivan Kurganov (Solzhenitsyn referred to this data in the novel The Gulag Archipelago), who calculated that from 1917 to 1959, 110 million people became victims of the internal war of the Soviet regime against its people.
This number includes Kurganov victims of famine, collectivization, peasant exile, camps, executions, civil war as well as "the scornful and sloppy conduct of World War II."
Even if such calculations are correct, can these figures be considered a reflection of Stalin's repressions? The economist, in fact, himself answers this question, using the expression "victims of the internal war of the Soviet regime." It is worth noting that Kurganov only counted the dead. It is difficult to imagine what figure could appear if the economist took into account all those who suffered from the Soviet regime during the specified period.
The figures quoted by the head of the human rights society "Memorial" Arseniy Roginsky are more realistic. He writes: “In all Soviet Union 12.5 million people are considered victims of political repression ”, but he adds that in a broad sense, up to 30 million people can be considered repressed.
The leaders of the Yabloko movement Elena Kriven and Oleg Naumov counted all categories of victims of the Stalinist regime, including those who died in camps from diseases and harsh working conditions, the disenfranchised, victims of hunger who suffered from unjustifiably cruel decrees and received excessively harsh punishment for minor offenses in the force of the repressive nature of the legislation. The final figure is 39 million.
Researcher Ivan Gladilin notes in this regard that if the counting of victims of repression has been conducted since 1921, this means that it is not Stalin who is responsible for a significant part of the crimes, but the "Leninist Guard", which immediately after October revolution launched a terror against the White Guards, clergy and kulaks.

How to count?

Estimates of the number of victims of repression vary greatly depending on the method of counting. If we take into account the convicts only on political charges, then according to the data of the regional departments of the KGB of the USSR, cited in 1988, the Soviet authorities (VChK, GPU, OGPU, NKVD, NKGB, MGB) arrested 4,308,487 people, of which 835,194 were shot.
When calculating the victims of political trials, the employees of the Memorial society are close to these figures, although their figures are still noticeably higher - 4.5-4.8 million were convicted, of which 1.1 million were shot. If everyone who went through the GULAG system is considered as victims of the Stalinist regime, then this figure, according to various estimates, will fluctuate from 15 to 18 million people.
Very often Stalin's repressions are associated exclusively with the concept of the "Great Terror", which peaked in 1937-1938. According to a commission led by academician Pyotr Pospelov to establish the reasons for the mass repressions, the following figures were announced: 1,548,366 people were arrested on charges of anti-Soviet activities, of which 681,692,000 were sentenced to capital punishment.
Historian Viktor Zemskov, one of the most authoritative specialists on the demographic aspects of political repression in the USSR, names a smaller number of those convicted during the Great Terror - 1,344,923, although his data coincide with the number of those executed.
If dispossessed people are included in the number of those subjected to repressions during Stalin's time, then the figure will grow by at least 4 million people. Such a number of dispossessed people is cited by the same Zemskov. The Yabloko party also agrees with this, noting that about 600 thousand of them died in exile.
The victims of Stalin's repressions were also representatives of some peoples who were subjected to forcible deportation - Germans, Poles, Finns, Karachais, Kalmyks, Armenians, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars... Many historians agree that the total number of the deported is about 6 million people, while about 1.2 million people did not live to see the end of the journey.

Trust or not?

The above figures are mostly based on the reports of the OGPU, NKVD, MGB. However, not all the documents of the punitive departments have survived, many of them were purposefully destroyed, many of them are still in closed access.
It should be admitted that historians are very dependent on statistics collected by various special agencies. But the difficulty is that even the available information reflects only the officially repressed, and therefore, by definition, cannot be complete. Moreover, it is possible to check it by primary sources only in the rarest cases.
An acute shortage of reliable and complete information often provoked both the Stalinists and their opponents to name radically different figures in favor of their position. “If the“ rightists ”exaggerated the scale of the repressions, then the“ leftists ”, partly from dubious youth, finding much more modest figures in the archives, rushed to make them public and did not always ask themselves whether everything was reflected - and could be reflected - in the archives”, - notes the historian Nikolai Koposov.
It can be stated that estimates of the scale of Stalinist repressions based on the sources available to us can be very approximate. Documents stored in federal archives would be a good help for modern researchers, but many of them have been re-classified. A country with such a history will jealously guard the secrets of its past.

1. Stalinist repressions- massive political repressions carried out in the USSR during the Stalinist period (late 1920s - early 1950s).

2. Scale of repression:

From a memo addressed to Khrushchev: During the period from 1921 to the present, 3,777,380 people were convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes, including 642,980 people to the VMN, to detention in camps and prisons for a term of 25 years and below - 2,369,220, to exile and deportation - 765.180 people. (Minister of Internal Affairs).

Number of prisoners in prisons:

3. Reasons:

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

· Preparations for war with Germany, where the Nazis who came to power proclaimed the destruction of the communist ideology as their goal.
To solve these problems, it was necessary to mobilize the efforts of the entire population of the country and to provide absolute support for state policy, and for this, to neutralize potential political opposition, on which the enemy could rely.

· The policy of collectivization and accelerated industrialization led to a sharp drop in the standard of living of the population and to massive hunger. Stalin and his entourage understood that this increases the number of dissatisfied with the regime and tried to portray the "saboteurs" and saboteurs, "enemies of the people", responsible for all economic difficulties, as well as accidents in industry and transport, mismanagement, etc.

Stalin's peculiar character

1) begins with the seizure of power in 1917 and continues until the end of 1922 The repression and "natural allies" of the Bolsheviks - the workers - did not escape. However, this period of repression fits into the context of general confrontation.

2) The second period of repression begins in 1928 with a new offensive against the peasantry, which is carried out by the Stalinist group in the context of the political struggle in the upper echelons of power.

· Fight against "sabotage"

Repression of foreign technical specialists

· Struggle against internal party opposition

With the beginning of the collectivization of agriculture and industrialization in the late 1920s - early 1930s, as well as the strengthening of Stalin's personal power, repression acquired a mass character

Dekulakization

Repression in connection with grain procurements

· In 1929-1931, dozens of scientists were arrested and convicted in the so-called "case of the Academy of Sciences"

During 1933-34, as pointed out by the Russian researcher O. V. Khlevnyuk, there was a slight weakening of repression.

3) Political repressions of 1934-1938

· The assassination of Kirov (On the day Kirov was killed, the government of the USSR reacted with an official announcement of Kirov's assassination, stating the need for "the final elimination of all enemies of the working class."

· 1937-1938 was one of the peaks of Stalin's repressions. During these two years, 1,575,259 people were arrested on the affairs of the NKVD organs, of which 681,692 people were sentenced to be shot [

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

Repression of foreigners and ethnic minorities

· In the 1930s, persons of a number of nationalities were evicted from the border zones of the USSR, mainly foreign for the USSR at that time (Romanians, Koreans, Latvians, etc.).

Repression and anti-Semitism

Lysenkovschina

4) Repression of the war period

Deportation of peoples in 1941-1944 (there is nothing like that)

5) Political repression of the post-war period

Deportations 1940-1950s

Repression and anti-Semitism

Ideological control in Soviet science, Lysenkovschina

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

Talking about the beginning of the political career of a leader who became a tyrant, such authors shyly ignore one indisputable fact: Stalin was a recidivist convict with seven “walkers”. Robbery and violence were the main forms of his social activity in his youth. Repression has become an integral component of his state policy.

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

The generation of people, whose lips the truth about Stalin's repressions can be expressed, is leaving ... Isn't the newfangled articles whitening the dictator a spit at their suffering, at their broken life ...

The leader who sanctioned torture

As you know, Joseph Vissarionovich personally signed the execution lists for 400,000 people. In addition, Stalin tightened the repression as much as possible, authorizing the use of torture during interrogations. It was they who were given the green light to complete lawlessness in the dungeons. He was directly related to the notorious telegram of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated 01/10/1939, which literally untied the hands of the punitive authorities.

Creativity in introducing torture

Let us recall excerpts from the letter of Komkor Lisovsky, who is being pushed around by the leader's satraps ...

"... Ten-day conveyor interrogation with severe vicious beating and without the possibility of falling asleep. Then - a twenty-day solitary confinement. Further - the compulsion to sit with arms raised up, and also 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 for membership in the Central Committee, suffered a broken spine during interrogation, and Marshal Blucher died of beatings during interrogation in Lefortovo prison.

Leader motivation

The number of victims of Stalin's repression was numbered not in tens, not in hundreds of thousands, but in seven million who died of hunger and four million arrested (general statistics will be presented below). Only the number of those executed was about 800 thousand people ...

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

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

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

The beginning of revolutionary activity

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

Stalin in the Central Committee

In 1922, Joseph Vissarionovich receives the long-awaited opportunity career growth... Ailing and weakening Vladimir Ilyich introduced him, together 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 position, he brilliantly studied the art of party undercover intrigues, which was useful to him further in the fight against competitors.

Positioning Stalin in the Red Terror System

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

09/05/1918 The Council of People's Commissars issues the Resolution "On the Red Terror". The body for its implementation, called the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK), operated under the Council of People's Commissars from 12/07/1917.

The reason for such a radicalization of domestic policy was the assassination of M. Uritsky, chairman of the St. Petersburg Cheka, and the assassination attempt on V. Lenin by Fanny Kaplan, acting from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Both events took place on 08/30/1918. Already this year, the Cheka launched a wave of repression.

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

By the time Stalin came to the Central Committee, gendarmes, policemen, tsarist officials, businessmen and landowners had already been repressed. First of all, a blow was struck to the classes, which are the pillars 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 - an ideologue of violence

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

His concept of strengthening 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 Joseph Vissarionovich at the July Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1928. From that time on, he actually became the leader of the Party, the inspirer and ideologue of violence. The tyrant has declared war on his own people.

The real meaning of Stalinism, hidden by slogans, 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. The dictatorship was no longer perceived by him as a defense of the revolution. The revolution became the vehicle for establishing personal unlimited dictatorship.

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

Three global lawsuits were falsified: "The Union Bureau case" (putting the managers at risk); "The case of the industrial party" (imitated the sabotage of the Western powers in relation to the economy of the USSR); "The case of the working peasant party" (obvious falsification of damage to the seed fund and delays in mechanization). Moreover, they all united into a single business in order to create the appearance of a single conspiracy against Soviet power and to provide room for further falsifications of the organs of the OGPU - NKVD.

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

Through the lips of Stalin, who provided the state apparatus loyal to repression with the conducted trials, the Party's adamant determination was further expressed: to oust and ruin thousands of entrepreneurs - industrialists, merchants, small and medium-sized; to ruin the basis of agricultural production - the well-to-do 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 peoples" consistently, with the help of provocations and perjury, began to implement the line of eliminating his party competitors for the highest state power (Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev).

Forced collectivization

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

In order to clearly identify the object of his repressions, Stalin went for an obvious ideological forgery. Economically and socially unjustifiably he achieved the fact that obedient party ideologists single out a normal self-supporting (profitable) producer as 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 centuries-old social foundations villages, destruction of the rural community - Resolution "On the liquidation of ... kulak farms" dated 01/30/1930

The Red Terror has come to the village. Peasants who fundamentally disagreed with collectivization were subjected to Stalin's trials - "troikas", in most cases ending in executions. Less active “kulaks”, as well as “kulak families” (which could include any persons subjectively defined as “rural assets”) were subjected to violent 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.

Migrants to the extreme regions of the North, victims of Stalin's repressions, were predetermined by registration 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, devastation and eviction in the 30s of the last century are not all of Stalin's repressions. A brief listing of them should be supplemented by the organization of hunger. Its real reason was the inadequate approach of Iosif Vissarionovich personally to insufficient grain procurements in 1932. Why was the plan fulfilled by only 15-20%? The main reason was the poor harvest.

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

On 10/22/1932, two extraordinary commissions under the leadership of odious personalities Lazar Kaganovich and Vyacheslav Molotov launched a misanthropic campaign of "fighting the kulaks" to seize grain, which was accompanied by violence, swift trials 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 suppressed by Joseph Vissarionovich himself.

Known fact: correspondence between Sholokhov and Stalin

Stalin's massive repressions in 1932-1933 have documentary evidence. MA Sholokhov, author of The Quiet Don, appealed to the leader, defending his fellow countrymen, with letters, exposing the iniquity of the confiscation of grain. The famous resident of the village of Veshenskaya presented the facts in detail, indicating the villages, the names of the victims and their tormentors. The bullying and violence against the peasants are terrifying: brutal beatings, breaking joints, partial strangulation, staged executions, eviction from houses ... In his reply 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 food supply ...

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

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

Other areas of pre-war Stalinist terror

Let us 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 of oppressing freedom of conscience was also pursued. 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, fearing dispossession and exile to the North, have become an army supporting the country's gigantic construction projects. In order to restrict their rights, to make them manipulated, it was at that time that the passportization of the population in cities was carried out. Only 27 million people received passports. The peasants (still the majority of the population) remained without passports, did not enjoy the full scope of civil rights (freedom to choose their place of residence, freedom to choose a job) and “tied” to the collective farm at their place of residence with the obligatory condition of fulfilling workday norms.

The anti-social policy was accompanied by the destruction of families, an increase in the number of street children. This phenomenon has acquired such a scale that the state was forced to react to it. With the approval of Stalin, the Politburo of the Land of Soviets issued one of the most inhuman decisions - punitive against 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.

With a repressive purpose, the certification of the urban population was carried out. More than 385 thousand people did not receive passports and were forced to leave the cities. 22.7 thousand people were arrested.

One of Stalin's most cynical crimes is his sanctioning of a classified Politburo resolution of 04/07/1935, which allows teenagers from the age of 12 to be brought to trial and determines their punishment up to the highest measure. In 1936 alone, 125 thousand children were placed in colonies of the NKVD. As of 01.04.1939, 10 thousand children were exiled to the GULAG system.

Great terror

The state flywheel of terror was gaining momentum ... The power of Joseph Vissarionovich, starting in 1937, due to repressions over the entire society, became all-encompassing. However, their biggest leap was just ahead. In addition to the final and already physical reprisals against former party colleagues - Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev - there were massive "purges of the state apparatus."

The terror took on unprecedented proportions. The OGPU (since 1938 - the NKVD) reacted to all complaints and anonymous letters. A person's life was ruined for one inadvertently dropped word ... Even the Stalinist elite - statesmen - were repressed: Kosior, Eikhe, Postyshev, Goloschekin, Vareikis; military leaders Blucher, Tukhachevsky; Chekists Yagoda, Yezhov.

On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, leading military personnel were shot on trumped-up cases "under an anti-Soviet conspiracy": 19 qualified corps-level commanders - divisions with combat experience. The cadres who came to replace them did not possess the necessary operational and tactical skills.

Stalin's personality cult was characterized not only by the shop-window facades of Soviet cities. The repressions of the "leader of the peoples" gave rise to the monstrous system of gulag camps, which provides the Land of Soviets with free labor, mercilessly exploited labor resource for the extraction of wealth in 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 Kolyma convicts mined 35% of the allied gold, being in terrible conditions of detention. Let's list the main camps that are part of the GULAG system: Solovetsky (45 thousand prisoners), logging - Svirlag and Temnikovo (43 and 35 thousand, respectively); oil and coal production - Ukhtapechlag (51 thousand); chemical industry - Bereznyakov and Solikamsk (63 thousand); the development of the steppes - the 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).

Basically, people stayed in the Gulag system in a typical way: after an overnight arrest and an unjust biased trial. And although this system was created under Lenin, it was under Stalin that political prisoners began to enter it en masse after mass trials: "enemies of the people" - kulaks (in fact, an effective agricultural producer), or even entire evicted nationalities. Most were serving sentences ranging from 10 to 25 years under Article 58. The process of the investigation on her presupposed torture and breaking the will of the convict.

In the event 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-purpose prison (TON). Since the 1930s, prison labor has been mercilessly exploited to fulfill five-year plans - 12-14 hours each. Tens of thousands of people died from overwork, poor nutrition, poor medical care.

Instead of a conclusion

The years of Stalin's repression - from 1928 to 1953. - changed the atmosphere in a society that has ceased to believe in justice, under the pressure of constant fear. Since 1918 people were accused and shot by the revolutionary military tribunals. The 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 lasted until 1947, and then Stalin replaced them with 25 years of serving in the 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' government, the revolution.

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