What year of birth falls under the repression of Stalin. The scale of the Stalinist repressions - exact numbers (13 photos)

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, Joseph Stalin was not just the leader of the country, but a real savior of the fatherland. Otherwise, he was practically not called a leader, and the cult of personality in the post-war period reached its climax. It seemed that it was impossible to shake the authority of such a scale, but Stalin himself had a hand in this.

A series of inconsistent reforms and repression gave rise to the term post-war Stalinism, which is also actively used by modern historians.

A Brief Analysis of Stalinist Reforms

Post-war repressions and the tightening of the Stalin cult

It was already mentioned above that Stalinism in the post-war years only got stronger, and among the people the General Secretary was considered the main hero of the Fatherland. The imposition of such an image of Stalin was facilitated by both perfectly working ideological support and cultural innovations. All films and books being produced glorified the current regime and praised Stalin. Gradually, the number of repressions and the volume of censorship increased, but it seems that no one noticed.

Stalin's repressions became a real problem for the country in the mid-30s, and after the end of the Great Patriotic War, they gained new strength. So, in 1948, the famous "Leningrad affair" got publicity, during which many politicians holding the most important positions in the party were arrested and shot. For example, the chairman of the State Planning Committee Voznesensky, as well as the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) Kuznetsov, was shot. Stalin was losing confidence in his own confidants, and therefore those who yesterday were considered the main friend and associate of the General Secretary came under attack.

Stalinism in the post-war years more and more took the form of a dictatorship. Despite the fact that the people literally idolized Stalin, the monetary reform and the renewed repression made people doubt the authority of the General Secretary. Representatives of the intelligentsia were the first to oppose the existing regime, and therefore, led by Zhdanov, in 1946, purges began among writers, artists and journalists.

Stalin himself brought the development of the country's military power to the fore. The development of a plan for the first atomic bomb allowed the USSR to gain a foothold in the status of a superpower. All over the world, the USSR was feared, believing that Stalin was capable of starting World War III. The Iron Curtain covered the Soviet Union more and more, and the people meekly awaited change.

The changes, albeit not the best ones, came suddenly, when in 1953 the leader and hero of the whole country died. Stalin's death marked the beginning of an entirely new stage for the Soviet Union.

Repression during the Stalinist period

In the second case, the scale of mortality from hunger and repression can be judged by demographic losses, which only in the period 1926-1940. amounted to 9 million people.

“In February 1954,” it appears later in the text, “a certificate was prepared in the name of N. S. Khrushchev signed by the Prosecutor General of the USSR R. Rudenko, Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR S. Kruglov and Minister of Justice of the USSR K. Gorshenin, in which the number of those convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes for the period from 1921 to February 1, 1954 was called. In total, during this period, 3,777,380 people were convicted by the OGPU Collegium, the NKVD troikas, a Special Meeting, the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals, including to capital punishment - 642,980, to detention in camps and prisons for a term of 25 years and below - 2,369,220, to exile and deportation - 765,180 people.

Repression after 1953

After Stalin's death, general rehabilitation began, the scale of the repressions sharply decreased. At the same time, people of alternative political views (the so-called "dissidents") continued to be persecuted by the Soviet regime until the end of the 1980s. Criminal liability for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda was lifted only in September 1989.

According to the historian V.P. Popov, the total number of those convicted of political and criminal offenses in 1923-1953 is at least 40 million. In his opinion, this estimate “is very approximate and greatly underestimated, but it fully reflects the scale of the repressive state policy ... - from 1923 to 1953 - almost every third capable member of society was convicted. " In the RSFSR alone, general courts passed sentences against 39.1 million people, and in different years, from 37 to 65% of convicts were sentenced to real terms of imprisonment (not including those who were repressed by the NKVD, without sentences passed by the judicial collegiums for criminal cases Supreme, regional and regional courts and permanent sessions operating at the camps, without the sentences of military tribunals, without exiles, without expelled peoples, etc.).

According to Anatoly Vishnevsky, “ the total number of citizens of the USSR who were subjected to repression in the form of deprivation or significant restriction of freedom for more or less lengthy periods"(In camps, special settlements, etc.) from the end-s to the city." amounted to at least 25-30 million people"(That is, those convicted under all articles of the USSR Criminal Code, including also special settlers). According to him, with reference to Zemskov, "in 1934-1947 alone, 10.2 million people entered the camps (minus those returned from the fugitives)." However, Zemskov himself does not write about the newly arrived contingents, but describes the general movement of the GULAG camp population, that is, this number includes both newly arrived convicts and those who are already serving sentences.

According to the chairman of the board of the international society "Memorial" Arseny Roginsky, from 1918 to 1987, according to the preserved documents, there were 7 million 100 thousand people arrested by the security organs in the USSR. Some of them were arrested not on political charges, since the security organs were arrested in different years and for such crimes as banditry, smuggling, counterfeiting. These calculations, although they were made by him by 1994, were deliberately not published by him, since they contradicted the significantly large numbers of arrests prevailing in those years.

Immediately after the end of World War II, in September 1945, the state of emergency was lifted and the State Defense Committee was abolished. In March 1946, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was transformed into the Council of Ministers. At the same time, the number of ministries and departments increased and the number of their staff grew.

At the same time, elections were held to local councils, the Supreme Councils of the republics and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, as a result of which the deputy corps, which had not changed during the war years, was renewed. By the beginning of the 50s. increased collegiality in the activities of the Soviets as a result of the more frequent convocation of their sessions, an increase in the number of standing commissions. In accordance with the Constitution, direct and secret elections of people's judges and assessors were held for the first time. However, all power remained in the hands of the party leadership.

After a thirteen-year break, the 19th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) took place in October 1952, which decided to rename the party to the CPSU. In 1949, congresses of trade unions and the Komsomol were held (also not convened for 17 and 13 years). They were preceded by reporting and election party, trade union and Komsomol meetings, at which the leadership of these organizations was renewed. However, despite the seemingly positive, democratic changes, during these very years the political regime in the country was tightened, a new wave of repressions was growing.

The GULAG system reached its apogee precisely in the post-war years, since those who were sitting there since the mid-30s. "enemies of the people" added millions of new ones. One of the first strikes fell on prisoners of war, most of whom (about 2 million), after their release from Nazi captivity, were sent to the Siberian and Ukhta camps. Tula, "alien elements" were exiled from the Baltic republics, Western Ukraine and Belarus. According to various sources, during these years the "population" of the Gulag ranged from 4.5 to 12 million people.

In 1948, "special regime" camps were created for those convicted of "anti-Soviet activities" and "counterrevolutionary acts", which used especially sophisticated methods of influencing prisoners. Not wanting to put up with their position, political prisoners in a number of camps raised uprisings, sometimes under political slogans. The most famous of them were performances in Pechora (1948), Salekhard (1950), Kingir (1952), Ekibastuz (1952), Vorkuta (1953) and Norilsk (1953).

Along with the political prisoners in the camps after the war, there were also many of those workers who did not fulfill the existing production standards. Thus, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 2, 1948, the local authorities were granted the right to evict people who maliciously evaded work in agriculture to remote areas.

Fearing the increased popularity of the military during the war, Stalin authorized the arrest of Air Marshal A.A. Novikov, generals P.N. Ponedelin, N.K. Kirillov, a number of colleagues of Marshal G.K. Zhukov. The commander himself was charged with putting together a group of disgruntled generals and officers, ingratitude and disrespect for Stalin. Repression also affected some of the party functionaries, especially those who sought independence and greater independence from the central government. At the beginning of 1948, almost all the leaders of the Leningrad Party organization were arrested. The total number of those arrested in connection with the "Leningrad case" was about 2,000. Some time later, 200 of them were put on trial and shot, including the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Russia M. Rodionov, a member of the Politburo and Chairman of the State Planning Committee of the USSR N. Voznesensky, Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) A. Kuznetsov. The "Leningrad affair" was supposed to be a stern warning to those who at least in some way thought differently from the "leader of the peoples."

The last of the trials that were being prepared was the "Doctors' Plot" (1953), accused of improper treatment of the top leadership, which resulted in the death of a number of prominent figures. In total, the victims of repression in 1948-1953. became almost 6.5 million people. The flywheel of repression was stopped only after Stalin's death.

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 aforementioned 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 of the Russian Empire, was sentenced to death.

Shakhty affair

The charges under Article 58 were ridiculous. A person who does not speak foreign languages ​​and has never communicated with a citizen of a Western state in his life could easily be accused of conspiring 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 was it necessary to get rid of representatives of the intelligentsia, specialists who could benefit the Soviet state? Historians offer various answers to these questions.

Among modern researchers there are those who are convinced that Stalin had only an indirect 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.

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 former draw attention to the positive transformations that took place in the country during the Stalinist 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, whom 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 (this data was referred to by Solzhenitsyn 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 waging of the Second World War."
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: "On the scale of the entire 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 the October Revolution launched terror against the White Guards , priests 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 causes of 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 forced 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.