EntranceStalin's repressions. Statistics of losses in the USSR (on the topic “repressions in the USSR”) What were the mass repressions after the war?
The Sakharov Center hosted a discussion “Stalin’s Terror: Mechanisms and Legal Assessment,” organized jointly with the Free Historical Society. The discussion was attended by Oleg Khlevnyuk, leading researcher at the International Center for the History and Sociology of the Second World War and Its Consequences at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, and Nikita Petrov, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Memorial Center. Lenta.ru recorded the main points of their speeches.
Oleg Khlevnyuk:
Historians have long been grappling with the question of whether Stalin's repressions were necessary from the point of view of elementary expediency. Most experts are inclined to believe that such methods are not necessary for the progressive development of the country.
There is a point of view according to which terror became a kind of response to the crisis in the country (in particular, the economic one). I believe that Stalin decided to carry out repressions on such a scale precisely because everything was relatively good in the USSR by that time. After the completely disastrous first five-year plan, the policy of the second five-year plan was more balanced and successful. As a result, the country entered the so-called three good years (1934-1936), which were marked by successful rates of industrial growth, the abolition of the rationing system, the emergence of new incentives to work and relative stabilization in the countryside.
It was terror that plunged the country's economy and social well-being into a new crisis. If there had been no Stalin, then there would not have been not only mass repressions (at least in 1937-1938), but also collectivization in the form in which we know it.
Terror or fight against enemies of the people?
From the very beginning, the Soviet authorities did not try to hide the terror. The USSR government tried to make trials as public as possible, not only within the country, but also in the international arena: transcripts of court hearings were published in the main European languages.
The attitude towards terrorism was not clear from the very beginning. For example, the American Ambassador to the USSR Joseph Davis believed that enemies of the people were really in the dock. At the same time, the left defended the innocence of their comrades - the Old Bolsheviks.
Later, experts began to pay attention to the fact that terror was a broader process that covered not only the top of the Bolsheviks - after all, people of intellectual labor also fell into its millstones. But at that time, due to a lack of sources of information, there were no clear ideas about how all this was happening, who was being arrested and why.
Some Western historians continued to defend the theory of the significance of terror, while revisionist historians said that terror was a spontaneous, rather random phenomenon, to which Stalin himself had nothing to do. Some wrote that the number of those arrested was small and numbered in the thousands.
When the archives were opened, more accurate figures became known, and departmental statistics from the NKVD and MGB appeared, which recorded arrests and convictions. The Gulag statistics contained figures on the number of prisoners in the camps, mortality, and even the national composition of prisoners.
It turned out that this Stalinist system was extremely centralized. We saw how mass repressions were planned in full accordance with the planned nature of the state. At the same time, the true scope of Stalin’s terror was not determined by routine political arrests. It was expressed in large waves - two of them are associated with collectivization and the Great Terror.
In 1930, it was decided to launch an operation against peasant kulaks. The corresponding lists were prepared locally, the NKVD issued orders on the progress of the operation, and the Politburo approved them. They were executed with certain excesses, but everything happened within the framework of this centralized model. Until 1937, the mechanics of repression were worked out, and in 1937-1938 it was applied in its most complete and expanded form.
Prerequisites and basis of repression
Nikita Petrov:
All the necessary laws on the judicial system were adopted in the country back in the 1920s. The most important can be considered the law of December 1, 1934, which deprived the accused of the right to defense and cassation appeal of the verdict. It provided for the consideration of cases in the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court in a simplified manner: behind closed doors, in the absence of the prosecutor and defense attorneys, with the execution of the death sentence within 24 hours after its passing.
According to this law, all cases received by the Military Collegium in 1937-1938 were considered. Then about 37 thousand people were convicted, of which 25 thousand were sentenced to death.
Khlevnyuk:
The Stalinist system was designed to suppress and instill fear. Soviet society at that time needed forced labor. Various types of campaigns also played a role - for example, elections. However, there was a certain single impulse that gave special acceleration to all these factors precisely in 1937-38: the threat of war, already completely obvious at that time.
Stalin considered it very important not only to build up military power, but also to ensure the unity of the rear, which implied the destruction of the internal enemy. That's why the idea of getting rid of all those who could stab you in the back arose. The documents leading to this conclusion are numerous statements by Stalin himself, as well as the orders on the basis of which the terror was carried out.
Enemies of the regime were fought out of court
Petrov:
The decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated July 2, 1937, signed by Stalin, marked the beginning of the “kulak operation.” In the preamble to the document, the regions were asked to set quotas for future extrajudicial sentences of execution and imprisonment of those arrested in camps, as well as to propose compositions of “troikas” for passing sentences.
Khlevnyuk:
The mechanics of the 1937-1938 operations were similar to those used in 1930, but it is important to note here that by 1937, NKVD records already existed on various enemies of the people and suspicious elements. The center decided to liquidate or isolate these registration contingents from society.
The limits on arrests established in the plans were in fact not limits at all, but minimum requirements, so NKVD officials set a course for exceeding these plans. This was even necessary for them, since internal instructions directed them to identify not individuals, but groups of unreliable people. The authorities believed that a lone enemy was not an enemy.
This resulted in the original limits being continually exceeded. Requests for the need for additional arrests were sent to Moscow, which promptly satisfied them. A significant part of the norms was approved personally by Stalin, the other - personally by Yezhov. Some were changed by decision of the Politburo.
Petrov:
It was decided to put an end to any hostile activity once and for all. It is this phrase that is inserted into the preamble of NKVD order No. 00447 of July 30, 1937 on the “kulak operation”: he ordered it to begin in most regions of the country on August 5, and on August 10 and 15 in Central Asia and the Far East.
There were meetings in the center, the heads of the NKVD came to see Yezhov. He told them that if an extra thousand people suffered during this operation, then there would be no big problem. Most likely, Yezhov did not say this himself - we recognize here the signs of Stalin's great style. The leader regularly had new ideas. There is his letter to Yezhov, in which he writes about the need to extend the operation and gives instructions (in particular, regarding the Socialist Revolutionaries).
Then the attention of the system turned to the so-called counter-revolutionary national elements. About 15 operations were carried out against counter-revolutionaries Poles, Germans, Balts, Bulgarians, Iranians, Afghans, former employees of the Chinese Eastern Railway - all these people were suspected of spying for those states to which they were ethnically close.
Each operation is characterized by a special mechanism of action. The repression of the kulaks did not reinvent the wheel: “troikas” as an instrument of extrajudicial reprisals were tested back during the Civil War. According to the correspondence of the top leadership of the OGPU, it is clear that in 1924, when the Moscow student unrest occurred, the mechanics of terror had already been perfected. “We need to assemble a troika, as has always been the case in troubled times,” writes one functionary to another. The Troika is an ideology and partly a symbol of the Soviet repressive authorities.
The mechanism of national operations was different - they used the so-called two. No limits were set on them.
Similar things happened when Stalin’s execution lists were approved: their fate was decided by a narrow group of people - Stalin and his inner circle. These lists contain personal notes from the leader. For example, opposite the name of Mikhail Baranov, head of the Sanitary Department of the Red Army, he writes “beat-beat.” In another case, Molotov wrote “VMN” (capital punishment) next to one of the women’s names.
There are documents according to which Mikoyan, who went to Armenia as an emissary of terror, asked to shoot an additional 700 people, and Yezhov believed that this figure needed to be increased to 1500. Stalin agreed with the latter on this issue, because Yezhov knew better. When Stalin was asked to give an additional limit on the execution of 300 people, he easily wrote “500”.
There is a debatable question about why limits were set for the “kulak operation”, but not for, for example, national ones. I think that if the “kulak operation” had no boundaries, then the terror could have become absolute, because too many people fit the category of “anti-Soviet element.” In national operations, more clear criteria were established: people with connections in other countries who arrived from abroad were repressed. Stalin believed that the circle of people here was more or less clear and delineated.
Mass operations were centralized
A corresponding propaganda campaign was carried out. Enemies of the people who infiltrated the NKVD and slanderers were blamed for unleashing the terror. Interestingly, the idea of denunciations as a reason for repression is not documented. During mass operations, the NKVD functioned according to completely different algorithms, and if they responded to denunciations, it was quite selective and random. We mostly worked according to pre-prepared lists.
The share and number of USSR citizens who were subjected to repression during the years of Stalin’s rule:
no, that's a lie.
About 3.5 million were dispossessed, approximately 2.1 million were deported (Kazakhstan, North).
In total, about 2.3 million passed over the period of 30-40 years, including the “declassed urban element” such as prostitutes and beggars.
(I noticed how many schools and libraries there were in the settlements.)
many people successfully escaped from there, were released upon reaching the age of 16, or were released due to enrolling in higher or secondary educational institutions.
"Stalin's repressions"
Is it true that 40 million were convicted?
no, that's a lie.
from 1921 to 1954, 3,777,380 people were convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes, of which 642,980 people were convicted of criminal offenses.
During this entire period, the total number of prisoners (not only “political”) did not exceed 2.5 million, during this time a total of about 1.8 million died, of which approximately 600 thousand were political. The lion’s share of deaths occurred in the years 42-43.
Writers such as Solzhenitsyn, Suvorov, Lev Razgon, Antonov-Ovseenko, Roy Medvedev, Vyltsan, Shatunovskaya are liars and falsifiers.
Of course, the Gulag or prisons were not “death camps” like the Nazi ones; every year 200-350 thousand people left them and their sentences ended.
Another point, in the USSR - Nikolaev, who killed Kirov, is clearly political, but in the USA, Oswald, the killer of Kennedy, is criminal.
Another blatant lie about the total repression of repatriates. In reality, only a few percent were convicted and sent to serve time. I think it is obvious that among the repatriates there were former Vlasovites, punitive forces, and policemen.
The Holodomor, of course, was not planned; the number of victims was about 3 million in 1933-34.
The losses during the eviction of peoples have been greatly exaggerated: Chechens, Crimean Tatars, they amounted to about 0.13%.
Zemskov does not assess the reasons for the eviction.
Zemskov estimates the number of repressed people (deported “kulaks”, resettled peoples, convicted under Article 58, victims for religious reasons, Cossacks, etc.) at 10 million. (Memorial has 14 million).
During the period from 1918 to 1958, about 400 million people lived on the territory of the USSR, that is, 2.5% of the population of the USSR was subjected to repression.
Accordingly, 97.5% of the population of the USSR was not subjected to any repression.
On the eve of the war.
Is it true that the Soviet people feared and hated the authorities?
no, that's a lie.
Before the war, people understood its inevitability and prepared, but hoped that it would not happen.
The attitude towards the Red Army was wonderful. "The army is the best school for peasant youth."
The civilization of the USSR was a young, healthy, unique organism, with enormous potential for development and complexity. Her spirit was militancy, readiness for work, exploits, and self-sacrifice.
One can only be surprised at the myopia of Hitler, who believed that it would fall apart at the first press.
Of course, the USSR had groups with anti-Soviet sentiments, but they made up an insignificant number of the population. The USSR was the embodiment of the ideals of October, a country with great social achievements, a state of workers and peasants with the highest passionarity. The peoples of the USSR were ready to defend not only their land, the lives of their loved ones, but also the state and social system of the USSR. The USSR regime was assessed by contemporaries as the fairest and best.
The survival of the regime was not at stake; what was at stake was the fate and physical survival of the peoples of the USSR, primarily the Russians.
During the war years
Is it true that the people wanted to throw off the “yoke of Bolshevism”?
no, that's a lie.
Soviet peasants regarded collective farm land as their own. The German fascists were deeply struck by peasant patriotism and peasant support for the Soviet army. Western researchers mistakenly believe that the matter is the miscalculations of the German command, which did not restrain the atrocities of its army and thus “miscalculated” in the policy of “attracting” the peasants to its side. The most worthless historians write that “Soviet peasants extended their hand to the fascists, but they did not accept it.”
The Soviet people, the peasants, in their overwhelming majority, did not extend any hand to the fascists, the Soviet government was their power, they saw the Germans as murderers and invaders. The collaboration of some peasants is a rare exception, even among the exiled “kulaks”.
Another lie is the statement about forced labor on collective farms/state farms. (Of course, even earlier people joined collective farms voluntarily; a collective farm/state farm is a more progressive and effective form of organization than an individual or private farm)
People accomplished the feat of labor not under pain of punishment, but due to the highest motivation to help the front, the country, and their loved ones fighting the enemy. Many initiatives emerged from among the peasants: shock labor, new ones. more effective methods of work, social. competition, social obligations. This all happened against the backdrop of a sharp reduction in the number of working equipment, labor, and agricultural space. They said: “The tractor is our tank on which we go into battle for the harvest!”
It is this work, when a child or an old man fulfills 50% of an adult’s norm, and an adult fulfills several norms, that is an indicator of the greatness of a people, his feat.
Is it true that the NKVD repressed our prisoners and repatriates?
no, that's a lie.
Of course, Stalin did not say: “we do not have those who retreated or were taken prisoner, we have traitors.”
The policy of the USSR did not equate “traitor” with “captured.” The "Vlasovites", policemen, "Krasnov's Cossacks" and other scum that the traitor Prosvirnin swears at were considered traitors. And even then, the Vlasovites did not receive not only VMN, but even prison. They were sent into exile for 6 years.
Many traitors did not receive any punishment when it turned out that they joined the ROA under torture by starvation.
Most of those forcibly taken to work in Europe, having successfully and quickly passed the check, returned home.
A statement is also a myth. that many repatriates did not want to return to the USSR.
On my own, I’ll add a couple of figures for Chapter 5: after the liberation of Soviet prisoners of war from Nazi camps, out of 1.8 million survivors, 333 thousand people were not tested for cooperation with the Germans. They received punishment in the form of exile and life in settlements for a period of 6 years.
IN THE USSR. I tried to answer nine of the most common questions about political repression.
1. What is political repression?
There have been periods in the history of different countries when state power, for some reason - pragmatic or ideological - began to perceive part of its population either as direct enemies, or as superfluous, “unnecessary” people. The selection principle could be different - by ethnic origin, by religious views, by financial status, by political views, by level of education - but the result was the same: these “unnecessary” people were either physically destroyed without trial or investigation, or subjected to criminal prosecution, or became victims of administrative restrictions (expelled from the country, sent into exile within the country, deprived of civil rights, and so on). That is, people suffered not for any personal fault, but simply because they were unlucky, simply because they found themselves in a certain place at a certain time.
Political repressions occurred not only in Russia, and in Russia - not only under Soviet rule. However, when remembering the victims of political repression, we first of all think about those who suffered in 1917–1953, because among the total number of Russian repressed people they make up the majority.
2. Why, when talking about political repressions, are they limited to the period 1917–1953? There were no repressions after 1953?
The demonstration of 25 August 1968, also called the "demonstration of the seven", was carried out by a group of seven Soviet dissidents on Red Square to protest the introduction of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia. Two of the participants were declared insane and subjected to compulsory treatment.
This period, 1917–1953, is singled out because it accounted for the vast majority of repressions. After 1953, repressions also occurred, but on a much smaller scale, and most importantly, they mainly affected people who, to one degree or another, opposed the Soviet political system. We are talking about dissidents who received prison sentences or suffered from punitive psychiatry. They knew what they were getting into, they were not random victims - which, of course, in no way justifies what the authorities did to them.
3. Victims of Soviet political repression - who are they?
These were very different people, different in social origin, beliefs, worldview.
Sergei Korolev, scientist
Some of them are the so-called “ former”, that is, nobles, army or police officers, university professors, judges, merchants and industrialists, and clergy. That is, those whom the communists who came to power in 1917 considered to be interested in the restoration of the previous order and therefore suspected them of subversive activities.
Also, a huge proportion of the victims of political repression were “ dispossessed“peasants, most of them strong farmers, who did not want to join collective farms (some, however, were not saved by joining a collective farm).
Many victims of repression were classified as “ pests" This was the name given to production specialists - engineers, technicians, workers, who were credited with the intent to cause material, technical or economic damage to the country. Sometimes this happened after some real production failures, accidents (for which it was necessary to find those responsible), and sometimes it was only about hypothetical troubles that, according to prosecutors, could have happened if the enemies had not been exposed in time.
The other part is communists and members of other revolutionary parties who joined the communists after October 1917: Social Democrats, Socialist Revolutionaries, anarchists, Bundists, and so on. These people, who actively fit into the new reality and participated in the construction of Soviet power, at a certain stage turned out to be redundant due to the internal party struggle, which in the CPSU (b), and later in the CPSU, never stopped - first openly, later hidden. These are also communists who came under attack due to their personal qualities: excessive ideology, insufficient servility...
Sergeev Ivan Ivanovich. Before his arrest, he worked as a watchman at the Chernovsky collective farm “Iskra”
At the end of the 30s, many were repressed military, starting with senior command staff and ending with junior officers. They were suspected of potential participants in conspiracies against Stalin.
It is worth mentioning separately employees of the GPU-NKVD-NKGB, some of which were also repressed in the 30s during the “fight against excesses.” “Excesses on the ground” is a concept that was coined by Stalin, implying the excessive enthusiasm of punitive authorities. It is clear that these “excesses” naturally followed from the general state policy, and therefore, in the mouth of Stalin, words about excesses sound very cynical. By the way, almost the entire leadership of the NKVD, which carried out repressions in 1937–1938, was soon repressed and shot.
Naturally, there was a lot repressed for their faith(and not only Orthodox). This includes the clergy, monasticism, active laypeople in parishes, and simply people who do not hide their faith. Although the Soviet government did not formally prohibit religion and the Soviet constitution of 1936 guaranteed citizens freedom of conscience, in fact, open profession of faith could end sadly for a person.
Rozhkova Vera. Before her arrest she worked at the Institute. Bauman. Was a secret nun
Not only individual people and certain classes were subjected to repression, but also individual peoples- Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Chechens and Ingush, Germans. This happened during the Great Patriotic War. There were two reasons. Firstly, they were seen as potential traitors who could go over to the side of the Germans when our troops retreat. Secondly, when German troops occupied Crimea, the Caucasus and a number of other territories, part of the peoples living there actually collaborated with them. Naturally, not all representatives of these peoples collaborated with the Germans, not to mention those of them who fought in the ranks of the Red Army - however, subsequently all of them, including women, children and old people, were declared traitors and sent into exile (where, by force inhumane conditions, many died either on the way or on the spot).
Olga Berggolts, poetess, future “muse of besieged Leningrad”
And among those repressed there were many ordinary people, who seemed to have a completely safe social origin, but were arrested either because of a denunciation, or simply because of an order (there were also plans from above to identify “enemies of the people”). If some major party functionary was arrested, then quite often his subordinates were also arrested, down to the lowest positions such as a personal driver or housekeeper.
4. Who cannot be considered a victim of political repression?
General Vlasov inspects ROA soldiers
Not all those who suffered in 1917–1953 (and later, until the end of Soviet power) can be called victims of political repression.
In addition to the “political” ones, people were also imprisoned in prisons and camps on ordinary criminal charges (theft, fraud, robbery, murder, and so on).
Also, those who committed obvious treason cannot be considered victims of political repression - for example, “Vlasovites” and “policemen”, that is, those who went to serve the German occupiers during the Great Patriotic War. Even regardless of the moral side of the matter, it was their conscious choice; they entered into a fight with the state, and the state, accordingly, fought with them.
The same applies to various kinds of rebel movements - Basmachi, Bandera, “forest brothers”, Caucasian abreks and so on. You can discuss their rights and wrongs, but the victims of political repression are only those who did not take the warpath with the USSR, who simply lived an ordinary life and suffered regardless of their actions.
5. How were the repressions legally formalized?
Certificate of execution of the death sentence of the NKVD troika against the Russian scientist and theologian Pavel Florensky. Reproduction ITAR-TASS
There were several options. Firstly, some of the repressed were shot or imprisoned after the opening of a criminal case, investigation and trial. Basically, they were charged under Article 58 of the USSR Criminal Code (this article included many points, from treason to anti-Soviet agitation). At the same time, in the 20s and even in the early 30s, all legal formalities were often observed - an investigation was carried out, then there was a trial with debate between the defense and the prosecution - the verdict was simply a foregone conclusion. In the 1930s, especially starting from 1937, the judicial procedure turned into a fiction, since torture and other illegal methods of pressure were used during the investigation. That is why, at trial, the accused admitted their guilt en masse.
Secondly, starting from 1937, along with ordinary judicial proceedings, a simplified procedure began to operate, when there were no judicial debates at all, the presence of the accused was not required, and sentences were passed by the so-called Special Meeting, in other words, the “troika”, literally behind 10-15 minutes.
Thirdly, some of the victims were repressed administratively, without any investigation or trial at all - the same “dispossessed”, the same exiled peoples. The same often applied to family members of those convicted under Article 58. The official abbreviation CHSIR (member of the family of a traitor to the motherland) was in use. At the same time, personal accusations were not brought against specific people, and their exile was motivated by political expediency.
But in addition, sometimes repressions did not have any legal formalization at all; in fact, they were lynchings - starting from the shooting in 1917 of a demonstration in defense of the Constituent Assembly and ending with the events of 1962 in Novocherkassk, where a workers’ demonstration protesting against rising prices for food was shot. food.
6. How many people were repressed?
Photo by Vladimir Eshtokin
This is a complex question to which historians still do not have an exact answer. The numbers are very different - from 1 to 60 million. There are two problems here - firstly, the inaccessibility of many archives, and secondly, the discrepancy in calculation methods. After all, even based on open archival data, one can draw different conclusions. Archival data is not only folders with criminal cases against specific people, but also, for example, departmental reports on food supplies for camps and prisons, statistics of births and deaths, records in cemetery offices about burials, and so on and so forth. Historians try to take into account as many different sources as possible, but the data sometimes disagree with each other. The reasons are different - accounting errors, deliberate fraud, and the loss of many important documents.
It is also a very controversial question - how many people were not just repressed, but specifically physically destroyed and did not return home? How to count? Only those sentenced to death? Or, on top of that, those who died in custody? If we count the dead, then we need to understand the causes of death: they could be caused by unbearable conditions (hunger, cold, beatings, overwork), or they could also be natural (death from old age, death from chronic diseases that began long before the arrest). Death certificates (which were not even always preserved in the criminal case) most often included “acute heart failure,” but in reality it could have been anything.
In addition, although any historian should be impartial, as a scientist should be, in reality each researcher has his own ideological and political preferences, and therefore the historian may consider some data more reliable, and some less. Complete objectivity is an ideal that should be strived for, but which has not yet been achieved by any historian. Therefore, when faced with any specific estimates, you should be careful. What if the author, wittingly or unwittingly, overstates or understates the numbers?
But to understand the scale of the repressions, it is enough to give this example of discrepancies in numbers. According to church historians, in 1937-38 more than 130 thousand clergy. According to historians committed to communist ideology, in 1937-38 the number of arrested clergy was much smaller - only about 47 thousand. Let's not argue about who is more right. Let's do a thought experiment: imagine that now, in our time, 47 thousand railway workers are arrested in Russia throughout the year. What will happen to our transport system? And if 47 thousand doctors are arrested in a year, will domestic medicine even survive? What if 47 thousand priests are arrested? However, we don’t even have that many of them now. In general, even if we focus on the minimum estimates, it is easy to see that the repressions have become a social disaster.
And for their moral assessment, the specific numbers of victims are completely unimportant. Whether it’s a million or a hundred million or a hundred thousand, it’s still a tragedy, it’s still a crime.
7. What is rehabilitation?
The vast majority of victims of political repression were subsequently rehabilitated.
Rehabilitation is the official recognition of the state that a given person was convicted unfairly, that he is innocent of the charges brought against him and therefore is not considered to have been convicted and gets rid of the restrictions that people released from prison may be subject to (for example, the right to be elected as a deputy, the right to work in law enforcement organs and the like).
Many believe that the rehabilitation of victims of political repression began only in 1956, after the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee N.S. Khrushchev exposed Stalin’s cult of personality at the 20th Party Congress. In fact, this is not so - the first wave of rehabilitation took place in 1939, after the country's leadership condemned the rampant repressions of 1937-38 (which were called “excesses on the ground”). This, by the way, is an important point, because it thereby recognized the general existence of political repression in the country. It is recognized even by those who launched these repressions. Therefore, the assertion of modern Stalinists that repression is a myth looks simply ridiculous. How about a myth, if even your idol Stalin recognized them?
However, in 1939-41, few people were rehabilitated. And mass rehabilitation began in 1953 after the death of Stalin, its peak occurred in 1955–1962. Then, until the second half of the 1980s, there were few rehabilitations, but after perestroika announced in 1985, their number increased sharply. Individual acts of rehabilitation occurred already in the post-Soviet era, in the 1990s (since the Russian Federation is legally the successor to the USSR, it has the right to rehabilitate those who were unjustly convicted before 1991).
But, shot in Yekaterinburg in 1918, she was officially rehabilitated only in 2008. Previously, the Prosecutor General's Office had resisted rehabilitation on the grounds that the murder of the royal family had no legal formality and had become the arbitrariness of local authorities. But the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in 2008 found that even though there was no court decision, the royal family was shot by the decision of the local authorities, which have administrative powers and therefore are part of the state machine - and repression is a measure of coercion on the part of the state.
By the way, there are people who undoubtedly became victims of political repression, who did not commit what they were formally accused of - but there is no decision on their rehabilitation and, apparently, there never will be. We are talking about those who, before falling under the skating rink of repression, were themselves drivers of this skating rink. For example, the “iron people's commissar” Nikolai Yezhov. Well, what kind of innocent victim is he? Or the same Lavrenty Beria. Of course, his execution was unjust, of course, he was not any English or French spy, as was hastily attributed to him - but his rehabilitation would have become a demonstrative justification for political terror.
The rehabilitation of victims of political repression did not always occur “automatically”; sometimes these people or their relatives had to be persistent and write letters to government bodies for years.
8. What do they say now about political repression?
Photo by Vladimir Eshtokin
In modern Russia there is no consensus on this topic. Moreover, social polarization is manifested in attitudes towards it. Various political and ideological forces use the memory of repression in their political interests, but ordinary people, not politicians, can perceive it very differently.
Some people are convinced that political repression is a shameful page in our country’s history, that it is a monstrous crime against humanity, and therefore we must always remember those repressed. Sometimes this position is simplistic, all victims of repression are declared equally sinless righteous, and the blame for them is placed not only on the Soviet government, but also on the modern Russian government as the legal successor of the Soviet one. Any attempts to figure out how many were actually repressed are a priori declared to be a justification of Stalinism and condemned from a moral standpoint.
Others question the very fact of repression, arguing that all these “so-called victims” are really guilty of the crimes attributed to them, that they really harmed, blew up, plotted terrorist attacks, and so on. This extremely naive position is refuted by the fact that the fact of repression was recognized even under Stalin - then it was called “excesses” and in the late 30s almost the entire leadership of the NKVD was condemned for these “excesses”. The moral deficiency of such views is equally obvious: people are so eager to wishful thinking that they are ready, without any evidence, to slander millions of victims.
Still others admit that there were repressions, they agree that those who suffered from them were innocent, but they perceive all this completely calmly: they say, it could not have been otherwise. Repression, it seems to them, was necessary for the industrialization of the country and for the creation of a combat-ready army. Without repression it would not have been possible to win the Great Patriotic War. Such a pragmatic position, regardless of how much it corresponds to historical facts, is also morally flawed: the state is declared to be the highest value, in comparison with which the life of each individual person is worthless, and anyone can and should be destroyed for the sake of the highest state interests. Here, by the way, one can draw a parallel with the ancient pagans, who made human sacrifices to their gods, being one hundred percent sure that this would serve the good of the tribe, people, and city. Now this seems fanatic to us, but the motivation was exactly the same as that of modern pragmatists.
One can, of course, understand where such motivation comes from. The USSR positioned itself as a society of social justice - and indeed, in many respects, especially in the late Soviet period, there was social justice. Our society is socially much less fair - plus now any injustice instantly becomes known to everyone. Therefore, in search of justice, people turn their gaze to the past - naturally, idealizing that era. This means that they psychologically strive to justify the dark things that happened then, including the repressions. Recognition and condemnation of repression (especially declared from above) among such people is coupled with approval of current injustices. One can demonstrate in every possible way the naivety of such a position, but until social justice is restored, this position will be reproduced again and again.
9. How should Christians perceive political repression?
Icon of the New Russian Martyrs
Among Orthodox Christians, unfortunately, there is also no unity on this issue. There are believers (including churchgoers, sometimes even in the priesthood) who either consider all those repressed guilty and unworthy of pity, or justify their suffering by the benefit of the state. Moreover, sometimes - thank God, not very often! - you can also hear the opinion that the repressions were a blessing for the repressed themselves. After all, what happened to them happened according to God’s Providence, and God will not do anything bad to a person. This means, say such Christians, that these people had to suffer in order to be cleansed of heavy sins and to be spiritually reborn. Indeed, there are many examples of such spiritual revival. As the poet Alexander Solodovnikov, who went through the camp, wrote, “The grille is rusty, thank you! //Thank you, bayonet blade! // Such freedom could only be given to me // by long centuries.”
In fact, this is a dangerous spiritual substitution. Yes, suffering can sometimes save the human soul, but it does not at all follow from this that suffering in itself is good. And even more so, it does not follow from this that the executioners are righteous. As we know from the Gospel, King Herod, wanting to find and destroy the baby Jesus, ordered the preventive killing of all the babies in Bethlehem and the surrounding area. These babies are canonized by the Church, but their killer Herod is not. Sin remains sin, evil remains evil, a criminal remains a criminal even if the long-term consequences of his crime are wonderful. In addition, it is one thing to talk about the benefits of suffering from personal experience, and quite another thing to say this about other people. Only God knows whether this or that test will turn out for good or for bad for a particular person, and we have no right to judge this. But this is what we can and should do - if we consider ourselves Christians! - This is to keep God's commandments. Where there is not a word about the fact that for the sake of the public good you can kill innocent people.
What are the conclusions?
First and the obvious is that we must understand that repression is evil, both social and personal evil of those who carried it out. There is no justification for this evil - neither pragmatic nor theological.
Second- this is the correct attitude towards victims of repression. They should not all be considered ideal. These were very different people, both socially, culturally, and morally. But their tragedy must be perceived regardless of their individual characteristics and circumstances. All of them were not guilty of the authorities who subjected them to suffering. We do not know which of them is righteous, which is a sinner, who is now in heaven, who is in hell. But we must feel sorry for them and pray for them. But what we definitely shouldn’t do is don’t speculate on their memory, defending our own political views in polemics. The repressed should not become for us means.
Third- we must clearly understand why these repressions became possible in our country. The reason for them is not only the personal sins of those who were at the helm in those years. The main reason is the worldview of the Bolsheviks, based on atheism and the denial of all previous traditions - spiritual, cultural, family, and so on. The Bolsheviks wanted to build heaven on earth, and at the same time they allowed themselves any means. Only that which serves the cause of the proletariat is moral, they argued. It is not surprising that they were internally ready to kill by the millions. Yes, there were repressions in different countries (including ours) even before the Bolsheviks - but still there were some brakes that limited their scale. Now there were no brakes - and what happened happened.
Looking at various horrors of the past, we often say the phrase “this must not happen again.” But this Maybe repeat itself, if we discard moral and spiritual barriers, if we proceed solely from pragmatics and ideology. And it doesn’t matter what color this ideology will be - red, green, black, brown... It will still end in great blood.
The topic of political repression in the USSR under Stalin is one of the most discussed historical topics of our time. First, let’s define the term “political repression.” That's what the dictionaries say.
Repression (Latin repressio - suppression, oppression) is a punitive measure, punishment applied by government agencies, the state. Political repressions are coercive measures applied based on political motives, such as imprisonment, expulsion, exile, deprivation of citizenship, forced labor, deprivation of life, etc.
Obviously, the reason for the emergence of political repression is the political struggle in the state, causing certain “political motives” for punitive measures. And the more fiercely this struggle is waged, the greater the scope of repression. Thus, in order to explain the reasons and scale of the repressive policy pursued in the USSR, it is necessary to understand what political forces were active at this historical stage. What goals did they pursue? And what they managed to achieve. Only this approach can lead us to a deep understanding of this phenomenon.
In domestic historical journalism regarding the issue of repression of the 30s, two directions have emerged, which can conditionally be called “anti-Soviet” and “patriotic”. Anti-Soviet journalism presents this historical phenomenon in a simplified black and white picture, attributing b O Most of the cause-and-effect relationships are due to Stalin’s personal qualities. A purely philistine approach to history is used, which consists in explaining events only by the actions of individuals.
From the patriotic camp, the vision of the process of political repression also suffers from bias. This situation, in my opinion, is objective and is due to the fact that pro-Soviet historians were initially in the minority and, as it were, on the defensive. They constantly had to defend and justify, rather than put forward their version of events. Therefore, their works, as an antithesis, contain only “+” signs. But thanks to their criticism of anti-Sovietism, it was possible to somehow understand the problematic areas of Soviet history, see outright lies, and get away from myths. Now, it seems to me, the time has come to restore an objective picture of events.
Doctor of Historical Sciences Yuri Zhukov
Regarding the political repressions of the pre-war USSR (the so-called “Great Terror”), one of the first attempts to recreate this picture was the work “Another Stalin” by Doctor of Historical Sciences Yuri Nikolaevich Zhukov, published in 2003. I would like to talk about his conclusions in this article, and also express some of my thoughts on this issue. This is what Yuri Nikolaevich himself writes about his work.
“Myths about Stalin are far from new. The first, apologetic, began to take shape in the thirties, taking its final shape by the early fifties. The second, revealing, followed after Khrushchev’s closed report at the 20th Congress of the CPSU. It was actually a mirror image of the previous one, it simply turned from “white” to “black”, without changing its nature at all...
... Without at all pretending to be complete and therefore indisputable, I will venture only one thing: to get away from both preconceived points of view, from both myths; try to restore the old, once well-known, but now carefully forgotten, completely unnoticed, ignored by everyone.”
Well, that’s a very commendable desire for a historian (without quotes).
“I am only a student of Lenin...”- I. Stalin
To begin with, I would like to talk about Lenin and Stalin, as his successor. Both liberal and patriotic historians often contrast Stalin with Lenin. Moreover, if the former contrast the portrait of the cruel dictator Stalin with the seemingly more democratic Lenin (after all, he introduced the NEP, etc.). The latter, on the contrary, present Lenin as a radical revolutionary in contrast to the statist Stalin, who removed the unruly “Leninist guard” from the political scene.
In fact, it seems to me that such oppositions are incorrect, breaking the logic of the formation of the Soviet state into two opposing stages. It would be more correct to talk about Stalin as the continuer of what Lenin started (especially since Stalin always spoke about this, and not at all out of modesty). And try to find common features in them.
Here is what, for example, historian Yuri Emelyanov says about this:
"First of all, Stalin was constantly guided by the Leninist principle of creative development of Marxist theory, rejecting "dogmatic Marxism". Constantly making adjustments to the daily implementation of policy so that it corresponded to the real situation, Stalin at the same time followed the main Leninist guidelines. Putting forward the task of building a socialist society in one particular country, Stalin consistently continued the activities of Lenin, which led to the victory of the world's first socialist revolution in Russia. Stalin's five-year plans logically followed from Lenin's GOELRO plan. Stalin's program of collectivization and modernization of the countryside met the tasks of mechanization of agriculture set by Lenin.Yuri Zhukov also agrees with him (, p. 5): “To understand Stalin’s views, his approach to solving all problems without exception is important - “specific historical conditions.” It was they, and not anyone’s authoritative statement, that official dogmas and theories became the main ones for Stalin. They, and not anything else, explain his commitment to the politics of the same pragmatist Lenin as himself, explain his own hesitations and turning points, his readiness, under the influence of real conditions, without being embarrassed at all, to abandon previously made proposals and insist on others , sometimes diametrically opposed."
There are good reasons to assert that Stalin's policies were a continuation of Lenin's. Perhaps, if Lenin had found himself in Stalin’s place, under the same “specific historical conditions” he would have acted in a similar way. In addition, it is worth noting the phenomenal performance of these people, and the constant desire for development and self-learning.
The fight for Lenin's legacy
While Lenin was still alive, but when he was already seriously ill, a struggle for leadership in the party unfolded between Trotsky’s group and the “leftists” (Zinoviev, Kamenev), as well as the “rights” (Bukharin, Rykov) and Stalin’s “centrist group”. We won’t go into too much detail about the vicissitudes of this struggle, but let’s note the following. In the stormy process of party discussions, it was the Stalinist group that initially occupied much worse “starting positions” that stood out and received party support. Anti-Soviet historians say that this was facilitated by Stalin’s special cunning and deceit. He, they say, skillfully maneuvered among opponents, pitted them against each other, used their ideas, and so on.
We will not deny Stalin’s ability to play the political game, but the fact remains: the Bolshevik Party supported him. And this was facilitated, firstly, by the position of Stalin, who tried, despite all the disagreements, to prevent a split in the party during this difficult time. And, secondly, the focus and ability of the Stalinist group for practical state activities, the thirst for which, apparently, was very strongly felt among the Bolsheviks who won the civil war.
Stalin and his comrades, unlike their opponents, objectively assessed the current situation in the world, understood the impossibility of a world revolution at this historical stage and, based on this, began to consolidate the successes achieved in Russia, and not to “export” them outside. From Stalin's report to the 17th Congress: “We were guided in the past and we are guided in the present by the USSR and only by the USSR.”.
It is impossible to say precisely from what date the full dominance of the Stalinist group in the country’s leadership began. Apparently, this was the period of 1928 - 1929, when we can say that this political force began to pursue an independent policy. At this stage, repressions against the party opposition were rather mild. Usually, for opposition leaders, defeat resulted in removal from leadership positions, expulsion from Moscow or the country, and expulsion from the party.
Scale of repression
Now it's time to talk about numbers. What was the scale of political repression in the Soviet state? According to discussions with anti-Sovietists (see “The Court of History” or “Historical Process”), it is precisely this question that causes a painful reaction on their part and accusations of “justification, inhumanity,” etc. But talking about numbers actually matters, since numbers often reveal a lot about the nature of repression. At the moment, the most widely known studies are those of Dr. V. N. Zemskova.
Table 1. Comparative statistics of prisoners in 1921–1952
for political reasons (according to data from the First Special Department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs and the USSR KGB)
Table 1 shows Zemskov’s data obtained from two sources: statistical reports of the OGPU-NKVD-MVD-MGB and data from the First Special Department of the former USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.
V. N. Zemskov:
“At the beginning of 1989, by decision of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences, a commission of the History Department of the USSR Academy of Sciences was created, headed by corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences Yu.A. Polyakov on determining population losses. Being part of this commission, we were among the first historians to gain access to statistical reports of the OGPU-NKVD-MVD-MGB that had not previously been issued to researchers...
...The vast majority of them were convicted under the famous Article 58. There is a rather significant discrepancy in the statistical calculations of these two departments, which, in our opinion, is not explained by the incompleteness of the information of the former KGB of the USSR, but by the fact that employees of the 1st special department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs interpreted the concept of “political criminals” more broadly and in the statistics they compiled there was a significant "criminal admixture".
It should be noted that so far there is no unity among historians in assessing the process of dispossession. Should the dispossessed be classified as politically repressed? Table 1 includes only those dispossessed in category 1, that is, those who were arrested and convicted. Those sent to a special settlement (2nd category) and simply dispossessed but not deported (3rd category) were not included in the table.
Now let's use this data to identify some special periods. This is 1921, 35 thousand of them were sentenced to capital punishment - the end of the civil war. 1929 - 1930 - carrying out collectivization. 1941 - 1942 - the beginning of the war, the increase in the number of those executed to 23 - 26 thousand is associated with the elimination of “particularly dangerous elements” in prisons that fell under occupation. And a special place is occupied by the years 1937 - 1938 (the so-called “Great Terror”), it was during this period that there was a sharp surge in political repressions, especially 682 thousand people sentenced to criminal charges (or over 82% for the entire period). What happened during this period? If everything is more or less clear with other years, then 1937 looks truly very terrifying. The work of Yuri Zhukov is dedicated to explaining this phenomenon.
This picture emerges from archival data. And there is fierce debate about these numbers. They very much do not coincide with the tens of millions of victims voiced by our liberals.
Of course, one cannot say that the scale of repression was very low, based only on the fact that the actual number of those repressed turned out to be an order of magnitude smaller than the number of liberals. Repressions were significant in the designated special years, when large-scale events took place throughout the country, compared to the level of “quiet” years. But at the same time, we must understand that being repressed for political reasons does not automatically mean innocent. There were those convicted of serious crimes against the state (robbery, terrorism, espionage, etc.).
Stalin's course
Now, after talking about numbers, let's move on to describing historical processes. But at the same time I want to make one digression. The topic of the article is very painful and gloomy: political intrigue and repression inspire few people. However, we must understand that the life of the Soviet people in these years was not filled with this. In the 20s - 30s, truly global changes took place in Soviet Russia, in which the people took a direct part. The country developed at an incredible pace. The breakthrough was not only industrial: public education, healthcare, culture and labor rose to a qualitatively new level, and the citizens of the USSR saw this with their own eyes. The Soviet people rightly perceived the “Russian miracle” of Stalin’s five-year plans as the fruit of their own efforts.
What was the policy of the new leadership of the country? First of all, the strengthening of the USSR. This was expressed in accelerated collectivization and industrialization. In raising the country's economy to a completely new level. Creation of a modern army based on a new military industry. All the country's resources were devoted to these purposes. The source was agricultural products, mineral raw materials, forests, and even cultural and church values. Stalin was the harshest proponent of such a policy here. And, as history has shown, it’s not in vain...
In international politics, the new course consisted of curtailing activities to “export the world revolution,” normalizing relations with capitalist countries, and searching for allies before the war. First of all, this was due to increasing tension in the international arena and the expectation of a new war. The USSR, at the “proposal” of a number of countries, joins the League of Nations. At first glance, these steps contradict the tenets of Marxism-Leninism.
Lenin once spoke about the League of Nations:
“An undisguised instrument of imperialist Anglo-French desires... The League of Nations is a dangerous instrument directed with its tip against the country of the dictatorship of the proletariat”.
Whereas Stalin in one of his interviews:
“Despite the withdrawal of Germany and Japan from the League of Nations - or perhaps because of this - the League may provide some brake in order to delay or prevent the outbreak of hostilities. If this is so, if the League can turn out to be a kind of bump on the road to at least somewhat complicating the cause of war and facilitating to some extent the cause of peace, then we are not against the League. Yes, if this is the course of historical events, then it is possible that we will support the League of Nations, despite its colossal shortcomings.".
Also in international politics, there is an adjustment in the activities of the Comintern, an organization designed to carry out the world proletarian revolution. Stalin, with the help of G. Dimitrov, who returned from Nazi dungeons, calls on the communist parties of European countries to join the “Popular Fronts” with the Social Democrats, which again can be interpreted as “opportunism.” From Dimitrov’s speech at the VII World Congress of the Communist International:
“Let the communists recognize democracy and come to its defense, then we are ready for a united front. We are supporters of Soviet democracy, workers' democracy, the most consistent democracy in the world. But we defend and will defend in capitalist countries every inch of bourgeois democratic freedoms that are encroached upon by fascism and bourgeois reaction, because this is dictated by the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat!
At the same time, the Stalinist group (in foreign policy it was Molotov, Litvinov) went to create an Eastern Pact consisting of the USSR, France, Czechoslovakia, England, suspiciously similar in composition to the former Entente.
Such a new course in foreign policy could not but cause protest sentiments in some party circles, but the Soviet Union objectively needed it.
There was also a normalization of public life within the country. New Year holidays with a Christmas tree and carnival returned, the activities of communes were curtailed, officer ranks were introduced in the army (oh horror!), and much more. Here is one illustration that, it seems to me, conveys the atmosphere of that time. From the Politburo decision:
[in the Internet] .
Public interest in Stalin's repressions continues to exist, and this is no coincidence.
Many feel that today's political problems are somewhat similar.
And some people think that Stalin's recipes might be suitable.
This is, of course, a mistake.
But it is still difficult to justify why this is a mistake using scientific rather than journalistic means.
Historians have figured out the repressions themselves, how they were organized and what their scale was.
Historian Oleg Khlevnyuk, for example, writes that “...now professional historiography has reached a high level of agreement based on in-depth research of archives.”
https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2017/06/29/701835-fenomen-terrora
However, from another of his articles it follows that the reasons for the “Great Terror” are still not entirely clear.
https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2017/07/06/712528-bolshogo-terrora
I have an answer, strict and scientific.
But first, about what “consent of professional historiography” looks like according to Oleg Khlevnyuk.
Let's discard the myths right away.
1) Stalin had nothing to do with it; he, of course, knew everything.
Stalin not only knew, he directed the “great terror” in real time, down to the smallest detail.
2) The “Great Terror” was not an initiative of regional authorities or local party secretaries.
Stalin himself never tried to blame the regional party leadership for the repressions of 1937-1938.
Instead, he proposed a myth about “enemies who infiltrated the ranks of the NKVD” and “slanderers” from ordinary citizens who wrote statements against honest people.
3) The “Great Terror” of 1937-1938 was not at all the result of denunciations.
Denunciations of citizens against each other did not have a significant impact on the course and scale of repressions.
Now about what is known about the “Great Terror of 1937-1938” and its mechanism.
Terror and repressions under Stalin were a constant phenomenon.
But the wave of terror of 1937-1938 was exceptionally large.
In 1937-1938 At least 1.6 million people were arrested, of whom more than 680,000 were executed.
Khlevnyuk gives a simple quantitative calculation:
“Taking into account the fact that the most intensive repressions were used for just over a year (August 1937 - November 1938), it turns out that about 100,000 people were arrested every month, of which more than 40,000 were shot.”
The scale of violence was monstrous!
The opinion that the terror of 1937-1938 consisted of the destruction of the elite: party workers, engineers, military men, writers, etc. not entirely correct.
For example, Khlevnyuk writes that there were several tens of thousands of managers at different levels. Of the 1.6 million victims.
Here's attention!
1) The victims of terror were ordinary Soviet people who did not hold positions and were not members of the party.
2) Decisions to conduct mass operations were made by the leadership, more precisely by Stalin.
The “Great Terror” was a well-organized, planned procession and followed orders from the center.
3) The goal was to “liquidate physically or isolate in camps those groups of the population that the Stalinist regime considered potentially dangerous - former “kulaks”, former officers of the tsarist and white armies, clergy, former members of parties hostile to the Bolsheviks - Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and other “suspicious” , as well as “national counter-revolutionary contingents” - Poles, Germans, Romanians, Latvians, Estonians, Finns, Greeks, Afghans, Iranians, Chinese, Koreans.
4) All “hostile categories” were taken into account in the authorities, according to the available lists, and the first repressions took place.
Subsequently, a chain was launched: arrest-interrogations - testimony - new hostile elements.
That is why arrest limits have increased.
5) Stalin personally directed the repressions.
Here are his orders quoted by the historian:
"Krasnoyarsk. Krasnoyarsk. The arson of the flour mill must be organized by enemies. Take all measures to uncover the arsonists. The perpetrators will be judged expeditiously. The sentence is execution"; “Beat Unschlicht for not handing over Polish agents to the regions”; “To T. Yezhov. Dmitriev seems to be acting rather sluggishly. It is necessary to immediately arrest all (both small and large) participants in the “rebel groups” in the Urals”; "To T. Yezhov. Very important. We need to walk through the Udmurt, Mari, Chuvash, Mordovian republics, walk with a broom"; "To T. Yezhov. Very good! Keep digging and cleaning out this Polish spy dirt"; "To T. Yezhov. The line of the Socialist Revolutionaries (left and right together) is not unwound<...>It must be borne in mind that we still have quite a few Socialist-Revolutionaries in our army and outside the army. Does the NKVD have a record of the Socialist Revolutionaries (“former”) in the army? I would like to receive it as soon as possible<...>What has been done to identify and arrest all Iranians in Baku and Azerbaijan?"
I think there can be no doubt after reading such orders.
Now let's return to the question - why?
Khlevnyuk points out several possible explanations and writes that the debate continues.
1) At the end of 1937, the first elections to the Soviets were held on the basis of secret ballot, and Stalin insured himself against surprises in a way that he understood.
This is the weakest explanation.
2) Repression was a means of social engineering
Society was subject to unification.
A fair question arises: why did unification need to be sharply accelerated in 1937-1938?
3) The “Great Terror” pointed out the reason for the difficulties and hard life of the people, while at the same time allowing them to let off steam.
4) It was necessary to provide labor for the growing Gulag economy.
This is a weak version - there were too many executions of able-bodied people, while the Gulag was unable to absorb new human intake.
5) Finally, a version that is widely popular today: the threat of war emerged, and Stalin was clearing out the rear, destroying the “fifth column”.
However, after Stalin's death, the vast majority of those arrested in 1937-1938 were found innocent.
They were not a “fifth column” at all.
My explanation allows us to understand not only why there was this wave and why it was in 1937-1938.
It also explains well why Stalin and his experience have not yet been forgotten, but have not been implemented.
The “Great Terror” of 1937-1938 took place during a period similar to ours.
In the USSR of 1933-1945 there was a question about the subject of power.
In the modern history of Russia, a similar issue is resolved in 2005-2017.
The subject of power can be either the ruler or the elite.
At that time, the sole ruler had to win.
Stalin inherited a party in which this same elite existed - the heirs of Lenin, equal to Stalin or even more eminent than himself.
Stalin successfully fought for formal leadership, but he became the undisputed sole ruler only after the Great Terror.
As long as the old leaders - recognized revolutionaries, Lenin's heirs - continued to live and work, the preconditions remained for challenging Stalin's power as the sole ruler.
The "Great Terror" of 1937-1938 was a means of destroying the elite and establishing the power of a single ruler.
Why did the repression affect the common people and not be limited to the top?
You need to understand the ideological basis, the Marxist paradigm.
Marxism does not recognize loners and the initiative of the elite.
In Marxism, any leader expresses the ideas of a class or social group.
Why is the peasantry dangerous, for example?
Not at all because it can rebel and start a peasant war.
The peasants are dangerous because they are the petty bourgeoisie.
This means that they will always support and/or nominate from their midst political leaders who will fight against the dictatorship of the proletariat, the power of the workers and the Bolsheviks.
It is not enough to root out prominent leaders with dubious views.
It is necessary to destroy their social support, those same “hostile elements” that have been taken into account.
This explains why the terror affected ordinary people.
Why exactly in 1937-1938?
Because during the first four years of each period of social reorganization, the basic plan is formed and the leading force of the social process emerges.
This is such a law of cyclical development.
Why are we interested in this today?
And why do some dream of a return to the practices of Stalinism?
Because we are going through the same process.
But he:
- ends,
- has opposite vectors.
Stalin established his sole power, in fact fulfilling the historical social order, albeit with very specific methods, even excessively.
He deprived the elite of its subjectivity and established the only subject of power - the elected ruler.
Such imperious subjectivity existed in our Fatherland until Putin.
However, Putin, more unconsciously than consciously, fulfilled a new historical social order.
In our country now the power of a single elected ruler is being replaced by the power of an elected elite.
In 2008, just in the fourth year of the new period, Putin gave presidential power to Medvedev.
The sole ruler was desubjectivized, and there were at least two rulers.
And it’s impossible to return everything back.
Now it’s clear why some part of the elite dreams of Stalinism?
They don’t want there to be many leaders, they don’t want collective power in which compromises must be sought and found, they want the restoration of individual rule.
And this can only be done by unleashing a new “great terror”, that is, by destroying the leaders of all other groups, from Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky to Navalny, Kasyanov, Yavlinsky and our modern Trotsky - Khodorkovsky (although perhaps the Trotsky of the new Russia was still Berezovsky), and out of habit of systemic thinking, their social base, at least some crackers and protest-opposition intelligentsia).
But none of this will happen.
The current vector of development is the transition to the power of an elected elite.
The elected elite is a set of leaders and power as their interaction.
If someone tries to return the sole power of an elected ruler, he will end his political career almost instantly.
Putin sometimes looks like the only, sole ruler, but he certainly is not.
Practical Stalinism has and will not have a place in modern social life in Russia.
And that's great.