“... Stalin would have shot you all. A billion people shot personally by Stalin Information for thought

Column of the head of the Memorial Museum Mikhail Cherepanov on the Stalinist and non-Stalinist repressions

March marks the anniversary of the death of I.V. Stalin. His figure evokes the most contradictory feelings among the population - from idealization and whitewashing to complete demonization. One of the "merits" of the Soviet leader is the Stalinist repression. Our columnist, head of the Museum-Memorial of the Great Patriotic War of the Kazan Kremlin, Mikhail Cherepanov, in the author's column, written especially for Realnoe Vremya, tells about Stalin's plans for execution and non-Stalinist repressions.

On March 5, in our country, the day of the death of the "Great Helmsman", the "father of nations" Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin is again marked. Its popularity is rapidly growing again both among adults and among the younger generation. Increasingly, the opinion is heard that only someone like Secretary General Koba can restore order, punish thieves and criminals, and intercede for the disadvantaged. A sort of Robin Hood of our time. And the role of Stalin in unleashing large-scale repressions against his own people is completely forgotten.

It is worth recalling only one fact from the recent history of at least our republic.

Execution plan overfulfilled

On July 30, 1937, all regional and republican directorates of the NKVD of the USSR received an operational order from the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR No. 00447 N. Yezhov, approved at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In the second section of the order "On the measures of punishment of the repressed and the number of those subject to repression" there is paragraph 2:

“According to the credentials you provided, I approve the following number of reprisals for you:

The party and government, represented by I. Stalin and N. Yezhov, gave the NKVD officers a "production plan" for the destruction of their own people.

The party and government, represented by I. Stalin and N. Yezhov (right), gave the NKVD officers a "production plan" for the destruction of their own people. Photo wikimedia.org

In a separate protocol, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on July 31, 1937 "released the NKVD from the SNK reserve fund" for this dirty work, "for operational costs associated with the operation, 75 million rubles." The fact in itself is shocking, but I want to say not only about this.

Having received an order from the center, the NKVD officers immediately began to show such initiative that the "released limits" were not enough. There were many more people in prisons than was even prescribed by the inhuman plans of repression.

Stalin, of course, went to meet the wishes of the localities, personally increased the limits on executions (see note). There was such an initiative in Tatarstan.

There is an interesting document in the archives of the KGB RT - "Information on the use of the limit as of December 30, 1937". In it, the secretary of the NKVD headquarters of the Tatrespublika, junior lieutenant of the State Security Gorsky, reports on how the plan of repression is being implemented:

category (execution) - limit - 2,350 people, convicted - 2,196 people, 154 people remain.
category (expulsion) - the limit is 3,000 people, 2,124 people were convicted, 876 people remain. "

(Archive of the KGB RT. F.109. Op.1. D.13. L.338).

Think about it: the plan from the center was as follows - to shoot 500 people. A few months later, an officer of the NKVD of Tatarstan reports that 2,196 people have been shot in the republic and the limit has not been exhausted. 154 people remained "unfinished"!

What is this if not an initiative from below? "Creativity of the masses" on the ground. And this was only during 1937. How was it explained - the struggle for an idea, an unforeseen number of enemies? Or maybe the same amount - 75 million rubles - allocated by the Central Committee "for operating expenses"?

From 1921 to 1953, about 4 million Soviet citizens were arrested for political reasons. Photo archsovet.msk.ru

According to the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, from 1921 to 1953, about 4 million Soviet citizens were arrested for political reasons. Of these, about 800 thousand were shot, about 600 thousand died in custody. The total number of victims is 1.4 million.

Who was responsible for this "overfulfillment of the plan", for a crime against their own people? Were those who gave the order? All their names have not yet been declassified. But the scale of the repressions was once a closely guarded secret.

There is no statute of limitations for a crime against humanity. Time will become the main judge for those who signed death sentences and carried them out with special zeal.

Not only "Stalinist"

Most of the official documents on the rehabilitation of victims of political repression clearly define their time frame - "the period of the 30-40s and the beginning of the 50s." Even in the Tatar Encyclopedic Dictionary, published in 1999, repressions are limited to the framework of 1918-1954. It is said that "all strata of society" were affected by repression only in 1929-1938 and that "innocent victims were rehabilitated on the basis of decisions of the Soviet government."

What is political repression? What was their scale in our country? Were they only "Stalinist"?

It became possible to give answers to these questions more precisely only in the 21st century, when, in preparation for the publication of the Book of Memory of Victims of Political Repressions of the Republic of Tatarstan, cases from the republican archives of the KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Supreme Court and the Prosecutor's Office were declassified and computerized ...

Half a century has passed since the party officials allowed the Soviet people to consider their relatives and friends, torn out of peaceful life, tortured in camps and prisons, as innocent victims. True, this was done with great reservations. At first, only those were declared innocent who personally established, shedding blood (including someone else's), the very power that later ruined them. They also acquitted those who were declared traitors only for being captured by the enemy. There were about 800 thousand of them. The work on their rehabilitation lasted for ten years.

They also acquitted those who were declared traitors only for being captured by the enemy. There were about 800 thousand of them. Photo soldatru.ru

At the end of the 50s, it was allowed to consider as innocent those who worked all their lives, strengthening Soviet power economically, and suffered from it only because they did not fully correspond to the position of a slave. (Or, as one of the leaders of the establishment of Soviet power in Russia, Leon Trotsky, put it, a "white negro"). There were several million of them. And the rehabilitation process dragged on, and soon completely stalled.

Only in 1987, the country's party leaders again remembered the millions of fellow citizens who died with the stigma of an "enemy of the people" or eked out a miserable existence, giving all their strength to slave labor in the gulag camps. By 1990, another 1,730 thousand people were legally acquitted.

On October 18, 1991, finally, the Law of the Russian Federation "On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression" was adopted. Its article 2 states that citizens who have been subjected to political repression since October 25 (November 7) 1917 are subject to rehabilitation. Until what year the repressions were carried out - not specified. But the State Archives of the Russian Federation clearly fixed the date of the termination of the last case under the infamous Article 58-10 (later renamed 70th): December 6, 1991 (see 58-10. Supervisory proceedings of the USSR Prosecutor's Office on cases of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. March 1953 - 1991. - M., 1999).

As for Tatarstan, in our republic the last political prisoner was a pensioner from Elabuga, Andrei Ivanovich Alemasov, born in 1921. On November 18, 1983, he was sentenced by a collegium of the TASSR Supreme Court to 3 years 6 months in a corrective labor colony "for fabrications that defame the state and social order."

The fact that the Bolsheviks began repressions on the territory of present-day Tatarstan back in August 1918, not far from st. Sviyazhsk is a well-known fact. The Museum of the Revolution on the island of Sviyazhsk tells in detail about this initiative of Leon Trotsky. The first victims of the shootings were the Red Army men themselves, who left Kazan almost without a fight to the White Guard and the Czechoslovakians. The remains of seven executed Red Army soldiers were found in 2003 by our working group of the Book of Memory of the Republic of Tatarstan on the banks of the Volga near the railway bridge and were buried in the village. Lower Elm.

The newspapers of the times of the Civil War published lists of the families of the hostages who were shot during the Red Terror. But few people could get acquainted with the first cases of the Kazan Extraordinary Commission and the military tribunal. They were declassified only in the XXI century. The personal data of those sentenced to death is very revealing. Here is who was officially sentenced to death by the Soviet authorities, judging by the cases preserved in the archives of the KGB RT:

On August 9, 1918, the former mayor F.P. Polyakov - “for handing over the Red Army soldiers to the White Czechs” and a student of the Kazan Technical School P.A. Cherepanov (16 years old) - “for aiding the Czechoslovak spies”;

35-year-old assistant pharmacist from Sviyazhsk E.I. Pulcherovskaya and her brother, an office clerk, “for their hostile attitude towards the Sov. authorities";

On August 11, 1918, "for spreading counter-revolutionary rumors during the Red attack on Sviyazhsk," a 66-year-old priest, father of 11 children, K.I. Dalmatov and his two sons (20 and 25 years old);

On August 12, 1918, a peasant woman from Sviyazhsk A.S. was shot. Tsvetkov “for handing over the Red Army soldiers to the Czechs”.

There were several hundred death sentences in the summer of 1918. Later, there were thousands of executions in Tataria alone. The statistics of sentences, judging by the information published in 25 volumes of the Book of Memory of Victims of Political Repression of the Republic of Tatarstan, is very indicative.

54,727 natives or residents of Tatarstan, arrested in different years for the so-called anti-Soviet activities and propaganda. Of these, 3,657 are women. In places of detention, 13 938 people died, of which 5 687 were shot, the rest died of disease and hunger.

And even when the capital punishment was abolished for three years in the USSR in 1947, 25 years of hard labor was often a guarantee of a lethal outcome for the convicted person. Photo grad-petrov.ru

Extrajudicial bodies - "troikas" of various sizes - convicted more than half, that is, even at that time it was convicted illegally. And we are talking only about those who were at least formally charged. There were much more people who were shot during the years of the Red Terror or who were sent out of the republic without trial. And even when the capital punishment was abolished for three years in the USSR in 1947, 25 years of hard labor was often a guarantee of a lethal outcome for the convicted person. The total number of victims of political and administrative repression in the territory of present-day Tatarstan alone is about 350 thousand people.

Mikhail Cherepanov

reference

Mikhail Valerievich Cherepanov - Head of the Museum-Memorial of the Great Patriotic War of the Kazan Kremlin; Chairman of the Association "Club of Military Glory"; Honored Worker of Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Military-Historical Sciences, Laureate of the State Prize of the Republic of Tatarstan.

Was born in 1960.
Graduated from Kazan State University. IN AND. Ulyanov-Lenin with a degree in Journalism.
Head of the working group (from 1999 to 2007) of the Book in Memory of the Victims of Political Repression of the Republic of Tatarstan.
Since 2007 he has been working at the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan.
One of the creators of the 28-volume book "Memory" of the Republic of Tatarstan about those who died during the Second World War, 19 volumes of the Book of Memory of the Victims of Political Repression of the Republic of Tatarstan, etc.
Creator of the Electronic Book of Memory of the Republic of Tatarstan (a list of natives and residents of Tatarstan who died during the Second World War).
Author of thematic lectures from the cycle "Tatarstan during the war", thematic excursions "The feat of fellow countrymen on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War."
Co-author of the concept of the virtual museum "Tatarstan to the Fatherland".
Member of 60 search expeditions to bury the remains of soldiers who died in the Great Patriotic War (since 1980), member of the board of the Union of search units of Russia.
Author of more than 100 scientific and educational articles, books, participant of all-Russian, regional, international conferences. Columnist for Realnoe Vremya.

The development of disputes about the period of Stalin's rule is facilitated by the fact that many documents of the NKVD are still classified. There are different data on the number of victims of the political regime. That is why this period remains to be studied for a long time.

How many people did Stalin kill: years of government, historical facts, repressions during the Stalinist regime

The historical figures who built the dictatorial regime have distinctive psychological characteristics. Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili is no exception. Stalin is not a surname, but a pseudonym that clearly reflects his personality.

Could anyone have imagined that a single laundress mother (later a milliner - a rather popular profession at that time) from a Georgian village would raise a son who would defeat Nazi Germany, establish an industrial industry in a huge country and make millions of people shudder just by sounding his name?

Now, when our generation has ready-made knowledge from any field, people know that a harsh childhood forms unpredictably strong personalities. This was the case not only with Stalin, but also with Ivan the Terrible, Genghis Khan, and the same Hitler. What is most interesting, the two most odious figures in the history of the last century have similar childhoods: a tyrant father, an unhappy mother, their early death, education in schools with a spiritual bias, love of art. Few people know about such facts, because basically everyone is looking for information about how many people Stalin killed.

Path to politics

The reins of rule of the largest power in the hands of Dzhugashvili lasted from 1928 to 1953, until his death. About what policy he was going to lead, Stalin announced in 1928 at an official speech. For the rest of the term, he did not retreat from his own. This is evidenced by the facts about how many people Stalin killed.

When it comes to the number of victims of the system, some of the destructive decisions are attributed to his close associates: N. Yezhov and L. Beria. But at the end of all documents is Stalin's signature. As a result, in 1940 N. Yezhov himself became a victim of repression and was shot.

Motives

The goals of the Stalinist repressions pursued several motives, and each of them reached them in full. They are as follows:

The reprisals persecuted the leader's political opponents.
Repression was a tool to intimidate citizens in order to strengthen Soviet power.
A necessary measure to raise the economy of the state (repressions were carried out in this direction).
Exploitation of free labor.

Terror at its peak

The years 1937-1938 are considered the peak of repression. Regarding how many people Stalin killed, statistics during this period give impressive figures - more than 1.5 million. The NKVD order numbered 00447 differed in that it chose its victims on the basis of nationality and territory. Representatives of nations different from the ethnic composition of the USSR were especially persecuted.

How many people did Stalin kill on the basis of Nazism? The following figures are given: over 25,000 Germans, 85,000 Poles, about 6,000 Romanians, 11,000 Greeks, 17,000 Latvians and 9,000 Finns. Those who were not killed were expelled from the territory of residence without the right to help. Their relatives were fired from their jobs, the military were expelled from the ranks of the army.

Numbers

The anti-Stalinists do not miss the opportunity to once again exaggerate the real data. For instance:

The dissident believes there were 40 million of them.
Another dissident A.V. Antonov-Ovseenko did not waste time on trifles and exaggerated the data twice at once - 80 million.
There is also a version belonging to the rehabilitators of the victims of repression. According to their version, the number of those killed was over 100 million.
Most of all, the audience was surprised by Boris Nemtsov, who in 2003 declared 150 million victims live.

In fact, only official documents can answer the question of how many people Stalin killed. One of them is NS Khrushchev's 1954 memo. It contains data from 1921 to 1953. According to the document, more than 642,000 people received the death penalty, that is, slightly more than half a million, and not 100 or 150 million. The total number of convicts was over 2.3 million. Of these, 765 180 were sent into exile.

Repression during the Second World War

The Great Patriotic War forced to slightly slow down the rate of destruction of the people of their country, but the phenomenon as such was not stopped. Now the "culprits" were sent to the front lines. If you ask yourself how many people Stalin killed at the hands of the Nazis, there is no exact data. There was no time to judge the culprits. From this period, a catch phrase about decisions "without trial and investigation" remained. The legal basis was now the order of Lavrenty Beria.

Even emigrants became victims of the system: they were returned en masse and made decisions. Almost all cases were qualified by Article 58. But this is conditional. In practice, the law was often ignored.

Characteristic features of the Stalinist period

After the war, repression acquired a new mass character. How many people from among the intelligentsia died under Stalin is evidenced by the Doctors' Case. The culprits in this case were doctors who served at the front, and many scientists. If we analyze the history of the development of science, then the overwhelming majority of the "mysterious" deaths of scientists fell on that period. The large-scale campaign against the Jewish people is also the fruit of the politics of the time.

The degree of cruelty

Speaking about how many people died in Stalin's repressions, one cannot say that all the accused were shot. There were many ways to torture people, both physically and psychologically. For example, if the relatives of the accused are expelled from their place of residence, they will be deprived of access to medical care and food items. Thousands of people died in this way from cold, hunger or heat.

Prisoners were kept in cold rooms for long periods of time without food, drink, and the right to sleep. Some were handcuffed for months. None of them had the right to communicate with the outside world. Notification of their fate to loved ones was also not practiced. Severe beatings with broken bones and spine did not escape anyone. Another type of psychological torture is to arrest and "forget" for years. There were people "forgotten" for 14 years.

Mass character

It is difficult to give specific numbers for many reasons. First, is it necessary to count the relatives of the prisoners? Should we count those who died even without arrest, "under mysterious circumstances"? Secondly, the previous census was carried out even before the start of the civil war, in 1917, and during Stalin's rule - only after the Second World War. There is no exact information about the total population.

Politicization and anti-nationality

It was believed that repression would rid the people of spies, terrorists, saboteurs and those who did not support the ideology of Soviet power. However, in practice, completely different people became victims of the state machinery: peasants, ordinary workers, public figures and entire peoples who wished to preserve their national identity.

The first preparatory work for the creation of the GULAG dates back to 1929. Today they are compared with German concentration camps, and quite rightly. If you are interested in how many people died in them during Stalin's time, then figures from 2 to 4 million are given.

Attack on the "cream of society"

The biggest damage was caused by the attack on the "cream of society". According to experts, the repression of these people greatly delayed the development of science, medicine and other aspects of society. A simple example - publication in foreign publications, cooperation with foreign colleagues, or conducting scientific experiments could easily end in arrest. Creative people published under pseudonyms.

By the middle of the Stalinist period, the country was practically left without specialists. Most of those arrested and killed were graduates of monarchist educational institutions. They closed just some 10-15 years ago. There were no specialists with Soviet training. If Stalin waged an active struggle against class, then he practically achieved this: the country was left with only poor peasants and an uneducated stratum.

Studying genetics was prohibited, as it was "too bourgeois in nature." The attitude to psychology was the same. And psychiatry was engaged in punitive activities, imprisoning thousands of bright minds in special hospitals.

Judicial system

How many people died in the camps under Stalin can be clearly understood if we look at the judicial system. If at an early stage some investigations were carried out and the cases were considered in court, then after 2-3 years of the beginning of the repression, a simplified system was introduced. Such a mechanism did not give the accused the right to a defense presence in court. The decision was made based on the testimony of the accusing party. The decision was not subject to appeal and was put into effect no later than the next day after its adoption.

Repressions violated all the principles of human rights and freedoms, according to which other countries at that time had lived for several centuries. The researchers note that the attitude towards the repressed was no different from the way the Nazis treated the captured soldiers.

Conclusion

Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili died in 1953. After his death, it turned out that the entire system was built around his personal ambitions. An example of this is the termination of criminal cases and prosecutions in many cases. Lavrenty Beria was also known by those around him as a hot-tempered person with inappropriate behavior. But at the same time, he significantly changed the situation by prohibiting torture against the accused and recognizing the groundlessness of many cases.

Stalin is compared to the Italian ruler, the dictator Benetto Mussolini. But the victims of Mussolini were a total of about 40,000 people, as opposed to Stalin's 4.5 million plus. In addition, those arrested in Italy retained the right to communication, defense, and even to write books behind bars.

It is impossible not to note the achievements of that time. Victory in the Second World War, of course, is beyond any discussion. But due to the labor of the inhabitants of the Gulag, a huge number of buildings, roads, canals, railways and other structures were built throughout the country. Despite the hardships of the post-war years, the country was able to restore an acceptable standard of living.

In the 20s and ended in 1953. During this period, mass arrests took place, and special camps for political prisoners were created. No historian can name the exact number of victims of Stalinist repressions. More than a million people were convicted under Article 58.

Origin of the term

The Stalinist terror affected almost all sectors of society. For more than twenty years, Soviet citizens lived in constant fear - one wrong word or even 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 is Latin for "horror". The method of ruling the country based on instilling fear has been used by rulers since ancient times. For the Soviet leader, Ivan the Terrible served as a historical example. Stalin's terror is in a way a more modern version of Oprichnina.

Ideology

The midwife of history - that's how 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 CPSU". At first, the Stalinist terror was a class struggle, which was supposedly needed to resist the overthrown forces. But the repressions continued after all the so-called counter-revolutionaries were sent to 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 falsified 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 repressions begins in 1922. But one of the first high-profile cases dates back to 1925. It was in this year that a special department of the NKVD fabricated a case on charges of counter-revolutionary activities of 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 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 \u200b\u200band 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 in the coal industry became victims of Stalin's 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 Stalinist repressions, because no one in those days carefully kept statistics. In the nineties, the KGB archives became available, but even after that, researchers did not receive comprehensive information. However, separate execution lists were made public, which became a terrible symbol of Stalin's repression.

The 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 relation 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 that were not related to each other.

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 subsequently 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. GD Guy was one of the first victims of the Great Terror. The military leader 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 worked in the same organization for many years stopped trusting each other. Denunciations were written not only against enemies, but also against friends. Not only for selfish reasons, but also out of fear.

In 1937, a trial took place over a group of officers of the Red Army. They were accused of anti-Soviet activities and assistance to Trotsky, who by that time was already abroad. The 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 was a record of the negotiations between Kamenev and Bukharin - the discussion was about the creation of a "right-left" opposition. In early 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 planned a 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 took a direct part 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 Stalin's 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 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.
Petr Parfenov.
Sergei Tretyakov.

It is worth telling 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.

In 1937, Stalin began a global purge in the army

Mikhail Tukhachevsky and other red commanders were shot by Stalin not for preparing a coup, but for cutting the defense budget

In 1937, STALIN began a global purge in the army. If we talk only about the top, then out of 85 leaders of the army and navy who were on the Supreme Council under the People's Commissariat for Defense, repression did not affect only six people. Three of the five Soviet marshals were shot - Mikhail TUKHACHEVSKY, Vasily BLYUKHER, Alexander Egorov. For some reason, it is believed that they all suffered innocently, and also because of the loss of these great commanders, our troops had to retreat to Moscow in 1941.

The myth of the brilliant commander Mikhail Tukhachevsky and others, who suffered from the purges of the brilliant "division commanders Kotovs", appeared in the USSR after the XX Congress of the CPSU, within the framework of Khrushchev's criticism of the personality cult. Nikita Sergeevich tried to oppose the supposedly military leader genius Stalin his fault for the repression of 40 thousand officers. With them Hitler would have been defeated already in 1942.

In fact, Stalin did not drain the army, but renewed it. The militarization of the USSR proceeded at an unprecedented pace. Despite the repression, the officer corps almost tripled from 1937 to 1940! The number of officers with higher and secondary education has grown from 164 thousand to 385 thousand people. Of course, these were newly minted shots that hadn't really been tested yet. But the upcoming war was also completely different from the First World War. Old knowledge and techniques did not help there anyway.

This is how the most advertised saboteur in the world, the SS Obersturmbannführer, comments on the consequences of the Stalinist repressions in his memoirs. Otto Skorzeny: “A gigantic purge among the military has misled our political intelligence. She was convinced that we had achieved decisive success, and Hitler was of the same opinion. However, the Red Army, contrary to popular belief, was not weakened, but strengthened ... The posts of the repressed commanders of armies, corps, divisions, brigades, regiments and battalions were occupied by young officers - ideological communists. After the total purge of 1937, a new Russian army appeared, capable of enduring the most brutal battles. Russian generals carried out orders, and did not engage in conspiracies and betrayal, as was often the case with us at the highest posts.

According to the official version, the uncovered conspiracy against Stalin is called the reason for the brutal purges in the Red Army. But this is a very strong simplification. The struggle between several military clans was fought not against Stalin, but for the proximity to his body.

At that time, a large-scale rearmament of the army was underway in the USSR. A military-industrial complex was created, which later became the economic basis of the country. The army command was well aware of its importance and fought for the right to control financial flows. It was at this crossroads that the interests of the Deputy People's Commissar for Armament Mikhail Tukhachevsky and the People's Commissar collided Kliment Voroshilov.

Both marshals were far from technology and were racing to grab any invention that seemed ingenious to them. For example, here is a certain inventor Baranov proposed to adopt an electromagnetic installation for catching shells. The essence of the mechanism was that several super-powerful magnets were installed around our battery, which deflected enemy shells aside, and the battery became invulnerable.

Academician Abram Ioffe at the same time he proposed the installation of "Death Rays", which was supposed to lethally hit people with radiation at a distance of 400 meters from our trenches.

Tukhachevsky took up the promotion of the magnets, and Voroshilov took over the rays. It took both of them three years to understand the unrealizability of the projects. And how much time and millions of rubles were spent on such idiotic undertakings, one can only guess, since most of similar projects are kept in archives under the heading "top secret".

The head of "Ostekhbyuro" Vladimir BEKAURI promised to create radio-controlled weapons for the Red Army. Having spent a lot of time and money, the inventor admitted that he was failing ...

The black hole of the defense budget under these marshals was their favorite brainchild, the "Special Technical Bureau for Special Purpose Military Inventions" of the engineer Vladimir Bekauri... By proposing to wage war exclusively by radio-controlled tanks, ships and aircraft, he was far ahead of his time, but the technical means did not allow him to realize his "brilliant" ideas.

Under the leadership of Bekauri, the design of radio-controlled motorized armored cars "Uragan" was started. The car was supposed to break into the location of enemy troops and release several hundred kilograms of a strong poisonous substance. In 1936, the TT-TU telemechanical tank was tested, designed for a high-speed approach to enemy fortifications and dropping an explosive charge. However, none of the Ostekhbyuro's creations were put into service, since radio control was constantly failing, and boats, tanks, and aircraft began to behave completely unpredictable. The only project that can be called half-successful is the miniature, 16 meters long and 2.62 meters wide, the Pygmy submarine. The leadership of the Red Army Navy asked to convert it from a radio-controlled to a conventional one and decided to accept it into service. During the reconstruction process, it turned out that it was impossible to properly accommodate the crew, which infuriated Stalin.

Bekauri was arrested. In the basements of the Lubyanka, he admitted that all these years he was engaged in "eyewash", and his activities were covered by Tukhachevsky and Voroshilov personally.

At the same time, Tukhachevsky began to actively criticize Voroshilov and his entourage. It got to the point that he raised the issue of replacing Voroshilov as the people's commissar of defense as an incompetent leader. There was a clear split in the army. Stalin urgently needed to make a choice between the two military clans. And he decided to appoint Marshal Tukhachevsky and his team as German spies.

For example, the miniature submarine "Pygmy" was able to submerge, but did not know how to surface

Blucher refused to fight the Japanese

Marshal was shot second Vasily Blucher... A rare case in the era of Stalin's purges, when all the points of the verdict, including the "agent of Japanese intelligence", practically corresponded to reality.

In the 30s, a new world war smelled in the air. Among those who were preparing to take an active part in the next redistribution of the world was Japan, which already had the experience of defeating the Russian army in 1905. They had to find out whether the western neighbor had learned to fight or not. To test the strength of the Soviet borders, a section of the border near Lake Khasan was chosen.

By that time, Blucher had commanded the Far Eastern Front for many years.

The legendary hero of the Civil War, the first holder of the Orders of the Red Banner and the Red Star, feeling himself the sole ruler of a vast region, is accustomed to a calm and free life away from the Moscow authorities. As they said then, he was morally decayed.

The hero of the Civil War became addicted to lavish libations in the company of sycophants and hangers-on. In 1932, after exchanging his fifties, he married for the third time. A 17-year-old girl became his chosen one Glafira Bezverkhova... However, this fact in itself was not particularly reprehensible - the main thing is that the assigned case does not suffer. But in this case it suffered, - says the historian and publicist Igor Pykhalov... - For nine years of command, Blucher did not bother to build a road along the Trans-Siberian Railway, which made the supply of troops very vulnerable.

On the morning of June 13, 1938, the head of the NKVD department for the Far Eastern Territory ran to the Japanese Heinrich Lyushkov... The Chekist managed to carry two bags of operational maps and other secret documents across the border. The Japanese gained access to virtually all Soviet military secrets in the Far East. Two days later, the Japanese chargé d'affaires in the USSR Nisi officially demanded the withdrawal of Soviet border guards from the heights of Lake Khasan and the transfer of territory to the Japanese.

The leadership talent of many repressed generals and, in particular, Marshal TUKHACHEVSKY, was best manifested during the suppression of peasant uprisings and food appropriation. He rotted thousands of people in concentration camps and "burned out" dozens of villages and villages with gases

People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov immediately issued a directive to bring the Far Eastern Front into combat readiness. However, this turn of events by no means aroused Blucher's enthusiasm. He secretly from Moscow, began negotiations with the Japanese, where he asked them to find a way to resolve the conflict peacefully.

Meanwhile, two Japanese companies attacked our border post. In the course of a fierce battle, they managed to capture the Bezymyannaya hill.

The time when it was possible to repulse the enemy offensive on the move was lost, but it was too late to attack head-on. The assault failed. All the slopes of the hill and the shores of the lake were covered with the bodies of our soldiers. Only on August 6, pulling up additional forces, the Soviet troops launched a decisive offensive and by August 9 cleared our territory of the Japanese, says Pykhalov. - Analyzing the course of hostilities, it should be noted that the Soviet troops came to the border on a combat alert completely unprepared. A number of artillery batteries ended up in the combat zone without shells, spare barrels for machine guns were not fitted, rifles were given out without shooting, and many soldiers arrived at the front without rifles at all.

As a result, the Soviet side lost 960 people killed, died of wounds and missing, 3279 people were wounded and sick. Japanese casualties were 650 killed and about 2,500 wounded. Considering that the Soviet troops used aircraft and tanks, but the Japanese did not, the ratio of losses should have been completely different.

The Soviet people, of course, announced the brilliant and unconditional victory of the Red Army. Only this news did not at all fit with the arrest of Blucher and the message about his execution. Although most historians are sure that the marshal was beaten to death during the investigation.

From the point of view of the Japanese command, reconnaissance in force was successful. It turned out that the Russians are still fighting badly, even in conditions of numerical and technical superiority. The consequences of the collision at Lake Khasan were much worse than it seems, ”Pykhalov said. - The Soviet Army was openly laughed at in the world. Reports from Japanese intelligence about the more than weak coordination of Soviet troops were transferred to Germany and played a very important role in deciding on a war against the USSR.

The mediocre command of BLUCHER during the border battles with the Japanese showed the Germans that the USSR would be easy prey for them

Egorov asked permission to shoot his wife

The end of the repression was put by the execution of Marshal on February 23, 1939 Alexandra Egorova... The formal reason for his arrest is the statement Georgy Zhukov People's Commissar Voroshilov. Zhukov writes: “In 1917, in the month of November ... I heard a speech by the then Right Socialist Revolutionary, Lieutenant Colonel AI Yegorov, who in his speech called his comrade Lenin an adventurer, a messenger of the Germans. "

What or who made Zhukov stand up in this way for Lenin is unknown. Egorov, a former officer of the tsarist army, a brave man, on whose body after numerous wounds there was no living space, was not a member of any of the clans. He always tried to avoid intrigues and too late decided to side with the winning "conspiracy" side. Once under arrest, Yegorov perfectly understood what was required of him, and spent whole days writing detailed testimonies, where he willingly presented data on conspiratorial activities.

According to his testimony, 138 people were arrested and shot, but Yegorov did not feel any improvement in his fate and then decided to take the last step. Marshal writes a letter to Stalin, where he begs him to "give any position", and in confirmation of his complete loyalty asks for permission to personally shoot his wife Galina Tseshkovskaya - German and American spy.

Could such people, if they were at the head of the Red Army, somehow positively influence the course of World War II? Historians believe it is unlikely. And not only because of their personal and professional qualities. The two remaining marshals - Voroshilov and Budyonny in the war did not distinguish themselves. The reason for the first defeats and three and a half million prisoners of war in six months of the war is completely different. The country had no defensive doctrine at all. Soldiers and generals learned only to attack, to “beat the enemy on its territory,” and this is a miscalculation on a completely different level - on the political level.

Where do the ears stick out

The purge of the highest command personnel of the armed forces began with Dmitry Schmidt (real name David Aronovich Gutman). A full Knight of St. George, he was a legendary figure. He commanded the "wild division" of the mountaineers, and at the time of his arrest he headed the only heavy tank brigade in the Red Army at that time.

Like many military men, he highly appreciated the merits of the creator of the Red Army. Leon Trotsky... In 1927, after he was expelled from the party, Schmidt told Comrade Stalin in front of witnesses: “Look, Koba, I’ll cut off my ears.”

Joseph Vissarionovich well remembered this comic threat and ten years later he repressed all the officers who began their career under the leadership of Trotsky.

The final deliverance from the Trotskyist legacy was the renaming in February 1946 of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army into the Soviet Army and the second round of repressions against the military, who doubted the military leader's genius of the "father of nations".

Elementary, even small children know this: “In 1930, the ShKAS machine gun was created specifically for mass terror and executions. In 1932 he went into mass production. Rate of fire - 1800 rounds / minute. So, in the recently declassified archives of the Cheka / NGB, documents were found that clearly describe the process of the most terrible atrocity in the history of mankind. In the basements of the Lubyanka, a conveyor was mounted, along which the connected spare parts were transported at great speed. Unhappy people were put on the conveyor belt with the back of their heads against the wall, past which the belt was passing. To avoid mass riots, people were promised that they would be sent to a brighter future, and their hands were tied behind their backs so that they would not be injured during transportation (the conveyor belt moves very quickly). At that moment, when the first s / c stepped onto the conveyor, a window opened in the wall, the barrel of a ShKAS machine gun protruded, the machine gun rattled loudly, and did not stop until the last of the billion s / c was villainously killed in the back of the head by a 7.62 mm bullet. So that you can appreciate the enormity of this crime, I will tell you that in the most "difficult" days, at least 3.5 million people were shot every day! The unfortunate z / c were brought to the place of execution at night, by barges, along a whole system of canals dug specially for this. Where did so many corpses go afterwards, the skeptical reader will ask? The answer to this question was found in the same place - in the bloody basements of the archives of the current FSB. Do you remember how much the metro developed in the 30s? It was in order to hide the huge number of innocent victims that Stalin ordered the digging of these giant holes. The corpses fell straight from the conveyor into the mines of the falconry line under construction then, where they were crushed into dust, after which they were added to the mortar with which the arches of the tunnels were strengthened. Stalin's metro is literally made of bones. Of course, with a sparse mathematical calculation, it turns out that for the implementation of this monstrous plan, Stalin would have needed 1.5 years of continuous executions for 8 hours a day, and this does not fit in with the reality in which all the terror took place, as you know, in 1937. But then the archives came to our aid again - why do you think Shpitalny (the designer of the ShKAS machine gun) received TWO titles of Hero of Socialist Labor? It's very simple - Stalin had TWO conveyors (and ShKAS machine guns), and the bloody tyrant, standing in special blood-resistant chrome boots (so as not to stain his breeches) knee-deep in human blood, shot at the back of the heads of the repressed with two hands, in Macedonian ! Proof of this is the fact that EVERY metro station has TWO tunnels! When you are on the subway, pay attention to this imperceptible fact. Destroying the flower of the intelligentsia according to this scheme, Stalin managed in just 289 days in 1937, the same famous “three hundred minutes without eleven”, sung in Kolyma folklore, after which he went on vacation to Gori, where he drank Tsinandali and ate lobio with Beria . " Alexander Solzhenitsyn, "A Billion in Three Hundred Days"