Reasons for repression in the USSR after the war. Stalinist repression reasons and stages. What is repression - definition

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

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

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

The generation of people, whose lips the truth about Stalin's repressions can be expressed, is leaving ... Are the newfangled articles whitening the dictator a spit at their suffering, at their broken life ...

The leader who sanctioned torture

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

Creativity in introducing torture

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

"... Ten-day conveyor interrogation with severe vicious beating and without the possibility of falling asleep. Then - a twenty-day solitary confinement. Then - the compulsion to sit with arms raised up, and also stand bent over, with his head hidden under the table, for 7-8 hours ..."

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

Leader motivation

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

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

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

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

The beginning of revolutionary activity

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

Stalin in the Central Committee

In 1922, Joseph Vissarionovich receives a long-awaited career opportunity. Ailing and weakening Vladimir Ilyich, together with Kamenev and Zinoviev, introduced him to the Central Committee of the Party. Thus, Lenin creates a political counterbalance to Leon Trotsky, who really claims to be the leader.

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

Stalin's positioning in the red terror system

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

09/05/1918 The Council of People's Commissars issues the Decree "On the Red Terror". The body for its implementation, called the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK), acted under the Council of People's Commissars from 07.12.1917.

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

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

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

Stalin since 1928 - the ideologist of violence

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

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

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

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

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

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

Through the lips of Stalin, who provided the state apparatus loyal to repression with the conducted trials, the Party's adamant determination was further expressed: to oust and ruin thousands of entrepreneurs - industrialists, merchants, small and medium-sized; to ruin the basis of agricultural production - the well-to-do peasantry (indiscriminately calling it “kulaks”). At the same time, the new voluntarist party position was masked by "the will of the poorest strata of workers and peasants."

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

Forced collectivization

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

In order to clearly identify the object of his repression, Stalin went for an obvious ideological forgery. Economically and socially unjustifiably, he achieved the fact that obedient party ideologists single out a normal self-supporting (profitable) producer as a separate "class of kulaks" - the target of a new blow. Under the ideological leadership of Joseph Vissarionovich, a plan was developed for the destruction of the social foundations of the village that had developed over the centuries, the destruction of the rural community - the Resolution "On the liquidation of ... kulak farms" of 01/30/1930.

The Red Terror has come to the village. Peasants who fundamentally disagreed with collectivization were subjected to Stalin's trials - "troikas", in most cases ending in executions. Less active “kulaks”, as well as “kulak families” (which could include any persons subjectively defined as “rural assets”) were subjected to violent confiscation of property and eviction. A body of permanent operational management of the eviction was created - a secret operational management under the leadership of Efim Evdokimov.

Migrants to the extreme regions of the North, victims of Stalin's repressions, were predetermined by registration in the Volga region, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Siberia, and the Urals.

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

Organization of hunger

However, executions, devastation and eviction in the 30s of the last century are not all of Stalin's repressions. A brief listing of them should be supplemented by the organization of hunger. Its real reason was the inadequate approach of Joseph Vissarionovich personally to insufficient grain procurement in 1932. Why was the plan fulfilled by only 15-20%? The main reason was the poor harvest.

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

On 10/22/1932, two extraordinary commissions under the leadership of odious personalities Lazar Kaganovich and Vyacheslav Molotov launched a misanthropic campaign of "fighting the kulaks" to seize grain, which was accompanied by violence, swift triple ships and the eviction of wealthy agricultural producers in the Far North. It was genocide ...

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

Known fact: correspondence between Sholokhov and Stalin

Stalin's massive repressions in 1932-1933 have documentary evidence. MA Sholokhov, author of The Quiet Don, appealed to the leader, defending his fellow countrymen, with letters, exposing the lawlessness in the confiscation of grain. The famous resident of the village of Veshenskaya presented the facts in detail, indicating the villages, the names of the victims and their tormentors. The abuse and violence against the peasants are terrifying: brutal beatings, breaking joints, partial strangulation, staged executions, eviction from houses ... In his reply letter, Joseph Vissarionovich only partially agreed with Sholokhov. The real position of the leader can be seen in the lines where he calls the peasants saboteurs, "secretly" trying to disrupt the food supply ...

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

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

Other areas of pre-war Stalinist terror

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

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

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

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

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

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

One of Stalin's most cynical crimes is his sanctioning of a classified Politburo resolution of 04/07/1935, which allows teenagers from the age of 12 to be brought to trial and determines their punishment up to the highest measure. In 1936 alone, 125,000 children were placed in colonies of the NKVD. As of 01.04.1939, 10 thousand children were sent to the GULAG system.

Great terror

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

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

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

Stalin's personality cult was characterized not only by the shop-window facades of Soviet cities. The repression of the "leader of the peoples" gave rise to the monstrous system of gulag camps, which provides the Land of Soviets with free labor, mercilessly exploited labor resources for extracting wealth from the underdeveloped regions of the Far North and Central Asia.

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

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

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

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

Instead of a conclusion

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

In total, about 800 thousand people were shot.

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

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

One of the blackest pages in the history of the entire post-Soviet space was the years from 1928 to 1952, when Stalin was in power. For a long time, biographers kept silent or tried to distort some facts from the tyrant's past, but it turned out to be quite realistic to restore them. The fact is that the country was ruled by a recidivist convict who was in prison 7 times. Violence and terror, forceful methods of solving the problem were well known to him from early youth. They are also reflected in his policies.

The course was officially taken in July 1928 by the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b). It was there that Stalin spoke, who said that the further advancement of communism would meet with increasing resistance from hostile, anti-Soviet elements, and it was necessary to fight them fiercely. Many researchers believe that the 30 repressions were a continuation of the policy of the Red Terror, which was adopted back in 1918. It should be noted that no one includes those who suffered during the Civil War from 1917 to 1922 among the victims of repression, because after the First World War, the population census was not conducted. And it is not clear how to establish the cause of death.

The beginning of the Stalinist repressions was directed at political opponents, officially - at saboteurs, terrorists, spies conducting subversive activities, at anti-Soviet elements. However, in practice, there was a struggle with wealthy peasants and entrepreneurs, as well as with certain peoples who did not want to sacrifice national identity for the sake of dubious ideas. Many were dispossessed and sent for resettlement by force, but usually this meant not only the loss of a home, but also the threat of death.

The fact is that such settlers were not provided with food and medicine. The authorities did not take the time of year into account, so if it happened in winter, people often froze and died of hunger. The exact number of victims is still being established. There are debates about this in society even now. Some defenders of the Stalinist regime believe that we are talking about hundreds of thousands of "everything." Others point to millions of forcibly displaced, and about 1/5 to half of them died due to the complete absence of any conditions for life.

In 1929, the authorities decided to abandon the usual forms of imprisonment and switch to new ones, reform the system in this direction, and introduce correctional labor. Preparations began for the creation of the GULAG, which many quite rightly compare with the German death camps. It is characteristic that the Soviet authorities often used various events, for example, the assassination of the plenipotentiary representative Voikov in Poland, in order to deal with political opponents and simply objectionable ones. In particular, Stalin reacted to this by demanding the immediate liquidation of the monarchists by any means. At the same time, no connection was even established between the victim and those to whom such measures were applied. As a result, 20 representatives of the former Russian nobility were shot, about 9 thousand people were arrested and subjected to repression. The exact number of victims has not yet been established.

Sabotage

It should be noted that the Soviet regime was completely dependent on specialists trained in the Russian Empire. Firstly, at the time of the 30s not much time had passed, and in fact, our own specialists were absent or were too young and inexperienced. And all scientists, without exception, received training in monarchist educational institutions. Secondly, very often science openly contradicted what the Soviet government was doing. The latter, for example, denied genetics as such, considering it too bourgeois. There was no study of the human psyche, psychiatry had a punitive function, that is, in fact, it did not fulfill its main task.

As a result, the Soviet authorities began to accuse many specialists of sabotage. The USSR did not recognize such concepts as incompetence, including those that arose in connection with poor preparation or incorrect assignment, mistake, miscalculation. The real physical condition of the employees of a number of enterprises was ignored, due to which the usual mistakes were sometimes made. In addition, mass repressions could arise on the basis of suspiciously frequent, in the opinion of the authorities, contacts with foreigners, the publication of works in the Western press. A striking example is the Pulkovo case, when a huge number of astronomers, mathematicians, engineers and other scientists suffered. Moreover, only a small number were eventually rehabilitated: many were shot, some died during interrogations or in prison.

The Pulkovo case very clearly demonstrates another terrible moment of Stalin's repressions: the threat to loved ones, as well as slanderousness of others under torture. Not only scientists suffered, but also the wives who supported them.

Grain procurement

Constant pressure on the peasants, a half-starved existence, weaning of grain, a shortage of labor had a negative impact on the rate of grain procurement. However, Stalin did not know how to admit mistakes, which became the official state policy. By the way, it is for this reason that any rehabilitation, even of those who were convicted by accident, by mistake, or instead of a namesake, took place after the death of the tyrant.

But back to the topic of grain procurement. For objective reasons, it was far from always and not everywhere possible to fulfill the norm. And in this regard, the "guilty" were punished. Moreover, in some places whole villages were completely repressed. Soviet power also fell on the heads of those who simply allowed the peasants to keep their grain as an insurance fund or for sowing next year.

There were cases for almost every taste. Cases of the Geological Committee and the Academy of Sciences, "Vesna", the Siberian brigade ... A complete and detailed description can take many volumes. And this despite the fact that all the details have not yet been disclosed, many documents of the NKVD continue to remain classified.

Some relief that came in 1933 - 1934, historians associate primarily with the fact that the prisons were overcrowded. In addition, it was necessary to reform the punitive system, which was not aimed at such a mass scale. This is how the GULAG came into being.

Great terror

The main terror fell on 1937-1938, when, according to various sources, up to 1.5 million people were injured, and more than 800 thousand of them were shot or killed in another way. However, the exact number is still being established, there are quite active disputes on this score.

Characteristic was the NKVD order No. 00447, which officially launched the mechanism of mass repression against former kulaks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, monarchists, re-emigrants, and so on. Moreover, everyone was divided into 2 categories: more and less dangerous. Both the one and the other group were subject to arrest, the first had to be shot, the second was given a term of 8 to 10 years on average.

Among the victims of Stalin's repressions there were quite a few relatives of those taken into custody. Even if family members could not be caught, they were still automatically registered and sometimes forcibly resettled. If the father and (or) mother were declared "enemies of the people", then this put an end to the possibility of making a career, often on getting an education. Such people often found themselves surrounded by an atmosphere of horror, they were subjected to a boycott.

The Soviet authorities could also persecute on the basis of nationality and the presence at least in the past of citizenship of certain countries. So, in 1937 alone, 25 thousand Germans, 84.5 thousand Poles, almost 5.5 thousand Romanians, 16.5 thousand Latvians, 10.5 thousand Greeks, 9 thousand 735 Estonians, 9 thousand Finns, 2 thousand Iranians were shot, 400 Afghans. At the same time, persons of the nationality against which the repressions were carried out were dismissed from the industry. And from the army - persons belonging to a nationality not represented on the territory of the USSR. All this took place under the leadership of Yezhov, but, which does not even require separate evidence, without a doubt, it had a direct bearing on Stalin, was constantly personally controlled by him. Many execution lists bear his signatures. And we are talking about, in total, hundreds of thousands of people.

Ironically, recent persecutors have often become victims. So, one of the leaders of the described repressions, Yezhov, was shot in 1940. The verdict was brought into effect the very next day after the trial. Beria became the head of the NKVD.

Stalinist repressions spread to new territories along with the Soviet regime itself. Purges were ongoing, they were mandatory elements of control. And with the onset of the 40s did not stop.

Repressive mechanism during the Great Patriotic War

Even the Great Patriotic War could not stop the repressive machine, although it partially extinguished the scale, because the USSR needed people at the front. However, now there is a great way to get rid of the unwanted - sending to the front line. It is not known exactly how many died following such orders.

At the same time, the military situation has become much harsher. Suspicion alone was enough to shoot even without the appearance of a court. This practice was called "prison unloading." It was especially widely used in Karelia, the Baltic States, and Western Ukraine.

The arbitrariness of the NKVD intensified. So, the execution became possible not even by the verdict of a court or some extrajudicial body, but simply by the order of Beria, whose powers began to increase. This moment does not like to be widely covered, but the NKVD did not stop its activities even in Leningrad during the blockade. Then they arrested up to 300 students of higher educational institutions on trumped-up charges. 4 were shot, many died in isolation wards or in prisons.

All of them are able to say unequivocally whether the detachments can be considered a form of repression, but they definitely made it possible to get rid of the unwanted ones, and quite effectively. However, the authorities continued to persecute in more traditional forms. Filtration detachments were waiting for everyone who was in captivity. Moreover, if an ordinary soldier could still prove his innocence, especially if he was captured wounded, unconscious, sick or frostbitten, then the officers, as a rule, were waiting for the GULAG. Some were shot.

As Soviet power spread throughout Europe, intelligence was engaged there, which forcibly returned and tried emigrants. In Czechoslovakia alone, according to some sources, 400 people suffered from its actions. Poland suffered quite serious damage in this regard. Often, the repressive mechanism affected not only Russian citizens, but also Poles, some of whom were shot extrajudicially for resisting Soviet power. Thus, the USSR was breaking the promises it made to the allies.

Post-war events

After the war, the repressive apparatus turned around again. Overly influential military men, especially those close to Zhukov, doctors who were in contact with allies (and scientists) were under threat. The NKVD could also arrest the Germans in the Soviet zone of responsibility for attempting to contact residents of other regions controlled by Western countries. The unfolding campaign against persons of Jewish nationality looks like black irony. The last high-profile trial was the so-called "Doctors' Case", which collapsed only in connection with the death of Stalin.

Use of torture

Later, during the Khrushchev thaw, the Soviet prosecutor's office itself investigated cases. The facts of mass falsification and obtaining of confessions under torture, which were used very widely, were recognized. Marshal Blucher was killed as a result of numerous beatings, and in the process of knocking out testimony from Eikhe, his spine was broken. There are cases when Stalin personally demanded to beat certain prisoners.

In addition to beatings, they also practiced sleep deprivation, being placed in a too cold or, on the contrary, too hot room without clothes, and a hunger strike. The handcuffs were not removed periodically for days, and sometimes for months. They forbade correspondence, any contact with the outside world. Some were "forgotten", that is, they were arrested, and then they did not consider the cases and did not make any specific decision until Stalin's death. This, in particular, is indicated by the order signed by Beria, which ordered the amnesty for those who were arrested before 1938, and for whom no decision had yet been made. We are talking about people who have been waiting for the decision of their fate for at least 14 years! This can also be considered a kind of torture.

Stalinist statements

Understanding the very essence of Stalin's repression in the present is of fundamental importance if only because some people still consider Stalin an impressive leader who saved the country and the world from fascism, without which the USSR would have been doomed. Many try to justify his actions, saying that in this way he raised the economy, ensured industrialization or defended the country. In addition, some try to play down the number of casualties. In general, the exact number of victims is one of the most contested issues today.

However, in fact, to assess the personality of this person, as well as everyone who carried out his criminal orders, even the recognized minimum of those convicted and executed is enough. During the fascist regime of Mussolini in Italy, 4.5 thousand people were subjected to repression. His political enemies were either expelled from the country or placed in prisons, where they were given the opportunity to write books. Of course, no one says that Mussolini gets better from this. Fascism cannot be justified.

But how can Stalinism be assessed at the same time? And given the repressions that were carried out on a national basis, he at least has one of the signs of fascism - racism.

Signs of repression

The Stalinist repressions have several characteristic features that only emphasize what they were. It:

1. Mass character... The exact data is highly dependent on estimates, on whether relatives are taken into account or not, internally displaced persons or not. Depending on the method of calculation, we are talking from 5 to 40 million.
2. Cruelty... The repressive mechanism did not spare anyone, people were subjected to cruel, inhuman treatment, starved, tortured, killed in front of their relatives, threatened loved ones, forced to abandon family members.
3. Focus on protecting party power and against the interests of the people... In fact, we can talk about genocide. Neither Stalin nor his other henchmen were at all interested in how the constantly decreasing peasantry should provide everyone with bread, what is actually beneficial to the production sphere, how science will move forward with the arrest and execution of prominent figures. This clearly demonstrates that the real interests of the people were ignored.
4. Injustice... People could suffer simply because they had property in the past. Wealthy peasants and the poor who took their side, supported, somehow defended. Persons of "suspicious" nationality. Relatives who have returned from abroad. Sometimes academicians and prominent scientists who contacted their foreign colleagues to publish data on invented drugs after they received official permission from the authorities could be punished.
5. Connection with Stalin... The extent to which everything was tied to this figure is eloquently seen at least by the termination of a number of cases immediately after his death. Many rightly accused Lawrence Beria of cruelty and inappropriate behavior, but even by his actions he recognized the fake nature of many cases, unjustified cruelty used by the NKVD officers. And it was he who forbade physical measures in relation to prisoners. Again, as with Mussolini, this is not about justification. It's just about underlining.
6. Illegality... Some of the executions were carried out not only without trial, but also without the participation of the judicial authorities as such. But even when there was a trial, it was exclusively about the so-called “simplified” mechanism. This meant that the examination was carried out without defense, exclusively with the hearing of the prosecution and the accused. There was no practice of reviewing cases, the court decision was final, and was often enforced the next day. At the same time, there were widespread violations of even the legislation of the USSR itself, which was in force at that time.
7. Antihumanity... The repressive apparatus violated the basic human rights and freedoms proclaimed in the civilized world at that time for several centuries already. Researchers do not see the difference between the treatment of prisoners in the dungeons of the NKVD and the way the Nazis behaved towards the prisoners.
8. Groundlessness... Despite the attempts of the Stalinists to demonstrate the existence of some kind of background, there is not the slightest reason to believe that something was directed towards some good goal or helped to achieve it. Indeed, the forces of the GULAG prisoners built a lot, but this was the forced labor of people who were greatly weakened due to the conditions of detention and the constant lack of food. Consequently, production errors, defects and, in general, a very low level of quality - all this inevitably occurred. This situation also could not but affect the pace of construction. Taking into account the expenses that the Soviet government incurred on the creation of the GULAG, its maintenance, as well as on such a large-scale apparatus as a whole, it would be much more rational to simply pay for the same work.

The assessment of the Stalinist repressions has not yet been finalized. However, it is beyond any doubt that it is clear that this is one of the worst pages in world history.

The issue of repressions in the 1930s is of fundamental importance not only for understanding Russian socialism and its essence as a social system, but also for assessing the role of Stalin in the history of Russia. This issue plays a key role in accusations not only of Stalinism, but, in fact, of the entire Soviet regime.

To date, the assessment of the "Stalinist terror" has become a touchstone in our country, a milestone in relation to the past and future of Russia. Do you condemn? Decisively and irrevocably? - Democrat and common man! Do you have doubts? - Stalinist!

Let's try to deal with a simple question: did Stalin organize the "Great Terror"? Maybe there are other reasons for terror, about which common people - liberals prefer to remain silent?

So. After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks tried to create a new type of ideological elite, but these attempts stalled from the very beginning. Mainly because the new "people's" elite believed that with its revolutionary struggle it fully deserved the right to enjoy the benefits that the anti-people "elite" had just by birthright. A new nomenclature quickly settled in the noble mansions, and even the old servant remained in place, they only began to call her a servant. This phenomenon was very broad and received the name "kombarstvo".

Even the right measures proved to be ineffective, thanks to the massive sabotage of the new elite. I am inclined to attribute the introduction of the so-called "party maximum" to the correct measures - the prohibition of party members to receive a salary greater than the salary of a highly qualified worker.

That is, a non-partisan director of a plant could receive a salary of 2,000 rubles, and a communist director only 500 rubles, and not a penny more. Thus, Lenin sought to avoid an influx of careerists into the party, who use it as a springboard in order to quickly break through to the grain positions. However, this measure was half-hearted without the simultaneous destruction of the system of privileges attached to any position.

By the way, V.I. Lenin in every possible way resisted the reckless increase in the number of party members, which was then taken up in the CPSU, starting with Khrushchev. In his work "Childhood Illness of Leftism in Communism" he wrote: " We are afraid of the excessive expansion of the party, because careerists and crooks inevitably strive to cling to the government party, who only deserve to be shot».

Moreover, in the conditions of the post-war shortage of consumer goods, material goods were not so much bought as distributed. Any power performs the function of distribution, and if so, then the one who distributes, he uses the distributed. Especially the self-employed careerists and crooks. Therefore, the next step was to renew the upper floors of the party.

Stalin stated this in his usual cautious manner at the 17th Congress of the CPSU (b) (March 1934). In his Reporting Report, the Secretary General described a certain type of workers hindering the party and the country: “... These are people with certain merits in the past, people who believe that party and Soviet laws were written not for them, but for fools. These are the very people who do not consider it their duty to carry out the decisions of party bodies ... What do they count on, violating party and Soviet laws? They hope that the Soviet government will not dare to touch them because of their old merits. These arrogant nobles think that they are irreplaceable and that they can violate the decisions of the governing bodies with impunity ...».

The results of the first five-year plan showed that the old Bolshevik-Leninists, with all their revolutionary achievements, are unable to cope with the scale of the reconstructed economy. Not burdened with professional skills, poorly educated (Yezhov wrote in his autobiography: education is incomplete primary), washed away with the blood of the Civil War, they could not “ride” the complex industrial realities.

Formally, the real power at the local level belonged to the Soviets, since the party legally did not have any power. But the party bosses were elected chairpersons of the Soviets, and, in fact, appointed themselves to these positions, since the elections were held on an uncontested basis, that is, they were not elections. And then Stalin undertakes a very risky maneuver - he proposes to establish real, and not nominal, Soviet power in the country, that is, to hold secret general elections in party organizations and councils at all levels on an alternative basis. Stalin tried to get rid of the party regional barons, as they say, in an amicable way, through elections, and really alternative ones.

Considering the Soviet practice, this sounds rather unusual, nevertheless, it is so. He hoped that the majority of this public, without support from above, would not overcome the popular filter. In addition, according to the new constitution, it was planned to nominate candidates to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR not only from the CPSU (b), but also from public organizations and groups of citizens.

What happened next? On December 5, 1936, a new Constitution of the USSR was adopted, the most democratic constitution of that time in the whole world, even according to the admission of ardent critics of the USSR. For the first time in Russian history, secret alternative elections were to be held. By secret ballot. Despite the fact that the party elite tried to put a spoke in the wheel even in the period when the draft constitution was being drawn up, Stalin managed to see it through to the end.

The regional party elite understood perfectly well that with the help of these new elections to the new Supreme Soviet, Stalin plans to carry out a peaceful rotation of the entire ruling element. And there were about 250 thousand of them. By the way, the NKVD was counting on about the same number of investigations.

They understood, but what to do? I don't want to part with my chairs. And they perfectly understood one more circumstance - in the previous period they had done such a thing, especially during the Civil War and collectivization, that the people would not only not choose them with great pleasure, but would also break their head off. Many high regional party secretaries had their hands covered in blood. During the period of collectivization, there was complete arbitrariness in the regions. In one of the regions, Khatayevich, this nice man, actually declared a civil war in the course of collectivization in his particular region. As a result, Stalin was forced to threaten him that he would shoot him outright, if he did not stop mocking people. Do you think that comrades Eikhe, Postyshev, Kosior and Khrushchev were better, were less "nice"? Of course, the people remembered all this in 1937, and after the elections these bloodsuckers would have gone to the forest.

Stalin did indeed plan such an operation of peaceful rotation, he openly told the American correspondent Howard Roy about this in March 1936. He said that these elections will be a good whip in the hands of the people for the change of leading personnel, and he said just that - a whip. Will yesterday's "gods" of their counties tolerate the whip?

The Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), held in June 1936, directly aimed the party elite at new times. When discussing the draft of the new constitution, A. Zhdanov, in his extensive report, expressed himself completely unequivocally: “ The new electoral system ... will give a powerful impetus to the improvement of the work of Soviet bodies, the elimination of bureaucratic bodies, the elimination of bureaucratic shortcomings and distortions in the work of our Soviet organizations. And these disadvantages, as you know, are very significant. Our party organs must be ready for the electoral struggle ...". And further he said that these elections would be a serious, serious test of Soviet workers, because secret ballot gives ample opportunities to divert candidates unwanted and objectionable to the masses, that the party bodies are obliged to distinguish such criticism from hostile activity, that non-party candidates should be treated with all support and attention, because, delicately speaking, there are several times more of them than party members.

Zhdanov's report publicly voiced the terms "internal party democracy", "democratic centralism", "democratic elections." And demands were made: to prohibit "nominating" candidates without elections, to prohibit voting with a "list" at party meetings, to provide "an unlimited right to reject nominated candidates by party members and an unlimited right to criticize these candidates." The last phrase was entirely related to the elections of purely party bodies, where for a long time there was not a shadow of democracy. But, as we can see, general elections to the Soviet and party bodies have not been forgotten either.

Stalin and his people demand democracy! And if this is not a democracy, then explain to me what, then, is considered a democracy ?!

And how do the party nobles who gathered at the plenum — the first secretaries of regional committees, regional committees, and the Central Committee of national communist parties — react to Zhdanov's report? And they ignore it all! Because such innovations are by no means to the taste of the very "old Leninist guard" which has not yet been destroyed by Stalin, but is sitting at the plenum in all its grandeur and splendor. Because the vaunted "Leninist Guard" is a bunch of small satraps. They are accustomed to living in their estates as barons, to single-handedly dispose of the life and death of people.

The debate on Zhdanov's report was practically disrupted.

Despite Stalin's direct calls for a serious and detailed discussion of the reforms, the old guard with paranoid persistence is turning to more pleasant and understandable topics: terror, terror, terror! What the hell are reforms ?! There are more pressing tasks: beat the hidden enemy, burn it, catch it, reveal it! People's Commissars, first secretaries - all talk about the same thing: how recklessly and on a large scale they reveal the enemies of the people, how they intend to raise this campaign to cosmic heights ...

Stalin is losing patience. When another speaker appears on the podium, without waiting for him to open his mouth, he ironically throws: - Have all the enemies been revealed or still remain? The orator, first secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee Kabakov (another future "innocent victim of Stalinist terror") ignores the irony and habitually rattles about the fact that the electoral activity of the masses, so you know, is just " is often used by hostile elements for counter-revolutionary work».

They are incurable !!! They just can't do otherwise! They do not need reforms, secret ballot, or multiple candidates on the ballot. Foaming at the mouth, they defend the old system, where there is no democracy, but only the "boyar will" ...
Molotov is on the podium. He says sensible, sensible things: it is necessary to identify real enemies and wreckers, and not to throw mud at all, without exception, "captains of production." It is necessary to learn, finally, to distinguish the guilty from the innocent. It is necessary to reform the bloated bureaucratic apparatus, IT IS NECESSARY TO EVALUATE PEOPLE ON THEIR BUSINESS QUALITIES AND NOT TO PLACE PAST MISTAKES IN THE LINE. And the party boyars are all about the same thing: to search and catch enemies with all their ardor! Root out deeper, plant more! For a change, they enthusiastically and loudly begin to drown each other: Kudryavtsev - Postysheva, Andreev - Sheboldaeva, Polonsky - Shvernik, Khrushchev - Yakovleva.

Molotov, unable to bear it, says in plain text:
- In a number of cases, listening to the speakers, one could come to the conclusion that our resolutions and our reports passed the speakers' ears ...
The bull's eye! They didn't just pass - they whistled ... Most of those present in the hall do not know how to work or reform. But they perfectly know how to catch and identify enemies, they adore this occupation and cannot imagine life without it.

It does not seem strange to you that this "executioner" Stalin, downright imposed democracy, and his future "innocent victims" from this democracy were running like devil from incense. Moreover, they demanded repression, and more.

In short, it was not the “tyrant Stalin,” but the “cosmopolitan Leninist party guard,” who ruled the show at the June 1936 plenum, who buried all attempts at a democratic thaw. She did not give Stalin an opportunity to get rid of them, as they say, GOODLY, through elections.

Stalin's authority was so great that the party barons did not dare to openly protest, and in 1936 the Constitution of the USSR was adopted, the so-called Stalinist Constitution, which provided for the transition to real Soviet democracy.

However, the party nomenclature reared up and launched a massive attack on the leader in order to persuade him to postpone free elections until the end of the struggle against the counter-revolutionary element.

Regional party bosses, members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), began to whip up passions, referring to the recently disclosed conspiracies of the Trotskyists and the military: they say, you just need to give such an opportunity as former white officers and nobles, hidden kulak undersized, clergy and Trotskyist saboteurs rush into politics ...

They demanded not only to curtail any plans for democratization, but also to strengthen emergency measures, and even to introduce special quotas for massive repression in the regions - they say, to finish off those Trotskyists who escaped punishment. The party nomenklatura demanded the authority to repress these enemies, and it knocked out this authority for itself. And right there, the small-town party barons, who made up the majority in the Central Committee, frightened for their leadership positions, begin repressions, first of all, against those honest communists who could become competitors in future elections by secret ballot.

The nature of the repressions against honest communists was such that the composition of some district and regional committees changed two or three times in a year. Communists at party conferences refused to be members of city committees and regional committees. They understood that after a while they could be in the camp. And this is at best ...

In 1937, about 100 thousand people were expelled from the party (in the first half of the year 24 thousand and in the second - 76 thousand). The district and regional committees accumulated about 65 thousand appeals, which there was no one and had no time to consider, since the party was engaged in the process of exposure and expulsion.

At the January 1938 Central Committee plenum, Malenkov, who made a report on this issue, said that in some areas the Party Control Commission reinstated from 50 to 75% of the expelled and convicted.

Moreover, at the June 1937 Plenum of the Central Committee, the nomenklatura, mainly from among the first secretaries, actually gave Stalin an ultimatum to Stalin and his Politburo: either he approves the lists of those subject to repression submitted "from below", or he himself will be removed.

The party nomenklatura at this plenum demanded powers for repression. And Stalin was forced to give them permission, but he acted very cunningly - he gave them a short term, five days. Of these five days, one day is Sunday. He hoped that they would not meet in such a short time.

But it turns out that these scoundrels already had lists. They simply took the lists of formerly imprisoned, and sometimes not imprisoned kulaks, former white officers and nobles, Trotskyists-saboteurs, priests and just ordinary citizens, classified as alien class elements. Literally on the second day telegrams were sent from the field: the first were Comrades Khrushchev and Eikhe.

Then Nikita Khrushchev was the first to rehabilitate his friend Robert Eikhe, who in 1939 was shot justly for all his cruelties in 1954.

There was no longer any talk of ballots with several candidates at the Plenum: the reform plans came down solely to the fact that candidates for the elections would be nominated “jointly” by communists and non-party people. And from now on there will be one single candidate in each ballot - for the sake of repelling intrigues. And in addition - another wordy verbiage about the need to identify the masses of entrenched enemies.

Stalin had one more mistake. He sincerely believed that N.I. Yezhov is a man of his team. After all, for so many years they worked together in the Central Committee, shoulder to shoulder. And Yezhov has long been the best friend of Evdokimov, an ardent Trotskyist. For 1937–38. troikas in the Rostov region, where Evdokimov was the first secretary of the regional committee, 12 445 people were shot, more than 90 thousand were repressed. These are the numbers that the Memorial Society carved in one of the Rostov parks on the monument to the victims of ... Stalin's (?!) repressions. Subsequently, when Evdokimov was shot, the inspection found that in the Rostov region lay motionless and had not considered more than 18.5 thousand appeals. And how many were not written! The best party cadres, experienced business executives, and the intelligentsia were being destroyed ... Was he the only one like that?

Interesting in this regard are the memoirs of the famous poet Nikolai Zabolotsky: “ A strange belief was ripening in my head that we were in the hands of the fascists, who had found a way to destroy Soviet people under the very nose of our power, acting in the very center of the Soviet punitive system. I told this guess of mine to an old party member who was sitting with me, and with horror in his eyes he confessed to me that he himself thought the same, but did not dare to hint at anyone about it. Indeed, how else could we explain all the horrors that happened to us ...».

But back to Nikolai Yezhov. By 1937, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs G. Yagoda staffed the NKVD with scum, obvious traitors and those who replaced their work with hack. N. Yezhov, who replaced him, went with the hackers on the occasion and when clearing the country from the "fifth column" in order to distinguish himself, he closed his eyes to the fact that the NKVD investigators brought hundreds of thousands of hack cases against people, most of them completely innocent. (For example, generals A. Gorbatov and K. Rokossovsky were imprisoned.)

And the flywheel of the “Great Terror” with its notorious extrajudicial triplets and limits on the highest measure spun. Fortunately, this flywheel quickly grinded those who initiated the process itself, and Stalin's merit is that he made the most of the opportunities to clean up all kinds of crap from the highest echelons of power.

Not Stalin, but Robert Indrikovich Eikhe proposed the creation of extrajudicial execution bodies, the famous "troikas" of the "Stolypin" type, consisting of the first secretary, the local prosecutor and the head of the NKVD (city, region, region, republic). Stalin was against it. But the Politburo gave a voice. Well, and in the fact that a year later it was just such a troika that leaned Comrade Eikhe against the wall, in my deep conviction, there is nothing but sad justice.

The party elite enthusiastically joined the massacre!

And let's take a closer look at him himself, at the repressed regional party baron. And, in fact, what were they like, both in business and in moral, and in purely human terms? What were they worth as people and specialists? ONLY PUSH YOUR NOSE FIRST, I MUCHLY RECOMMEND. In short, party members, military men, scientists, writers, composers, musicians and everyone else, up to the noble rabbit breeders and Komsomol members, eagerly devoured each other. Those who sincerely believed that they were obliged to exterminate the enemies, who settled scores. So there is no need to chat about whether the NKVD beat on the noble face of this or that "innocently injured figure" or not.

The regional party nomenclature has achieved the most important thing: after all, in conditions of mass terror, free elections are impossible. Stalin was never able to carry them out. The end of a short thaw. Stalin never pushed through his reform bloc. True, at that plenum he said remarkable words: “Party organizations will be freed from economic work, although this will not happen immediately. This takes time. "

But, again, back to Yezhov. Nikolai Ivanovich was a new man in the "organs", he started well, but quickly fell under the influence of his deputy: Frinovsky (former head of the Special Department of the First Cavalry Army). He taught the new People's Commissar the basics of KGB work right "in production". The basics were extremely simple: the more enemies of the people we catch, the better. You can and should beat, but beat and drink is even more fun.
Drunk with vodka, blood and impunity, the People's Commissar soon openly "swam".
He did not particularly hide his new views from those around him. " What are you afraid of? - he said at one of the banquets. - After all, all power is in our hands. Whom we want - we execute, whom we want - we have mercy: - After all, we are everything. It is necessary that everyone, starting from the secretary of the regional committee, walk under you».

If the secretary of the regional committee had to walk under the head of the regional administration of the NKVD, then who, one wonders, was supposed to walk under Yezhov? With such personnel and such views, the NKVD became mortally dangerous both for the authorities and for the country.

It is difficult to say when the Kremlin became aware of what was happening. Probably sometime in the first half of 1938. But to realize - realized, but how to curb the monster? It is clear that the People's Commissariat of the NKVD had become mortally dangerous by that time, and it had to be “normalized”. But how? What, to raise the troops, to bring all the Chekists into the yards of the administrations and put them in a line against the wall? There is no other way, for, having barely sensed the danger, they would simply sweep away the power.

After all, the same NKVD was in charge of the Kremlin's security, so the members of the Politburo would have died without even having time to understand anything. After that, a dozen “blood-washed” would be planted in their places, and the whole country would turn into one large West Siberian region with Robert Eikhe at its head. The peoples of the USSR would have perceived the arrival of Hitler's troops as happiness.

There was only one way out - to put his man in the NKVD. Moreover, a person of such a level of loyalty, courage and professionalism that he could, on the one hand, cope with the management of the NKVD, and on the other hand, stop the monster. Stalin hardly had a large selection of such people. Well, at least one was found. But what - Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich.

Elena Prudnikova is a journalist and writer who has devoted several books to researching the activities of L.P. Beria and I.V. Stalin, in one of the TV programs she said that Lenin, Stalin, Beria are three titans whom the Lord God in His great mercy sent to Russia, because, apparently, he still needed Russia. I hope that she is Russia and in our time He will soon need it.

In general, the term "Stalinist repressions" is speculative, because it was not Stalin who initiated them. The unanimous opinion of one part of the liberal perestroika and current ideologists that Stalin thus strengthened his power by physically eliminating opponents is easily explained. These gimmicks simply judge others by themselves: they, having such an opportunity, will readily devour everyone in whom they see danger.

It is not for nothing that Alexander Sytin, a political scientist, Doctor of Historical Sciences, a prominent neoliberal, in one of the recent TV programs with V. Solovyov, argued that in Russia it is necessary to create a Dictatorship of TEN PERCENTAGE OF A LIBERAL MINORITY, which then will definitely lead the peoples of Russia into a bright capitalist tomorrow. He was modestly silent about the cost of this approach.

Another part of these gentlemen believes that allegedly Stalin, who wanted to finally become the Lord God on Soviet soil, decided to deal with everyone who doubted his genius in the slightest degree. And, above all, with those who, together with Lenin, created the October Revolution. They say that this is why almost the entire "Leninist guard", and at the same time the top of the Red Army, who were accused of a conspiracy against Stalin that never existed, innocently went under the ax. However, upon closer examination of these events, many questions arise that cast doubt on this version. In principle, thinking historians have had doubts for a long time. And doubts were sown not by some Stalinist historians, but by those eyewitnesses who themselves disliked the "father of all Soviet peoples."

For example, in the West, at one time, the memoirs of the former Soviet intelligence agent Alexander Orlov (Leiba Feldbin), who fled our country in the late 30s, having taken a huge amount of state dollars, were published. Orlov, who knew well the "inner kitchen" of his native NKVD, wrote directly that a coup d'etat was being prepared in the Soviet Union. Among the conspirators, he said, were both representatives of the leadership of the NKVD and the Red Army in the person of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and the commander of the Kiev military district Iona Yakir. Stalin became aware of the conspiracy, who took very tough retaliatory actions ...

And in the 1980s, the archives of Iosif Vissarionovich's most important enemy, Leon Trotsky, were declassified in the United States. From these documents it became clear that Trotsky had an extensive underground network in the Soviet Union. Living abroad, Lev Davidovich demanded from his people decisive action to destabilize the situation in the Soviet Union, up to the organization of mass terrorist actions.
In the 90s already our archives opened access to the protocols of interrogations of the repressed leaders of the anti-Stalinist opposition. By the nature of these materials, by the abundance of facts and evidence presented in them, today's independent experts have made three important conclusions.

First, the overall picture of a broad conspiracy against Stalin looks very, very convincing. Such testimony could not have been somehow directed or faked to please the “father of nations”. Especially in the part where it was about the military plans of the conspirators. Here is what the well-known publicist historian Sergei Kremlev said about this: “Take and read the testimony of Tukhachevsky, given to him after his arrest. The confessions themselves in the conspiracy are accompanied by a deep analysis of the military-political situation in the USSR in the mid-30s, with detailed calculations on the general situation in the country, with our mobilization, economic and other capabilities.

The question is whether such testimony could have been invented by an ordinary NKVD investigator who was in charge of the Marshal's case and who allegedly set out to falsify Tukhachevsky's testimony ?! No, these testimonies, and voluntarily, could only be given by a knowledgeable person no less than the level of the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, which was Tukhachevsky. "

Secondly, the very manner of the conspirators' handwritten confessions, their handwriting spoke of what their people wrote themselves, in fact, voluntarily, without physical pressure from the investigators. This destroyed the myth that the testimony was rudely knocked out by the force of the "Stalinist executioners", although this was the case.

Thirdly, Western Sovietologists and the émigré public, having no access to archival materials, had to actually suck out their judgments about the scale of the repressions. At best, they were content with interviews with dissidents, who either themselves in the past went through imprisonment, or cited the stories of those who went through the Gulag.

The upper bar in assessing the number of "victims of communism" was set by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who in 1976 in an interview with Spanish television said 110 million victims. The ceiling of 110 million announced by Solzhenitsyn was systematically reduced to 12.5 million people of the Memorial Society. However, following the results of 10 years of work, Memorial managed to collect data on only 2.6 million victims of repression, which is close to the figure announced by the Zemskovs almost 20 years ago - 4 million people.

After the opening of the archives, the West did not believe that the number of repressed was significantly less than the same R. Conquest or A. Solzhenitsyn indicated. In total, according to archival data, for the period from 1921 to 1953, 3,777,380 were convicted, of which 642,980 people were sentenced to capital punishment. Subsequently, this figure was increased to 4,060,306 people at the expense of 282,926 who were shot according to paragraphs. 2 and 3 st. 59 (especially dangerous banditry) and art. 193 - 24 (military espionage). They included Basmachi, Bandera, Baltic "forest brothers" and other especially dangerous, bloody bandits, spies and saboteurs, washed with blood. They have more human blood than water in the Volga. And they are also considered "innocent victims of Stalin's repressions." And Stalin is accused of all this. (Let me remind you that until 1928, Stalin was not the autocratic leader of the USSR. But HE GOT FULL POWER OVER THE PARTY, THE ARMY AND THE NKVD ONLY FROM THE END OF 1938).

At first glance, these figures are scary. But only at first. Let's compare. On June 28, 1990, an interview with the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR appeared in central newspapers, where he said: “We are literally being swept by a wave of criminality. Over the past 30 years, 38 MILLION OF OUR CITIZENS have been under trial, investigation, in prisons and colonies. This is a terrible figure! Every ninth ... ".

So. A crowd of Western journalists arrived in the USSR in 1990. The goal is to familiarize yourself with open archives. They examined the archives of the NKVD - they did not believe it. They demanded the archives of the People's Commissariat of Railways. We got acquainted - it turned out four million. They did not believe it. They demanded the archives of the People's Commissariat of Food. We got acquainted - it turned out 4 million repressed. We got acquainted with the clothing content of the camps. It turned out - 4 million repressed. Do you think that after that, articles with the correct figures of repression were sent in batches in the Western media. Nothing of the kind. There they still write and talk about tens of millions of victims of repression.

I would like to note that an analysis of the process called "mass repressions" shows that this phenomenon is extremely multi-layered. There are real cases there: about conspiracies and espionage, political trials over die-hard oppositionists, cases of crimes of presumptuous regional masters and partisan officials who "floated" from power. But there are also many falsified cases: settling scores in the corridors of power, squabbling in the office, communal squabbles, writer's rivalry, scientific competition, persecution of clergy who supported the kulaks during collectivization, squabbles of artists, musicians and composers.

AND THERE IS CLINICAL PSYCHIATRY - the meanness of the investigators and the meanness of the informants (four million denunciations were written in 1937-38). But what was never found was the cases concocted at the direction of the Kremlin. There are opposite examples - when, at the behest of Stalin, someone was taken out of the execution, or even released altogether.

There is one more thing to be understood. The term "repression" is a medical term (suppression, blocking) and was introduced specifically to remove the question of guilt. Imprisoned in the late 30s - that means, innocent, as "repressed". In addition, the term "repression" was introduced into circulation for its use initially with the aim of giving an appropriate moral coloring to the entire Stalinist period, without going into details.

The events of the 1930s showed that the main problem for the Soviet power was the party and state "apparatus", which consisted to a large extent of unprincipled, illiterate and greedy co-servants, leading party members-chatterboxes attracted by the greasy smell of revolutionary plunder. Such an apparatus was extremely ineffective and uncontrollable, which was like death for a totalitarian Soviet state, in which everything depended on the apparatus.

Since then, Stalin made repression an important institution of government and a means of keeping the "apparatus" in check. Naturally, the apparatus became the main target of these repressions. Moreover, repression has become an important instrument of state building.

Stalin assumed that a workable bureaucracy could be made of the corrupted Soviet apparatus only after SEVERAL STAGES of repression. Liberals will say that this is the whole of Stalin, that he could not have lived without repression, without persecuting honest people. But this is what the American intelligence officer John Scott reported to the US State Department about who was repressed. He found these repressions in the Urals in 1937.

“The director of the construction office, who was building new houses for the workers of the plant, was not satisfied with his salary, which was one thousand rubles a month, and his two-room apartment. So he built himself a separate house. The house had five rooms, and he was able to furnish it well: he hung silk curtains, put up a piano, covered the floor with carpets, etc. Then he began to drive around the city in a car at a time (this happened in early 1937), when there were few private cars in the city. At the same time, the annual construction plan was fulfilled by his office by only about sixty percent. At meetings and in the newspapers, he was constantly asked questions about the reasons for such poor performance. He replied that there were no building materials, there was not enough manpower, etc.

An investigation began, during which it became clear that the director was appropriating state funds and selling construction materials to nearby collective and state farms at speculative prices. It was also discovered that there are people in the construction office whom he specifically paid to carry out his "affairs".
An open trial, which lasted several days, took place, in which all these people were tried. They talked a lot about him in Magnitogorsk. In his accusatory speech at the trial, the prosecutor spoke not about theft or bribery, but about sabotage. The director was accused of sabotaging the construction of housing for workers. He was convicted after fully admitting his guilt and then shot. "

But the reaction of the Soviet people to the 1937 purge and their position at that time. “Often the workers even rejoice when they arrest some 'important bird', a leader whom they dislike for some reason. Workers are also very free to express critical thoughts both in meetings and in private conversations. I have heard them use the strongest language when talking about bureaucracy and poor performance by individuals or organizations. ... in the Soviet Union the situation was somewhat different in that the NKVD, in its work to protect the country from the intrigues of foreign agents, spies and the offensive of the old bourgeoisie, counted on support and assistance from the population and basically received them. "

Well, and: “... During the purges, thousands of bureaucrats trembled for their places. Officials and administrative employees, who had previously come to work at ten o'clock and left at half past five and only shrugged their shoulders in response to complaints, difficulties and failures, now sat at work from sunrise to sunset, they began to worry about the successes and failures of their leaders. enterprises, and they actually began to fight for the fulfillment of the plan, economy and for good living conditions for their subordinates, although before this they did not worry at all. "

Readers interested in this question are aware of the continuous groans of the liberals that during the years of the purge "the best people", the most intelligent and capable, perished. Scott also hints at this all the time, but, nevertheless, as it were, sums up: “After the purges, the administrative apparatus of the entire plant was almost one hundred percent young Soviet engineers. Practically no specialists remained from among the prisoners, and foreign specialists practically disappeared. However, by 1939, most of the divisions, such as the Railways Administration and the mill's coke plant, were performing better than ever. "

In the course of the party purges and repressions, all the prominent party barons, drinking the gold reserves of Russia, bathing in champagne with prostitutes, seizing the noble and merchant palaces for personal use, all the disheveled, smothered revolutionaries disappeared like smoke. And this is JUST.

But clearing the snickering scoundrels from the high offices is half the battle, it was also necessary to replace them with worthy people. It is very curious how this problem was solved in the NKVD.

Firstly, a person was put at the head of the department, who were alien to the communist party, who had no connections with the capital's party top, but a proven professional - Lavrenty Beria.

The latter, secondly, ruthlessly cleared out the Chekists who had compromised themselves,
thirdly, he carried out a radical reduction of the staff, sending people who were seemingly not mean but professionally unfit to retire or to work in other departments.

And, finally, a Komsomol appeal was announced to the NKVD, when completely inexperienced guys came to the authorities to replace the deserved pensioners or the shot scoundrels. But ... the main criterion for their selection was an impeccable reputation. If in the characteristics from the place of study, work, place of residence, on the Komsomol or party line there were at least some hints of their unreliability, a tendency to selfishness, laziness, then no one invited them to work in the NKVD.

So, here is a very important point to which you should pay attention - the team is formed not on the basis of past merits, professional data of applicants, personal acquaintance and ethnicity, and not even on the basis of the desires of applicants, but solely on the basis of their moral and psychological characteristics.

Professionalism is a profitable business, but in order to punish any bastard, a person must be absolutely not dirty. Well, yes, clean hands, a cold head and a warm heart - this is all about the youth of the Beria call. The fact is that it was at the end of the 30s that the NKVD became a truly effective special service, and not only in the matter of internal cleansing.

During the war, Soviet counterintelligence defeated German intelligence with a devastating score - and this is the great merit of those very Beria Komsomol members who came to the authorities three years before the start of the war.

Purge 1937-1939 played a positive role - now not a single chief felt his impunity, the untouchables were gone. Fear did not add intelligence to the nomenclature, but at least warned them against outright meanness.

Unfortunately, immediately after the end of the big purge, the world war, which began in 1939, did not allow holding alternative elections. And again, the issue of democratization was put on the agenda by Joseph Vissarionovich in 1952, shortly before his death. But after Stalin's death, Khrushchev returned the leadership of the entire country to the party, without answering for anything. And not only.

Almost immediately after Stalin's death, a network of special distributors and special rations appeared, through which the new elites realized their advantageous position. But in addition to formal privileges, a system of informal privileges quickly emerged. Which is very important.

Since we have touched upon the activities of our dear Nikita Sergeevich, we will talk about it in a little more detail. With a light hand or the tongue of Ilya Ehrenburg, the period of Khrushchev's rule was called the "thaw". Let's see, what was Khrushchev doing before the thaw, during the “big terror”?

The February-March plenum of the Central Committee of 1937 is underway. It is believed that the great terror began with him. Here is Nikita Sergeevich's speech at this plenum: “... These rascals must be destroyed. By destroying a dozen, a hundred, a thousand, we are doing the work of millions. Therefore, it is necessary that the hand does not flinch, you need to step over the corpses of enemies for the good of the people».

But how did Khrushchev act as First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee and the Regional Committee of the CPSU (b)? In 1937-1938. out of 38 top leaders of the Moscow City Conservatory, only three people survived, out of 146 party secretaries - 136 were repressed. Where he found 22,000 kulaks in the Moscow region in 1937 is hard to explain. In total for 1937-1938, only in Moscow and the Moscow region. he personally repressed 55,741 people.

But, perhaps, speaking at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev was worried that innocent ordinary people were shot? Yes, Khrushchev did not care about the arrests and executions of ordinary people. His entire report at the 20th Congress was devoted to accusations of Stalin that he imprisoned and shot prominent Bolsheviks and marshals. Those. elite. Khrushchev in his report did not even mention the repressed ordinary people. What kind of people should he worry, "women are still giving birth", but the cosmopolitan elite Lapotnik Khrushchev was oh, what a pity.

What were the motives for the appearance of the revelatory report at the 20th Party Congress?

Firstly, without trampling on his predecessor in the mud, it was unthinkable to hope for Khrushchev's recognition as a leader after Stalin. Not! Even after his death, Stalin remained a competitor for Khrushchev, who by any means had to be humiliated and destroyed. Kicking a dead lion, as it turned out, is a pleasure - it doesn't give back.

The second motive was Khrushchev's desire to return the party to managing the economic activities of the state. Lead everything, for nothing, without answering and not obeying anyone.

The third motive, and perhaps the most important, was the terrible fear of the remnants of the "Leninist guard" for what they had done. After all, they all had blood, as Khrushchev himself put it, up to the elbows. Khrushchev and people like him wanted not only to rule the country, but also to have guarantees that they would never be dragged on the rack, no matter what they did while in leadership positions. The 20th Congress of the CPSU gave them such guarantees in the form of an indulgence for the release of all sins, both past and future. The whole mystery of Khrushchev and his associates is not worth a damn: it is an INCREDIBLE ANIMAL FEAR AND A PAINFUL THIRST FOR POWER SITTING IN THEIR SOULS.

The first thing that strikes the de-Stalinists is a complete disregard for the principles of historicism, which, it would seem, everyone was taught in the Soviet school. No historical figure can be judged by the standards of our modern era. He should be judged by the standards of his era - and nothing else. In jurisprudence they say about it like this: "the law has no retroactive effect." That is, the ban introduced this year cannot apply to last year's acts.

Here, the historicism of assessments is also necessary: \u200b\u200bone cannot judge a person of one era by the standards of another era (all the more so of that new era that he created with his work and genius). For the beginning of the 20th century, the horrors in the position of the peasantry were so commonplace that many contemporaries practically did not notice them. The famine did not start with Stalin, it ended with Stalin. It seemed like forever - but the current liberal reforms are again pulling us into that swamp, from which we seem to have already scrambled out ...

The principle of historicism also requires the recognition that Stalin had a completely different intensity of political struggle than in later times. It is one thing to maintain the existence of the system (although Gorbachev did not cope with this either), and another thing is to create a new system on the ruins of a country ravaged by the civil war. The energy of resistance in the second case is several times greater than in the first.

It must be understood that many of those who were shot under Stalin themselves were going to quite seriously kill him, and if he hesitated even for a minute, he himself would have received a bullet in the forehead. The struggle for power in the era of Stalin had a completely different acuteness than it is now: it was the era of the revolutionary "praetorian guard" - accustomed to rebellion and ready to change emperors like gloves. Trotsky, Rykov, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev and a whole crowd of people accustomed to murder as to peeling potatoes claimed the supremacy.

For any terror, not only the ruler is responsible to history, but also his opponents, as well as society as a whole. When the outstanding historian L. Gumilyov was already under Gorbachev was asked if he had any grudge against Stalin, under whom he was in prison, he answered: “ But it was not Stalin who imprisoned me, but my colleagues in the department»…

Well, God bless him with Khrushchev and the XX Congress. Let's talk about what the liberal media are constantly talking about, let's talk about Stalin's guilt.
Liberals have charged Stalin with the executions of about 700 thousand people in 30 years. The liberals have a simple logic - all the victims of Stalinism. All 700 thousand.

Those. at this time there could be no murderers, no bandits, no sadists, no molesters, no swindlers, no traitors, no pests, etc. All victims for political reasons, all crystal honest and decent people.

Meanwhile, even the CIA analytical center "Rand Corporation", relying on demographic data and archival documents, calculated the number of repressed in the Stalinist era. This center claims that fewer than 700,000 people were shot from 1921 to 1953. At the same time, no more than a quarter of cases are sentenced to political article 58. Incidentally, the same proportion was observed among inmates in labor camps.

“Do you like it when you destroy your people in the name of a great goal?” - continue the liberals. I will answer. THE PEOPLE - NO, BANDITS, THIEFS AND MORAL MONEY - YES. But I DON'T LIKE it anymore when their own people are destroyed in the name of filling their pockets with dough under the guise of beautiful liberal-democratic slogans.

Academician Tatiana Zaslavskaya, a big supporter of reforms, who was part of the Yeltsin administration at that time, admitted a decade and a half later that in just three years of shock therapy in Russia, only middle-aged men died 8 million (!!!). Yes, Stalin stands on the sidelines and nervously smokes his pipe. Not finalized.

However, your words about Stalin's non-involvement in the massacres of honest people are not convincing, the LIBERALS continue. Even if this is allowed, then in this case he was simply obliged, firstly, to honestly and openly confess to the whole people of the lawlessness committed against innocent people, secondly, to rehabilitate the unjustly victims and, thirdly, to take measures to prevent similar iniquities in the future. None of this has been done.

Again a lie. Dear. You just don't know the history of the USSR.

As for, firstly and secondly, the December 1938 plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of the year openly admitted the lawlessness committed against honest communists and non-party people, adopting a special decree on this matter, which was published, by the way, in all central newspapers. The plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), noting "provocations on an all-Union scale," demanded: To expose the careerists striving to excel ... in repression. To expose a skillfully disguised enemy ... who is striving to kill our Bolshevik cadres by carrying out repressive measures, sowing uncertainty and excessive suspicion in our ranks. "

It was also openly, throughout the country, about the harm caused by unreasonable repressions, at the 18th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) held in 1939. Immediately after the December 1938 Central Committee plenum, thousands of illegally repressed people began to return from places of detention, including prominent military leaders. All of them were officially rehabilitated, and Stalin personally apologized to some of them.

Well, as for, thirdly, I have already said that the NKVD apparatus suffered almost the most from the repressions, and a significant part was brought to justice precisely for abuse of office, for reprisals against honest people.

What are the liberals not talking about? About the rehabilitation of innocent victims.
Immediately after the December Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1938, they began to revise
criminal cases and release from camps. It was released: in 1939 - 330 thousand,
in 1940 - 180 thousand, until June 1941 another 65 thousand.

What the liberals are not talking about yet. About how they fought the consequences of the Great Terror.
With the arrival of Beria L.P. In November 1938, 7372 operational officers, or 22.9% of their payroll, were dismissed from the state security bodies to the post of People's Commissar of the NKVD in November 1938, of which 937 were imprisoned. And since the end of 1938, the country's leadership has succeeded in bringing to court more than 63 thousand employees of the NKVD, who committed falsifications and created far-fetched, fake counter-revolutionary cases, OF WHICH EIGHT THOUSANDS WERE FIRED.

I will give just one example from the article by Yu.I. Mukhina: "Minutes No. 17 of the Meeting of the VKP (b) Commission on Court Cases". More than 60 photographs are presented there. I will show in the form of a table a piece of one of them. (http://a7825585.hostink.ru/viewtopic.php?f\u003d52&t\u003d752.)

In this article, Mukhin Yu.I. writes: “ I was told that this type of documents was never laid out on the Web due to the fact that free access to them was very quickly prohibited in the archive. And the document is interesting, and you can learn something interesting from it ...».

There are many interesting things. But most importantly, from the article it is clear why the nkvdshniks were shot, after the arrival of the People's Commissar of the NKVD L.P. Beria. Read on. The names of those shot in the photographs are shaded.

Top secret
P R O T O K O L No. 17
Sessions of the Commission of the CPSU (b) on court cases
dated 23 February 1940
Chaired by M. I. Kalinin.
Present: Comrades: Shklyar M.F., Ponkratyev M.I., Merkulov V.N.

1. Listened
G ... Sergei Ivanovich, M ... Fyodor Pavlovich, by the decision of the military tribunal of the NKVD troops of the Moscow military district of December 14-15, 1939, were sentenced to death under Art. 193-17 paragraph b of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for making unjustified arrests of command and Red Army personnel, actively falsifying investigative cases, conducting them with provocative methods and creating fictitious C / R organizations, as a result of which a number of persons were shot at the fictitious ones they created materials.
Resolved.
Agree with the use of execution to G. ... SI and M ... F.P.

17. Listened
And ... Fyodor Afanasyevich by the decision of the military tribunal of the troops of the NKVD of the Leningrad Military District of July 19-25, 1939, was sentenced to death under Art. 193-17 paragraph b of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for being an employee of the NKVD, carrying out massive illegal arrests of citizens of railway transport workers, falsifying interrogation protocols and creating artificial C / R cases, as a result of which more than 230 people were sentenced to death and to various terms of imprisonment of more than 100 people, and 69 of the latter have been released at this time.
Resolved
Agree with the use of execution against A. ... F.A.

Have you read it? Well, how do you like the dear Fyodor Afanasyevich? One (one !!!) investigator-forger brought 236 people to execution. And what, he was the only one, how many such villains were there? I gave the figure above. That Stalin personally set tasks for these Fyodors and Sergei to exterminate innocent people?

Conclusion N1. To judge Stalin's time only by repression is the same as to judge the activities of the head physician of a hospital only by the hospital morgue - there will always be corpses there. If you approach with such a yardstick, then every doctor is a bloody ghoul and murderer, i.e. deliberately ignore the fact that the team of doctors has successfully healed and extended the lives of thousands of patients and blame them only for a small percentage of deaths due to some inevitable mistakes in diagnoses or deaths during serious operations.

The authority of Jesus Christ with that of Stalin is not comparable. But even in the teachings of Jesus, people only see what they want to see. Studying the history of world civilization one has to observe how the Christian doctrine substantiated wars, chauvinism, "Aryan theory", serfdom, and Jewish pogroms. This is not to mention the executions "without the shedding of blood" - that is, the burning of heretics. How much blood was shed during the crusades and religious wars? So maybe because of this, prohibit the teaching of our Creator? Just like today, some umyrs propose to ban communist ideology.

If we look at the mortality chart of the population of the USSR, with all the desire we cannot find traces of "cruel" repressions, not because they did not exist, but because their scale is exaggerated. What is the purpose of this exaggeration and whipping? The goal is to inoculate Russians with a guilt complex similar to that of the Germans after the defeat in World War II. The "pay and repent" complex. But the great ancient Chinese thinker and philosopher Confucius, who lived 500 years before our era, even then said: “ Beware of those who want to blame you. For they yearn for power over you».

Do we need it? Judge for yourself. When the first time Khrushchev stunned all the so-called. the truth about the Stalinist repressions, the authority of the USSR in the world immediately collapsed to the delight of the enemies. There was a split in the world communist movement. We have quarreled with great China, AND TENS OF MILLION PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WERE OUT OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIES. Eurocommunism appeared, which denies not only Stalinism, but also, which is terrible, the Stalinist economy. The myth of the 20th Congress created distorted ideas about Stalin and his time, deceived and psychologically disarmed millions of people when the question of the fate of the country was being decided. When Gorbachev did it for the second time, not only the socialist bloc collapsed, but our Motherland, the USSR, collapsed.

Now Putin's team is doing this for the third time: again they speak only of repressions and other "crimes" of the Stalinist regime. What this leads to is clearly seen in the Zyuganov-Makarov dialogue. They are told about development, new industrialization, and they immediately begin to shift the arrows to repression. That is, they immediately cut off a constructive dialogue, turning it into a quarrel, a civil war of meanings and ideas.

Conclusion N2. Why do they need it? To prevent the restoration of a strong and great Russia. It is more convenient for them to rule a weak and fragmented country where people will tear each other by the hair at the mention of the name of Stalin or Lenin. So it is more convenient for them to rob and deceive us. The divide and conquer policy is as old as the world. Moreover, they can always dump from Russia to the place where their stolen capital is kept and where children, wives and mistresses live.

Conclusion N3. Why do the patriots of Russia need it? It's just that we and our children don't have another country. Think about it first before you start cursing for the repression and all of our history. After all, we have nowhere to blame and retreat. As our victorious ancestors said in similar cases: behind Moscow and beyond the Volga there is no land for us!

Only after the return of socialism to Russia, taking into account all the merits and demerits of the USSR, should we be vigilant and remember Stalin's warning that as the socialist state is being built, the class struggle intensifies, that is, there is a threat of degeneration. And so it happened, and some of the first to degenerate certain segments of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Central Committee of the Komsomol and the KGB. The Stalinist party inquisition was inadequate.

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

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

A Brief Analysis of Stalinist Reforms

Stalin's reforms and state actions	The essence of reforms and their consequences
December 1947 - monetary reform	The monetary reform shocked the country's population. After a fierce war, all funds were withdrawn from ordinary people and exchanged at the rate of 10 old rubles for 1 new ruble. Such reforms helped to patch the gaps in the state budget, but for ordinary people they caused the loss of their last savings.
August 1945 - a special committee headed by Beria is created, which later was engaged in the development of atomic weapons.	At a meeting with President Truman, Stalin learned that Western countries are already well prepared in terms of nuclear weapons. It was on August 20, 1945 that Stalin laid the foundation for the future arms race, which nearly led to World War III in the middle of the 20th century.
1946-1948 - ideological campaigns led by Zhdanov to restore order in the field of art and journalism	As the cult of Stalin became more and more intrusive and noticeable, almost immediately after the end of the Great Patriotic War, Stalin instructed Zhdanov to conduct an ideological struggle against those who spoke out against Soviet power. After a short break, new purges and repressions began in the country.
1947-1950 - agricultural reforms.	The war showed Stalin how important the agrarian sector is in development. That is why, until his death, the secretary general carried out numerous agricultural reforms. In particular, the country switched to a new irrigation system, and new hydroelectric power plants were built throughout the USSR.

Post-war repression and the tightening of the Stalin cult

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

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

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

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

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

The topic of political repression in the USSR under Stalin is one of the most discussed historical topics of our time. To begin with, let's define the term "political repression". That's what the dictionaries say.

Repression (lat. Repressio - suppression, oppression) is a punitive measure, punishment applied by state bodies, the state. Political repression is a measure of coercion applied for political reasons, such as imprisonment, expulsion, exile, deprivation of citizenship, forced labor, deprivation of life, etc.

Obviously, the reason for the emergence of political repressions is the political struggle in the state, causing some "political motives" for punitive measures. And the more fiercely this struggle is waged, the greater the scope of the repressions. 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 acted 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 Russian historical journalism, two trends have developed in relation to the issue of repressions in the 1930s, which can be conditionally called “anti-Soviet” and “patriotic”. Anti-Soviet journalism presents this historical phenomenon in a simplified black-and-white picture, attributing b aboutmost of the causal relationships to personal qualities of Stalin. 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 position, in my opinion, is objective and is connected with the fact that the pro-Soviet historians were initially in the minority and, as it were, on the defensive. They constantly had to defend and justify, and not put forward their own 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 sort out the problem 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 repression 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, as well as express some of my thoughts on this issue. Here is what Yuri Nikolayevich himself writes about his work.

“The myths about Stalin are far from new. The first, apologetic, began to take shape back in the thirties, taking on a complete outline by the early fifties. The second, revelatory, followed after Khrushchev's secret report at the 20th Congress of the CPSU. In fact, it was a mirror image of the previous one, it just turned from “white” to “black”, without changing its nature at all ...
... Far from pretending to be complete and therefore indisputable, I will dare 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 diligently forgotten, resolutely unnoticed, ignored by everyone. "

Well, a very commendable wish for a historian (no quotation marks).

"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 find the opposition of Stalin to Lenin. Moreover, if the former oppose the portrait of the cruel dictator Stalin, as it were, to the more democratic Lenin (after all, he introduced the NEP, etc.). The latter, on the contrary, present Lenin as a radical revolutionary as opposed to the statist Stalin, who removed the unbelted "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 speak of Stalin as the successor to what Lenin began (all the more so Stalin always spoke about this, and by no means out of modesty). And try to find common features in them.

Here is what, for example, the historian Yury Yemelyanov says about this:

"First of all, Stalin was constantly guided by the Leninist principle of the creative assimilation of Marxist theory, rejecting "dogmatic Marxism"... Constantly making adjustments to the day-to-day implementation of policies to match the real situation, Stalin at the same time followed the main Leninist guidelines. Putting forward the task of building a socialist society in one separate 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. The Stalinist program of collectivization and modernization of the countryside met the tasks of mechanizing 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 - 'concrete historical conditions'. It was they, and not someone's authoritative statement, that the official dogmas and theories became basic for Stalin. They, and not anything else, explain his adherence to the policy of the same as himself, the pragmatist of Lenin, explain his own hesitations and breaks, his readiness, under the influence of real conditions, not at all embarrassed, to reject previously made proposals and insist on different , sometimes diametrically opposite. "

There are good reasons to assert that the Stalinist policy was a continuation of the Leninist one. Perhaps, if Lenin was in Stalin's place, in the same "concrete historical conditions" he acted in a similar way. In addition, it is worth noting the phenomenal performance of these people, and the constant striving for development and self-education.

Struggle for Lenin's legacy

Even during Lenin's lifetime, but when he was already seriously ill, a struggle for leadership in the party unfolded between Trotsky's group and the "left" (Zinoviev, Kamenev), as well as the "right" (Bukharin, Rykov) and Stalin's "centrist group". We will not go into the twists and turns of this struggle, but note the following. In the turbulent process of party discussions, it was the Stalinist group that stood out and received the support of the party, which initially occupied much worse "starting positions." Anti-Soviet historians say that Stalin's special cunning and cunning contributed to this. He, they say, skillfully maneuvered among opponents, pushed them against each other, used their ideas, and so on.

We will not deny Stalin's ability to play a political game, but the fact remains: the Bolshevik party supported him. And this was facilitated, firstly, by the position of Stalin, who, despite all the disagreements, tried to prevent a split in the party at this difficult time. And, secondly, the focus and ability of the Stalinist group for practical state activity, the thirst for which, apparently, was very strongly felt among the Bolsheviks who won the civil war.

Stalin and his associates, unlike their opponents, objectively assessing the current situation in the world, realized the impossibility of a world revolution at this historical stage and, proceeding from this, began to consolidate the achieved successes in Russia, and not "export" them outside. From Stalin's report to the XVII Congress: "We were guided in the past and in the present we are guided by the USSR and only by the USSR".

It is impossible to say with sufficient precision from what date the full-fledged dominance of the Stalinist group in the country's leadership began. Apparently, this is the period from 1928 to 1929, when it can be said that this political force began to pursue an independent policy. At this stage, the repressions against the party opposition were rather mild. Usually, for opposition leaders, defeat ended with removal from leadership positions, expulsion from Moscow or from the country, or expulsion from the party.

The scale of repression

Now is the time to talk about numbers. What was the scale of political repression in the Soviet state? In discussions with anti-Sovietists (see "The Court of History" or "The Historical Trial"), this very question causes a painful reaction on their part and accusations of "justification, inhumanity", etc. But talking about numbers really matters, as numbers often tell a lot about the nature of the repression. At the moment, the most widely known is the research of Doctor of Historical Sciences. V.N. Zemskova.

Table 1. Comparative statistics of convicts in 1921-1952.
for political reasons (according to the 1st 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 1st 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 Department of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences was established, headed by corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences Yu.A. Polyakov to determine population losses. As a member of this commission, we were among the first historians to gain access to the statistical reports of the OGPU-NKVD-MVD-MGB that were not previously issued to researchers ...

... The overwhelming majority of them were convicted under the famous 58th article. In the statistical calculations of these two departments, there is a rather significant discrepancy, 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 the employees of the 1st special department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs more widely interpreted the concept of "political criminals" and in the statistics compiled by them there was a significant "Criminal impurity".

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 of the 1st category, that is, those who were arrested and convicted. Those sent to the special settlement (2nd category) and simply dispossessed, but not sent (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 6 thousand to the highest measure - 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 shot to 23 - 26 thousand is associated with the elimination of "especially dangerous elements" in prisons that fell under the occupation. And a special place is occupied by 1937-1938 (the so-called "Great Terror"), it was during this period that there was a sharp surge of political repressions, especially 682 thousand sentenced to VMN (or over 82% for the entire period). What happened during this period? If with other years everything is more or less clear, then 1937 looks truly very terrifying. The work of Yuri Zhukov is devoted to explaining this phenomenon.

Such a picture emerges from archival data. And there is a fierce debate about these numbers. They really 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, starting only from the fact that the real number of repressed turned out to be an order of magnitude less than the number of liberals. The repressions were significant in the designated special years, when large-scale events for the whole country took place, in comparison with the level of "quiet" years. But at the same time, we must understand that repressed for political reasons does not automatically mean innocent. There were those convicted of serious crimes against the state (robbery, terror, 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: few people are inspired by political intrigue and repression. However, we must understand that the life of the Soviet people during 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 has developed at an incredible pace. The breakthrough was not only industrial: public education, health care, culture and labor rose to a qualitatively new level, and the citizens of the USSR saw it with their own eyes. The Soviet people rightly perceived the "Russian miracle" of the Stalinist 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 the implementation of 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 resources of the country were used for these purposes. The source was agricultural products, mineral raw materials, timber, and even cultural and church values. Stalin here was the toughest advocate of this policy. And, as history has shown, it is not in vain ...

In international politics, the new course consisted of curtailing activities to "export the world revolution", normalizing relations with capitalist countries, and seeking allies before the war. This was primarily due to the growing tension in the international arena and the expectation of a new war. The USSR, at the "proposal" of a number of countries, enters the League of Nations. At first glance, these steps run counter to the tenets of Marxism-Leninism.

Lenin once said about the League of Nations:

"An unveiled instrument of imperialist Anglo-French desires ... The League of Nations is a dangerous instrument directed with its edge against the country of the dictatorship of the proletariat.".

Whereas Stalin in an interview:

“Despite the withdrawal of Germany and Japan from the League of Nations - or perhaps that is why - the League may become some kind of brake in order to delay the outbreak of hostilities or prevent them. If this is so, if the League can turn out to be a kind of hillock on the way to at least somewhat complicate the cause of war and to somewhat facilitate the cause of peace, then we are not against the League. Yes, if this is the course of historical events, it is possible that we will support the League of Nations, despite its colossal shortcomings. ".

Also, in international politics, the activities of the Comintern are being adjusted, an organization designed to carry out the world proletarian revolution. Stalin, with the help of G. Dimitrov, who returned from the 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 out to defend it, then we are ready for a united front. We are supporters of Soviet democracy, democracy of the working people, the most consistent democracy in the world. But we defend and will defend in the capitalist countries every inch of bourgeois democratic freedoms, which 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, these are 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 moods in some party circles, but the Soviet Union objectively needed it.

The normalization of public life also took place within the country. The New Year holidays returned with a Christmas tree and a carnival, the activities of communes were curtailed, officer ranks were introduced in the army (oh horror!), And much more. Here is one illustration that I think conveys the atmosphere of that time. From the decision of the Politburo:

[in the Internet] .

ihistorian. Stalin's Democracy 1937 [on the Internet].

Alexander Sabov."Stalin's Bogey". Conversation with historian Yu. Zhukov. [in the Internet] .

The decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the operational order of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs on anti-Soviet elements. [in the Internet] .

Prudnikova, E.A. Khrushchev. Terror makers.2007.

Prudnikova, E.A.-. Beria.: Olma Media Group, 2010.

F.I. Chuev. Kaganovich. Shepilov.Moscow: OLMA-PRES, 2001.

Grover Ferr. Anti-Stalinist meanness.Moscow: "Algorithm", 2007.