The famous historian Yuri Zhukov does not give interviews very often, so a fresh interview on the topic of Stalin’s repressions is especially relevant in light of the cries of the liberal public about the “new 1937” and recent attempts by liberals to celebrate the holiday of the “Great Terror” with cheerful PR for Comrade Stalin and Twitter. Zhukov’s work as a whole is characterized by a departure from clearly light or dark assessments of Stalin and his era.

Yuri Nikolaevich Zhukov (born January 22, 1938)- Soviet Russian historian, Doctor of Historical Sciences, chief researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. After graduating from the Institute of History and Archives, he worked as a journalist at the Novosti press agency.

In 1976 he defended his candidate's dissertation, in 1992 - his doctoral dissertation, and supervised the creation of the encyclopedias "Moscow", "Civil War and Foreign Intervention in the USSR".

Known for scientific and scientific-journalistic works about Stalin and the “Stalin era”.

More than 30 years ago, I, a young journalist, talked with an old test pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union, and they talked about the 37th. I asked where he was then. Parubkom, he replied, he was and lived in a village near Kiev. Songs returned to the villages, hunger went away. “We drank a lot and enjoyed life.” And when I asked on the phone how people perceived the second half of the thirties, you said: “With joy!” Somehow all this doesn't fit...

- This is fine! After all, we are still a country of largely mythologized history. Significant events sometimes fade into the background, and facts that are flashy or politically advantageous to the authorities are exaggerated. And the picture must be seen in all its colors. Look at the main object of criticism today among any opposition, and among people. Official. He seems to be no longer a communist, not a Bolshevik. But everyone, from the right to the left, including those who sit in the Kremlin, agree that the official is a disaster for the country. And so, when in 1937-1938 officials began to be arrested, and the blow fell primarily on them...

- Almost 500 thousand officials at all levels (primarily party members) were removed from work and punished.

- Yes, yes... And everyone was happy. After all, two things were connected. An attack, in modern jargon, on officials and the published Constitution of 1936, which is called Stalinist. I held drafts in my hands in the archives and saw that several articles, the most important ones, were written by Stalin personally. And so people received the Basic Law and the news that those who stood over them and mocked them were being removed and imprisoned. And the people started singing.

The previous Constitution (drafted in 1923) included two parts. The preamble stated: the world is divided into two hostile camps - socialism and imperialism. They will inevitably and soon come together in a fight, and it is clear who will win. The World Union of Soviet Socialist Republics will emerge. The main part is also in the spirit of the 17-18s. According to the law, a significant part of the population (it changed every year) was included in the lists of so-called disenfranchised people, people deprived of voting rights. Firstly, by social origin - children of landowners, gendarmes, aristocrats by blood. In addition - Nepmen, kulaks...

There was no hint in the new Constitution of dividing the world into two warring camps. Secondly, the party was mentioned only in Article 126. In the 10th chapter, where we talked about the rights and responsibilities of citizens. In particular, their right to create public organizations, the core of which or the majority of them may be the same public organization - the Communist Party. Article 126. Remember the Brezhnev Constitution...

- Article 6.

- Yes. Next. Electoral system. Previously, some had, others did not have the right to elect and be elected. There was also inequality. The worker's voice was equated with the three voices of the peasants: formally - purely formally - the dictatorship of the proletariat was being implemented. This was cancelled. The elections themselves. According to the Constitution of 1923, they were three-stage (which made freedom of choice difficult) and had no alternative.

What did the 1936 Constitution and the electoral law adopted in July 1937 offer?

First. No disenfranchisement. Except for those who are deprived of this right by court. Universal suffrage. Direct voting. Each person votes for a specific candidate for the Supreme Council, which both Stalin and Molotov openly called parliament. Elections are secret, alternative. The law stipulated that there were at least 2-3 candidates for one seat. And it was this provision of the law that led to what people then called Yezhovshchina, and today they incorrectly call it mass repressions.

- Why is it suddenly wrong?

- The word “repression” means “punishment, punitive measure.” It is not only applicable to political opponents, but also provides for the conviction of a person for murder, violence, banditry, robbery, bribery, and theft. And now the term is used in order to classify all those arrested under it, including criminals, Vlasovites, those who served in SS units during the war, Banderaites... Everyone is lumped together. Killed, raped - you are also repressed, a victim of Stalin’s terror. A very clever move.

The figures that were given by Solzhenitsyn, Razgon, Antonov-Ovseenko are in circulation. The latter, in his book “Portrait of a Tyrant,” reports that the number of those repressed amounted to almost 19 million people only from 1935 to 1940.

As far as I know, the real numbers are different. They are huge though. About 800 thousand people were sentenced to death.

- Yes, that much, but from 1921 to 1953. Of these, 681,692 people - in 1937-1938.

- A large city of our fellow citizens who were shot. Including innocent people.

- Solzhenitsyn named absolutely fantastic figures. In total, during the years of Soviet power, he believed, 110 million people were repressed. Western Sovietologists during the Cold War used the figure of 50-60 million. When perestroika began, they lowered it to 20 million.

Doctor of Historical Sciences Viktor Nikolaevich Zemskov works at our institute. As part of a small group, he checked and double-checked in the archives for several years what the real numbers of repressions were. In particular, under Article 58. We came to concrete results. The West immediately started screaming. They were told: please, here are the archives for you! We arrived, checked, and were forced to agree. Here's what.

1935 - a total of 267 thousand were arrested and convicted under Article 58, of which 1,229 people were sentenced to capital punishment, in 36, 274 thousand and 1,118 people, respectively. And then a splash.

In ’37, more than 790 thousand were arrested and convicted under Article 58, over 353 thousand were shot, in ’38 – more than 554 thousand and more than 328 thousand were shot. Then - a decrease. In 1939, about 64 thousand were convicted and 2,552 people were sentenced to death; in ’40, about 72 thousand and 1,649 people were sentenced to capital punishment.

In total, during the period from 1921 to 1953, 4,060,306 people were convicted, of which 2,634,397 people were sent to camps and prisons.

It remains to understand what, how, why? And why do 1937-1938, especially, produce such terrible things?

- Of course, it still worries me.

- To begin with: who is to blame? They say: Stalin. Yes, as the leader of the country, he bears the main responsibility. But how did it all happen?

June 1937. A Congress of Soviets must take place. Before him, a plenum of the Party Central Committee was held, where the election law was discussed. Before him, telegrams regularly came from the first secretaries of regional committees, regional committees, and the Central Committee of the union republics asking for permission to arrest engineers and plant managers.

Stalin answered briefly and categorically every time: I don’t allow it. And after the plenum he began to agree. With what? With what our “democrats” are diligently forgetting today.

Immediately after the plenum, which supported the new electoral law with alternative candidates, encrypted telegrams began pouring into Moscow. Secretaries of regional committees, regional committees, and the Central Committee of the National Communist Parties requested so-called limits. The number of those whom they can arrest and shoot or send to places not so remote. The most zealous was the “victim of the Stalinist regime” Eikhe, in those days the first secretary of the West Siberian regional committee of the party. He asked for the right to shoot 10,800 people. In second place is Khrushchev, who headed the Moscow Regional Committee: “only” 8,500 people. In third place is the first secretary of the Azov-Black Sea Regional Committee (today it is the Don and the North Caucasus) Evdokimov: 6644 - shot and almost 7 thousand - sent to camps. Other secretaries also sent bloodthirsty applications. But with smaller numbers. One and a half, two thousand...

Six months later, when Khrushchev became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, one of his first dispatches to Moscow was a request to allow him to shoot 20,000 people. But we already walked there for the first time.

- How did they motivate the requests?

- One: just now The NKVD, they wrote, had uncovered an armed underground organization, and it was preparing an uprising. This means that under these conditions it is impossible to hold alternative elections. Until these supposedly conspiratorial organizations are eliminated.

It is also curious what happened at the plenum itself when discussing the electoral law. No one spoke out directly against it, but for some reason almost all of the most “bloodthirsty” ones, one after another, went to Stalin’s office on the eve of the plenum. One at a time, two at a time, three at a time... After these visits, Stalin capitulated.

Why? You can understand. By that time, he realized that Yezhov, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, was in fact not subordinate to him.

- It's impossible to believe!

- Why? As the former first secretary of the regional committee, Yezhov was at one with the others. This meant: if Stalin refused to support their demands, one of the members of the Central Committee would rise to the podium and say: “Dear comrades! All of Stalin’s recent actions proved that he was a revisionist, an opportunist, betrayed the cause of October, the behests of Lenin, betrayed our Revolution.” And they would give more than one, a dozen examples.

This means that Stalin either chickened out, fearing losing power, or was simply playing his game. How else can I explain it? But I interrupted you...

- So here are examples. '34, September. The USSR joins the League of Nations, which until then had been characterized by our propaganda as an instrument of imperialism. In May 1935, the USSR signed agreements with France and Czechoslovakia on joint defense in the event of German aggression.

In January 1935, reports appeared about a revision of the Constitution. And soon the “group of comrades” already knew what changes were coming.

In July 1935, the Seventh and last Congress of the Comintern meets, its leader Georgiy Dimitrov declares that from now on the Communists, if they want to come to power, must achieve this not through revolutions, but through democratic means. At the elections. Proposes creating popular fronts: communists together with socialists and democrats. From the point of view of the die-hard Bolsheviks, such a turn is a crime. The communists are allegedly conspiring with the enemies of communism - the Social Democrats.

- The rigid scheme: communism-imperialism is collapsing.

- Well, yes. Let's move on. 36th year. Borodin's comic opera "Bogatyrs" with a new libretto by Demyan Bedny is being removed from the stage of the Tairov Chamber Theater. A statement of reasons is published. They explain that Poor mockingly characterized the heroes of the epic Russian epic and denigrated a positive phenomenon in our history - the Baptism of Rus'. And then there’s a competition for a history textbook, which was forgotten in ’17, and the restoration of history departments that were closed in ’18. In 1934, the title Hero of the Soviet Union was introduced. This is contrary to the ultra-left. A year later, the Cossack units were recreated... And that’s not all. Russia was returned to Russia...

At the end of 1935, Stalin gave an interview to the American journalist Howard. He said that soon there will be a new Constitution, a new election system and a fierce struggle between candidates, since they will be nominated not only by the party, but also by any public organization, even a group of people.

Immediately there was talk among the members of the Central Committee: what is this, and priests can nominate? They are answered: why not? And fists? It’s not the kulaks, it’s the people who are telling them. All this frightened the partyocracy.

Most of the first secretaries understood that they had made a lot of mistakes. Firstly, there were gigantic excesses during collectivization. Second: serious mistakes at the beginning of the first five-year plan.

Many party secretaries were semi-literate people. It’s good if you have a parish school background, if you are Russian, and cheders if you are Jewish. How could such people control the construction of industry giants? They tried to lead without really understanding anything. Therefore, dissatisfaction grew on the part of peasants, workers, engineers, they felt it all themselves.

- The engineering corps was being formed, a lot was changing, it was difficult to hide the awl in the bag.

“And local party leaders were afraid that if there were alternative elections, one or two more candidates would appear next to them. You can fail. If you don’t become a deputy of the Supreme Soviet, then you have to expect that in Moscow, in the Personnel Directorate of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, they will say: “Comrade, the people did not support you. Come on, dear, look for a job that is within your capabilities, or go study". Stalin said more than once in those years that for some reason a person, having got into a high position, believes that he knows everything, although in fact he knows nothing. This was a direct hint, and the partycrats became wary.

And they rallied, like any corporation, forcing Stalin to refuse alternative elections in 1937, and, in fact, thereby discredited him.

They tried to stop the repressions in February 1938 at the next plenum. Malenkov, then the head of the Personnel Department of the Central Committee, spoke and openly criticized those who were especially zealous. I turned to Postyshev (he previously worked in Ukraine, at that moment he was the first secretary of the Kuibyshev regional committee) and asked: have you already transplanted the entire Soviet, Komsomol, party apparatus to the region, as much as possible? Postyshev replied: “I planted, I plant and will plant. This is my responsibility.” M Alenkov turned to Bagirov, the first secretary of the Central Committee of Azerbaijan: how can you sign documents for arrests and executions, where there are not even names, but only numbers of those subject to arrest and execution? He remained silent. Stalin urgently needed to remove Yezhov, through whose hands the unbridled repressions were carried out.

- Then they said: iron fists. Here, they say, what it is!

- They called Beria from Tbilisi, who had just been elected secretary of the Transcaucasian regional party committee, and was appointed head of the Main Directorate of State Security - the punitive component of the NKVD. But Beria could not cope with Yezhov. At the end of November 1938, Yezhov was invited to see Stalin. Voroshilov and Molotov were present in the office. As far as one can judge, Yezhov was forced to leave his post for several hours.

I managed to find options for his “renunciation”. They are written on different paper. One was an ordinary white sheet, the other was lined, the third was checkered... They gave me whatever was at hand, just to fix it. At first, Yezhov was ready to give up everything except the People's Commissar position. It didn't work out. Beria was appointed to the post of People's Commissar.

Soon over a million people left the camps. Remember the story of Rokossovsky, there are many of them. In the areas where there were the most odious repressions, NKVD members who falsified cases were arrested, tried, and the courts were open. Messages - in the local press. This was no longer the case when rehabilitation took place under Khrushchev. At the same time, Beria carried out a purge of the NKVD. You can take any personnel guide - there are several of them published. In the NKVD, at the upper and middle levels there were a majority of semi-literate Jews. Almost everyone is removed. Both to the next world and to the camps. They recruit new ones either with higher education or with incomplete education - from the third, fourth year, mainly Russians. Then a sharp decline in arrests began.

- Just a decline. They were not stopped.

- At the same time, when we talk about Article 58, we should not forget one circumstance. Colleague Galina Mikhailovna Ivanova, Doctor of Historical Sciences, managed to make an interesting discovery from the point of view of understanding of that time. Both before and after the war, professional criminals, according to their rules, were not supposed to work. And they didn't work. But a traveling court visited the camps every six months and considered cases of violations of the regime by prisoners. And those who refused to work were tried for sabotage. And sabotage is the same as Article 58. Therefore, it must be borne in mind that not only political enemies of the “Stalin group” or those assigned to it passed through it, but also criminal conscientious objectors. And, of course, real spies and saboteurs, and there were many of them.

It should be noted that in May 1937 there was a trial of the so-called NGO conspiracy, this is the People's Commissariat of Defense.

There is an idea that almost the entire command staff of the army and navy was repressed. Researcher O.F. Suvenirov published a book with data (down to a single person) about military personnel arrested in 1935-1939: full name, date of birth, rank, position, when arrested, sentence. A thick book. It turned out that 75 percent of those repressed by NGOs were commissars, military lawyers, military commanders, military doctors, and military engineers. So this is also a legend, as if the entire command was destroyed.

They say what would have happened if Tukhachevsky, Yakir, and so on had remained. Let's ask the question: "What battles with foreign armies did these marshals and generals of ours win?"

- We lost the Polish campaign.

- All! We didn't fight anywhere else. And, as you know, any civil war is very different from wars between countries.

There is an interesting detail in the “NGO case”. When Stalin reported “On the Military-Political Conspiracy” at the Military Council, he focused on the fact that the conspiracy in the NGO was the completion of a case that in 1935 received the name “Tangle.”

- I think not everyone knows what is behind this.

- At the end of 1934, Stalin’s brother-in-law by his first wife, Svanidze, who worked in the financial sector, wrote a note to Stalin, indicating that there was a conspiracy against his centrist group. Who was part of it? Stalin himself, Molotov - the head of government, Ordzhonikidze - who led the creation of heavy industry, Voroshilov - People's Commissar of Defense, Litvinov - People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs, who pursued an active policy of rapprochement with Western democracies, Vyshinsky - since 1935, the prosecutor of the USSR, who returned all those expelled from Leningrad after the murder of Kirov, he freed about 800 thousand peasants who suffered because of the so-called three ears of corn. The group also included Zhdanov, who replaced Kirov in Leningrad, and two very important people from the Central Committee apparatus: Stetsky, head of the Department of Agitation and Propaganda, and Yakovlev (Epstein), the creator of the most popular publications - "Peasant Newspaper" and "Bednota", a talented journalist. He, like Stetsky, is a member of the constitutional commission, and most importantly, the author of the electoral law.

After the aforementioned plenum of 1937, at which the partycrats only formally supported the electoral law, Stetsky and Yakovlev were arrested and shot. They are not remembered, but they cry over Tukhachevsky, Uborevich, Yakir, and others.

- It turns out that Stalin was even forced to sacrifice them.

- It turns out. There was a fierce struggle. Bukharin is a hero for everyone. And when he was invited to the Central Committee for a serious conversation, he began by providing a list of his own students, whom he had sacrificed. That is, as soon as he felt that he might feel bad, he hastened to hand over others in his place.

I heard the definition: the 37th year is a holiday of retribution against the Leninist guard, and the 34th and 35th are preparation for it.

- This is how a poet who thinks in images can speak. But it’s easier here. Even after the victory of the October Revolution, Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev and many others did not seriously think that socialism would win in backward Russia. They looked with hope at the industrialized United States, Germany, Great Britain, and France. After all, tsarist Russia was behind tiny Belgium in terms of industrial development. They forget about it. Like, ah-ah, what Russia was like! But during the First World War we bought weapons from the British, French, Japanese, and Americans.

The Bolshevik leadership hoped (as Zinoviev wrote especially vividly in Pravda) only for a revolution in Germany. They say that when Russia unites with it, it will be able to build socialism.

Meanwhile, Stalin wrote to Zinoviev in the summer of 1923: even if power falls from the sky to the German Communist Party, it will not retain it. Stalin was the only person in the leadership who did not believe in world revolution. I thought that our main concern was Soviet Russia.

What's next? The revolution did not take place in Germany. We accept the NEP. A few months later the country howled. Enterprises are closing, millions are unemployed, and those workers who retained their jobs receive 10-20 percent of what they received before the revolution. For the peasants, the surplus appropriation system was replaced with a tax in kind, but it was such that the peasants could not pay it. Banditry is intensifying: political, criminal. An unprecedented economic situation arises: the poor, in order to pay taxes and feed their families, attack trains. Gangs even arise among students: in order to study and not die of hunger, you need money. They are obtained by robbing the Nepmen. This is what the NEP resulted in. He corrupted party and Soviet cadres. Bribery everywhere. The chairman of the village council and the policeman take a bribe for any service. Factory directors renovate their own apartments and buy luxury items at their enterprises’ expense. And so from 1921 to 1928.

Trotsky and his right hand in the field of economics, Preobrazhensky, planned to transfer the flame of revolution to Asia, and train personnel in our eastern republics, urgently building factories there to “breed” the local proletariat.

Stalin proposed another option: building socialism in one separate country. However, he never said when socialism would be built. He said - construction, and a few years later he clarified: it is necessary to create an industry in 10 years. Heavy industry. Otherwise we will be destroyed. This was said in February 1931. Stalin was not much mistaken. After 10 years and 4 months, Germany attacked the USSR.

The differences between Stalin’s group and the die-hard Bolsheviks were fundamental. It doesn’t matter whether they are leftists, like Trotsky and Zinoviev, or rightists, like Rykov and Bukharin. Everyone relied on the revolution in Europe... So the point is not retribution, but an intense struggle to determine the course of the country's development.

Do you want to say that the period, which in the eyes of many is represented as the time of Stalinist repressions, on the other hand, became an attempt to build democracy that was not realized for many reasons?

- The new Constitution should have led to this. Stalin understood that for a person of that time, democracy was something unattainable. After all, you cannot demand knowledge of higher mathematics from a first-grader. The Constitution of 1936 was clothes for growth. Here is the village. Street committee, residents of 10-20 houses elect someone responsible for the condition of the street. Sami. No one can tell them. Behind this is the desire to learn to worry about what is there, behind your fence, what order is there. And then further, further... People gradually became involved in self-government. That is why, under Soviet rule, the rigid vertical power structure was gradually eliminated.

Yes, it’s a paradox, but we lost all this as a result of the pseudo-democratic reforms of the early 90s. We must realize: we have lost the foundations of democracy. Today they say: we are returning the elections of heads of administrations, mayors, elections in the ruling party... But this happened, guys, we had all this.

Stalin, starting political reforms in 1935, expressed an important thought: “We must free the party from economic activities.” But I immediately made a reservation: it won’t be soon. Malenkov spoke about the same thing at the XVIII Party Conference in February 1941. And it was also January 1944. Before the plenum of the Central Committee, the only one during the war years, the Politburo met. Considered the draft resolution signed by Stalin, Molotov, Malenkov. In it, if the five-page text is summarized briefly, it said: party committees of the edge, region, district, city hire the smartest and most talented, but there is no use. They give orders on all issues of life, and if something goes wrong, the Soviet authorities - the executors - are responsible. Therefore, the draft proposed, it is necessary to limit the activities of party committees only to agitation and propaganda, and participation in the selection of personnel. Everything else is the work of the Soviet authorities. The Politburo rejected the proposal, although this was the point of reforming the party.

Even earlier, in 1937, when discussing the electoral law, Stalin threw out the phrase: "Fortunately or unfortunately, we only have one batch." Obviously, for a long time he returned to the idea that it was necessary to remove state authorities from the minute-by-minute control of the party. And, if possible, create a competitor to the existing party. Stalin died without achieving this.

- By the way, in connection with his death, the focus of attention usually shifts to events such as the arrest and execution of Beria. This is the most significant thing

- After Stalin’s death, the head of the USSR government, Malenkov, one of his closest associates, abolished all benefits for the party nomenklatura. For example, the monthly distribution of money (“envelopes”), the amount of which was two to three, or even five times higher than the salary and was not taken into account even when paying party dues, Lechsanupr, sanatoriums, personal cars, “turntables”. And he raised the salaries of government employees by 2-3 times.

Party workers, according to the generally accepted scale of values ​​(and in their own eyes), have become much lower than government workers. The attack on the rights of the party nomenklatura, hidden from prying eyes, lasted three months. Party cadres united and began to complain about the infringement of their “rights” to the Secretary of the Central Committee, Khrushchev. They asked to leave at least something that others didn’t have.

He achieved the reversal of the decision, and all the “losses” were more than returned to the nomenklatura. And Khrushchev was unanimously elected first secretary at the September plenum of the Central Committee. Although at the March plenum they decided to abolish this position and move to collective leadership.

Soon Malenkov was sent to work outside the Urals. A bloodless, compromise period began - if we talk about the system of internal structure of power - when the party nomenklatura (moving in zigzags from Soviet bodies to party bodies and back) became more and more self-governing. And she lost the ability to sense time and stopped developing the country. The consequence is stagnation, degradation of power, which led to the events of 1991 and 1993.

- It turns out that the mentioned decisions of Malenkov are Stalin’s unrealized aspirations?

- In response - actual revenge of the then party nomenklatura.

- Certainly. Assessing those years, it can be argued that Stalin sought to create a powerful economy, and achieved this. We became one of the two superpowers, even after his death, but he laid the foundations.

He sought to limit the power of officials, tried to begin to teach democracy to the people, so that, albeit through generations, it would enter their blood and flesh. All this was rejected by Khrushchev. And then Brezhnev, judging even by the article of the Constitution in which the party is mentioned. As a result, the party and state apparatuses merged with the morals of the partyocracy: to lead, but not to be responsible for anything. Remember, in the film "Volga-Volga" Byvalov says to the water carrier: "I will scream, and you will answer." It was this system that seemed to collapse, although in fact it not only survived, but strengthened a hundredfold. Before there were levers of control. Let's say, if something is wrong where you live, and this is on the conscience of government agencies, you could complain to the district committee, they would react. There was a Committee of Soviet Control and a Committee of People's Control. This was a means of control over officials.

As a result of the counter-revolution of 1991-1993, officials removed all types of possible control, unbridled. Now we have a system that has been ripening since ancient times: let us remember the works of Pushkin and Gogol, Sukhovo-Kobylin and Saltykov-Shchedrin... They tried to break the system, but it was preserved and blossomed in full bloom.

- When you say “tried to break,” do you mean ’34 and ’35 or ’37?

- The years 1937 and 1938 were resistance to the partyocracy. It was a success. The State Defense Committee fought against it in 1941. It was successful during the war. The 44th was a complete failure, repeated in the 53rd. Yeltsin, as everyone thought, succeeded...

- Didn't understand! Is Yeltsin a plus for us, for the country, or a minus?

- Under the guise of breaking the bureaucratic system, he destroyed all methods of control over officials. They became completely uncontrollable. And a clear expression is our system of power, in which officials, even if only by one vote, have an advantage in parliaments and carry out any laws only in their favor.

Well, if we go back to 1937, I would like to remind the readers of LG: then for every person arrested there were at least two denunciations. That's it.

- To inform or not to inform is a personal choice. But passing a sentence is a completely different matter...

Once again about love

This year is considered the most terrible in Soviet history. That's probably what happened. But people worked, went to the cinema, laughed and fell in love. And children were born, despite the fact that repression was taking place.

Pushkin also died in '37, although a hundred years ago. On this occasion, a solemn meeting dedicated to this event was held in the USSR in the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions, where the Trotskyists-Zinovievites were recently tried. The Soviet poet Nikolai Tikhonov spoke very intricately about feelings: “love for Pushkin, like love for the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs Yezhov, is a form of love for Comrade Stalin.”

The writer Kuprin returned to his homeland. He was solemnly greeted at the Belorussky station and taken around Moscow. Alexander Ivanovich’s delight at what he saw was regularly published in newspapers, but it is not known whether these were his words or they were simply made up...

The Basque national football team arrived in the Soviet Union. She played excellently, scoring a full net of goals for the Soviet clubs. In the last match of the tour, the Spaniards met with Spartak, which had to win at any cost. The same task was set before the judge - he was also Soviet, and also worked at Spartak. He “worked” so diligently that the indignant Spaniards wanted to leave the field. The Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Vyacheslav Molotov, admonished the obstinate guests for a long time. And he persuaded. And Spartak won and saved the sporting honor of their homeland.

It’s not a sin to drink for this, but now with these difficulties. More than fifty pubs were closed in Moscow. The Presidium of the Moscow City Council transferred the premises of the former cereal establishments to public catering establishments, vegetable, bread and dairy stores. And now there are no problems with snacks.

Valery Burt

—A Chukchi sits at a trolleybus stop and looks at passing cars. Another Chukchi comes up to him and asks: - What kind of transport is there in the city... A Chukchi sits at a trolleybus stop and looks at passing cars. Another Chukchi comes up to him and asks: - What is the fastest transport in the city? - Trolleybus! See how he runs when he's tied up! What if you untie him?!

—One family bought a rose. They put it in a vase. She was very beautiful. But at night the rose turned into a black woman. She strangled the mother, father, and the son... One family bought a rose. They put it in a vase. She was very beautiful. But at night the rose turned into a black woman. She strangled the mother and father, but failed to strangle her son, as the boy ran away. He called the police, and a group of policemen came to the apartment and treated mom and dad. They took Rosa and put her in prison. At night, the rose again turned into a black woman. She had a lot of witchcraft power. She looked at the bars and they fell out of the window. The woman flew out of prison and flew to that house. She strangled her mother and father again. The police arrived immediately. She cured them again and again took the rose to prison. At night the rose became a black woman. She still had witchcraft power. She looked at the wall, and the wall split in two. The woman flew out of prison and flew back to that house. She strangled her mother and father again. The police managed to grab her, took her back and treated her mom and dad. At night the rose turned into a black woman. She looked at the door, but the door did not collapse, since she no longer had any witchcraft power left. She began to look at the window, but everything remained unharmed. Then this woman hissed and died of anger.

2017 marks the 80th anniversary of one of the most tragic events in the history of the 20th century - the mass repressions of 1937-1938. In people's memory they remained under the name Yezhovshchina (after the name of Stalin's People's Commissar of State Security); modern historians more often use the term “Great Terror”. St. Petersburg historian, candidate of historical sciences Kirill Alexandrov spoke about its causes and consequences.

Execution statistics

What was unique about the Great Terror of 1937-1938? After all, the Soviet government used violence almost all the years of its existence.

The uniqueness of the Great Terror lay in the unprecedented and large-scale massacres organized by the governing bodies in peacetime. The pre-war decade was a disaster for the population of the USSR. During the period from 1930 to 1940, more than 8.5 million people became victims of Stalin’s social policy: more than 760 thousand were shot for “counter-revolutionary crimes”, about a million dispossessed people died during the stages of dispossession and in special settlements, about half a million prisoners died in the Gulag . Finally, 6.5 million people died as a result of the 1933 famine, which was estimated to have resulted from the "forced collectivization of agriculture."

The main victims occurred in 1930, 1931, 1932 and 1933 - approximately 7 million people. For comparison: demographers estimate the total number of deaths in the occupied territories of the USSR in 1941–1944 to be between 4–4.5 million people. At the same time, the Yezhovshchina of 1937–1938 became a direct and inevitable consequence of collectivization

Is there accurate data on the number of victims of the repressions of 1937-1938?

According to reference data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR in 1953, in 1937-1938 the NKVD authorities arrested 1 million 575 thousand 259 people, of which 1 million 372 thousand 382 (87.1 percent) were for “counter-revolutionary crimes”. 1 million 344 thousand 923 people were convicted (including 681,692 people who were shot).

Those sentenced to capital punishment were not only shot. For example, in the Vologda NKVD, the executors - with the knowledge of the chief-order bearer, state security major Sergei Zhupakhin - chopped off the heads of those sentenced to death with an ax. In the Kuibyshev NKVD, out of almost two thousand executed in 1937-1938, approximately 600 people were strangled with ropes. In Barnaul, convicts were killed with crowbars. In Altai and the Novosibirsk region, women were subjected to sexual violence before execution. In the Novosibirsk NKVD prison, employees competed to see who could kill a prisoner with one blow to the groin.

In total, during the period from 1930 to 1940, more than 760 thousand people were convicted and executed in the USSR for political reasons (more than 680 thousand of them during the Yezhovshchina). For comparison: in the Russian Empire for 37 years (1875-1912), no more than six thousand people were executed for all offenses, including serious criminal offenses, as well as according to sentences of military field and military district courts during the first Russian Revolution. In 1937-1939 in Germany, the People's Tribunal (Volksgericht) - the Reich's extraordinary judicial body for cases of treason, espionage and other political crimes - convicted 1,709 people and handed down 85 death sentences.

Causes of the Great Terror

Why do you think the peak of state terror in the USSR occurred in 1937? Your colleague believes that Stalin's main motive was the elimination of potentially dissatisfied and class alien people in anticipation of the coming war. Do you agree with him? If so, did Stalin achieve his goal?

I would like to complement the point of view of respected Oleg Vitalievich. As a result of the October Revolution and the victory of the Bolsheviks in the civil war, the dictatorship of the Central Committee of the Communist Party arose in our country. The main task of Lenin, Stalin and their comrades was to retain the seized power at any cost - its loss threatened not only political, but also personal risks for tens of thousands of Bolsheviks.

The bulk of the population of the USSR were peasants: according to the 1926 census, the share of the rural population exceeded 80 percent. During the well-fed years of NEP (1923-1925), the village became rich, and the demand for industrial goods increased. But there were not enough manufactured goods on the Soviet market, as the Bolsheviks artificially limited private initiative, fearing the growth and influence of “capitalist elements.” As a result, prices for scarce manufactured goods began to rise, and peasants, in turn, began to raise selling prices for food. But the Bolsheviks did not want to buy bread at market prices. This is how the crises of 1927-1928 arose, during which the communists returned to the practice of forced grain procurements. With the help of tough measures, they managed, as Molotov said, to “pump up the grain,” but the threat of mass unrest in the cities - due to supply problems - remained.

It became clear to Stalin that as long as the free and independent peasant producer remained on earth, he would always pose a danger to the Communist Party. And in 1928, Stalin openly called the peasantry “a class that distinguishes from its midst, gives birth to and feeds capitalists, kulaks and all sorts of exploiters in general.” It was necessary to destroy the most hardworking part of the peasants, expropriate their resources, and attach the rest to the land as state-owned farm laborers without rights - to work for a nominal fee. Only such a collective farm system, despite its low profitability, allowed the party to retain power.

That is, without the great turning point of 1929, the Great Terror of 1937 would have been impossible?

Yes, collectivization was inevitable: Stalin and his comrades explained its necessity by the interests of industrialization, but in fact they were primarily fighting for their political survival in a peasant country. The Bolsheviks dispossessed approximately one million peasant farms (5-6 million people), about four million people were expelled and deported from their homes. The village desperately resisted: according to the OGPU, in 1930 in the USSR there were 13,453 mass peasant uprisings (including 176 rebel ones) and 55 armed uprisings. Collectively, almost 2.5 million people took part in them - three times more than in the White movement during the Civil War.

Despite the fact that in 1930-1933 the authorities managed to break the peasant resistance, a hidden protest against the “happy collective farm life” persisted and posed a great danger. In addition, in 1935-1936, peasants who were convicted in the early 1930s began to return from places of imprisonment and exile. And the bulk of those shot during the Yezhovshchina (approximately 60 percent) were precisely villagers - collective farmers and individual farmers, formerly dispossessed kulaks, who were registered with. The primary goal of the “Yezhovshchina” on the eve of the great war was to suppress protest sentiments against collectivization and the collective farm system.

Beriev's “liberalization”

Who else, besides the peasants, suffered from Stalinist repressions?

Along the way, other “enemies of the people” were also destroyed. For example, a complete disaster befell the Russian Orthodox Church. By 1917, there were 146 thousand Orthodox clergy and monastics in Russia, almost 56 thousand parishes, more than 67 thousand churches and chapels. In 1917–1939, out of 146 thousand clergy and monastics, the Bolsheviks destroyed more than 120 thousand, the absolute majority in the 1930s under Stalin, especially in 1937–1938. By the fall of 1939, only 150 to 300 Orthodox parishes and no more than 350 churches remained active in the USSR. The Bolsheviks - with the indifference of the vast majority of the baptized Orthodox population - managed to almost completely destroy the largest local church in the world.

Why did many perpetrators of terror later become victims themselves? Was Stalin afraid of becoming a hostage to his secret services?

His actions were determined by criminal inclinations, the desire to manage the Communist Party as a mafia organization in which all its leaders are tied to complicity in murders; finally, the readiness to destroy not only real and imaginary enemies, but also members of their families. As a Chechen, who was a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1937, wrote, “Stalin was a brilliant political criminal, whose state crimes were legitimized by the state itself. From the amalgam of criminality and politics, a unique thing was born: Stalinism.” In the Stalinist system, the perpetrators of mass crimes were doomed: the organizers eliminated them as unnecessary accomplices. Therefore, for example, not only the aforementioned state security major Sergei Zhupakhin was shot, but also the general commissioner of state security Nikolai Yezhov.

However, one should not exaggerate the scale of repression among security officers. Of the 25 thousand NKVD employees working in the state security system as of March 1937, 2,273 people were arrested for all crimes, including criminality and domestic violence, by mid-August 1938. In 1939, 7,372 employees were fired, of which only 937 security officers who served under Yezhov were arrested.

It is known that when Beria replaced Yezhov at the head of the NKVD, mass arrests stopped, and some people under investigation were even released. Why do you think such a thaw occurred at the end of 1938?

Firstly, the country needed a respite after a two-year bloody nightmare - everyone was tired of Yezhovshchina, including the security officers. Secondly, in the fall of 1938 the international situation changed. Hitler's ambitions could provoke a war between Germany and the Western democracies, and Stalin wanted to make the most of this conflict. Therefore, now all attention should be focused on international relations. “Beria's liberalization” has arrived, but this does not mean that the Bolsheviks abandoned terror. In 1939-1940, 135,695 people were sentenced for “counter-revolutionary crimes” in the USSR, including 4,201 to death.

Where did the authorities get the personnel to form a gigantic repressive apparatus?

Since the end of 1917, the Bolsheviks waged a continuous social war in Russia. The enemies were declared to be nobles, merchants, representatives of the clergy, Cossacks, former officers, members of other political parties, White Guards and White emigrants, then kulaks and sub-kulaks, “bourgeois specialists”, saboteurs, again clergy, members of opposition groups. Society was kept in constant tension. Mass propaganda campaigns made it possible to mobilize representatives of the lower social classes into punitive bodies, for whom the persecution of imaginary, obvious and potential enemies opened up career opportunities. A typical example is the future Minister of State Security and Colonel General Viktor Abakumov, who, according to the official version, was born in the family of a washerwoman and a worker and was promoted during the Yezhovshchina.

Sad results

What consequences did the events of 1937-1938 lead to for the country and society?

Stalin and his subordinates killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. They ruined the lives of millions of people, including family members of the repressed. In a climate of terror, an incredible spiritual corruption of a multi-million people took place - with lies, fear, duplicity, opportunism. They killed not only human bodies, but also the souls of the survivors.

Scientific, economic, military personnel, cultural and artistic workers suffered heavy losses, huge human capital was destroyed - all this weakened society and the country. By what measure, for example, can one measure the consequences of the death of division commander Alexander Svechin, scientist Georgy Langemak, poet, physicist Lev Shubnikov, courageous (Smirnov)?

The Yezhovshchina did not suppress protest sentiments in society, it only made them more acute and angry. The Stalinist government itself multiplied the number of its opponents. In 1924, approximately 300 thousand potential “enemies” were operationally registered with the state security agencies, and in March 1941 (after collectivization and Yezhovshchina) - more than 1.2 million. 3.5 million prisoners of war and approximately 200 thousand defectors in the summer and autumn of 1941, the cooperation of part of the population with the enemy during the war years is a natural result of collectivization, the collective farm system, the system of forced labor and Yezhovshchina.

Can we say that mass repressions in the absence of normal mechanisms of vertical mobility became a kind of social elevator for the new generation of Bolshevik party nomenklatura?

Yes, you can. But at the same time, until 1953, Stalin remained a hostage of Lenin’s “vertical” - the dictatorship of the Party Central Committee. Stalin could manipulate congresses, destroy any party member, initiate personnel purges and reshuffles. But he could not ignore the solidary interests of the party nomenklatura, much less get rid of it. The nomenklatura turned into a new elite.

“The revolution, which was carried out in the name of the destruction of classes,” wrote Milovan Djilas, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, “led to the unlimited power of one new class. Everything else is disguise and illusion.” In the winter of 1952-1953, the extravagant plans of Stalin, who conceived a new Yezhovshchina, caused legitimate concern among the leaders: Beria, Khrushchev, Malenkov, Bulganin and others. I think this was the real reason for his death - most likely, Stalin fell victim to his environment. Whether they killed him through medication or did not provide him with medical assistance on time is not so important.

Still, in the long term, Stalin turned out to be politically bankrupt. Lenin created the Soviet state, Stalin gave it comprehensive forms, but this state did not exist even forty years after Stalin's death. By historical standards, this is an insignificant period.

The events of the “Great Terror” only came to the surface of public life in a small part: information appeared in the Soviet press only about large and, at the local level, small show trials, accompanied by pogrom propaganda. The personal experience of a person caught in the millstone of repression also could not reveal the overall picture of what was happening. Thus, the scale, structure and mechanisms of repression remained hidden both for most contemporaries (with the exception, of course, of the “authors” and main perpetrators of terror) and for several generations of historians. Now the totality of available sources makes it possible to see the blueprint of the “Great Terror” more or less clearly. However, in this chronicle we did not seek to present this drawing as a coherent whole - our task was much more modest: to give an idea of ​​the sequence of repressive events, accompanying the main ones with minimal commentary. The chronicle is based primarily on documents of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the NKVD of the USSR - primarily on directives that regulated the dynamics of repression, their ideological, quantitative and procedural parameters. We did not emphasize the personal aspect of the repressions quite consciously: every family, every community has its own chronicle of tragic dates, its own martyrology, and it is not our business to decide which of the hundreds of thousands of innocent victims deserves and who does not deserve mention (we mention only the names “ architects" of terror, as well as participants in "show trials" - actions that had a clear political significance and played the role of symbolic intimidation).

Here, apparently, it should be noted that the course of repressions during the period described was not uniform - the course of the “Great Terror” can be roughly divided into four periods:

• October 1936 – February 1937 (restructuring of punitive bodies, aiming to purge the party, military and administrative elite of potentially opposition elements under the threat of “imperialist aggression”);


• March 1937 – June 1937 (decree of an all-out fight against “double-dealers” and “foreign intelligence agents”, continuation of the purge of the elite, planning and development of mass repressive operations against the “social base” of potential aggressors - kulaks, “former people”, representatives of national diasporas, etc. .p.);


• July 1937 - October 1938 (decree and implementation of mass repressive operations - “kulak”, “national”, against the ChSIR; intensification of the fight against the “military-fascist conspiracy” in the Red Army, against “sabotage” in agriculture and other sectors);


• November 1938 - 1939 (the so-called “Beria Thaw”: cessation of mass operations, abolition of most emergency mechanisms of extrajudicial killings, partial release of those arrested, rotation and destruction of “Yezhov’s” personnel in the NKVD).

Unfortunately, this chronicle does not contain too many background events that reveal the political and social context of the repressions. The reason for this is the limited volume of publication. We hope that in the future we will be able to supplement and detail this brief historical outline.

1936
(main events preceding the turn of repression in 1937-1938)

Resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On measures protecting the USSR from the penetration of espionage, terrorist and sabotage elements.” It is declared that in the USSR “a large number of political emigrants have accumulated, some of whom are direct agents of the intelligence and police agencies of capitalist states,” in connection with this, the procedure for obtaining permits for foreign communists to enter the USSR is being tightened, and “crossings” (“windows” at the border are being closed ) of the Comintern, a complete re-registration of political emigrants is carried out, a commission is created (chaired by the Secretary of the Central Committee N.I. Ezhov) to “cleanse the apparatus of the Profintern, MOPR and other international organizations on the territory of the USSR from espionage and anti-Soviet elements.”

Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR “On eviction from the Ukrainian SSR and economic structure in the Karaganda region. There are 15,000 Polish and German farms in the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.” Motivation for forced relocation: clearing border areas of unreliable elements. A total of 69,283 people were resettled (on the deportation, see the works of N.F. Bugai and P.M. Polyan).

Resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee on the repression of Trotskyists (according to a note by Yagoda dated March 25 and Vyshinsky dated March 31).

People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR Yagoda and USSR Prosecutor Vyshinsky presented to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks a list of 82 “participants of the counter-revolutionary Trotskyist organization involved in terrorism” with a proposal to bring them to trial. The list includes Zinoviev, Kamenev and others.

G.G. Yagoda was relieved of his post as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR and appointed People's Commissar of Communications of the USSR. N.I. Ezhov was appointed People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, while retaining the posts of Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and Chairman of the Party Control Commission under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

The Politburo adopts the Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b) “On the attitude towards counter-revolutionary Trotskyist-Zinovievite elements”, which contains an important ideological innovation: “a) Until recently, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (b) considered the Trotskyist-Zinovievite scoundrels as an advanced political and organizational detachment of the international bourgeoisie . Recent facts show that these gentlemen have slipped even further down and they must now be considered as scouts, spies, saboteurs and saboteurs of the fascist bourgeoisie in Europe.” From this premise the conclusion is drawn: “b) in connection with this, it is necessary to deal with the Trotskyist-Zinovievite scoundrels” (not only those arrested and under investigation, but also those previously convicted and deported).

The Politburo considers the request of Yezhov and Vyshinsky to authorize the conviction of 585 people on the list and adopts (“by poll”) a resolution: “Agree with Comrade Comrade’s proposal. Yezhov and Vyshinsky on measures of judicial reprisal against active participants in the Trotskyist-Zinovievist counter-revolutionary terrorist organization on the first list in the amount of 585 people” (creating a precedent for list convictions).

In Novosibirsk the so-called. “Kemerovo trial” in the case of the explosion on September 23, 1936 at the Kuzbass Tsentralnaya mine. At the trial, “it turned out” that the sabotage was organized by an underground Trotskyist group in collusion with engineers from among the old “specialists”, that the threads of the conspiracy stretched to Moscow. All 9 defendants were sentenced to death (for three the VMN was replaced by 10 years in prison, in 1937 two of them were shot), a number of defendants in the case were brought to the trial of the “Anti-Soviet Parallel Trotskyist Center” in January 1937.

Circular of the NKVD of the USSR on the identification and defeat of the “Socialist Revolutionary underground” (the beginning of widespread arrests of former Socialist Revolutionaries at liberty and in exile).

Order of the NKVD and the USSR Prosecutor “On strengthening the fight against railway accidents” (expediting investigations and hearing cases in courts within 3 days)

The USSR Prosecutor issues an order to check completed cases of past years regarding fires, accidents, production of substandard products, etc. “in order to identify the counter-revolutionary sabotage background of these cases and bring the perpetrators to stricter liability.”

Yezhov submits for approval to members of the Politburo the first “list of persons subject to trial by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR,” which includes the names of 479 people for whom execution was determined as a punishment. Over the next year and a half, such lists were regularly submitted from the NKVD to Stalin and his closest associates for approval - only after their visas were the cases submitted for judicial review by the Military Collegium. In total, there are more than 40 thousand people on these 383 lists. The vast majority of them were sentenced to death.

Directive of the NKVD of the USSR on the discovery of Japanese-Trotskyist sabotage groups in the oil industry

Order of the NKVD of the USSR, tightening the regime in special-purpose prisons of the NKVD. The final abolition of the existing since the early 1920s. a special regime for the detention of prisoners recognized by the authorities as “political”.

USSR law prohibiting peasants from leaving collective farms without the consent of the administration and a signed labor agreement with the future employer. Legislative formalization of deprivation of peasants' right to freedom of movement.

Order of the NKVD of the USSR on the termination of the release from exile of former oppositionists (Trotskyists, Zinovievites, rightists, Decists, Myasnikovites and Shlyatnikovites), whose term of exile is ending.

Circular of the NKVD of the USSR on strengthening intelligence and operational work against “church members and sectarians.” It is alleged that “church members and sectarians” have become more active in connection with the adoption of the new Constitution and are preparing for elections to the councils, “with their goal of penetrating the lower Soviet bodies.” Measures are prescribed aimed at “identifying and quickly destroying organizing centers of illegal work of churchmen and sectarians”: causing a split in church communities, weakening the material base of the church, making it difficult to participate in elections, etc.

The Politburo decides to “propose to the People’s Commissariat of Defense to dismiss from the ranks of the Red Army all members of the command staff expelled from the CPSU(b) for political reasons.”

Directive letter from the GUGB NKVD of the USSR on the increasing activity of German intelligence agencies, on their organization of acts of terror and sabotage in the USSR, as well as “mass fascist work among the German population” with the aim of creating a “rebel base”; about intensifying the fight against German intelligence agents.

Circular from the GUGB NKVD about the uncovered anti-Soviet organizations of Trotskyists and right-wingers in the military chemical industry and about the necessary cleansing of the industry from hostile elements.

The Politburo, on the recommendation of Vyshinsky, decides to “Inform the NKVD of the ongoing cases of suicide of prisoners in pre-trial prisons.”

The Politburo approves the new Regulations on the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR. The OSO receives the right to imprison for a period of 5 to 8 years persons suspected of espionage, sabotage, terrorism, sabotage (previously it could sentence to exile or a camp for up to 5 years).

Directive of the NKVD of the USSR on the arrests of persons suspected of terrorist and sabotage intentions, strengthening intelligence surveillance and the protection of party and Soviet leaders for the celebration of May 1, 1937.

M.P. Frinovsky becomes the head of the GUGB NKVD of the USSR instead of Ya.S. Agranov (while retaining the post of Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs).

Directive of the NKVD and the USSR Prosecutor on the prohibition of making credits for working days for Trotskyist prisoners (thus they were deprived of the right to early release).

Resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR “On the work of the coal industry of Donbass”, one of the points of which read: “Condemn the practice of indiscriminate accusations of business executives, engineers and technicians used by some party and especially trade union organizations, as well as the practice of indiscriminate penalties and returns brought to justice, applied and distorting the actual fight against shortcomings in economic bodies. Oblige the Donetsk Regional Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine and the Azov-Black Sea Regional Committee of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks) to correct the mistakes made in this regard and explain to all party organizations in Donbass that their direct responsibility, along with uprooting sabotage elements, is to provide all possible support and assistance to conscientiously working engineers , technicians and business executives" ("Pravda", 04/29/1937).

Directive of the GUGB NKVD of the USSR on former Mensheviks, mainly in exile, who are suspected of “illegal work aimed at recreating the Menshevik Party,” sabotage and terrorist intentions and the desire to conclude a bloc with the Socialist Revolutionaries, Trotskyists and the right with the goal of an armed overthrow of Soviet power. It is ordered to “immediately begin the rapid and complete defeat of the Menshevik underground.”

Directive of the GUGB NKVD of the USSR on strengthening intelligence and operational work among athletes. The liquidation of a number of groups among athletes “who were actively working to prepare terrorist acts against the leaders of the CPSU (b)” was announced.

Arrests of military leaders - the main defendants in the case of the “military-fascist conspiracy in the Red Army.”

Politburo resolution on the expulsion from Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv of “all those expelled from the CPSU(b) for belonging to Trotskyists, Zinovievites, right-wingers, Shlyatnikovites and other anti-Soviet formations.” It is also ordered to expel all families of oppositionists sentenced to death or for a term exceeding 5 years.

Directive of the GUGB NKVD of the USSR “On agent and operational work against anti-Soviet Turkic-Tatar nationalist organizations.” The activation of “nationalist elements” in Azerbaijan, Crimea, Tatarstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan is noted, their seizure of leadership positions, “blocking with Trotskyists and the right and a direct orientation towards fascism”, “organization of rebel personnel for armed action during the war against the USSR” , “committing local terrorist acts and preparing central terror.” It was ordered that “in all eastern national republics and regions, the work of defeating the nationalist underground should be considered as work of paramount importance.”

The case of a military-fascist conspiracy in the Red Army was considered by the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR under the chairmanship of V.V. Ulrich (state prosecutor A.Ya. Vyshinsky). Eight military leaders - M.N. Tukhachevsky, I.E. Yakir, I.P. Uborevich, V.M. Primakov, V.K. Putna, A.I. Kork, R.P. Eideman, B.M. Feldman sentenced to death (shot on the night of June 12). Pogrom propaganda in the press and the beginning of mass arrests in the army. In total during 1937–1938. At least 32 thousand military personnel of the Red Army were repressed - from marshals to privates.

Instructions of the NKVD of the USSR on carrying out (in accordance with the decision of the Politburo of May 23) an operation to evict from Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Rostov, Taganrog, Sochi persons purged from the CPSU (b) and family members of those repressed. The start of the operation is June 25.

Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks; report of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N.I. Ezhov on the conspiracy existing at all levels of the party and state.

Circular of the NKVD of the USSR on strengthening intelligence and operational work among those expelled from the CPSU (b). According to the NKVD, “in a number of cases, those expelled from the CPSU (b) go into direct contact with the Japanese-German-Trotskyist gang, joining the ranks of spies, saboteurs, saboteurs and terrorists.”

Based on a note from the Secretary of the West Siberian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, R.I. Eikhe, about a counter-revolutionary rebel organization discovered in the region among the exiled kulaks, the Politburo adopted a resolution on the creation of a “troika” in the ZSK “for expedited consideration of cases.” The troika includes the head of the NKVD Directorate S.N. Mironov (chairman), the secretary of the Eikhe regional committee and the regional prosecutor I.I. Barkov. The troika according to the ZSK was the first of the extrajudicial bodies of 1937–38 that had the right to sentence to death.

The NKVD issues an order to “begin organizing detailed accounting of those working for railways. dor. transport of Poles, defectors, political emigrants and political exchanges from Poland, prisoners of war of the Polish army, former Polish legionnaires, former members of Polish anti-Soviet parties such as the PPS and others, regardless of whether there are incriminating materials on them or not.” Beginning of intensive preparations for the “Polish operation”.

Directive of the NKVD of the USSR on measures to prevent bacteriological sabotage. “Along with the preparation of bacteriological warfare, by dropping bacterial bombs from airplanes, spraying bacteria from airplanes, spreading epidemic diseases using special flying devices, etc. The intelligence agencies of the general staffs pay their main attention to organizing acts of bacterial sabotage and mass terror, partly through specially sent agents and especially through agents recruited locally in the USSR.” It was ordered to begin arrests of persons “from among foreign nationals, former foreigners who accepted Soviet citizenship, persons associated with foreign countries,” and active anti-Soviet elements working at water supply and bacteriological stations, in research institutes and laboratories involved in microbiology.

Directive of the GUGB NKVD on the identification and arrest of participants in the military conspiracy in the intelligence agencies of the Red Army.

Order of the GURKM [Main Directorate of Workers' and Peasants' Militia] of the NKVD on clearing the railways of "socially harmful elements."

Directive of the NKVD on repressions among the Chinese in the Far East. It was ordered to immediately arrest all Chinese “showing provocative actions or terrorist intentions.”

Directive of the NKVD demanding “decisiveness and ruthlessness” in carrying out “national operations.” Instructions to carry out additional arrests regardless of the announced deadlines for the end of operations.

Directive from the GUGB on control of correspondence of military personnel: “Recently, a significant number of documents have been sent to the Red Army military personnel, which have become widespread, reporting on repressions (arrests, deportations, etc.) applied to enemies of the people. All military documents of such content should be detained and sent to the disposal of 5 departments of the State Security Directorate.”

NKVD circular on intensifying mass operations on transport (“to remove all kulak and anti-Soviet elements remaining on transport”; “to fully comply with the requirements of orders for operations against Poles, Germans, Harbins, Latvians, Finns, Romanians, etc.”), “the remaining period work of the troikas, first of all, to consider cases on railway transport).

Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Question “On the mistakes of party organizations when expelling communists from the party” (speaker G.M. Malenkov). The plenum was preceded by a decision of the Politburo on January 9, where the dissolution of 30 district party committees by P.P. Postyshev in the Kuibyshev region, whose leadership was declared enemies of the people, was considered “politically harmful” and “provocative.” The Plenum decided to “decisively put an end to mass, indiscriminate expulsions from the party.” Postyshev was removed from the list of candidates for membership in the Politburo (he was soon arrested and executed), and N.S. Khrushchev was elected in his place.

Directive of the NKVD of the USSR on the extension of the work of the “troikas” until further notice.

Directive of the USSR Prosecutor on the facts of improper dismissal from work of relatives of repressed people “only on the grounds of family ties with those arrested” (Politburo decision on this - January 9). Prohibition of recording in work books as a reason for dismissal “for communication with an enemy of the people,” etc.

Directive from the GULAG NKVD of the USSR on the deprivation of credits for working days and the prohibition to carry out credits in the future for almost all categories of convicts on political charges (08/25/1938 at a meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Stalin proposed to completely abolish the practice of parole of prisoners; 04/19/1939 this proposal was formalized by order NKVD).

Directives of the NKVD of the USSR on the “exhaustive liquidation of the Socialist Revolutionary underground” (especially former Socialist Revolutionaries who joined the Communist Party) and on the purge of Socialist Revolutionaries in the army. In pursuance of these orders, about 12 thousand people were arrested throughout the Union within one week (until January 25, 1938).

Directive of the NKVD on the repression of Iranians in Azerbaijan - Iranian subjects or those who do not have Soviet or foreign passports.

Politburo resolution on the eviction of Iranians from the border regions of Azerbaijan (forced relocation to Kazakhstan, deportation to Iran, arrests).

Circular of the GUGB NKVD prohibiting the administration of the GUGB prisons from allowing visits and transfers to prisoners, issuing certificates of a prisoner’s presence in a given prison, entering into negotiations and correspondence with relatives of convicts.

Yezhov and Frinovsky hold a meeting in Moscow of the heads of regional bodies of the NKVD, dedicated to summing up the results of the repressive campaigns of 1937.

Directive of the NKVD of the USSR on conducting an “Iranian operation” throughout the entire territory of the USSR. Those subject to arrest were defectors and political emigrants from Iran, leaders of tribes that moved to the USSR from Iran, leaders of “re-emigrant migrations” and “religious sects”, headmen of Iranian colonies, employees of “pre-existing companies with mixed Anglo-Iranian capital”, etc. Those arrested were accused in nationalist, sabotage, rebel and espionage activities. The repressive campaign was carried out as part of “national operations”. The Iranian colonies in Central Asia and Transcaucasia suffered the main blow. Along the “Iranian line” in 1938. 13,297 people were convicted, of whom 2,046 were sentenced to death.

Order of the NKVD of the USSR No. 0051 with a repeated (see 08/11/1937) prohibition to release from camps those convicted “on grounds of Polish espionage” and defectors from Poland who had completed their sentence. Two months before release, provide materials on them to the Special Meeting of the NKVD.

Directive of the NKVD of the USSR on intensifying work against the Mensheviks and anarchists. “The investigation into these cases is carried out with the goal of establishing organizational ties with the right-wing and Trotskyists and foreign intelligence services.” Particular attention was ordered to be paid to the Mensheviks and anarchists who joined the CPSU(b).

Directive of the NKVD of the USSR on conducting a massive operation along the “Afghan line.” Political emigrants, defectors, elders of Afghan colonies, leaders of “religious sects” and “re-emigrant migrations”, all persons associated with Afghan diplomatic institutions, etc. were subject to arrest. The main arrests were made in the Turkmen and Uzbek SSR. The repressive campaign was carried out as part of “national operations”. 1,557 people were sentenced, 366 of them to death.

Resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on the additional limit on the “kulak operation” for Ukraine – 30 thousand people.

Directive of the NKVD of the USSR on the use of photo stickers on passports to identify persons subject to repression (photo cards on passports were introduced on October 23, 1937 by the Decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR). Belarus appeared as an example to follow: “Having specially instructed the police officers who are sticking photographs on passports and assigned employees of the State Security Administration for specific assistance to the police apparatus, the NKVD of the BSSR only for 20 industrial enterprises of the mountains. Minsk identified defectors in hiding - 122, so-called. political emigrants – 17, persons of foreign origin (Germans, Romanians, Harbin residents, etc.) – 644.”

Who were the repressions of 1937–1938 directed against? Who fell under the definition of “anti-Soviet elements” according to NKVD order No. 00447? What reasons do historians identify?

Historian Oleg Khlevnyuk about anti-Soviet elements and the role of Stalin in the Great Terror.

It is difficult to imagine a person in our country who would not know the concept of “1937”. Of course, different people, depending on their political preferences, level of knowledge, and interests, interpret this concept differently. And historians did not immediately come to any consensus about what happened in 1937–38, during the so-called Great Terror.

To understand what we knew before and what we know now, it’s a good idea to compare the old concept - Khrushchev’s concept, the concept of the 20th Party Congress - with what we know now based on new documents. Khrushchev’s concept was based on the fact that in 1937–38 mass repressions were carried out; these repressions, as a rule, concerned nomenklatura workers. Much was said about prominent party members who suffered, about business executives, military men, writers, and so on.

However, today we know that in 1937-38 repressions, that is, executions and imprisonment in camps, fell on at least 1 million 600 thousand people, 680 thousand of them, according to official statistics, were shot. We are talking about only two years of our history. And of this huge number of people, at best, about 100 thousand were Komsomol members, party leaders, or simply party members. That is, a fairly insignificant percentage of people among the victims of terror were so-called nomenklatura workers and well-known figures in the country.

The bulk of the victims of terror are ordinary citizens of the country, who suffered for reasons that remained unknown to us for a long time. We also did not understand what terrorism was, because for a long time it was believed that these were some chaotic and not very controlled actions that arose spontaneously and ended just as spontaneously.

In the early 90s, in connection with the opening of archives, historians became aware of all the key documents about the organization and conduct of the terror of 1937–38. First of all, these are the so-called operational orders of the NKVD, which were approved by the Politburo and Stalin personally, orders to conduct mass operations. The most famous of these operations was carried out on the basis of order No. 00447 on the destruction of anti-Soviet elements, and this operation began on August 1, 1937.

Who are the anti-Soviet elements according to this order? These are former kulaks, members of parties hostile to the Bolsheviks, for example, former Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks; these are various kinds of employees of the tsarist administration, former officers of the tsarist army, and so on. Thanks to this order, it became clear which groups the terror was aimed at, which risk groups were, which segments of the population were primarily targeted by repression. We saw that we are talking about those categories, about those citizens of the country who were perceived by the regime as potentially dangerous, potentially hostile to Soviet power. It is important to emphasize that, as a rule, these people did not commit anything illegal and were considered potentially hostile solely due to their origin, due to their belonging to one or another party unfriendly to the Bolsheviks, social strata, and so on.

We learned how these operations were carried out. They were carried out on orders from Moscow, according to certain plans - each region was given certain tasks for execution, for imprisonment in camps. And in accordance with these tasks, local NKVD workers carried out arrests, troikas worked, and mass executions were carried out.

During these operations, citizens of the country who belonged to counter-revolutionary nationalities were destroyed: Poles, Germans - that is, representatives of those nationalities, those countries that had rather tense, conflictual relations with the Soviet Union during this period. And, accordingly, these people were considered as a potential fifth column, as potential ground for espionage.

Having learned almost everything about the organization of these operations and the number of those repressed, historians came to the following question: why? Why was it precisely in 1937–38 that decisions were made to organize the Great Terror, the mass operations that were the essence of the Great Terror? Almost everyone agreed that those social elements that the regime considered potentially hostile were destroyed. And why all this happened in 1937–38 - opinions were divided. Some believe this was related to the decision to hold elections. Others draw attention to the fact that the threat of World War II really intensified - this was connected with events in the Far East, with Japan’s attack on China, and with the Spanish War, and with many other events that indicated that peace was getting closer and closer to another disaster.

I think that there is no sharp contradiction between the concept of pre-election purge and the concept of purge on the eve of an impending war. We are still talking about the fact that a certain preventive social cleansing was carried out against the fifth column. By the way, the term “fifth column” itself appeared at this time during the civil war in Spain.

There are, of course, exotic points of view that serious historians do not accept. This is the point of view that Stalin was allegedly forced to carry out repressions by certain forces in the party, namely the leaders of regional party committees, in order to maintain his power, so as not to be exposed to additional political risks in connection with the elections. This concept is not supported by any documents and does not seem logical, if only because these secretaries were the first victims of repression.

As for Stalin himself, he also gave an explanation for why these events happened and why it turned out that too many people were repressed; as was recognized already in the 30s, at least some of them were repressed without reason. Stalin stated - or rather, this was formulated in many documents that were issued on behalf of the party leadership - that the main culprits of this tragedy were the enemies who made their way into the NKVD. Accordingly, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Yezhov was arrested and soon shot, and many of his employees were also arrested. Historians checked this version and tried to figure out how the operations were actually carried out, and to what extent the NKVD could act independently. Documents do not support this version. Now we know for sure that the NKVD acted on direct and literally daily instructions from the country’s leadership. In particular, Yezhov received constant instructions from Stalin.

Stalin put forward another concept during this period. More precisely, this concept was formulated by his comrades at the XVIII Party Congress in early 1939. The so-called slanderers were accused of terror, that is, informers who wrote denunciations against honest Soviet citizens and thus contributed to the spread of terror. This is a kind of theory of a non-commissioned officer's widow who flogged herself, in this case the Soviet people acted in this capacity, who allegedly informed on each other, and thus the terror acquired enormous uncontrollable forms.

Unfortunately, we still use this concept, we use it somewhat uncritically. Meanwhile, historians, based on a large number of documents, have shown that, of course, denunciations existed during this period, they were mass denunciations, but they did not play the significant role that is now attributed to them.

Denunciations existed, but the security officers, as a rule, ignored them.

The centralized nature of these events, that the terror was organized from above and controlled from above, was also evidenced by the fact that it was stopped as centrally as it was organized. One fine November day in 1938, a resolution was adopted and the repressions stopped. The so-called stage of emerging from terror began, during which some of the organizers and perpetrators of terror were arrested, and some, a very small number, victims of terror were rehabilitated. The large majority of those who were arrested or shot during these years were left as enemies for many years, until the process of rehabilitation began after Stalin’s death.

Oleg Khlevnyuk – Doctor of Historical Sciences, leading researcher at the International Center for History and Sociology of the Second World War and its Consequences at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, professor of the Department of Russian History of the 20th-21st centuries at the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, chief specialist of the State Archive of the Russian Federation, corresponding member of the Royal Historical Society (Great Britain).

Documents from the “Special” folder of the NKVD

How NKVD workers fulfilled and exceeded plans for executions and deportations (scans of telegrams)

Order No. 00447 of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Yezhov established limits on executions and deportations for each republic and region. Both were ordered to be carried out without trial or investigation by decision of extrajudicial bodies - “troikas”, consisting of the chairman of the regional or republican committee of the Communist Party, the head of the local NKVD and the chief prosecutor.

According to the initial limits, it was planned to shoot up to 75,950 people, and send up to 193,000 people to concentration camps. Here are telegrams “from the ground” to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks to Comrade Stalin. The part is marked with the summer months of 1937. The text shows that the estimates were serious: in some places they were ready to shoot four thousand, and in others all ten. Each telegram bears Stalin’s signature - in blue pencil “Approve I.St.” Below, everyone to whom the telegram was signed for review put their names - Kaganovich, Molotov, Kalinin, Mikoyan, Zhdanov, Kosior, Andreev... As the direct executor of the encryption, the messages were sent to the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Yezhov, his signature is also present everywhere.

Another part of the encryption dates back to the year 1938. They also go to the Kremlin, but they are talking about increasing limits. “We ask the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) to allow an additional limit for the first category for the Irkutsk region of 4 thousand people.” “I ask you to additionally approve 1000 for execution. 1500 for condemnation.” The frontline workers exceeded the norm. Some increased milk yields, others melted steel beyond schedule. And someone killed in the Stakhanov style. Ten thousand people were safely shot, but a couple thousand more need to be spent, so if you would be so kind as to allow it, raise the limit. The resolutions on these encryptions are the same as before. Stalin is in favor. Everyone else, of course, is also in favor. Not a single one wrote “against”. Look at these documents.

Read the words that are written in them. These yellowed pages tell more about the history of our country than any living person can tell. No additional words are needed, everything is clear.

From the funds of the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI):

1) Encryption from Irkutsk entrance no. 472/sh departure. 15-54 26.4.1938
Request by Filippov and Malyshev for limits on 4 thousand executions in the Irkutsk region - signatures: Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Yezhov + for: Mikoyan and Chubar

2) Encryption from Omsk, entry No. 2662/Sh departure. 13-30 11/19/1937
Naumov's request for additional limits in the Omsk region. for executions (1 thousand to the selected 10 thousand) and concentration camps (1.5 thousand to the selected 4.5 thousand) - signatures: Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Zhdanov, Yezhov.

3) Encryption from Sverdlovsk entrance No. 1179/sh departure. 23-23 8.7.1937
Stolyar's request for limits on executions, exiles and concentration camps in the Sverdlovsk region. - 5 thousand to be shot, 7 thousand to be sent into exile and concentration camps. Signatures: Stalin, (Molotov?), Kaganovich + for: Voroshilov, Chubar, Mikoyan

4) Encryption 1157/Sh from Novosibirsk entry no. 1157/Sh outp. 11-56 8.7.1937
Eikhe's request for limits on executions in the West Siberian Territory - 11 thousand. Signatures: Stalin, (Molotov?), (???), Kaganovich, Voroshilov + for: Chubar, Kalinin, Mikoyan

7) Encryption from Grozny entrance no. 1213/sh departure. 23-20 10.7.1937
Egorov’s request for limits in the Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on executions (1.417) and deportations (1.256). Russian Cossacks are clearly called kulaks. Signatures: Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Zhdanov, Voroshilov + for: Kalinin, Chubar, Mikoyan

8.) Encryption from Tbilisi, entrance No. 1165/sh, departure 14-55 8.7.1937
Beria's request for limits in Georgia on executions (1,419) and deportations/concentration camps (1,562+2,000). Signatures: Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich + for: Voroshilov, Chubar, Mikoyan
A direct indication in the text of the encryption that it is a response to encryption No. 863/sh

9) Encryption from Dnepropetrovsk, Margolin, request for execution of 2500, concentration camps 3000. Sent. 14-01 22.7.1937 – Signatures: Stalin, Molotov, Chubar, Mikoyan, Voroshilov + for: Kalinin
A direct indication in the text of the encryption that it is a response to encryption No. 863/sh

10) Encryption from Minsk, Sharangovich (to Stalin - “To your telegram...”) entry No. 1186/sh dep. 7-15 9.7.37 Signatures: Stalin, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan, Chubar, Molotov + for: Kalinin (two times)

Send the following telegram to the secretaries of regional committees, regional committees, and the Central Committee of the National Communist Parties:
“It has been noticed that most of the former kulaks and criminals, expelled at one time from different regions to the northern and Siberian regions, and then after the expiration period, returned to their regions, are the main instigators of all kinds of anti-Soviet and sabotage crimes, both in collective farms and on state farms, and in transport and in some industries.
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks invites all secretaries of regional and territorial organizations and all regional, territorial and republican representatives of the NKVD to register all kulaks and criminals who returned to their homeland so that the most hostile of them would be immediately arrested and shot as part of their administrative execution. cases through troikas, and the remaining less active, but still hostile elements would be rewritten and sent to the districts on the instructions of the NKVD.
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks proposes to submit to the Central Committee within five days the composition of the troikas, as well as the number of those subject to execution, as well as the number of those subject to deportation.”
SECRETARY OF THE Central Committee I. STALIN.
[AP, 3-58-212, l. 32]