Stalin's repressions:
What was it?
On the Day of Remembrance of Victims of Political Repression
In this material we have collected the memories of eyewitnesses, fragments from official documents, figures and facts provided by researchers in order to provide answers to questions that haunt our society again and again. The Russian state has never been able to give clear answers to these questions, so until now, everyone is forced to look for answers on their own.
Who was affected by the repression?
Representatives of various groups of the population fell under the flywheel of Stalin's repressions. The most famous names are artists, Soviet leaders and military leaders. About peasants and workers, often only names are known from execution lists and camp archives. They did not write memoirs, tried not to remember the camp past unnecessarily, and their relatives often abandoned them. The presence of a convicted relative often meant the end of a career or education, so the children of arrested workers and dispossessed peasants might not know the truth about what happened to their parents.
When we heard about another arrest, we never asked, “Why was he taken?”, but there were few like us. People distraught with fear asked each other this question for pure self-comfort: people are taken for something, which means they won’t take me, because there’s nothing! They became sophisticated, coming up with reasons and justifications for each arrest - “She really is a smuggler,” “He allowed himself to do this,” “I myself heard him say...” And again: “You should have expected this - he has such terrible character”, “It always seemed to me that something was wrong with him”, “This is a complete stranger.” That’s why the question: “Why was he taken?” – became forbidden for us. It's time to understand that people are taken for nothing.
- Nadezhda Mandelstam , writer and wife of Osip Mandelstam
From the very beginning of terror to this day, attempts have not ceased to present it as a fight against “sabotage”, enemies of the fatherland, limiting the composition of the victims to certain classes hostile to the state - kulaks, bourgeois, priests. The victims of terror were depersonalized and turned into “contingents” (Poles, spies, saboteurs, counter-revolutionary elements). However, the political terror was total in nature, and its victims were representatives of all groups of the population of the USSR: the “cause of engineers”, the “cause of doctors”, persecution of scientists and entire directions in science, personnel purges in the army before and after the war, deportations of entire peoples.
Poet Osip Mandelstam
He died during transit; the place of death is not known for certain.
Directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold
Marshals of the Soviet Union
Tukhachevsky (shot), Voroshilov, Egorov (shot), Budyony, Blucher (died in Lefortovo prison).
How many people were affected?
According to the estimates of the Memorial Society, there were 4.5-4.8 million people convicted for political reasons, and 1.1 million people were shot.
Estimates of the number of victims of repression vary and depend on the calculation method. If we take into account only those convicted on political charges, then according to an analysis of statistics from the regional departments of the KGB of the USSR, carried out in 1988, the bodies of the Cheka-GPU-OGPU-NKVD-NKGB-MGB arrested 4,308,487 people, of which 835,194 were shot. According to the same data, about 1.76 million people died in the camps. According to the estimates of the Memorial Society, there were more people convicted for political reasons - 4.5-4.8 million people, of which 1.1 million people were shot.
The victims of Stalin's repressions were representatives of some peoples who were subjected to forced deportation (Germans, Poles, Finns, Karachais, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars and others). This is about 6 million people. Every fifth person did not live to see the end of the journey - about 1.2 million people died during the difficult conditions of deportation. During the dispossession, about 4 million peasants suffered, of which at least 600 thousand died in exile.
In total, about 39 million people suffered as a result of Stalin's policies. The number of victims of repression includes those who died in the camps from disease and harsh working conditions, those deprived of their money, victims of hunger, victims of unjustifiably cruel decrees “on absenteeism” and “on three ears of corn” and other groups of the population who received excessively harsh punishment for minor offenses due to repressive the nature of the legislation and the consequences of that time.
Why was this necessary?
The worst thing is not that you are suddenly taken away from a warm, well-established life like this overnight, not Kolyma and Magadan, and hard labor. At first, the person desperately hopes for a misunderstanding, for a mistake by the investigators, then painfully waits for them to call him, apologize, and let him go home to his children and husband. And then the victim no longer hopes, no longer painfully searches for an answer to the question of who needs all this, then there is a primitive struggle for life. The worst thing is the senselessness of what is happening... Does anyone know what this was for?
Evgenia Ginzburg,
writer and journalist
In July 1928, speaking at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Joseph Stalin described the need to fight “alien elements” as follows: “As we move forward, the resistance of capitalist elements will increase, the class struggle will intensify, and Soviet power, forces which will increase more and more, will pursue a policy of isolating these elements, a policy of disintegrating the enemies of the working class, and finally, a policy of suppressing the resistance of the exploiters, creating a basis for the further advancement of the working class and the bulk of the peasantry.”
In 1937, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N. Yezhov published order No. 00447, in accordance with which a large-scale campaign to destroy “anti-Soviet elements” began. They were recognized as the culprits of all the failures of the Soviet leadership: “Anti-Soviet elements are the main instigators of all kinds of anti-Soviet and sabotage crimes, both on collective and state farms, and in transport, and in some areas of industry. The state security agencies are faced with the task of most mercilessly defeating this entire gang of anti-Soviet elements, protecting the working Soviet people from their counter-revolutionary machinations and, finally, once and for all putting an end to their vile subversive work against the foundations of the Soviet state. In accordance with this, I order - from August 5, 1937, in all republics, territories and regions, to begin an operation to repress former kulaks, active anti-Soviet elements and criminals.” This document marks the beginning of an era of large-scale political repression, which later became known as the “Great Terror.”
Stalin and other members of the Politburo (V. Molotov, L. Kaganovich, K. Voroshilov) personally compiled and signed execution lists - pre-trial circulars listing the number or names of victims to be convicted by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court with a predetermined punishment. According to researchers, the death sentences of at least 44.5 thousand people bear Stalin’s personal signatures and resolutions.
The myth of the effective manager Stalin
Until now, in the media and even in textbooks one can find justification for political terror in the USSR by the need to carry out industrialization in a short time. Since the release of the decree obliging those sentenced to more than 3 years to serve their sentences in forced labor camps, prisoners have been actively involved in the construction of various infrastructure facilities. In 1930, the Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps of the OGPU (GULAG) was created and huge flows of prisoners were sent to key construction sites. During the existence of this system, from 15 to 18 million people passed through it.
During the 1930-1950s, GULAG prisoners carried out the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal, the Moscow Canal. Prisoners built Uglich, Rybinsk, Kuibyshev and other hydroelectric power stations, erected metallurgical plants, objects of the Soviet nuclear program, the longest railways and highways. Dozens of Soviet cities were built by Gulag prisoners (Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Dudinka, Norilsk, Vorkuta, Novokuibyshevsk and many others).
Beria himself characterized the efficiency of prisoners’ labor as low: “The existing food standard in the Gulag of 2000 calories is designed for a person sitting in prison and not working. In practice, even this reduced standard is supplied by supplying organizations only by 65-70%. Therefore, a significant percentage of the camp workforce falls into the categories of weak and useless people in production. In general, labor utilization is no higher than 60-65 percent.”
To the question “is Stalin necessary?” we can give only one answer - a firm “no”. Even without taking into account the tragic consequences of famine, repression and terror, even considering only economic costs and benefits - and even making all possible assumptions in favor of Stalin - we get results that clearly indicate that Stalin's economic policies did not lead to positive results. Forced redistribution significantly worsened productivity and social welfare.
- Sergey Guriev , economist
The economic efficiency of Stalinist industrialization at the hands of prisoners is also rated extremely low by modern economists. Sergei Guriev gives the following figures: by the end of the 30s, productivity in agriculture had reached only the pre-revolutionary level, and in industry it was one and a half times lower than in 1928. Industrialization led to huge losses in welfare (minus 24%).
Brave New World
Stalinism is not only a system of repression, it is also the moral degradation of society. The Stalinist system made tens of millions of slaves - it broke people morally. One of the most terrible texts I have read in my life is the tortured “confessions” of the great biologist Academician Nikolai Vavilov. Only a few can endure torture. But many – tens of millions! – were broken and became moral monsters for fear of being personally repressed.
- Alexey Yablokov , Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Philosopher and historian of totalitarianism Hannah Arendt explains: in order to turn Lenin's revolutionary dictatorship into a completely totalitarian rule, Stalin had to artificially create an atomized society. To achieve this, an atmosphere of fear was created in the USSR and denunciation was encouraged. Totalitarianism did not destroy real “enemies,” but imaginary ones, and this is its terrible difference from an ordinary dictatorship. None of the destroyed sections of society were hostile to the regime and probably would not become hostile in the foreseeable future.
In order to destroy all social and family ties, repressions were carried out in such a way as to threaten the same fate to the accused and everyone in the most ordinary relations with him, from casual acquaintances to closest friends and relatives. This policy penetrated deeply into Soviet society, where people, out of selfish interests or fearing for their lives, betrayed neighbors, friends, even members of their own families. In their quest for self-preservation, masses of people abandoned their own interests and became, on the one hand, a victim of power, and on the other, its collective embodiment.
The consequence of the simple and ingenious technique of "guilt for association with the enemy" is that, as soon as a person is accused, his former friends immediately turn into his worst enemies: in order to save their own skin, they rush out with unsolicited information and denunciations, supplying non-existent data against accused. Ultimately, it was by developing this technique to its latest and most fantastic extremes that the Bolshevik rulers succeeded in creating an atomized and disunited society, the likes of which we have never seen before, and whose events and catastrophes would hardly have occurred in such a pure form without it.
- Hannah Arendt, philosopher
The deep disunity of Soviet society and the lack of civil institutions were inherited by the new Russia and became one of the fundamental problems hindering the creation of democracy and civil peace in our country.
How the state and society fought the legacy of Stalinism
To date, Russia has survived “two and a half attempts at de-Stalinization.” The first and largest was launched by N. Khrushchev. It began with a report at the 20th Congress of the CPSU:
“They were arrested without the prosecutor’s sanction... What other sanction could there be when Stalin allowed everything. He was the chief prosecutor in these matters. Stalin gave not only permission, but also instructions for arrests on his own initiative. Stalin was a very suspicious man, with morbid suspicion, as we became convinced of when working with him. He could look at a person and say: “something is wrong with your eyes today,” or: “why do you often turn away today, don’t look straight into the eyes.” Morbid suspicion led him to sweeping mistrust. Everywhere and everywhere he saw “enemies”, “double-dealers”, “spies”. Having unlimited power, he allowed cruel arbitrariness and suppressed people morally and physically. When Stalin said that so-and-so should be arrested, one had to take it on faith that he was an “enemy of the people.” And the Beria gang, which ruled the state security agencies, went out of its way to prove the guilt of the arrested persons and the correctness of the materials they fabricated. What evidence was used? Confessions of those arrested. And the investigators extracted these “confessions.”
As a result of the fight against the cult of personality, sentences were revised, more than 88 thousand prisoners were rehabilitated. However, the “thaw” era that followed these events turned out to be very short-lived. Soon many dissidents who disagreed with the policies of the Soviet leadership would become victims of political persecution.
The second wave of de-Stalinization occurred in the late 80s and early 90s. Only then did society become aware of at least approximate figures characterizing the scale of Stalin’s terror. At this time, the sentences passed in the 30s and 40s were also revised. In most cases, the convicts were rehabilitated. Half a century later, the dispossessed peasants were posthumously rehabilitated.
A timid attempt at a new de-Stalinization was made during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev. However, it did not bring significant results. Rosarkhiv, on the instructions of the president, posted on its website documents about 20 thousand Poles executed by the NKVD near Katyn.
Programs to preserve the memory of victims are being phased out due to lack of funding.
This post is interesting as it indicates, probably, all the irresponsible sources, the names of their authors, as well as numbers according to the principle: who is more?
In short: good material for memory and reflection!
Original taken from takoe_nebo V
“The concept of dictatorship means nothing more than power that is unrestricted by anything, not constrained by any laws, absolutely not constrained by any rules, and directly based on violence.”
V.I. Ulyanov (Lenin). Collection Op. T. 41, p. 383
“As we move forward, the class struggle will intensify, and the Soviet government, whose forces will increase more and more, will pursue a policy of isolating these elements.” I.V. Dzhugashvili (Stalin). Soch., vol. 11, p. 171
V.V. Putin: “Repressions crushed people without regard to nationalities, beliefs, or religions. Entire classes in our country became their victims: Cossacks and priests, simple peasants, professors and officers, teachers and workers.
There can be no justification for these crimes." http://archive.government.ru/docs/10122/
How many people in Russia/USSR were killed by the communists under Lenin-Stalin?
Preface
This is a subject of ongoing debate and this is a very important historical topic that needs to be addressed. I spent several months studying all possible materials available on the Internet; at the end of the article there is an extensive list of them. The picture turned out to be more than sad.
There are a lot of words in the article, but now you can confidently poke any communist face into it (pardon my French), broadcasting that “there were no mass repressions and deaths in the USSR.”
For those who do not like long texts: according to dozens of studies, the Lenin-Stalinist communists destroyed a minimum of 31 million people (direct irretrievable losses without emigration and the Second World War), a maximum of 168 million (including emigration and, most importantly, demographic losses from the unborn ). See the General Figures Statistics section. The most reliable figure seems to be direct losses of 34.31 million people - the arithmetic average of the sums of several of the most serious works on actual losses, which in general do not differ very much from each other. Excluding the unborn. See the Average Figure section.
For ease of use, this article consists of several sections.
“Pavlov's Help” is an analysis of the most important myth of the neocommies and Stalinists about “less than 1 million people who were repressed.”
“Average figure” is a calculation of the number of victims by year and topic, with the corresponding minimum and maximum figures from sources, from which the arithmetic average figure of losses is derived.
“Statistics of general figures” - statistics on general figures from the 20 most serious studies found.
“Materials used” - quotes and links in the article.
“Other important materials on the topic” - interesting and useful links and information on the topic that are not included in this article or not directly mentioned in it.
I would be grateful for any constructive criticism and additions.
Pavlov's help
The minimum death toll, which all neo-communists and Stalinists adore, “only” 800 thousand executed (and according to their mantras, no one else was destroyed) is given in a 1953 certificate. It is called "Certificate of the special department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs on the number of those arrested and convicted by the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD of the USSR in 1921-1953." and is dated December 11, 1953. The certificate is signed by the acting. the head of the 1st special department, Colonel Pavlov (the 1st special department was the accounting and archival department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs), which is why its name “Pavlov’s certificate” is found in modern materials.
This certificate in itself is false and a little more than completely absurd, etc. it is the main and main argument of the neocomms - it must be analyzed in detail. There is indeed a second document, no less beloved by the neocommies and Stalinists, a memorandum to the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Comrade N.S. Khrushchev. dated February 1, 1954, signed by Prosecutor General R. Rudenko, Minister of Internal Affairs S. Kruglov and Minister of Justice K. Gorshenin. But the data in it practically coincides with the Help and, unlike the Help, does not contain any details, so it makes sense to parse the Help.
So, according to this Certificate from the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, during the years 1921-1953, a total of 799,455 were shot. Excluding the years 1937 and 1938, 117,763 people were shot. 42,139 were shot in the years 1941-1945. Those. during the years 1921-1953 (excluding the years 1937-1938 and the years of war), during the struggle against the White Guards, against the Cossacks, against the priests, against the kulaks, against the peasant uprisings, ... only 75,624 people were shot (according to “quite reliable” data). Only in the 1937s under Stalin did they slightly increase activity in the purge of “enemies of the people.” And so, according to this certificate, even in the bloody times of Trotsky and the cruel “Red Terror”, it turns out that everything was quiet.
I will give for consideration an excerpt from this certificate for the period 1921-1931.
Let us first pay attention to the data on those convicted of anti-Soviet (counter-revolutionary) propaganda. In 1921-1922, at the height of the fierce struggle against the counter-control and the officially declared “Red Terror”, when people were seized only for belonging to the bourgeoisie (bespectacled and white hands), no one was arrested for counter-revolutionary, anti-Soviet propaganda (according to the Reference). Openly campaign against the Soviets, speak at rallies against the surplus appropriation system and other actions of the Bolsheviks, curse the blasphemous new government from church pulpits and you’ll get nothing. Just freedom of speech! In 1923, however, 5,322 people were arrested for propaganda, but then again (until 1929) there was complete freedom of speech for anti-Soviet activists, and only starting in 1929 did the Bolsheviks finally begin to “tighten the screws” and prosecute for counter-revolutionary propaganda. And such freedom and patient acceptance of anti-Sovietists (in accordance with an honest document, for many years NOT ONE was imprisoned for anti-government propaganda) occurs during the officially declared “Red Terror”, when the Bolsheviks closed all opposition newspapers and parties, imprisoned and shot clergymen for what they said was not what was needed... As an example of the complete falsity of this data, one can cite the surname index of those executed in the Kuban (75 pages, of the names that I read, all were acquitted after Stalin).
For 1930, regarding those convicted of anti-Soviet agitation, it is generally modestly noted that “There is no information.” Those. The system worked, people were convicted and shot, but no information was received!
This certificate from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the “No information” written in it directly openly confirms and is documentary evidence that much information about the punishments carried out was not registered and disappeared altogether.
Now I want to examine the point of the fascinating Information on the number of executions (VMN - Supreme Punishment). The Certificate for 1921 indicates 9,701 executed. In 1922 there were only 1,962 people, and in 1923 there were only 414 people (in 3 years 12,077 people were shot).
Let me remind you that this is still the time of the “Red Terror” and the ongoing civil war (which ended only in 1923), a terrible famine that claimed several million lives and was organized by the Bolsheviks, who took away almost all the grain from the “class alien” breadwinners - the peasants, and also the time of peasant uprisings caused by this surplus appropriation and hunger, and the cruelest suppression of those who dared to be indignant.
At a time when, according to the official Information, the number of executions was already small in 1921, in 1922 it was still greatly reduced, and in 1923 it almost stopped altogether, in reality, due to the most severe surplus appropriation system, a terrible famine reigned in the country, dissatisfaction with the Bolsheviks intensified and the opposition intensified, everywhere Peasant uprisings broke out. The Bolshevik leadership demands that the unrest of the dissatisfied, the opposition and uprisings be suppressed in the most brutal manner.
Church sources provide data on those killed as a result of the implementation of the wisest “general plan” in 1922: 2,691 priests, 1,962 monks, 3,447 nuns (Russian Orthodox Church and the Communist State, 1917-1941, M., 1996, p. 69). In 1922, 8,100 clergy were killed (and the most honest Information states that in total, including criminals, 1,962 people were shot in 1922).
Suppression of the Tambov uprising of 1921-22. If we recall how this was reflected in the surviving documents of that time, Uborevich reported to Tukhachevsky: “1000 people were captured, 1000 were shot,” then “500 people were captured, all 500 were shot.” How many such documents were destroyed? And how many such executions were not reflected in the documents at all?
Note (interesting comparison):
According to official data, in the peaceful USSR from 1962 to 1989, 24,422 people were sentenced to death. On average, 2,754 people for 2 years in a very calm, peaceful time of golden stagnation. In 1962, 2,159 people were sentenced to death. Those. During the benign times of the “golden stagnation”, more people were shot than during the most brutal “Red Terror”. According to the Certificate, in 2 years 1922-1923, only 2,376 were shot (almost as many as in 1962 alone).
The Certificate from the 1st Special Department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs on repressions includes only those convicted who were officially registered as “contra.” Bandits, criminals, violators of labor discipline and public order, naturally, were not included in the statistics of this Certificate.
For example, in the USSR in 1924, 1,915,900 people were officially convicted (see: Results of the decade of Soviet power in figures. 1917-1927. M, 1928. pp. 112-113), and according to the Information through the special departments of the Cheka-OGPU this year only 12,425 people were convicted (and only they can officially be considered as repressed; the rest are simply criminals).
Need I remind you that in the USSR they tried to declare that we have no political ones, only criminals. Trotskyists were tried as saboteurs and saboteurs. The rebellious peasants were suppressed as bandits (even the Commission under the RVSR, which led the suppression of peasant uprisings, was officially called the “Commission for Combating Banditry”), etc.
Let me add two more facts to the wonderful statistics of the Help.
According to the well-known archives of the NKVD, which are cited to refute the scale of the Gulags, the number of prisoners in prisons, camps and colonies at the beginning of 1937 was 1.196 million people
However, in the population census conducted on January 6, 1937, 156 million people were obtained (without the population recorded by the NKVD and NPOs (that is, without the special contingent of the NKVD and the army), and without passengers on trains and ships). The total population according to the census was 162,003,225 people (including contingents of the Red Army, NKVD and passengers).
Considering the size of the army at that time was 2 million (experts call the figure 1,645,983 as of January 1, 1937) and assuming that there were about 1 million passengers, we obtain approximately that the NKVD special contingent (prisoners) by the beginning of 1937 was about 3 million. Close to our calculated specific number of 2.75 million prisoners was indicated in the NKVD certificate provided by TsUNKHU for the 1937 population census. Those. according to another OFFICIAL certificate (and also, of course, truthful), the actual number of prisoners was 2.3 times higher than the generally accepted one.
And one more, last example from official, truthful information about the number of prisoners.
A report on the use of prisoner labor in 1939 reports that there were 94,773 in the UZHD system at the beginning of the year, and 69,569 at the end of the year. (In principle, everything is wonderful, researchers simply reprint this data and compile the total amount of prisoners from them. But the trouble is, the same report gives another interesting figure) The prisoners, as stated in the same report, worked 135,148,918 people days. Such a combination is impossible, since if during the year 94 thousand people worked every day without days off, then the number of days they worked would be only 34,310 thousand (94 thousand per 365). If we agree with Solzhenitsyn, who claims that prisoners were entitled to three days off per month, then 135,148,918 man-days could be provided by approximately 411 thousand workers (135,148,918 for 329 working days). Those. and here the OFFICIAL distortion of reporting is about 5 times.
To summarize, we can once again emphasize that the Bolsheviks/communists did not record all of their crimes, and what was recorded was then repeatedly purged: Beria destroyed incriminating evidence on himself, Khrushchev cleared archives in his favor, Trotsky, Stalin, Kaganovich also did not they really liked to save materials that were “ugly” for themselves; Likewise, the leaders of the republics, regional committees, city committees, and departments of the NKVD cleaned out local archives for themselves. ,
And yet, knowing full well about the practice of extrajudicial executions that existed at that time, about the numerous purges of archives, the neocommies summarize the found remnants of the lists and give a final figure of less than 1 million executed from 1921 to 1953, including criminals sentenced to capital punishment. The falsity and cynicism of these statements “beyond good and evil”...
Average figure
Now about the real numbers of communist victims. These figures of people killed by the communists consist of several main points. The numbers themselves are indicated as the minimum and maximum values I have encountered in various studies, indicating the study/author. Figures in items marked with an asterisk are for reference only and are not included in the final calculation.
1. “Red Terror” from October 1917 - 1.7 million people (Denikin Commission, Melgunov) - 2 million.
2. Epidemics of 1918-1922. - 6-7 million,
3. Civil war 1917-1923, losses on both sides, soldiers and officers killed and died from wounds - 2.5 million (Poles) - 7.5 million (Alexandrov)
(For reference: even the minimum figures are greater than the number of deaths during the entire First World War - 1.7 million.)
4. The first artificial Famine of 1921-1922, 1 million (Polyakov) - 4.5 million (Alexandrov) - 5 million (with 5 million indicated in the TSB)
5. Suppression of peasant uprisings of 1921-1923. - 0.6 million (own calculations)
6. Victims of forced Stalinist collectivization 1930-1932 (including victims of extrajudicial repressions, peasants who died of starvation in 1932 and special settlers in 1930-1940) - 2 million.
7. Second artificial famine 1932-1933 - 6.5 million (Alexandrov), 7.5 million, 8.1 million (Andreev)
8. Victims of political terror of the 1930s - 1.8 million.
9. Those who died in prison in the 1930s - 1.8 million (Alexandrov) - more than 2 million
10*. “Lost” as a result of Stalin’s corrections of the population censuses of 1937 and 1939 - 8 million - 10 million.
According to the results of the first census, 5 leaders of TsUNKHU were shot in a row, as a result the statistics were “improved” - the population was “increased” by several million. These figures are probably distributed in paragraphs. 6, 7, 8 and 9.
11. Finnish war 1939-1940 - 0.13 million
12*. Irreversible losses in the war of 1941-1945 are 38 million, 39 million according to Rosstat, 44 million according to Kurganov.
The criminal mistakes and orders of Dzhugashvili (Stalin) and his henchmen led to colossal and unjustified casualties among the Red Army personnel and the civilian population of the country. At the same time, no mass murders of the civilian non-combatant population by the Nazis (except Jews) were recorded. Moreover, all that is known is that the fascists deliberately exterminated communists, commissars, Jews and partisan saboteurs. The civilian population was not subjected to genocide. But of course, it is impossible to isolate from these losses the part for which the communists are directly to blame, so this is not taken into account. Nevertheless, the mortality rate of prisoners in Soviet camps over the years is known; according to various sources, it is about 600,000 people. This is entirely on the conscience of the communists.
13. Repressions 1945-1953 - 2.85 million (together with clauses 13 and 14)
14. Famine of 1946-47 - 1 million.
15. In addition to deaths, the country’s demographic losses also include irrevocable emigration as a result of the actions of the communists. In the period after the coup of 1917 and the beginning of the 1920s, it accounted for 1.9 million (Volkov) - 2.9 million (Ramsha) - 3 million (Mikhailovsky). As a result of the war of 41-45, 0.6 million - 2 million people did not want to return to the USSR.
The arithmetic average figure for losses is 34.31 million people.
Used materials.
Calculation of the number of victims of the Bolsheviks according to the official methodology of the USSR State Statistics Committee http://www.slavic-europe.eu/index.php/articles/57-russia-articles/255-2013-05-21-31
A well-known incident of the summary statistics of those repressed in GB cases (“Pavlov’s certificate”) on the number of executions in 1933 (although this is actually defective statistics from the summary certificates of the GB, deposited in the 8th Central Asia of the FSB), disclosed by Alexey Teplyakov http://corporatelie.livejournal .com/53743.html
There, the number of people executed was underestimated by at least 6 times. And perhaps more.
Repressions in Kuban, index of those executed by name (75 pages) http://ru.convdocs.org/docs/index-15498.html?page=1 (from what I have read, everyone was rehabilitated after Stalin).
Stalinist Igor Pykhalov. “What is the scale of “Stalinist repressions”?” http://warrax.net/81/stalin.html
Population census of the USSR (1937) https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%8C_ %D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D0%A1%D0%A1%D0%A1%D0 %A0_%281937%29
The Red Army before the war: organization and personnel http://militera.lib.ru/research/meltyukhov/09.html
Archival materials on the number of prisoners in the late 30s. Central State Archive of National Economy (TSANH) of the USSR, fund of the People's Commissariat - Ministry of Finance of the USSR http://scepsis.net/library/id_491.html
Article by Oleg Khlevnyuk about massive distortions of statistics of the Turkmen NKVD in 1937-1938. Hlevnjuk O. Les mecanismes de la “Grande Terreur” des annees 1937-1938 au Turkmenistan // Cahiers du Monde russe. 1998. 39/1-2. http://corporatelie.livejournal.com/163706.html#comments
A special investigative commission to investigate the atrocities of the Bolsheviks of the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR, General Denikin, provides figures for the victims of the Red Terror only for 1918-19. - 1,766,118 Russians, including 28 bishops, 1,215 clergy, 6,775 professors and teachers, 8,800 doctors, 54,650 officers, 260,000 soldiers, 10,500 policemen, 48,650 police agents, 12,950 landowners, 355,250 intellectuals, 193.35 0 workers, 815,000 peasants.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9E%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0 %B4%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B8 %D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D0%BF%D0%BE_%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0 %B4%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8E_%D0%B7%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%8F %D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%88%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0 %BE%D0%B2#cite_note-Meingardt-6
Suppression of peasant uprisings of 1921-1923.
The number of victims during the suppression of the Tambov uprising. A large number of Tambov villages were wiped off the face of the earth as a result of cleansing operations (as punishment for supporting “bandits”). As a result of the actions of the occupation-punitive army and the Cheka in the Tambov region, according to Soviet data alone, at least 110 thousand people were killed. Many analysts put the figure at 240 thousand people. How many “Antonovites” were later destroyed from organized famine
Tambov security officer Goldin said: “For execution, we do not need any evidence or interrogations, as well as suspicions and, of course, useless, stupid paperwork. We find it necessary to shoot and shoot.”
At the same time, almost all of Russia was engulfed in peasant uprisings. In Western Siberia and the Urals, on the Don and Kuban, in the Volga region and the central provinces, peasants, who only yesterday had fought against the whites and the interventionists, spoke out against Soviet power. The scale of the performances was enormous.
book Materials for the study of the history of the USSR (1921 - 1941), Moscow, 1989 (compiled by Dolutsky I.I.)
The largest of them was the West Siberian uprising of 1921-22. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%97%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%BE-%D0%A1%D0%B8% D0%B1%D0%B8%D1%80%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B5_%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D1%82%D0% B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%281921%E2%80%941922%29
And all of them were suppressed by this government with approximately the same extreme measure of cruelty, briefly described in the example of the Tambov province. I will give just one extract from the protocols on the methods of suppressing the West Siberian uprising: http://www.proza.ru/2011/01/28/782
Fundamental research by the largest historian of the revolution and the Civil War S.P. Melgunov “Red Terror in Russia. 1918-1923." is documentary evidence of the atrocities of the Bolsheviks committed under the slogan of the fight against class enemies in the first years after the October Revolution. It is based on testimony collected by the historian from various sources (the author was a contemporary of those events), but primarily from the printed organs of the Cheka itself (VChK Weekly, Red Terror magazine), even before his expulsion from the USSR. Published from the 2nd, expanded edition (Berlin, Vataga Publishing House, 1924). You can buy it on Ozone.
The human losses of the USSR in the Second World War were 38 million. A book by a group of authors with an eloquent title - “Washed in Blood”? Lies and truth about losses in the Great Patriotic War." Authors: Igor Pykhalov, Lev Lopukhovsky, Viktor Zemskov, Igor Ivlev, Boris Kavalerchik. Publishing house "Yauza" - "Eksmo, 2012. Volume - 512 pages, of which by author: I Pykhalov - 19 pp., L. Lopukhovsky in collaboration with B. Kavalerchik - 215 pp., V. Zemskov - 17 pp., I. Ivlev - 249 pp. Circulation 2000 copies.
Rosstat's anniversary collection dedicated to the Second World War indicates the country's demographic losses in the war at 39.3 million people. http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/doc_2015/vov_svod_1.pdf
Genby. “The demographic cost of communist rule in Russia” http://genby.livejournal.com/486320.html.
The terrible famine of 1933 in figures and facts http://historical-fact.livejournal.com/2764.html
Statistics of executions in 1933 underestimated by 6 times, detailed analysis http://corporatelie.livejournal.com/53743.html
Calculation of the number of communist victims, Kirill Mikhailovich Aleksandrov - Candidate of Historical Sciences, senior researcher (specializing in "History of Russia") of the encyclopedic department of the Institute of Philological Research of St. Petersburg State University. Author of three books on the history of the anti-Stalin resistance during the Second World War and more than 250 publications on Russian history of the 19th-20th centuries.http://www.white-guard.ru/go.php?n=4&id=82
Repressed census of 1937 http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2007/0313/tema07.php
Demographic losses from repression, A. Vishnevsky http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2007/0313/tema06.php
Censuses of 1937 and 1939 Demographic losses using the balance method. http://genby.livejournal.com/542183.html
Red terror - documents.
On May 14, 1921, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) supported the expansion of the rights of the Cheka with regard to the application of Capital Punishment (CMP).
On June 4, 1921, the Politburo decided to “give the Cheka a directive to intensify the fight against the Mensheviks in view of the intensification of their counter-revolutionary activities.”
Between January 26 and 31, 1922. V.I. Lenin - I.S. Unshlikht: “The transparency of the revolutionary tribunals is not always; strengthen their composition with “yours” [i.e. Cheka - G.Kh.] people, strengthen their connection (in every way) with the Cheka; increase the speed and force of their repressions, increase the attention of the Central Committee to this. The slightest increase in banditry, etc. should entail martial law and executions on the spot. The Council of People's Commissars will be able to carry this out quickly if you don't miss it, and it can be done by telephone” (Lenin, PSS, vol. 54, p. 144).
In March 1922, in a speech at the XI Congress of the RCP(b), Lenin stated: “For public proof of Menshevism, our revolutionary courts must be shot, otherwise they are not our courts.”
May 15, 1922. “t. Kursk! In my opinion, it is necessary to expand the use of execution... to all types of activities of the Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, etc. ... "(Lenin, PSS, vol. 45, p. 189). (According to the figures from the Reference, it follows that the use of executions, on the contrary, was rapidly reduced in these years)
Telegram dated August 11, 1922, endorsed by the Deputy Chairman of the State Political Administration of the Republic I. S. Unshlikht and the Head of the Secret Department of the GPU. T.P. Samsonov, ordered the provincial departments of the GPU: “immediately liquidate all active Socialist Revolutionaries in your area.”
On March 19, 1922, Lenin, in a letter addressed to members of the Politburo, explains the need now, using the terrible famine, to begin an active campaign to expropriate church values and deal a “deadly blow to the enemy” - the clergy and the bourgeoisie: The greater the number of representatives of the reactionary clergy and the reactionary bourgeoisie succeeds we should be shot over this, so much the better: we must now teach this public a lesson so that for several decades they will not dare to think about any resistance<...>» RCKHIDNI, 2/1/22947/1-4.
Spanish Flu pandemic 1918-1920 in the context of other influenza pandemics and bird flu, M.V. Supotnitsky, Ph.D. Sciences http://www.supotnitskiy.ru/stat/stat51.htm
S.I. Zlotogorov, “Typhus” http://sohmet.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000004/st002.shtml
Statistics on general figures from the studies found:
I. The most minimal direct victims of the Bolsheviks according to the official methodology of the USSR State Statistics Committee, without emigration - 31 million http://www.slavic-europe.eu/index.php/articles/57-russia-articles/255-2013-05-21- 31
If it is impossible to establish the number of victims of war “communism” through the Bolshevik archives, then is it even possible to establish here, other than speculation, something that corresponds to reality? It turns out that it is possible. Moreover, quite simply - through the bed and the laws of ordinary physiology, which no one has yet canceled. Men sleep with women regardless of who got into the Kremlin.
Let us note that it is in this way (and not by compiling lists of the dead) that all serious scientists (and the State Commission of the USSR State Statistics Committee, in particular) calculate human losses during the Second World War.
Total losses of 26.6 million people - the calculation was carried out by the Department of Demographic Statistics of the USSR State Statistics Committee during work as part of a comprehensive commission to clarify the number of human losses of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War. - Mobile Administration of the GOMU of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, no. 142, 1991, inv. No. 04504, l.250." (Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century: Statistical research. M., 2001. p. 229.)
31 million people appears to be the low end of the regime's death toll.
II. In 1990, statistician O.A. Platonov: “According to our calculations, the total number of people who died a non-natural death from mass repressions, hunger, epidemics, and wars amounted to more than 87 million people during the years 1918-1953. And in total, if we add up the number of people who did not die a natural death, those who left their homeland, as well as the number of children that could have been born to these people, then the total human damage to the country will be 156 million people.”
III. Outstanding philosopher and historian Ivan Ilyin, “The size of the Russian population.”
http://www.rus-sky.com/gosudarstvo/ilin/nz/nz-52.htm
“All this is just during the years of the Second World War. Adding this new shortage to the previous one of 36 million, we get a monstrous sum of 72 million lives. This is the price of the revolution.”
IV. Calculation of the number of communist victims, Kirill Mikhailovich Aleksandrov - Candidate of Historical Sciences, senior researcher (specializing in "History of Russia") of the encyclopedic department of the Institute of Philological Research of St. Petersburg State University. Author of three books on the history of the anti-Stalin resistance during the Second World War and more than 250 publications on Russian history of the 19th-20th centuries.http://www.white-guard.ru/go.php?n=4&id=82
"Civil War 1917-1922 7.5 million.
The first artificial famine 1921-1922 more than 4.5 million.
Victims of Stalin's collectivization 1930-1932 (including victims of extrajudicial repressions, peasants who died of starvation in 1932 and special settlers in 1930-1940) ≈ 2 million.
Second artificial famine 1933 - 6.5 million.
Victims of political terror - 800 thousand.
Deaths in places of detention - 1.8 million.
Victims of World War II ≈ 28 million.
Total ≈ 51 million."
V. Data from the article by A. Ivanov “Demographic losses of Russia-USSR” - http://ricolor.org/arhiv/russkoe_vozrojdenie/1981/8/:
"...All this makes it possible to judge the total losses of the country's population with the formation of the Soviet state, caused by its internal policies, its conduct of the civil and world wars during 1917-1959. We have identified three periods:
1. Establishment of Soviet power - 1917-1929, the number of human losses - over 30 million people.
2. The costs of building socialism (collectivization, industrialization, liquidation of the kulaks, the remnants of the “former classes”) - 1930-1939. - 22 million people.
3. World War II and post-war difficulties - 1941-1950 - 51 million people; Total - 103 million people.
As we see, this approach, using the latest demographic indicators, leads to the same assessment of the magnitude of human casualties suffered by the peoples of our country during the years of Soviet power and the communist dictatorship, which was arrived at by different researchers using different methods and different demographic statistics. This once again demonstrates that the 100-110 million human sacrifices of building socialism are the real “price” of this “building.”
VI. Opinion of the liberal historian R. Medvedev: “Thus, the total number of victims of Stalinism reaches, according to my calculations, a figure of approximately 40 million people” (R. Medvedev “Tragic Statistics // Arguments and Facts. 1989, February 4-10. No. 5(434). P. 6.)
VII. Opinion of the commission for the rehabilitation of victims of political repression (headed by A. Yakovlev): “According to the most conservative estimates of the specialists of the rehabilitation commission, our country lost about 100 million people during the years of Stalin’s rule. This number includes not only the repressed themselves, but also those doomed to the death of members of their families and even children who could have been born, but were never born." (Mikhailova N. Underpants of counter-revolution // Premier. Vologda, 2002, July 24-30. No. 28(254). P. 10.)
VIII. Fundamental demographic research by a team led by Doctor of Economics, Professor Ivan Koshkin (Kurganov) “Three Figures. About human losses for the period from 1917 to 1959." http://slavic-europe.eu/index.php/comments/66-comments-russia/177-2013-04-15-1917-1959 http://rusidea.org/?a=32030
“Nevertheless, the widespread belief in the USSR that all or most of the human losses in the USSR are associated with military events is incorrect. The losses associated with military events are enormous, but they do not cover all the losses of the people during Soviet power. Contrary to the opinion spread in the USSR, they account for only a part of these losses. Here are the corresponding figures (in millions of people):
The total number of casualties in the USSR during the dictatorship of the Communist Party from 1917 to 1959. 110.7 million - 100%.
Including:
Losses in wartime 44.0 million, - 40%.
Losses in non-military revolutionary times 66.7 million - 60%.
P.S. It was this work that Solzhenitsyn mentioned in a famous interview with Spanish television, which is why it arouses the especially fierce hatred of Stalinists and neo-Commies.
IX. The opinion of the historian and publicist B. Pushkarev is about 100 million (Pushkarev B. Unexplained issues of demography of Russia in the 20th century // Posev. 2003. No. 2. P. 12.)
X. Book edited by the leading Russian demographer Vishnevsky "Demographic modernization of Russia, 1900-2000". Demographic losses from communists 140 million (mainly due to unborn generations).
http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2007/0313/tema07.php
XI. O. Platonov, book "Memoirs of the National Economy", total losses of 156 million people.
XII. Russian emigrant historian Arseny Gulevich, book “Tsarism and Revolution”, the direct losses of the revolution amounted to 49 million people.
If we add to them the losses due to the birth rate deficit, then with the victims of two world wars, we get the same 100-110 million people destroyed by communism.
XIII. According to the documentary series "History of Russia in the 20th Century", the total number of direct demographic losses suffered by the peoples of the former Russian Empire from the actions of the Bolsheviks from 1917 to 1960. is about 60 million people.
XIV. According to the documentary film "Nicholas II. Throttled Triumph", the total number of victims of the Bolshevik dictatorship is about 40 million people.
XV. According to the forecasts of the French scientist E. Théry, the population of Russia in 1948, without unnatural deaths and taking into account normal population growth, should have been 343.9 million people. At that time, 170.5 million people lived in the USSR, i.e. demographic losses (including unborns) for 1917-1948. - 173.4 million people
XVI. Genby. the demographic price of communist rule in Russia is 200 million. http://genby.livejournal.com/486320.html.
XVII. Summary tables of victims of Lenin-Stalin repressions
One of the darkest pages in the history of the entire post-Soviet space were 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 possible to restore them. The fact is that the country was ruled by a repeat offender who had been in prison 7 times. Violence and terror, forceful methods of solving problems were well known to him from his early youth. They were also reflected in his policies.
Officially, the course was taken in July 1928 by the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. It was there that Stalin spoke, who stated that the further advancement of communism would encounter increasing resistance from hostile, anti-Soviet elements, and they must be fought harshly. Many researchers believe that the repressions of 30 were a continuation of the policy of Red Terror, adopted back in 1918. It is worth noting that the number of victims of repression does not include those who suffered during the Civil War from 1917 to 1922, because after the First World War a population census was not conducted. And it is unclear how to establish the cause of death.
The beginning of Stalin's repressions was aimed at political opponents, officially - at saboteurs, terrorists, spies conducting subversive activities, and 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 people were dispossessed and forced into resettlement, but usually this meant not only the loss of their 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 into account the time of year, so if it happened in winter, people often froze and died of hunger. The exact number of victims is still being established. There are still debates about this in society. Some defenders of the Stalinist regime believe that we are talking about hundreds of thousands of “everything.” Others point to millions of forcibly resettled people, and of these, about 1/5 to half died due to the complete lack of any living conditions.
In 1929, the authorities decided to abandon conventional forms of imprisonment and move 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 murder of the plenipotentiary representative Voikov in Poland, to deal with political opponents and simply unwanted people. In particular, Stalin responded 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 our own specialists, in fact, 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, rejected 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, or miscalculation. The real physical condition of employees of a number of enterprises was ignored, which is why common mistakes were sometimes made. In addition, mass repressions could arise on the basis of suspiciously frequent, according to the authorities, contacts with foreigners, 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, in the end, only a small number were 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 the slander of others under torture. Not only the scientists suffered, but also the wives who supported them.
Grain procurement
Constant pressure on peasants, half-starvation, grain weaning, and labor shortages negatively affected the pace of grain procurements. However, Stalin did not know how to admit mistakes, which became 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 let's return to the topic of grain procurements. For objective reasons, fulfilling the norm was not always possible and not everywhere. And in connection with this, the “culprits” were punished. Moreover, in some places entire villages were 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 the next year.
There were things to suit 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 NKVD documents continue to remain classified.
Historians attribute some relaxation that occurred in 1933–1934 primarily to the fact that the prisons were overcrowded. In addition, it was necessary to reform the punitive system, which was not aimed at such mass participation. This is how the Gulag came into being.
Great Terror
The main terror occurred in 1937-1938, when, according to various sources, up to 1.5 million people suffered, more than 800 thousand of them were shot or killed in other ways. However, the exact number is still being established, and there is quite an active debate on this matter.
Characteristic was NKVD Order No. 00447, which officially launched the mechanism of mass repression against former kulaks, Socialist Revolutionaries, monarchists, re-emigrants, and so on. At the same time, everyone was divided into 2 categories: more and less dangerous. Both groups were subject to arrest, the first had to be shot, the second had to be given a sentence of 8 to 10 years on average.
Among the victims of Stalin's repressions there were quite a few relatives taken into custody. Even if family members could not be convicted of anything, they were still automatically registered, and sometimes forcibly relocated. If the father and (or) mother were declared “enemies of the people,” then this put an end to the opportunity to make a career, often to getting an education. Such people often found themselves surrounded by an atmosphere of horror and were subjected to boycott.
The Soviet authorities could also persecute on the basis of nationality and previous 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, 400 Afghans. At the same time, persons of the nationality against which repression was carried out were dismissed from industry. And from the army - persons belonging to a nationality not represented on the territory of the USSR. All this happened under the leadership of Yezhov, but, which does not even require separate evidence, without a doubt, had a direct relation to Stalin, and was constantly personally controlled by him. Many execution lists bear his signature. And we are talking about, in total, hundreds of thousands of people.
It's ironic that recent stalkers have often become victims. Thus, one of the leaders of the described repressions, Yezhov, was shot in 1940. The sentence was put into effect the very next day after the trial. Beria became the head of the NKVD.
Stalin's repressions spread to new territories along with the Soviet regime itself. Cleanings were ongoing; they were mandatory elements of control. And with the onset of the 40s they 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 an excellent way to get rid of unwanted people - sending them to the front line. It is unknown exactly how many died while carrying out such orders.
At the same time, the military situation became much tougher. Suspicion alone was enough to shoot even without the appearance of a trial. This practice was called “prison decongestion.” It was especially widely used in Karelia, the Baltic states, and Western Ukraine.
The tyranny of the NKVD intensified. Thus, execution became possible not even by a court verdict or some extrajudicial body, but simply by order of Beria, whose powers began to increase. They don’t like to publicize this point widely, but the NKVD did not stop its activities even in Leningrad during the siege. Then they arrested up to 300 students from higher educational institutions on trumped-up charges. 4 were shot, many died in isolation wards or in prisons.
Everyone is able to say unequivocally whether the detachments can be considered a form of repression, but they definitely made it possible to get rid of unwanted people, and quite effectively. However, the authorities continued to persecute in more traditional forms. Filtration detachments awaited everyone who was captured. 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 involved in the return and trial of emigrants by force. In Czechoslovakia alone, according to some sources, 400 people suffered from its actions. Quite serious damage in this regard was caused to Poland. Often, the repressive mechanism affected not only Russian citizens, but also Poles, some of whom were extrajudicially executed for resisting Soviet power. Thus, the USSR broke the promises it made to its allies.
Post-war events
After the war, the repressive apparatus was deployed again. Overly influential military men, especially those close to Zhukov, doctors who were in contact with the allies (and scientists) were under threat. The NKVD could also arrest Germans in the Soviet zone of responsibility for attempting to contact residents of other regions under the control of Western countries. The ongoing campaign against people 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 the cases. The facts of mass falsification and obtaining 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 extracting testimony from Eikhe, his spine was broken. There are cases when Stalin personally demanded that certain prisoners be beaten.
In addition to beatings, sleep deprivation, placement in too cold or, on the contrary, too hot room without clothes, and hunger strike were also practiced. The handcuffs were periodically not removed for days, and sometimes for months. Correspondence and any contact with the outside world were prohibited. Some were “forgotten”, that is, they were arrested, and then the cases were not considered and no specific decision was made until Stalin’s death. This, in particular, is indicated by the order signed by Beria, which ordered an amnesty for those who were arrested before 1938 and for whom a decision had not yet been made. We are talking about people who have been waiting for their fate to be decided for at least 14 years! This can also be considered a kind of torture.
Stalinist statements
Understanding the very essence of Stalin's repressions in the present is of fundamental importance, if only because some still consider Stalin to be 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 by saying that in this way he boosted the economy, ensured industrialization, or protected the country. In addition, some are trying to downplay the number of victims. In general, the exact number of victims is one of the most disputed 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 sufficient. During the fascist regime of Mussolini in Italy, a total of 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 is saying that Mussolini is getting better from this. Fascism cannot be justified.
But what assessment can be given to Stalinism at the same time? And taking into account the repressions that were carried out on ethnic grounds, it at least has one of the signs of fascism - racism.
Characteristic signs of repression
Stalin's repressions have several characteristic features that only emphasize what they were. This:
- Mass character. The exact data depends heavily on estimates, whether relatives are taken into account or not, internally displaced people or not. Depending on the method of calculation, it ranges from 5 to 40 million.
- Cruelty. The repressive mechanism did not spare anyone, people were subjected to cruel, inhumane treatment, starved, tortured, relatives were killed in front of their eyes, loved ones were threatened, and forced to abandon family members.
- 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 diminishing peasantry should provide everyone with bread, what is actually beneficial to the production sector, 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.
- Injustice. People could suffer simply because they had property in the past. Wealthy peasants and the poor who took their side, supported them, and somehow protected them. Persons of “suspicious” nationality. Relatives who returned from abroad. Sometimes academicians and prominent scientific figures who contacted their foreign colleagues to publish data about invented drugs after they received official permission from the authorities for such actions could be punished.
- Connection with Stalin. The extent to which everything was tied to this figure can be eloquently seen from the cessation of a number of cases immediately after his death. Many rightly accused Lavrentiy Beria of cruelty and inappropriate behavior, but even he, through his actions, recognized the false nature of many cases, the unjustified cruelty used by NKVD officers. And it was he who banned physical measures against prisoners. Again, as in the case of Mussolini, there is no question of justification here. It’s just about emphasizing.
- Illegality. Some of the executions were carried out not only without trial, but also without the participation of judicial authorities as such. But even when there was a trial, it was exclusively about the so-called “simplified” mechanism. This meant that the trial was carried out without a defense, exclusively with the prosecution and the accused being heard. There was no practice of reviewing cases; the court's decision was final, often carried out the next day. At the same time, there were widespread violations even of the legislation of the USSR itself, which was in force at that time.
- Inhumanity. The repressive apparatus violated the basic human rights and freedoms that had been proclaimed in the civilized world for several centuries at that time. Researchers see no difference between the treatment of prisoners in the dungeons of the NKVD and how the Nazis behaved towards prisoners.
- Unfounded. Despite the attempts of the Stalinists to demonstrate the presence of some kind of underlying reason, there is not the slightest reason to believe that anything was aimed at any good goal or helped to achieve it. Indeed, a lot was built by the GULAG prisoners, but it was the forced labor of people who were greatly weakened due to the conditions of their detention and the constant lack of food. Consequently, errors in production, defects and, in general, a very low level of quality - all this inevitably arose. This situation also could not but affect the pace of construction. Taking into account the expenses that the Soviet government incurred to create the Gulag, its maintenance, as well as such a large-scale apparatus as a whole, it would be much more rational to simply pay for the same labor.
The assessment of Stalin's repressions has not yet been definitively made. However, it is beyond any doubt clear that this is one of the worst pages in world history.
Estimates of the number of victims of Stalin's repressions vary dramatically. Some cite numbers in the tens of millions of people, others limit themselves to hundreds of thousands. Which of them is closer to the truth?
Who is to blame?
Today our society is almost equally divided into Stalinists and anti-Stalinists. The former draw attention to the positive transformations that took place in the country during the Stalin era, the latter call not to forget about the huge number of victims of the repressions of the Stalinist regime.
However, almost all Stalinists recognize the fact of repression, but note its limited nature and even justify it as political necessity. Moreover, they often do not associate repressions with the name of Stalin.
Historian Nikolai Kopesov writes that in most investigative cases against those repressed in 1937-1938 there were no resolutions of Stalin - everywhere there were verdicts of Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria. According to the Stalinists, this is proof that the heads of the punitive bodies were engaged in arbitrariness and in support of this they cite Yezhov’s quote: “Whoever we want, we execute, whoever we want, we have mercy.”
For that part of the Russian public that sees Stalin as the ideologist of repression, these are just details that confirm the rule. Yagoda, Yezhov and many other arbiters of human destinies themselves turned out to be victims of terror. Who else but Stalin was behind all this? - they ask a rhetorical question.
Doctor of Historical Sciences, chief specialist of the State Archive of the Russian Federation Oleg Khlevnyuk notes that despite the fact that Stalin’s signature was not on many execution lists, it was he who sanctioned almost all mass political repressions.
Who was hurt?
The issue of victims acquired even greater significance in the debate surrounding Stalin's repressions. Who suffered and in what capacity during the period of Stalinism? Many researchers note that the very concept of “victims of repression” is quite vague. Historiography has not yet developed clear definitions on this matter.
Of course, those convicted, imprisoned in prisons and camps, shot, deported, deprived of property should be counted among those affected by the actions of the authorities. But what about, for example, those who were subjected to “biased interrogation” and then released? Should criminal and political prisoners be separated? In what category should we classify the “nonsense”, convicted of minor isolated thefts and equated to state criminals?
Deportees deserve special attention. What category should they be classified into – repressed or administratively expelled? It is even more difficult to determine those who fled without waiting for dispossession or deportation. They were sometimes caught, but some were lucky enough to start a new life.
Such different numbers
Uncertainties in the issue of who is responsible for the repression, in identifying the categories of victims and the period for which the victims of repression should be counted lead to completely different figures. The most impressive figures were cited by the economist Ivan Kurganov (this data was referred to by Solzhenitsyn in the novel Gulag Archipelago), who calculated that from 1917 to 1959, 110 million people became victims of the internal war of the Soviet regime against its people.
In this number, Kurganov includes victims of famine, collectivization, peasant exile, camps, executions, civil war, as well as “the neglectful and sloppy conduct of the Second World War.”
Even if such calculations are correct, can these figures be considered a reflection of Stalin's repressions? The economist, in fact, answers this question himself, using the expression “victims of the internal war of the Soviet regime.” It is worth noting that Kurganov counted only the dead. It is difficult to imagine what figure could have appeared if the economist had taken into account all those affected by the Soviet regime during the specified period.
The figures given by the head of the human rights society “Memorial” Arseny Roginsky are more realistic. He writes: “Across the entire Soviet Union, 12.5 million people are considered victims of political repression,” but adds that in a broad sense, up to 30 million people can be considered repressed.
Leaders of the Yabloko movement Elena Kriven and Oleg Naumov counted all categories of victims of the Stalinist regime, including those who died in the camps from disease and harsh working conditions, those dispossessed, victims of hunger, victims of unjustifiably cruel decrees and those who received excessively harsh punishment for minor offenses in the force of the repressive nature of legislation. The final figure is 39 million.
Researcher Ivan Gladilin notes in this regard that if the count of victims of repression has been carried out since 1921, this means that it is not Stalin who is responsible for a significant part of the crimes, but the “Leninist Guard”, which immediately after the October Revolution launched terror against the White Guards , clergy and kulaks.
How to count?
Estimates of the number of victims of repression vary greatly depending on the calculation method. If we take into account those convicted only on political charges, then according to the data of the regional departments of the KGB of the USSR, given in 1988, the Soviet bodies (VChK, GPU, OGPU, NKVD, NKGB, MGB) arrested 4,308,487 people, of which 835,194 were shot.
Employees of the Memorial Society, when counting the victims of political trials, are close to these figures, although their data is still noticeably higher - 4.5-4.8 million were convicted, of which 1.1 million were executed. If we consider everyone who went through the Gulag system as victims of the Stalinist regime, then this figure, according to various estimates, will range from 15 to 18 million people.
Very often, Stalin’s repressions are associated exclusively with the concept of the “Great Terror,” which peaked in 1937-1938. According to the commission led by academician Pyotr Pospelov to establish the causes of mass repressions, the following figures were announced: 1,548,366 people were arrested on charges of anti-Soviet activity, of which 681,692 thousand were sentenced to capital punishment.
One of the most authoritative experts on the demographic aspects of political repression in the USSR, historian Viktor Zemskov, names a smaller number of those convicted during the years of the “Great Terror” - 1,344,923 people, although his data coincides with the number of those executed.
If dispossessed people are included in the number of those subjected to repression during Stalin’s time, the figure will increase by at least 4 million people. The same Zemskov cites this number of dispossessed people. The Yabloko party agrees with this, noting that about 600 thousand of them died in exile.
Representatives of some peoples who were subjected to forced deportation also became victims of Stalin's repressions - Germans, Poles, Finns, Karachais, Kalmyks, Armenians, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars. Many historians agree that the total number of deportees is about 6 million people, while about 1.2 million people did not live to see the end of the journey.
To trust or not?
The above figures are mostly based on reports from the OGPU, NKVD, and MGB. However, not all documents of the punitive departments have been preserved; many of them were purposefully destroyed, and many are still in restricted access.
It should be recognized that historians are very dependent on statistics collected by various special agencies. But the difficulty is that even the available information reflects only those officially repressed, and therefore, by definition, cannot be complete. Moreover, it is possible to verify it from primary sources only in the rarest cases.
An acute shortage of reliable and complete information often provoked both the Stalinists and their opponents to name radically different figures in favor of their position. “If the “right” exaggerated the scale of the repressions, then the “left”, partly out of dubious youth, having found much more modest figures in the archives, hastened to make them public and did not always ask themselves the question of whether everything was reflected - and could be reflected - in the archives, – notes historian Nikolai Koposov.
It can be stated that estimates of the scale of Stalin’s repressions based on the sources available to us can be very approximate. Documents stored in federal archives would be a good help for modern researchers, but many of them were re-classified. A country with such a history will jealously guard the secrets of its past.
The scale of Stalin's repressions - exact figures
At the liar's competition
In an accusatory rage, the writers of anti-Stalin horror stories seem to be competing to see who can tell the biggest lies, vying with each other to name the astronomical numbers of those killed at the hands of the “bloody tyrant.” Against their background, a dissident Roy Medvedev, who limited himself to a “modest” figure of 40 million, looks like some kind of black sheep, a model of moderation and conscientiousness:
“Thus, the total number of victims of Stalinism reaches, according to my calculations, a figure of approximately 40 million people».
And in fact, it is undignified. Another dissident, son of a repressed Trotskyist revolutionary A. V. Antonov-Ovseenko, without a shadow of embarrassment, names twice the figure:
“These calculations are very, very approximate, but I am sure of one thing: the Stalinist regime bled the people, destroying more than 80 million his best sons."
Professional “rehabilitators” led by a former member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee A. N. Yakovlev are already talking about 100 million:
“According to the most conservative estimates of the specialists of the rehabilitation commission, our country lost about 100 million Human. This number includes not only the repressed themselves, but also members of their families doomed to death and even children who could have been born, but were never born.”
However, according to version Yakovleva the notorious 100 million includes not only direct “victims of the regime”, but also unborn children. But the writer Igor Bunich without hesitation claims that all these “100 million people were mercilessly exterminated.”
However, this is not the limit. The absolute record was set by Boris Nemtsov, who announced on November 7, 2003 in the “Freedom of Speech” program on the NTV channel about 150 million people allegedly lost by the Russian state after 1917.
Who are these fantastically ridiculous figures, eagerly replicated by the Russian and foreign media, intended for? For those who have forgotten how to think for themselves, who are accustomed to uncritically accepting on faith any nonsense coming from television screens.
It’s easy to see the absurdity of the multimillion-dollar numbers of “victims of repression.” It is enough to open any demographic directory and, picking up a calculator, make simple calculations. For those who are too lazy to do this, I will give a small illustrative example.
According to the population census conducted in January 1959, the population of the USSR was 208,827 thousand people. By the end of 1913, 159,153 thousand people lived within the same borders. It is easy to calculate that the average annual population growth of our country in the period from 1914 to 1959 was 0.60%.
Now let's see how the population of England, France and Germany grew in the same years - countries that also took an active part in both world wars.
So, the rate of population growth in the Stalinist USSR turned out to be almost one and a half times higher than in Western “democracies,” although for these states we excluded the extremely unfavorable demographic years of the 1st World War. Could this have happened if the “bloody Stalinist regime” had destroyed 150 million or at least 40 million residents of our country? Of course no!
Archival documents say
To find out the true number of those executed during Stalin, it is absolutely not necessary to engage in fortune telling on coffee grounds. It is enough to familiarize yourself with the declassified documents. The most famous of them is the memo addressed to N. S. Khrushcheva dated February 1, 1954:
Comrade Khrushchev N.S.
In connection with signals received by the CPSU Central Committee from a number of individuals about illegal convictions for counter-revolutionary crimes in past years by the OGPU Collegium, NKVD troikas, and the Special Meeting. By the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals and in accordance with your instructions on the need to review the cases of persons convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes and currently held in camps and prisons, we report:
According to data available from the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, for the period from 1921 to the present time, people were convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes by the OGPU Collegium, NKVD troikas, the Special Meeting, the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals. 3 777 380 people, including:
to VMN – 642 980 Human,
Of the total number of those arrested, approximately the following were convicted: 2 900 000 people - the Collegium of the OGPU, the troikas of the NKVD and the Special Meeting and 877 000 people – courts, military tribunals, the Special Board and the Military Board.
Prosecutor General R. Rudenko
Minister of Internal Affairs S. Kruglov
Minister of Justice K. Gorshenin"
As is clear from the document, in total from 1921 to the beginning of 1954, people were sentenced to death on political charges. 642 980 person, to imprisonment - 2 369 220 , to link – 765 180 .
However, there are more detailed data on the number of those sentenced to death for counter-revolutionary and other especially dangerous state crimes
Thus, for the years 1921-1953 they were sentenced to death 815 639 Human. In total, in the years 1918-1953, people were brought to criminal liability in cases of state security agencies 4 308 487 person of whom 835 194 sentenced to death.
So, there were slightly more “repressed” than indicated in the report dated February 1, 1954. However, the difference is not too great - the numbers are of the same order.
In addition, it is quite possible that among those who received sentences on political charges there were a fair number of criminals. On one of the certificates stored in the archives, on the basis of which the above table was compiled, there is a pencil note:
“Total convicts for 1921-1938. – 2 944 879 people, of which 30 % (1062 thousand) – criminals»
In this case, the total number of “victims of repression” does not exceed three million. However, to finally clarify this issue, additional work with sources is necessary.
It should also be borne in mind that not all sentences were carried out. For example, of the 76 death sentences handed down by the Tyumen District Court in the first half of 1929, by January 1930, 46 had been changed or overturned by higher authorities, and of the remaining, only nine were carried out.
From July 15, 1939 to April 20, 1940, 201 prisoners were sentenced to capital punishment for disorganizing camp life and production. However, then for some of them the death penalty was replaced by imprisonment for terms of 10 to 15 years.
In 1934, there were 3,849 prisoners in NKVD camps who were sentenced to death and commuted to imprisonment. In 1935 there were 5671 such prisoners, in 1936 – 7303, in 1937 – 6239, in 1938 – 5926, in 1939 – 3425, in 1940 – 4037 people.
Number of prisoners
At first, the number of prisoners in forced labor camps (ITL) was relatively small. So, on January 1, 1930, it amounted to 179,000 people, on January 1, 1931 - 212,000, on January 1, 1932 - 268,700, on January 1, 1933 - 334,300, on January 1, 1934 - 510 307 people.
In addition to the ITL, there were correctional labor colonies (CLCs), where those sentenced to short terms were sent. Until the fall of 1938, the penitentiary complexes, together with the prisons, were subordinate to the Department of Places of Detention (OMP) of the NKVD of the USSR. Therefore, for the years 1935-1938, only joint statistics have been found so far. Since 1939, penal colonies were under the jurisdiction of the Gulag, and prisons were under the jurisdiction of the Main Prison Directorate (GTU) of the NKVD of the USSR.
How much can you trust these numbers? All of them are taken from the internal reports of the NKVD - secret documents not intended for publication. In addition, these summary figures are quite consistent with the initial reports; they can be broken down monthly, as well as by individual camps:
Let us now calculate the number of prisoners per capita. On January 1, 1941, as can be seen from the table above, the total number of prisoners in the USSR was 2 400 422 person. The exact population of the USSR at this time is unknown, but is usually estimated at 190-195 million.
Thus, we get from 1230 to 1260 prisoners for every 100 thousand population. On January 1, 1950, the number of prisoners in the USSR was 2 760 095 people – the maximum figure for the entire period of Stalin’s reign. The population of the USSR at this time numbered 178 million 547 thousand. We get 1546 prisoners per 100 thousand population, 1.54%. This is the highest figure ever.
Let's calculate a similar indicator for the modern United States. Currently, there are two types of places of deprivation of liberty: jail - an approximate analogue of our temporary detention centers, in which those under investigation are kept, as well as convicts serving short sentences, and prison - the prison itself. At the end of 1999, there were 1,366,721 people in prisons and 687,973 in jails (see the website of the Bureau of Legal Statistics of the US Department of Justice), for a total of 2,054,694. The population of the United States at the end of 1999 was approximately 275 million Therefore, we get 747 prisoners per 100 thousand population.
Yes, half as much as Stalin, but not ten times. It’s somehow undignified for a power that has taken upon itself the protection of “human rights” on a global scale.
Moreover, this is a comparison of the peak number of prisoners in the Stalinist USSR, which was also caused first by the civil and then by the Great Patriotic War. And among the so-called “victims of political repression” there will be a fair share of supporters of the white movement, collaborators, Hitler’s accomplices, members of the ROA, policemen, not to mention ordinary criminals.
There are calculations that compare the average number of prisoners over a period of several years.
The data on the number of prisoners in the Stalinist USSR exactly coincides with the above. According to these data, it turns out that on average for the period from 1930 to 1940, there were 583 prisoners per 100,000 people, or 0.58%. Which is significantly less than the same figure in Russia and the USA in the 90s.
What is the total number of people who were imprisoned under Stalin? Of course, if you take a table with the annual number of prisoners and sum up the rows, as many anti-Sovietists do, the result will be incorrect, since most of them were sentenced to more than a year. Therefore, it should be assessed not by the amount of those imprisoned, but by the amount of those convicted, which was given above.
How many of the prisoners were “political”?
As we see, until 1942, the “repressed” made up no more than a third of the prisoners held in the Gulag camps. And only then their share increased, receiving a worthy “replenishment” in the person of Vlasovites, policemen, elders and other “fighters against communist tyranny.” The percentage of “political” in correctional labor colonies was even smaller.
Prisoner mortality
Available archival documents make it possible to illuminate this issue. In 1931, 7,283 people died in the ITL (3.03% of the average annual number), in 1932 - 13,197 (4.38%), in 1933 - 67,297 (15.94%), in 1934 – 26,295 prisoners (4.26%).
For 1953, data is provided for the first three months.
As we see, mortality in places of detention (especially in prisons) did not reach those fantastic values that denouncers like to talk about. But still its level is quite high. It increases especially strongly in the first years of the war. As was stated in the certificate of mortality according to the NKVD OITK for 1941, compiled by the acting. Head of the Sanitary Department of the Gulag NKVD I. K. Zitserman:
Basically, mortality began to increase sharply from September 1941, mainly due to the transfer of convicts from units located in the front-line areas: from the BBK and Vytegorlag to the OITK of the Vologda and Omsk regions, from the OITK of the Moldavian SSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Leningrad region. in OITK Kirov, Molotov and Sverdlovsk regions. As a rule, a significant part of the journey of several hundred kilometers before loading into wagons was carried out on foot. Along the way, they were not at all provided with the minimum necessary food products (they did not receive enough bread and even water); as a result of this confinement, the prisoners suffered severe exhaustion, a very large % of vitamin deficiency diseases, in particular pellagra, which caused significant mortality along the route and along arrival at the respective OITKs, which were not prepared to receive a significant number of replenishments. At the same time, the introduction of reduced food standards by 25–30% (order No. 648 and 0437) with an extended working day to 12 hours, and often the absence of basic food products, even at reduced standards, could not but affect the increase in morbidity and mortality
However, since 1944, mortality has decreased significantly. By the beginning of the 1950s, in camps and colonies it fell below 1%, and in prisons - below 0.5% per year.
Special camps
Let's say a few words about the notorious Special Camps (special camps), created in accordance with Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 416-159ss of February 21, 1948. These camps (as well as the Special Prisons that already existed by that time) were supposed to concentrate all those sentenced to imprisonment for espionage, sabotage, terrorism, as well as Trotskyists, right-wingers, Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, anarchists, nationalists, white emigrants, members of anti-Soviet organizations and groups and “individuals who pose a danger due to their anti-Soviet connections.” Prisoners of special prisons were to be used for hard physical work.
As we see, the mortality rate of prisoners in special detention centers was only slightly higher than the mortality rate in ordinary correctional labor camps. Contrary to popular belief, the special camps were not “death camps” in which the elite of the dissident intelligentsia were supposedly exterminated; moreover, the largest contingent of their inhabitants were “nationalists” - the forest brothers and their accomplices.
1937 "Stalin's repressions." The Great Lie of the 20th Century.
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