The US Armed Forces have approached today's aggravation of the international situation fully armed - with a set of the most advanced concepts of warfare, with experienced command personnel, with fundamentally improved management methods. Is the Russian army the complete opposite?

These are the conclusions of military expert Vladimir Denisov. His article, published in Novaya Gazeta, provides a comparative analysis of the construction and development of the world's two leading armies - American and Russian. Military science in our country has been ruined, the expert believes, there are no new ideas and concepts. Western experience is unreasonably ignored. The generals are preparing for the last war. In a hypothetical clash between the “wise” American army and the “unwise Russian”, the latter can be rescued either by a miracle, or by some gamer with innovative ideas and an unconventional approach to warfare. Such “analytical” calculations can cause alarmist sentiments among part of our society. But is it really so?

Prostration

In the early 90s, the Russian army found itself in a difficult situation. There has been a radical turn in strategic guidelines. Many previous ideas about the goals, means and methods of defending the country were overthrown, a number of key principles for ensuring its security were recognized as erroneous, and previous provisions on the direction and nature of military development were discarded. New Russia set a course for rapprochement with the West. Former opponents suddenly turned into allies or partners, and former allies became either potential enemies or neutral countries. The state leadership made unprecedented concessions, including agreeing to a complete curtailment of the military presence in the territory of Eastern Europe.

The sharply narrowed economic base did not allow the state to maintain a multimillion-dollar army, timely update its technical arsenal, develop and produce modern types of weapons and military equipment on the same scale, or accumulate the necessary mobilization reserves. In fact, it was necessary to create new Armed Forces, but there was no political will and material resources for this, and the country was in deep socio-economic decline. As a result, after the decision was made to create the RF Armed Forces, military reform was reduced to a reduction in troops and forces without carrying out their qualitative transformation.

The beginning of the 90s was characterized by a series of armed conflicts on the territory of the former USSR. To stop them, to stop the bloodshed, Russian military personnel were faced with the need to solve peacekeeping tasks in Tajikistan, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria. And despite the rather “difficult” state of the Armed Forces, these tasks were successfully completed.

In a difficult military-political situation, a counter-terrorism operation was carried out in the North Caucasus. The Armed Forces, intended to repel external aggression, were forced, together with other security forces, to conduct combat operations with gangs on their territory. I had to relearn on the fly. Today, no one doubts that at that time Russia faced not isolated groups of ideological separatists, but a well-organized and generously paid from abroad terrorist attack on our country.

Based on the results of the CTO, conclusions were drawn. Firstly, the Armed Forces must be prepared in advance for the fight against terrorist groups, and secondly, terrorism must be fought proactively, not waiting for it to come to our home. These findings were taken into account when deciding to conduct an operation in Syria.

One-man theater

The United States at this time was developing its armed forces in the most favorable conditions since the end of World War II. The military development was based on the conclusions drawn from the confrontation international coalition with Iraq in 1991. Let us recall that it was characterized by deep envelopment of enemy positions, delivery of the main strike bypassing defensive lines, and most importantly, a sharp increase in the contribution of the Air Force to the success of combat operations.

The conflict of a new generation was the NATO war against Yugoslavia, the goals of which were achieved without the active involvement of ground forces.

The main efforts in the construction of the American Armed Forces were focused on mastering the forms and methods of conducting non-contact wars. It was believed that the tasks of defeating the enemy would be achieved by missile strikes and aviation, and the task ground forces- only consolidation of the achieved success.

The training of the US Armed Forces was aimed at mastering a new generation of wars - rebel wars, proxy wars (proxy wars), hybrid wars, counterinsurgency wars. Their implementation made it possible to replace unwanted governments by force if this problem could not be solved by a “color revolution.” Such wars do not require the deployment of large groups of troops (forces). Sufficiently trained special operations forces and effective fire support.

The US Armed Forces began to rapidly implement military command and control information Technology, master hybrid methods of warfare and network-centric approaches to leadership. In this regard, competition between branches of the armed forces has intensified for their role and place in modern operations and, most importantly, for the amount of funding.

The development of new concepts of combat operations was put on stream. In the development of each main interspecific doctrine, concepts of the second level (specific), then the third (comprehensive support) were developed. For each, programs for their implementation were prepared and resources were allocated. The process was avalanche-like. America could afford such a wasteful approach.

This period is characterized by complete freedom of action for the United States, although their allies were also allowed something. The global leadership of the United States resulted in a kind of status quo, in which the West essentially had a monopoly on the use of military force on the world stage. America now, without regard to the Soviet Union, replaced undesirable governments and started wars. This is what happened in Yugoslavia, Iraq, this is what should have happened in Syria.

Our country did not adequately respond to NATO aggression against Yugoslavia. But Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov's turn over the Atlantic was a clear signal to the West that we have our own national interests.

Realizing this and sensing the growing power of Russia, seeing it as a geopolitical competitor to the West, the United States finally abandoned peace-loving rhetoric, openly declared itself the winner in the Cold War and took the path of direct confrontation.

Reforms to please the enemy

The acceleration of reform in the Armed Forces was facilitated by the operation carried out in August 2008 to force Georgia to peace. It became obvious that our strength would continue to be tested. Therefore it was necessary to as soon as possible reorient the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (which to a certain extent represented a smaller copy of the army and navy of the USSR) to prepare for the conduct of local wars and armed conflicts of a limited scale.

By December 1, 2009, under the leadership of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and Chief of the General Staff Nikolai Makarov, the Russian Armed Forces were rapidly brought to a new look. There was not a single area of ​​military development, the life of the army and navy that would not undergo the most radical reform. The number of armed forces (up to a million people) and officers was reduced (from 335 to 150 thousand), instead of the previous six military districts, four “large” ones were created, which are interspecific associations, the structure of formations and associations, military command bodies was changed, the personnel training system was rebuilt and maintenance of reserve formations, armed forces infrastructure.

The peculiarity of the reform was the speed of the measures carried out and the absence of reasonable, justified, calculated plans, which was passed off as a virtue. Military science was accused of being “unprincipled” and lacking the necessary theoretical developments to enable military development. Therefore, all transformations were carried out according to Western patterns; instead of thoughtful and well-founded concepts and plans, the basis for reform was based on the experience of building American armed forces without any comprehension and adaptation to domestic conditions. The historical experience and traditions of the Russian, Red and Soviet armies were fundamentally ignored. The imitation of the US Army reached the point of curiosity. Thus, the Americans formed brigades as units with a rigid organizational structure. Previously, their brigades, which were part of divisions, did not have permanent combat personnel. At the same time, the divisional management link was retained. We, having not fully studied the American experience, liquidated our divisions, formed brigades on their basis and switched to the battalion-brigade-army system.

The rotational principle of serving in operational and strategic headquarters was intensively introduced. Its essence was that every officer, after three years of service at headquarters in mandatory must be transferred to another position (command or teaching). The Americans, on the contrary, increased the period of service in the highest headquarters and, moreover, gave the heads of military command and control bodies the right to extend it for individual, most trained officers.

As a result of this approach to reform, even reasonable ideas without appropriate preliminary elaboration and support in practice were brought to the point of absurdity and brought harm instead of benefit. The transformation of all formations into forces of constant readiness led to the destruction of the system of training reserve formations, without which it is possible to conduct combat operations for a maximum of local war, but in the regional it is no longer possible.

The central bodies of military command and staff were reduced, but at the same time the level of their competence and, as a consequence, the quality of troop leadership at all levels sharply decreased.

The lack of personnel did not allow formations and military units to carry out tasks as intended. The size of the officer corps did not correspond to the tasks facing the Armed Forces.

Groupings in strategic and operational directions could not act independently. They demanded reinforcement of combat and logistical support units. Significant areas state border turned out to be naked troops (forces).

The military education system was brought to a critical state. A powerful blow has been dealt to military science. The creation of the Aerospace Defense Forces did not lead to an increase in the efficiency of solving air defense problems. The level of combat effectiveness of air bases, which were formed instead of air regiments and divisions, decreased significantly.

The measures taken by reformers during 2010–2011 to debug new systems and military command and control bodies did not produce results.

The situation with equipping the army and navy with weapons and military equipment. Suffice it to say that by 2012, the level of serviceable equipment in the troops was no more than 47 percent.

In general, large-scale and radical transformations carried out in a short time led to a significant reduction in the combat capabilities of the Armed Forces.

New vector

In 2012, a new team came to the military department under the leadership of the Minister of Defense, Army General Sergei Shoigu, and the Chief of the General Staff, then Colonel General Valery Gerasimov. They saw their main task as stopping the destructive processes in the Armed Forces, preserving those individual positive results of bringing them to a new look, restoring combat effectiveness and increasing combat capabilities. At the same time, there was a strict time limit due to the growing aggravation of the international situation.

The reform was based on clear planning of activities, strict control, and rational use of available resources in the interests of the country's defense. The development and delivery of each unit of arms and military equipment to the troops was strictly linked to the training of relevant personnel, the construction of storage facilities and living quarters for the personnel who would operate it.

First of all, self-sufficient interspecific groupings of troops (forces) were formed in the military districts. Their improvement was carried out through the balanced development of branches and branches of the Armed Forces, increasing the level of equipment with modern weapons and military equipment.

Today, the basis of troop groupings in strategic directions are permanent readiness formations. Taking into account operational expediency, some of the combined arms brigades were transformed into divisions. Note that in terms of its combat capabilities, a division is 1.6–1.8 times superior to a brigade.

A transition has been made to a new system of recruiting military personnel under contract for formations and military units of the Ground Forces, Marine Corps and Airborne Forces. In 2012, the battalions included in their composition were formed in a mixed way - conscript and contract servicemen, and the share of contract soldiers was no more than 30-40 percent. To prepare such battalions for combat operations, considerable time was required for coordination. In addition, conscripted military personnel were subject to legal restrictions on their participation in hostilities.

Currently, the opposite picture is observed: in each regiment and brigade of three battalions, two are staffed by contract soldiers and only one by conscripts. On the basis of battalions staffed only by contract soldiers, reinforced tactical units have been created in combined arms brigades and regiments - battalion tactical groups (BTG), which can be used in the shortest possible time and without additional coordination. In a number of cases, they were transferred to the operational subordination of commands in tactical directions. This made it possible, if necessary, to move away from rigid organizational structures, create groupings depending on the situation and the tasks being solved, increase the efficiency of management and ensure flexibility of use.

Special attention focused on the development of precision weapons. On a planned basis, full-fledged groups of carriers of long-range cruise missiles of various types were formed, capable of using weapons against targets at distances of up to four thousand kilometers.

In order to ensure efficiency and continuity of fire impact on the enemy, reconnaissance and strike systems and reconnaissance and fire complexes were created. In essence, this is the introduction of network-centric control methods, which are based on the integration of reconnaissance information and information control systems with weapons systems. The result was a reduction in the time parameters of the cycle for solving a fire mission - from target detection to its destruction. The increasing effectiveness of fire impact has been greatly facilitated by the increasingly widespread use of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Particular attention was paid to the development of electronic warfare, improving means of countering high-precision weapons, as well as the aircraft control system. A unified automated system for controlling troops and weapons at the tactical level was developed.

Taking into account the improvement of air-space defense systems, including the progressive spread of missile technologies, the vector for the development of the country's aerospace defense was set. Great importance In this regard, the creation of the VKS was important.

The system of mobilization deployment and mob training was improved. Decisions were made to create a mobile reserve, territorial troops, and organize the preparation of government bodies at all levels for functioning in wartime.

Requirements for the training of headquarters and troops (forces) were increased. When training military command and control bodies, much attention was paid to developing in commanders and commanders the ability to take quick and comprehensively justified actions. The skills of making non-standard decisions, forecasting the development of the situation were strengthened, and the willingness to take justified risks was encouraged. Suvorov's principles of command and control, combat operations, and approaches to troop training were purposefully introduced.

Due attention was paid to the study of new generation wars, including hybrid ones, which were already in full swing Western countries against unwanted states and governments. In this regard, the example of Libya is particularly clear.

The readiness of command and control bodies and troops (forces) to operate as part of interspecific groupings created in strategic directions was tested at annual exercises. Their scale testified to the development of issues of repelling large-scale aggression and combating a high-tech enemy.

During operational and combat training activities, issues of conducting military operations in uniform were practiced. strategic operations, army operations in the war against regular armed forces, as well as combat operations against terrorist groups.

And at headquarters and scientific institutions, intense work was going on to analyze the essence of modern wars. The formula “war is a complex of military, as well as political, diplomatic, economic, and information measures” has acquired new meaning. Military measures faded into the background, giving way to non-military means. Commanders and staffs had to urgently master and practice practical skills in the use of non-military methods. And soon it was needed.

Syrian experience

First there was Crimea. Well-equipped and highly trained Special Operations Forces ensured security and order on the peninsula and prevented the destabilization of the situation by fascist nationalists and its development according to the Odessa version.

The Russian army appeared before the world from a completely different perspective and caused sincere surprise among Western experts. It turned out that she can act firmly and politely, quickly and decisively, secretly and effectively, and solve strategic problems with small forces. Previously, in the West it was believed that only “exceptional races” were capable of this.

The next exam was Syria. The Russian Armed Forces are faced with a completely new type of conflict. Its main feature was that the states that were opponents of Syria carried out secretive, inconspicuous actions against it, without being drawn into a direct armed conflict. Well-trained and equipped military formations of terrorists and the Syrian opposition, whose actions were coordinated from abroad, were used as manpower.

Russia entered Syria when it, as a state, stood on the edge of the abyss. I came in completely legitimately, at the invitation of the legitimate government of the country. In the shortest possible time, she deployed a minimal group in a remote theater of operations and reversed the war. It acted with utmost efficiency, both in terms of the ratio of the results achieved to the resources expended, and in comparison with the effectiveness of the International Anti-Terrorism Coalition, led by the United States. Under the leadership of Russian military advisers and with the support of the Russian Aerospace Forces, the Syrian army liberated most of its territory.

The world saw a completely different - a renewed Russian army, which is capable of effectively conducting combat operations in a remote theater of operations with small forces, delicately delivering strikes with high-precision weapons, optimally combining the actions of the Aerospace Forces, Navy and Special Operations Forces.

High efficiency of fire destruction of terrorist targets was achieved through network-centric control methods, competent use of reconnaissance and strike systems and reconnaissance and fire complexes. The bulk of fire missions to defeat the enemy were carried out by artillery and aviation. Precision weapons were used to destroy the most important terrorist targets. It is clear that firing missiles at every group of militants is a very costly business.

During the special operation, virtually all formation commanders and formation commanders of the Armed Forces gained combat experience. Staff teams of formations and formations also passed through Syria, developing invaluable skills in planning and directing combat operations of troops and fire defeat of the enemy. Now commanders and commanders personally know what is needed in war, what and how to teach personnel.

Most tasks, primarily combat ones, were solved under special conditions, in an unconventional, creative manner. In addition, the tasks themselves differed significantly in content: combat, humanitarian, peacekeeping and military-diplomatic. The command of the group of the Russian Armed Forces and military advisers to the Syrian troops used a lot original ways and methods of conducting combat operations, joint use of various types of weapons and military equipment.

The Syrian operation provided vivid examples of military cunning, audacity, unpredictability in actions, swiftness in the offensive and steadfastness in defense, flexibility in planning and at the same time rigid adherence to the strategic line.

American view of the Russian Armed Forces

The Americans closely monitored the actions of the Russian Armed Forces in Syria. Through success Russian army saw their problems. The main drawback of the American armed forces, according to their experts, is that they were not prepared to fight a strong enemy. Since the end of the Cold War, combat training has focused primarily on counterinsurgency. The US Armed Forces have forgotten how to fight a strong army and conduct large-scale combat operations. According to American experts, their armed forces need to adapt to modern threats. To do this, the training of command and control bodies, troops and forces must be urgently reoriented and carried out taking into account the strengths of the Russian army.

US military experts noted the strength of the Russian Armed Forces new system views on the conduct of modern wars, providing for flexibility in determining the purposes of using the RF Armed Forces, rational forms and methods of action depending on the tasks and conditions of the situation.

Another strength of the Russian army is the ability to create and train formations and associations of the regular army from the local population, as well as to use irregular formations and formations of local residents (people's militia) to achieve goals.

The Americans highly appreciated the ability of Russian advisers to organize and conduct combat operations with flexible formations of Syrian troops - combined battalion tactical groups. Their composition is determined based on the assigned task, which makes it possible to more fully realize the combat capabilities of the troops (forces).

The effectiveness of the fire destruction system, including reconnaissance, target designation and destruction means (primarily operational-tactical aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces), as well as the widespread use of UAVs, which makes it possible to effectively control the battlefield, timely detect enemy targets and promptly destroy them, are emphasized.

The Russian air defense system deployed in Syria was analyzed very carefully. Western experts called the strength of the Russian Armed Forces their ability to prevent the use of American aviation due to the ability to deploy effective air defense at the strategic, operational and tactical levels. In addition, according to their estimates, an effective electronic warfare system is capable of completely disorganizing the control system of the US Armed Forces at the operational and tactical levels. The presence of experienced and capable command staff of the Russian Army was especially noted.

The presence of strengths in the RF Armed Forces somewhat discouraged US specialists. And there were reasons for this.

Firstly, the development of the US Armed Forces has always been carried out in accordance with the principle of superiority over any potential enemy in all elements: in equipping with weapons, in training personnel, in control systems, communications and reconnaissance, fire destruction, logistics, etc. Secondly, the American armed forces have always fought under the dominance of their aviation. And the fact that the strong air defense of the Russian Armed Forces is able to “ground” US operational-tactical aviation puts Pentagon specialists at a dead end regarding the methods of conducting combat operations by ground groups without air support. American recognition of the superiority of the Russian Armed Forces in individual elements destroys their confidence in their own capabilities.

The received assessments and conclusions prompted the headquarters of the US Armed Forces to search for new forms and methods of action of troops on the battlefield, allowing to nullify the superiority of the Russian Armed Forces even in individual elements, and to accelerate their implementation in the training of command and control agencies and troops of the American army. New concepts for the use of troop groups were developed.

By the way, the Americans' penchant for developing concepts has become their real bane. Each newly released strategic-level concept required the development of three to five subordinate concepts, for the development of which lower-level concepts were released. Financial resources are allocated for each, fortunately, the astronomical military budget (more than $700 billion) allows it. Therefore, the pipeline for developing new concepts never stops. Each concept with a truly American scope is presented as another “breakthrough in military affairs.” For example, specialists of the US Armed Forces declared the inclusion in it of such a component as operational art a great success in the development of military science. But it must be said that in the USSR such a division was introduced back in the pre-war period (before the Great Patriotic War): strategy covered issues of preparing the country and the Armed Forces for war and waging war in general, operational art - preparing and conducting operations, and tactics - conducting combat actions by tactical formations.

At the same time, we must pay tribute to the flexibility and efficiency of the Americans in responding to the growth in the combat capabilities of the Russian Armed Forces. Indeed, even in peacetime, the strategic management bodies of rival countries (general staffs/command staff, headquarters of the armed forces) conduct an intellectual confrontation between themselves that is invisible to the average person.

For example, according to the concept of interservice operations, the United States conducted military operations according to the following scheme. First, strikes from high-precision sea- and air-based weapons, without entering the enemy’s fire zone, destroyed its air defense system in the theater of military operations. Further, aviation carried out strikes on targets with impunity. And only then (in Yugoslavia it didn’t come to this) the ground forces entered the battle.

Taking into account the views of the Americans, Russia created special security zones in the Crimea and the Baltic, concentrating in them high-tech weapons, air defense, electronic warfare and others. Relevant organizational measures for the formation of such zones were promptly carried out, and exercises were held. In addition, the Navy’s strikes with high-precision weapons from the Caspian Sea on targets in Syria have convincingly shown that it will be impossible for the ships and aircraft carriers of the potential aggressor’s high-precision weapons to approach our shores with impunity; they will all end up in the affected area.

That is, previous approaches to conducting military operations turned out to be unsuitable. The Americans immediately tensed up and released a new concept - multi-domain operations of ground forces. According to her, now the main role should be allocated not to the Air Force and Navy, but to the ground forces. It is they who break into the territory where air defense and air defense systems are located, crush them and thereby provide the Air Force and Navy with the opportunity to operate in a given theater of war, and also create conditions for the transfer and deployment of the main forces to the theater of war.

This is precisely the scenario envisaged for the Kaliningrad special region. This is why the question arises about the additional deployment of US ground forces in Poland and the Baltic states. Perhaps in the future the question will arise about the use of Ukrainian territory.

Contours of a future war

The experience gained during the special operation in Syria has been analyzed. Military science played a special role in this. Its representatives were often at the forefront of combat operations with terrorists, working at the headquarters of military groups and in areas where new weapons and military equipment were used. Based on the results of the analysis, scientific and practical conferences were held in military command and control bodies and troops (forces), and methodological manuals were developed. New forms and methods of combat operations and the use of new weapons and military equipment have been introduced into combat training. Personnel work has been restructured. Priority in promotion is given to officers with combat experience. Changes have been made to the programs of military educational institutions of the Ministry of Defense. This was facilitated by the fact that most of the teachers underwent combat training.

And finally, taking into account the experience gained and trends in the development of armed struggle, all combat manuals and manuals have been revised. They reflect modern views on the conduct of highly maneuverable combat operations. The Syrian experience, due to its specificity, has not been elevated to an absolute, but everything valuable from it has been taken into service. Thus, today we have a modern, confident army and navy with experienced command staff and updated governing documents.

The combat experience gained in Syria works to increase the combat power of the Armed Forces. In the current conditions, this task remains a priority due to the uncertainty of the international situation.

What type of conflict can be imposed on us, what shape will the military threat take? There is no clear, unambiguous answer to this question. In any case, we must proceed from the fact that a potential enemy will strive to put our troops in a difficult position, use methods of action that are unexpected for us, impose his will, and seize the initiative.

The General Staff looks ahead, tries to determine the contours of a future war and develop promising forms and methods of action in it. And no innovators or gamers will do this work for him. There are things that cannot be learned without practical experience.

Although we were in military history examples when the advice of non-military experts regarding the conduct of hostilities was taken into account by management. So, during World War II, the Americans and the British brought in a group of experts. They gave the following recommendations. To reduce the combat effectiveness of the Wehrmacht, it is necessary to inflict massive attacks not on the troops, but on the civilian population. This greatly demoralizes Hitler's army. And these recommendations were accepted by the US and British bomber aviation for guidance and implemented in the form of carpet bombing of German cities in the rear zone.

Issues of military development, training of the army and navy, and equipping them with modern weapons are under the constant control of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the RF Armed Forces. They are regularly discussed at Security Council meetings. Twice a year, under the leadership of the President of Russia, meetings are held with the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and the defense industry. Heads of key enterprises and leading designers are invited to the meetings. This format of meetings helps to increase the responsibility of defense industry leaders for equipping the army with modern weapons and military equipment, and helps prevent the dictates of industry in imposing unpromising weapons on the army and navy. This site has proven its effectiveness to such an extent that the heads of some states are thinking about introducing a similar format of meetings.

Concluding a brief analysis of the development of the RF Armed Forces, it can be noted that today Russia has every reason to be proud of its Armed Forces. Returning to the conclusions of Vladimir Denisov, we note: their reliability largely depends on the objectivity of the expert. In this case, there is definitely a biased approach that takes into account not all the information, but only that part of it that corresponds to the beliefs of the author of the article. That is, a private, subjective opinion is presented as a statement: “This is exactly how they think serious people in uniform."

It is well known that the interpretation of the same events can be different depending on the angle from which they are observed. Therefore, we considered it necessary, without imposing our opinion, to acquaint the reader with important facts for understanding that were not taken into account by the author of the article.

The final conclusions are left to the reader.

During the investigation of the murder of Kirov, Stalin ordered the development of the “Zinoviev trail”, accusing G. E. Zinoviev, L. B. Kamenev and their supporters of the murder of Kirov. A few days later, arrests of former supporters of the Zinoviev opposition began, and on December 16, Kamenev and Zinoviev themselves were arrested. On December 28–29, 14 people directly accused of organizing the murder were sentenced to death. The verdict stated that they were all “active participants in the Zinoviev anti-Soviet group in Leningrad”, and subsequently in an “underground terrorist counter-revolutionary group” led by the so-called “Leningrad Center”. On January 9, at a Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR in the criminal case of the “Leningrad counter-revolutionary Zinoviev group of Safarov, Zalutsky and others,” 77 people were convicted. On January 16, 19 defendants in the case of the so-called “Moscow Center,” led by Zinoviev and Kamenev, were convicted. All these cases were grossly fabricated.

Over the next few years, Stalin used Kirov's murder as a pretext for the final reprisal of former political opponents who led or participated in various opposition movements in the party in the 1920s. All of them were destroyed on charges of terrorist activities.

In a closed letter from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, “Lessons from the events associated with the villainous murder of Comrade. Kirov”, prepared and sent to the localities in January 1935, in addition to bringing repeated charges against Kamenev and Zinoviev for leading the “Leningrad” and “Moscow centers,” which were “essentially a disguised form of the White Guard organization,” Stalin also reminded of other “anti-party groups ”, existing in the history of the CPSU (b) - “Trotskyists”, “democratic centralists”, “workers’ opposition”, “right-wing deviationists”, etc. This letter on the ground should have been considered as a direct instruction to action.

Moscow trials

In the period 1936-1938, three large open trials took place against former senior functionaries of the Communist Party who were associated with the Trotskyist or right-wing opposition in the 1920s. Abroad they were called “Moscow Trials”.

The accused who were tried by the Military Collegium Supreme Court The USSR was accused of collaborating with Western intelligence services with the aim of killing Stalin and other Soviet leaders, dissolving the USSR and restoring capitalism, as well as organizing sabotage in various sectors of the economy for the same purpose.

• The first Moscow trial of 16 members of the so-called “Trotskyist-Zinoviev Terrorist Center” took place in August 1936. The main defendants were Zinoviev and Kamenev. Among other charges, they were charged with the murder of Kirov and conspiracy to assassinate Stalin.
• The second trial (the case of the “Parallel Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center”) in January 1937 took place over 17 smaller functionaries, such as Karl Radek, Yuri Pyatakov and Grigory Sokolnikov. 13 people were shot, the rest were sent to camps, where they soon died.
• The third trial in March 1938 took place over 21 members of the so-called “Right-Trotskyist bloc”. The main accused was Nikolai Bukharin, former head Comintern, also former chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Alexei Rykov, Christian Rakovsky, Nikolai Krestinsky, and Genrikh Yagoda - organizer of the first Moscow trial. All but three of the accused were executed. Rakovsky, Bessonov and Pletnev were also shot in 1941 without trial.

A number of Western observers at that time believed that the guilt of the convicted was certainly proven. They all confessed, the trial was open, and there was no clear evidence of torture or drugging. The German writer Leon Feuchtwanger, who was present at the Second Moscow Trial, wrote:

The people who stood before the court could in no way be considered tortured, desperate creatures. The accused themselves were sleek, well-dressed men with relaxed manners. They were drinking tea, newspapers were sticking out of their pockets... In general, it looked more like a discussion... which educated people conduct in the tone of a conversation. It seemed as if the accused, the prosecutor and the judges were all passionate about the same, I almost said sporting, interest in finding out with the maximum degree of accuracy everything that happened. If a director had been assigned to stage this trial, he would probably have needed many years and many rehearsals to achieve such teamwork from the accused..."

Later, the dominant point of view became that the accused were subjected to psychological pressure, and confessions were extracted by force.

In May 1937, Trotsky's supporters founded the Dewey Commission in the United States. At the Moscow trials, Georgy Pyatakov testified that in December 1935 he flew to Oslo to “receive terrorist instructions” from Trotsky. The commission argued that, according to the testimony of the airfield personnel, no foreign aircraft landed there on that day. Another defendant, Ivan Smirnov, admitted that he took part in the murder of Sergei Kirov in December 1934, although at that time he had already been in prison for a year.

On July 2, 1937, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided to send the following telegram to the secretaries of regional committees, regional committees, and the Central Committee of the Communist Parties of the Union Republics:

“It has been noticed that most of the former kulaks and criminals expelled at one time from different areas to the northern and Siberian regions, and then after the expiration period, returning to their regions, 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 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.” The telegram was signed by Stalin.

On July 31, 1937, Yezhov signed NKVD Order No. 0447, approved by the Politburo, “On the operation to repress former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements.”

It said:

“Investigation materials in cases of anti-Soviet formations establish that a significant number of former kulaks settled in the village, previously repressed, hiding from repression, fleeing from camps, exile and labor camps. Many formerly repressed churchmen and sectarians, former active participants in anti-Soviet armed protests, settled. Significant cadres of anti-Soviet activists remained almost untouched in the village. political parties (Socialist Revolutionaries, Gruzmeks, Dashnaks, Mussavatists, Ittihadists, etc.), as well as personnel of former active participants in bandit uprisings, whites, punitive forces, repatriates, etc. Some of the elements listed above, having left the villages for the cities, penetrated into industrial enterprises, transport and construction. In addition, in the villages and cities there are still significant numbers of criminals - cattle thieves, repeat thieves, robbers and others who have served their sentences, escaped from places of imprisonment and are hiding from repression. The inadequacy of the fight against these criminal contingents has created conditions of impunity for them, conducive to their criminal activities. As has been established, all these 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.” According to this order, the following categories of persons subject to repression were determined: 1. Former kulaks who returned after serving their sentences and continue to conduct active anti-Soviet subversive activities. 2. Former kulaks who fled from camps or labor settlements, as well as kulaks who fled from dispossession and are engaged in anti-Soviet activities. 3. Former kulaks and socially dangerous elements who were members of rebel, fascist, terrorist and bandit formations, who served their sentences, fled from repression or escaped from prison and resumed their anti-Soviet criminal activities. 4. Members of anti-Soviet parties (Socialist Revolutionaries, Gruzmeks, Mussavatists, Ittihadists and Dashnaks), former whites, gendarmes, officials, punishers, bandits, bandits, ferrymen, re-emigrants who fled from repression, escaped from places of imprisonment and continue to conduct active anti-Soviet activities. 5. The most hostile and active participants in Cossack-White Guard rebel organizations, fascist, terrorist and spy-sabotage counter-revolutionary formations have been exposed by investigative and verified intelligence materials. 6. The most active anti-Soviet elements are former kulaks, punitive forces, bandits, whites, sectarian activists, churchmen and others, who are kept in prisons, camps, labor camps and colonies and continue to conduct active anti-Soviet subversive work there. 7. Criminals (bandits, robbers, repeat thieves, professional smugglers, repeat offenders, cattle thieves) engaged in criminal activities and associated with the criminal environment. 8. Criminal elements located in camps and labor settlements and conducting criminal activities in them.

With this order, “operational troikas” were formed at the level of republics and regions to expedite the consideration of thousands of cases. The troika usually included: the chairman - the local chief of the NKVD, the members - the local prosecutor and the first secretary of the regional, territorial or republican committee of the CPSU (b).

For each region Soviet Union limits were established for the “First Category” (execution), and for the “Second Category” (imprisonment in a camp for a period of 8 to 10 years). The total limit for repression throughout the country was 268,950 people, of which 75,950 people were subject to execution. The operation was expected to take place within four months.

Troikas considered cases in the absence of the accused, dozens of cases at each meeting. According to the memoirs of former security officer M.P. Schrader, who worked in senior positions in the NKVD system until 1938 and was then arrested, the order of work of the “troika” in the Ivanovo region was as follows: a summons was drawn up, or the so-called “album”, on each page of which the name, patronymic, surname, year were listed birth and the committed “crime” of the arrested person. After which the head of the regional department of the NKVD wrote on each page in red pencil capital letter“R” and signed his name, which meant “execution”. The sentence was carried out that same evening or at night. Usually the next day the pages of the “album-agenda” were signed by other members of the troika.

The minutes of the troika's meeting were sent to the heads of the NKVD operational groups to carry out the sentences. The order established that sentences under the “first category” are carried out in places and in an order at the direction of the People's Commissars of Internal Affairs, heads of regional departments and departments of the NKVD with the obligatory complete secrecy of the time and place of execution of the sentence.

Some of the repressions were carried out against people who had already been convicted and were in camps. For them, “first category” limits were allocated, and triplets were also formed.

The duration of the “kulak operation” (as it was sometimes called in NKVD documents, since former kulaks made up the majority of those repressed) was extended several times, and the limits were revised. Thus, on January 31, 1938, by a resolution of the Politburo, additional limits of 57 thousand 200 people were allocated for 22 regions, including 48 thousand people in the “first category”; on February 1, the Politburo approved an additional limit for the camps of the Far East of 12 thousand people “first category”, February 17 - an additional limit for Ukraine of 30 thousand people of all categories, July 31 - for the Far East 15 thousand people in the “first category”, 5 thousand people in the second, August 29 3 thousand people for Chita region.

In order to fulfill and exceed the established plans for repression, the NKVD authorities arrested and transferred the cases of the most people to the troikas for consideration. different professions and social origin.

The heads of the NKVD, having received an allocation for the arrest of several thousand people, were faced with the need to arrest hundreds and thousands of people at once. And since all these arrests had to be given some semblance of legality, the NKVD employees began to invent all kinds of insurrectionary, right-wing Trotskyist, spy-terrorist, sabotage and sabotage and similar organizations, “centers”, “blocs” and simply groups.

According to the materials of investigative cases of that time, in almost all territories, regions and republics there were widely branched “right-wing Trotskyist spy-terrorist, sabotage and sabotage” organizations and centers and, as a rule, these “organizations” or “centers” were headed by the first secretaries of regional committees, regional committees or the Central Committee of the Communist Parties of the Union Republics.

Thus, in the former Western region, the head of the “counter-revolutionary organization of the right” was the first secretary of the regional committee, I. P. Rumyantsev; in Tatarstan, the “leader of the right-wing Trotskyist nationalist bloc” was the former first secretary of the regional committee, A. K. Lepa; the leader of the “anti-Soviet terrorist organization of the right” in Chelyabinsk region was the first secretary of the regional committee K.V. Ryndin, etc.

In the Novosibirsk region, the “Siberian POV Committee”, “Novosibirsk Trotskyist Organization in the Red Army”, “Novosibirsk Trotskyist Terrorist Center”, “Novosibirsk Fascist National Socialist Party of Germany”, “Novosibirsk Latvian National Socialist Fascist Organization” and others were “opened” 33 “anti-Soviet” organizations and groups.

The NKVD of the Tajik SSR allegedly uncovered a counter-revolutionary bourgeois-nationalist organization. Her connections extended to the right-Trotskyist center, Iran, Afghanistan, Japan, England and Germany and the counter-revolutionary bourgeois-nationalist organization of the Uzbek SSR.

The leadership of this organization consisted of 4 former secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Tajikistan, 2 former chairmen of the Council of People's Commissars, 2 former chairmen of the Central Executive Committee of the republic, 12 people's commissars and 1 head of republican organizations, almost all heads. departments of the Central Committee, 18 secretaries of the Republic of Kazakhstan Communist Party (b) of Tajikistan, chairmen and deputy. chairmen of district executive committees, writers, military and other party and Soviet workers.

The NKVD for the Sverdlovsk region “opened” the so-called “Ural insurgent headquarters - the organ of the bloc of right-wingers, Trotskyists, Socialist-Revolutionaries, churchmen and EMRO agents,” led by the secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee Kabakov, a member of the CPSU since 1914. This headquarters allegedly united 200 military-style units, 15 rebel organizations and 56 groups.

In the Kyiv region, by December 1937, 87 rebel-sabotage, terrorist organizations and 365 rebel-sabotage sabotage groups had been “opened”.

Only at one Moscow aircraft factory No. 24 in 1937, 5 espionage, terrorist and sabotage groups were “opened” and liquidated, with a total number of 50 people (“right-wing Trotskyist” group and groups allegedly associated with German, Japanese, French and Latvian intelligence services). At the same time, it was indicated that “The plant is to this day clogged with anti-Soviet, socially alien and suspicious elements for espionage and sabotage. The existing count of these elements, according to official data alone, reaches 1000 people.”

In total, within the framework of the “kulak operation” alone, 818 thousand people were sentenced by troikas, of which 436 thousand people were sentenced to execution.

A significant category of those repressed were clergy. In 1937, 136,900 Orthodox clergy were arrested, of which 85,300 were shot; in 1938, 28,300 were arrested and 21,500 were executed. The same number of priests died in the pre-war Beria period. Thousands of Catholic, Islamic, Jewish and clergy of other faiths were also shot.

On May 21, 1938, by order of the NKVD, “police troikas” were formed, which had the right to sentence “socially dangerous elements” to exile or prison terms of 3-5 years without trial. These troikas handed down various sentences to 400 thousand people during the period 1937-1938. The category of persons in question included repeat criminals and buyers of stolen goods.

At the beginning of 1938, the cases of disabled people sentenced to 8-10 years in camps under various articles were reviewed by a troika in Moscow and the Moscow region, which sentenced them to capital punishment, since they could not be used as labor.

Propaganda, mass hysteria and denunciations

Official propaganda played an important role in the mechanism of terror. Meetings where they branded “Trotskyist-Bukharin scum” were held in labor collectives, in institutes, in schools. In 1937, the 20th anniversary of the state security organs was celebrated, each pioneer camp sought to be given the name of Yezhov.

The head of the Leningrad NKVD, Zakovsky, wrote in the Leningradskaya Pravda newspaper: “We recently received a statement from one worker that he was suspicious (although he does not have the facts) that the accountant is the daughter of a priest. They checked: it turned out that she was an enemy of the people. Therefore, one should not be embarrassed by the lack of facts; our authorities will check any statement, find out, and sort it out.”

Torture

Officially, torture of those arrested was permitted in 1937 with the sanction of Stalin.

When in 1939 local party bodies demanded the removal and trial of NKVD officers who participated in torture, Stalin sent the following telegram to the party bodies and NKVD bodies in which he gave a theoretical justification for torture:

The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party learned that the secretaries of the regional committees, checking the employees of the NKVD, blamed them for using physical force on those arrested as something criminal. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party explains that the use of physical force in the practice of the NKVD has been allowed since 1937 with the permission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party. It is known that all bourgeois intelligence services use physical force against representatives of the socialist proletariat, and they use it in the ugliest forms. The question is why socialist intelligence should be more humane in relation to the inveterate agents of the bourgeoisie, the sworn enemies of the working class and collective farmers. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party believes that the method of physical coercion must be used in the future, as an exception, in relation to obvious and undisarmed enemies of the people, as a completely correct and appropriate method. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party demands from the secretaries of regional committees, district committees, and the Central Committee of the National Communist Parties that when checking NKVD workers, they are guided by this explanation.

I.V. Stalin (Pyatnitsky V.I. “Osip Pyatnitsky and the Comintern on the scales of history”, Mn.: Harvest, 2004)

Former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Georgia Goglidze, who together with Beria led the development of terror in Georgia, testified at his trial in 1953.

Chairman: Did you receive instructions from Beria in 1937 about mass beatings of those arrested and how did you carry out these instructions?

Goglidze: Mass beatings of those arrested began in the spring of 1937. At that time, Beria, returning from Moscow, suggested that I summon to the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia all the heads of the city, district, regional NKVD and people's commissars of internal affairs of the autonomous union republics. When everyone arrived, Beria gathered us in the Central Committee building and made a report to those gathered. In his report, Beria noted that the NKVD of Georgia is fighting poorly against enemies, they are conducting investigations slowly, and enemies of the people are walking the streets. At the same time, Beria stated that if those arrested do not give the necessary testimony, they should be beaten. After this, the NKVD of Georgia began mass beatings of those arrested...

Chairman: Did Beria give instructions to beat people before execution?

Goglidze: Beria gave such instructions... Beria gave instructions to beat people before execution... (Dzhanibekyan V.G., "Provocateurs and the secret police", M., Veche, 2005)

• August 17, 1937 - order to conduct a “Romanian operation” against emigrants and defectors from Romania to Moldova and Ukraine. 8292 people were convicted, including 5439 people sentenced to death.
• November 30, 1937 - NKVD directive on carrying out an operation against defectors from Latvia, activists of Latvian clubs and societies. 21,300 people were convicted, of which 16,575 people. shot.
• December 11, 1937 - NKVD directive on the operation against the Greeks. 12,557 people were convicted, of which 10,545 people sentenced to death.
• December 14, 1937 - NKVD directive on the extension of repression along the “Latvian line” to Estonians, Lithuanians, Finns, and Bulgarians. 9,735 people were convicted along the “Estonian line”, including 7,998 people sentenced to death; 11,066 people were convicted along the “Finnish line”, of which 9,078 people were sentenced to death;
• January 29, 1938 - NKVD directive on the “Iranian operation”. 13,297 people were convicted, of whom 2,046 were sentenced to death.
• February 1, 1938 - NKVD directive on a “national operation” against the Bulgarians and Macedonians.
• February 16, 1938 - NKVD directive on arrests along the “Afghan line.” 1,557 people were convicted, of which 366 were sentenced to death.
• March 23, 1938 - Politburo resolution on clearing the defense industry of persons belonging to nationalities against whom repression is being carried out.
• June 24, 1938 - directive of the People's Commissariat of Defense on the dismissal from the Red Army of military personnel of nationalities not represented on the territory of the USSR.

According to these and other documents, the following were subject to repression: Germans, Romanians, Bulgarians, Poles, Finns, Norwegians, Estonians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Pashtuns, Macedonians, Greeks, Persians, Mingrelians, Laks, Kurds, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Karelians and etc.

Yezhov said: “Bulgarians must be slaughtered like rabbits...”. Persons of such nationalities were excluded and dismissed from the party, army, punitive bodies (NKVD), economy, industry, and in the majority were repressed. In Sakhalin, the Iranian part of Azerbaijan and the northern part of Karelia, half the population was repressed without any reason.

In 1937, the deportation of Koreans and Chinese from the Far East was carried out. The head of this action was appointed: the head of the Gulag and the NKVD department for the resettlement of people M.D. Berman, NKVD plenipotentiary representative for the Far East G.S. Lyushkova, deputy head of the Gulag I.I. Pliner and all of Lyushkov’s deputies and assistants. According to the recollections of Koreans who survived the deportation, people were forcibly driven into wagons and trucks and taken to Kazakhstan for a week; during the journey, people died from hunger, dirt, disease, bullying, and poor conditions in general. Koreans and Chinese were deported to camps in Kazakhstan, Southern Urals, Altai and Kyrgyzstan. Almost all of the deportees were rehabilitated in the late 50s, but by that time there were very few survivors. Those who led this action will themselves die during the terror, while Lyushkov, fearing arrest, emigrates to Japan.

So, for example, at the beginning of 1938, an operational group headed by the assistant head of the NKVD of the Irkutsk region, B.P. Kulvets, went to the Bodaibinsky district of the Irkutsk region.

Request to increase the limit for the first category in the Irkutsk region with resolutions of Politburo members

“Only today, March 10th, I received a decision for 157 people. We dug 4 holes. We had to carry out blasting work due to permafrost. He allocated 6 people for the upcoming operation. I will carry out the execution of the sentences myself. I will not and cannot trust anyone. Due to off-road conditions, it can be transported on small 3-4 seater sleighs. I chose 6 sleds. We will shoot ourselves, carry them ourselves, and so on. You will have to make 7–8 flights. It will take an extremely long time, but I don’t risk singling out any more people. So far everything is quiet. I’ll report on the results.”

“No matter what the typists read, I am not writing to you in print. According to the Troika’s decisions, the operation was carried out on only 115 people, since the pits are adapted for no more than 100 people.” “The operation was carried out with enormous difficulties. I will give you more details when I report in person. So far everything is quiet and the prison doesn’t even know. The explanation is that before the operation he carried out a number of measures to ensure the safety of the operation. I will also report on them during my personal report.”

Terror in Gulag camps and special prisons

NKVD Order No. 00447 of July 31, 1937 provided, among other things, for the review by troikas of cases of convicts already in Gulag camps and prisons (prisons for special purposes). According to the decisions of the troikas, about 8 thousand prisoners of the Kolyma camps, over 8 thousand prisoners of Dmitrovlag, 1825 prisoners of the Solovetsky special purpose prison, thousands of prisoners of the Kazakh camps were shot. For many, by decision of the troikas and the Special Meeting, their terms of imprisonment were extended.

The end of the great terror

By September 1938, the main task of the Great Terror was completed. In July-September, a mass shooting of previously arrested party functionaries, communists, military leaders, NKVD employees, intellectuals and other citizens was carried out; this was the beginning of the end of terror. In October 1938, all extrajudicial sentencing bodies were dissolved (with the exception of the Special Meeting under the NKVD, since it received greater powers after Beria joined the NKVD, including the imposition of death sentences).

In December 1938, like Yagoda, Yezhov was transferred to a less important People's Commissariat and took the post of People's Commissar of Water Transport. In March 1939, Yezhov was removed from the post of Chairman of the CPC as an “ideologically alien element.” Beria, who was the organizer of the mass terror of 1937-1938, was appointed in his place. in Georgia and Transcaucasia, and then was appointed first deputy people's commissar of internal affairs.

On April 10, 1939, Yezhov was arrested on charges of collaborating with foreign intelligence services, organizing a fascist conspiracy in the NKVD and preparing an armed uprising against Soviet power, Yezhov was also accused of homosexuality (this accusation was completely true, since at the trial he admitted only this). On February 4, 1940, he was shot.

The first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus P.K. Ponomarenko demanded from the head of the republican NKVD Nasedkin - which he later reported in writing to the new head of the NKVD of the USSR Beria - to remove from official duties all employees who took part in the beatings of those arrested. But this idea had to be abandoned: Nasedkin explained to the First Secretary of the Central Committee that “if you go along this path, then 80 percent of the entire apparatus of the NKVD of the BSSR must be removed from work and put on trial.”

Family members of the repressed

The famous phrase “The son is not responsible for his father” was uttered by Stalin in December 1935. At a meeting in Moscow of advanced combine operators with the party leadership, one of them, the Bashkir collective farmer Gilba, said: “Although I am the son of a kulak, I will honestly fight for the cause workers and peasants and for building socialism,” to which Stalin said, “The son is not responsible for his father.”

NKVD Order No. 00447 dated July 31, 1937 established that family members of those repressed in accordance with this order who are “capable of active anti-Soviet actions”, with a special decision of the troika, are subject to placement in camps or labor settlements. Families of persons “repressed under the first category” who lived in the border strip were subject to resettlement outside the border strip within the republics, territories and regions, and those living in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Tbilisi, Baku, Rostov-on-Don, Taganrog and in the Sochi regions , Gagra and Sukhumi - were subject to eviction from these points to other areas of their choice, with the exception of border areas.

144. - NKVD question. 1. Accept the proposal of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs to imprison in camps for 5-8 years all the wives of convicted traitors to the homeland, members of the right-wing Trotskyist espionage and sabotage organization, according to the list presented. 2. Suggest to the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs to organize special camps for this in the Narym region and the Turgai region of Kazakhstan. 3. From now on, establish a procedure according to which all wives of right-wing Trotskyist spies exposed as traitors to the homeland are subject to imprisonment in camps for no less than 5-8 years. 4. All remaining orphans under 15 years of age after conviction should be taken into state support; as for children over 15 years of age, the issue will be resolved individually. 5. To propose to the People's Commissariat for Vnutrition to place children in the existing network of orphanages and closed boarding schools of the People's Commissariat for Education of the republics. All children are subject to placement in cities outside Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Tiflis, Minsk, coastal cities, border cities. SECRETARY OF THE Central Committee

In pursuance of this order, on August 15, 1937, a corresponding directive from the NKVD followed, already containing a number of clarifications:

• total repressions are regulated only against wives and children, and not against any family members at all, as in the Politburo order;
• wives are ordered to be arrested together with their husbands;
• ex-wives are ordered to be arrested only if they “participated in counter-revolutionary activities”
• children over 15 years of age are ordered to be arrested only if they are recognized as “socially dangerous”
• the arrest of pregnant women with infants in their arms, seriously ill people may be temporarily postponed
• children left unattended after the arrest of their mother are placed in orphanages, “if other relatives (not repressed) wish to take in the remaining orphans for their full dependency, this should not be prevented.”
• The mechanism for implementing the directive provides for a Special Meeting of the NKVD.

Subsequently, this policy was adjusted several times.

In October 1937, by directive of the NKVD, repressions against “members of the families of traitors to the Motherland” (CSIR) were also extended to a number of convicts on “national lines” (“Polish line”, “German”, “Romanian”, “Harbin”). However, such arrests stopped in November.

In October 1938, the NKVD moved to arrest not all the wives of convicts, but only those who “assisted in the counter-revolutionary work of their husbands” or for whom “there is evidence of anti-Soviet sentiments.”

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 Institute Russian history RAS. After graduating from the Institute of History and Archives, he worked as a journalist at the Novosti press agency.

In 1976 he defended his Ph.D. thesis, in 1992 - his doctorate, and supervised the creation of the encyclopedias "Moscow", "Civil War foreign intervention in 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 striking 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. Further. 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, real numbers others. 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. Go ahead. 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, new system elections 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 didn’t support you. Come on, dear, look for a job that’s up to you, 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 from higher education, or not completed - from the third, fourth courses, mainly Russian. 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 person 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 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 it was the meaning 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. Managed. 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...

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 was its unprecedentedness and scale. massacres, organized 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 order-bearing chief, 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 for 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, since 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 - 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. In total, almost 2.5 million people took part in them - three times more than in the White movement during 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 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 remained active in the USSR Orthodox parishes and no more than 350 temples. 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. Nobles, merchants, representatives of the clergy, Cossacks, former officers, members of other political parties, White Guards and White emigrants, then kulaks and subkulak members, “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, incredible spiritual corruption of many millions of 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. Did they kill him by medicinal influence or did they not give him timely treatment? medical care- it is not so important.

Still, in the long term, Stalin turned out to be political 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 in a small part came to the surface of public life: information appeared in the Soviet press only about large and, at the local level, about small show trials, accompanied by pogrom propaganda. Personal experience 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: each family, each 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 industries);


• 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 for approval to Stalin and his closest associates - 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 material base churches, difficulty in participating 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 All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) 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 intelligence and operational work against anti-Soviet Turkic-Tatar nationalist organizations.” The activation of “nationalist elements” in Azerbaijan, Crimea, Tatarstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, 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” is noted. , “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, Kiev, 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 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 strengthening 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 P.P. Postyshev’s dissolution of 30 district party committees 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 the 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 suffered the main blow in Central Asia and Transcaucasia. 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 an 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 was cited as an example to follow: “Having specially instructed police officers who are sticking photographs on passports and assigned employees of the State Security Administration to specific assistance the police apparatus, the NKVD of the BSSR only for 20 industrial enterprises of the cities. Minsk identified defectors in hiding - 122, so-called. political emigrants – 17, persons of foreign origin (Germans, Romanians, Harbin residents, etc.) – 644.”