Home Fertilizers The scale of the Stalinist repressions - exact numbers. Stalinist repressions - reasons, lists of repressed and rehabilitated victims

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The scale of the Stalinist repressions - exact numbers. Stalinist repressions - reasons, lists of repressed and rehabilitated victims

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

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

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

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

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

Path to politics

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

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

Motives

Goals Stalinist repression pursued several motives, and each of them reached them in full. They are as follows:

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

Terror at its peak

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

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

Numbers

Anti-Stalinists Seize Opportunity once again exaggerate the real data. For example:

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

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

Repression during the Second World War

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

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

Characteristic features of the Stalinist period

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

The degree of cruelty

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

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

Mass character

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

Politicization and anti-nationality

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

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

Attack on the "cream of society"

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

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

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

Judicial system

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

The scale of the Stalinist repressions - exact numbers

In a contest of liars

In accusatory rage, the writers of anti-Stalinist horror stories seem to be competing who will lie the strongest, vying with each other to name the astronomical numbers of those killed at the hands of the "bloody tyrant". Against their background, a dissident Roy Medvedev, limited to a "modest" figure of 40 million, looks like a black sheep, a model of moderation and conscientiousness:

"Thus, total number victims of Stalinism reaches, according to my calculations, figures of about 40 million people».

Indeed, it is undignified. Another dissident, son of a repressed revolutionary Trotskyist A. V. Antonov-Ovseenko, without a shadow of embarrassment, calls a double figure:

“These calculations are very, very approximate, but I am sure of one thing: the Stalinist regime bled the people, destroying more 80 million his best sons. "

Professional "rehabilitators" led by former member Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU A. N. Yakovlev are already talking about 100 million:

“According to the most conservative estimates of the specialists of the rehabilitation commission, our country has lost about 100 million human. This number includes not only the repressed themselves, but also members of their families doomed to death, and even children who could have been born, but were never born ”.

However, according to the version Yakovleva the notorious 100 million includes not only direct “victims of the regime”, but also unborn children. But the writer Igor Bunich does not hesitate to assert that all these "100 million people were mercilessly exterminated."

However, this is not the limit. The absolute record was set by Boris Nemtsov, who announced on November 7, 2003 in the "Freedom of Speech" program on the NTV channel about 150 million people allegedly lost by the Russian state after 1917.

Who are these fantastically ridiculous figures for, readily replicated by Russian and foreign funds? mass media? Those who have forgotten how to think for themselves, who are used to uncritically taking on faith any nonsense that rushes from TV screens.

It is easy to be convinced of the absurdity of the multimillion-dollar figures of "victims of repression". It is enough to open any demographic reference book and, picking up a calculator, make simple calculations. For those who are too lazy to do this, I will give a small illustrative example.

According to the census conducted in January 1959, the population of the USSR was 208,827 thousand people. By the end of 1913, 159,153 thousand people lived within the same borders. It is easy to calculate that the average annual population growth in our country in the period from 1914 to 1959 was 0.60%.

Now let's see how the population of England, France and Germany, countries that also took an active part in both world wars, grew in the same years.

So, the rate of population growth in the Stalinist USSR turned out to be almost one and a half times higher than in the Western "democracies", although for these states we excluded the extremely unfavorable demographically years of the First World War. Could this have happened if the "bloody Stalinist regime" destroyed 150 million or at least 40 million residents of our country? Of course no!

They say archival documents

To find out the true number of those executed when Stalin, it is not at all necessary to engage in fortune-telling on the coffee grounds. It is enough to read the declassified documents. The most famous of these is a memo addressed to N. S. Khrushcheva dated February 1, 1954:

Comrade Khrushchev N. S.

In connection with the signals received by the Central Committee of the CPSU from a number of persons about unlawful convictions for counter-revolutionary crimes in past years by the OGPU Collegium, the NKVD troikas, and a Special Meeting. By the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals, and in accordance with your instructions on the need to reconsider the cases of persons convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes and currently held in camps and prisons, we report:

According to the data available in the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, for the period from 1921 to the present, he was convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes by the OGPU Collegium, NKVD troikas, a Special Meeting, the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals. 3 777 380 people, including:

to VMN - 642 980 human,

Out of the total number of those arrested, tentatively, the following were convicted: 2 900 000 people - the Board of the OGPU, troikas of the NKVD and a Special meeting and 877 000 people - by courts, military tribunals, the Special Collegium and the Military Collegium.

Attorney General R. Rudenko

Minister of Internal Affairs S. Kruglov

Minister of Justice K. Gorshenin "

According to the document, from 1921 to early 1954, he was sentenced to death on political charges. 642 980 a person to imprisonment - 2 369 220 , to the link - 765 180 .

However, there are more detailed data on the number of those sentenced to death for counter-revolutionary and other especially dangerous state crimes.

Thus, for the years 1921-1953 they were sentenced to death. 815 639 human. All in all, in 1918-1953, in the affairs of the state security bodies, they were brought to criminal responsibility. 4 308 487 person of which 835 194 condemned to the highest measure.

So, the "repressed" turned out to be slightly more than indicated in the report dated February 1, 1954. However, the difference is not too great - the numbers are of the same order of magnitude.

In addition, it is quite possible that a fair number of criminals were among those who received sentences on political charges. On one of the certificates stored in the archive, on the basis of which the above table was compiled, there is a pencil mark:

“Total convicts for 1921-1938. - 2 944 879 people, of which 30 % (1062 thousand) - criminals»

In this case, the total number of "victims of repression" does not exceed three million. However, in order to finally clarify this issue, it is necessary extra work with sources.

It should also be borne in mind that not all sentences were carried out. For example, out of 76 death sentences handed down by the Tyumen District Court in the first half of 1929, by January 1930, 46 were changed or canceled by higher authorities, and only nine of the remaining were carried out.

From July 15, 1939 to April 20, 1940, 201 prisoners were sentenced to capital punishment for the disorganization of camp life and production. However, then parts of them the death penalty was replaced by imprisonment for terms ranging from 10 to 15 years.

In 1934, in the camps of the NKVD, 3849 prisoners were held, sentenced to capital punishment with replacement of imprisonment. In 1935 there were 5671 such prisoners, in 1936 - 7303, in 1937 - 6239, in 1938 - 5926, in 1939 - 3425, in 1940 - 4037 people.

Number of prisoners

Initially, the number of inmates in forced labor camps (ITL) was relatively small. So, on January 1, 1930, it amounted to 179,000 people, on January 1, 1931 - 212,000, on January 1, 1932 - 268,700, on January 1, 1933 - 334,300, on January 1, 1934 - 510 307 people.

In addition to the ITL, there were correctional labor colonies (NTK), where convicts were sent for short periods. Until the fall of 1938, the ITK, together with the prisons, were subordinate to the Department of Places of Imprisonment (OMZ) of the NKVD of the USSR. Therefore, for the years 1935-1938, so far it has been possible to find only joint statistics. Since 1939, ITKs were under the jurisdiction of the GULAG, and prisons were under the jurisdiction of the Main Prison Administration (GTU) of the NKVD of the USSR.

How reliable can these figures be? All of them are taken from the internal reports of the NKVD - classified documents not intended for publication. In addition, these summary figures are quite consistent with the primary reports, they can be decomposed by month, as well as by individual camps:

Let us now calculate the number of prisoners per capita. On January 1, 1941, as can be seen from the table above, the total number of prisoners in the USSR was 2 400 422 person. The exact population of the USSR at this time is unknown, but it is usually estimated in the range of 190-195 million.

Thus, we get from 1230 to 1260 prisoners for every 100 thousand of the population. On January 1, 1950, the number of prisoners in the USSR was 2 760 095 people - the maximum indicator for the entire period of Stalin's rule. The population of the USSR at that time was 178 million 547 thousand. We get 1546 prisoners per 100 thousand of the population, 1.54%. This is the largest indicator ever.

Let's calculate a similar indicator for modern USA... Currently, there are two types of places of deprivation of liberty there: jail is an approximate analogue of our temporary detention centers, jail contains persons under investigation, and also those sentenced to short terms serve their sentences, and prison is the prison itself. At the end of 1999, prisons held 1,366,721 people, jails - 687,973 (see the website of the Bureau of Legal Statistics of the US Department of Justice), which gives a total of 2,054,694. The population of the United States at the end of 1999 is approximately 275 million. , therefore, we get 747 prisoners per 100 thousand of the population.

Yes, half that of Stalin, but not ten times. It is somehow undignified for a power that has taken upon itself the protection of "human rights" on a global scale.

Moreover, this is a comparison of the peak number of prisoners in the Stalinist USSR, which is also due to the first civil and then the Great Patriotic War. And among the so-called "victims of political repression" there will be a fair share of supporters of the white movement, collaborationists, Hitler's accomplices, members of the ROA, policemen, not to mention ordinary criminals.

There are calculations that compare the average number of prisoners over a period of several years.

The data on the number of prisoners in the Stalinist USSR exactly coincide with those given above. According to these data, it turns out that on average for the period from 1930 to 1940, there were 583 prisoners per 100,000 people, or 0.58%. That is significantly less than the same indicator in Russia and the USA in the 90s.

What is the total number of those who have been in places of detention under Stalin? Of course, if you take a table with the annual number of prisoners and add up the lines, as many anti-Soviet people do, the result will be incorrect, since most of them were sentenced to prison terms. more than a year... Therefore, this should be assessed by the amount not imprisoned, but by the amount of convicts, which was given above.

How many of the prisoners were "political"?

As we can see, up to 1942, the "repressed" accounted for no more than a third of the prisoners held in the gulag camps. And only then their share increased, having received a worthy "replenishment" in the person of Vlasovites, policemen, elders and other "fighters against communist tyranny." Even less was the percentage of "political" in the correctional labor colonies.

Prisoner mortality

The available archival documents make it possible to illuminate this issue as well. In 1931, 7283 people died in the labor camp (3.03% of the average annual number), in 1932 - 13,197 (4.38%), in 1933 - 67,297 (15.94%), in 1934 - 26,295 prisoners (4.26%).

For 1953, data are given for the first three months.

As we can see, the mortality rate in places of detention (especially in prisons) did not at all reach those fantastic values that accusers like to talk about. But still, its level is quite high. It increases especially strongly in the first years of the war. As it was said in the mortality certificate for the OITK NKVD for 1941, compiled by the acting. Chief of the Sanitary Department of the GULAG NKVD I. K. Zitserman:

Basically, mortality began to increase sharply from September 41, mainly due to the transfer of w / c from units located in the front-line areas: from the BBK and Vytegorlag to the OITK of the Vologda and Omsk regions, from the OITK of the Moldavian SSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Leningrad region. in OITK Kirovskaya, Molotovskaya and Sverdlovskaya oblasts. As a rule, the stages of a significant part of the journey, several hundred kilometers before loading into wagons, were carried out on foot. On the way, they were absolutely not provided with the minimum essential products food (they did not receive completely bread and even water), as a result of such a transfer, s / c gave a sharp depletion, a very large %% of avitaminosis diseases, in particular pellagra, which gave significant mortality along the route and upon arrival at the corresponding OITK, which were not prepared to accept a significant number of replenishments. At the same time, the introduction of reduced norms of allowance by 25-30% (order No. 648 and 0437) with an extended working day up to 12 hours, often the absence of basic food products even at reduced rates could not but affect the increase in morbidity and mortality

However, since 1944, mortality has dropped significantly. By the beginning of the 1950s, in the camps and colonies, it fell below 1%, and in prisons - below 0.5% per year.

Special camps

Let's say a few words about the notorious Special camps (special camps), created in accordance with the decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 416-159ss of February 21, 1948. These camps (just like the Special Prisons that already existed by that time) were supposed to concentrate all those sentenced to imprisonment for espionage, sabotage, terror, as well as Trotskyists, rightists, Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, anarchists, nationalists, White emigrants, members of anti-Soviet organizations and groups and "persons posing a danger in their anti-Soviet ties." The prisoners of the special camp were to be used on heavy physical work.

As we can see, the mortality rate of inmates in special camps was only slightly higher than the mortality rate in ordinary ITCs. Contrary to popular belief, the special lords were not “death camps” in which the bloom of the dissenting intelligentsia was allegedly destroyed, moreover, the most numerous contingent of their inhabitants were “nationalists” - forest brothers and their accomplices.

1937 year. "Stalinist repressions ". The great lie of the 20th century.

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Estimates of the number of victims of Stalinist repressions differ dramatically. Some cite numbers in tens of millions of people, others limit themselves to hundreds of thousands. Which of them is closer to the truth?

Who is guilty?

Today our society is almost equally divided into Stalinists and anti-Stalinists. The former draw attention to the positive transformations that took place in the country during the Stalin era, the latter urge not to forget about the huge numbers of victims of the repressions of the Stalinist regime.
However, almost all Stalinists recognize the fact of repression, but note their limited nature and even justify it by political necessity. Moreover, they often do not associate repression with the name of Stalin.
Historian Nikolai Kopesov writes that in most of the investigative cases on those repressed in 1937-1938, there were no resolutions of Stalin - everywhere there were sentences of Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria. In the opinion of the Stalinists, this is proof that the heads of the punitive bodies were engaged in arbitrariness and in support of this they quote Yezhov's quote: "Whoever we want, we execute, whoever we want, we have mercy."
For that part of the Russian public that sees Stalin as the ideologist of repression, these are just particulars that confirm the rule. Yagoda, Yezhov and many other rulers of human destinies themselves were victims of terror. Who else but Stalin was behind all this? - they ask a rhetorical question.
Doctor historical sciences Oleg Khlevnyuk, chief specialist of the State Archives of the Russian Federation, notes that despite the fact that Stalin's signature was not on many execution lists, it was he who sanctioned almost all mass political repressions.

Who was hurt?

The issue of victims acquired even more weighty significance in the controversy surrounding the Stalinist repressions. Who suffered during the Stalinist period and in what capacity? Many researchers note that the very concept of "victims of repression" is rather vague. Historiography has not worked out clear definitions on this matter.
Of course, convicts, imprisoned in prisons and camps, shot, deported, deprived of property should be counted among the victims of the actions of the authorities. But what about, for example, those who were subjected to "interrogation with partiality" and then released? Should we distinguish between criminal and political prisoners? What category should we classify "thugs" caught in small single thefts and equated to state criminals?
The deported deserve special attention. To what category should they be classified - repressed or administratively deported? It is even more difficult to decide on those who fled without waiting for dispossession or deportation. They were sometimes caught, but someone was lucky enough to start a new life.

Such different numbers

Uncertainties in the question of who is responsible for the repression, in identifying the categories of victims and the period for which the victims of repression should be counted lead to completely different figures. The most impressive figures were given by the economist Ivan Kurganov (this data was referred to by Solzhenitsyn in the novel The Gulag Archipelago), who calculated that from 1917 to 1959, 110 million people became victims of the internal war of the Soviet regime against its people.
This number includes Kurganov victims of famine, collectivization, peasant exile, camps, executions, civil war, as well as "the scornful and sloppy waging of the Second World War."
Even if such calculations are correct, can these figures be considered a reflection of Stalin's repressions? The economist, in fact, answers this question himself, using the expression “victims of the internal war of the Soviet regime”. It is worth noting that Kurganov only counted the dead. It is difficult to imagine what figure could appear if the economist took into account all those who suffered from the Soviet regime during the specified period.
The figures quoted by the head of the human rights society "Memorial" Arseniy Roginsky are more realistic. He writes: “In all Soviet Union 12.5 million people are considered victims of political repression ”, but at the same time he adds that in a broad sense, up to 30 million people can be considered repressed.
The leaders of the Yabloko movement Elena Kriven and Oleg Naumov counted all categories of victims of the Stalinist regime, including those who died in the camps from diseases and harsh working conditions, the disenfranchised, victims of hunger who suffered from unjustifiably cruel decrees and received excessive severe punishment for minor offenses due to the repressive nature of the legislation. The final figure is 39 million.
Researcher Ivan Gladilin notes in this regard that if the counting of victims of repression has been conducted since 1921, this means that it is not Stalin who is responsible for a significant part of the crimes, but “ Lenin's guard", Which immediately after October revolution launched a terror against the White Guards, clerics and kulaks.

How to count?

Estimates of the number of victims of repression vary greatly depending on the method of counting. If we take into account the convicts only under political articles, then according to the data of the regional departments of the KGB of the USSR, cited in 1988, Soviet authorities(Cheka, GPU, OGPU, NKVD, NKGB, MGB) 4,308,487 people were arrested, of which 835,194 were shot.
Employees of the "Memorial" society when counting victims political processes close to these figures, although their data is still much higher - 4.5-4.8 million were convicted, of which 1.1 million were shot. If everyone who went through the GULAG system is considered as victims of the Stalinist regime, then this figure, according to various estimates, will fluctuate from 15 to 18 million people.
Very often Stalin's repressions are associated exclusively with the concept of the "Great Terror", which peaked in 1937-1938. According to a commission led by academician Pyotr Pospelov to establish the reasons massive repression The following figures were announced: 1,548,366 people were arrested on charges of anti-Soviet activities, of which 681,692,000 were sentenced to capital punishment.
Historian Viktor Zemskov, one of the most authoritative specialists on the demographic aspects of political repression in the USSR, names a smaller number of those convicted during the Great Terror - 1,344,923, although his data coincide with the number of those executed.
If the dispossessed are included in the number of those subjected to repression in Stalin's time, then the figure will increase, by at least, for 4 million people. Such a number of dispossessed people is cited by the same Zemskov. The Yabloko party also agrees with this, noting that about 600 thousand of them died in exile.
The victims of Stalin's repressions were also representatives of some peoples who were subjected to forced deportation - Germans, Poles, Finns, Karachais, Kalmyks, Armenians, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars... Many historians agree that the total number of the deported is about 6 million people, while about 1.2 million people did not live to see the end of the journey.

Trust or not?

The above figures are mostly based on the reports of the OGPU, NKVD, MGB. However, not all of the documents of the punitive departments have survived, many of them were purposefully destroyed, many are still in closed access.
It should be admitted that historians are very dependent on statistics collected by various special agencies. But the difficulty is that even the available information reflects only the officially repressed, and therefore, by definition, cannot be complete. Moreover, it is possible to check it from primary sources only in the rarest cases.
Acute deficiency of reliable and complete information often provoked both the Stalinists and their opponents to name radically different figures in favor of their position. “If the“ right ”exaggerated the scale of the repressions, then the“ left ”, partly from dubious youth, finding much more modest figures in the archives, rushed to make them public and did not always ask themselves the question whether everything was reflected - and could be reflected - in the archives”, - notes the historian Nikolai Koposov.
It can be stated that estimates of the scale of Stalinist repressions based on the sources available to us can be very approximate. Documents stored in federal archives would be a good help for modern researchers, but many of them have been re-classified. A country with such a history will jealously guard the secrets of its past.

The results of Stalin's rule speak for themselves. To devalue them, to form a negative assessment in the public mind Stalin era, fighters against totalitarianism, willy-nilly, have to whip up horrors, attributing monstrous atrocities to Stalin.

In a contest of liars

In accusatory rage, the writers of anti-Stalinist horror stories seem to be competing who will lie the strongest, vying with each other to name the astronomical numbers of those killed at the hands of the "bloody tyrant". Against their background, the dissident Roy Medvedev, who limited himself to the "modest" figure of 40 million, looks like a black sheep, a model of moderation and conscientiousness:

"Thus, the total number of victims of Stalinism reaches, according to my calculations, the figure of about 40 million people."

Indeed, it is undignified. Another dissident, the son of the repressed revolutionary Trotskyist A.V. Antonov-Ovseenko, without a shadow of embarrassment calls a double figure:

"These calculations are very, very approximate, but I am sure of one thing: the Stalinist regime bled the people, destroying more than 80 million of its best sons."

Professional "rehabilitators" headed by a former member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU A. N. Yakovlev are already talking about 100 million:

“According to the most conservative estimates of the specialists of the rehabilitation commission, our country has lost about 100 million people during the years of Stalin's rule. This number includes not only the repressed themselves, but also members of their families doomed to death, and even children who could have been born, but were never born ”.

However, according to Yakovlev, the notorious 100 million includes not only direct “victims of the regime”, but also unborn children. But the writer Igor Bunich does not hesitate to assert that all these "100 million people were mercilessly exterminated."

However, this is not the limit. The absolute record was set by Boris Nemtsov, who announced on November 7, 2003 in the "Freedom of Speech" program on the NTV channel about 150 million people allegedly lost by the Russian state after 1917.

Who are these fantastically ridiculous figures that are readily replicated by the Russian and foreign mass media? Those who have forgotten how to think for themselves, who are used to uncritically taking on faith any nonsense that rushes from TV screens.

Now let's see how the population of England, France and Germany, countries that also took an active part in both world wars, grew in the same years.

So, the rate of population growth in the Stalinist USSR turned out to be almost one and a half times higher than in the Western "democracies", although for these states we excluded the extremely unfavorable demographically years of the First World War. Could this have happened if the “bloody Stalinist regime” had destroyed 150 million or at least 40 million inhabitants of our country? Of course no!
They say archival documents

To find out the true number of those executed under Stalin, it is not at all necessary to engage in fortune-telling on the coffee grounds. It is enough to read the declassified documents. The most famous of them is a memo addressed to N. S. Khrushchev dated February 1, 1954:

"To the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee

To Comrade Khrushchev N. S.

According to the data available in the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, for the period from 1921 to the present, 3,777,380 people were convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes by the OGPU Collegium, NKVD troikas, a Special Meeting, the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals, including:

Out of the total number of those arrested, roughly, convicted: 2,900,000 people - by the OGPU Collegium, NKVD troikas and a Special Council and 877,000 people - by courts, military tribunals, the Special Collegium and the Military Collegium.

…
General Prosecutor R. Rudenko
Minister of Internal Affairs S. Kruglov
Minister of Justice K. Gorshenin "

As it is clear from the document, from 1921 to the beginning of 1954, 642 980 people were sentenced to death on political charges, 2,369,220 to imprisonment, 765,180 to exile. However, there are more detailed data on the number of those convicted.

Thus, in 1921-1953, 815,639 people were sentenced to death. In total, in 1918-1953, 4,308,487 people were prosecuted for the affairs of the state security bodies, of which 835,194 were sentenced to death.

So, the "repressed" turned out to be slightly more than indicated in the report dated February 1, 1954. However, the difference is not too great - the numbers are of the same order of magnitude.

“Total convicts for 1921-1938. - 2 944 879 people, of which 30% (1062 thousand) are criminals "

In this case, the total number of "victims of repression" does not exceed three million. However, in order to finally clarify this issue, additional work with sources is required.

From July 15, 1939 to April 20, 1940, 201 prisoners were sentenced to capital punishment for the disorganization of camp life and production. However, later on some of them the death penalty was replaced by imprisonment for terms of 10 to 15 years.

How reliable can these figures be? All of them are taken from the internal reports of the NKVD - secret documents not intended for publication. In addition, these summary figures are quite consistent with the primary reports, they can be decomposed by month, as well as by individual camps:

Let us now calculate the number of prisoners per capita. On January 1, 1941, as can be seen from the above table, the total number of prisoners in the USSR was 2,400,422. The exact size of the population of the USSR at this time is unknown, but it is usually estimated in the range of 190-195 million.

Thus, we get from 1230 to 1260 prisoners for every 100 thousand of the population. On January 1, 1950, the number of prisoners in the USSR was 2 760 095 people - the maximum figure for the entire period of Stalin's rule. The population of the USSR at that time was 178 million 547 thousand. We get 1546 prisoners per 100 thousand of the population, 1.54%. This is the largest indicator ever.

Let's calculate a similar figure for the modern USA. Currently, there are two types of places of deprivation of liberty there: jail is an approximate analogue of our temporary detention centers, jail contains persons under investigation, and also serving sentences for short sentences, and prison is the prison itself. At the end of 1999, prisons held 1,366,721 people, jails - 687,973 (see the website of the Bureau of Legal Statistics of the US Department of Justice), which gives a total of 2,054,694. The population of the United States at the end of 1999 is approximately 275 million. , therefore, we get 747 prisoners per 100 thousand of the population.

Yes, half that of Stalin, but not ten times. It is somehow undignified for a power that has taken upon itself the protection of "human rights" on a global scale.

Moreover, this is a comparison of the peak number of prisoners in the Stalinist USSR, which, moreover, is due to the first civil and then the Great Patriotic War... And among the so-called "victims of political repression" there will be a fair share of supporters of the white movement, collaborationists, Hitler's accomplices, members of the ROA, policemen, not to mention ordinary criminals.

There are calculations that compare the average number of prisoners over a period of several years.

What is the total number of those who have been in places of detention under Stalin? Of course, if you take a table with the annual number of prisoners and add up the lines, as many anti-Soviet people do, the result will be incorrect, since most of them were sentenced to more than a year. Therefore, this should be assessed by the amount not imprisoned, but by the amount of convicts, which was given above.
How many of the prisoners were "political"?

The available archival documents make it possible to illuminate this issue as well.

In 1931, 7,283 people died in the labor camp (3.03% of the average annual number), in 1932 - 13,197 (4.38%), in 1933 - 67,297 (15.94%), in 1934 - 26,295 prisoners (4.26%).

For 1953, data are given for the first three months.

Basically, mortality began to increase sharply from September 41, mainly due to the transfer of w / c from units located in the front-line areas: from the BBK and Vytegorlag to the OITK of the Vologda and Omsk regions, from the OITK of the Moldavian SSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Leningrad region. in OITK Kirovskaya, Molotovskaya and Sverdlovsk regions... As a rule, the stages of a significant part of the journey, several hundred kilometers before loading into wagons, were carried out on foot. On the way, they were not at all provided with the minimum necessary foodstuffs (they did not receive bread and even water), as a result of such a transfer, s / c gave a sharp depletion, a very large %% of avitaminosis diseases, in particular pellagra, which gave significant mortality along the route and along arrival at the appropriate OITK, which were not prepared to receive a significant number of replenishments. At the same time, the introduction of reduced norms of allowance by 25-30% (order No. 648 and 0437) with an extended working day up to 12 hours, often the absence of basic food products even at reduced rates could not but affect the increase in morbidity and mortality

However, since 1944, mortality has dropped significantly. By the beginning of the 1950s, in the camps and colonies, it fell below 1%, and in prisons - below 0.5% per year.
Special camps

1. Medvedev RA Tragic statistics // Arguments and facts. 1989, February 4-10. No. 5 (434). P. 6. Renowned explorer repression statistics V. N. Zemskov claims that Roy Medvedev immediately retracted his article: “Roy Medvedev himself even before the publication of my articles (meaning Zemskov's articles in Arguments and Facts, starting from No. 38 for 1989. - I.P.) placed in one of the issues of "Arguments and Facts" for 1989 an explanation that his article in No. 5 for the same year is invalid. Mr. Maksudov, probably, is not entirely aware of this story, otherwise he would hardly have undertaken to defend calculations that are far from the truth, from which their author himself, realizing his mistake, publicly denied "(Zemskov V. N. On the question of the scale of repression in USSR // Sociological Research. 1995. No. 9. P. 121). However, in reality, Roy Medvedev did not even think to disavow his publication. In No. 11 (440) for March 18-24, 1989, his answers to the questions of the correspondent of "Arguments and Facts" were published, in which, confirming the "facts" set out in the previous article, Medvedev merely clarified that he was not responsible for the repression. all communist party in general, but only its leadership.

2. Antonov-Ovseenko A. V. Stalin without a mask. M., 1990.S. 506.

3. Mikhailova N. Underpants of counterrevolution // Premier. Vologda, 2002, July 24-30. No. 28 (254). P. 10.

4. Bunich I. Sword of the President. M., 2004.S. 235.

5. Population of the countries of the world / Ed. B. Ts. Urlanis. M., 1974.S. 23.

6. Ibid. P. 26.

7. GARF. F.R-9401. Op. 2. D.450. L. 30–65. Cit. Quoted from: Dugin A.N. Stalinism: legends and facts // Word. 1990. No. 7.P. 26.

8. Mozokhin OB VChK-OGPU Punishing sword of the dictatorship of the proletariat. M., 2004.S. 167.

9. Ibid. P. 169

10. GARF. F.R-9401. Op. 1. D.4157. L. 202. Cit. Quoted from: Popov V.P. State Terror in Soviet Russia... 1923–1953: sources and their interpretation // Otechestvennye archives. 1992. No. 2.P. 29.

11. About the work of the Tyumen District Court. Resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR dated January 18, 1930 // Judicial practice of the RSFSR. 1930, February 28. No. 3.P. 4.

12. Zemskov VN GULAG (historical and sociological aspect) // Sociological research. 1991. No. 6. P. 15.

13. GARF. F.R-9414. Op. 1. D. 1155.L.7.

14. GARF. F.R-9414. Op. 1. D. 1155.L.1.

15. The number of prisoners in the labor camp: 1935-1948 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op. 1. D.1155. L.2; 1949 - Ibid. D.1319. L.2; 1950 - Ibid. L.5; 1951 - Ibid. L.8; 1952 - Ibid. L.11; 1953 - Ibid. L. 17.

In ITKs and prisons (average for January): 1935 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op. 1. D.2740. L. 17; 1936 - Ibid. L. ZO; 1937 - Ibid. L.41; 1938 - Also. L.47.

In the ITK: 1939 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op. 1. D.1145. L.2ob; 1940 - Ibid. D.1155. L. 30; 1941 - Ibid. L.34; 1942 - Ibid. L. 38; 1943 - Ibid. L. 42; 1944 - Ibid. L. 76; 1945 - Ibid. L. 77; 1946 - Ibid. L. 78; 1947 - Ibid. L. 79; 1948 - Ibid. L. 80; 1949 - Ibid. D.1319. L.Z; 1950 - Ibid. L.6; 1951 - Ibid. L.9; 1952 - Ibid. L. 14; 1953 - Ibid. L. 19.

In prisons: 1939 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op. 1. D.1145. L.1ob; 1940 - GARF. F.R-9413. Op. 1. D.6. L. 67; 1941 - Ibid. L. 126; 1942 - Ibid. L. 197; 1943 - Ibid. D.48. L.1; 1944 - Ibid. L. 133; 1945 - Ibid. D.62. L.1; 1946 - Ibid. L. 107; 1947 - Ibid. L.216; 1948 - Ibid. D.91. L.1; 1949 - Ibid. L.64; 1950 - Ibid. L. 123; 1951 - Ibid. L. 175; 1952 - Ibid. L.224; 1953 - Ibid. File 162.L.2ob.

16. GARF. F.R-9414. Op. 1. D.1155. L. 20-22.

17. Population of the countries of the world / Ed. B. Ts. Urlais. M., 1974.S. 23.

18. http://lenin-kerrigan.livejournal.com/518795.html | https://de.wikinews.org/wiki/Die_meisten_Gefangenen_weltweit_leben_in_US-Gef%C3%A4ngnissen

19. GARF. F.R-9414. Op. 1. D. 1155.L.3.

20. GARF. F.R-9414. Op. 1. D.1155. L. 26-27.

21. Dugin A. Stalinism: legends and facts // Word. 1990. No. 7.P. 5.

22. Zemskov VN GULAG (historical and sociological aspect) // Sociological research. 1991. No. 7. P. 10-11.

23. GARF. F.R-9414. Op. 1. D.2740. L.1.

24. Ibid. L.53.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid. D. 1155.L.2.

27. Mortality in the labor camp: 1935-1947 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op. 1. D.1155. L.2; 1948 - Ibid. D. 1190.L.36, 36ob .; 1949 - Ibid. D. 1319.L.2, 2ob .; 1950 - Ibid. L.5, 5ob .; 1951 - Ibid. L. 8, 8ob .; 1952 - Ibid. L.11, 11ob .; 1953 - Ibid. L. 17.

ITK and prisons: 1935-1036 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op. 1. D.2740. L. 52; 1937 - Ibid. L.44; 1938 - Ibid. L. 50.

ITK: 1939 - GARF. F.R-9414. Op. 1. D.2740. L.60; 1940 - Ibid. L.70; 1941 - Ibid. D.2784. L.4ob, 6; 1942 - Ibid. L.21; 1943 - Ibid. D.2796. L. 99; 1944 - Ibid. D.1155. L. 76, 76ob .; 1945 - Ibid. L. 77, 77ob .; 1946 - Ibid. L. 78, 78ob .; 1947 - Ibid. L. 79, 79ob .; 1948 - Ibid. L. 80: 80ob .; 1949 - Ibid. D.1319. L.3, 3ob .; 1950 - Ibid. L.6, 6ob .; 1951 - Ibid. L.9, 9ob .; 1952 - Ibid. L. 14, 14ob .; 1953 - Ibid. L.19, 19ob.

Prisons: 1939 - GARF. F.R-9413. Op. 1. D.11. L.1ob .; 1940 - Ibid. L.2ob .; 1941 - Ibid. L. Zob .; 1942 - Ibid. L.4ob .; 1943 Ibid, L. 5ob .; 1944 - Ibid. L.6ob .; 1945 - Ibid. D.10. L.118, 120, 122, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133; 1946 - Ibid. D.11. L. 8ob .; 1947 - Ibid. L. 9ob .; 1948 - Ibid. L. 10ob .; 1949 - Ibid. L. 11ob .; 1950 - Ibid. L. 12ob .; 1951 - Ibid. L.1 3ob .; 1952 - Ibid. D.118. L.238, 248, 258, 268, 278, 288, 298, 308, 318, 326ob., 328ob .; D.162. L.2ob .; 1953 - Ibid. D.162. L. 4ob., 6ob., 8ob.

28. GARF. F.R-9414. Op.1.D.1181.L.1.

29. The system of forced labor camps in the USSR, 1923-1960: Handbook. M., 1998.S. 52.

30. Dugin A. N. Unknown GULAG: Documents and facts. Moscow: Nauka, 1999.S. 47.

31.1952 - GARF.F.R-9414. Op.1.D.1319. L.11, 11v. 13, 13ob .; 1953rd - Ibid. L. 18.

Stalinist repression:
What was it?

On the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression

In this material, we have collected eyewitness memories, fragments from official documents, figures and facts provided by researchers to provide answers to questions that excite our society again and again. Russian state and could not give clear answers to these questions, therefore, until now, everyone is forced to look for answers on their own.

Who was affected by the repression

Representatives of the most different groups population. The best known are the names of artists, Soviet leaders and military leaders. Of the peasants and workers, only names from execution lists and camp archives are often known. They did not write memoirs, tried not to remember the camp past unnecessarily, their relatives often refused them. The presence of a convicted relative often meant an end to their careers and studies, because the children of arrested workers, dispossessed peasants might not know the truth about what happened to their parents.

When we heard about another arrest, we never asked, “Why was he taken?”, But there were not many like us. People, distraught with fear, asked each other this question for pure self-consolation: they take people for something, which means they won't take me, because there is no reason! They refined themselves, coming up with reasons and excuses for each arrest, - "She really is a smuggler", "He allowed himself this", "I heard him say ..." terrible character "," It always seemed to me that something was wrong with him "," This is a completely stranger. " That is why the question: "What was he taken for?" - became forbidden for us. It's time to understand that people are taken for nothing.

- Nadezhda Mandelstam , writer and wife of Osip Mandelstam

From the very beginning of the terror until today attempts to present it as a fight against "sabotage", enemies of the fatherland, do not stop, limiting the number of victims to certain, hostile to the state, classes - kulaks, bourgeoisie, priests. The victims of terror were depersonalized and turned into "contingents" (Poles, spies, saboteurs, counter-revolutionary elements). However, the political terror was total in nature, and its victims were representatives of all groups of the population of the USSR: "the case of engineers", "the case of doctors", persecution of scientists and entire areas of science, personnel purges in the army before and after the war, deportation of entire peoples.

Poet Osip Mandelstam

He died in transit, the place of death is not known for certain.

Director Vsevolod Meyerhold

Marshals of the Soviet Union

Tukhachevsky (shot), Voroshilov, Egorov (shot), Budyonny, Blucher (died in Lefortovo prison).

How many people have suffered

According to the calculations of the Memorial Society, those convicted of political reasons there were 4.5-4.8 million people, 1.1 million people were shot.

Estimates of the number of victims of repression vary and depend on the calculation methodology. If we take into account only those convicted on political charges, then according to the analysis of statistics of the regional departments of the KGB of the USSR, carried out in 1988, the bodies of the Cheka-GPU-OGPU-NKVD-NKGB-MGB arrested 4,308,487 people, of which 835,194 were shot. According to the same data, about 1.76 million people died in the camps. According to the calculations of the Memorial Society, there were more convicts for political reasons - 4.5-4.8 million people, of which 1.1 million people were shot.

The victims of the Stalinist repressions were representatives of some peoples subjected to forced deportation (Germans, Poles, Finns, Karachais, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars and others). This is about 6 million people. One in five did not live to see the end of the journey - during the harsh conditions of deportations, about 1.2 million people died. In the course of dispossession, about 4 million peasants suffered, of which at least 600 thousand perished in exile.

In general, about 39 million people suffered as a result of the Stalinist policy. The victims of repression include those who perished in camps from disease and harsh working conditions, the disenfranchised, victims of hunger, victims of unjustifiably cruel orders "on truancy" and "on three ears the nature of the legislation and the consequences of that time.

Why was it necessary?

The worst thing is not that you are suddenly taken away from a warm, well-ordered life, not Kolyma and Magadan, and hard labor. At first, a person desperately hopes for a misunderstanding, for a mistake by investigators, then painfully waits to be summoned, apologized, and let go home, to his children and husband. And then the victim no longer hopes, does not painfully seek an answer to the question of who needs all this, then a primitive struggle for life begins. The worst thing is the senselessness of what is happening ... Does anyone know what it was for?

Evgeniya Ginzburg,

writer and journalist

In July 1928, speaking at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Joseph Stalin described the need to fight "alien elements" as follows: "As we move forward, resistance capitalist elements will increase class struggle will escalate, and Soviet authority, whose strength will grow more and more, will pursue a policy of isolating these elements, a policy of disintegrating the enemies of the working class, and finally, a policy of suppressing the resistance of the exploiters, creating a basis for further advancement of the working class and the bulk of the peasantry. "

In 1937, N. Yezhov, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, published order No. 00447, in accordance with which a large-scale campaign to destroy " anti-Soviet elements". They were recognized as the culprits of all the failures of the Soviet leadership: “Anti-Soviet elements are the main instigators of all kinds of anti-Soviet and sabotage crimes, both in collective and state farms, and in transport, and in some areas of industry. The task of the state security organs is to destroy this entire gang of anti-Soviet elements in the most merciless manner, to protect the working Soviet people from their counter-revolutionary intrigues and, finally, once and for all put an end to their base subversive work against the foundations of the Soviet state. In accordance with this I order - from August 5, 1937 in all republics, territories and regions to begin an operation to repress former kulaks, active anti-Soviet elements and criminals. " This document marks the beginning of the era of large-scale political repression, which later became known as the "Great Terror".

Stalin and other members of the Politburo (V. Molotov, L. Kaganovich, K. Voroshilov) personally drew up and signed execution lists - pre-trial circulars listing the number or names of victims to be condemned by the Military Collegium The Supreme Court with a predetermined measure of punishment. According to researchers, at least 44.5 thousand people have personal signatures and resolutions of Stalin under death sentences.

The myth of the effective manager Stalin

Until now in the media and even in teaching aids one can find the justification of political terror in the USSR by the need for industrialization in short time... Since the issuance of the decree obliging convicts to serve a sentence in labor camps for more than 3 years, prisoners have been actively involved in the construction of various infrastructure facilities. In 1930, the Main Directorate of Forced Labor Camps of the OGPU (GULAG) was created and huge flows the prisoners were sent to key construction sites. During the existence of this system, from 15 to 18 million people have passed through it.

During the 1930-1950s, the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal, the Moscow Canal was carried out by the forces of the GULAG prisoners. The prisoners built the Uglich, Rybinsk, Kuibyshev and other hydroelectric power plants, erected metallurgical plants, objects of the Soviet nuclear program, the longest railways and motorways. Gulag prisoners built dozens of Soviet cities (Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Dudinka, Norilsk, Vorkuta, Novokuibyshevsk and many others).

Beria himself did not characterize the efficiency of prisoners' labor: “The current norm of 2,000 calories in the Gulag is designed for a person sitting in prison and not working. In practice, this too low rate is released by the supplying organizations only by 65-70%. Therefore, a significant percentage of the camp labor force falls into the category of weak and useless people in production. In general, the labor force is used no higher than 60-65 percent. "

To the question "is Stalin needed?" we can only give one answer - a firm "no". Even without considering the tragic consequences of famine, repression and terror, even considering only economic costs and benefits - and even making all possible assumptions in favor of Stalin - we get results that unambiguously indicate that economic policy Stalin did not lead to positive results. Forced redistribution has significantly impaired productivity and social welfare.

- Sergey Guriev , economist

The economic efficiency of Stalin's industrialization by the hands of prisoners is also extremely low estimated by modern economists. Sergei Guriev cites the following figures: by the end of the 30s, productivity in agriculture reached only the pre-revolutionary level, and in industry it turned out to be one and a half times lower than in 1928. Industrialization has led to huge losses in wealth (minus 24%).

Brave new world

Stalinism is not only a system of repression, it is also a moral degradation of society. The Stalinist system made tens of millions of slaves - morally broke people. One of the most terrible texts that I have read in my life is the torture "confessions" of the great biologist, academician Nikolai Vavilov. Only a few can endure torture. But many - tens of millions! - were broken and became moral monsters for fear of being personally repressed.

- Alexey Yablokov , Corresponding Member of RAS

The philosopher and historian of totalitarianism Hannah Arendt explains that in order to transform Lenin's revolutionary dictatorship into a completely totalitarian rule, Stalin had to artificially create an atomized society. For this, an atmosphere of fear was created in the USSR, denunciation was encouraged. Totalitarianism destroyed not real "enemies", but imaginary ones, and this is its terrible difference from the usual dictatorship. None of the destroyed strata of society was hostile to the regime and probably would not become hostile in the foreseeable future.

With the aim of destroying all social and family ties, the repressions were carried out in such a way as to threaten the same fate for the accused and everyone in the most ordinary relations with him, from casual acquaintances to closest friends and relatives. This policy penetrated deeply into Soviet society, where people, out of selfish interests or fearing for their lives, betrayed their neighbors, friends, even members of their own families. In their quest for self-preservation, the masses of people refused to own interests, and became, on the one hand, a victim of power, and on the other, its collective embodiment.

The consequence of the simple and ingenious trick of "guilt for contact with the enemy" is such that, as soon as a person is accused, his former friends immediately turn into his worst enemies: to save their own skin, they rush to jump out with unsolicited information and denunciations, supplying non-existent data against the accused. Ultimately, it was thanks to the development of this technique to its last and most fantastic extremes that the Bolshevik rulers succeeded in creating an atomized and fragmented society, the likes of which we have never seen before, and the events and catastrophes of which in such pure form it would hardly have happened without it.

- Hannah Arendt, philosopher

The deep disunity of Soviet society, the absence of civil institutions were inherited by the new Russia, and became one of the fundamental problems that hinder the creation of democracy and civil peace in our country.

How the state and society fought against the legacy of Stalinism

To date, Russia has experienced "two and a half attempts at de-Stalinization." The first and the most ambitious was launched by N. Khrushchev. It began with a report at the XX Congress of the CPSU:

“They were arrested without the sanction of the prosecutor ... What other sanction could there be when Stalin allowed everything. He was the chief prosecutor in these matters. Stalin gave not only permission, but also instructions on arrests on his own initiative. Stalin was a very suspicious person, with morbid suspicion, as we became convinced by working with him. He could look at the person and say: "something is running around your eyes today", or: "why do you often turn away today, do not look directly into the eyes." A morbid suspicion led him to indiscriminate distrust. Everywhere and everywhere he saw "enemies", "double-dealing", "spies". Having unlimited power, he allowed cruel arbitrariness, suppressed a person morally and physically. When Stalin said that such and such should be arrested, he should have taken on faith that he was an "enemy of the people." And Beria's gang, which ruled in the state security organs, went out of their way to prove the guilt of the arrested persons, the correctness of the materials they fabricated. And what evidence was used? Confessions of those arrested. And the investigators got these "confessions".

As a result of the fight against the personality cult, sentences were revised, more than 88 thousand prisoners were rehabilitated. Nevertheless, the epoch of the "thaw" that followed these events turned out to be quite short-lived. Soon, many dissidents who disagree with the policy of the Soviet leadership will become victims of political persecution.

The second wave of de-Stalinization occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Only then did society become aware of at least approximate figures characterizing the scale of the Stalinist terror. At this time, the sentences passed in the 30s and 40s were also reviewed. In most cases, the convicts were rehabilitated. Half a century later, the dispossessed peasants were rehabilitated posthumously.

A timid attempt to carry out a new de-Stalinization was made during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev. However, it did not bring significant results. Rosarchiv, at the direction of the president, posted on its website documents about 20 thousand Poles shot by the NKVD near Katyn.

Victim preservation programs are being phased out due to lack of funding.