Stalin's repressions occupy one of the central places in the study of the history of the Soviet period.

Briefly describing this period, we can say that it was a cruel time, accompanied by mass repressions and dispossession.

What is repression - definition

Repression is a punitive measure that was used by state authorities in relation to people trying to “undermine” the formed regime. To a greater extent, it is a method of political violence.

During the Stalinist repressions, even those who had nothing to do with politics or the political system were destroyed. All those who were objectionable to the ruler were punished.

Lists of the repressed in the 30s

The period of 1937-1938 was the peak of repression. Historians called it the "Great Terror". Regardless of their origin, sphere of activity, during the 1930s, a huge number of people were arrested, deported, shot, and their property was confiscated in favor of the state.

All instructions on a single “crime” were given personally to I.V. Stalin. It was he who decided where a person was going and what he could take with him.

Until 1991, in Russia there was no information on the number of repressed and executed in full. But then the period of perestroika began, and this is the time when everything secret became clear. After the lists were declassified, after the historians did a lot of work in the archives and counted the data, truthful information was provided to the public - the numbers were simply frightening.

Do you know that: According to official statistics, more than 3 million people were repressed.

Thanks to the help of volunteers, lists of victims in 1937 were prepared. Only after that did the relatives find out where their loved one was and what had happened to him. But to a greater extent, they did not find anything comforting, since almost every life of the repressed ended in execution.

If you need to clarify information about a repressed relative, you can use the site http://lists.memo.ru/index2.htm. On it by name you can find all the information of interest. Almost all the repressed were rehabilitated posthumously, which has always been a great joy for their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The number of victims of Stalinist repressions according to official data

On February 1, 1954, a memorandum was prepared in the name of N. S. Khrushchev, in which the exact data of the dead and injured were spelled out. The number is simply shocking - 3,777,380 people.

The number of repressed and executed is striking in its scale. So there are officially confirmed data that were announced during the “Khrushchev thaw”. Article 58 was political, and about 700,000 people were sentenced to death under it alone.

And how many people died in the Gulag camps, where not only political prisoners were exiled, but also everyone who was not pleasing to Stalin's government.

In 1937-1938 alone, more than 1,200,000 people were sent to the Gulag (according to Academician Sakharov). And only about 50 thousand were able to return home during the “thaw”.

Victims of political repression - who are they?

Anyone could become a victim of political repression during Stalin's time.

The following categories of citizens were most often repressed:

• Peasants. Those who were members of the "green movement" were especially punished. The kulaks who did not want to join the collective farms and who wanted to achieve everything on their own farms were sent into exile, while all the acquired farming was confiscated from them in full. And now the wealthy peasants were becoming poor.
• The military is a separate layer of society. Ever since the Civil War, Stalin did not treat them very well. Fearing a military coup, the leader of the country repressed talented military leaders, thereby securing himself and his regime. But, despite the fact that he secured himself, Stalin quickly reduced the country's defense capability, depriving it of talented military personnel.
• All the sentences were turned into reality by the NKVD officers. But their repression was not bypassed. Among the employees of the people's commissariat who followed all the instructions, there were those who were shot. Such people's commissars as Yezhov, Yagoda became one of the victims of Stalin's instructions.
• Even those who had something to do with religion were subjected to repression. God did not exist at that time, and belief in him "shattered" the established regime.

In addition to the listed categories of citizens, residents living on the territory of the Union republics suffered. Entire nations were repressed. So, Chechens were simply put into freight cars and sent into exile. At the same time, no one thought about the safety of the family. The father could be planted in one place, the mother in another, and the children in a third. No one knew about his family and where they were.

Reasons for the repressions of the 30s

By the time Stalin came to power, a difficult economic situation had developed in the country.

The reasons for the start of repressions are considered to be:

1. Savings at the national level, it was required to force the population to work for free. There was a lot of work, and there was nothing to pay for it.
2. After Lenin was killed, the leader's seat was free. The people needed a leader, whom the population would follow unquestioningly.
3. It was necessary to create a totalitarian society in which the word of the leader should be law. At the same time, the measures used by the leader were cruel, but they did not allow organizing a new revolution.

How were the repressions in the USSR

Stalin's repressions were a terrible time when everyone was ready to testify against a neighbor, even fictitious, if only nothing happened to his family.

The whole horror of the process is captured in the work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn "The Gulag Archipelago": “A sharp night call, a knock on the door, and several operatives enter the apartment. And behind them is a frightened neighbor who had to become understood. He sits all night, and only in the morning puts his painting under terrible and untrue testimony.

The procedure is terrible, treacherous, but thus understood, perhaps, it will save his family, but no, it was he who became the next to whom they would come to a new night.

Most often, all the testimony given by political prisoners was falsified. People were brutally beaten, thereby obtaining the information that was needed. At the same time, torture was personally sanctioned by Stalin.

The most famous cases, about which there is a huge amount of information:

• Pulkovo case. In the summer of 1936, there was supposed to be a solar eclipse across the country. The observatory offered to use foreign equipment in order to capture the natural phenomenon. As a result, all members of the Pulkovo Observatory were accused of having links with foreigners. Until now, data on the victims and repressed are classified.
• The case of the industrial party - the Soviet bourgeoisie received the accusation. They were accused of disrupting industrialization processes.
• Doctors business. Charges were received by doctors who allegedly killed Soviet leaders.

The actions taken by the government were brutal. No one understood guilt. If a person was included in the list, then he was guilty and no evidence was required for this.

The results of Stalin's repressions

Stalinism and its repressions are probably one of the most terrible pages in the history of our state. The repressions lasted for almost 20 years, and during this time a huge number of innocent people suffered. Even after the Second World War, repressive measures did not stop.

Stalinist repressions did not benefit society, but only helped the authorities establish a totalitarian regime, from which our country could not get rid of for a long time. And the residents were afraid to express their opinion. There wasn't anyone who didn't like it. I liked everything - even to work for the good of the country practically for free.

The totalitarian regime made it possible to build such facilities as: BAM, the construction of which was carried out by the forces of the GULAG.

A terrible time, but it cannot be deleted from history, since it was during these years that the country withstood the Second World War and was able to restore the destroyed cities.

It was during the years of the civil war that the foundation began to form for the elimination of class enemies, adherents of building states on a national basis, and counter-revolutionaries of all stripes. This period can be considered the birth of the soil for future Stalinist repressions. At the plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1928, Stalin voiced the principle, guided by which millions of people would be killed and repressed. He envisaged an increase in the struggle between classes as the construction of a socialist society was completed.

Stalin's repressions began in the early twenties of the twentieth century, and lasted for about thirty years. They can certainly be called the centralized policy of the state. Thanks to the thoughtless machine created by Stalin from the internal affairs bodies and the NKVD, the repressions were systematized and put on stream. Sentencing for political reasons was generally carried out in accordance with Article 58 of the Code and its subparagraphs. Among them were accusations of espionage, sabotage, treason, terrorist intentions, counter-revolutionary sabotage and others.

Causes of Stalin's repressions.

There are still many opinions about this. According to some of them, the repressions were carried out to clean up the political space from the opponents of Stalin. Others adhere to a position based on the fact that the purpose of terror was to intimidate civil society and, as a result, to strengthen the regime of Soviet power. And someone is sure that the repressions were a way to raise the level of the country's industrial development with the help of free labor in the form of convicts.

The initiators of the Stalinist repressions.

According to some testimonies of those times, it can be concluded that the perpetrators of the mass imprisonment were the closest associates of Stalin, such as N. Yezhov and L. Beria, who had unlimited powers of state security and internal affairs structures. They deliberately conveyed to the leader biased information about the state of affairs in the state, for the unhindered implementation of repression. However, some historians are of the opinion that Stalin's personal initiative in carrying out large-scale purges and his possession of complete data on the scale of arrests.

In the thirties, a huge number of prisons and camps located in the north of the country for better management are combined into one structure - the Gulag. They are engaged in a wide range of construction work, as well as working in the extraction of minerals and precious metals.

More recently, thanks to the partially declassified archives of the NKVD of the USSR, a wide range of people began to know the true numbers of repressed citizens. They amounted to almost 4 million people, of which approximately 700 thousand were sentenced to capital punishment. Only a small part of the innocently convicted were subsequently acquitted of charges. Only after the death of Joseph Vissarionovich did rehabilitation gain tangible proportions. The activities of comrades Beria, Yezhov, Yagoda and many others were also revised. They were convicted.

Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation

Federal State Educational Institution

Higher professional education

"SAINT PETERSBURG STATE UNIVERSITY OF CULTURE AND ARTS"

Library and Information Faculty

Department of Contemporary History of the Fatherland

Course: Modern history of the Fatherland

Mass political repressions in the 30s. Attempts to resist the Stalinist regime.

Artist: Meerovich V.I.

BIF correspondence student

262 groups

Lecturer: Sherstnev V.P.

The fight against "sabotage"

Introduction

Political repressions of the 20-50s. The twentieth century left a big imprint on Russian history. These were years of arbitrariness, lawless violence. Historians evaluate this period of Stalin's rule in different ways. Some of them call it a "black spot in history", others - a necessary measure to strengthen and increase the power of the Soviet state.

The very concept of "repression" in Latin means "suppression, punitive measure, punishment." In other words, suppression through punishment.

At the moment, political repression is one of the hot topics, as they have affected almost many residents of our country. Recently, terrible secrets of that time have very often surfaced, thereby increasing the importance of this problem.

Versions about the causes of mass repressions

When analyzing the formation of the mechanism of mass repression in the 1930s, the following factors should be taken into account.

The transition to the policy of collectivization of agriculture, industrialization and the cultural revolution, which required significant material investments or the attraction of free labor (it is indicated, for example, that grandiose plans for the development and creation of an industrial base in the regions of the north of the European part of Russia, Siberia and the Far East required the movement of huge human wt.

Preparations for war with Germany, where the Nazis who came to power proclaimed their goal the destruction of communist ideology.

To solve these problems, it was necessary to mobilize the efforts of the entire population of the country and ensure absolute support for state policy, and for this - to neutralize the potential political opposition on which the enemy could rely.

At the same time, at the legislative level, the supremacy of the interests of society and the proletarian state in relation to the interests of the individual was proclaimed and more severe punishment for any damage caused to the state, compared to similar crimes against the individual.

The policy of collectivization and accelerated industrialization led to a sharp drop in the standard of living of the population and to mass starvation. Stalin and his entourage understood that this increased the number of those dissatisfied with the regime and tried to portray "saboteurs" and "enemies of the people" responsible for all economic difficulties, as well as accidents in industry and transport, mismanagement, etc. According to Russian researchers, demonstrative repressions made it possible to explain the hardships of life by the presence of an internal enemy.

Stalinist repression dispossession collectivization

As the researchers point out, the period of mass repression was also predetermined by the "restoration and active use of the political investigation system" and the strengthening of the authoritarian power of I. Stalin, who moved from discussions with political opponents on the choice of the country's development path to declaring them "enemies of the people, a gang of professional wreckers, spies, saboteurs, murderers", which was perceived by the state security agencies, the prosecutor's office and the court as a prerequisite for action.

The ideological basis of repression

The ideological basis of Stalin's repressions was formed during the years of the civil war. Stalin himself formulated a new approach at the plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in July 1928.

It cannot be imagined that socialist forms will develop, ousting the enemies of the working class, and the enemies will retreat silently, making way for our advance, that then we will again advance, and they will retreat again, and then "suddenly" all without exception social groups, both kulaks and the poor, both workers and capitalists, will find themselves "suddenly", "imperceptibly", without struggle or unrest, in socialist society.

It has not happened and will not happen that the moribund classes voluntarily give up their positions without trying to organize resistance. It has not happened and will not happen that the advance of the working class towards socialism in a class society can do without struggle and unrest. On the contrary, the advance towards socialism cannot but lead to the resistance of the exploiting elements to this advance, and the resistance of the exploiters cannot but lead to the inevitable intensification of the class struggle.

dispossession

In the course of the forced collectivization of agriculture carried out in the USSR in 1928-1932, one of the directions of state policy was the suppression of anti-Soviet actions of the peasants and the associated "liquidation of the kulaks as a class" - "dispossession", which implied the forcible and extrajudicial deprivation of wealthy peasants, using wage labor, all means of production, land and civil rights, and eviction to remote areas of the country. Thus, the state destroyed the main social group of the rural population, capable of organizing and financially supporting the resistance to the measures taken.

Almost any peasant could get on the lists of kulaks compiled locally. The scale of the resistance to collectivization was such that it captured not only the kulaks, but also many middle peasants who opposed collectivization. The ideological feature of this period was the widespread use of the term "podkulaknik", which made it possible to repress any peasant population in general, up to farm laborers.

The protests of the peasants against collectivization, against high taxes and the forced seizure of "surplus" grain were expressed in its harboring, arson and even the murder of rural party and Soviet activists, which was regarded by the state as a manifestation of the "kulak counter-revolution".

On January 30, 1930, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution "On measures to eliminate kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization." According to this decree, kulaks were divided into three categories:

The heads of kulak families of the 1st category were arrested, and cases of their actions were referred to special construction units consisting of representatives of the OGPU, regional committees (krai committees) of the CPSU (b) and the prosecutor's office. Family members of kulaks of the 1st category and kulaks of the 2nd category were subject to eviction to remote areas of the USSR or remote areas of a given region (krai, republic) to a special settlement. The kulaks, assigned to the 3rd category, settled within the district on new lands specially allocated for them outside the collective farms.

On February 2, 1930, the order of the OGPU of the USSR No. 44/21 was issued, which provided for the immediate liquidation of "counter-revolutionary kulak activists", especially "cadres of active counter-revolutionary and insurgent organizations and groups" and "the most malicious, terry loners."

The families of those arrested, imprisoned in concentration camps or sentenced to death were subject to deportation to the remote northern regions of the USSR.

The order also provided for the mass eviction of the richest kulaks, i.e. former landlords, semi-landlords, "local kulak authorities" and "the entire kulak cadre, from which the counter-revolutionary activist is formed", "kulak anti-Soviet activist", "churchmen and sectarians", as well as their families to the remote northern regions of the USSR. As well as the priority conduct of campaigns for the eviction of kulaks and their families in the following regions of the USSR.

In this regard, the OGPU bodies were entrusted with the task of organizing the resettlement of the dispossessed and their labor use at the place of new residence, suppressing unrest of the dispossessed in special settlements, and searching for those who had fled from places of exile. The direct management of the mass resettlement was carried out by a special task force under the leadership of the head of the Secret Operational Directorate E.G. Evdokimov. The spontaneous unrest of the peasants in the field was suppressed instantly. Only in the summer of 1931 did it take the involvement of army units to reinforce the OGPU troops in suppressing major unrest of special settlers in the Urals and Western Siberia.

In total, in 1930-1931, as indicated in the certificate of the Department for Special Settlers of the Gulag of the OGPU, 381,026 families with a total number of 1,803,392 people were sent to a special settlement. For 1932-1940. 489,822 dispossessed people arrived in special settlements.

The fight against "sabotage"

The solution of the problem of accelerated industrialization required not only the investment of huge funds, but also the creation of numerous technical personnel. The bulk of the workers, however, were yesterday's illiterate peasants who did not have sufficient qualifications to work with complex equipment. The Soviet state was also heavily dependent on the technical intelligentsia, inherited from tsarist times. These specialists were often rather skeptical of communist slogans.

The Communist Party, which grew up under conditions of civil war, perceived all the failures that arose during industrialization as deliberate sabotage, which resulted in a campaign against the so-called "sabotage". In a number of sabotage and sabotage trials, for example, the following accusations were made:

Sabotage of the observation of solar eclipses (Pulkovo case);

Preparation of incorrect reports on the financial situation of the USSR, which led to the undermining of its international authority (the case of the Labor Peasant Party);

Sabotage on the instructions of foreign intelligence services through the insufficient development of textile factories, the creation of disproportions in semi-finished products, which should have led to the undermining of the USSR economy and general discontent (the case of the Industrial Party);

Damage to seed material through its contamination, deliberate sabotage in the field of mechanization of agriculture by insufficient supply of spare parts (case of the Labor Peasant Party);

Uneven distribution of goods by region on assignment from foreign intelligence agencies, which led to the formation of surpluses in some places and shortages in others (the case of the Menshevik "Union Bureau").

Also, the clergy, freelancers, small businessmen, merchants and artisans were victims of the "anti-capitalist revolution" that began in the 1930s. From now on, the population of cities was included in the category of "working class, builder of socialism", however, the working class was subjected to repressions, which, in accordance with the dominant ideology, turned into an end in itself, hindering the active movement of society towards progress.

In four years, from 1928 to 1931, 138,000 industrial and administrative specialists were excluded from the life of society, 23,000 of them were written off in the first category ("enemies of the Soviet regime") and deprived of their civil rights. The persecution of specialists took on enormous proportions at enterprises, where they were forced to unreasonably increase output, which led to an increase in the number of accidents, defects, and machine breakdowns. From January 1930 to June 1931, 48% of Donbass engineers were fired or arrested: 4,500 "specialist saboteurs" were "exposed" in the first quarter of 1931 in the transport sector alone. The advancement of goals that obviously cannot be achieved, which led to the failure to fulfill plans, a strong drop in labor productivity and work discipline, to a complete disregard for economic laws, ended up upsetting the work of enterprises for a long time.

The crisis emerged on a grandiose scale, and the leadership of the party was forced to take some "corrective measures." On July 10, 1931, the Politburo decided to limit the persecution of specialists who became victims of the hunt declared on them in 1928. The necessary measures were taken: several thousand engineers and technicians were immediately released, mainly in the metallurgical and coal industries, discrimination in access to higher education for the children of the intelligentsia was stopped, the OPTU was forbidden to arrest specialists without the consent of the relevant people's commissariat.

From the end of 1928 to the end of 1932, the Soviet cities were flooded with peasants, whose number was close to 12 million - these were those who fled from collectivization and dispossession. Three and a half million migrants appeared in Moscow and Leningrad alone. Among them were many enterprising peasants who preferred to flee the countryside to self-dispossession or join collective farms. In 1930-1931, countless construction projects swallowed up this very unpretentious workforce. But beginning in 1932, the authorities began to fear a continuous and uncontrolled flow of population, which turned cities into villages, when the authorities needed to make them the showcase of a new socialist society; population migration jeopardized this entire elaborate ration card system, beginning in 1929, in which the number of "entitled" to the ration card increased from 26 million at the beginning of 1930 to almost 40 by the end of 1932. Migration turned factories into huge camps of nomads. According to the authorities, "new arrivals from the village can cause negative phenomena and ruin production by an abundance of truants, a decline in work discipline, hooliganism, an increase in marriage, the development of crime and alcoholism."

In the spring of 1934, the government took repressive measures against juvenile homeless children and hooligans, whose number in the cities increased significantly during the period of famine, dispossession and exacerbation of social relations. under the law, sanctions against minors who have reached the age of 12, convicted of robbery, violence, bodily harm, self-mutilation and murder. A few days later, the government sent a secret instruction to the prosecutor's office, which specified the criminal measures that should be applied to adolescents, in particular, it was said that any measures should be applied, "including the highest measure of social protection", in other words, the death penalty. Thus, the previous paragraphs of the Criminal Code, which prohibited the death penalty for minors, were repealed.

Mass terror

On July 30, 1937, the NKVD Order No. 00447 "On the operation to repress former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements" was adopted.

According to this order, the categories of persons subject to repression were determined:

A) Former kulaks (previously repressed, hiding from repression, escaping from camps, exile and labor settlements, as well as those who fled from dispossession to cities);

B) Former repressed "churchmen and sectarians";

C) Former active participants in anti-Soviet armed uprisings;

D) Former members of anti-Soviet political parties (Socialist-Revolutionaries, Georgian Mensheviks, Armenian Dashnaks, Azerbaijani Musavatists, Ittihadists, etc.);

E) Former active "participants in bandit uprisings";

E) Former White Guards, "punishers", "repatriates" ("re-emigrants"), etc.;

g) criminals.

All the repressed were divided into two categories:

1) "the most hostile elements" were subject to immediate arrest and, after considering their cases in troikas, to execution;

2) "less active, but still hostile elements" were subject to arrest and imprisonment in camps or prisons for a period of 8 to 10 years.

By order of the NKVD, for the accelerated consideration of thousands of cases, "operational troikas" were formed at the level of republics and regions. The troika usually included: the chairman - the local head of the NKVD, the members - the local prosecutor and the first secretary of the regional, regional or republican committee of the CPSU (b).

For each region of the Soviet Union, limits were set for both categories.

Part of the repression was carried out against people who had already been convicted and were in the camps. Limits of the "first category" (10 thousand people) were allocated for them, and triples were also formed.

The order established repressions against family members of the sentenced:

Families "whose members are capable of active anti-Soviet actions" were subject to deportation to camps or work settlements.

The families of the executed, living in the border zone, were subject to resettlement outside the border strip within the republics, territories and regions.

The families of the executed, living in Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Tbilisi, Baku, Rostov-on-Don, Taganrog and in the areas of Sochi, Gagra and Sukhumi, were subject to eviction to other areas of their choice, with the exception of border areas.

All families of the repressed were subject to registration and systematic observation.

The duration of the "kulak operation" (as it was sometimes called in the documents of the NKVD, since the former kulaks made up the majority of those repressed) was extended several times, and the limits were revised. So, on January 31, 1938, by a resolution of the Politburo, additional limits of 57,200 people were allocated for 22 regions, including 48,000 for the "first category". On February 1, the Politburo approves an additional limit for camps in the Far East of 12,000 people. "first category", February 17 - an additional limit for Ukraine of 30 thousand for both categories, July 31 - for the Far East (15 thousand for the "first category", 5 thousand for the second), August 29 - 3 thousand for Chita region.

In total, during the operation, 818 thousand people were convicted by troikas, of which 436 thousand were sentenced to death.

Former employees of the Chinese Eastern Railway accused of spying for Japan were also repressed.

On May 21, 1938, by order of the NKVD, "militia troikas" were formed, which had the right to sentence "socially dangerous elements" to exile or terms of imprisonment for 3-5 years without trial. These troikas delivered various sentences to 400,000 people. The category of persons under consideration included, among other things, criminals - recidivists and buyers of stolen goods.

Repression against foreigners and ethnic minorities

On March 9, 1936, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks issued a resolution "On measures protecting the USSR from the penetration of espionage, terrorist and sabotage elements." In accordance with it, the entry of political emigrants into the country was complicated and a commission was created to "purge" international organizations on the territory of the USSR.

On July 25, 1937, Yezhov signed and put into effect order No. 00439, which ordered the local NKVD bodies to arrest all German subjects, including political emigrants, working or previously working in military factories and factories with defense workshops, within 5 days, as well as in railway transport, and in the process of investigating their cases, "to seek an exhaustive opening of the German intelligence agents that have not been exposed so far." On August 11, 1937, Yezhov signed order No. local organizations of the "Polish Military Organization" and complete it within 3 months. In these cases, 103,489 people were convicted, including 84,471 people sentenced to death.

August 17, 1937 - an 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 - Directive of the NKVD to conduct an operation against defectors from Latvia, activists of Latvian clubs and societies. 21,300 people were convicted, of which 16,575 shot.

December 11, 1937 - Directive of the NKVD on the operation against the Greeks. 12,557 people were convicted, of which 10,545 people. sentenced to be shot.

December 14, 1937 - Directive of the NKVD on the spread of repression along the "Latvian line" to Estonians, Lithuanians, Finns, and Bulgarians. 9,735 people were convicted on the "Estonian line", including 7,998 people sentenced to death, 11,066 people were convicted on the "Finnish line", of which 9,078 people were sentenced to death;

January 29, 1938 - Directive of the NKVD on the "Iranian operation". 13,297 people were convicted, of which 2,046 were sentenced to death. February 1, 1938 - NKVD directive on the "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. On March 23, 1938, the Politburo issued a resolution on the cleansing of the defense industry from persons belonging to nationalities against whom repressions are being carried out. June 24, 1938 - Directive of the People's Commissariat of Defense on the dismissal from the Red Army of military nationalities not represented on the territory of the USSR.

On November 17, 1938, by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the activities of all emergency bodies were terminated, arrests were allowed only with the permission of a court or prosecutor. By the directive of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Beria of December 22, 1938, all sentences of the emergency authorities were declared null and void if they were not carried out or declared convicted before November 17.

The Stalinist repressions had several goals: they destroyed possible opposition, created an atmosphere of general fear and unquestioning obedience to the will of the leader, ensured the rotation of personnel through the promotion of young people, weakened social tensions, blaming the "enemies of the people" for the difficulties of life, provided the labor force to the Main Directorate of Camps ( GULAG).

By September 1938, the main task of repression was completed. The repressions have already begun to threaten the new generation of party and Chekist leaders who came to the fore during the repressions. In July-September, a mass shooting of previously arrested party functionaries, communists, military leaders, NKVD officers, 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 at the NKVD, as it received after Beria joined the NKVD).

Conclusion

Massive repressions, arbitrariness and lawlessness, which were committed by the Stalinist leadership on behalf of the revolution, the party, and the people, were a heavy legacy of the past.

The desecration of the honor and life of compatriots, begun in the mid-1920s, continued with the most severe consistency for several decades. Thousands of people were subjected to moral and physical torture, many of them were exterminated. The life of their families and loved ones was turned into a hopeless period of humiliation and suffering. Stalin and his entourage appropriated practically unlimited power, depriving the Soviet people of the freedoms that were granted to them during the years of the revolution. Mass repressions were carried out for the most part by extrajudicial reprisals through the so-called special meetings, boards, "troikas" and "twos". However, the elementary norms of legal proceedings were also violated in the courts.

The restoration of justice, begun by the XX Congress of the CPSU, was carried out inconsistently and, in essence, ceased in the second half of the 60s.

Today, thousands of lawsuits have not been raised yet. The stain of injustice has not yet been removed from the Soviet people, who suffered innocently during the forced collectivization, were imprisoned, evicted with their families to remote areas without a livelihood, without the right to vote, even without an announcement of a term of imprisonment.

List of used literature

2) Aralovets N.A. Losses of the population of the Soviet society in the 1930s: problems, sources, methods of study in Russian historiography // Otechestvennaya istoriya. 1995. No. 1. P.135-146

3) www.wikipedia.org - free encyclopedia

4) Lyskov D.Yu. "Stalin's repressions". Great lie of the XX century, 2009. - 288 p.

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

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

Brief analysis of Stalin's reforms

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

Repressions of the post-war period and the tightening of the cult of Stalin

It has already been mentioned above that Stalinism in the post-war years only grew stronger, and among the people the General Secretary was considered the main hero of the Fatherland. The planting of such an image of Stalin was facilitated both by excellent ideological support and cultural innovations. All films being made and books being published glorified the current regime and praised Stalin. Gradually, the number of repressions and the volume of censorship increased, but no one seemed to notice this.

Stalinist repressions became a real problem for the country in the mid-30s, and after the end of the Great Patriotic War, they gained new strength. So, in 1948, the famous "Leningrad case" received publicity, during which many politicians holding key positions in the party were arrested and shot. So, for example, the chairman of the State Planning Commission Voznesensky was shot, as well as the secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks Kuznetsov. Stalin was losing confidence in his own close associates, and therefore those who yesterday were still considered the main friend and associate of the General Secretary were under attack.

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

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

Changes, albeit not the best, came suddenly when the leader and hero of the whole country died in 1953. Stalin's death marked the beginning of a completely new stage for the Soviet Union.

Estimates of the number of victims of Stalin's repressions differ dramatically. Some call numbers in the tens of millions of people, others are limited 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 repressions, however, they note their limited nature and even justify them with political necessity. Moreover, they often do not associate repressions with the name of Stalin.
Historian Nikolay Kopesov writes that in the majority of investigative cases on those repressed in 1937-1938 there were no resolutions of Stalin - everywhere there were sentences of Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria. According to the Stalinists, this is evidence that the heads of the punitive organs were engaged in arbitrariness and, in confirmation, they quote Yezhov: “Who we want, we execute, whom 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 arbiters of human destinies themselves became victims of terror. Who but Stalin was behind all this? they ask rhetorically.
Doctor of Historical Sciences, chief specialist of the State Archives of the Russian Federation Oleg Khlevnyuk notes that despite the fact that Stalin's signature was not on many hit lists, it was he who sanctioned almost all mass political repressions.

Who got hurt?

Even more significant in the controversy surrounding the Stalinist repressions was the question of the victims. Who and in what capacity suffered during the period of Stalinism? Many researchers note that the very concept of “victims of repression” is rather vague. Historiography has not worked out clear definitions on this matter.
Undoubtedly, 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 "hard interrogations" and then released? Should there be a separation between criminal and political prisoners? In what category should we classify the “nonsense” caught in petty single thefts and equated with state criminals?
The deportees deserve special attention. To what category do they belong - 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

Uncertainty in the issue of who is responsible for the repressions, in identifying the categories of victims and the period for which the victims of repressions should be counted lead to completely different figures. The most impressive figures came from the economist Ivan Kurganov (referenced by Solzhenitsyn in his novel The Gulag Archipelago), who calculated that between 1917 and 1959, 110 million people became victims of the internal war of the Soviet regime against its own people.
This number of Kurgans includes the victims of famine, collectivization, peasant exile, camps, executions, civil war, as well as "the neglectful and slovenly conduct of the Second World War."
Even if such calculations are correct, can these figures be considered a reflection of Stalin's repressions? The economist, in fact, answers this question himself, using the expression "victims of the internal war of the Soviet regime." It is worth noting that Kurganov counted only the dead. It is difficult to imagine what figure could have appeared if the economist had taken into account all the victims of the Soviet regime in the specified period.
The figures cited by the head of the human rights society "Memorial" Arseniy Roginsky are more realistic. He writes: “On the scale of the entire Soviet Union, 12.5 million people are considered victims of political repression,” but at the same time he adds that up to 30 million people can be considered repressed in a broad sense.
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 dispossessed, the victims of hunger, those who suffered from unjustifiably cruel decrees and received excessively severe punishment for minor offenses in the force of the repressive nature of the legislation. The final figure is 39 million.
Researcher Ivan Gladilin notes on this occasion that if the number of victims of repression has been counted since 1921, this means that it is not Stalin who is responsible for a significant part of the crimes, but the “Lenin Guard”, which immediately after the October Revolution unleashed terror against the White Guards , clergy 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 those convicted only under political articles, then according to the data of the regional departments of the KGB of the USSR, given in 1988, the Soviet authorities (VChK, GPU, OGPU, NKVD, NKGB, MGB) arrested 4,308,487 people, of which 835,194 were shot.
Employees of the "Memorial" society, when counting the victims of political trials, are close to these figures, although their figures are still noticeably higher - 4.5-4.8 million were convicted, of which 1.1 million were shot. If we consider everyone who went through the Gulag system as victims of the Stalinist regime, then this figure, according to various estimates, will range from 15 to 18 million people.
Very often, Stalinist repressions are associated exclusively with the concept of the "Great Terror", which peaked in 1937-1938. According to the commission headed by academician Pyotr Pospelov to establish the causes of mass repressions, the following figures were announced: 1,548,366 people were arrested on charges of anti-Soviet activities, of which 681,692 thousand were sentenced to capital punishment.
One of the most authoritative experts on the demographic aspects of political repression in the USSR, historian Viktor Zemskov, names a smaller number of those convicted during the years of the Great Terror - 1,344,923 people, although his data coincides with the number of those who were shot.
If the dispossessed kulaks are included in the number of those subjected to repressions in Stalin's time, then the figure will grow by at least 4 million people. Such a number of dispossessed is given by the same Zemskov. The Yabloko party agrees with this, noting that about 600,000 of them died in exile.
The victims of Stalinist repressions were also representatives of some peoples who were subjected to forcible deportation - Germans, Poles, Finns, Karachays, Kalmyks, Armenians, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars. Many historians agree that the total number of deportees is about 6 million people, while about 1.2 million people did not live to see the end of the journey.

Trust or not?

The above figures are mostly based on the reports of the OGPU, NKVD, MGB. However, not all documents of the punitive departments have been preserved, many of them were purposefully destroyed, many are still in the public domain.
It should be recognized that historians are very dependent on statistics collected by various special agencies. But the difficulty is that even the available information reflects only the officially repressed, and therefore, by definition, cannot be complete. Moreover, it is possible to verify it from primary sources only in the rarest cases.
The acute shortage of reliable and complete information often provoked both the Stalinists and their opponents to name radically different figures in favor of their position. “If the “rights” exaggerated the scale of the repressions, then the “lefts”, partly from dubious youth, having found much more modest figures in the archives, were in a hurry to make them public and did not always ask themselves 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 the federal archives would be a good help for modern researchers, but many of them were subjected to re-classification. A country with such a history will jealously guard the secrets of its past.